Autistic children are at greater risk of developing anxiety than their nonautistic peers. Sensory reactivity differences have been implicated as one of the risk factors. Specifically, sensory hyperreactivity has previously been linked to anxiety, including separation anxiety and specific phobia; however, minimal research has explored the influence of sensory hyporeactivity and seeking. Therefore, the present study examined the correlational relationship between sensory reactivity differences and anxiety subtypes in 41 autistic children aged between 3 and 14 years, using parent‐ and self‐reported measures. We found positive correlations between sensory hyperreactivity and total anxiety, separation anxiety and physical injury fears. However, when controlling for autism traits, we found sensory hyperreactivity to be related to physical injury fears and specific phobia, and sensory hyporeactivity to be related to lower total and social anxiety. We found no significant relationships between sensory seeking and anxiety. These results indicate that sensory hyperreactivity and hyporeactivity might be implicated in specific anxiety symptomology. Our results also indicate minimal agreement between parent‐ and self‐reported anxieties, which highlights the limitations of informant reports for anxiety and the pressing need for objective anxiety assessments for autistic children to be developed. Our findings have important implications for limiting the development of anxiety in autistic children and suggest that sensory reactivity differences should be considered when developing targeted interventions for certain anxiety disorders. Autism Res 2020, 13: 785–795. © 2019 The Authors. Autism Research published by International Society for Autism Research published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

中文翻译：

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自闭症儿童的感觉反应性差异与焦虑亚型之间的关系。

自闭症儿童比非自闭症儿童更容易出现焦虑症。感觉反应性差异被认为是危险因素之一。具体而言，感觉反应过度以前曾与焦虑有关，包括分离性焦虑和特定恐惧症。然而，极少的研究探索了感觉反应不足和寻求的影响。因此，本研究使用父母和自我报告的方法，检查了41名3至14岁的自闭症儿童的感觉反应性差异与焦虑亚型之间的相关关系。我们发现感觉亢进与总焦虑，分离焦虑和身体伤害恐惧之间呈正相关。但是，当控制自闭症特征时，我们发现感觉过度反应与身体伤害恐惧和特定恐惧症有关，感觉过度反应与较低的总体焦虑和社交焦虑有关。我们发现感觉寻求和焦虑之间没有显着关系。这些结果表明感觉过度反应和反应不足可能与特定的焦虑症状有关。我们的结果还表明，父母和自我报告的焦虑之间的共识不大，这突显了知情者报告焦虑的局限性，以及对自闭症儿童进行客观焦虑评估的迫切需求。我们的发现对限制自闭症儿童焦虑的发展具有重要意义，并建议在针对某些焦虑症制定针对性干预措施时应考虑感觉反应性差异。Autism Res 2020，13：785–795。©2019作者。由Wiley Periodicals，Inc.出版的国际自闭症研究协会出版的《自闭症研究》。