September 27, As our children grow, learning how to deal with autism anger in adults becomes essential. Skills learned in childhood need to be adapted and practiced throughout adulthood.
Social skills groups, play and art therapy, and social-emotional learning in schools support children in growing and adapting to the world around them and keeping anger at bay. Anger, however, does not simply vanish in our children with ASD when they enter adulthood. Youth may adapt skills and mature to handle the specter of anger. However, anger management is a skill that must be practiced and adapted as they grow to be fully efficacious.
Download your FREE guide on. Autism Behavior Interventions. It is important to note that autistic adults, much like children on the spectrum, may have challenges with comprehension of subtle emotional shifts in themselves and others. One issue with autism and anger is a lack of research on anger issues specific to adults on the spectrum. That being said, it is critical to note that anger is never the sole emotion that adults with ASD experience. In other words, they will feel anger triggered by another core emotion, such as frustration, fear, disappointment, or sadness.
Because of that, when exploring anger, we must voyage deeper into the base core of emotions from which the anger stems. When autistic adults get angry, they often hyper-fixate on what caused their frustration. They might think about past problems, their own perceived limitations, or the people or situations they feel are responsible for their anger.
They often become very alert to situations that they think cause these unpleasant feelings and try their best to avoid similar scenarios entirely.
