Systematic Review of Group-Based Emotion Regulation Interventions for Autistic Children's Socio-Emotional Competence.

Several included studies had no comparison group, so it is hard to say the programmes caused the improvements rather than time passing, extra adult attention, or parents' expectations. The studies were too different in their programmes, populations and outcome measures to be combined, so the review gives a written summary rather than a single pooled estimate, and cannot tell you the size of the average effect. Only two of the randomised trials were rated at low risk of bias, and the randomised trials scored as low as 8 out of 13 on the quality checklist, so even the stronger studies had methodological gaps. Gains were not always maintained: in one trial of children with autism and mild intellectual disability, the emotional competence improvements were gone by the six-month follow-up. The participants were mostly boys (1,021 male, 197 female), and among the studies reporting ethnicity most were White/Caucasian, with the programmes developed and tested in Western settings. No study measured how engaged parents or teachers actually were, even though their active involvement was a condition of being included. Grey literature such as online documents was not searched, and the search strategy did not include terms like telehealth or COVID-19. Several programmes required purchase or contact with the original author, and the review did not test whether the improvements carry over to settings outside the research study.

The authors declared no conflicts of interest and report that they received no financial support for the research, authorship or publication of the article. Note that several of the reviewed programmes were developed by authors of the included studies themselves, and some of those developers also appear to be among the review's own author group.

Do not read this as proof that group programmes work for autistic children. Several of the reviewed studies had no comparison group at all, so the improvements reported could reflect ordinary development or the extra attention children received rather than the programme itself. The authors themselves say this limits how firm their conclusions can be.