published_or_final_version / Clinical Psychology / Doctoral / Doctor of Psychology

This document proposes a study to ascertain if a relationship exists between levels of child and parent anxiety symptoms during an intervention designed to decrease anxiety in youth. This document systemically describes family variables related to anxiety in youth at the individual, parent-child, marital, whole family, and extra familial subsystem levels, in addition to previous research analyzing parental anxiety and the direction of change between child and parent anxiety during youth-focused interventions. The study involves gathering anxiety symptom data from parent and child participants at 14 time points and analyzing it using dependent samples t-test, regression, and ANOVA repeated measure analyses. These analyses serve to answer the research questions of whether child and parent anxiety symptoms improve in a youth-focused CBT intervention for anxiety from pre- to post-treatment, whether there exists a significant relationship between the severity of anxiety symptoms in youth and parents surrounding a youth-focused anxiety intervention, and whether this relationship is consistent. / text

In the literature, a well-known effective program in reducing children’s anxiety symptoms is the ‘Coping Cat’ program (Kendall, 1994). However, effectiveness studies of parental education program have been relatively limited. Parenting factors are important as the risk for anxiety disorders appears particularly high in the offspring of anxious parents (McClure, Brennan, Hammen, & Le Brocque, 2001). Further parenting styles such as over-involvement and criticism was found to play a significant role in the development and maintenance of childhood anxiety (Gar, & Hudson, 2008). Therefore, this study adopted the ‘Coping Cat’ treatment program and delivered exclusively to parents of 14 children with anxiety symptoms of ages 6-11. The intervention group consisted of 6 2-hours group sessions of 4 to 7 parents. Psychological questionnaires were administered to parents during pre and post treatment. The outcome measures were compared with another 14 parents who did not receive the parental education program. Self-reported questionnaires were administered, including Parenting Stress Scale (PSS), Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (APQ), Coping Self-Efficacy Scale (CSE 13), Brief COPE and Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders (SCARED), to assess parental stress, parental styles, parental stress-coping styles and indirect effect on children’s anxiety symptoms. Repeated-measures ANOVA and paired sample t-tests was computed to evaluate the effects of the parental program. Results suggested that the intervention group showed significantly reduction in parents and children’s levels of stress and anxiety symptoms. It also demonstrated significant decrease of child’s separation anxiety symptoms and school avoidance behaviours after intervention. Moreover, significant reduced level of negative parental practices and increased practices of positive stress-coping strategies were found at post-treatment. Furthermore, perceived efficacy in stopping unpleasant emotions and thoughts as well as getting support from friends and family had improved. Additionally, the reduced stress symptoms among participants in the intervention group were negatively correlated with the increased use of humour coping strategies. Likewise, the reduced level of anxiety symptoms at post-treatment was positively correlated with the reduced practices of negative and ineffective discipline. / published_or_final_version / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

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People who stutter (PWS) tend to have increased levels of anxiety compared to people who do not stutter (PWNS), particularly in social situations (Messenger, Onslow, Packman, & Menzies, 2004). In addition, children who stutter (CWS) as young as 3 years of age reportedly have more negative communication attitudes than their fluent peers, and these attitudes appear to worsen with age and stuttering severity (De Nil & Brutten, 1990, 1991; Vanryckeghem, Brutten, & Hernandez, 2005). The present study sought to examine generalized anxiety and communication apprehension in preschool CWS. Seven CWS aged between 3;3 and 4;11 years, and seven sex and age-matched children who do not stutter (CWNS) provided salivary cortisol samples at three distinct sampling times across a one-week period. They additionally provided a conversational speech sample, and were administered the Communication Attitude Test for Preschool and Kindergarten Children Who Stutter (Vanryckeghem & Brutten, 2007). Parents were required to complete the Preschool Anxiety Scale (Spence & Rapee, 1999) to provide estimates of their child's anxiety level. Results revealed no significant differences between CWS and CWNS in generalized anxiety or communication apprehension. No relationships were found between stuttering severity and generalized anxiety or communication apprehension either. Thus, it is concluded that generalized anxiety and communication apprehension are not associated with early childhood stuttering. Any changes in anxiety levels are likely to occur with increased chronological age and stuttering chronicity.

This experiment investigated the effect of centering techniques of college students. These techniques include exercises in the areas of feelings and communication, dreams, meditation, relaxation, intuition, and transpersonal values. The dependent variables considered were anxiety, self-esteem, and openness to experience. Two control groups of equal size were included. A treatment control group, derived from the same college setting, focused on Transactional Analysis. The second control group consisted of elementary psychology students who volunteered to take the pre- and posttests. The nine sessions for both the centering and personality laboratory control groups were held once a week for two hours. Centering subjects were also assessed as to their level of involvement in the exercises. Analysis of covariance data were not significant, though two trends were evident. Post hoc comparisons yielded significant differences (p < .05) in these areas. The centering group scored higher on the openness scale 4, constructive use of fantasy and dreams, as compared to the testing-only control group. The treatment control group manifested significantly higher self-esteem than the centering group, but not the testing-only control group. These results are confusing, as are the negative correlations found between depth of involvement and initial openness scores for the centering group. These findings were not only significant but also in contradiction to the results of previous meditation research. A trend in the expected direction was found for the correlation between anxiety (posttest) and depth of involvement, indicating a negative relationship. The results of earlier research which revealed a positive relationship between openness and anxiety were corroborated.

Anxiety disorders can affect up to 21% of children, with a wide range of negative consequences on academic performance and interpersonal relationships. Recently, there has been an emphasis on the prevention of childhood anxiety, especially considering that anxiety disorders in children often go unnoticed, and treatment is not sought. Identifying risk and protective factors is important in developing prevention programs. A lower stress level in mothers has been theorized to be one variable that may protect against childhood anxiety.In this regard, the present study was designed to examine the relationship between mothers' stress level and anxiety ratings of their children, and determine whether level of maternal stress is significantly correlated with ratings of child anxiety by both mothers and teachers. The study also examined whether there are significant differences between child anxiety scores related to child's gender, ethnicity, or mother's marital status, or interaction effects between these variables and mothers' stress level on child anxiety.Data were collected from the mothers and teachers of 64 first grade children. Mothers completed Parental Stress Index - Short Form (PSI-SF), and both mothers and teachers completed the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), and data was analyzed using Pearson product moment correlations and Analyses of Variance, as well as regression analyses. Results indicated that ratings of child anxiety on the CBCL by both mothers and teachers were significantly positively correlated with mothers' stress scores on the PSI. It was also found that, in addition to child anxiety problems, child ADHD problems and oppositional/defiant problems made a significant contribution to explaining the total stress scores of mothers.Differences between groups existed relating to mothers' marital status, with children of single mothers having significantly higher anxiety scores, as rated by their mothers. However, differences did not exist relating to child's ethnicity and child's gender. Findings of this study have important implications regarding prevention programs, and highlight the fact that children may be negatively impacted by high levels of maternal stress. Further exploration of the consequences of high levels of maternal stress is needed to gain an understanding of the long-term effects of mothers' stress on their children.

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