2-156 - Repetitive Thinking as a Pathway to Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Repetitive thinking (RT) is robustly linked to internalizing symptoms across a wide age range in the typically developing (TD) population (Aldao, Nolen-Hoeksema, & Schweizer, 2010). Study of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) provides a novel resource in understanding this phenomenon, as cognitive inflexibility is a core symptom of autism. Similarly, anxiety and depression have been found to be prevalent in youth and adults with ASD compared to TD peers (White et al., 2009; Lugnegard et al., 2011). In this symposium, we forward the model that RT on negative content is a pathway to internalizing problems in ASD, and present several studies that test and expand this hypothesis across child, adolescent, and young adult samples.

Collective results from research teams at four institutions suggest that RT may replace more commonly observable restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRB) as children age, which may in part underlie the increased risk for depression and anxiety among older, verbally fluent individuals with ASD; and that difficulties disengaging from RT specifically predict to internalizing symptoms over other RRBs or executive functioning deficits. The final two presentations comment on potential mechanisms underlying this relationship that are preserved across populations, including self-referential negative focus as a moderator in both ASD and TD child samples, and sustained neural processing of emotionally-salient material in ASD and TD-depressed young adult samples, which indicates a future direction for child/ adolescent research. These papers illuminate a potential risk process underlying the development of emotional health problems, which are common and under-treated in youth with ASD.

Sub Unit

• Developmental Disabilities

Chair

• Katherine Gotham, Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Individual Presentations

• Hooked on a Feeling: Repetitive Cognition and Internalizing Psychopathology in Autism Spectrum Disorder - Presenting Author: Elliot Gavin Keenan, Stony Brook University; Matthew Daniel Lerner, Stony Brook University

• Profiles of Executive Function and Relations to Anxiety in Youth with ASD without Intellectual Disability - Presenting Author: Cara E. Pugliese, Children's National Health System; Laura Guturmuth Anthony, Children's National Health System; Xiaozhen You, Children's National Health System; A. Chelsea Armour, Children's National Health System; Chandan Vaidya, Georgetown University; Lauren Kenworthy, Children's National Health System

• The Salience of Self: Self-referential Processing and Internalizing Problems in Typical and Atypical Development - Presenting Author: Catherine Burrows, University of Miami; Lauren Usher, University of Miami; Lucina Q. Uddin, University of Miami, Coral Gables; Heather Henderson, University of Waterloo

• Rumination Associated with Sustained Neural Arousal and Depressive Symptoms Over General Cognitive Inflexibility - Presenting Author: Katherine Gotham, Vanderbilt University Medical Center; Rachel N. Crist, Vanderbilt University Medical Center; James W. Bodfish, Vanderbilt University Medical Center