Understanding How Toddlers Experience and Manage Big Emotions
What's the study about?
During early childhood, children are still learning how to recognize, express, and manage their emotions. While current research has shown that autistic children often experience more challenges with emotional regulation than their neurotypically developing peers, very little is known about how these skills develop during toddlerhood. This study aims to better understand how toddlers experience strong emotions, what strategies they use to calm themselves, how caregivers support them during these moments, and the role of toddlers’ language in the development of these regulation strategies.
Who can participate?
Families with toddlers between 18-32 months of age are invited to participate. We are recruiting both autistic toddlers and neurotypically developing toddlers.
What will participants be doing?
Caregivers will complete 4 measures that provide information on their toddler’s social communication and behavior, receptive and expressive language, emotional behavior profile. Completing these measures will take about 30 minutes. They will then meet with a researcher for a one-time virtual Zoom interview to discuss their toddler’s emotional experiences and regulation strategies. Interviews will take about 60 minutes and will be audio recorded.
Why is this important?
We still know relatively little about how emotion regulation develops during toddlerhood in autistic children. The results from this study will provide more insight into how young autistic children experience and manage their emotions. This study may help guide the development of future interventions to support families and help children develop effective emotion regulation skills that promote positive emotional development.