Autism and Understanding Anxiety

Autism and Understanding Anxiety This training approaches anxiety as a contextual and relational response, particularly relevant during adolescence when academic pressure, social complexity, transitions, and expectations around independence intensify. Rather than locating anxiety within the young person, the session highlights how anxiety often arises from cumulative stress, chronic masking, sensory overload, rigid systems, and threats to belonging within Post Primary schools. Participants will explore: How anxiety is experienced physiologically and cognitively by autistic young people The impact of sustained effort, masking, and unmet needs over the school day. How anxiety frequently functions as a signal of reduced safety, predictability, belonging or agency. How fixed systems, assessment practices, homework demands, transitions, substitute teaching, can exacerbate anxiety. Environmental, relational, and communicative supports that reduce anxiety by changing expectations and structures, rather than expecting the young person to cope alone.