Black Conner J, Hogan Abigail L, Smith Kayla D, Roberts Jane E
Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, 1512 Pendleton Street, Barnwell College, Suite #220, Columbia, SC, 29208, USA.
J Neurodev Disord. 2021 Mar 20;13(1):11. doi: 10.1186/s11689-021-09356-3.
Social anxiety is highly prevalent in neurotypical children and children with fragile X syndrome (FXS). FXS is a genetic syndrome that is characterized by intellectual disability and an increased risk for autism spectrum disorder. If social anxiety is left untreated, negative outcomes are highly prevalent later in life. However, early detection of social anxiety is challenging as symptoms are often subtle or absent very early in life. Given the prevalence and impairment associated with childhood social anxiety, efforts have accelerated to identify risk markers of anxiety. A cluster of early features of anxiety have been identified including elevated behavioral inhibition, attentional biases, and physiological dysregulation that index early emerging markers of social anxiety. Infants with FXS provide a unique opportunity to study the earlier predictors of social anxiety. The current study utilized a multi-method approach to investigate early markers of social anxiety in 12-month-old infants with FXS.
Participants included 32 infants with FXS and 41 low-risk controls, all approximately 12 months old. Parent-reported social behavioral inhibition was recorded from the Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ-R). Direct observations of behavioral inhibition and attention were measured during a stranger approach task with respiratory sinus arrhythmia collected simultaneously.
Parent-reported social behavioral inhibition was not significantly different between groups. In contrast, direct observations suggested that infants with FXS displayed elevated behavioral inhibition, increased attention towards the stranger, and a blunted respiratory sinus arrhythmia response.
Findings suggest that infants with FXS show both behavioral and physiological markers of social anxiety at 12 months old using a biobehavioral approach with multiple sources of input. Results highlight the importance of a multi-method approach to understanding the complex early emergent characteristics of anxiety in infants with FXS.
社交焦虑在发育正常的儿童和脆性X综合征（FXS）患儿中非常普遍。FXS是一种遗传性综合征，其特征是智力障碍和自闭症谱系障碍风险增加。如果社交焦虑得不到治疗，负面后果在以后的生活中很常见。然而，社交焦虑的早期检测具有挑战性，因为症状在生命早期往往很轻微或不存在。鉴于儿童社交焦虑的普遍性和损害，人们加快了对焦虑风险标志物的识别。已经确定了一系列焦虑的早期特征，包括行为抑制增强、注意力偏差和生理失调，这些都是社交焦虑早期出现的标志物。患有FXS的婴儿为研究社交焦虑的早期预测因素提供了独特的机会。本研究采用多方法研究12个月大的FXS婴儿社交焦虑的早期标志物。
参与者包括32名患有FXS的婴儿和41名低风险对照组婴儿，年龄均约为12个月。通过婴儿行为问卷（IBQ-R）记录家长报告的社交行为抑制情况。在陌生人接近任务中测量行为抑制和注意力的直接观察结果，同时收集呼吸性窦性心律不齐情况。
两组之间家长报告的社交行为抑制没有显著差异。相比之下，直接观察表明，患有FXS的婴儿表现出行为抑制增强、对陌生人的注意力增加以及呼吸性窦性心律不齐反应减弱。
研究结果表明，采用多源输入的生物行为方法，患有FXS的婴儿在12个月大时表现出社交焦虑的行为和生理标志物。结果强调了采用多方法来理解FXS婴儿焦虑复杂的早期出现特征的重要性。
