Can parents with higher AQ score predict their child’s emotion understanding.

In this study our main objective was to analyse if parents with a higher autism quotient (AQ) score would be less likely to foresee their child’s emotional understanding abilities. 46 participants were included in this study, some were parents and some were children. The age of the child and the child’s AQ score were also investigated to dictate if these components also impact parents’ validity in predicting their child’s emotion understanding abilities. Emotion understanding can be assessed in children aged 3-11 with use of the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC, Pons & Harris, 2000). This specific test consists of nine elements: recognition, external cause, desire, belief, reminder, regulation, hiding, mixed and morality. The Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) is a self-managed questionnaire comprising of 50 questions. Both TEC and AQ were used for this research. Both parent and child participated in this study with the focus being on parents understanding of their child’s emotion understanding abilities. Completion of a Qualtrics survey and MS Teams video call were used to test emotion comprehension. Correlational analysis was used to study the data from the 46 participants results. Findings showed a positive correlation between adult AQ and child AQ as well as, between child’s age and TEC score. This shows that there is a relationship between parents’ AQ score and that of their child’s. There is a direct link with parents who have higher AQ scores having children with higher AQ scores. This confirms the belief that a parent with a higher AQ score will have a child with a higher AQ score. The findings also show that a child’s age does in fact affect their TEC score. As, predicted the older a child is the higher their level of emotion understanding.