Parental Acceptance and Understanding on the Emotion Regulation Skills of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Literature on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is continuously growing in academic research; however, there is still very limited research that explores parental acceptance and understanding and how they relate to the emotion regulation skills of children diagnosed with this condition. Hence, to bridge this gap, this research utilized a convergent parallel mixed-method design to answer the research questions of this study. A total of 102 parent-respondents were surveyed using the Parental Acceptance and Understanding on Autistic Children Scale (PAUACS) and the Emotion Regulation Skills Questionnaire (ERSQ), while five (5) parent-participants were interviewed using the researcher-developed semi-structured interview questionnaires. The quantitative findings revealed that parents demonstrated high levels of understanding, acceptance, and positive expectations; however, recognition of autism as an innate and lifelong condition remained moderate. Moreover, the children exhibited limited independent emotion regulation skills, with both adaptive and maladaptive strategies occurring only sometimes and showing a strong reliance on comfort-seeking behaviors. The correlation analysis showed that there is no significant relationship between parental acceptance and understanding and children’s emotion regulation skills. In contrast to this, the qualitative findings revealed that a positive parental perspective plays a critical role in managing emotional dysregulation, with acceptance functioning as a co-regulatory mechanism that reduces reactive responses and prevents escalation.