The Emotion Regulation Checklist with Young Autistic Children: Data Set for Comparative Use in Intervention Studies.

Berkovits et al. (2025) tracked 98 autistic children aged 4–8 for ten months. None were in therapy. Parents filled out the Emotion Regulation Checklist every few weeks.

The team averaged the scores to show how emotion regulation changes without treatment. The paper gives these norms so future studies have a clear baseline.

The kids showed only tiny ups and downs on the checklist. Month-to-month change was small and stayed within a narrow band.

These numbers now serve as the no-treatment benchmark. If a child in therapy beats this band, you can be more sure the therapy, not time, caused the gain.

Berkovits et al. (2017) looked at the same age group and measure. They found emotion dysregulation stayed flat and predicted later behavior problems. The new 2025 data match that flat line, turning the old stability finding into a usable benchmark.

Thomson et al. (2015) and Anthony et al. (2020) both tested CBT emotion-regulation programs. Their kids got better, but they had no untreated group to compare against. Now you can lay their gains on top of the 2025 flat line and see if change is real.

Uljarević et al. (2018) showed poor self-regulation predicts weak adaptive skills. The 2025 norms let you decide if a toddler’s score is truly low or just typical for age, sharpening that prediction.

Stop guessing what “normal” emotion regulation looks like in young autistic clients. Print the 10-month norm table, circle the child’s age band, and set your goal one band above. After eight weeks of intervention, re-score and see if you beat the no-treatment line. If you do, keep going; if not, tweak your program.