The Role of Sensory Features in Mediating Associations Between Autism Symptoms and Anxiety in Boys with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Target sensory avoiding—especially sound sensitivity—when treating parent-reported anxiety in autistic boys.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked parents and boys with autism about anxiety and sensory habits.
They used stats to see if sensory avoiding carries autism traits into parent-reported worry.
Only boys aged 5-18 were studied; girls were not included.
What they found
Parents saw more anxiety when their sons often avoided sounds, textures, or lights.
The numbers showed that this avoiding behavior explains the link between core autism signs and parent-rated anxiety.
When boys rated their own anxiety, sensory avoiding no longer explained the link.
How this fits with other research
MacLennan et al. (2020) found a similar sensory-anxiety tie, but split anxiety into sub-types.
Montazeri et al. (2019) seems to disagree; their network model called anxiety a side note in autism. The gap likely comes from sampling higher-functioning youth and skipping sensory measures.
Ambrose et al. (2022) extend the picture: anxiety, sensory-driven or not, cuts community participation for 6- to 13-year-olds on the spectrum.
Why it matters
If a parent says their son is anxious, first ask about sound sensitivity or other avoiding habits.
Adding auditory breaks, headphones, or gradual exposure to tolerated noise could lower both sensory stress and reported anxiety.
Keep checking the child’s own words too; parents and kids may not match.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
To investigate possible correlates of generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) in young males with ASD, a test of the mediation effects of sensory features (SF) upon the association between ASD symptoms and GAD was conducted with 150 males aged 6 to 18 years. GAD data were obtained from parents of the boys and from the boys themselves; SF and ASD data were obtained from parents. Symptoms of ASD were found to influence elevated levels of parent-rated GAD indirectly through greater levels of sensory avoiding, and auditory-specific sensory behaviours correlated with parent-rated anxiety more strongly than other sensory modalities. There were no significant effects for the boys' self-rated GAD.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2020 · doi:10.1007/s10803-019-03917-1