Experimental study examining the effect of social familiarity on behavioral manifestations of stress and anxiety in children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders

The purpose of the current study was to compare the behavioral responses of children with HFASDs in a familiar and an unfamiliar social situation; and to describe how these results compare to those of physiological and self-report measures described in a prior study. Each participant interacted with a familiar and an unfamiliar peer on two separate occasions. The sessions were videotaped and coded for six behaviors: complaining and whining, participating in conversation, irrelevant information, repetitive vocalizing behavior, repetitive motor behavior, and hands in clothing. While results indicated significant main effects for five out of six major comparisons, when age, IQ, parent education, or autistic symptomology variables were controlled for, only four comparisons were interpretable due to low base rates and violations of statistical assumptions. For these four behaviors, the results indicated that interacting with an unfamiliar peer had a negative affect on behavioral performance and reduced participation in conversation for children with HFASDs in the sample. Overall, current finding suggested a pattern inconsistent with the results of the physiological and selfreport measures reported in the prior study.