Q & A with Shanna van Trigt, Vrije Universiteit author of “Autistic Traits and Self-Conscious Emotions in Early Childhood” Child Development
Research shows that given the difficulties in navigating social relationships, children with more autistic traits might be prone to less attuned self-conscious emotions after transgression (displaying less guilt and embarrassment and more shame). A new study released in Child Development by researchers at Vrije Universiteit and the University of Amsterdam investigated for the first time the association between autistic traits and self-conscious emotions of guilt, embarrassment, and shame in young children.
Researchers also further examined whether children with more autistic traits experience these non-attuned self-conscious emotions due to lower levels of Theory of Mind (i.e., ability to understand and reason about people’s mental states, including beliefs), which was not the case. The findings provided initial evidence that children with more autistic traits do not show less guilt and embarrassment, but they show increased shame-like avoidance), which could hinder their reparation of social relationships after transgressions.
The Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) had the opportunity to chat with lead author Shanna van Trigt about this important research.
SRCD: In your opinion, why is this the first time the association between autistic traits and self-conscious emotions were investigated?
van Trigt: The association between autistic traits and self-conscious emotions has been investigated in older children and adolescents. However, this is the first time these associations were investigated in early childhood. One reason may be that, traditionally, it has been assumed that self-conscious emotions develop only later in childhood. However, more recent research shows that very young children can display rudimentary forms of self-conscious emotions, too. Another reason may be that although research on emotions is rapidly growing, most of this research examines the so-called basic emotions and much less is known about more complex self-conscious emotions.
SRCD: Describe your hypothesis.
van Trigt: We hypothesized that young children with more autistic traits would show less guilt, less embarrassment, and more shame-like avoidance after accidentally harming another person (i.e., breaking their “favorite” toy), and that these associations would be partially explained by lower Theory of Mind.
SRCD: Your work showed that children with more autistic traits have lower Theory of Mind and show more shame-like avoidance after a transgression in early childhood. Expand on why this is important.
van Trigt: Shame is known to hinder the repairment of social relationships after a transgression, making it difficult for children with higher levels of autistic traits to engage with others and feel socially connected after transgressions. It is important to note that although autistic traits were related to lower Theory of Mind, this did not explain the higher levels of shame-like avoidance after transgression in our study. Children with more autistic traits seem not to show any deficits in the Theory of Mind ability that matters most for the experience of self-conscious emotions-the understanding of emotions. They show lower understanding of others’ (false) beliefs, which, importantly, did not seem to play a role in the experience of self-conscious emotions. This is why we think that the social skills training focusing on enhancing socio-cognitive skills in autism may not necessarily bring about improvements in emotional experiences and wellbeing.
SRCD: What are some implications of your research for early interventions for children with autistic traits?
Van Trigt: Our results imply that deficits in Theory of Mind, although related to more autistic traits, may not predict less attuned self-conscious emotions, at least not yet in early childhood. Previous intervention studies found that interventions for autism that focus on Theory of Mind and related socio-cognitive skills, improve socio-cognitive skills, but fail to result in wider improvements in real-life social behavior. As Theory of Mind skills do not necessarily relate to non-attuned self-conscious emotions that children with high levels of autistic traits may experience in a wide range of social situations, support efforts focusing on the regulation of self-conscious emotions may need to focus on targeting these emotions directly. For example, in the case of frequent and intense shame experiences, enhancing (self-) compassion with mindfulness interventions may be a useful option helping young children with high levels of autistic traits to regulate these emotions, thereby increasing their wellbeing and the quality of relationships with others.
SRCD: What were the limitations in your research?
van Trigt: Our study has several limitations that warrant attention when interpreting our results. First, we had a community sample of children, and we measured autistic traits with parents’ reports. Future studies may involve young children on the autism spectrum to investigate whether autism may be related to non-attuned self-conscious emotions, too. Our families came from the Netherlands – a Western country and parents were relatively highly educated. This prevents us from generalizing our results to different cultures and to families with lower socio-economic status. Also, our study was cross-sectional, which does not allow drawing any causal conclusions, for example, our mediation analyses to assess the role of Theory of Mind do not prove temporal ordering or causality. Longitudinal studies may be useful in the future to uncover bidirectional effects between autistic traits and self-conscious emotions over time.
SRCD: What are your recommendations on future work in this area?
van Trigt: Future studies may build on our findings by inspecting the development of self-conscious emotions in children with more autistic traits from early to late childhood in a longitudinal study. Moreover, mechanisms explaining the relationship between autistic traits and self-conscious emotions other than Theory of Mind can be investigated. For example, communication deficits or elevated levels of social anxiety may play a role in less attuned self-conscious emotions in children with more autistic traits. Also, investigating these associations in young children on the autism spectrum can tell us if our findings translate to autism as well.
SRCD: If you could offer one quote or takeaway about the research, what might that be?
van Trigt: Children with more autistic traits may show disturbances in some, but not all, self-conscious emotions after transgression, which could hinder their social engagement and the feeling of connection to others. Therefore, new support strategies to regulate self-conscious emotions through enhancing (self-)compassion, such as mindfulness interventions, may be considered when targeting young children with more autistic traits.
