20587
Emotional Reactivity in Toddlers with ASD: Diminished Response to Threatening Stimuli during the Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery (Lab-TAB)
Temperament, biologically-based aspects of behavior in the domains of emotional reactivity, attention, and regulation (Rothbart, 1981), is relatively unexplored in very young children with ASD. Existing research in this population focuses largely on parent questionnaires (del Rosario et al., 2014, Clifford, 2013; Garon, 2009) but laboratory-based methods hold additional promise. The Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery (Lab-TAB) is an in-vivo behavioral assessment for infants and toddlers that examines temperamental characteristics based on standardized naturalistic probes (Goldsmith & Rothbart, 1999). The Lab-TAB has been used extensively to study temperament in typically-developing children (Gagne et al., 2011), but little is known about emotional reactivity in very young children with ASD in response to a range of challenges.
Objectives:
To examine emotional reactivity in very young children with ASD compared to their non-ASD peers in response to behavioral probes aimed at eliciting fear, joy, and anger.
Methods:
We adapted the Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery (Lab-TAB; Goldsmith & Rothbart, 1999) for use with toddlers with developmental disabilities, including a period of extensive piloting and reliability coding (across 5 coders, ICC>0.85). Nine episodes of the Lab-TAB were administered to toddlers with ASD (n=15) and age-matched peers without ASD (Non-ASD (n=10); 6 with typical development and 4 with non-ASD developmental delays) at age 20 months (SD=2.5). Three episodes per emotion were administered: Fear (Spider, Masks, Dinosaur); Anger (Carseat, End of the Line, Restraint); and Joy (Bubbles, Puppet Show, and Penguin Race). Each episode consisted of three to four trials lasting 10 seconds each. Videotaped sessions were coded offline by blinded coders for intensity of emotional responses during each trial on a four-to-six-point Likert scale. Responses were averaged across trials, and composites computed for Negative Affect (facial fear, facial sadness, distress vocalizations, escape, bodily fear); Joy (facial joy, positive vocalizations, bodily joy); and Anger (facial anger, distress vocalizations, bodily struggle).
Results:
A linear mixed models analysis examining group, episode type and their interaction indicated that toddlers with ASD exhibited less intense Negative Affect only during the Fear episodes (F(1, 23)=9.42, p<.01) than Non-ASD peers (p<.01, d =1.17). Joy and Anger were expressed at similar levels of intensity during the Joy and Anger episodes (p=.51, p=.25, respectively) across both groups of toddlers.
Conclusions: Preliminary findings suggest that 20-month-old toddlers with ASD exhibited less intense observable negative affect than their non-ASD peers in response to novel and potentially frightening stimuli. Diminished affect was specific to the Fear probe, as both groups responded similarly to joy- and anger-inducing situations. The factors underlying diminished emotional reactivity in threatening situations in ASD, including basic attentional, physiological, affective, and cognitive processes require further examination. Deficits in emotion processing are likely to impair the use of affective communication channels to form social bonds, develop empathy, and learn about the world. Data collection is ongoing and further analysis with a larger sample will enable examination of the specificity of these findings to the ASD group.