The relationship between attentional bias and anxiety in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders.
Anxiety in autistic kids does not show the threat-stare bias seen in typical anxiety, so screen and treat through sensory and social lenses instead.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team compared anxious attention in autistic and neurotypical kids. They used a dot-probe task to see if anxious youth looked longer at scary pictures. All kids also filled out anxiety checklists.
The goal was to test the classic idea that anxious people stare at threats. Most anxiety studies show this bias. The team wanted to know if autistic kids follow the same pattern.
What they found
Autistic youth reported more anxiety than peers. Yet they did not stare at threat pictures any longer than neutral ones. Higher anxiety scores did not link to more threat looking.
In typical anxiety disorders, anxious kids usually show the bias. In this sample, the bias was missing. Anxiety in ASD may run on a different track.
How this fits with other research
Franke et al. (2026) later tracked eye movements while kids viewed emotional faces. They found that socially anxious autistic kids looked less at eyes, not more at threats. Together the two papers show anxiety shifts gaze away from social cues, not toward danger.
Capio et al. (2013) studied the same age group the same year. They found that poor social ties and milder ASD symptoms predicted higher anxiety. Their results line up: when social connection is weak, anxiety rises, but attention does not lock onto threat.
Bitsika et al. (2020) showed that sensory avoiding links ASD symptoms to parent-rated anxiety. The 2013 null bias finding now makes sense: sensory avoiding, not threat staring, may drive the anxiety you see on your caseload.
Why it matters
Do not assume an anxious autistic child will show classic threat bias. Standard cognitive-bias tasks may miss their worry. Instead, ask about sensory avoiding, social disconnection, and parent-child anxiety rating gaps. Target these routes in your intervention plan.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Young people with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are more likely to have heightened levels of anxiety compared with their typically developing (non-ASD) peers. The reasons for this are poorly understood, and there has been little research investigating the cognitive correlates of anxiety in individuals with ASD. Typically developing youth with anxiety disorders have frequently been found to show an attentional bias toward threatening information. In this study, we examined whether such a bias was also found in young people with ASD and anxiety symptoms. The protocol utilized two versions of the dot-probe paradigm, the first with emotional faces and the second with emotional words. Participants comprised 38 boys with an ASD and 41 typically developing controls aged 10-16 years of age. Those with an ASD displayed higher levels of parent- and child-rated anxiety (both P < 0.001) and depression (P < 0.001) compared with controls. However, there were no significant group differences in attentional bias scores and no significant relationship between anxiety and attentional bias in either the face or word tasks, for either group. Our findings suggest that, for young people with ASD, unlike non-ASD individuals with an anxiety disorder, high levels of anxiety may not be associated with attentional bias to threat. This may indicate that anxiety in ASD has different cognitive correlates from anxiety in the typically developing population. Further conclusions, study limitations, and future directions are discussed.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2013 · doi:10.1002/aur.1285