Mental Health Status of Youth Diagnosed With ASD Who Received Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention as Young Children

Abstract

Many youth diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience comorbid mental health issues. However, treatment history is rarely reported in these samples making it impossible to determine whether there is any relation between treatment history and later mental health functioning. Further, studies that report on outcomes of early intensive behavioural intervention (EIBI) rarely report long-term outcomes or mental health outcomes. This means that very little is known about the mental health status of children who previously received EIBI. This brief report describes the mental health profiles of 12 youth diagnosed with ASD who previously received EIBI, including measures of internalizing and externalizing disorders, and specific anxiety symptoms. The majority of participants (approximately 70%) were not experiencing significant mental health difficulties (reported by youth, parents and teachers). However, group mean scores for internalizing difficulties were significantly worse than those of the normative sample (reported by parents and teachers).

Keywords:

• Anxiety
• autism
• early intensive behavioral intervention
• long-term outcomes
• mental health

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the York University Psychology Clinic for the use of assessment space. We would also like to thank the numerous graduate students who helped complete psychological assessments. Most importantly, we express our sincere thanks to the parents, youth, and teachers who participated in this study.

Disclosure statement

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Additional information

Funding

Financial

Support was provided by the Council for Research in the Social Sciences at Brock University; York University Faculty of Health; and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).