Date of Award
5-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
College/School
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Department/Program
Psychology
Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair
Erin Kang
Committee Member
Michael Bixter
Committee Member
Erica Nahin
Abstract
Parent and child reports of psychosocial constructs often differ (e.g., anxiety, social functioning) suggesting that parent and children interpret behavior differently (Lerner et al., 2012, McMahon & Solomon, 2015). Autistic and non-autistic children report anxiety symptoms differently than parents (Kalvin et al., 2020), for executive functioning (EF), parent-child agreement can range from poor (Kenworthy et al., 2021) to moderate (Taylor et al., 2022). Socioeconomic status (SES) may influence parent/child agreement for EF and anxiety (Martel, 2013, Lindqvist Bagge et al., 2024). However, the influences of ASD traits (AT) and SES on parent-child agreement remains underexplored. Autistic and non-autistic youth ages 11-17 and their parents completed measures of anxiety (MASC-2; March, 2012 & ASC-ASD; Rodgers et al., 2016) and EF (BRIEF-2; Gioia et al,. 2015). AT was determined by ADOS-2 (Lord et al., 2012). SES was grouped on annual income. Fisher’s r-to-z transformations compared parent/child correlations of EF/anxiety, and moderation examined influences of AT and SES. Parent/child correlations did not differ for anxiety or EF and AT did not moderate parent-child agreement. SES significantly moderated parent and child anxiety scores for both the MASC-2 and the ASC-ASD (F(3, 32)=9.21, p< .001; F(3, 32)=3.82, p=.02, respectively), with better agreement in higher SES. While parents and children generally agree on anxiety/EF challenges, SES may impact agreement on anxiety levels. Notably, AT does not appear to affect this concordance, highlighting the importance of contextual factors (SES) for understanding anxiety and may shape how anxiety is perceived/reported. This underscores the importance of multi-informant assessments.
File Format
Recommended Citation
DeFilippo, Willow Ann, "Parent-Child Concordance on Anxiety and Executive Functioning: Influences of Autistic Traits and Socioeconomic Status" (2025). Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects. 1547.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/etd/1547