Group Publication: Parental perceptions of autism over time, a brand new remedy for nervousness in autistic individuals | Spectrum
Illustration by Laurène Boglio
Hello and welcome to this week’s community newsletter! I am your host, Chelsey B. Coombs, the engagement editor of Spectrum.
Parents’ perceptions of autism have changed as the prevalence of the condition has increased, according to a new paper that analyzed survey data over a 15-year period. Those with autistic children found their children’s impairment to be 23 percent greater at the end of the study than their parents at the beginning. And the increase in the perceived impairment for parents was as high as 65 percent Children whose autism characteristics are insufficient to be diagnosed.
“Our results clearly show that the perceived impairment has increased with each calendar year [autism] Symptom level, but even more so in people who would previously have been viewed as subsyndromal or “only” with autistic characteristics, ”the researchers write.
That shift is due to changes in the definition of autism over time, they add – a point that was repeated in a tweet from Uta Frith, Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Development at University College London in the UK.
Important national longitudinal study confirmed
the growing diffusion of ASA diagnosis. Also suggests secular changes in parental perceptions of impairment.
Open access. pic.twitter.com/lQ7kXMPBvT
– Uta Frith (@utafrith) August 12, 2021
Frith wrote extensively on this subject for her Autism Research Letter to the Editor of July, inspired by Laurent Mottron’s comment on the same subject. Mottron, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Montreal, Canada, will be speaking more on this topic in our August 31 webinar.
Tony Charman, a professor of clinical child psychology at King’s College London in the UK, tweeted that the study was “an interesting look at secular changes over time.”
Interesting look at the secular changes in parental assessment of impairment in #autism over time above and below the clinical feature / symptom threshold (note: shouldn’t have used the word “suffering” of the mind …). Perceived impairment of the child and the “autism epidemic” https://t.co/xpo3voRfN9
– Tony Charman (@TonyASDorAFC) August 12, 2021
Our next thread is from Lisa Quadt, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Sussex in the UK. Quadt talks about her study of a new therapy to fight anxiety in autistic adults. About 53 percent of autistic people meet the diagnostic criteria for an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives, compared with only 10 to 15 percent of non-autistic people.
???? We are very excited to announce that our article on Interoceptive Training for Anxiety in Autistic Adults (ADIE) is now published in @EClinicalMed ???? with @DrSFink @CritchleyHugo @Anna_MarieJones @clara_strauss @DennisEOLarsson @ Marta_22_Silva @JamesSMulcahyhttps: //t.co/Ugp8rjKqvl
– Lisa Quadt (@LisaQuadt) August 9, 2021
She and her colleagues tested a therapy called Aligning Dimensions of Interoceptive Experience, or ADIE for short. Previous research has shown that people with high levels of anxiety are more sensitive to internal changes in their body, such as a change in heart rate. And autistic people are more likely than non-autistic people to have difficulty accurately measuring and describing body sensations, a skill known as interoception.
ADIE involves giving feedback to people on how well they are measuring their own heartbeat to help them increase their accuracy. The team’s hypothesis – that better ability to understand and regulate interoceptive experiences might decrease anxiety – proved correct: Autistic people who went through six ADIE sessions were less anxious than those who did three months after treatment underwent control therapy.
“We hope that ADIE can be incorporated into clinical practice as a tool for anxiety symptoms in autistic and non-autistic adults,” Quadt tweeted.
We hope that ADIE can be incorporated into clinical practice as a tool against symptoms of anxiety in both autistic and non-autistic adults.
– Lisa Quadt (@LisaQuadt) August 9, 2021
Hakwan Lau, team leader of the Consciousness Lab at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science in Saitama, Japan, tweeted that ADIE “looks like it might be useful for example for alexithymia or simply for people with anxiety disorders in general.”
very cool ~ congratulations! has ADIE been attempted in other populations as well? does it look like it could be useful for e.g. alexithymia, or just people with anxiety disorders in general (maybe in connection with benzos / medication)?
– hakwan lau (@hakwanlau) August 9, 2021
Quadt responded that ADIE had similar results in non-autistic people and that a study was being conducted to understand its effects on people with anxiety disorders and joint hypermobility.
Thanks very much! Yes, we did a small pilot with non-autistic people without fear prior to the study (similar results), and @BendyBrain is currently analyzing data from a study that adapted ADIE for use in people with anxiety disorder and joint hypermobility.
– Lisa Quadt (@LisaQuadt) August 9, 2021
And finally, David Mandell, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and Editor-in-Chief of Autism, wins our “Tweet of the Week” award:
The number of predatory magazines just one article behind an issue is one of the extraordinary coincidences of our time.
– David Mandell (@DSMandell) August 17, 2021
Don’t forget to sign up for our webinar on August 31st with Laurent Mottron, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Montreal in Canada, who wants to discuss “a radical change in our autism research strategy.”
And on September 28, Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele, professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, will speak about goals in developing new drugs for autism – and the obstacles researchers may encounter.
That’s it for this week’s community newsletter from Spectrum! If you have any suggestions for interesting social contributions in the field of autism research, feel free to email me at chelsey@spectrumnews.org. We meet next week!
