Study finds that toddlers with ASD are exposed to emotional vulnerabilities

Washington DC: It turns out that at a time when Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can be diagnosed for the first time reliably, young children with ASD already have emotional vulnerabilities that may signal the onset of autism spectrum disorder. occurrence of widespread comorbid affective and behavioral disorders in older children.

According to a study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP), toddlers with ASD are showing increased anger and frustration and a fear attenuated in response to naturalistic situations. They also found that the ability to experience joy appears intact at the very beginning of the disorder.

"Most ASDs occur in the first two years of life and affect about 1 in 59 children," said lead authors Suzanne Macari and Katarzyna Chawarska. "This study shows, for the first time, that at a young age when the disorder can be reliably diagnosed, young children with ASD already have emotional vulnerabilities signaling the risk of concomitant emotional and behavioral problems. . "

The 21-month-old toddlers were recruited between December 2013 and March 2017. Using a multimodal approach, researchers examined the intensity of emotional responses between vocal and facial channels to naturalistic situations designed to elicit anger. , fear and joy.

"The vulnerabilities are not related to the symptoms of autism and therefore contribute, independently, to the development of complex and very heterogeneous autism phenotypes," Drs added. Macari and Chawarska. In addition to targeting social and communication issues, clinicians should also focus on the badessment and treatment of affective symptoms in young children with ASD, in the hope of improving the quality of life. severity of comorbid disorders so common in ASD. "

The researchers found that when the desired object was placed out of reach of the toddler, it had high levels of anger and frustration. However, in the face of new and potentially threatening objects, their fear intensity is lower than that of comparison groups. While a high anger response may challenge the developing emotion regulation system, the weakened fear response suggests an atypical badessment of the threat and risk for security reasons.

Although it is badumed that children with ASD do not experience as much joy as other children, the study found that levels of joy caused by play situations were comparable in young children with ASD. ASD and control groups. This suggests that at the beginning of the disorder, the ability to experience joy can be intact. Exploiting this intact emotional competence for therapeutic purposes is essential because activating positive emotions promotes learning and exploration while reducing stress.

Together, the study reveals a surprising and complex emotional landscape of toddlers with ASD and provides a strong motivation for studying the early emotional development of ASD and its role in the emergence of autism.

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