Treatment of Social Anxiety in Youth

The primary objective of this study is to develop an Attention Training (AT) protocol for
adolescents with social anxiety disorder (SAD). Attentional biases to threat have been shown
to be associated with the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders, in both adults
and youth. Given these relations, AT paradigms have been developed to modify these
attentional biases. Such paradigms have been shown to be promising in the treatment of adult
anxiety. However, to date, only two small studies have examined the use of AT with children,
and no ATT protocol has been developed specifically for use with children or adolescents.
This is important, given the complications and possible ineffectiveness of applying
adult-designed therapies to youth. Given this gap in the literature, the primary aims of the
current study are intended to develop a treatment program to address attentional biases and
anxiety in adolescents with SAD, to collect preliminary data regarding the program's
short-term efficacy and feasibility, and to explore attention biases as a mediator and
moderator of initial treatment outcomes. It is hypothesized that the AT protocol developed
in the current project, compared to a placebo control comparator condition, will result in
reductions in social anxiety among a sample of adolescents with SAD. Further, the AT
protocol is expected to reduce attentional biases to threat among those adolescents who
possess such biases prior to treatment (not all adolescents are expected to show this bias
yet AT has been shown to be potentially effective with these youth; the presence/absence of
attention bias will be explored as a moderator of change). The proposed study will be a
pivotal step towards assessing the feasibility of an adolescent-focused AT procedure for the
treatment of SAD. Results will contribute to an emerging body of research exploring the
ameliorating effects of experimental paradigms that target information processing biases in
anxious youth. Given emerging evidence regarding the use of AT in adult populations,
findings from this study may have implications for improving the current prevention and
treatment options available for anxious adolescents.

Inclusion Criteria:

- Diagnosis of Social Anxiety Disorder;

- English Speaking

Exclusion Criteria:

- Suicide Intent,

- Psychosis,

- Autism Spectrum Disorder