Stakeholder informed development of the Emotion Awareness and Skills Enhancement team-based program (EASE-Teams).

LAY ABSTRACT: Emotion dysregulation (ED) impacts mental health symptoms and well-being in autistic individuals. In prior work, we developed the Emotion Awareness and Skills Enhancement (EASE) to improve emotion dysregulation with autistic adolescents (aged 12-17). The study team partnered with autistic individuals, their caregivers, and expert clinicians to adapt EASE for autistic adolescents and adults with co-occurring intellectual disability and autistic elementary-aged children, groups that often benefit from caregiver support in treatment. In three phases, we (1) gathered caregiver and expert feedback to adapt the original EASE program for autistic adults with intellectual disability, (2) revised the treatment after using it with six autistic adults with intellectual disability, and (3) tested the newly developed caregiver-client team-based treatment, called EASE-Teams, in a small group of 10 autistic individuals with and without intellectual disability (aged 7-25). Families found EASE-Teams to be acceptable and helpful. We found improvements in emotion dysregulation and mental health symptoms for autistic participants. Caregivers reported less stress from their child's dysregulation after participating. These results show that EASE-Teams can be appropriate for different developmental and cognitive needs. Future studies will need to test the benefits of the treatment in community clinics.

Evidence Base Update for Questionnaires of Emotion Regulation and Reactivity for Children and Adolescents.

Objective: Emotion regulation (ER) is a multi-faceted and dynamic process relevant to both normative emotional development and transdiagnostic emotional dysfunction for a range of psychological disorders. There has been tremendous growth in ER research over the past decade, including the development of numerous new measures to assess ER. This Evidence Base Update included a systematic review to identify self- and informant-report questionnaire measures of ER for children and adolescents, including measures of ER strategies and effectiveness (or emotion dysregulation).Methods: PubMed, PsycInfo, and Health and Psychosocial Instruments databases were searched using the terms emotion OR affect AND regulation OR control OR reactivity OR response, as well as terms related to questionnaires and psychometrics, restricted to articles on youth (< 18 years old). Each measure's psychometrics was evaluated based on modified criteria by De Los Reyes and Langer (2018).Results: Nine-hundred ninety-seven papers were identified yielding 87 measures that met inclusion for review. Although the majority (60%) of identified ER measures could not be recommended based on these criteria, 8% were Excellent, 14% were Good, and 17% were Adequate. The recommended measures included: 11 general ER measures (5 focused on strategies, 5 focused on dysregulation/ effectiveness), 13 measures of ER as it relates to specific emotions or contexts such as irritability or peer stress (4 focused on strategies, 9 focused on dysregulation/effectiveness), and 11 measures of other constructs that include an ER subscale (all focused on dysregulation). Conclusions: The characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses of the recommended ER measures are described in order to guide measure selection for clinical or research uses. A synthesis of themes identified during this review includes commonly observed areas of weakness and gaps in the literature to provide a foundation for future research and measure development.

Assessment and Treatment of Emotion Regulation Impairment in Autism Spectrum Disorder Across the Life Span: Current State of the Science and Future Directions.

Emotion regulation (ER) is the ability to modify arousal and emotional reactivity to achieve goals and maintain adaptive behaviors. ER impairment in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is thought to underlie many problem behaviors, co-occurring psychiatric symptoms, and social impairment, and yet is largely unaddressed both clinically and in research. There is a critical need to develop ER treatment and assessment options for individuals with ASD across the life span, given the multitude of downstream effects on functioning. This article summarizes the current state of science in ER assessment and treatment and identifies the most promising measurement options and treatments.

Assessment and Treatment of Emotion Regulation Impairment in Autism Spectrum Disorder Across the Life Span: Current State of the Science and Future Directions.

Emotion regulation (ER) is the ability to modify arousal and emotional reactivity to achieve goals and maintain adaptive behaviors. ER impairment in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is thought to underlie many problem behaviors, co-occurring psychiatric symptoms, and social impairment, and yet is largely unaddressed both clinically and in research. There is a critical need to develop ER treatment and assessment options for individuals with ASD across the life span, given the multitude of downstream effects on functioning. This article summarizes the current state of science in ER assessment and treatment and identifies the most promising measurement options and treatments.