Social Functioning in Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorder: the Role of Biological Stress Response and Psychosocial Stress
Year: 2015
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: This study aimed to improve our understanding of social functioning in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by: (1) identifying differences in stress among adults with ASD and healthy volunteers; and (2) examining the relationship between stress and social functioning in adults with ASD. This study hypothesized that adults with ASD would experience greater stress than healthy volunteers and that there would be a significant, negative relationship between stress and social functioning in adults with ASD. Data were collected from 40 adults with ASD and 25 healthy volunteers during a single session in the laboratory. Repeated measures of systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and heart rate (HR) were taken during a social stress challenge task, while salivary cortisol was collected before and after the task. Measures also assessed psychosocial stress (perceived stress and stressful life events), global functioning, social disability, daily living skills, and social impairment. Analyses examined group differences between adults with ASD and healthy volunteers on biological stress response and psychosocial stress using analysis of variance procedures. The relationship between stress and social functioning was analyzed using hierarchical multiple regression procedures separately for biological stress response and psychosocial stress. This research found that adults with ASD and healthy volunteers exhibit remarkably similar patterns of biological stress response, yet the ASD group reported more psychosocial stress than healthy volunteers. In addition, findings indicated that psychosocial stress was a pertinent predictor of social disability in adults with ASD, but that biological stress response did not predict social functioning in this group. These results suggest that, while adults with ASD experience greater psychosocial stress than healthy volunteers, they do not differ significantly from healthy volunteers in their biological stress response. In addition, the lived experience of stress may have a greater influence on social disability than biological stress response in this population, although a lack of biological stress response difference between adults with ASD and healthy volunteers may be explained by burnout. Future research should examine interventions that might improve social functioning by helping adults with ASD perceive and cope with stress differently.
Author: Lauren Bishop‐Fitzpatrick
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1190832079