The importance of emotions: the socialisation of emotion in parents of children with autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

ABSTRACTParents play a critical role in the development of children's emotional competence; however, little research examines parents’ emotion socialisation practices among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In this study, we compared the emotion socialisation practices of parents of children with ASD and to those of parents of children that are typically developing. The Coping with Children's Negative Emotions Scale was used to assess parents’ reactions to children's emotions in both the typically developing sample (n = 138) and the sample of children with ASD (n = 22). An analysis of covariance revealed significant differences in responses to anger and fear. Group was entered as the independent variable and the dependent variable was parents’ responses to children's expressions of negative emotion. Covariates included child gender and child age. These results demonstrate a need for research examining the relationship between, and moderators of, parents’ emotional reactions and the development of emotional competence in children with ASD. Furthermore, these results have implications for early intervention practice as parent–child interactions have been shown to affect child outcomes.