Behavioral literature on childhood fears, including conceptual models, normative research, and fear-reduction studies is reviewed. The main conclusions are as follows: (a) The information value of nearly 60 years of normative studies is meager, and their continuation is of doubtful value; (b) most research has been limited to laboratory studies of mildly to moderately fearful children, and few data exist on severe fears studied in the child's natural environment or on the clinical prevalence of fear; (c) cognitive and developmental factors have been largely ignored; (d) modeling is the most frequently used and reliably effective fear-reduction strategy; (e) a cognitive, verbal-mediation approach is promising, but is not yet sufficiently researched; (f) there is little evidence that systematic desensitization or contingency management strategies are effective. Implications for large-scale fear reduction and prevention are discussed. The need for research that recognizes the complex paradigms of children's fears is suggested.This article is a selective review of behavioral treatment of children's fears, an area relatively neglected by behavior therapists and researchers despite their considerable attention to adult fear reduction (Graziano, 1975). Adults seem to minimize the importance of children's fears, viewing them as common and transitory and thus not a particularly serious part of normal development. But children's fears may not always be transient, and some, such as specific animal phobias (Jersild, 1968; Jersild & Holmes, 1935a;Marks & Gelder, 1966) and fear of physical injury or psychic stress (L. C. Miller, Barrett, Hampe, & Noble, 1972b) may persist as adult problems. Children do experience fears, often intense and disturbing, and the psychological suffering of a fearful child, even if it remits in a few years, is at least as worthy of professional concern as is the suffering of adults. There seems good reason for urging more study of fear reduction in children.Because of this review's behavioral focus, the large psychoanalytic literature is not in-Requests for reprints should be sent to Anthony

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