Date of Award
Fall 2025
Document Type
Open Access Thesis
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Sarah Edmunds
Abstract
Behaviors that signal emotion dysregulation such as aggression, self-injurious behavior, “temper-tantrums,” and “meltdowns” are very common in young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), yet they are not part of the autism diagnostic criteria (Kozlowski & Matson, 2012; Lee et al., 2023; Maskey et al., 2013). This may suggest that there is not enough attention given to autism-specific emotion dysregulation etiology and treatment. Additionally, it is difficult to capture a full emotion regulation profile of a young child with autism, including the identification of factors that lead to emotion dysregulation behaviors and emotion regulation strategy use (Cai et. al., 2018). Capturing a full emotion regulation profile for a young child with autism is important for helping families develop appropriate goals to support their child’s emotion regulation and overall development. Currently, nuanced behavioral indicators of autistic children’s emotion dysregulation and the temporal contingencies are poorly understood in research. To address this gap, the current study aims to measure the antecedent-behavior-consequence (ABC) sequence of behavioral indicators of upset and emotion dysregulation in young children with autism (age 2-5 years) during a semi-structured assessment of emotion regulation, called the DB-DOS, and through caregiver interviews, examined across and within participants. We also aim to examine possible functions of behaviors, and possible autism-related behaviors and temporal contingencies. Finally, we aim to examine concordance of the mixed-methods data collection methods in their identification of the behavioral indicators of upset and their temporal contingencies in young autistic children. This study addressed the questions needing to be answered in order to develop intervention goals or packages that embrace emotion regulation domains.
Rights
© 2025, Alayna R. Borowy
Recommended Citation
Borowy, A. R.(2025). A Functional Behavior-Informed Mixed-Methods Approach to Examining Emotion Dysregulation in Young Autistic Children. (Master's thesis). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/8632