Relationships between autism spectrum disorder and intolerance of uncertainty.
Emotion dysregulation—not anxiety—drives fear of the unknown in youth with ASD.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team looked at 8- to young learners with autism. They asked: Does poor emotion control predict fear of the unknown even after we remove anxiety?
Kids filled out short surveys on emotion control, anxiety, and how much they hate not knowing what comes next. The researchers then ran the numbers.
What they found
Emotion meltdowns, not anxiety scores, best predicted how much a child hated uncertainty. The link stayed strong even when anxiety was held still.
In plain words: a child who slams doors when plans change will likely panic in new places, even if they score low on regular worry tests.
How this fits with other research
Meier et al. (2012) warned that autism and social phobia look alike. Their tip: check emotion recognition gaps, not just worry reports. The new study agrees—autism brings its own flavor of distress.
Edgin et al. (2017) saw that teens with mild ID read neutral faces as mean when they feel anxious. Our paper flips the lens: kids with ASD react to uncertain events, not just social ones.
English et al. (1995) split autism into four behavior clusters. The 2018 finding adds a fresh marker—intolerance of uncertainty tied to emotion spikes—that could refine those clusters.
Why it matters
Stop blaming every meltdown on anxiety. Track how the child handles surprise schedule changes. Add mini previews, visual timers, and coping scripts for new tasks. You may cut problem behavior without touching classic anxiety treatments.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
UNLABELLED: Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) is a dispositional risk factor involving maladaptive responding under conditions of uncertainty. Recent data indicate that IU is likely elevated in youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and is positively correlated with anxiety. This study examined whether IU may be associated with ASD independent of anxiety. Relationships between anxiety, ASD, and IU were examined in 57 children with ASD without co-occurring intellectual disability and 32 control participants, ages 7-16 years. Hierarchal linear regressions were run to examine whether ASD variables, including emotion dysregulation, were predictive of IU when controlling for anxiety. Severity of social communication deficits, repetitive behaviors, and emotion dysregulation were each related to IU when controlling for the effects of anxiety. When these variables were entered into the regression model together, emotion dysregulation was the only significant predictor of IU. These findings suggest that IU is directly related to features of ASD possibly due to shared genetic, neurological, or psychological underpinnings. Autism Res 2018, 11: 636-644. © 2018 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: Youth with ASD without co-occurring intellectual disability experience high levels of intolerance of uncertainty (IU), which is related to anxiety. This study found that IU may also have a relationship with certain aspects of ASD, particularly emotion dysregulation.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2018 · doi:10.1002/aur.1916