Wearables and behavioral coding show promise for measuring and predicting severe emotional outbursts in children

Introduction: Temper tantrums are common in early childhood. Severe emotional outbursts, however, are transdiagnostic, disruptive, and difficult to measure across settings, highlighting the need for better methods to identify and predict these components of emotion dysregulation. To address major methodological gaps, we propose a multimodal approach combining a retrospective electronic health record (EHR) analysis (Study 1) and a pilot wearable feasibility study (Study 2) to explore new ways of predicting and quantifying emotional outbursts in children enrolled in a therapeutic day program (TDP). Methods: In Study 1, we explored retrospective data collected from the EHR (historical patient data and hourly behavioral observations), trying to understand which variables might predict an outburst. In Study 2, wearable technology was employed to characterize outbursts leveraging free-living data collected during a typical day at a TDP. Moreover, we used these data to assess the future of possible outburst predictions among a clinical sample by analyzing the feasibility of such a technology. Results: < .001), from 6% for those with zero rough behaviors to 68% for those with two or more such behaviors. Wearable sensor data demonstrated high tolerability (all four children assented each of 3-5 days of participation for 5 h of wear) and minimal data loss (