Coffman Marika C, Antezana Ligia, Brown Casper, Brown-Venegas Amber, Richey John A
Department of Psychology, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, United States.
Duke University Center for Autism and Brain Development, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States.
Front Psychiatry. 2025 Sep 1;16:1524088. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1524088. eCollection 2025.
Discrepancies between caregiver and youth report of social anxiety symptoms persist, yet measuring social anxiety symptoms, particularly among autistic youths, is critical clinically to inform intervention planning and make correct diagnostic decisions.
Accordingly, we sought to evaluate caregiver-adolescent agreement on measures of social anxiety across three diagnostic groups: (1) autistic, socially anxious adolescents (n=20), socially anxious, non-autistic adolescents (n=20), and a comparison group of non-autistic, non-socially anxious adolescents (n=20). Caregivers and adolescents completed the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule (ADIS), Social Anxiety module, and caregivers completed a battery of questionnaires to measure adolescent behavioral functioning in terms of adaptive, externalizing, and autism-related behaviors.
Compared with adolescents, caregivers generally indicated greater observed behavioral interference (e.g., avoiding preferred activities) on the ADIS due to social anxiety symptoms ((1, 56) = 8.48, < 0.01). Moreover, caregivers in the autistic group reported the highest level of behavioral interference, followed by the social anxiety group, and then the comparison group. Autistic adolescents and their caregivers had the poorest agreement for social anxiety symptoms compared with the other two groups.
These results demonstrate the differential impact of autism on the perception of social anxiety symptoms for caregivers and autistic adolescents. These results have implications for measuring social anxiety symptoms in autistic adolescents for research and clinical purposes as well as for intervention planning in this population.
照顾者与青少年对社交焦虑症状的报告存在差异，但测量社交焦虑症状，尤其是在自闭症青少年中，对于临床干预计划和做出正确诊断决策至关重要。
因此，我们试图评估照顾者与青少年在三个诊断组中对社交焦虑测量的一致性：（1）患有自闭症且社交焦虑的青少年（n = 20）、社交焦虑的非自闭症青少年（n = 20）以及非自闭症、非社交焦虑的青少年对照组（n = 20）。照顾者和青少年完成了焦虑症访谈量表（ADIS）社交焦虑模块，照顾者还完成了一系列问卷，以从适应性、外化性和自闭症相关行为方面测量青少年的行为功能。
与青少年相比，照顾者通常表示由于社交焦虑症状，在ADIS上观察到的行为干扰更大（例如，避免喜欢的活动）（（1, 56） = 8.48， < 0.01）。此外，自闭症组的照顾者报告的行为干扰水平最高，其次是社交焦虑组，然后是对照组。与其他两组相比，自闭症青少年及其照顾者在社交焦虑症状方面的一致性最差。
这些结果表明自闭症对照顾者和自闭症青少年对社交焦虑症状的认知有不同影响。这些结果对于研究和临床目的测量自闭症青少年的社交焦虑症状以及该人群的干预计划具有启示意义。
