Program
Special Education M.A.
Year Approved
2018
First Advisor
Silmser, Lisa
Abstract
As educators, we have seen Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), anxiety levels, mental health issues, and explosive behaviors rise in the general education population as well as the special education population in the last five years. The need for effective research based treatment plans is a very high demand in order to best serve our rising ASD population with comorbid anxiety in the school setting. There is building evidence in research that supports positive outcomes when using Cognitive Behavioral Therapies (CBT) for adolescents with ASD comorbid with anxiety who have some emotion recognition abilities as well as age appropriate intellectual and verbal abilities (McNally, Keehn, Lincoln, Brown, & Chavira 2013). Ung et al. (2015) believes there should be continued research surrounding this issue in order to really understand the moderators and other factors that have an influence on treatment efficacy and how to produce the greatest post treatment reduction in anxiety symptoms. There has been research since that would imply that CBT does in fact have a lasting impact on children when they measure effectiveness at 1-year, 2-year, and 3-year post CBT treatment plans. Continued research into what combinations work best as a treatment plan to most effectively serve our ASD population is needed, however CBT is a promising start.
Degree Name
Special Education M.A.
Document Type
Masterʼs thesis
Recommended Citation
Olsen, N. L. (2018). Elevated Anxiety in Youth With Autism Spectrum Disorder and the Implications of Using Cognitive Behavioral Therapies as an Effective Treatment Plan [Masterʼs thesis, Bethel University]. Spark Repository. https://spark.bethel.edu/etd/481
Terms of Use and License Information
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.