The overall effectiveness of game-based interventions is also supported by recent research. A meta-analysis of game-based interventions for children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) shows a significant positive effect on social skills, social behavior, and cognition, but less clear effects on language expression, anxiety, and parenting-related outcomes. This indicates that the more stable effects of game interventions might appear in the domains of social interaction and cognitive engagement, whereas the improvement of emotional anxiety or deeper emotional distress may not be achievable through game activities alone. For your study, if the focus is on the emotional regulation of young children with special needs, board games should not be described as a comprehensive intervention for all emotional problems. Instead, focus on observable emotional regulation behaviors in the game context, such as waiting, taking turns, accepting wins and losses, reducing conflict, and returning to participation.

In empirical research closer to board games, Lok, Chiang, Lin, and Jiang explored the relationship between a board game intervention and board game behaviors and social communication in children with autism in general education classrooms in Macau. Using a repeated measures design, the study showed that the average frequency of social communication per session during the intervention was significantly higher than before and after the intervention. However, the study also found no significant difference in unprompted board game behaviors between the intervention period and the pre- and post-tests. This suggests that while board games may help increase opportunities for social communication, promoting spontaneous and stable game participation and emotional regulation behaviors requires clear prompts, modeling, reinforcement, and generalization arrangements.

Digital game studies related to emotional regulation can also serve as a reference for designing board game interventions. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis of digital interventions for emotional regulation in children and adolescents indicated that included studies feature digital games, biofeedback, virtual or augmented reality, and multimedia or program interventions, with digital games being the most frequently evaluated format. The study points out that the most consistent evidence comes from digital games, which can reduce negative emotion-related outcomes in children and adolescents. Although digital games differ from physical board games in terms of media, interaction style, and degree of adult guidance, both utilize game rules, task challenges, and immediate feedback to facilitate emotional regulation learning. Therefore, your study can borrow from the design spirit of digital game interventions by designing task challenges, emotional phrase practice, turn-waiting, and feedback mechanisms within board games as elements for teaching emotional regulation.

A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis on serious games supporting emotional regulation strategies for children and adolescents aimed to analyze their effectiveness, feasibility, and acceptability. This research shows that gamified media are increasingly being applied in emotional regulation education programs, not just for academic learning or recreational activities. For your study, this supports positioning board games as a teaching medium for emotional regulation, rather than merely a reward or warm-up activity.

Furthermore, a trauma-informed, game-based social-emotional learning program also indicated that games can be designed as an intervention tool to improve emotional regulation, coping strategies, and interpersonal skills. Although the participants were students in grades 5-9, an age group older than young children, the design logic of "practicing emotional regulation, coping, and interpersonal interaction through games" can still serve as a conceptual reference for board game interventions for young children with special needs. In early childhood teaching, teachers can translate this concept into more concrete, brief, and visual activities, such as emotion picture cards, waiting prompt cards, alternative phrases after winning or losing, and positive feedback after completing a turn.

Research also points out that board games can be a medium for autistic individuals to build social relationships and face challenges. In one study, 28 autistic individuals participated in group board game activities, and a subsequent focus group analysis showed that while board games are challenging, they also promote growth and serve as an alternative pathway for building social relationships. This is relevant to teaching emotional regulation to young children with special needs, as emotional regulation often occurs in interpersonal and challenging situations, and board games provide a concrete and repeatable practice context for these social challenges.

What Past Research Says

• Past research generally agrees that game activities provide opportunities to practice communication, perspective-taking, emotion recognition, emotional regulation, and cooperative interaction.
• Game-based interventions have a positive effect on social skills, social behavior, and cognition in children and adolescents with ASD, but the effects on anxiety, language expression, and parenting-related outcomes are less clear.
• A board game intervention can increase the frequency of social communication in children with autism during activities, but does not necessarily automatically improve unprompted board game behaviors.
• Digital game interventions have more evidence in emotional regulation research for children and adolescents, with more consistent results showing a reduction in negative emotion-related outcomes.
• Serious games have been used for training emotional regulation strategies in educational settings, with research focusing on their effectiveness, feasibility, and acceptability.
• For autistic individuals, board games may simultaneously have challenging and social connection functions, offering an alternative pathway to build relationships and practice interaction.

