The importance of self-regulation for the school and peer engagement of children with high-functioning autism

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Abstract

This study examined individual differences in self-regulation, emotional and behavioral school engagement, and prosocial peer engagement in a sample of 40 children that included children with high functioning autism (HFA; n = 20) and their typical peers (n = 20). Children were 54.57 months on average at recruitment. Measures of self-regulation included parents’ reports of emotion regulation, effortful control, and executive function; direct observations of executive function skills; and observations of joint engagement during a parent–child interaction. Parents reported on school and prosocial peer engagement approximately one year later. Children with HFA had significantly impaired self-regulation, and decreased school and peer engagement. Executive function predicted both emotional and behavioral school engagement, whereas emotion regulation predicted prosocial peer engagement. The relation between effortful control and subsequent prosocial peer engagement was moderated by diagnostic group, suggesting it served a protective function for behaviors of children with HFA in the school setting.

Highlights

► We examine multiple components self-regulation in children with autism and typical peers. ► We identify self-regulatory predictors of children's school and peer engagement. ► Executive function predicts children's emotional and behavioral school engagement. ► Emotion regulation predicts children's prosocial peer engagement. ► Effortful control promotes prosocial peer engagement for children with autism.

Section snippets

Self-regulation in children with autism

Self-regulation broadly refers to the ability to modulate one's affective or behavioral responses (Blair and Diamond, 2008, Kopp, 1982). Subsumed within the larger construct of self-regulation, emotion regulation entails control over affective experiences and expressions (Calkins and Hill, 2007, Eisenberg and Spinrad, 2004), and is a function of one's emotional reactions as well as the ability to deploy effective strategies to cope with such reactions (Cole, Martin, & Dennis, 2004). Emotion

Emotional and behavioral school engagement and prosocial peer engagement

An important element of preschool children's social competence concerns their adaptation to the school context which may include academic engagement (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004) and prosocial engagement with peers (Ladd, Birch, & Buhs, 1999). Academic, or school, engagement involves behaviorally, cognitively, or emotionally attending to, and interacting with, both social and nonsocial aspects of the school environment and has been related to social and academic functioning (Fredricks

The importance of self-regulation for school and peer engagement

Self-regulation is a significant predictor of school engagement and success in typically developing children. Such self-regulatory skills as sustaining and shifting attention, managing emotions, and maintaining control of behaviors have been shown to be related to emotional and behavioral engagement and increased academic competence (Blair, 2003, Valiente et al., 2007, Valiente et al., 2008). Children able to manage behavior and emotions are likely to be accepted by peers and to benefit from

The current study

To better understand the self-regulatory impairments of children with HFA, our first aim was to examine group and individual differences in multiple indices of self-regulation as they related to differences in emotion regulation. Second, we aimed to identify specific components of regulation that predicted emotional and behavioral school engagement and prosocial engagement with peers, and to explore whether predictors of school and peer engagement varied by diagnostic group. By examining

Participants

Participants included 40 children (36 males) with a mean age of 54.57 months at recruitment (SD = 11.31 months) and their parents. Participants were drawn from a university-based preschool and a local autism family resource center in a metropolitan area in the southwest of the United States. The sample consisted of 20 children with autism (M = 58.95, SD = 11.50 months) whose clinical diagnosis of autism was confirmed with the Autism Diagnostic Interview (ADI-R; Lord, Rutter, & Couter, 1994), and 20

Intercorrelations among indices of self-regulation

Descriptive information on all developmental and study variables is presented in Table 1. Prior to conducting the main study analyses, we tested whether children's developmental levels (mental, expressive language, or receptive language age) were related to any of the study variables using bivariate correlations. Mental age was significantly negatively associated with emotional school engagement, r (38) = −.34, p < .05, and school liking, r (38) = −.37, p < .05, and was therefore included as a

Discussion

The present study makes an important contribution to scholarly knowledge of the specific nature of difficulties in the school context for children with HFA, and is the first to examine the importance of discrete forms of self-regulation for multiple dimensions of social competence in the school context for this population. Children with HFA showed significant impairments in multiple indices of self-regulation, were rated as less emotionally and behaviorally engaged in the school setting, and as

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