From the Anxiety Disorders Association of America Annual (ADAA) Conference: 3.5.10, Baltimore, MD poster session

“Predictors of Response to Parent-Child CBT in 4- to 7- Year-Old Children” was presented by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital.  Led by Dina Hirshfeld-Becker, the team used previously learned information: children who completed an intervention of child-parent CBT (using a protocol designed by the team) showed a significant improvement in overall anxiety as compared to the control group (69% vs 32%).  The previous study also found a significantly higher rate of remission in all of the anxiety disorders as compared to the control (59% vs. 18%).

This study looked at that data and attempted to understand what led some children to be more successful than others.  They explored: “age, gender, internalizing, and externalizing symptoms, cognitive functioning, family environment, and parental history of anxiety disorder and major depression, as well as behavioral inhibition.”

The study found:

-no significant effect based on age, sex, family conflict, lifetime parental anxiety or current parental anxiety (although lifetime parental anxiety disorder was on the cusp)

-significant negative effect when the child had “laboratory rated” levels of Behavioral Inhibition(BI).  (Behavioral Inhibition is a term that describes a group or cluster of behaviors that a child shows when exposed to a new situations).

Overall: anxious kids did well with parent/child CBT, even at young ages.  Children with BI also progressed, but there progress was much slower as compared to their peers.

• BROWSE / IN TIMELINE
• « Specific Childhood Anxiety Disorders May Predict Substance Abuse In Adolescence
• » Excess Parental Involvement Can Impact Children’s Social Engagement in Preschool

• BROWSE / IN cbt
• « Additional Support for Depression Prevention
• » Benefits of CBT in Childhood May Last Into Adulthood