Research suggests autistic people are more prone to experiencing anxiety and estimates that up to half of all autistic people experience high levels of anxiety on a regular basis. If you or someone you know is struggling with high levels of anxiety, there is support and help available.
Although your son's reaction sounds more severe than most, many people with autism struggle with a range of fears, phobias and worries. These can range from a debilitating fear of, say, spiders or the dark to chronic anxiety about making mistakes or being late.
Autistic children and teenagers can experience anxiety more intensely and more often than typically developing children. Managing anxiety starts with identifying anxiety triggers and recognising anxious feelings. Strategies for managing anxiety include relaxation, visual supports and practice for stressful situations.
An increase in your autistic child's self-regulation behaviors, or regression to these behaviors, can be indicative that your child is feeling anxious. These behaviors include: meltdowns or emotional flareups. withdrawing from social situations.
The Caltech researchers isolated one very specific difference in autistic people's relations with others: that they don't tend to consider what others think about them at all. Researchers call this our "theory of mind" abilities - our intuitive skills for figuring out what other people think, believe and intend.
Difficult social situations and sensory environments can increase stress and increase anxiety for autistic people. Another significant cause of anxiety is a sense of being misunderstood and/or not accepted by non-autistic people. To 'fit in' and not be seen as different, autistic people might mask or camouflage.
Analytical Thinking: People with an autism spectrum disorder think in a logically consistent way that leads to quick decision making. These thinkers can make decisions without experiencing the framing effect that inhibits most neurotypicals from making decisions without bias.
In children and teenagers with high-functioning autism, this can present as a limited social circle, difficulty completing group work, or problems sharing toys and materials. Many people with ASD have sensory difficulties. Certain tastes, noises, smells, or feelings can be intolerable.
They may start to exhibit signs of anxiety such as pacing, seek reassurance through repetitive questioning or physical signs such as rocking or becoming very still.
Amaral: The percentage of kids who increased in severity between ages 6-11 was higher than that of other ages. We theorize that could be due to the many increased social demands that may lead people to withdraw, as well as the development of anxiety, which can increase at that age.
Among those with autism, common triggers include disturbing breaks in routine, lack of sleep, jarring “sensory stimuli” (noises, lights, or smells) or even undiagnosed mental health problems. Clearly, it's important to look beyond the behavior itself to identify the underlying cause.
The presence of delusional beliefs, suspiciousness, and paranoid ideation (22, 23) in autistic children is reported since the early descriptions of Autism and labeled by different authors as schizophrenia-like states (24), borderline conditions (25–27), or severe disturbances of ego development (28).
Many autistic people enjoy spending time alone and consider it important for their wellbeing. Loneliness is different though. You might feel lonely if you don't have opportunities to socialise, or find this difficult. You might have friends/colleagues but feel misunderstood, or like you cannot be yourself around them.
Many autistic people experience hypersensitivity to bright lights or certain light wavelengths (e.g., LED or fluorescent lights). Certain sounds, smells, textures and tastes can also be overwhelming. This can result in sensory avoidance – trying to get away from stimuli that most people can easily tune out.
difficulties with high-level language skills such as verbal reasoning, problem solving, making inferences and predictions. problems with understanding another person's point of view. difficulties initiating social interactions and maintaining an interaction.
Neurotypical individuals can make a choice out of three options. But, usually, kids with autism, and even adults with autism spectrum, who have trouble with decision-making, pick the first choice or the last choice and don't really choose what the preferred option is.
Love and affection may be felt but expressed differently
Your autistic person feels love, and feels empathy too, but may struggle to express both in ways that lead to you feeling loved or empathised with.
Sensory overload, changes in routine, social isolation, co-occurring conditions, and lack of support can all exacerbate the symptoms of autism. However, with early intervention, therapy, and support, individuals with autism can manage these challenges and improve their quality of life.
While some people with autism merely yell or stamp, many really do become overwhelmed by their own emotions. 3 Bolting, hitting, self-abuse, crying, and screaming are all possibilities. These can be particularly frightening—and even dangerous—when the autistic individual is physically large.
A few different factors converge to explain why autistic people have an “overly full head” and disorganized thoughts, as well as why we may be scatterbrained, quick to lose oversight, and more prone to overstimulation and dysregulation. All these factors are likely caused by overconnectivity in the brain.
Every person living with autism is unique; some may struggle with empathy while others may feel completely overwhelmed by other people's feelings, and then there is everyone in between. It seems that autistic expression of empathy may be atypical.
Interviews with autistic adults who have good speech and are able to articulate their thought processes indicate that most of them also think in visual images. More severely impaired people, who can speak but are unable to explain how they think, have highly associational thought patterns.