Relationship to Your Research

• If your study explores board game interventions for "young children with special needs," existing research can support the rationale for using board games as a context for practicing social interaction and emotional regulation.
• If emotional regulation is your dependent variable, it is recommended to operationalize it as observable behaviors in the game, such as waiting for a turn, accepting wins and losses, returning to participation after frustration, and expressing emotions or needs appropriately.
• Since existing board game research shows that social communication may increase but unprompted game behaviors do not necessarily improve significantly, your study should design clear teaching supports, such as visual cues, adult modeling, peer modeling, verbal prompts, reinforcement, and prompt fading.
• Because evidence from game-based interventions on emotional outcomes like anxiety is unstable, your study should not over-claim that board games can comprehensively improve emotional problems, but should focus on emotional regulation performance in the game context.
• Currently, there is a shortage of DOI-based empirical research from the last 10 years directly intersecting "young children with special needs," "physical board games," and "emotional regulation." Therefore, your study has value in filling an empirical gap in early childhood special education.

An Integrated Paragraph You Can Use Directly in Your Thesis

Synthesizing recent research, the relationship between board game intervention and emotional regulation can be understood from two angles: "situational elicitation" and "strategy practice." Firstly, board games contain waiting, turn-taking, rule adherence, cooperative competition, and outcomes of winning and losing. These processes naturally evoke anticipation, frustration, excitement, or disappointment in young children, thus providing teachers with authentic contexts for observing and intervening in emotional regulation. Secondly, through clear rules, visual materials, adult prompts, and immediate feedback, board games can assist children with special needs in practicing expressing emotions, waiting, accepting failure, and returning to participation within the game.

Empirical research shows that a board game intervention can increase social communication among children with autism during the activity, but unprompted board game behaviors do not necessarily improve significantly with the intervention. This finding reminds researchers that board games are not automatically effective; the intervention program must still include clear teaching procedures and support strategies. Therefore, if your study targets young children with special needs, you should plan for visual cues, modeling, reinforcement, prompt fading, and situation generalization within the intervention to increase the likelihood of children displaying emotional regulation behaviors in the game.

Additionally, a meta-analysis of game-based interventions points out that game interventions have a positive effect on social skills, social behavior, and cognition in children and adolescents with ASD, but less clear effects on outcomes like anxiety and language expression. This indicates that board games are more suitable as a medium for promoting interactive participation and practicing emotional regulation, rather than a single treatment method for all emotional distress. Therefore, your study can focus on whether young children can wait, take turns, accept wins and losses, reduce conflict, express emotions appropriately, and rejoin the activity after frustration in a board game context.

Overall, research from the last 10 years supports game activities as a medium for training children's emotional regulation and social interaction, but studies directly targeting physical board games and emotional regulation in young children with special needs are still limited. Thus, building on the foundation of existing game-based interventions and board game research, your study can further examine whether emotional regulation behaviors in young children with special needs improve after a board game intervention, supplementing the currently lacking empirical evidence in early childhood special education.

References (APA 7th Edition)

The list below only contains citations where the DOI or source information is currently confirmed; materials where authors, full titles, or DOIs cannot be confirmed are not included as formal APA entries to prevent misattribution.

Lok, K. I., Chiang, H.-M., Lin, Y.-H., & Jiang, C. (2022). Trying a board game intervention on children with autism spectrum disorder in Macau: How do they react? International Journal of Developmental Disabilities, 70(3), 416–424. https://doi.org/10.1080/20473869.2022.2095861

Serious games to support emotional regulation strategies in educational intervention programs with children and adolescents: Systematic review and meta-analysis. (2025). Heliyon, 11(4), e42712. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2025.e42712

Limitations on Use

• Currently confirmed evidence shows that DOI-based empirical research from the last 10 years directly focusing on "physical board game intervention + young children with special needs + emotional regulation" is insufficient.
• Therefore, the literature review can use "board game intervention studies" and "game-based/serious game emotional regulation studies" to jointly support the research background, but the thesis should clearly explain that the media and populations in these studies are not entirely identical.

