Why is my autistic child anxious?

Autistic children and young people often need to know what is going to happen in advance and to follow a certain routine. This is known as an ‘intolerance of uncertainty’. A systematic review (where all the studies on this topic were analysed together) was carried out to look at the relationship between intolerance of uncertainty and anxiety in autistic young people.

Research studies have shown that autistic children and young people are at higher risk of developing anxiety. Not being certain of what is going to happen next seems to be a factor.

The systematic review included 12 studies on this topic and the findings suggested that autistic young people had both high levels of intolerance of uncertainty and anxiety. The researchers looked at the data of 10 of these studies (what is called a meta-analysis and involves a reliable statistical analysis) and found 9 of them found a statistical link between intolerance of certainty and anxiety.

One research study has shown that worries about change and unpredictability are just one autism related characteristic linked to anxiety. They also found that sensory related worries featured highly including worrying about noises they will encounter when out e.g. vacuum cleaners and touch / visual related issues such as seeing or touching specific foods.

Alongside this, common anxieties were also experienced by autistic children that we see in neurotypical children such as social worries including being rejected, letting people down and friendship issues. Common anxieties autistic children showed also included anxiety about the weather, animals and environmental disasters that are also regularly seen in neurotypical children.

Other research has shown that thinking skill difficulties (known as executive functions) are related to anxiety in autistic children and young people. A recent study showed that difficulties with starting tasks, attention and completion of tasks was associated with anxiety in autistic young people.

How can we help an autistic young person experiencing these anxieties? As there are likely multiple factors associated with the anxiety targeting as many or all of these is important. This includes:

• Reducing sensory overload
• Planning for situations when change is going to happen
• Supporting autistic young people through transitions
• Supporting children’s thinking skills like attention, initiation and completion of tasks

Our free booklets have lots of ideas about how to better understand and support neurodivergent children’s thinking skills.

We are holding a webinar on the topic of anxiety in autistic children next week on Tuesday 24^th September at 7pm. Professor Jacqui Rodgers will deliver a webinar on ‘Causes, experiences and strategies to reduce anxiety in autistic children’ followed by a Q&A.  This webinar will be accessible live and recorded within our parent subscriber platform. If you haven’t already subscribed to our platform, you can join here: https://epicthinklearn.com/parents-join-epic/