Characterizing Inhibitory Control Challenges Among Autistic Adults: An Examination of Demographic and Psychiatric Moderators and Associations with Anxiety Symptomatology.
Emotion regulation is the shared driver of anxiety and depression in autistic teens and young adults, while cognitive inflexibility is an extra depression-only target.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Baker et al. (2025) asked which thinking skills drive anxiety and depression in autistic teens and young adults. They measured emotion regulation, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control. Then they checked which skills best predicted anxiety and depression scores.
What they found
Poor emotion regulation predicted both anxiety and depression. Trouble switching rules, called cognitive inflexibility, only predicted depression. Inhibitory control added no extra power once emotion regulation was counted.
How this fits with other research
Harrop et al. (2024) looked at autistic youth and saw that everyday rigidity on the BIS predicted anxiety. K et al. now show that rule-switching trouble predicts depression, not anxiety, in an older group. The two studies line up: rigidity matters, but the mood outcome changes with age.
Karaca et al. (2026) pooled 42 studies and found moderate inhibition deficits in autistic adults. K et al. agree inhibition can be weak, but show the weakness does not explain anxiety once emotion skills are in the model. The older work measured lab tasks; the new work links real-life symptoms.
Hutchins et al. (2020) saw that autistic emerging adults used more involuntary emotion regulation. K et al. move past description and show that trait emotion regulation is the top predictor of both anxiety and depression, giving clinicians a clear target.
Why it matters
If you serve autistic teens or young adults, start by teaching emotion-regulation skills such as labeling feelings and using coping plans. Add flexibility drills like shifting tasks or changing rules only if depression is the main concern. You can skip broad inhibition training; it does not move the needle on mood once emotion work is in place.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are prone to experience co-occurring mental health conditions such as mood or anxiety disorders, as well as impairments in emotion regulation and executive functioning. However, little research has examined inter-relationships among these constructs, despite evidence of additional stressors and increased risk of internalizing disorders at this age, relative to non-autistic individuals. If either emotion regulation or executive functioning are shown to have patterns of association with mental health, this can inform mechanism-based intervention. METHOD: Fifty-seven autistic adolescents and adults (16-25 years) with ASD in a transition intervention completed questionnaires and clinician-administered measures at baseline. Analyses assessed whether executive functioning impairment, above and beyond emotion regulation impairment, were associated with depression and anxiety symptoms. RESULTS: ASD characteristics, emotion regulation, anxiety, and depression were significantly correlated. ASD characteristics was a significant contributor to depression and emotion regulation impairments were significant contributors to anxiety and depression. Findings indicated that inhibition difficulties did not uniquely contribute to depression or anxiety above emotion regulation impairment. Difficulties in cognitive flexibility were associated with depression above and beyond ASD characteristics, IQ, and emotion regulation, but not associated with anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: Although preliminary, findings suggest that inflexibility and regulatory impairment should be considered in depression remediation approaches. Improving ER, on the other hand, may have broader transdiagnostic impact across both mood and anxiety symptoms in ASD.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2025 · doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2017.04.023