Children's Anxiety Regulation and Maternal Communication

描述（申请人摘要）：父母的沟通方式是否影响 最初表现出高度恐惧的儿童的情绪调节 和焦虑？尽管最近的相关研究表明， 父母的沟通行为，如过度的灾难化， 和儿童的恐惧和焦虑的表现，目前还不清楚，如果父母 沟通行为直接影响儿童调节这些行为的能力。 情绪或者，这些父母的沟通行为可能是由 表现出恐惧和焦虑的孩子比不焦虑的孩子更频繁 孩子们会。实验研究设计将提供一个更明确的测试 对现存相关性发现的这些相互竞争的解释。 特别是干预研究，可以测试实验是否 操纵当前的家庭互动模式会影响孩子的能力， 调节情绪这项研究将提供一个初步的实验 父母沟通行为与儿童心理健康的关系 调节恐惧和焦虑。大约40名7 - 13岁的临床焦虑青年， 将被随机分配到一个家庭干预计划， 焦虑问题，包括广泛的家长沟通培训，或 没有家长培训的儿童干预计划。通过比较这两 我们将测试是否有可能改善父母沟通的干预措施 行为-如灾难-通过密集的家长培训，上述和 超越了儿童参与儿童干预计划的影响。我们 然后将测试父母沟通行为的这种变化对 儿童调节恐惧和焦虑的能力。观察措施 父母沟通行为、儿童情绪调节策略、 儿童的恐惧和焦虑的表现，以及衡量 生理唤醒，将作为主要的结果测量。

DESCRIPTION (Applicant's Abstract): Does parental communication style affect emotion regulation among children who initially demonstrate high levels of fear and anxiety? Although recent correlational research has demonstrated a linkage between parental communication behaviors, such as excessive catastrophizing, and children's manifestations of fear and anxiety, it is not clear if parental communication behaviors directly influence children's ability to regulate these emotions. Alternatively, these parental communication behaviors may be elicited by children who express fears and anxieties more frequently than non-anxious children do. Experimental research designs would offer a more definitive test of these competing explanations of the extant correlational findings. Intervention studies, in particular, can test whether experimentally manipulating current family interaction patterns affects children's ability to regulate emotion. The proposed research will provide a preliminary experimental test of the relationship between parental communication behavior and children's regulation of fear and anxiety. Some 40 clinically anxious youth, aged 7-13, will be randomly assigned to a family intervention program for childhood anxiety problems, which includes extensive parent communication training, or-a child intervention program without parent training. By comparing these two interventions we will test if it is possible to improve parental communication behaviors-such as catastrophizing-through intensive parent training, above and beyond the effects of involving children in a child intervention program. We will then test the impact of this change in parental communication behaviors on children's ability to regulate fear and anxiety. Observational measures of parental communication behavior, children's emotion regulation strategies, and children's manifestations of fear and anxiety, as well as a measure of physiological arousal, will serve as the primary outcome measures.