The Effectiveness Of Cbt For Children With Anxiety

Childhood anxiety is quickly becoming the most challenging of all childhood problems. As the root of most problems, anxiety covers a long range of stressors that spread quickly if not treated or relieved early in life. Anxious feelings in children varies from children of all backgrounds. All people feel anxious at one point or another, and it is only when children are affected daily and unable to be calmed when people should become concerned. Many times, children are feeling overwhelmed and cannot express themselves or struggle to understand his/her feelings. Social and emotional development then plays a big part when facing concerns like anxiety in a young childhood environment. Teachers and caregivers need to take a step back and focus on what the child needs rather than what he/she can do to make children calm down. Through interventions, patience, and caring teachers, a young child does not need to be known as "The Child Who is Anxious", he/she can just be a child.

Children with generalized anxiety disorder in the schools will exhibit symptoms consistent with the criteria mentioned above but will also appear to worry excessively about a variety of issues such as grades, peers, and performance in sports. These students may

But with every medication comes side effects, and the effects include sexual problems, weight gain, and insomnia (Harvard Mental Health Letter, 2011). One such study found that adolescents who received a combination treatment, that is with cognitive behavioral therapy and drugs, was the most successful. Randomized patients were to receive sertraline, CBT, sertraline and CBT, or placebo for 12 weeks (Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, 2009). It was concluded that 81% of the patients that underwent the combination therapy were able to greatly reduce their symptoms (Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, 2009). It has been shown that CBT in schools can greatly reduce childhood anxiety attacks. Sixty-one children, aged 7 to 11 years, were randomized to receive group CBT for children, group CBT for children plus parent training, or no treatment for 9 weeks. After a 12-month follow-up period, those who received CBT had significantly less anxiety severity than those in the control group. The authors noted that treatment effects of CBT can be maintained for a 12-month period in children who have anxiety (Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, 2009).

There were two studies that examined the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED). The Hale III et al. (2014) prospective cohort study was conducted to determine if frequent administration of the SCARED further distinguished between false positives and true positives with regard to DSM-5 diagnostic symptoms of anxiety disorder. While the Simon et al. (2009) prospective study was conducted to determine if results relating to high-anxious and median-anxious on the SCARED could be used to distinguish and predict various anxiety disorders. Both authors believe that anxiety disorders can take a serious toll on the quality of life and can financially drain the society. Simon et al. goes on to say that anxiety disorders that

When looking at the combined results of this research, the primary conclusion is that CBT does indeed have a strong impact in reducing comorbid anxiety in children and adolescents with ASD (Drahota et al., 2011; Ehrenreich-May et al., 2014; McNally Keehn et al., 2013; Nadeau et al., 2015; Reaven et al., 2012). Many of the research results have a common theme in that they reduce anxiety severity, symptoms, and anxiety-related diagnostic criteria (Drahota et al., 2011; Ehrenreich-May et al., 2014; McNally Keehn et al., 2013; Nadeau et al., 2015; Reaven et al., 2012). These results suggest that CBT plays a role in reducing overall anxiety in those individuals with ASD (Drahota et al., 2011; Ehrenreich-May et al., 2014; McNally Keehn et al., 2013;

Getting into the process of how the research was done the kids was given FRIENDS program, which is a workbook that targets three areas: physical symptoms, cognitive processes, and coping skills. Kids were taught relaxation techniques, positive self-talk and coping/problem solving skills. After this fears were explored in more depth gradually and with attempts to handle these fears a positive reward was given. The FRIENDS treatment was made up of ten weekly sessions for kids in groups and done also individually. The parents had only four sessions focusing on psychoeducation. The measures that were used consisted of Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule (ADIS) in a parent and child version done at both pre and post treatment. Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illnesses that affect children and the amount of children affected by this mental illness has increased considerably in the past century. However, the amount of children that actually get treatment is drastically low, leaving children to deal with their fears and worries by themselves. The children who deal with anxiety are overcome with fear and worry and are constantly dismissed as acting out for attention because people are unaware of how serious anxiety can affect children. Anxiety plagues children and can affect them for their entire life if not treated and in order to make sure these suffering children get the care they need their needs to be more emphasis on anxiety disorders. Childhood anxiety disorders affect the child and the people involved in the child’s life, yet there is not enough treatment or awareness in today’s society.