The overall effectiveness of game-based interventions is also supported by recent research. A meta-analysis of game-based interventions for children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) shows a significant positive effect on social skills, social behavior, and cognition, but less clear effects on language expression, anxiety, and parenting-related outcomes. This indicates that the more stable effects of game interventions might appear in the domains of social interaction and cognitive engagement, whereas the improvement of emotional anxiety or deeper emotional distress may not be achievable through game activities alone. For your study, if the focus is on the emotional regulation of young children with special needs, board games should not be described as a comprehensive intervention for all emotional problems. Instead, focus on observable emotional regulation behaviors in the game context, such as waiting, taking turns, accepting wins and losses, reducing conflict, and returning to participation.

In empirical research closer to board games, Lok, Chiang, Lin, and Jiang explored the relationship between a board game intervention and board game behaviors and social communication in children with autism in general education classrooms in Macau. Using a repeated measures design, the study showed that the average frequency of social communication per session during the intervention was significantly higher than before and after the intervention. However, the study also found no significant difference in unprompted board game behaviors between the intervention period and the pre- and post-tests. This suggests that while board games may help increase opportunities for social communication, promoting spontaneous and stable game participation and emotional regulation behaviors requires clear prompts, modeling, reinforcement, and generalization arrangements.

Digital game studies related to emotional regulation can also serve as a reference for designing board game interventions. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis of digital interventions for emotional regulation in children and adolescents indicated that included studies feature digital games, biofeedback, virtual or augmented reality, and multimedia or program interventions, with digital games being the most frequently evaluated format. The study points out that the most consistent evidence comes from digital games, which can reduce negative emotion-related outcomes in children and adolescents. Although digital games differ from physical board games in terms of media, interaction style, and degree of adult guidance, both utilize game rules, task challenges, and immediate feedback to facilitate emotional regulation learning. Therefore, your study can borrow from the design spirit of digital game interventions by designing task challenges, emotional phrase practice, turn-waiting, and feedback mechanisms within board games as elements for teaching emotional regulation.

A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis on serious games supporting emotional regulation strategies for children and adolescents aimed to analyze their effectiveness, feasibility, and acceptability. This research shows that gamified media are increasingly being applied in emotional regulation education programs, not just for academic learning or recreational activities. For your study, this supports positioning board games as a teaching medium for emotional regulation, rather than merely a reward or warm-up activity.

Furthermore, a trauma-informed, game-based social-emotional learning program also indicated that games can be designed as an intervention tool to improve emotional regulation, coping strategies, and interpersonal skills. Although the participants were students in grades 5-9, an age group older than young children, the design logic of "practicing emotional regulation, coping, and interpersonal interaction through games" can still serve as a conceptual reference for board game interventions for young children with special needs. In early childhood teaching, teachers can translate this concept into more concrete, brief, and visual activities, such as emotion picture cards, waiting prompt cards, alternative phrases after winning or losing, and positive feedback after completing a turn.

Research also points out that board games can be a medium for autistic individuals to build social relationships and face challenges. In one study, 28 autistic individuals participated in group board game activities, and a subsequent focus group analysis showed that while board games are challenging, they also promote growth and serve as an alternative pathway for building social relationships. This is relevant to teaching emotional regulation to young children with special needs, as emotional regulation often occurs in interpersonal and challenging situations, and board games provide a concrete and repeatable practice context for these social challenges.

What Past Research Says

• Past research generally agrees that game activities provide opportunities to practice communication, perspective-taking, emotion recognition, emotional regulation, and cooperative interaction.
• Game-based interventions have a positive effect on social skills, social behavior, and cognition in children and adolescents with ASD, but the effects on anxiety, language expression, and parenting-related outcomes are less clear.
• A board game intervention can increase the frequency of social communication in children with autism during activities, but does not necessarily automatically improve unprompted board game behaviors.
• Digital game interventions have more evidence in emotional regulation research for children and adolescents, with more consistent results showing a reduction in negative emotion-related outcomes.
• Serious games have been used for training emotional regulation strategies in educational settings, with research focusing on their effectiveness, feasibility, and acceptability.
• For autistic individuals, board games may simultaneously have challenging and social connection functions, offering an alternative pathway to build relationships and practice interaction.

