Understanding, expressing, and interacting: the development of emotional functioning in young children with autism

Li, B. (2021)

Doctoral Thesis

This thesis investigated the development of emotional functioning in 2-to-6-year-old children with and without autism. Whereas autistic children experienced more challenges in the emotional domain, their emotional abilities improved with age, and developed in similar ways as observed in non-autistic children. On the one hand, this thesis showed that autistic children might deal with emotions in a different way, and they might experience various difficulties when communicating emotions with non-autistic people. One the other hand, it is important to note that the difficulties could be bidirectional. As stated by the “double empathy problem”, non-autistic people may experience the same difficulties when communicating with autistic people. This could be a meaningful direction for future research, investigating emotional communication as a two-way interaction rather than focusing only on how people with autism react to people without autism. Furthermore, this thesis showed that autistic children had the potential to learn and to develop in the emotional domain. Again, this points to the importance of investigating how to create an inclusive social environment, which is not only nurturing for children without autism, but can also benefit the development of children with autism and with other special needs.

• Autism
• Early childhood
• Emotion recognition
• Emotion expression
• Moral emotion
• Empathy
• Behavioural problem
• Development
• Longitudinal

• All authors: Li, B.
• Supervisor: Rieffe, C.J.
• Co-supervisor: Greaves-Lord, K.; Blijd-Hoogewys, E.M.A.
• Committee: Staal, W.G.; Vermeiren, R.R.J.M.; Yi, L.; Miers, A.C.
• Qualification: Doctor (dr.)
• Awarding Institution: Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Leiden University
• Date: 2021-11-10
• ISBN (print): 9789464235227