Exploring the Cognitive Model of Social Anxiety in Autistic Young People-The Central Role of Bodily Symptoms.
H Wood, S Rusbridge, J Lei and 3 others
PMID 34865202WHAT IT FOUND
Autistic young people with high social anxiety rated their own social performance similarly to how observers rated it, showing no self-observer discrepancy.
Interoceptive sensibility, or awareness of bodily sensations, fully explained the link between negative self-ratings and social anxiety.
Key findings
01There was no significant difference between self- and observer-ratings of social performance for autistic young people with high versus low social anxiety.
02Interoceptive sensibility fully mediated the relationship between lower self-performance ratings and higher social anxiety, whereas self-focused attention did not.
03Participants with high social anxiety reported significantly greater interoceptive sensibility for bodily temperature, muscle tension, and heart rate compared to those with low social anxiety.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample size was small and excluded individuals with intellectual disability, limiting generalisability to all autistic people. The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot determine if bodily awareness causes anxiety or if anxiety increases bodily awareness. Participants were recruited from settings where they may have already known each other, potentially reducing the social anxiety experienced during the task. Autism symptom severity was not measured, so it is unclear how social communication differences influenced the results. Interoceptive accuracy (objective ability to sense bodily signals) was not measured, only subjective sensibility.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that autistic young people with social anxiety distort their social performance compared to reality. This study found their self-ratings matched observer ratings, suggesting they are accurately perceiving their social difficulties, unlike some neurotypical populations.