Understanding the Relationship Between Emotion Regulation and Social Skills In Adolescence

Background: Poor social skills are a core diagnostic feature among adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Adolescents with intellectual disabilities (ID) also often demonstrate impaired social skills, although for this population social impairment could be considered part of a broader adaptive behavior deficit. Research with adolescents with typical development (TD) has shown emotion regulation abilities to be closely linked to social skills. For instance, better regulated children are more actively engaged in positive interactions with their peers (Rydell, Thorell & Bohlin, 2007). Despite our knowledge of this relationship, few studies have investigated the link between emotion regulation and social skills among adolescents with ASD and ID.

Objectives: This study assesses adolescents’ social skills and behavioral functioning through parent report, and assesses adolescents’ emotion regulation through self-report and coded behavioral observations, to examine the extent to which emotion regulation is related to social functioning among adolescents with ASD, ID, and TD.

Methods: Participants were selected from a longitudinal study of adolescent development and included individuals with TD (n=68), ID (n=20), and ASD (n=12). Social skills were measured using parent report on the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS; Gresham & Elliott, 1990), while emotion regulation was measured using adolescent self-report on the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ; Garnefski, Kraaij, & Spinhover, 2001), and an observational behavior paradigm designed to elicit emotion dysregulation and regulation. Additional social and behavioral functioning were measured by parent report on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; Achenbach, 2000).

Results: Preliminary results revealed significant group differences in social skills on the SSRS and social competence on the CBCL (p < .001). Post-hoc analyses revealed that adolescents with ID (M = 86.61, SD = 12.35) exhibited poorer social skills than adolescents with TD (M = 104.02, SD = 15.22) on the SSRS, and adolescents with ID (M = 38.55, SD = 9.53) and ASD (M = 40.42, SD = 8.67) exhibited poorer social competence on the CBCL than adolescents with TD (M = 50.49, SD = 7.73). Significant differences were also found between the groups on the Blaming Others subscale of the CERQ (p < .05), with adolescents with ASD (M = 10.30, SD = 5.06) scoring higher than adolescents with TD (M  = 7.44, SD = 2.44). Results suggest a significant positive correlation between the Adaptive Emotion Regulation domain on the CERQ and the CBCL Social Competence scale (r = .268, p < .05). Results also suggest a significant negative correlation between the CERQ Blaming Others scale and the CBCL Social Competence scale (r = -.251, p < .05).

Conclusions: These findings do demonstrate group differences on social skills and emotion regulation. Preliminary data shows that emotion regulation is also significantly correlated with social competence, supporting our hypothesis that emotion regulation predicts social skills. Ongoing coding of observational data is aimed at demonstrating further predictive capabilities of emotion regulation to social skills in adolescents with ASD and ID. In addition, the size of the ASD sample should double by the time of presentation.