Katherine Taylor and Dr. Mikle South

Main Text

The purpose of my study was to examine behavioral and physiological measures of anxiety in an effort to understand the appearance of anxiousness in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). With the help of my mentor, Dr Mikle South, and his other research assistants, I modified Ned Kalin’s (e.g., 2003) human intruder paradigm for monkeys, originally based on Ainsworth’s “Strange Situation” (Ainsworth & Bell, 1970) for use with children. The phases of the experiment proceeded as follows:

Phase A: A confederate research assistant, unknown to the participant (the Stranger), will knock on the door and engage in a brief, heated argument about scheduled use of the room with the research assistant who has worked with the participant to that point.

Phase B: After a few minutes after the Stranger leaves the lab, the familiar assistant will tell the participant that the assistant needs to go visit with the participant’s parent and will be gone a few minutes.

Phase C: The Stranger returns to the room while the assistant is still away, but looks at the far wall and not toward the partially-hidden participant.

Phase D: The Stranger turns directly towards the participant and makes eye contact through the gap in the curtain.

I hypothesized that anxiety levels in children with ASD would be correlated with specific behavioral and physiological response during three separate phases of the intruder task— isolation, “non-stressful” stranger, and “stressful” stranger epochs. For example, when the child was left alone in the room, they may display anxiety by moving around the room or shouting for the research assistant to come back. In the first stranger situation, the child may try to be very silent so the stranger will leave them alone, and when the stranger notices the child (the stressful stranger epoch) the child might tell the stranger to leave or try to leave himself. My hypothesis has yet to be confirmed, since we are still in the process of collecting data.

Although the study is still ongoing, I am very pleased with the current progress. Due to my graduation and subsequent move to the east coast, I am no longer an active participant on Dr. South’s research team (and therefore no longer actively working on the study) but I plan on consulting in data analysis and manuscript preparation when the study is completed. With a few minor modifications in the pilot stage of the study, it seems that the experimental design is working as anticipated and we will hopefully see results that either confirm my hypothesis or at least have some sort of positive contribution to the current literature on the relationship between autism and anxiety disorders.

The project took us a long time to prepare. It seemed that Dr South and I had odd spurts of working very hard on the project, with long periods of no work between the spurts. We both had a lot to deal with during the semester, with him dealing with funerals and family emergencies and I with illness. There was a lot to set up in our experimental area, and we had to practice the script for the argument and run through the procedure until it was absolutely perfect. With a lot of hard work and dedication we were able to get everything together so we could start running participants before I left.

Watching the first participants (typically developing controls) go through the procedure was very rewarding. I had my doubts that the procedure would get the results I was looking for, but seeing that the kids were genuinely concerned about the staged argument between the research assistant and the stranger and then the stranger’s reappearance in the absence of the research assistant indicated to me that maybe our idea would work. Although we have yet to analyze the data, from what I have observed I think my hypothesis has a strong chance of being confirmed, but there is always the chance that we find out some other interesting things, such as the kids with autism not responding to the social anxiety induced by the stranger’s presence. We hope to close the experimental aspect of the project by September, with data analysis and manuscript preparation done by the end of the year.

Working on this project has opened me up to the possibility of pursuing a graduate degree in hopes of becoming a researcher. I think working on a project of this size and scope has been great preparation for completing a thesis project and a dissertation. I think I had my doubts as to whether I was capable of working on my own project like this one, but thanks to Dr South and his support and faith in my abilities I now have the same faith in my abilities as a researcher.

References

• Ainsworth, M. D., & Bell, S. M. (1970). Attachment, exploration, and separation: Illustrated by the behavior of one-year-olds in a strange situation. Child Development, 41, 49-67.
• Kalin, N. H. (2003). Nonhuman primate studies of fear, anxiety, and temperament and the role of benzodiazepine receptors and GABA system. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 64(3), 41-44.