A control device for an automatic transmission of a vehicle includes a shift control section including; a deceleration state judging section configured to judge whether a deceleration of the vehicle is a gentle deceleration state or a sudden deceleration state, and a downshift control section configured to command a plural stage downshift to downshift from a current shift stage of the automatic shift mechanism to a target shift stage that is lower than the current shift stage by two stages or more when the deceleration state judging section judges the sudden deceleration state.