Improving emotion regulation ability in autism: The Emotional Awareness and Skills Enhancement (EASE) program.
A 16-week mindfulness-based therapy lifted emotion-regulation skills in verbal autistic teens.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team ran an open pilot of the EASE program. EASE stands for Emotional Awareness and Skills Enhancement.
It is a 16-week, one-to-one therapy that blends mindfulness and CBT.
All participants were verbal autistic teens with IQ scores above 80. The study tested if the program could boost emotion-regulation skills.
What they found
After the 16 weeks, teens showed clear gains in emotion regulation. Parents and clinicians also noticed fewer emotion-related problems.
The results support the idea that autistic adolescents can learn to manage big feelings when taught in a structured, mindful way.
How this fits with other research
Menezes et al. (2024) extends this work. They used Behavioral Activation for Autism (BA-A) with 12 sessions. Like EASE, BA-A helped teens feel better and improved social skills. BA-A adds a focus on depression, showing emotion work can hit more than one target.
Goulardins et al. (2013) is a predecessor. Their EEG study showed autistic teens process emotional faces differently. EASE builds on this by teaching skills that may help the brain use those faces better.
Wieckowski et al. (2020) seems to clash. They tried attention prompts during emotion videos and saw no objective gain in face reading. EASE, however, targets regulation, not recognition. The difference in goals explains the mixed findings.
Why it matters
You now have a ready-to-use 16-week script for verbal autistic teens who struggle with meltdowns or shutdowns. Pair EASE lessons with daily emotion check-ins. Track one clear target, like “uses coping phrase before escalation,” to see if the teen is moving forward.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Emotion regulation impairments are common among individuals with autism spectrum disorder and are believed to often underlie commonly seen problems with aggression, depression, and anxiety. The Emotional Awareness and Skills Enhancement program was developed to reduce emotion regulation impairment and thereby improve behavioral disturbance, via mindfulness. Emotional Awareness and Skills Enhancement consists of a 16-week individual therapy treatment targeting emotion regulation impairments among individuals with autism spectrum disorder. We describe the conceptual framework and development of the program and present data on feasibility and preliminary efficacy from a pilot trial. The Emotional Awareness and Skills Enhancement manual was developed using a participatory action framework, based on emotion regulation research specific to autism spectrum disorder and input from individuals with autism spectrum disorder, therapists, and parents of children with autism spectrum disorder. Emotional Awareness and Skills Enhancement was piloted in a two-site open trial with 20 participants with autism spectrum disorder (12-17 years old, confirmed autism spectrum disorder diagnosis, IQ > 80).Outcome data support program feasibility and acceptability to participants, as well as significant improvement in emotion regulation impairments and related concerns.Findings offer preliminary support for both the feasibility and clinical effectiveness of the Emotional Awareness and Skills Enhancement program.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2019 · doi:10.1177/1362361318810709