How Parents Can Alleviate Fearfulness in Their Child on the Spectrum
"My 9 y.o. son [high functioning autistic] is under a ton of stress right now [I think mostly because of the coronavirus scare]... but there are numerous other things he tends to worry about too. How can we as his parents reduce his excessive and unrealistic fears?!" Many young people with ASD level 1, or High-Functioning Autism (HFA), will receive another diagnosis at some point in their development. In one study, 70% of a sample of kids with an autism spectrum disorder (ages 10-14) had also been diagnosed with another disorder. 41% had been diagnosed with two or more additional disorders. The most common types of additional diagnoses are those related to anxiety. Kids with HFA have more severe symptoms of phobias, motor/vocal tics, obsessions/compulsions, and social phobia than “typical” kids do. Fear and anxiety makes it very difficult for young people on the spectrum to do everything from making friends to going school. And to further complicate matters, they