Lagging skills contribute to challenging behaviors in children with autism spectrum disorder without intellectual disability

• Main Authors: Armour, A.C (Author), Cleary, P. (Author), Guy, L. (Author), Kenworthy, L. (Author), Kuschner, E.S (Author), Maddox, B.B (Author), Miller, J.S (Author), Schultz, R.T (Author), Yerys, B.E (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publications Ltd 2018
• Subjects: adolescent; Adolescent; aggression; alpha 2 adrenergic receptor stimulating agent; anxiolytic agent; Article; atypical antipsychotic agent; autism; autism spectrum disorder; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Behavior Assessment System for Children; behavior rating inventory of executive function; challenging behavior; challenging behaviors; child; Child; child parent relation; cognitive–behavioral treatment; depression; DSM-IV-TR; emotion; emotion regulation; emotionality; Emotions; ethnicity; executive function; Executive Function; executive function test; female; Female; human; Humans; individual behavior assessment; intelligence quotient; lagging skill; language; language development; Language Development; major clinical study; male; Male; mood stabilizer; Parents; priority journal; problem behavior; Problem Behavior; psychology; Repetitive Behavior Scale; sameness; self control; Self-Control; serotonin uptake inhibitor; social competence; social environment; Social Environment; Social Responsiveness Scale; Social Skills; tricyclic antidepressant agent; triple reuptake inhibitor; Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale
• Online Access: View Fulltext in Publisher

 Many children with autism spectrum disorder display challenging behaviors. These behaviors are not limited to those with cognitive and/or language impairments. The Collaborative and Proactive Solutions framework proposes that challenging behaviors result from an incompatibility between environmental demands and a child’s “lagging skills.” The primary Collaborative and Proactive Solutions lagging skills—executive function, emotion regulation, language, and social skills—are often areas of weakness for individuals with autism spectrum disorder. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether these lagging skills are associated with challenging behaviors in youth with autism spectrum disorder without intellectual disability. Parents of 182 youth with autism spectrum disorder (6–15 years) completed measures of their children’s challenging behaviors, executive function, language, emotion regulation, and social skills. We tested whether the Collaborative and Proactive Solutions lagging skills predicted challenging behaviors using multiple linear regression. The Collaborative and Proactive Solutions lagging skills explained significant variance in participants’ challenging behaviors. The Depression (emotion regulation), Inhibit (executive function), and Sameness (executive function) scales emerged as significant predictors. Impairments in emotion regulation and executive function may contribute substantially to aggressive and oppositional behaviors in school-age youth with autism spectrum disorder without intellectual disability. Treatment for challenging behaviors in this group may consider targeting the incompatibility between environmental demands and a child’s lagging skills. © The Author(s) 2017.