Tag: Autism and Anxiety

Two-Step Family Cognitive Behavior Therapy May Benefit Some Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Children with Anxiety

Cognitive behavior therapies are generally effective for treating anxiety, but modifications may be needed when anxiety is accompanied by Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Storch and associates evaluated the effectiveness of a two-step approach to family-based cognitive behavior therapy for anxiety with ASD children up to 14 years of age. The first step was parent-led with therapist assistance. The second step was therapist-led for children who had not shown improvement in step 1 (non-responders). These non-responders generally had higher levels of pre-treatment anxiety than those who had improved.

All children were evaluated again 12 weeks following step 1. At this point, the authors reported no difference between those that had improved in step 1 and those that had continued into step 2. A major weakness of this study however was a high attrition rate: of the 76 children who started in step 1, only 45 completed their entire treatment program. The authors noted that this attrition rate is higher than that observed with more standard forms of Cognitive Behavior Therapy, and noted that some of the attrition may have been due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Patients with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Anxiety Can Benefit From Cognitive Behavior Therapy

Standard Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) focuses on teaching patients to recognize self-defeating ways of thinking and replace them with more constructive thoughts. Hollocks and colleagues knew that CBT treatments for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) patients with anxiety were most effective when tailored to the specific needs of ASD patients. They hypothesized that patient decision-making ability and sensitivity to reward contingencies might underlie the superiority of specially tailored CBT treatments. Accordingly, they assessed the decision-making ability and reward sensitivity of 148 children with ASD who were randomly assigned to standard CBT or tailored CBT treatments. Their results suggested that ASD patient decision-making ability and reward sensitivity accounted for the superiority of tailored CBT.

Continue reading “Patients with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Anxiety Can Benefit From Cognitive Behavior Therapy”