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This work was funded by the Research Institute of Child Development and Education, University of Amsterdam and grants from the Jacobs Foundation and the Dutch Research Council.
Summarized from Child Development, Autistic Traits and Self-Conscious Emotions in Early Childhood by van Trigt, S. (Vrije Universiteit), Colonnesi, C., Brummelman, E., Jorgensen, T.D., and Nikolić, M. (University of Amsterdam). Copyright 2023 The Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved.
JOURNAL
Child Development
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Observational study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
Autistic Traits and Self-Conscious Emotions in Early Childhood
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
25-Apr-2023
How do you define shyness? A new study analyzes shyness in children
What is shyness? Research has shown that shyness is characterized by fear and nervousness in response to social novelty and/or social evaluation. Shyness can manifest on behavioral, affective, and physiological levels, but little is known about how these components cluster. Longstanding theories note that shyness may be conceptualized as a trait that is relatively stable across development, which is described as temperamental shyness. Shyness may also be conceptualized as an emotion that is felt in a certain social situation, which is described as state shyness. To help better understand shyness in children, a new study released in Child Development by researchers at McMaster University in Canada examined a child’s behavioral, affective, and physiological responses to a speech task. The findings showed that temperamental shyness may exist in a distinct group of children over time, while a larger subset of children may experience shyness as an emotional state in some situations.
“Our findings provide empirical support for the long-theorized idea that there may be a subset of temperamentally shy children who manifest heightened behavioral, affective, and physiological reactivity in response to a social stressor, as well as a subset of children who may experience only the affective component which may reflect state shyness,” as explained by Kristie Poole who conducted the study at McMaster University and is now a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at Brock University. “This highlights the multiple components and developmental course of temperamental shyness and the features that distinguish temperamental and state shyness in middle to late childhood.”
The current study included 152 Canadian children (73 girls) aged 7-8 years and their primary caregivers. The children were born in a local hospital and were recruited from a child database at McMaster University containing birth records of infants whose parents consented to their infant’s inclusion. Ninety percent of participating caregivers were mothers and 10% were fathers. Children were primarily White (81.6%), followed by mixed race (9.9%), Asian (3.9%), Black (2.6%), and Latin American (2%). Children were primarily from middle to upper socioeconomic class families.
Children were fitted with an ambulatory electrocardiogram and completed activities with an experimenter in a room adjacent to their parent. During this time, parents completed online questionnaires related to the child’s temperament while monitoring their child on a muted closed-circuit monitor. Children prepared a two-minute speech about their last birthday and recited their speech in front of a video camera and mirror. They were told the speech would be videotaped for other children to watch later. This was designed to induce stress. The study team coded children’s avoidance/inhibition (i.e., behavior), children self-reported their nervousness (i.e., affect), and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (i.e. physiology) was measured.
For their time, families were given $20 gift cards and children received a Junior Scientist Certificate. At one- and two-years post evaluations, parents completed an online follow-up survey on their child’s temperament. They responded to statements such as “child acts shy around new people.” This examined how a children’s responses to the speech were related to their temperament across time. Parents were given a $10 gift card at each follow-up.
“The findings showed that approximately 10 percent of children in our study showed social stress reactivity to the speech on behavioral, affective, and physiological levels, and also had a pattern of relatively higher, stable parent-reported temperamental shyness across time, providing evidence that they may be characterized as temperamentally shy,” Poole continued. “A second subset of approximately 25 percent of children showed a pattern of social stress reactivity only on an affective level (i.e., self-reported feeling nervous), and did not show relatively high levels of parent-reported temperamental shyness, providing evidence that they may be characterized by state shyness. The findings have implications for the conceptualization of shyness in that different types of shyness may differ in kind rather than degree.”
The findings provide empirical evidence for long-standing ideas first articulated by the late Jerome Kagan several decades ago. He argued that temperamental shyness may exist as a distinct category for some children and the features that define this category are relatively stable across time and context. In addition to this subset of temperamentally shy children, researchers found that a larger subset of children may experience shyness as an emotional state in some situations. It is likely that the experience of state shyness in response to a speech task is a relatively common, normative experience for children at this age. For a smaller group of temperamentally shy children, however, being the center of attention may be stressful across time and various contexts. Since we know that not all children are alike and early temperamental shyness is a risk factor for internalizing-related problems, future work should examine the consequences of these findings for children’s social, psychological, and academic adjustment.
The authors acknowledge several limitations in their research. The study only measured behavioral, affective, and physiological components at one point in time, so they do not have the means to measure whether these components remain stable across development. The authors recommend that future research include more diverse samples of children as this study was primarily of White children from middle to upper socioeconomic status families making it difficult to generalize the findings.
