A new anxiety assessment can reveal if a child with autism is suffering from an accompanying anxiety disorder.
Child psychologist Dr Connor Kerns designed the anxiety assessment to establish if autism or anxiety was the cause of behaviours such as social avoidance.
The assistant research professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia said untangling anxiety from autism was crucial. This was because anxiety could be linked to issues such as self-harm and depression.
Dr Connor Kerns: “When your anxiety is high, you are focusing on surviving rather than living”
Proper treatment
Dr Kerns, of the university’s AJ Drexel Autism Institute, maintains that if doctors make a correct diagnosis of anxiety alongside autism they can put proper treatment in place.
She described anxiety as a “pernicious threat” that prevents people seeking “opportunities and experiences”.
“Put another way, when your anxiety is high, you are focusing on surviving rather than living,” she said. “This has real consequences on your mental, emotional and physical health.”
Anxiety assessment
Dr Kerns developed an autism variant for a pre-existing anxiety assessment. Her Autism Spectrum Addendum (ASA) adds new questions to the original Child/Parent Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule.
Dr Kerns said research has shown that when doctors give therapy for their diagnosed anxiety, most are later rated as “improved” or “very improved”.
She developed the ASA method in 2014 and recently tested it in a study of 69 children. These children had autism and a concern about anxiety, but no diagnosis.
The children completed her evaluation to determine if they had anxiety as well as autism.
Dr Kerns recorded interviews. A ‘blind’ assessor listened to them a second time and came to their own diagnosis.
Then Dr Kerns measured the results against other measures of anxiety to check if they came to the same conclusions. Dr Kerns’ autism-specific addition aligned with the blind assessor’s and other measures of anxiety.
The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology.
Published: 4 January 2017
