The current study examined sleep problems and pre-sleep arousal among 52 anxious children and adolescents, aged 7-14 years, in relation to age, sex, ethnicity, and primary anxiety disorder. Assessment included structured diagnostic interviews and parent and child completed measures of sleep problems and pre-sleep arousal. Overall, 85% of parents reported clinically-significant child sleep problems, whereas 54% of youth reported trouble sleeping. Young children, those with primary generalized anxiety disorder, and Latino youth experienced the greatest levels of sleep disturbance. Additionally, greater levels of pre-sleep cognitive rather than somatic arousal were found and presleep thoughts were associated with decreased total sleep duration and greater sleep problems. Findings suggest that attention to sleep should be part of assessment procedures for anxious children in both research and clinical settings.

Measurement invariance of a one-factor model of effortful control (EC) was tested for 853 low-income preschoolers (M age = 4.48 years). Using a teacher-report questionnaire and seven behavioral measures, configural invariance (same factor structure across groups), metric invariance (same pattern of factor loadings across groups), and partial scalar invariance (mostly the same intercepts across groups) were established across ethnicity (European Americans, African Americans and Hispanics) and across sex. These results suggest that the latent construct of EC behaved in a similar way across ethnic groups and sex, and that comparisons of mean levels of EC are valid across sex and probably valid across ethnicity, especially when larger numbers of tasks are used. The findings also support the use of diverse behavioral measures as indicators of a single latent EC construct.

This article reviews empirical evidence for the efficacy of psychosocial interventions for school refusal behavior. Data corresponding to eight experimental single-case and seven group-design studies are presented. Across studies, behavioral and cognitive-behavioral treatments emerged as promising lines of intervention. These interventions produced improvements in school attendance and youths'symptom levels (e.g., anxiety, fear, depression, anger) based on this study's examination of effect sizes. The article concludes with suggestions for interventionists, researchers, and policymakers attempting to deal with the problem of school refusal.While research on school refusal behavior in children and adolescents has a long history (e.g., Berg, Nichols, & Pritchard, 1969;Broadwin, 1932), this area has received increased attention in recent years

Objective This trial of a randomized indicated anxiety prevention and early intervention explored initial program effects as well as the role of ethnicity and language on measured outcomes Method A total of 88 youth (M = 10.36 years; 45 girls, 52 Latino) received one of two protocols with varying degrees of parent involvement, and response was measured at posttest and six month follow-up. Results Findings showed that child anxiety symptoms improved significantly across protocols, although additional gains were found for children in the child plus parent condition. Program effects did not vary by Latino ethnicity or Spanish language use in the intervention. Conclusions The cognitive and behavioral strategies established for Caucasian children may be promising for Hispanic/Latino children when applied in a culturally responsive manner.