Interoception and emotion in autistic and non-autistic children and adolescents

Abstract

This thesis focuses on interoception and emotion in children and adolescents. Whilst
 the origin of emotion has been an area of debate for many decades, it is widely agreed
that interoception, a term that encompasses the processes by which individuals sense,
interpret, and regulate signals from inside the body (Chen et al., 2021), plays a key role
in emotional experience. Interoception is arguably vital for identifying and interpreting
emotion in oneself and in others (Critchley &Garfinkel, 2017; Herbert et al., 2011). The
thesis consists of an introduction to the wider context and current research, a
systematic literature review, and an empirical report, with the overarching purpose of
adding to the growing body of literature that aims to increase understanding of the
contribution of interoception to emotional processes in children and adolescents.

Childhood and adolescence are critical periods of time for the development of
emotion regulation skills (Silvers, 2022). Given the role of interoception in emotion, the
systematic literature review included in this thesis aims to explore the association
between interoception and emotion regulation in children and adolescents. The review
examines the results of five quantitative papers exploring the relationship between the
different dimensions of interoception and varying emotion regulation strategies and
outcomes. Though limited, the evidence available is beginning to demonstrate a
relationship between the two facets in middle childhood and adolescence.

Sensory differences, including interoceptive differences, are often present for
autistic individuals and it is well-established that anxiety is a common occurrence for
autistic adolescents. There is an increasing understanding of the role interoception
plays in experiences of anxiety, and research is beginning to explore this relationship
with autistic groups. Given the role it plays in emotional processing, alexithymia is also
theorised to be involved in the interaction between interoception and anxiety in autistic
adolescents. Therefore, the empirical portion of this thesis aims to contribute to our
understanding of anxiety in autistic adolescents by exploring the relationships between
interoception, alexithymia, and anxiety in a sample of autistic adolescents.

Implications for practice are discussed further within each of the respective
chapters. It is hoped that further understanding the relationship between interoception
and emotion could help those working with children and adolescents to support the
development of their emotion regulation skills, and autistic adolescents with anxiety
management and reduction.

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