Self-regulation in children with autism spectrum disorder : its significance in assessment, school adjustment, and intervention

Abstract

Conducting adequate assessment and intervention to address the challenges children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) face is imperative for promoting their school adjustment. While targeting their deficits in social-communication and emotional skills in intervention is helpful, not enough attention has been paid to weak self-regulation being a key skill underlying their manifest difficulty in all these areas. Self-regulation refers to one’s ability to moderate their affective or behavioral responses in response to situations. For students with ASD, who often show problems not so much in acquisition of fundamental skills and school skills but rather in applying them adequately in natural settings, the ability to self-regulate becomes a key to successful daily life adjustment. The current research consists of three studies. The aim is to clarify the meaning and role of self-regulation in the school adjustment of students with ASD and to examine the effects of a related intervention program. Study 1 examined the extent to which self-regulation is a distinct construct that is differentiable from other fundamental skills and school skills. Teachers of a total of 1,345 Grade 1 to Grade 6 students with ASD filled out a questionnaire assessing skills considered necessary for students’ effective functioning in school. Results from exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed five distinct factors of school skills, namely (1) communication skills, (2) pro-social behavior, (3) emotional skills, (4) learning management, and (5) self-regulation skills. A 30-item scale measuring school skill with five subscales was developed. In Study 2, relationships between self-regulation and other school skills as well as their relative and combined effects on school adjustment were examined. A model postulating the mediating role of self-regulation for the effects of the other four school skills on school adjustment was tested with structural equation modelling. Results showed that only self-regulation skills had significant direct effects on school adjustment, and the total effects of the fundamental skills and school skills were not high. This suggests more attention should be paid to the training of self-management with an emphasis on the application of skills through self-regulation. Systematic training on self-management is one way to help students with ASD improve on self-regulation. Study 3 was an investigation on whether using self-management strategies in skill training programs would (1) enhance students’ acquisition of specific skills targeted in the training programs and (2) produce more general enhancement of their self-regulation, fundamental skills and school skills at school. A self-management system was tried in group training programs for 134 Grade 1 to Grade 6 students with ASD. Compared to their 145 matched peers with ASD attending similar programs but without the use of self-management strategies, students in the experimental groups showed significantly better improvement on their target skills in the programs. They also showed significant post-program improvement on self-regulation and pro-social behavior as assessed in daily school contexts. Overall, this research helped clarify the construct of self-regulation and its importance in intervention for children with ASD. Evidence is also provided for the effectiveness of using the self-management strategy in school-based group training for students with ASD.