Childhood Social Phobia

The children were randomly assigned to one of three different treatment conditions. The first condition was one in which there was much parent-child involvement the PI group. In the second group there was no parent involvement in the treatment of the phobia in the child this was the PNI group. The third group was a control group (WLC) in which the children were put on a waiting list. The PI group had 17 children 10 of which were males and 7 were females. The PNI group had 19 children 10 males and 9 females and the WLC group had 14 children, 11 males and 3 females. The first step in the procedure included a telephone interview with the parent of the child. The phone interview ensures that the child has symptoms that meet the criteria for childhood social phobia. If the child met the criteria for having childhood social phobia than an interview was scheduled and a questionnaire was sent to the homes of the children. One questionnaire was for the parents to fill out and the other one for the children. The parents were asked not to help their children in filling out the questionnaire unless there was a reading problem. The interviews were conducted at the Behavior Research and Therapy Centre at the University of Queensland. With parent and child consent the children were separated from their parents. One researcher was assigned to give parents the ADIS-C-P and the children took the BAT-CR. After the interviews the children were again diagnosed with having social phobia. Next an observation in a school setting was scheduled. For the observation certain schools and teachers were approved for the experiment. The observations were by trained observers for a minimum of 6 hours. These Observers were introduced to the classrooms as student teachers gathering information for an assignment. Each observer was made sure to be unknown to the children. The PI and the PNI condition groups were evaluated 4 times.