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Abstract

This study examined the relationship between ritualistic, compulsive-like behaviors and normative fears and phobias in 61 children ranging from 1 to 7 years of age. Parents reported on their children's ritualistic habits, and perfectionistic behaviors that reflect what we have previously called "compulsive-like" behaviors. Parents also reported on their children's fears and phobias. Results indicated that various aspects of children's ritualistic and compulsive-like behaviors are correlated with children's fears and phobias. Developmental differences existed such that younger children's (< 4 years) repetitive, compulsive-like behaviors were related to "prepotent" fears such as stranger and separation anxieties, whereas the compulsive-like behaviors of older children (> 4 years) were correlated with more specific, "contextual" fears such as fears of contamination, death, and fears often associated with concerns of the inner city such as burglars, assault, etc. These findings are discussed in terms of the phenomenologic and possible neurobiological continuities between normative and pathologic rituals, fears and phobias.

Interrelationship between insistence on sameness, effortful control and anxiety in adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

“…Consistent with our predictions and previous literature [3, 10, 14, 25, 29, 34, 35], our study indicates that IS is positively associated with anxiety and that higher levels of anxiety and IS are both associated with lower levels of EC. Furthermore, our mediation analyses showed that the association between EC and anxiety was mediated by IS and that, in turn, the relationship between IS behaviours and anxiety was mediated by EC.…”

“…During the early development of most children, IS behaviours and typical fears and anxiety, such as fear of strangers, as well as cognitively more complex and anticipatory fears tend to follow a similar developmental trajectory [2, 4, 7–10]. Furthermore, normative IS behaviours are likely to occur at times of transition, such as bedtime or mealtime, and are often accompanied by typical fears/anxieties, including fear of the dark or separation anxiety [3]. These observations have led to the suggestion that IS behaviours act as an early form of self-regulation, serving to control or constrain the environment thus limiting unpredictability and reducing ensuing fears and anxiety, eventually reducing as more advanced forms of self-regulation develop [5, 11–14].…”

“…Research indicates that individual variation in EF and EC during this normative developmental period relates to the levels of IS behaviours [10, 20] and also predicts later internalizing problems [21–23]. Thus, it seems that the development of more sophisticated and flexible EF and EC forms during childhood results in less reliance on IS behaviours for managing fears [3]. Furthermore, it is reasonable to hypothesise that IS behaviours, if persistent beyond the developmental period when they are adaptive, may negatively impact subsequent development by limiting children’s exposure to situations conducive to developing more elaborate, complex and flexible patterns of EF and EC, as well as other aspects of social, cognitive and emotional development [5, 24].…”

Repetitive Behaviours and Restricted Interests in Individuals with Down Syndrome—One Way of Managing Their World?

“…Childhood worries reported by parents increased significantly from 7 years of age and for these older age groups there were consistent relationships between ratings of frequency of worries and intensity and number of RBRI. These results confirmed previous suggestions that one of the functions of RBRI may be to reduce anxiety [20,21,22,23]. …”

Impact of Traumatic Life Events in a Community Sample of Toddlers

“…The present study is focused on very young children, whose experience of psychological trauma may be different than what adults or older children experience as traumatic because they have different cognitive (Evans et al 1999) and emotion processing (Bell and Wolfe 2004) capacities. Young children also have rapidly developing brains that are potentially vulnerable to long-term structural (Carrion et al 2001;De Bellis et al 2002;Driessen et al 2000) and functional (Perry 2000) impairment as a result of exposure to psychological trauma or PTSD.…”