The current study investigated concurrent relations between emotional and social functioning in youth with anxiety disorders using a multi-reporter (i.e., children, parents, teachers) assessment strategy. Ninety youth (M age = 8.98 years, SD = 1.68) with a primary diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, and/or separation anxiety disorder, and a parent participated. Regression analyses indicated that positive affect and emotion regulation coping were related to adaptive measures of social functioning, whereas positive affect, negative affect, reluctance to share emotional experiences with peers, and lability/negativity were related to maladaptive measures of social functioning in the expected directions. For youth high in lability/negativity and low in emotion regulation coping, the relationship between diagnostic severity and social problems was exacerbated. This research contributes to our understanding of the interplay of social and emotional variables and suggests that efforts to facilitate child emotional functioning may improve social functioning for anxious youth, or vice versa.

Difficulties with emotion regulation are a core feature of anxiety disorders (ADs) in children and adults. Interventions with a specific focus on emotion regulation are gaining empirical support. Yet, no studies to date have compared the relative efficacy of such interventions to existing evidence-based treatments. Such comparisons are necessary to determine whether emotion-focused treatments might be more effective for youth exhibiting broad emotion-regulation difficulties at pretreatment. This study examined an emotion-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (ECBT) protocol in comparison to traditional cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in a sample of children with a primary anxiety disorder diagnosis. Moderation analyses examined whether children with higher levels of emotion dysregulation at pretreatment would show greater levels of improvement in ECBT than CBT. Ninety-two youth ages 7 to 12 years (58% male) with a primary diagnosis of separation anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, or social phobia were included. Participants were randomly assigned to ECBT or CBT. Results showed that youth in both conditions demonstrated similar improvements in emotion regulation and that pretreatment levels of emotion dysregulation did not moderate treatment outcomes. Additional analyses showed that ECBT and CBT were similarly effective on diagnostic, severity, and improvement measures. Future work is needed to further explore the ways that emotion regulation is related to treatment outcome for anxious youth.

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Objective This study examined baseline child social and emotional functioning as predictors of therapeutic alliance during a cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) program for children with anxiety disorders. It was hypothesized that better social and emotional functioning at baseline would be related to stronger alliance initially and over the course of treatment. Method Ninety‐two anxious youth, ages 7–11 years (M age = 8.93 years, SD = 1.64; 42% female) participated. Children, caregivers, and teachers completed measures of child social and emotional functioning. Therapeutic alliance was measured using therapist‐rated and observer‐coded reports. Results Receiving prosocial support from peers and emotion regulation (ER) were both related to initial rating and slope of alliance. Conclusions Child social and emotional functioning enhances our understanding of how the alliance is formed and in identifying children who might be at risk for difficulties in developing a strong therapeutic relationship.

In a diverse community sample of mothers (N = 108) and their preschool-aged children (M = 3.50 years), this study conducted person-oriented analyses of maternal emotion regulation (ER) based on a multimethod assessment incorporating physiological, observational, and self-report indicators. A model-based cluster analysis was applied to five indicators of maternal ER: maternal self-report, observed negative affect in a parent-child interaction, baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), and RSA suppression across two laboratory tasks. Model-based cluster analyses revealed four maternal ER profiles, including a group of mothers with average ER functioning, characterized by socioeconomic advantage and more positive parenting behavior. A dysregulated cluster demonstrated the greatest challenges with parenting and dyadic interactions. Two clusters of intermediate dysregulation were also identified. Implications for assessment and applications to parenting interventions are discussed.