3.1 Flashcards
ASD is associated with
amplified emotional responses and poor emotional control. Poor Emotion Regulation (ER) probably underlying.
Emotion Regulation (ER)
the automatic or intentional modification of a person’s emotional state that promotes adaptive or goal-directed behavior; impulsive behavior due to inadequate management of emotion. ER in autism includes intense reactions to stress or outbursts (“meltdowns”).
Emotional reactivity/ emotionality
the initial strength of an emotional response.
Difference between emotionality and ER
the integration of this info to control emotion responses through conscious or unconscious processes. ER can increase or decrease or maintain positive or negative emotions. Processes can be response focused or antecedent focused.
Behavioral Clinical
disappointment paradigm
child receives undesirable prize
Biologically based methods to study ER
Role of the autonomic NS: heart rate variability as an index of autonomic flexibility.
Use of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) to measure. Difficulty in eliciting emotion in a scanner for MRi tests
Also poor presence of ER in ASD e.g.
less use of cognitive reappraisal and greater use of suppression + less likely to use adaptive coping strategies.
possible explanation for inadequate ER in ASD
1) Psychiatric comorbidity
2) Poor ER intrinsic
3) specific psychiatric disorders and ER deficits in ASD share clinical or neurobiological features in common
Psychiatric comorbidity
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Shared risk factors with other disorders
Association of poor ER with anxiety and mood disorders and borderline personality disorder.
- Tripartite Model
- Affective Neuroscience
Tripartite Model
general distress as a shared factor but physiologic hyperarousal is specific to anxiety and anhedonia is specific to depression. General distress may also play an important role in ASD. Also increased basal heart rate and decreased basal heart rate variability or RSA was found in ASD individuals.
Affective Neuroscience
ER typically activated several areas of the PFC, with distinct roles of various prefrontal areas.
Especially PFC/ amygdala connectivity important.
Characteristics of ASD that influence ER
1) functionalist perspective of ER posits that a person consciously seeks to regulate positive and negative emotions to attain set goals; support for a tendency in ASD to react to emotional stimuli intensely without clear goal directedness.
2) Use of suppression, resignation and avoidance lends some support for the notion that ASD lacks the motivational component integral to ER.
3) This is compounded by poor emotional insight and self-monitoring.
4) deficits in perspective taking that limit ability to evaluate responses of others. 5) slower processing and heightened sensitivity to environmental influences.
6) lower threshold for sensory information (hyper- sensitivity) may lead to intense and easily triggered reactions, whereas hyposensitivity (higher sensory thresholds) may be associated with disruptive and dysregulated behavior.
Impaired ER is intrinsic to ASD. Factors contributing are:
Function and Motivation of emotion, Degree of neg and pos affect, Cognitive factors, Info processing and perception, Psychiatric Conditions, Neural Circuity, altered physical activity.
Factors that contribute to emotion dysregulation in ASD (7)
1) Function and Motivation of Emotion
2) The degree of Negative vs. Positive Affect
3) Altered Physiological Activity
4) Neural Circuitry
5) Psychiatric Conditions
6) Information Processing and Perception
7) Cognitive Factors
