Depression, Anxiety, and Hyperactivity in Youth with HFASD: A Replication and Extension of Symptom Level Differences in Self-Report Versus Parent Report.

The team asked 11- to young learners with high-functioning autism to fill out the same behavior checklists their parents completed. They also gave the forms to typical teens and their parents.

Each teen rated depression, anxiety, hyperactivity, attention, and odd behaviors. Parents did the same for their child. Then the researchers compared the two sets of scores.

Parents of HFASD youth saw far more problems than the teens saw in themselves. The gap was biggest for depression, anxiety, and attention issues.

Surprise: the HFASD teens’ self-scores looked just like the typical teens’ scores. If you only asked the kids, you would miss the elevated problems.

Kalyva (2010) found the same pattern for social-skills deficits in younger HFASD kids. Parents caught problems the children denied, so the new study extends the mismatch into adolescence and internalizing symptoms.

Whitehouse et al. (2014) showed mothers and fathers of ASD siblings already disagree with each other. Add the child’s view and you have a third, often lower, score.

Arpone et al. (2022) saw poor parent-clinician agreement in genetic disorders. Together these papers warn: single-informant ratings in neurodevelopmental cases can mislead treatment choices.

Before you write goals or pick interventions, collect both parent and teen reports. If only the parent flags depression or ADHD traits, dig deeper instead of assuming exaggeration. Use the teen’s view to build rapport, but let the parent data steer you toward targets that actually need support.