Relationship to Your Research

• If your study explores board game interventions for "young children with special needs," existing research can support the rationale for using board games as a context for practicing social interaction and emotional regulation.
• If emotional regulation is your dependent variable, it is recommended to operationalize it as observable behaviors in the game, such as waiting for a turn, accepting wins and losses, returning to participation after frustration, and expressing emotions or needs appropriately.
• Since existing board game research shows that social communication may increase but unprompted game behaviors do not necessarily improve significantly, your study should design clear teaching supports, such as visual cues, adult modeling, peer modeling, verbal prompts, reinforcement, and prompt fading.
• Because evidence from game-based interventions on emotional outcomes like anxiety is unstable, your study should not over-claim that board games can comprehensively improve emotional problems, but should focus on emotional regulation performance in the game context.
• Currently, there is a shortage of DOI-based empirical research from the last 10 years directly intersecting "young children with special needs," "physical board games," and "emotional regulation." Therefore, your study has value in filling an empirical gap in early childhood special education.

An Integrated Paragraph You Can Use Directly in Your Thesis

Synthesizing recent research, the relationship between board game intervention and emotional regulation can be understood from two angles: "situational elicitation" and "strategy practice." Firstly, board games contain waiting, turn-taking, rule adherence, cooperative competition, and outcomes of winning and losing. These processes naturally evoke anticipation, frustration, excitement, or disappointment in young children, thus providing teachers with authentic contexts for observing and intervening in emotional regulation. Secondly, through clear rules, visual materials, adult prompts, and immediate feedback, board games can assist children with special needs in practicing expressing emotions, waiting, accepting failure, and returning to participation within the game.

Empirical research shows that a board game intervention can increase social communication among children with autism during the activity, but unprompted board game behaviors do not necessarily improve significantly with the intervention. This finding reminds researchers that board games are not automatically effective; the intervention program must still include clear teaching procedures and support strategies. Therefore, if your study targets young children with special needs, you should plan for visual cues, modeling, reinforcement, prompt fading, and situation generalization within the intervention to increase the likelihood of children displaying emotional regulation behaviors in the game.

Additionally, a meta-analysis of game-based interventions points out that game interventions have a positive effect on social skills, social behavior, and cognition in children and adolescents with ASD, but less clear effects on outcomes like anxiety and language expression. This indicates that board games are more suitable as a medium for promoting interactive participation and practicing emotional regulation, rather than a single treatment method for all emotional distress. Therefore, your study can focus on whether young children can wait, take turns, accept wins and losses, reduce conflict, express emotions appropriately, and rejoin the activity after frustration in a board game context.

Overall, research from the last 10 years supports game activities as a medium for training children's emotional regulation and social interaction, but studies directly targeting physical board games and emotional regulation in young children with special needs are still limited. Thus, building on the foundation of existing game-based interventions and board game research, your study can further examine whether emotional regulation behaviors in young children with special needs improve after a board game intervention, supplementing the currently lacking empirical evidence in early childhood special education.

References (APA 7th Edition)

The list below only contains citations where the DOI or source information is currently confirmed; materials where authors, full titles, or DOIs cannot be confirmed are not included as formal APA entries to prevent misattribution.

Lok, K. I., Chiang, H.-M., Lin, Y.-H., & Jiang, C. (2022). Trying a board game intervention on children with autism spectrum disorder in Macau: How do they react? International Journal of Developmental Disabilities, 70(3), 416–424. https://doi.org/10.1080/20473869.2022.2095861

Serious games to support emotional regulation strategies in educational intervention programs with children and adolescents: Systematic review and meta-analysis. (2025). Heliyon, 11(4), e42712. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2025.e42712

Limitations on Use

• Currently confirmed evidence shows that DOI-based empirical research from the last 10 years directly focusing on "physical board game intervention + young children with special needs + emotional regulation" is insufficient.
• Therefore, the literature review can use "board game intervention studies" and "game-based/serious game emotional regulation studies" to jointly support the research background, but the thesis should clearly explain that the media and populations in these studies are not entirely identical.