Does the gender matter?: Anxiety symptoms and emotion dysregulation in adults with autism and intellectual disabilities.
For women with ASD and ID, poor emotion-regulation skills are the main link to anxiety, so teach those skills first.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked if emotion regulation skills explain why adults with both autism and intellectual disability feel anxious.
They also checked whether being male or female changes that link.
The study used math models on survey answers from adults with ASD plus ID.
What they found
Emotion regulation stood in the middle: poor skills led to more anxiety.
The path was strongest for women; gender acted like a volume knob.
In plain words, teaching emotion rules may matter most for females with ASD and ID.
How this fits with other research
Costa et al. (2020) already showed emotion dysregulation and low tolerance for uncertainty explain anxiety in the same adult group. The new paper keeps emotion regulation but adds the gender twist, so it builds instead of replaces.
Soto et al. (2024) looked at youth and found anxiety feeds repetitive and self-injurious behaviors. Together the studies draw a line: poor emotion control links to anxiety across age, and now we know women feel it more.
Bitsika et al. (2020) found sensory avoiding, not emotion skills, mediates anxiety in autistic boys without ID. The two papers seem to clash, but they studied different mediators and different groups: sensory for boys without ID, emotion for women with ID. Both can be true.
Why it matters
If you serve women with ASD and ID, screen anxiety and teach coping plans, relaxation, and problem-solving first. The stats say emotion regulation is the main road from autism to anxiety for them, so widening that road should ease the worry. Start small: add a five-minute feelings check and one coping tool to your next session.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Research shows high rates of anxious symptoms in people autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). Finding factors related to the development of anxiety in ASD is necessary. Emotion regulation (ER) is associated with anxiety in ASD. Moreover, some studies find higher rates of anxiety in women with ASD. A total of 121 adults (M = 35.46 years, SD = 9.46) with ASD and intellectual disabilities were evaluated to verify moderating role of gender and mediating role of ER. A moderated mediation analysis supported the moderated role of gender in the relationship mediated by emotional dysregulation between ASD and anxiety. These findings suggest that interventions designed to prevent or reduce anxiety symptoms in women with ASD should include among their goals emotional regulation. LAY SUMMARY: If we want to reduce or prevent anxiety symptoms in women with ASD we must work on emotional regulation.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2023 · doi:10.1177/0165025413515405