Trajectory of Irritability in Autistic and Typically Developing Youth From Early Childhood to Adolescence.
Autistic girls are the one group whose irritability does not fade with age—screen and intervene early.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Jackson et al. (2025) tracked irritability in autistic and typical kids. They started in toddlerhood and kept going until the teens.
The team split results by sex. They wanted to see who kept high irritability and who outgrew it.
What they found
Most kids, both autistic and typical, became less irritable as they aged. The drop was steepest for autistic boys and typical youth.
Autistic girls were the clear exception. Their irritability stayed high right through late adolescence.
How this fits with other research
The finding lines up with Gray et al. (2012). That 18-year study also saw modest behavior gains over time, but it did not look at sex differences.
Peristeri et al. (2024) mapped IQ paths in the same age range. They found divergent scores, just like A et al. found divergent irritability paths. Both studies show that "autism plus development" is not one straight line.
Tan et al. (2026) adds a family twist: when parents struggle to regulate their own emotions, autistic kids show more behavior problems two years later. This could help explain why some autistic girls stay irritable—parent stress may feed the cycle.
Why it matters
If you work with autistic girls, plan to screen for irritability even in high school. Standard behavior charts may miss girls who look compliant but report constant frustration. Add self-report mood tools and check family emotion-regulation support. Early skill-building, parent coaching, and brief escape options during hard tasks can keep irritability from locking in.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study examines changes in irritability from early childhood to adolescence and differences by diagnostic group, sex, and early childhood nonverbal and verbal abilities. Participants included 243 autistic (AUT) and 194 typically developing (TD) children, with 20% of participants being female, 47% identifying as non-White, and 26% identifying as Hispanic. Data were drawn from the CHARGE (Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and the Environment) Study, which evaluated children at ages 2-5 years and followed up during pre- (ages 8-12) or late (ages 15-19) adolescence through the ReCHARGE Study. Irritability was higher in the AUT group than in the TD group across all time points; participants overall experienced a decrease in irritability over time. A three-way interaction among sex, diagnosis, and time emerged in late adolescence but not in pre-adolescence, and this effect remained significant even after adjusting for early cognitive abilities. Specifically, TD males and females, and AUT males, showed reductions in irritability, while AUT females exhibited persistently high irritability. In pre-adolescence, higher early verbal and nonverbal cognitive abilities were linked to greater reductions in irritability regardless of diagnosis, whereas in late adolescence, only nonverbal ability predicted irritability change, with this effect specific to autistic youth. Higher levels of adolescent psychopathology were associated with less improvement in irritability, regardless of diagnostic group. Collectively, these findings reveal that while irritability generally decreases over time, its trajectory varies by diagnostic group, sex, and early cognitive ability-highlighting the importance of early identification and interventions, particularly in autistic females, targeting irritability to support positive long-term outcomes.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2025 · doi:10.1002/aur.70100