Cognitive emotion regulation difficulties increase affective reactivity to daily-life stress in autistic adolescents and young adults.
Laura Ilen, Clémence Feller, Maude Schneider
PMID 37882494WHAT IT FOUND
Autistic youth reported higher daily negative affect and more activity-related stress than non-autistic peers.
They also used fewer adaptive and more non-adaptive emotion regulation strategies. These difficulties may increase vulnerability to mental health symptoms.
Key findings
01Autistic participants reported higher levels of negative affect and significantly higher perceived social and activity-related stress than non-autistic participants.
02Autistic youth showed increased affective reactivity to activity-related stressors, but similar reactivity to social and event-related stressors compared to non-autistic peers.
03Participants with autism reported using significantly less adaptive and more non-adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies than the non-autistic group.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study is cross-sectional, so it cannot prove that stress or emotion regulation difficulties cause mental health symptoms. Participants were verbally fluent and had mostly average or above-average intelligence, so findings may not apply to autistic individuals with higher support needs. Associations between stress reactivity and mental health symptoms did not remain significant after correcting for multiple comparisons. The Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) has not been validated specifically for autistic populations. The study excluded individuals who did not complete enough EMA questionnaires, potentially introducing bias.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. The study was supported by an Ambizione grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that social interaction is the primary source of heightened stress reactivity for all autistic youth. This study found that autistic participants showed increased affective reactivity specifically to activity-related stressors, while their reactivity to social and event-related stressors was similar to non-autistic peers.