Cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety in children with autism spectrum disorders: a randomized, controlled trial

By J. Wood, A. Drahota, Karen M. Sze, K. Har, Angela W. Chiu, D. Langer. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 2009

667 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Background Children with autism spectrum disorders often present with comorbid anxiety disorders that cause significant functional impairment. This study tested a modular cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) program for children with this profile. A standard CBT program was augmented with multiple treatment components designed to accommodate or remediate the social and adaptive skill deficits of children with ASD that could pose barriers to anxiety reduction. Method Forty children (7–11 years old) were randomly assigned to 16 sessions of CBT or a 3-month waitlist (36 completed treatment or waitlist). Therapists worked with individual families. The CBT model emphasized behavioral experimentation, parent-training, and school consultation. Independent evaluators blind to treatment condition conducted structured diagnostic interviews and parents and children completed anxiety symptom checklists at baseline and posttreatment/postwaitlist. Results In intent-to-treat analyses, 78.5% of the CBT group met Clinical Global Impressions-Improvement scale criteria for positive treatment response at posttreatment, as compared to only 8.7% of the waitlist group. CBT also out-performed the waitlist on diagnostic outcomes and parent reports of child anxiety, but not children's self-reports. Treatment gains were maintained at 3-month follow-up. Conclusions The CBT manual employed in this study is one of the first adaptations of an evidence-based treatment for children with autism spectrum disorders. Remission of anxiety disorders appears to be an achievable goal among high-functioning children with autism.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Developmental and Educational Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/dd4bb0880ac2f457972e27be4d87378835d43c1b

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Clinical Psychology

1. Michael J. Murray
2. Eric A. Storch
3. J. Wood

In Cognitive Neuroscience

1. S. Calhoun
2. S. Mayes
3. Michael J. Murray
4. J. Wood
5. J. Barnett
6. Shannon Cleary

In Developmental and Educational Psychology

1. S. Calhoun
2. S. Mayes
3. J. Barnett
4. Shannon Cleary

Citations in the corpus

• Variables Associated with Anxiety and Depression in Children with Autism (2011, background): “Research indicates that cognitive-behavior therapy decreases anxiety in children with HFA (Chalfant et al. 2006; Sofronoff et al. 2005; Wood et al. 2009 ), but no studies have investigated the impact of therapy on depressive symptoms or its efficacy with children who have LFA.”
• Peer Victimization in Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Co-occurring Anxiety: Relations with Psychopathology and Loneliness (2012, background): “Regarding adjustment correlates, recent innovative work has suggested the utility of cognitive-behavioral interventions for improving anxiety symptoms in youth with ASD (Wood et al. 2009).”