The association of quality of social relations, symptom severity and intelligence with anxiety in children with autism spectrum disorders.
Milder autism plus poor social ties flags high anxiety—watch these kids first.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team looked at school-age autistic children. They asked how social life, autism severity, and IQ link to anxiety.
Parents filled out rating scales. The study did not test any treatment.
What they found
Kids with milder autism traits but poor social ties had the highest anxiety. IQ scores did not matter.
The pattern held across a large sample.
How this fits with other research
Adams et al. (2020) and Ratcliffe et al. (2015) show the same link: weaker social skills mean more anxiety.
Harkins et al. (2023) replicated the finding in autistic boys aged 11-18. They counted close friends instead of rating social quality.
Bitsika et al. (2020) add a twist. Sensory avoiding, especially sound issues, also feeds anxiety. Social quality and sensory issues may both need attention.
Why it matters
Screen autistic students who seem "mild" but sit alone at lunch. Their anxiety risk is high. Pair social-skills groups with anxiety tools. Check sensory avoiding too.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add a quick social-connection item to your anxiety screen and flag loners for social-skills plus coping lessons.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Limited quality of social relations, milder symptom severity and higher intelligence were shown to account for higher anxiety levels in autism spectrum disorders. The current study replicated and extended earlier findings by combining these three determinants of anxiety in autism spectrum disorders in one study. The sample consisted of 134 school-aged children with autism spectrum disorders, of whom 58 (43%) had a co-morbid anxiety disorder according to the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children-Parent version. In this sample, we tested associations between these determinants and anxiety univariately and multivariately to clarify the unique contribution of all determinants. Since we hypothesized that the association between limited quality of social relations and anxiety would be amplified by low symptom severity and/or high intelligence, we additionally tested for moderating effects. We found that higher anxiety levels were associated with a lower quality of social relations and lower symptom severity. In this mainly high-functioning sample, intelligence was not related to anxiety levels. No moderation effects were found. Since lower quality of social relations and lower symptom severity are associated with higher anxiety levels in children with autism spectrum disorders, therapeutic interventions aimed at reducing anxiety in autism spectrum disorders should pay attention to improving social relations, and presumably children with a lower symptom severity could benefit most from such interventions.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2013 · doi:10.1177/1362361312453882