Associations Between Emotion Regulation and Social Impairment in Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The team asked parents of 145 autistic kids and teens how their child handles feelings.

Parents filled out two short surveys. One listed reappraisal tricks like ‘think of it differently.’ The other listed suppression tricks like ‘hide your feelings.’

Parents also rated how mild or severe their child’s social problems were.

Kids whose parents said they often use reappraisal had milder social trouble.

Suppression did not matter either way.

The link stayed strong even after the team counted age and IQ.

McAuliffe et al. (2017) ran PEERS social-skills groups for high-schoolers. Parents saw the same kind of gains. The new survey shows the gains may come from teens using more reappraisal during the group.

Ibrahim et al. (2021) went further. They gave 8- to 11-year-olds social-cognitive lessons while scanning their brains. Kids who gained medial-prefrontal ‘social-brain’ activity also gained real-life social skills. The survey hints that reappraisal use could be one daily behavior that keeps that brain area active.

Amodeo et al. (2025) tried sixteen weeks of Theory-of-Mind lessons. Only weak book-learning gains showed up, and parents saw no day-to-day change. The contrast is useful: teaching reappraisal may matter more than drilling mind-reading facts.

You can’t scan a brain every session, but you can ask, ‘What did you tell yourself when that happened?’ If the client draws a blank, model reappraisal on the spot: ‘Maybe she bumped you by accident.’ Then practice the new thought aloud. Over weeks, track parent notes on social mishaps. Fewer bumps, more friends.