What is it about?
Social anxiety is common in many autistic adolescents. it can make everyday communication more difficult. We bring together what researchers have discovered so far about how communication skills and social anxiety relate to one another in autistic youth.
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Why is it important?
This is the first systematic review to bring together the scattered scientific evidence on communication and social anxiety in autistic youth. It highlights a growing need to understand co-occurring mental health challenges in autism, especially as anxiety rates rise during childhood and adolescence. The review also draws attention to a major gap in the field: many commonly used communication and anxiety measures were not designed for autistic populations, which limits what researchers can conclude. By identifying this gap, the paper provides a roadmap for creating better assessment tools and more targeted interventions. This work is timely because clinicians, educators, and families are increasingly seeking evidence-based ways to support autistic children who experience social anxiety alongside communication challenges.
Perspectives
Completing this review felt meaningful because it brought together two areas I care about deeply: communication and mental health in autistic youth. Working with my coauthors, many of whom I collaborate with closely in my lab, made the process even more rewarding. More than anything, I hope it opens the door to interventions that support both communication growth and emotional well-being, so autistic youth can navigate social situations with more confidence and less fear.
Mojtaba Norozi
University of South Carolina
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Associations Between Communication Skills and Social Anxiety in Children and Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review, Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, December 2025, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA),
DOI: 10.1044/2025_jslhr-25-00219.
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