OTSLPOtherJournal of autism and developmental disorders2017

Diverse Profiles of Anxiety Related Disorders in Fragile X, Cornelia de Lange and Rubinstein-Taybi Syndromes.

Hayley Crawford, Jane Waite, Chris Oliver

PMID 28144878

WHAT IT FOUND

Parents reported anxiety profiles differed by syndrome: Cornelia de Lange had the broadest symptoms, especially separation and generalized anxiety; fragile X and Rubinstein-Taybi showed more selective patterns.

Assess anxiety in intellectual disability with the syndrome in mind.

Key findings

01Participants with CdLS had higher separation anxiety and generalized anxiety scores than participants with FXS and RTS, and a higher total score than participants with RTS.

02Participants with FXS scored marginally higher than typically developing children only on panic/agoraphobia, and were similar to children diagnosed with anxiety disorder on social phobia, panic/agoraphobia, physical injury fears and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

03Participants with RTS scored lower than typically developing children on social phobia, higher on panic/agoraphobia and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and were similar to children diagnosed with anxiety disorder on panic/agoraphobia and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

STILL TO COME

How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs

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What it does not show

The syndrome groups were small: 19 with FXS, 13 with CdLS and 27 with RTS. The FXS group was all male, so sex differences could not be compared. The anxiety measure was a parent-report child questionnaire, not a diagnostic interview, and it did not assess specific phobia. Normative comparisons were not matched to the syndrome groups, so they are benchmarks rather than direct controls. Elevated obsessive-compulsive scores in RTS may reflect repetitive behavior rather than obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Declared interests

Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and Cerebra.

The easy way to misread this

Do not read the elevated obsessive-compulsive scores in Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome as evidence of obsessive-compulsive disorder. The authors note these scores may reflect repetitive behavior, and the study used parent-reported symptom scores rather than clinical diagnoses.

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