Background The number of students with an autism diagnosis is increasing at university. Previous research has shown that those students experience lower levels of social support. Previous research...Show moreBackground The number of students with an autism diagnosis is increasing at university. Previous research has shown that those students experience lower levels of social support. Previous research has also shown a positive link between social support and academic performance. However, there is limited research on this topic. Aim To explore the relationship between social support and academic performance in university students, and to check whether this relationship is mediated by stress, perceived self-competence, depression, or anxiety, and moderated by an autism diagnosis. Design and method Online survey. 222 university students (aged 18-56), 59 with an autism diagnosis (aged 18-39), and 163 without an autism diagnosis (aged 18-56), completed multiple questionnaires assessing participants’ academic performance, perception of their competence to do their class work, stress related to studying at university, anxiety, depression, and social support. Participants were recruited at Dutch universities. Results There was no relationship between social support and stress, perceived self-competence, depression or anxiety. There was no relationship between stress, perceived self-competence, depression or anxiety and academic performance. Autism diagnosis moderated the relationship between social support and depression, and the relationship between social support and anxiety. Limitations The results are reliant on self-reports. A snowball procedure was used for recruitment, which may have caused the sample to be unrepresentative. Conclusion Considering the differences in findings to previous research and the limited amount thereof, it remains unclear whether a relationship between social support and academic performance in students with autism is present, and whether the relationship is mediated by stress, perceived self-competence, depression or anxiety. Future research should examine gender differences, as well as a combination of different constructs.Show less
Background: Cognitive reactivity (CR) can be defined as the ease with which dysfunctional and negative cognitions can be activated when an individual experiences mild sadness or low mood. Past...Show moreBackground: Cognitive reactivity (CR) can be defined as the ease with which dysfunctional and negative cognitions can be activated when an individual experiences mild sadness or low mood. Past research supports the stance that such reactivity constitutes a vulnerability marker of depression. Aim: To assess whether CR scores in people who develop major depressive disorder (MDD) episodes are already elevated before their first episode of depression (i.e., vulnerability hypothesis) or whether major depressive episodes result in higher residual CR scores (i.e., scarring hypothesis). Methods: Data from a large cohort study, The Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA) (Penninx et al., 2004) was analyzed. Two samples of previously never-depressed individuals who developed at least one MDD episode within the study period (N=129 and N=142) and met the inclusion criteria, together with two samples of healthy controls (N=41 and N=130) were followed over the course of six years. CR was measured with Leiden Index of Depression Sensitivity – revised and the presence of major depressive disorder was assessed with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Results: CR scores of previously never-depressed individuals who developed at least one MDD episode (and were depressed for 1-10 (M=14.8), 11-25 (M=18.2) or 26-71 (M=20) months) were already elevated at baseline compared to never-depressed individuals who remained healthy (M=9.2). CR scores decreased over the course of six years for individuals who developed MDD (17.4 vs. 15.4) and healthy controls (9.1 vs. 7.5). Conclusion: Present study found support for vulnerability rather than scarring hypothesis with relation to cognitive reactivity.Show less
This Electroencephalography (EEG) study examined the generation of taskspecific selfefficacy, the confidence in one’s ability to perform a given task successfully, on a neural level. The...Show moreThis Electroencephalography (EEG) study examined the generation of taskspecific selfefficacy, the confidence in one’s ability to perform a given task successfully, on a neural level. The proposition was that selfefficacy shows in Mirror Neuron System (MNS) activity, which is indicated by suppression in the frequency range from 8 to 13 Hz, the muband. This musuppression was measured whilst participants (n = 6) watched prerecorded videos of themselves performing short, simple motor tasks in three different viewing conditions. The three viewing conditions were thought to induce different levels of selfefficacy. In two conditions, there was statistically significant musuppression compared to the reference viewing condition. Further, a new score to measure musuppression, the relative musuppression score rmu, was introduced. This rmu score could be used as a neurophysiological marker to reliably measure musuppression in clinical and nonclinical subjects. Then, this score was crosscorrelated with the state anxiety score of the StateTrait Anxiety Inventory. An inverse relationship as reported in previous studies could be seen. But, given the low variance in state anxiety scores and the small sample size, no statistically sound confirmation of said relationship could be made.Show less
