How Do We Teach Emotional Regulation for Higher-Functioning Children with Autism?
- HEALIS AUTISM CENTRE
- Oct 21
- 4 min read
1. Identifying the different emotions and labelling it
As with all children, the first step to understanding emotions is to first label them. Labelling emotions create an awareness for children to learn about the different types of emotions they experience. Children with autism often find it difficult to understand the emotional status of others and themselves, and this is one of the main causes of distress for people with autism. Such distressed often lead to depression and anxiety, which further externalizes into mental health problems like aggressive behaviours and meltdowns (LuxAI, n.d.).
One of the more foundational skills are sorting. Sorting different emotions would help children get a better idea of how different emotions may look like. An example of an activity could be the use of flashcards with people of different emotions, there can be repeated emotions by different people so that their identification can be generalized. Have your child match the different emotions to the labels given – “happy”, “angry”, “sad”, “tired”, “confused”, etc. With better understanding, you can move on to actual faces with people at home or in the community and have your child label what emotions people are showing. Concurrently, you can have your child practice the different emotions in front of a mirror to better understand how he/she shows their emotions when they feel a certain way.
Another method of identification would be real-time when your child is experiencing them (raisingchildren.net.au, n.d.). For example, when your child is feeling angry and shows it through actions like forcefully putting his toys down or stomping his feet, you can use the opportunity to label the emotion and say, “I see that you are feeling angry because you are acting forcefully by stomping your feet.”. If your child is able to respond in agreement, you can move on to thinking of solutions together and finding out why he is feeling that way. On the other hand, for younger children, they may need options given to them to answer why they may be feeling angry, and this would require observation by the caregiver – for example, “Why do you think you are feeling angry? Was it because you did not get to watch TV after dinner or was it because dinner was not yummy?”.
2. Responding appropriately to their emotional outputs
Rather than responding with a lecture of reprimand when a child is throwing a tantrum, or is being difficult and unable to express themselves, another way to respond would be to assume they are struggling. Children often struggle with expressions, hence show this frustration in other ways like aggression or solitude. It can be frustrating for both the child and the caregiver.
After identifying, caregivers can give prompts to the child to assist them in handling their emotions through emotional regulation methods. Prompts like, “would you like to have some time on your own?”, “do you need a hug to feel better?”, at times, even a distraction can help to regulate emotions, but it is important to go back to the incident to talk about it so that the child understands what method of regulation was used and how it works for them.
3. Teaching them to regulate their emotions with a method that best fits them
Social stories
Social stories can provide a framework of information for children with autism, and they can use this to find out what might happen in a specific situation with guidelines of what to do in a similar situation they may experience. An increase in structure with the use of social stories can help reduce anxiety in a young person’s life (lifeskills4kids, n.d.).
Example of a social story about emotions and actions
Vocalizing their thoughts and feelings
Visual scales can be helpful for children to express the severity of their emotions. When feeling happy, the child can move the lever to the ‘happy’ side of the scale to show how happy he/she is feeling, and vice versa when upset. The scale would aid caregivers on how to manage the issue and sets the tone for methods to use to help the child get through this emotion. (LuxAI, n.d.). The scale also helps children understand emotions, weak and strong. Visual scales provide a healthy relationship with emotions for children (Lifeskills4kids, n.d.), for them to understand that no emotions are bad, and sometimes you can even feel neutral!
Prompts can be given for children who are learning to vocalise how they feel. When a child is struggling to express him/herself, but is able to answer questions like “are you feeling angry?”, you may prompt them to express it themselves by saying, “I am feeling…”, and have them repeat it after you. With practice, they will be able to continue the sentence by expressing why they feel like this. – “I am feeling angry because…”.
Emotional regulation is not an easy feat, especially for children with autism who struggle to understand their own emotions. With better structure of identification, and expression, they would be able to get the hang of it, and soon know what methods to choose to regulate their emotions.
Written by: Joleen
References
Centre for Autism. Emotional regulation. Research Bulletin Issue No. 8. (n.d.). Middletown.
LuxAI. (n.d.). How to teach emotion understanding to children with autism. Retrieved from
Mazefsky, et al. (2013). The role of emotion regulation in autism spectrum disorder. Retrieved from Journal of the American Academy of child and adolescent psychiatry. 52(7):679-688.
Raisingchildren.net.au. (n.d.) Recognising, understanding and managing emotions: autistic children and teenagers. Retrieved from https://raisingchildren.net.au/autism/development/social-emotional-development/recognising-understanding-emotions-autistic-children-teens
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