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The Treatment of Childhood Social Phobia: The Effectiveness of a Social Skills Training-based, Cognitive-behavioural Intervention, with and without Parental Involvement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2000

Susan H. Spence ,
Caroline Donovan  and
Margaret Brechman-Toussaint
Susan H. Spence
Affiliation:
University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Caroline Donovan
Affiliation:
University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Margaret Brechman-Toussaint
Affiliation:
University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
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Abstract

Fifty children aged 7–14 years with a principal diagnosis of social phobia were randomly assigned to either child-focused cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT), CBT plus parent involvement, or a wait list control (WLC). The integrated CBT program involved intensive social skills training combined with graded exposure and cognitive challenging. At post-treatment, significantly fewer children in the treatment conditions retained a clinical diagnosis of social phobia compared to the WLC condition. In comparison to the WLC, children in both CBT interventions showed significantly greater reductions in children's social and general anxiety and a significant increase in parental ratings of child social skills performance. At 12-month follow-up, both treatment groups retained their improvement. There was a trend towards superior results when parents were involved in treatment, but this effect was not statistically significant.

Keywords

Cognitive-behaviour therapysocial phobiaanxietybehaviour therapycognitive therapyoutcomephobiassocial skills training
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines , Volume 41 , Issue 6 , September 2000 , pp. 713 - 726
Copyright
© 2000 Association for Child Psychology and Psychiatry

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