Emotion regulation in children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities

Children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities often experience emotion regulation difficulties. To comprehensively grasp their experiences, the process model of emotion regulation, might be applied. This model highlights five opportunities for emotion regulation: situation selection, situation modification, attentional deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation. The relevance of the process model has been examined in various populations, but its applicability to this demographic remains unknown. This dissertation aimed to address this gap. The methodology followed international guidelines for determining construct relevance. First, a systematic review of validated process model-based instruments for this population identified 10 measures aligned with the process model, but found none assessed all five domains. Second, a service provider survey (N = 122) confirmed the model’s practical relevance and the need for validated measurement instruments. Third, thematic analysis of the perspectives of children and adolescents (N = 17), teachers (N = 29), and parents (N = 20) supported the model’s applicability but suggested expanding the situation modification domain to better reflect their experiences. The process model largely encompasses the emotion regulation experiences of this population, but suitable measures are unavailable. These studies provide the basis from which process model-based instruments can be developed for this demographic.

Author dc:creator

• Girgis, Mary

Statement dc:rights

• info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
• The author owns the copyright in this thesis including all reproduction and reuse rights for the work. The work may not be altered without the permission of the copyright owner. Attribution is essential when quoting or paraphrasing from this thesis.
• ©2025 Mary Girgis
• au.edu.uts.lib/cph

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10453/189784

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:opus.lib.uts.edu.au:10453/189784