Anxiety and Social Worries in Children with Asperger Syndrome

OBJECTIVE: The current study examined anxiety and social worries in a group of children with Asperger syndrome (AS). METHOD: Sixty-five children with AS were compared with a clinically anxious sample and a normative sample using parent and child reports. RESULTS: Comparisons between clinically anxious children and children with AS showed similar scores on overall anxiety and on six anxiety subscales using child reports. Parent reports revealed higher ratings of overall anxiety and described children with AS experiencing more obsessive-compulsive symptoms and physical injury fears than clinically anxious children. CONCLUSIONS: Children with AS without a diagnosis of anxiety, present with more anxiety symptoms than a normal population and with a different profile than a clinically anxious population. Study limitations are identified and considerations for future research presented.