Tripartite assessment of the effects of systematic desensitization in a multi-phobic child: An experimental analysis

Considering the Clinical Utility of Performance-Based Measures of Childhood Anxiety

“…Although many studies using BATs have not evaluated their concurrent validity, those that have done so generally have reported moderate to high levels of correspondence between BAT-based measures and other measures of fear, most commonly subjective ratings (e.g., Evans & Harmon, 1981;Kornhaber & Schroeder, 1975;Ritter, 1968) but also occasionally psychophysiological measures as well (e.g., Eisen & Silverman, 1991;Van Hasselt et al, 1979). There is also evidence that such measures discriminate groups defined as phobic and nonphobic (e.g., Evans & Harmon, 1981); however, to our knowledge, there have been no studies showing the relevance of BATs to the identification of groups diagnosed according to DSM-IV criteria.…”

“…BATs have been used to assess children's reactions to a wide range of phobic stimuli, including animals (e.g., Bandura, Grusec, & Menlove, 1967), blood (e.g., Van Hasselt, Hersen, Bellack, Rosenblum, & Lamparski, 1979), darkness (e.g. Kelly, 1976;King, Cranstoun, & Josephs, 1989), heights (e.g., Van Hasselt et al, 1979), and medical settings (e.g., Hubert, Jay, Saltoun, & Hayes, 1988;Melamed & Siegel, 1975). Such tests generally follow the guidelines developed by Lang and Lazovik (1963) that entail exposing the child to a feared stimulus under controlled and replicable conditions to collect objective information about the child's responses.…”

Annotation: Treatment of Childhood Phobias

“…In treatment ofthe multiphobic boy, for example. Van Hasselt et al (1979) found that physiological improvements were not as strong as gains on subjective and overt behavioural measures. Of course, selection of measures depends on the hypotheses under investigation, as shown in the work of Heard et al (1992).…”

“…As noted, systematic desensitisation has typically involved imaginal representation of the fear-producing stimuli and has employed muscular relaxation as the competing, inhibiting response. Although these procedures appear to work reasonably well with adolescents and older children (e.g, Ollendick, 1979;Van Hasselt, Hersen, Bellack, Rosenblum, & Lamparski, 1979), younger children appear to have difficulty in acquiring the muscular relaxation response and in being able to image the fear-producing stimuli clearly (Kissel, 1972;Rosenstiel & Scott, 1977). As a result, in vivo desensitisation (as originally used by Jones, 1924a) and other variants have become increasingly popular, at least with younger children (Hatzenbeuhler & Schroeder, 1978;Ollendick, 1979), For example, Pomerantz, Peterson, Marholin, and Stern (1977) used in vivo desensitisation to eliminate a 4-year-old child's water phobia.…”

The nature and treatment of childhood anxiety

“…Silverman and Kearney (in press) concluded, therefore, that clinical researchers may wish to limit their physiological assessment to either heart rate or sweat gland activity. Changes in heart rate have been associated with stress and relaxation (e.g., Melamed et al, 1978;Shapiro, 1975;Van Hasselt, Hersen, Bellack, Rosenblum, and Lamparski, 1979). Also, Beidel (1988) demonstrated in children with test anxiety that heart rates, measured by an exersentry while the children were taking a vocabulary test or reading aloud, were significantly higher than heart rates in nonanxious peers.…”