Children between the ages of 8 years 0 months and 15 years 11 months with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and emotion dysregulation (ED) and their caregivers will participate in 5 research visits and 10 group intervention sessions. They are randomly assigned to either Regulating Together-Standard group (no dog), or Regulating Together-Canine group (with dog). Characterization measures will be completed at Screen (T1). All outcome measures will be completed at Baseline (T2), Post-treatment (1-2 weeks following treatment completion, T3), 10 week post treatment completion follow up (T4), and 6 month post treatment completion follow up (T5).
The primary objective is to evaluate the potential additive effect of animal-assisted intervention (AAI) on a manualized behavioral treatment targeting emotion dysregulation (ED) in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).~Aim 1: Evaluate whether Regulating Together-Canine demonstrates earlier and greater improvement in emotion dysregulation than Regulating Together-Standard.~Aim 2: Evaluate if Regulating Together-Canine increases child engagement and learning compared to Regulating Together-Standard.~Exploratory Aim: Explore association of physiological arousal (via heart rate tracking) with emotion dysregulation, treatment engagement, and learning.