Poster #46 - Depression Symptoms in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Individual, Peer, and Family Contexts

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Developmental Disabilities

Integrative Statement

Background: Comorbid psychopathology is highly prevalent in youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; Strang et al., 2012) and of increasing interest to researchers. An ecologically-informed, developmentally-sensitive approach suggests that for adolescents with ASD, several systems (especially family and peer) likely interact with individual characteristics to influence developmental processes and outcomes (Cappadocia, Weiss, & Pepler, 2012; Danforth, 2013; Kelley et al., 2008; Shtayermman, 2007). However, to date research has yet to examine how multiple contextual factors interact with individual characteristics to predict the mental health of youth with ASD. Uniting family systems approaches with the Ecological Model of Autism (Danforth, 2013), we hypothesize a model in which individual, family, and peer factors and processes interact to predict adolescents’ depression symptoms.
Methods: This study used data from the Teens and Parents (TAP) Study. Families of verbally fluent adolescents with ASD, ages 13-17 years (n = 163; Mage = 14.85; 72.8% male) and their primary caregivers (PC) completed a series of online questionnaires via REDCap. Adolescents completed the Peer Experiences Questionnaire (Prinstein, Boergers, & Vernberg, 2001) to assess peer victimization and the Self Report Family Inventory (Beavers & Hampson, 2000) to assess overall family functioning. PCs reported youth mental health via the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (Ebesutani et al., 2011) and youth social-communication skills via the Social Responsiveness Questionnaire (Constantino & Gruber, 2012).
Results: Regression-based moderation analyses using 10,000 bootstraps via the PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2017) for SPSS revealed a significant three-way interaction of peer victimization, family functioning, and social communication skills on adolescent depressive symptoms [F(10, 148) = 9.81, p < .001, R2 = 0.40] after controlling for the effects of adolescent age, sex, and repetitive and restricted behaviors. The change in R2 (0.03) due to the three-way interaction was significant (p = .007). The conditional effect of peer victimization on depressive symptoms as a function of adolescents’ perceived family functioning differed based on their social communication skills, and was significant only for those youth with the most problems with social communication skills (Table 1). As shown in Figure 1, a negative association between peer victimization and depressive symptoms was present for youth in contexts of poor family functioning while a positive association was present for youth in contexts of high family functioning, but only in the context of poor family function.
Conclusion: Findings support the utility of ecological approaches to the study of psychiatric comorbidities in adolescents with ASD. The significant interaction suggests that it is these factors in combination that represent the daily lived experience for youth with ASD. It may be that in families with poorer functioning, youth have less help interpreting the nature of peer victimization and thus do not internalize those experiences. It may also be that for families of a child with ASD, lower scores on the family functioning measure are tapping into an alternative style as opposed to “poor” functioning. Discussion will focus on disentangling these complex findings in the context of the unique sample and study limitations.

Authors

• Jessica L Greenlee, Virginia Commonwealth University
  Presenting Author

• Marcia Winter, Virginia Commonwealth University
  Non-Presenting Author