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. 2013 Nov 11;5(1):32.
doi: 10.1186/1866-1955-5-32.

Examining associations between anxiety and cortisol in high functioning male children with autism

David M Simon, Blythe A Corbett  1
Affiliations

Examining associations between anxiety and cortisol in high functioning male children with autism

David M Simon et al. J Neurodev Disord. .

Abstract

Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by deficits in communication and social ability, as well as restricted interests and repetitive behavior. Anxiety is a persistent anticipation or apprehension about one or more situations to which a person is exposed, and affects many people, including children with ASD. Stress, by contrast, is a response to situations that are threatening, uncontrollable, or unexpected. Indices of anxiety are often measured through informants, with parents and teachers serving as the primary sources of reported anxiety in children. However, self-report measures exist, allowing current (state) and persistent (trait) anxiety to be assessed. The current study was designed to evaluate whether children with autism could identify their own levels of anxiety and the degree to which these levels were associated with symptom profile and physiological arousal.

Methods: Self-reported state and trait anxiety were collected during exposure to different stress paradigms for 40 children (21 typically developing, 19 with autistic disorder) and compared to parent reported social ability (Social Responsiveness Scale) and stress responsivity (cortisol).

Results: Significant differences were found between typically developing and children with autism for both state and trait anxiety across all conditions. Associations were identified between severity of parent-reported social impairment and both types of self-report anxiety. No relationship was found between stress (salivary cortisol) and anxiety in children with autism.

Conclusions: Children with autism are able to consistently report their persistent level of anxiety symptoms in stressful situations of benign character. Therefore, the inclusion of such measures may be useful in identifying and tracking symptoms in children with autism under appropriate circumstances.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Timeline for saliva sampling across the different stressors.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Association between playground and MRI trait anxiety in children with autism and children with typical development.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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