Autism affects emotions by creating challenges with emotional regulation, understanding others' emotions (empathy), and expressing feelings, often leading to intense emotional experiences, anxiety, depression, burnout, and social isolation due to communication differences, as well as difficulties processing internal physical sensations of emotion (alexithymia). This can manifest as meltdowns, shutdowns, or masking, impacting relationships and daily life, but also includes difficulties with positive emotions like excitement.
Behaviors that are fairly common in children with autism, such as tantrums, hitting or injuring themselves or others, yelling, social withdrawal, and even extreme silliness, may stem from a problem with regulating emotions. And this difficulty may affect more than behavior.
Main signs of autism
finding it hard to understand what others are thinking or feeling. getting very anxious about social situations. finding it hard to make friends or preferring to be on your own. seeming blunt, rude or not interested in others without meaning to.
Autistic people may act in a different way to other people
find it hard to understand how other people think or feel. find things like bright lights or loud noises overwhelming, stressful or uncomfortable. get anxious or upset about unfamiliar situations and social events. take longer to understand information.
Autistic people have said that having routines and rituals, and planning and organising, can be ways of coping with stress, as they bring predictability and order to day-to-day life. Routines and rituals can help autistic people to: self-regulate or self-soothe (keep calm or calm down)
Around 90% of autism cases are attributed to genetic factors, meaning autism is highly heritable, with many different genes contributing, rather than a single cause, often interacting with environmental influences during early brain development, though specific environmental factors don't cause it but can increase risk. Twin studies show strong genetic links, with concordance rates between 60-90% in identical twins, and research points to complex interactions of many genes and prenatal/perinatal factors.
Tips for Talking to Adults on the Autism Spectrum
In general, people who have an active lifestyle are much more emotionally resilient and focused. There also seems to be some evidence that physical exercise helps people with depression and ADHD, which are commonly co-occurring conditions with autism.
Just like everyone, autistic people can have good mental health. However, according to the autism research charity Autistica, seven out of ten autistic people have a mental health condition such as anxiety, depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
There is not just one cause of ASD. Many different factors have been identified that may make a child more likely to have ASD, including environmental, biologic, and genetic factors.
Top 10 Calming Strategies for Autism
The "6-second rule" for autism is a communication strategy where a speaker pauses for about six seconds after asking a question or giving information, giving the autistic person extra time to process it without feeling rushed, which helps reduce anxiety and allows for a more thoughtful response, reducing frustration for both parties. Instead of repeating or rephrasing, which can be confusing, you wait, and if needed, repeat the exact same words after the pause.
When an autistic person is struggling to process too much information at one time, this can lead to feelings of high anxiety and overwhelm. These feelings can result in changes of behaviour that are often labelled meltdowns or shutdowns.
Your child may have experienced an autistic meltdown. These may look like a tantrum, with crying, trying to escape the situation and even aggressive behaviors and self-harm. It's important to know that a meltdown is not the same as a tantrum, and it's not a form of manipulation.
If you have low support needs (high-functioning autism), you may have symptoms such as: Not making direct eye contact. Having a hard time making friends (or preferring to be alone) Not understanding social “rules” or norms.
OTHER CHALLENGING ISSUES COMMON TO AUTISM
Conditions That Can Be Mistaken for Autism. These include: Speech delays, hearing problems, or other developmental delays: Developmental delays are when your child doesn't do things doctors expect kids their age to be able to do. These can include language, speech, or hearing problems.
5 common signs of autism in adults
People with Autism Spectrum Disorder need three basic factors for support: safety, acceptance, and competence. The focus has shifted from finding a cure to promoting acceptance and neurodiversity over the last two decades.
This state of hyper-arousal can lead to autistic people experiencing meltdowns or shutdowns as a result of being completely overwhelmed. Several autistic people have talked of experiencing alexithymia a difficulty identifying, understanding and describing emotions).
Do try to:
Slow Down. Another thing that's important to do when you experience conflict is slow down and take deep breaths. Fights happen so fast and can easily trigger intense emotional responses that make conflict worse. It actually can be helpful to even ask for some time to process how you are feeling.
Examples of literal thinking in autism
Common colloquial phrases are sometimes taken literally by autistic individuals, who may misunderstand the meaning. For example, if someone says, “Break a leg” or “Hit the books,” a literal thinker might take it as actually breaking a leg or physically striking their books.
Suppression of emotions
Recent research has discovered that autistic are most likely to utilize the coping mechanism of suppression for strong emotions, including depression, rather than other coping strategies such as seeking support or putting the problem in perspective.