University of Pittsburgh, USA.
Autism. 2022 Apr;26(3):586-600. doi: 10.1177/13623613211061936. Epub 2021 Dec 14.
Emotion dysregulation (ED) impacts mental health symptoms and well-being in autistic individuals. In prior work, we developed the Emotion Awareness and Skills Enhancement (EASE) to improve emotion dysregulation with autistic adolescents (aged 12-17). The study team partnered with autistic individuals, their caregivers, and expert clinicians to adapt EASE for autistic adolescents and adults with co-occurring intellectual disability and autistic elementary-aged children, groups that often benefit from caregiver support in treatment. In three phases, we (1) gathered caregiver and expert feedback to adapt the original EASE program for autistic adults with intellectual disability, (2) revised the treatment after using it with six autistic adults with intellectual disability, and (3) tested the newly developed caregiver-client team-based treatment, called EASE-Teams, in a small group of 10 autistic individuals with and without intellectual disability (aged 7-25). Families found EASE-Teams to be acceptable and helpful. We found improvements in emotion dysregulation and mental health symptoms for autistic participants. Caregivers reported less stress from their child's dysregulation after participating. These results show that EASE-Teams can be appropriate for different developmental and cognitive needs. Future studies will need to test the benefits of the treatment in community clinics.
情绪调节障碍（ED）会影响自闭症个体的心理健康症状和幸福感。在之前的工作中，我们开发了 Emotion Awareness and Skills Enhancement（EASE），以改善自闭症青少年（12-17 岁）的情绪调节障碍。研究团队与自闭症个体、他们的照顾者和专家临床医生合作，对 EASE 进行了调整，使其适用于同时患有智力残疾和自闭症的青少年和成年人，以及患有自闭症的学龄儿童，这些群体在治疗中通常需要照顾者的支持。我们分三个阶段进行了研究：（1）收集照顾者和专家的反馈意见，以调整针对患有智力残疾的自闭症成人的原始 EASE 计划；（2）在六名患有智力残疾的自闭症成年人中使用该计划后进行修订；（3）在一个由 10 名患有和不患有智力残疾的自闭症个体（年龄在 7-25 岁之间）组成的小群体中测试新开发的以照顾者-客户为基础的团队治疗方法，称为 EASE-Teams。家庭认为 EASE-Teams 是可以接受和有帮助的。我们发现自闭症参与者的情绪调节障碍和心理健康症状有所改善。参与后，照顾者报告说孩子的情绪失调引起的压力减少了。这些结果表明，EASE-Teams 可以适用于不同的发展和认知需求。未来的研究需要在社区诊所中测试该治疗方法的益处。
