Adults Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder are Five Times More Likely to be Suffering from Depression or Anxiety Disorders

More than 3.5 million Americans are currently living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Abdul, sixteen, is one of those people. If you were to ask his older brother, Rafaf, how this affects him, he’d tell you it just makes Abdul a little quiet. Rafaf has been struggling with moving his younger brother out of the special needs school he attends and into a traditional high school. If this transition were to occur, his chances of going to college and subsequently attaining a profession would skyrocket.

Rafaf’s hope for this lies in his belief that Abdul is a victim of the same problem that Matthew Hollock’s study reveals.

Matthew Hollocks wanted to address the  hypothesis that adults with ASD are at higher risk for Depression and Anxiety disorders. With the lack of specific review of this correlation, he and his team decided to conduct a meta-analysis, a quantitative statistical review of several similar studies.  Of the 1,661 papers reviewed that related ASD to Depression and Anxiety disorders, only 35 met the requirements of studying people 18 or older. These studies had 26,070 participants in studies analyzing anxiety disorders and 26,117 participants in studies analyzing depression. From these populations 27% are currently suffering from an anxiety disorder and 23% are currently suffering from some form of depression. However, all of the studies analyzed suffered from extreme heterogeneity, or variations among the subjects of the study. This caveat is important because it demonstrates that the majority of research isn’t systematically categorizing the severity of ASD in the subject. The lack of case-by-case analysis is exactly what Abdul is a victim of.

He found himself in a gray area, his meeting with a specialist diagnosed him with acute Autism, and his IQ test score of 73 put him a few points below the cutoff for intellectual disability. Instead of going through subsequent interviews or further testing, he was put into a special needs school. This is the kind of treatment that needs to change. Generalizing a specific group of people is what we’re taught against as children, yet this problem, as it tends to do, has still seeped into the treatment of ASD. The solution to this is a new systematic method of categorizing ASD led by scientists and health care workers. Scientists need to start differentiating the severity of ASD in research studies. Healthcare and social workers need to be willing to commit to case-by-case analysis of individuals suffering from this disorder. The lack of understanding of ASD should not be used as an excuse for the lack of better treatment, but rather  motivation for future scientists and health care workers to lead this culture shift.

Rafaf is hopeful. A lawyer is finally reviewing Abdul’s case and the likelihood for his transition to a traditional high school makes his chance at a life not defined by ASD even more of a reality.