Parent and Teacher Reports of Comorbid Anxiety and ADHD Symptoms in Children with ASD.

Llanes et al. (2020) asked parents and teachers to rate the same preschool and early-elementary children with autism. They wanted to see how often each adult group reported anxiety and ADHD symptoms.

The team compared the two sets of answers to find out how much parents and teachers agreed.

Parents saw more anxiety and ADHD than teachers. Parent anxiety reports ran from 31 to 50 percent, while teacher reports ran from 5 to 30 percent. Parent ADHD reports ran from 22 to 45 percent, while teacher reports ran from 20 to 24 percent.

Agreement between the two adults was low for both symptom sets.

Salazar et al. (2015) already showed that nine in ten young autistic children have at least one extra psychiatric disorder. Llanes et al. (2020) extend that work by showing the numbers change depending on who you ask.

Thompson et al. (2018) found the same low agreement pattern for social skills and behavior problems in preschoolers with autism. Llanes et al. (2020) confirm the pattern holds for anxiety and ADHD as well.

Szatmari et al. (1994) warned that stressed parents may over-report symptoms. Llanes et al. (2020) do not test stress directly, but their higher parent numbers fit the older warning.

Before you add an anxiety or ADHD goal to a young client's plan, collect both parent and teacher data. Low agreement means one viewpoint can miss or inflate symptoms. Use the mismatch as a cue to observe the child in both settings or run a brief functional analysis. This simple step keeps you from treating problems that only show up at home or only at school.