title: Social-cognitive, physiological, and neural mechanisms underlying emotion regulation impairments: understanding anxiety in autism spectrum disorder.
abstract: Anxiety is one of the most common clinical problems among children, adolescents, and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), yet we know little about its etiology in the context of ASD. We posit that emotion regulation (ER) impairments are a risk factor for anxiety in ASD. Specifically, we propose that one reason why anxiety disorders are so frequently comorbid with ASD is because ER impairments are ubiquitous to ASD, stemming from socio-cognitive, physiological, and neurological processes related to impaired cognitive control, regulatory processes, and arousal. In this review, we offer a developmental model of how ER impairments may arise in ASD, and when (moderating influences) and how (meditational mechanisms) they result in anxiety.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Virginia Tech, United States. Electronic address: sww@vt.edu.
authors.forename: Susan W
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: White
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, United States.
authors.forename: Carla A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Mazefsky
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina, United States; Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina, United States.
authors.forename: Gabriel S
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Dichter
authors.affiliation: Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and Department of Psychology, Virginia Tech, United States.
authors.forename: Pearl H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Chiu
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Virginia Tech, United States.
authors.forename: John A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Richey
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Virginia Tech, United States.
authors.forename: Thomas H
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Ollendick
mesh_terms: D001007:Anxiety / Q000209:etiology*; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000209:etiology; D006801:Humans; D012919:Social Behavior
keywords: Anxiety; Autism; Developmental psychopathology; Emotion regulation; Mechanism