Parenting Practices and Emotional Regulation in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Mediated Moderation Model of Sibling Prosocial Behavior and Gender

Abstract

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) frequently struggle with emotion regulation, which can be influenced by parental practices and the supportive role of siblings in encouraging emotional and social development. The study aimed to examine the relationship between parenting practices and emotional regulation of children with ASD and to explore the mediating role of the prosocial behavior of siblings between parenting practices and emotional regulation in children with ASD. Additionally, this study investigated the moderating role of sibling gender in the relationship between prosocial behavior and emotional regulation. A total of 600 parents/caregivers aged 25–40 years (M = 32.91, SD = 4.23) of children with ASD were selected from special education institutes in Lahore, Pakistan, using a non-probability, purposive sampling method. Although the majority of respondents were mothers (94.5%), the term parenting practices is used to reflect a family-level caregiving construct rather than exclusively maternal behavior. Data were interpreted through IBM SPSS Statistics 23 and PROCESS macros, revealing that authoritative parenting had a significant positive relation with emotional regulation in children with ASD. Results also indicated that the prosocial behavior of siblings partially mediated the relationship between authoritative parenting and emotional regulation in children with ASD. Furthermore, sibling gender significantly moderated the indirect effect, with female siblings showing stronger facilitation of emotional regulation through prosocial behaviors compared to male siblings.