Accommodation of Anxiety in Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Results from the TAASD Study
Open accessAbstract
Objective: Accommodation, or the ways in which families modify their routines and expectations in response to a child’s anxiety, is common and interferes with anxiety treatment outcomes. However, little research has examined family accommodation among youth with autism spectrum disorder and anxiety. The current study aimed to (a) identify pre-treatment correlates of accommodation, (b) examine changes in accommodation after treatment, and (c) assess relationships between accommodation and post-treatment anxiety severity.Method: The sample consisted of 167 youth (mean age = 9.90 years; 79.6% male; 18% Latinx) with clinically significant anxiety and a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder who were enrolled in a randomized clinical trial comparing two cognitive behavioral therapy interventions for anxiety and treatment-as-usual. Participants were evaluated for symptom severity and family accommodation at pre- and post-treatment.Results: Results indicated that clinician-rated anxiety severity and parent-rated externalizing behaviors and autism spectrum disorder severity significantly predicted pre-treatment accommodation. Accommodation significantly decreased from pre- to post-treatment and non-responders showed significantly higher accommodation at post-treatment compared to responders. Finally, youth with higher pre-treatment accommodation had higher post-treatment anxiety.Conclusions: Findings indicate that accommodation for anxiety is common among youth with autism spectrum disorder and anxiety. Furthermore, accommodation is implicated in treatment outcomes and should be targeted in treatment for youth with autism spectrum disorder and anxiety.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Targeting intolerance of uncertainty and parental accommodation may be effective in reducing anxiety.
“Results also suggest that targeting intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and parental accommodation, known mechanistic and maintaining variables, respectively, of anxiety in neurotypical and ASD populations, may be effective in reducing anxiety [12, 18, 20].”
From DINOSAUR: an integrated cognitive-behavioral treatment for anxiety in young children with ASD (2021) · cites this paper as [12]
The Discussion (page unavailable) suggests that addressing accommodation more directly might improve outcomes for families with extensive accommodation, but says the direction of the relationship between reduced accommodation and improved anxiety has not been established. The paper does not address intolerance of uncertainty, so it supports only the parental-accommodation part of the claim. (LLM, conf=0.87)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredParental accommodation has been identified as an important maintaining variable of anxiety.
“and has been identified as an important maintaining variable of anxiety [12, 43].”
From DINOSAUR: an integrated cognitive-behavioral treatment for anxiety in young children with ASD (2021) · cites this paper as [12]
The Discussion (page unavailable) reports that greater pre-treatment accommodation was associated with higher post-treatment anxiety and a greater likelihood of nonresponse. That supports accommodation’s relevance to anxiety, but the Discussion explicitly says the direction of the association has not been established; it does not establish parental accommodation as a maintaining variable. (LLM, conf=0.86)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredParental accommodation is highly prevalent in families of children with anxiety and ASD.
“Parental accommodation is highly prevalent in families of children with anxiety and ASD”
From DINOSAUR: an integrated cognitive-behavioral treatment for anxiety in young children with ASD (2021) · cites this paper as [12]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 39 · Cited by 33
Research works printed but not linked: 2
- Kendall PC, & Hedtke KA (2006). Cognitive-behavioral therapy for anxious children: Therapist Manual (W. Publishing Ed. 3 ed.). Ardmore, PA.
- Lord C, Rutter M, DiLavore PC, Risi S, Gotham K, & Bishop SL (2012). Autism diagnostic observation schedule (ADOS-2) manual (Part 1): Modules 1– 4. (2nd ed.).
- Authors
- Frank, H. E., Kagan, E. R., Storch, E. A., Wood, J. J., Kerns, C. M., Lewin, A. B., Small, B. J., & Kendall, P. C.
- Affiliations
- Temple University (US)
- Baylor College of Medicine (US)
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- University of South Florida (US)
- Corresponding author
- Frank, Hannah E.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2020-06-08
- Volume
- 51
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 219-229
- ISSN
- 1537-4416 (ISSN-L)
- 1537-4424
- PMC
- PMC7722072
- OpenAlex
- W3033370278
- Cited by
- 33
- References
- 39
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 2.28
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD080096; R01HD080097; R01HD080098)
- National Institute of Mental Health (F31MH112211)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Family and Disability Support Research
- Keywords
- family accommodation, autism spectrum disorder, youth anxiety, cognitive behavioral therapy, treatment response, anxiety levels, externalizing problems, autism severity, treatment-resistant anxiety
- MeSH terms
- Autism Spectrum Disorder, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorders, Child, Female, Humans, Male, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Treatment Outcome
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
