Rethinking Emotion Dysregulation in autism and ADHD: Building a transdiagnostic, cross-cultural model

Autism and ADHD are the two most prevalent neurodevelopmental conditions, with one in ten Australian children and youth diagnosed with autism, ADHD or both. Emotion dysregulation, defined as difficulties in adaptively managing or modifying emotions, is a prevalent feature of autism and ADHD. Emotion dysregulation negatively impacts personal, academic, and social relationships, is associated with reduced quality of life and confers additional risk for mental health conditions including anxiety and depression. Furthermore, while culture has a fundamental influence on how mental health is understood, current treatments that target emotion dysregulation are based on theoretical models of emotion regulation derived from predominantly Western perspectives. This project which will be co-designed with the lived and living experience community, will investigate cross-cultural perspectives of emotion dysregulation in children and youth with autism and ADHD. Nested within a larger MRFF-funded project, this project will involve collaborations with private and public health care clinics and the lived and living experience community. This project will produce translational research to guide service providers on how to culturally tailor interventions for emotion dysregulation, in children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and will represent the next step towards a new cross-cultural model of emotion dysregulation.