Regulating Together: Emotion Dysregulation Group Treatment for ASD Youth and Their Caregivers.
Rebecca C Shaffer, Lauren M Schmitt, Debra L Reisinger and 6 others
PMID 35141815WHAT IT FOUND
Youth with autism and emotion regulation difficulties showed improved reactivity and skill knowledge after a 5-week group program with caregivers.
Improvements were maintained at 10-week follow-up. This pilot suggests feasibility and promise, but a randomized trial is needed to confirm the treatment works.
Key findings
01Emotional reactivity scores improved significantly from the start of treatment through the 10-week post-treatment follow-up, with the largest effect size observed at the final time point.
02Youth demonstrated significant gains in emotion regulation skills knowledge, which peaked immediately after treatment and remained elevated through the 10-week follow-up.
03Psychiatric hospitalization rates dropped from 24% in the year before treatment to 8% in the year after, though this difference was not statistically significant.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study was a within-subjects pilot, not a randomized controlled trial, so it cannot determine if the improvements were due to the treatment or other factors like time or maturation. The sample size was small (43 analyzed), which reduces statistical power, particularly for secondary outcomes like hospitalization rates. Primary outcomes relied heavily on caregiver report, which is susceptible to expectation bias, although some clinician-rated and youth-reported measures were included. The study was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced one group to switch to a virtual format and was excluded from analysis, and may have influenced hospitalization rates during the follow-up period. The ABC-I measure showed changes during the control period, suggesting it may not be a sensitive measure for detecting treatment-specific effects in this population.
Declared interests
The study was funded by Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. The authors declared no other conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that Regulating Together is an effective treatment based on this study. It was a within-subjects pilot without a randomized control group, meaning the observed improvements could be due to natural development, measurement effects, or caregiver expectations rather than the intervention itself. The authors state that a randomized controlled trial is needed to determine efficacy.