Parasympathetic withdrawal indexes risk for emotion dysregulation in children with autism spectrum disorder.
Jason K Baker, Rachel M Fenning, Stephen A Erath and 1 others
PMID 36086895WHAT IT FOUND
In children with autism, greater parasympathetic withdrawal during a negative-emotion challenge task was linked to more observed emotion dysregulation, alongside higher ASD symptom levels.
Baseline parasympathetic tone was not linked.
Key findings
01Greater parasympathetic withdrawal during the challenge was uniquely associated with more observed emotion dysregulation.
02ASD symptom level was uniquely associated with observed emotion dysregulation.
03Baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia was not associated with observed emotion dysregulation.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
61 of 77 recruited children were included because they provided sufficient respiratory sinus arrhythmia data. Missing data were more common for males and for children with greater ASD symptoms, so the included sample may not represent all children with ASD. The sample size prevented subgroup analyses. Respiration was not measured directly, and the model had limited covariates. Baseline measures may already reflect reactivity in children with ASD, making it hard to separate true baseline from challenge response. The positive link between family income and dysregulation was unexpected and needs further investigation.
Declared interests
No author conflict-of-interest statement is supplied in the text. The article is marked as research supported by NIH extramural funding.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read greater parasympathetic withdrawal as a sign of beneficial flexibility or as proof that a treatment works. In this study it was associated with more observed emotion dysregulation, and the paper reported an association, not an intervention.