Comorbid Psychopathology, Challenging Behavior, Sensory Issues, Adaptive Behavior and Quality of Life in Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

ABSTRACT

Aim: Comorbid psychopathology refers to having a diagnosis of two or more co-occurring psychological disorders. The current study investigated the differences between children and adolescents with no-mild, moderate and severe comorbid psychopathology in children and adolescents with ASD.

Method: Parents of 133 children completed the Autism Spectrum Disorder-Comorbid for Children, Behavior Problems Inventory-Short Form, Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory, Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, Social Communication Questionnaire, Short Sensory Profile, and Behavioral/Educational Interventions and Complementary/Alternative Medicine (CAM) Interventions of the Autism Treatment Network Registry Parent Baseline Assessment.

Results: A significant difference was found between severity of comorbid psychopathology and all types of challenging behavior and all sensory issues except movement. A small effect size was also found between comorbid psychopathology and quality of life.

Conclusion: The findings from this study show significant difficulties associated with those with comorbid psychopathology in ASD in challenging behavior, sensory issues and quality of life.

KEYWORDS:

• Autism spectrum disorder
• comorbidity
• comorbid psychopathology
• challenging behavior
• quality of life
• sensory issues

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of National University of Ireland Galway and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.