Publication Date: 1999
Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology (15732835)27(3)pp. 215-223
Recent research has indicated that anxious adult and child patients and high trait-anxious adults selectively shift attention toward threatening stimuli. The present study extends this research and investigates the content-specificity of the effects in clinically anxious and mixed anxious- depressed children and adolescents. Twenty four generally anxious patients, aged 9 to 18, 19 mixed anxious-depressed patients, and 24 normal controls were comparable with respect to age, sex, verbal IQ, and vocabulary level. The participants carried out an attentional deployment task in which probe detection latency data were used to determine the distribution of visual attention for threat-related and depression-related material. The results showed that clinically anxious children, relative to controls, selectively allocated processing resources toward threat stimuli. However, mixed anxious- depressed children, relative to controls, did not show any attentional bias towards either threat- or depression-related stimuli. Preliminary data on age and gender differences are also presented. The results of this study are discussed in the light of previous research.
Publication Date: 1999
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines (00219630)40(3)pp. 357-361
Adult post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients often report a wide range of cognitive problems in memory, concentration, attention, planning, and judgement. Evaluation of these cognitive aspects of PTSD in adults has helped to define the nature of the disorder. However, there is a paucity of such work in younger subjects. This study has employed the Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test (RBMT) to examine cognitive factors in children and adolescents with PTSD. Eighteen child and adolescent patients with PTSD and 22 control subjects completed the test. PTSD subjects showed poorer overall memory performance compared with controls. Specifically, they were worse on the prospective and orientation items of the RBMT. The results are discussed in the light of research on everyday memory in adults with PTSD.
Publication Date: 1999
Psychological Medicine (14698978)29(2)pp. 415-419
Background. Investigators have used various experimental paradigms such as the Stroop colour naming test to study how adults with different emotional disorders process emotional information. However, to date, little research has been carried out on younger subjects. Method. In the current experiment, children and adolescents with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and control subjects aged 9-17 years, participated in a modified Stroop colour naming task. Results. The results indicated that the children and adolescents with PTSD showed increased Stroop interference for trauma-related material relative to neutral words and to the performance of the controls. Conclusions. These findings indicate that attentional bias to trauma-congruent information is a function of PTSD in young age groups. The results are discussed with respect to the literature on information processing in PTSD.
Publication Date: 1999
Journal of Traumatic Stress (15736598)12(4)pp. 663-671
Investigators have used various experimental paradigms to study how individuals with different emotional disorders process emotional information. However, little research has been done on relatives of individuals with emotional disorders, despite developments in the area of emotional contagion. In the current experiment, children of adults with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (n = 18) and control participants (n = 21), ages 9-17 years, participated in a modified Stroop color-naming task. The results indicated that the children of adults with PTSD showed increased Stroop interference for threat-related relative to neutral words and to the performance of the controls. These findings are discussed with respect to the literature on information processing in PTSD and emotional contagion in families.
