PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Autism
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1569882
This article is part of the Research TopicAnxiety in Autistic People: Moving the NeedleView all 6 articles
How the ASCENT Model Can Help Optimize Exposure Therapies for Autistic Clients
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, United States
- 2Flow Psychological Services, Reno, NV, United States
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Exposure therapies are very effective for alleviating anxiety, yet limited research has focused on optimizing their effectiveness for Autistic clients. This "Perspective" article describes how the ASCENT model can guide tailoring exposure therapies to be more effective and affirming for Autistic clients. This model proposes supporting clients in Autonomous and Affirming goal setting (A), adapting for differences in Sensory processing, Stimming, Structure, Special interests (S), Communication (C), and Executive functioning (E), practicing with Neurohumility (N), and being Trauma informed (T). Because the ASCENT model is based on traits of Autistic clients and effective ways of working with them, it can help guide tailoring a wide variety of anxiety treatments. This article provides examples of how the ASCENT model can be applied to increase the effectiveness of several different types of exposure therapies, as well as articulating when exposure is not appropriate and accommodation is necessary instead.
Keywords: Exposure, Anxiety, Autistic, autism, ascent
Received: 02 Feb 2025; Accepted: 16 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Brook. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Amara Brook, amara@flowps.com
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