Abstract
Although parents’ socialization of children’s emotional experiences and expression has been widely studied in typically developing (TD) populations, these processes have been largely unexplored in families of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study examined parent emotion socialization in a well‐characterized sample of verbally fluent children with ASD and comorbid anxiety disorders. Participants included 64 children, aged 8–15 years, who had ASD and co-occurring anxiety and 24 matched TD children without psychiatric disorders. Parents completed ratings of their responses to their children’s emotional experiences using the Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES), and both parents and children completed ratings of child anxiety using the Multidimensional Anxiety Rating Scale (MASC). Parents of children with ASD and anxiety did not differ from parents of TD children without psychiatric disorders in their endorsement of different emotion socialization practices. However, among children with ASD and anxiety, greater anxiety was associated with more emotion-focused responses from parents, and for children with less ASD symptom severity, lower levels of anxiety were associated with more punitive responses from parents. Results suggest that certain types of more directive emotion socialization approaches may be associated with lower anxiety in children with ASD, whereas emotion socialization approaches focused on altering the child’s emotional experiences may be associated with greater anxiety in this population. While it is likely that parent emotion socialization practices impact children’s emotional experiences of anxiety, it is also likely that children with distinct profiles of anxiety and ASD symptomology elicit specific styles of emotion socialization from parents.
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This work was supported by National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) grant R01MH101514 (D.G.S.) and National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) grant R01HD083881 (D.G.S.). C.B.K. and K.I. were supported by the Translational Developmental Neuroscience Training Program (T32 MH18268) directed by Dr. Michael Crowley.
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Dr. Sukhodolsky receives royalties from Guilford Press for a treatment manual on CBT for anger and aggression in children. Other authors (R.P.J., C.B.K., K.I.) have no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest to declare related to this present study.
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Jordan, R., Kalvin, C.B., Ibrahim, K. et al. Parent Emotion Socialization in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Co-Occurring Anxiety. Res Child Adolesc Psychopathol 49, 125–137 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-020-00731-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-020-00731-7