When Adolescents Experience Co-Occurring Social Anxiety and ADHD Symptoms: Links With Social Skills When Interacting With Unfamiliar Peer Confederates.
Behav Ther
; 53(6): 1109-1121, 2022 11.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-36229110
ABSTRACT
Adolescents with elevated social anxiety commonly experience peer-related impairments - particularly with same-age, unfamiliar peers - stemming from their avoidant behaviors. Yet, peer-related impairments are not unique to social anxiety. For example, adolescents who experience social anxiety may also experience symptoms of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which also increase risk for peer-related impairments. Relative to social anxiety, peer-related impairments linked to ADHD symptoms more likely stem from hyperactivity (i.e., approach behaviors). These distinct pathways point to adolescents with elevated social anxiety and ADHD symptoms (i.e., social anxietyâ¯+â¯ADHD) experiencing particularly high peer-related impairments, which commonly manifest as behavioral displays of low social skills when interacting with unfamiliar peers. We tested this notion in a mixed-clinical/community sample of 134 14- to 15-year-old adolescents and their parents. Adolescents participated in a series of social interaction tasks designed to simulate how adolescents interact with same-age, unfamiliar peers. Trained observers independently rated adolescents on observed social skills within these interactions. Both parents and adolescents completed parallel surveys of social anxiety and ADHD symptoms, which we used to identify social anxietyâ¯+â¯ADHD adolescents as well as other combinations of social anxiety and ADHD symptoms (i.e., neither, elevated on one but not the other). Adolescents with social anxietyâ¯+â¯ADHD displayed significantly lower social skills, relative to all other groups. Among adolescents, social anxietyâ¯+â¯ADHD may have a compounding effect on social skills. As such, therapists working with social anxietyâ¯+â¯ADHD adolescents should probe for peer-related impairments and factors implicated in the development and maintenance of these impairments.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity
Type of study:
Diagnostic_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
Limits:
Adolescent
/
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
Behav Ther
Year:
2022
Document type:
Article