Understanding and training emotion regulation in children and adolescents

Emotion regulation (ER)—the ability to change an emotional experience in relation to a desired emotional goal is linked to broad psychosocial outcomes. In addition, early adolescence presents a sensitive period in the malleability of ER processes and is a period of particular risk for ER difficulties and the development of psychopathology. Utilising a mixed methods approach, this thesis explores the use of ER skills through childhood and adolescence within the context of social functioning (study 1, chapter 2); and leading from this, the training of ER skills via digital intervention approaches (study 2, chapter 3). Chapter 4 applied the findings of chapters 2 and 3 by presenting the evidence and codesign informed development of a prototype novel digital game for training specific ER strategies in early adolescence. Results demonstrate the importance of the development and use of adaptive ER skills through childhood and adolescence, and that issues around engagement, access, acceptability, and stigma in traditional and wider-reaching preventative intervention frameworks may be addressed by training ER via codesigned digital games. The applied implications of the thesis centre around the importance of training ER via appropriately codesigned digital technology in broad samples of early adolescents to address negative social experiences and linked psychological outcomes

Digital interventions for emotion regulation in children and early adolescents:systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Difficulties in emotion regulation are common in adolescence and are associated with poor social and mental health outcomes. However, psychological therapies that promote adaptive emotion regulation may be inaccessible and unattractive to youth. Digital interventions may help address this need. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to synthesize evidence on the efficacy, feasibility, and acceptability of emotion regulation digital interventions in children and early adolescents aged 8 to 14 years. METHODS: Systematic searches of Web of Science, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, EMBASE, Education Resources Information Centre, ACM Digital Library, and IEEE Xplore up to July 2020 identified 39 studies, of which 11 (28%) were included in the meta-analyses (n=2476 participants). A bespoke tool was used to assess risk of bias. RESULTS: The studies evaluated digital games (27/39, 69%), biofeedback (4/39, 10%), virtual or augmented reality (4/39, 10%), and program or multimedia (4/39, 10%) digital interventions in samples classified as diagnosed, at risk, healthy, and universal. The most consistent evidence came from digital games, which reduced negative emotional experience with a small significant effect, largely in youth at risk of anxiety (Hedges g=–0.19, 95% CI –0.34 to –0.04). In general, digital interventions tended to improve emotion regulation, but this effect was not significant (Hedges g=0.19, 95% CI –0.16 to 0.54). CONCLUSIONS: Most feasibility issues were identified in diagnosed youth, and acceptability was generally high across intervention types and samples. Although there is cause to be optimistic about digital interventions supporting the difficulties that youth experience in emotion regulation, the predominance of early-stage development studies highlights the need for more work in this area