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This work was supported by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Doctoral Award, an Elizabeth Munsterberg Koppitz Fellowship from the American Psychological Foundation, and funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
Summarized from Child Development, Latent profiles of children’s shyness: behavioral, affective, and physiological components by Poole, K.L. and Schmidt, L.A. (McMaster University). Copyright 2023 The Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved.
JOURNAL
Child Development
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Observational study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
Latent profiles of children's shyness: Behavioral, affective, and physiological components
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
25-Apr-2023
Common ear, nose, and throat issues in pre-schoolers may be linked to later autism risk
Early identification and treatment of these conditions may improve their quality of life
Peer-Reviewed PublicationYoung children with common ear, nose, and throat (ENT) issues may be at subsequent risk of autism or high levels of demonstrable autism traits, suggests research published online in the open access journal BMJ Open.
Early identification and treatment of ENT conditions may improve these children’s quality of life and potentially help shed light on some of the origins of autism, say the researchers.
The causes of autism are likely to involve an interplay of genetic, environmental, and biological factors, and the origins of each autistic trait may also differ, note the researchers.
Previous research suggests that ENT conditions, such as ear infections, ‘glue ear’, and sleep disordered breathing, may have a role in the development of autism. But most of this evidence is based on health records, which may have biased these findings, because parents of children with suspected autism may be more likely than other parents to seek medical help for their offspring, explain the researchers.
To avoid this, the researchers drew on participants in the long term Children of the 90s study, also known as the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). This has tracked the health of more than 14,000 children since birth and that of their parents from the early 1990s onwards.
The current study is based on comprehensive data for more than 10,000 young children who were closely monitored throughout their first 4 years.
Their mothers completed 3 questionnaires when their children were aged 18, 30, and 42 months, which were designed to record the frequency of 9 different signs and symptoms relating to the ear, nose, and throat as well as any hearing problems.
They also completed 3 questionnaires when their children were just over 3, nearly 6, and 9 years old. These were designed to pinpoint speech coherence, social and communication issues, repetitive and abnormal behaviours, and sociability, traits which are characteristic of autism. A diagnosis of autism was confirmed from educational records and parental feedback, among other sources.
Adjustments were made for 10 potentially influential ‘environmental’ factors: early or late birth; sex; number of mother’s previous pregnancies resulting in a live or stillbirth; breast feeding; postnatal depression; mother’s educational achievements; mother’s smoking at 18 weeks of pregnancy; mother’s belief in her own agency; child’s exposure to environmental tobacco smoke at 15 months; child’s attendance at a crèche/other daycare by the age of 30 months.
In all, 177 children had a probable diagnosis of autism:139 boys and 38 girls. Those with autism traits were defined as the 10% of the sample with the highest trait scores.
Early evidence of breathing through the mouth, snoring, ear pulling or poking, reddened and sore ears, worse hearing during a cold, and rarely listening were all more commonly associated with high scores on each of the 4 autism traits, and with a diagnosis of autism.
Pus or sticky discharge from the ears was also associated with autism and with poor coherent speech.
Among the different ages tested, strong associations were particularly observed when the child was aged 30 and 42 months. Children with high scores on autistic traits at 30 months had more ENT signs. Autism itself was significantly associated with all signs except for symptoms of sleep apnoea (interrupted breathing during sleep).
Factoring in the 10 environmental features made little difference to the results. For example, children with discharge from their ears were more than 3 times as likely to have autism, while those with impaired hearing during a cold were more than twice as likely to do so. And children who failed to react to nearby noise were more than 6 times as likely to have autism at this age.
However, the researchers point out: ** “These ENT signs and symptoms are very common in childhood and most children who experience them do not go on to be diagnosed with autism. For example, of the group of around 1700 children who snored at age 30 months, most (1660) weren’t diagnosed with autism later on.”
The researchers acknowledge various limitations, including the loss of some children to subsequent monitoring, as is the case with any long term study, and the lack of ethnic diversity among the Children of the 90s participants, limiting the wider applicability of the findings.
What’s more, the children weren’t examined consistently to determine a diagnosis of autism; rather, a strategy to assess the probability of a diagnosis using a variety of different sources was used instead.
But they nevertheless conclude that the associations they found “may be important because (1) these ear and respiratory signs may be early markers of increased risk of autism, (2) they may inform the origins of autism, or (3) they may highlight co-occurring conditions that if treated may lead to a better quality of life for children with autism.”
They add: “This study adds to the evidence that, compared with a typical population of the same age, early ear and upper respiratory symptoms are more common in those subsequently diagnosed with autism or with extreme levels of autistic traits.”
But they caution: “It is not possible to determine whether these ENT conditions have a causal role in the development of autistic traits or are related to an unmeasured factor.
“One possibility, for example, could be the consequence of the increased prevalence of minor physical anomalies in individuals with autism, including anatomical differences in the structure and/or positioning of the ear, with such differences in ear morphology increasing the risk of ENT conditions.”
JOURNAL
BMJ Open
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Observational study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
Associations between autistic traits and early ear and upper respiratory signs: a prospective observational study of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) geographically defined childhood population
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
24-Apr-2023
