Emotional Understanding 2
The purpose of this research assignment was to reflect upon alexithymia and emotional
understanding of autistic children. I chose to focus on three different peer reviewed articles
which were published within the past 5 years. Palmer et al. (2022) focused on emotional and
behavioral problems in autistic children by examining observational reports. Costa et al. (2019)
examined the role of alexithymia in autistic children by focusing their research on parent/child
interaction. The last article I chose, Marino et al. (2019) focused on the effects of human assisted
social robots and how beneficial they are for children with autism.
Emotional difficulties are a common trait in children with autism. Palmer et al. (2022)
states that it is estimated that as many as 70% of children who have been diagnosed with autism
spectrum disorder may meet the criteria for a co-occurring psychiatric condition which includes
the following:
1.) ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
2.) Anxiety disorders
3.) ODD (oppositional defiant disorder)
Children with autism may find it difficult to either express their emotions or control their
emotions. As I have previously stated, my youngest child is autistic, and he gets very emotional
over certain things. For example, he liked a song which played on the satellite radio in my car
and when the song ended, he broke down in tears because he wanted the song to constantly
repeat on a loop mode. He also gets emotional if he is watching a movie and it is an action movie
and there is a car chase and one of the cars suffers any damage. He has a difficult time
distinguishing between real and dramatized re-enactments.
Emotional Understanding 3
The APA tells us that ASD or autism spectrum disorder, is classified as a
neurodevelopmental disorder which affects speech, repetitive interests, difficulties with sensory
processing as well as social communication difficulties. Palmer et al. (2022) wanted to better
understand the emotional and behavioral problems in autistic children based off observational
reports from teachers and parents of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.
The IAMHEALTH (Improving Autism Mental Health) research program conducted a
survey called the ASTAR (Autism Spectrum Treatment and Resilience) which included 83
autistic children and their parents. Most of the participants were males, over 85% and the
average age was 6 years old. Verbal language levels varied across the sample with 47%
minimally verbal and 53% verbal (Palmer et al., 2022). In addition to the 83 parents completing
the questionnaires, 76 educators also completed the questionnaires for their students.
The questionnaires which were completed by the parents asked about the child’s
emotional and behavioral problems as well as the parents own wellbeing and stress. Teachers
who completed the questionnaires were asked about the student’s emotional and behavioral
problems while they are at school. In addition, researchers also conducted observations of the
interaction between the teachers and their students as well as the parents and their children.
Autism severity was measured using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule 2nd edition or
ADOS-2 (Palmer et al., 2022).
This study did find some interesting results as well as some expected results. The study
by Palmer et al. (2022) did find the following:
1.) Parents reported more emotional and behavioral problems (EBPs) than teachers and
parent-teacher agreement was low, particularly for emotional problems.
Emotional Understanding 4
2.) Greater parenting stress and being verbal was associated with more parent but not teacher
reported emotional and behavioral problems.
3.) More observed behaviors that challenge was displayed by minimally verbal children.
4.) More parenting stress could be associated with the presence of more emotional and
behavioral problems in the home.
5.) Parenting stress may confound reports.
The second journal article that I reviewed for this assignment focused on using a human
assisted social robot to assist in socio-emotional understanding of children with autism. Marino
et al. (2019) conducted a study which initially consisted of 58 children who were diagnosed with
autism spectrum disorder. The ages of the participants ranged from 4 to 8. Of these 58 children, a
verbal developmental quotient was implemented and 22 out of the 58 children ended up being
advanced to the next level. Of these 22 children, 14 ended up advancing to the actual study. The
genders of the 14 children were 12 males and 2 females.
The intervention meetings for the study were conducted in a room called the HomeLab.
HomeLab is a simulation of a studio flat environment which is specifically designed and
equipped to enable group-based interactions (Marino et al., 2019). The setting in the HomeLab
included the following things:
1.) Widescreen LED television
2.) Three cameras integrated in a processing module capable of providing real time behavior
inference data (Marino et al., 2019)
3.) A co-therapist that is a human-assisted robot that provides communication prompts and
emotional prompts.
