Regulation of Heart Rate in Adolescence: Relations to Social Anxiety and Intervention Effects

Background: Teens with ASD report significantly more social anxiety symptoms than their typically developing peers (Sebastian, Blakemore, & Charman, 2009), which in turn negatively affects their social skills. According to Bellini’s (2006) developmental pathway to social anxiety, individuals with AS/HFA present with a temperament that is marked by a high degree of physiological arousal. Level of physiological arousal and its inverse, regulation of the heart via the vagus nerve, can be measured utilizing respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). It has been found that children with ASD have significantly lower levels of RSA than typically developing children (Bal et al., 2010; Ming et al., 2005; Vaughan Van Hecke et al., 2009). Thus, diminished RSA may serve as a foundation from which anxiety stems in social interchange. While there are a handful of studies that have looked at RSA in children with ASD, there is a paucity of studies evaluating regulation of heart rate in adolescents with AS/HFA, as well as the effect that intervention may have on the plasticity of RSA and social anxiety.

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to examine changes in social anxiety as well as regulation of the heart via RSA in teens with AS/HFA who underwent social skills intervention.

Methods: Thirteen adolescents (N = 13) between the ages of 11 to 15 years with ASD participated in the study. The current study conducted a social skills intervention, namely the Program for the Enrichment and Education of Relational Skills (PEERS). PEERS focuses on improving friendship quality and social skills among teens, ages 11-15 years, with higher-functioning ASD (Laugeson et al., 2009). Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions, either the Experimental Treatment Group or the Waitlist Control Group. Pre-intervention and post-intervention measures included: (1) usage of a Biopac ambulatory heart rate monitor (Biopac Systems, Inc.: Goleta, CA.), in order to collect teens’ baseline heart rate; heart rate data was edited and RSA was computed with the CardioEdit and CardioBatch programs (Porges, Chicago, IL); and (2) the Social Anxiety Scale-Adolescent (SAS-A; La Greca & Lopez, 1998), which is a self-report measure that was given to teens.

Results: Preliminary results include available data from the experimental treatment group; ongoing analyses will include additional participants and the waitlist group. Teens’ social anxiety significantly decreased from pre- to post-intervention, t (12) = 3.38, p = .005. It was also found that positive change in RSA over the course of the PEERS intervention was marginally associated with less social anxiety at post-intervention, r = -.51, p = .11.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that social anxiety may decrease due to intervention. Initial results suggest that increases in RSA at post-intervention may predict less social anxiety in adolescents with AS/HFA. This finding will be examined further by comparing additional participants in the experimental treatment group to the waitlist control group. This study has the potential to add to the literature regarding intervention effects on plasticity of social anxiety and regulation of heart rate in teens with ASD.