Story worlds as social armor: Novel reading habits attenuate the autistic-traits to social anxiety pathway

Consistent with Social Motivation Theory, higher autistic traits elevate children's social anxiety and, indirectly, their behavioral difficulties. Frequent engagement with long-form fiction provides an alternative social-cognitive practice context that dampens anxiety reactivity to autistic traits, thereby reducing downstream behavioral risk. Encouraging immersive, self-chosen novel reading may therefore complement conventional social-skills and emotion-regulation programmes for autistic youth within ordinary classroom literacy practice.