Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, 1977 Butler Blvd, Suite 4-400, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2024 May;54(5):1849-1856. doi: 10.1007/s10803-023-05912-z. Epub 2023 Feb 27.
Using data from a randomized clinical trial evaluating cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for children with autism and co-occurring anxiety, this study examined the relationship between autism features and anxiety symptoms throughout CBT.
Two multilevel mediation analyses were run which examined the mediating role of changes in anxiety for changes in two core features of autism, (a) repetitive and restrictive behaviors (RRBs) and (b) social communication/interaction impairments, between pre- and post-treatment.
Indirect effects between time and autism characteristics were significant for both models, indicating that as anxiety changes, so do RRBs and social communication/interaction as the outcomes respectively.
Findings suggest a bidirectional relationship between anxiety and autism features. Implications of these findings are discussed.
本研究使用一项评估认知行为疗法（CBT）治疗自闭症儿童合并焦虑症的随机临床试验数据，探讨了自闭症特征与 CBT 过程中焦虑症状之间的关系。
进行了两项多层次中介分析，检验了焦虑变化对自闭症两个核心特征（a）重复和限制性行为（RRBs）和（b）社交沟通/互动障碍在治疗前后变化的中介作用。
两个模型的时间与自闭症特征之间的间接效应均具有统计学意义，表明随着焦虑的变化，RRBs 和社交沟通/互动障碍的结果也相应变化。
研究结果表明焦虑与自闭症特征之间存在双向关系。讨论了这些发现的意义。
