In this article we explore Gross’ (1998) Process Model of Emotion Regulation and seek to discover how it may inform school staff about emotional regulation and children with autism. This small-scale study, which was conducted as part of an undergraduate degree dissertation, centres on the staff in a special school who support three children with autism of primary school age. Data comprises interviews and questionnaires to staff and observations of the emotion regulation approaches the adults use and the children’s self-regulation strategies they developed. As we seek insight into Staff members’ implementation of emotion regulation strategies, we also aim to determine the children’s developmental stages of self-regulation and if there are any such stages, therefore, we not only seek to offer potential reasons for why emotional dysregulation occurs in the children but put forward alternative suggestions of strategies that potentially enable the children’s metacognition development. We also aim to determine a clear structure for increased staff understanding. Our findings show that adults use supportive child centred strategies unique to each child. These support strategies, however, also reveal three staff traits which can be learned, namely staff experience, knowledge of the child and knowledge of evidenced based regulation strategies. Furthermore, our findings emphasise the benefits of a good in-school support system for staff that includes peer observations, discussions about the children amongst staff members, and staff taking an objective stance about the children and emotional regulation support in the classroom. Our recommendations centre on a deeper understanding of staff needs for collegiality and increased staff knowledge and practice of regulatory processes. Overall, we find that Gross’ model is a useful tool to understand emotional regulation and children with autism at the school.

University of Northampton Waterside campus University drive Northampton

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