The Relation of Parental Emotion Regulation to Child Autism Spectrum Disorder Core Symptoms: The Moderating Role of Child Cardiac Vagal Activity

This study investigated the role of parental emotion regulation (ER) on children’s core symptoms in families of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in middle childhood; the study also explored whether children’s physiological ER functioning served as a risk or protective factor with respect to parental relationships. Thirty-one Chinese children with ASD (age 6–11) and their primary caregivers participated in this study. Parental ER and child ASD symptoms were collected via questionnaires from parents. Child cardiac vagal activity (derived from heart rate variability) was measured at rest and during a parent-child interaction task. Using moderation analyses, the results showed that parental ER was not directly associated with children’s core ASD symptoms; rather, it interacted significantly with children’s resting cardiac vagal activity, but not task-related changes of cardiac vagal activity, to exert an impact on children’s core ASD symptoms. Specifically, our findings suggested that parents’ difficulties with their own ER significantly impacted their children’s core ASD symptoms only for the children who showed blunted resting cardiac vagal activity. Implications for the future measurement of ER in the family context and future directions for intervention are discussed.