A Comparative Study of Suicidality and Its Association with Emotion Regulation Impairment in Large ASD and US Census-Matched Samples.
Caitlin M Conner, Josh Golt, Giulia Righi and 3 others
PMID 31939083WHAT IT FOUND
Youth with autism were three times more likely than general US youth to have parent-reported suicidal ideation.
Impaired emotion regulation, especially low positive affect, was linked to suicidality in autism samples but not the general population.
Key findings
01Parents of youth with autism were significantly more likely to report suicidal ideation than parents of general US youth.
02Higher scores for emotional dysphoria were associated with parent-reported suicidality in both community and inpatient autism samples.
03Emotion regulation impairment was not associated with suicidality in the general US sample.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
All data relied on parent report, which likely underestimates a child's internal emotional states. Suicidality was measured using only two single items from a behavioral checklist, which lack specificity. The item for suicidal ideation relies on verbal communication, which limits generalizability to minimally verbal youth. The item for suicidal behavior may conflate self-injurious repetitive behaviors with suicide attempts. The general US sample had low rates of severe emotion dysregulation, restricting the range for comparison.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflict of interest. The study used secondary data from samples funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that emotion regulation impairment predicts suicidality in all children. The association was specific to youth with autism and was not found in the general US sample.