Emotional Understanding 5
The human-assisted robot is child sized with a plastic body and is commercially available. It
includes LED displays, audio sensors, and tactile sensors.
The participants in Marino et al. (2019) were broken down into small groups of the
following:
1.) Robot group: Two groups, each consisting of four children.
2.) Control group: Two groups, each consisting of three children.
In addition, the intervention meetings were administered by a cognitive behavioral
psychotherapist and a clinical psychologist. The human-assisted robot was to actively interact
with the children and provide verbal antecedents, prompts and reinforcing consequences
according to an ABC (antecedent behavior consequence) model (Marino et al., 2019). The
procedure or meetings were as follows:
1.) 2 assessment sessions
2.) 10 cognitive behavioral therapy sessions based on REBT (rational emotive behavior
therapy) principles
3.) 90-minute therapy sessions
4.) Twice weekly
Marino et al. (2019) divided their procedure into four phases of activities and games:
1.) Phase 1: emotion recognition skills
2.) Phase 2: context-emotion association
3.) Phase 3: discriminating between emotions and thoughts
4.) Phase 4: using useful thoughts including strategies and insights
Emotional Understanding 6
Assessments were conducted prior to beginning the study (initial assessment) and after the
study was completed (final assessment). To complete the assessments the researchers used the
TEC (test of emotional comprehension and ELT (emotional lexicon test). The study found that
substantial improvements in contextualized emotion recognition, comprehension and emotional
perspective-taking through the use of human-assisted social robots were attained (Marino et al.,
2019).
The last article I reviewed compared the parent and child interaction of autistic children as
well as typically developing children. This study by Costa et al. (2019) compared the number of
parent/child interactions among 35 children who have been diagnosed with ASD and 41 children
who are typically developing. The participants were all between the ages of 3 to 13 years old and
the comparisons were made during a frustrating situation. They also wanted to examine if there
was a link between alexithymia (emotional blindness) and parent/child interactions. Finally, they
examined if emotional difficulties were linked to parent/child interaction. One of their findings
was a bit shocking to me. Their study showed that parents of children with autism spent less time
interacting with their child when compared to a parent who has a child who is typically
developing. Many parents that I know who have children with autism significantly interact with
their child. But Costa et al. (2019) explained in more detail that it is the child’s alexithymia or
emotional blindness which causes less interaction between child and parent and not necessarily
the autism diagnosis. To increase interaction between parents and children with autism, the
children need to be taught specifically how to describe, distinguish, and recognize emotions in
others but more importantly in themselves.
“As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.EHis disciples asked him, Rabbi, who
sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Neither this man nor his parents sinned,
Emotional Understanding 8
References
Costa,EA.EP., Steffgen,EG., & Vögele,EC. (2019). The role of alexithymia in parent-child
interaction and in the emotional ability of children with autism spectrum disorder.EAutism
Research,E12(3), 458-468.Ehttps://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2061
ESV Study Bible. (2008). Crossway Books.
Marino,EF., Chilà,EP., Sfrazzetto,ES.ET., Carrozza,EC., Crimi,EI., Failla,EC., Busà,EM., Bernava,EG.,
Tartarisco,EG., Vagni,ED., Ruta,EL., & Pioggia,EG. (2019). Outcomes of a robot-assisted
social-emotional understanding intervention for young children with autism spectrum
disorders.EJournal of Autism and Developmental Disorders,E50(6), 1973-
1987.Ehttps://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-03953-x
Palmer,EM., Tarver,EJ., Carter Leno,EV., Paris Perez,EJ., Frayne,EM., Slonims,EV., Pickles,EA.,
Scott,ES., Charman,ET., & Simonoff,EE. (2022). Parent, teacher and observational reports
of emotional and behavioral problems in young autistic children.EJournal of Autism and
Developmental Disorders,E53(1), 296-309.Ehttps://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-05421-x
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