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Anxiety, depression, and social skills in girls with fragile X syndrome: Understanding the cycle to improve outcomes
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12 01 2022
Source: J Dev Behav Pediatr. 43(9):e565-e572 -
Alternative Title:J Dev Behav Pediatr
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Personal Author:
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Description:Objective:
Females with fragile X syndrome (FXS), a genetic condition associated with a mutation in the FMR1 gene, are at significantly elevated risk for developing anxiety and depression. This study is designed to better understand these symptoms in school-aged girls, particularly as they relate to age, social skills, and functional outcomes.
Methods:
We compared 58 girls ages 6–16 years with FXS to 46 age-, gender-, and developmentally-matched peers without FXS on measures of anxiety, depression, social skills, adaptive behavior, and quality of life.
Results:
Girls with FXS 10.5 years and older demonstrated significantly higher levels of depression, withdrawal, and social avoidance than girls younger than 10.5 with FXS (p’s < .01). Girls in the comparison group did not show any age-related differences on these measures. The older FXS cohort also showed associations between social communication and interaction skills, adaptive behavior, and measures of anxiety and depression (p’s < .05) not seen in the comparison group, regardless of age.
Conclusion:
We found that age appears to play an important role in the development of mood symptoms and that such symptoms are uniquely correlated with social communication and reciprocal social interaction behaviors and adaptive functioning in girls with FXS post-puberty. These data suggest a critical window of intervention for girls with FXS in the improvement of social interaction skills and the prevention of social avoidance and symptoms of anxiety and depression, with the ultimate goal of improving quality of life and promoting greater independence.
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Pubmed ID:36219483
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Pubmed Central ID:PMC9712149
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