Idiographic Coping Outcomes in Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Co-Occurring Anxiety: Results from the TAASD Study.
Lesley A Norris, Jonathan C Rabner, Eric A Storch and 5 others
PMID 36129626WHAT IT FOUND
Caregivers reported that youth with autism and anxiety coped better with specific fears after receiving CBT compared to usual care.
However, the youth themselves did not report significantly greater coping improvements than those in usual care. This highlights a gap between parent and child perspectives on treatment gains.
Key findings
01Youth randomized to CBT conditions showed significantly greater improvements in caregiver-reported coping over time compared to those in treatment as usual.
02There were no statistically significant differences in youth self-reported coping changes between the CBT groups and the treatment as usual group.
03Improvements in caregiver-reported coping did not differ between the standard CBT protocol and the CBT protocol adapted for autism.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The sample was predominantly White, non-Hispanic, and from highly educated families, limiting generalizability. The idiographic coping situations were selected by independent evaluators who were not trained to reliability for this specific task, which may threaten validity. BIACA was a family-based treatment with high caregiver involvement, which may have influenced caregiver-reported outcomes more than youth-reported outcomes. The TAU group was small (n=19) compared to the active treatment groups.
Declared interests
Not reported in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that CBT is ineffective for youth with autism based on the lack of significant findings in youth self-reports. The authors suggest this may reflect a floor effect, where youth perceived fewer coping deficits at baseline, or a placebo effect from being in any treatment, rather than a true lack of benefit.