Therapy Also Improved Co-Occuring Mental Health Symptoms
Unfortunately, insomnia and disturbed sleep are more common in adults with autism than in the general population. Over 70% of autistic adults report difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, which can contribute to social, psychological, and health burdens. Sadly, sleep intervention research for adults with autism is vastly understudied. For these reasons, a team of Australian scientists recently set out to implement a sleep intervention for autistic adults called the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Insomnia intervention (ACT-i). ACT-i seeks to increase an individual’s willingness to experience the conditioned physiological and psychological discomfort associated with not sleeping. The therapy is viewed as a gentle non-drug-based approach to overcoming insomnia. For this study, the researchers recruited eight individuals (6 male, 2 female) ages 18-70 years with an autism diagnosis and scores ranging from 9 to 26 on the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI). Participants were divided into two intervention groups (4 per group) with multiple baselines designed for each group over time. Each participant completed questionnaires pre-intervention, post-intervention, and at a two-month follow-up, actigraphy one-week before intervention and again at one-week post-intervention. Participants kept a daily sleep diary from baseline to one-week post-intervention and one-week at follow-up. Results showed that on a group level, there were significant improvements in ISI scores across the three time points. Additionally, participants showed improvements in anxiety levels, recognized by Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale-Anxiety scores. At the end of the trial, participants viewed ACT-i as an acceptable intervention. Ultimately, the research team considered their pilot study a success indicating that ACT-i is both an efficacious and acceptable intervention for reducing self-reported insomnia and anxiety symptoms in adults with autism.
