Regulating Together: perspectives on improving emotion regulation in autistic youth

Abstract

Addressing etiological and maintaining factors at play in psychopathology is essential for appropriate treatment of symptoms and development of healthy skills. Emotion regulation (ER) is one such factor associated with developmental, familial, social, and academic wellbeing. Autistic youth demonstrate increased difficulties with emotion regulation, which may contribute to several commonly cooccurring psychiatric concerns observed in autism. Despite an increased risk, few interventions target emotion regulation specifically in autistic populations. Importantly, autistic youth may present unique strengths and challenges related to emotion processing, regulatory strategies, and skill building. The goal of this paper is to share clinical perspectives derived from implementation of Regulating Together (RT), a manualized group intervention targeting emotion regulation difficulties in autistic youth, and to use examples from RT to illustrate how ER interventions can address common challenges and draw upon strengths observed in this population. Here, we outline several of these strengths and challenges related to ER difficulties found in the literature and clinical perspectives informed by caregiver reported observations. RT is presented as a model to inform ER intervention approaches to address these challenges and utilize strengths.