Autistic traits and internet gaming addiction in Chinese children: The mediating effect of emotion regulation and school connectedness.

The team followed Chinese grade-school kids for one year. They asked: do autistic traits lead to gaming addiction later?

They measured emotion regulation and how much each child felt they belonged at school. These two factors sat in the middle of the chain.

Design was quasi-experimental: same kids, two time points, no random assignment.

Kids with more autistic traits were more likely to become hooked on internet games twelve months later.

The path ran through weaker emotion skills and lower school belonging. When both mediators dropped, gaming risk rose.

Ferron et al. (2023) extends the story. They swapped the outcome to anxiety and depression in verbally fluent autistic adults. Self-compassion took the mediator seat, showing the same indirect pattern across age and diagnosis.

Pitchford et al. (2019) look similar on the surface: autistic traits predict adult anxiety. But they name sensory over-responsivity and daily stress as the engines, not school belonging. The difference is age and mechanism, not a true clash.

Deserno et al. (2017) also find thwarted belonging driving suicidality in young adults. Sha’s paper mirrors the belonging link, yet points to gaming instead of self-harm, giving you two early-warning flags to watch.

You now have a clear line to spot at-risk learners before gaming steals sleep and therapy time. Boost emotion-regulation drills and weave the child into school clubs or peer jobs. Small social anchors today can head off big screen battles tomorrow.