Treatment of childhood anxiety: Developmental aspects
Section snippets
Brief overview of childhood anxiety treatment
TREATMENT OF CHILDHOOD and adolescent anxiety has garnered increasing attention over the last decade. For the majority of children, anxiety is a common, functional, and transitory experience (Last, Perrin, Hersen, & Kazdin, 1996), the nature and intensity of which varies, at least in part, according to the child's developmental stage. For example, young children often experience anxiety when separated from main attachment figures or if exposed to dark, unfamiliar places. In comparison, the
Developmental guidelines for treatment
The call to acknowledge developmental issues in the conceptualisation of childhood psychological disorder is not a new thing (Treadwell, Flannery-Schroeder, & Kendall, 1995). However, the impact of this recognition has been slow to filter down to the treatment literature. An appreciation of general patterns of development can provide important direction for the design and implementation of childhood anxiety treatment. Examination of these patterns gives insight into potential vulnerabilities,
Treatment of generalised anxiety
The few randomised controlled studies in the area of childhood anxiety have mainly evaluated a variety of cognitive behavioral techniques (CBT). Particular attention has been directed towards psychological education about the nature of anxiety, cognitive restructuring, and behavioral exposure Albano & Barlow 1996, Kendall 1994, Ollendick & King 1994.
In a recent review of studies, Ollendick and King (1998) examined the relative effectiveness of a variety of behavioral and cognitive-behavioral
Treatment of specific anxiety disorders
In spite of the difficulties with comorbidity, some studies have applied cognitive-behavioral principles to the treatment of specific anxiety disorders, using the primary diagnosis as their target in most cases.
Issues of individual difference in treatment
Although most of the focus until this point has been on global comparisons, clinicians are well aware that individual differences play a large role in treatment outcome. Whilst every child and family experiences life stressors, it is clear that not all children develop disorders. A greater understanding of the influence of life events and prior functioning on the development of severe anxiety problems is thus essential. It is suspected that multiple factors (i.e., risk factors) may operate to
Future directions for treatment research
The current discussion has attempted to emphasize the relevance of developmental factors to the treatment of childhood anxiety disorders. In so doing, it has identified several areas that are under-researched at present, and others that provide avenues for new research. The argument has been that programs of treatment for childhood anxiety need to be especially sensitive to developmental factors. Examination of developmental patterns in normal fear experiences indicate that fears in early
Conclusions
Generally speaking, standardised treatment programs for childhood anxiety have only been designed and evaluated over the past 10 years. Research in this area has grown in accuracy and sophistication, with positive consequences for families and clinicians. However, in common with other areas of child and adult psychopathology, several conceptual and methodological limitations still remain. The current discussion has sought to highlight some of these, with particular emphasis on the developmental
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Contextual Emotion Regulation Therapy: A Developmentally Based Intervention for Pediatric Depression
2012, Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North AmericaCitation Excerpt :More recently, Ollendick and colleagues3 have specifically noted that developmental theory should inform decisions regarding when to intervene for children, what to target, and how treatment goals should be implemented, and suggested that a useful template is the developmentally based utilization guidelines for behavioral techniques. Barrett4 raised similar developmentally based concerns in connection with interventions for pediatric anxiety disorders and was especially concerned that standardized interventions tend to view children as “little adults.” In a subsequent publication, Kingery and colleagues5 underscored that anxious youngsters indeed are not “little adults” and provided a detailed exposition of age-appropriate ways to engage such youths in treatment as well as ways to modify demanding therapeutic strategies (such as cognitive restructuring, exposure tasks).
Cognitive-behavioural therapy for young children with anxiety disorders: Comparison of a Child + Parent condition versus a Parent Only condition
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