Keywords

Autism Spectrum Disorder, emotional regulation, anger, anxiety, worry, sadness, parental stress levels.

Abstract

The current study’s main research question was whether emotional dysregulation of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) affects parental stress levels. This project examined various negative emotional reactions, such as anger, sadness, worry, anxiety, and tantrums that were present in children with an ASD diagnosis, ages 4 to 13. The research consisted of five psychological assessments with strong psychometric properties. The whole survey was supposed to be filled out by a parent or a caregiver of a child, since children are considered a vulnerable population when it comes to research. The first assessment was the Childhood Autism Spectrum Test (CAST) to establish autism signs and symptoms before answering a battery of questions concerning the child’s emotional behavior and parental stress levels. The second psychological assessment was the Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC) to measure emotional dysregulation levels of children on Autism Spectrum. The third assessment was the Children’s Emotion Management Scale (CEMS) to examine more specific negative emotional reactions such as anger, sadness, and worry. The fourth assessment was the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS) to measure a child’s anxiety levels. And the last assessment was the Parental Stress Index (PSI – short form) to examine parental stress levels. Due to the challenges related to recruiting participants for the study the results were not significant. According to the power analysis, the sample size did not meet the minimum requirements. These preliminary findings discuss the importance of continued research to examine how emotional regulation of a child with ASD diagnosis would influence parental stress levels.

Thesis Completion Year

2025

Thesis Completion Semester

Fall

Thesis Chair

Neal, Raymonde

College

College of Sciences

Department

Psychology

Thesis Discipline

Psychology

Language

English

Access Status

Open Access

Length of Campus Access

None

Campus Location

UCF Online

Subjects

Autism in children--Psychological aspects; Parents of autistic children; Emotional problems of children--Evaluation; Autistic children--Psychological testing; Child mental health--Research

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