Anxiety is a common mental health concern affecting children, and children with ASD are at a higher risk for anxiety and concurring mental health concerns (Reaven, Blakeley-Smith, Leuthe, Moody, & Hepburn, 2012; White, Ollendick, Scahill, Oswald, & Albano, 2009; Wood et al., 2015). Studies suggest that anxiety disorders occur in 2.2-2.7% of the general population of children, while reports suggest that children with ASD are reported to have anxiety issues as much as two times higher (Reaven et al., 2012; Scattone & Mong, 2013). Anxiety is associated with substantial functional impairment in children with ASD at home, school, and community environments (Reaven, Blakeley-Smith, Culhane-Shelburne, & Hepburn, 2011; Wood et al., 2015). Anxiety in children with ASD may lead to excessive worry, distress, inability to socialize effectively, isolation, and insufficient performance in school (Reaven et al., 2012; Weiss, Viecilli, & Bohr, 2014; Wood et al., 2015). Children’s anxiety symptoms may also change over time (Reaven et al., 2012).

The were 44 participants in the study, all of which were classified as clinically anxious. The participants were between the ages of 7-13, and 87% of the participants were born in Australia. Anxiety levels were measured using the DSM-IV, and anxiety symptom levels were measured using Spence Children's Anxiety Scale, Parent and Child which measured the severity of symptoms using a four-point scale. The participants also had skin conductance responses (SCR) to measure anxiety levels. The participants first completed a classical conditioning and extinction exercise. After extinction, anxious children then completed group CBT. The results of the study were that participants who responded very well to CBT had a similar response to non-anxious participants in some respects. An implication of the study suggests that prior to exposure therapy, responses to feared stimuli should be examined. In conclusion, differences in fear extinction could change the response to CBT.

Namely, 2-5 years after the intervention, the children maintained their gains over all three types of anxiety disorders. This effect was confirmed with both self-report and parent-report measures of anxiety, self-reported anxious self-talk and self-reported depression. All participants in the time of the study did not have anxiety disorder diagnosis.

The results reveal that cognitive behavioral therapy did result in improvements on the physical and social anxiety scales, and overall anxiety symptoms (Yen et al., 2013). Essentially, indicating that CBT has the potential to improve anxiety symptoms in both the child and the mother (Yen et al., 2013). Although this study showed positive results in the treatment of children’s behavioral problems, it seems as though attempting to identify the children’s issues, in conjunction with

In this paper, I am going to talk about anxiety disorders according to the article which I read. Anxiety disorders are very common problem in childhood and often seen as normal in development. However, since these problems may have negative influence on child’s development and on their families, professional intervention can be necessary in some cases. Children can show fear as reactions to threats in the environment. In the beginning, this would be normal, but if these fears and anxieties intensify and persist, they can turn into phobias. I mean, like other disorders anxiety disorders also tend to be chronic without treating properly. There are several scientifically proven and effective treatments for children.

According the Phal et al (2012) there is three characteristics that contribute to a child developing an anxiety disorder. They include: Behavioural inhibition, parental psychopathology and parenting stress. Though the article also states in its limitations that other attributes to consider is a child’s “happiness, resilience and positive coping” (Pahl et al, 2012, p 318). The exploration

A common, but dangerous, mindset that some parents or guardians take on in the face of their child’s unusual levels of anxiety is one of dismissal in which they disregard the forming issue as a phase of some sort that every child must endure; however, such a belief is only partially correct.

There were still significant benefits to younger children with CBT, but it was about half of that found in older children. They discovered posttreatment effects to be durable, with no significant reduction in the average 4 month period after treatment ceased (Durlak, Fuhrman, and Lampman, 1991). Children who received CBT treatment showed meaningful gains in appropriate behavior and affect using NES analysis when consideration was given to cognitive ability.