A Comparison of Graduated Exposure, Verbal Coping Skills, and Their Combination in the Treatment of Children's Fear of the Dark

Abstract

This study investigated the effectiveness of graduated exposure, verbal mping skills, and their combination in treating fear of the dark in 4and 5-year-old normal children, using both be-, havioral and subjective measures of fearfulness. Only those groups which received direct exposure to the dark during treatment demonstrated significant changes in dark tolerance. Non-significant differences in dark tolerance for high versus low instructiond demand conditions in two posttests were obtained. Analysis of subjective fear ratings suggested questionable validity in the children's abilities to label subjective fearfulness. The effectiveness of behavioral techniques in modifying adult fears has been well documented (Leitenberg, 1976; Marks, 1974). However, relatively little research has been reported comparing various approaches to the treatment of fears and phobias in children (Graziano, DeGiovanni , & Garcia, 1979). Generally, approaches to treating children's fears have sought to provide either direct exposure to fear stimuli or to dter verbal or coping skills related David V. Sheslow is affiliated with the Child Diagnostic and Development Clinic, Alfred I. dubat Institute, Andrew S. Bondy is with Rutgers University, and R o s a r y 0. Nelson is with the University of North Camfina at Greensboro. Portions of this paper were presented at the meeting of the Southeastern Psychologicat Assmiation, Miami, May, 1977. Requests for reprints should be sent to: David V. Sheslow; A l f d I. duPont Institute; P. 0. Box 269; Whington, DE 19869. SpeciaI thanks are extended to the children and staff at Baynes Happy Day Nursery, Greensborn, NorthCamha, for their support and cooperation, and to Susan CorriberSheslow for her assistance in completing this study.

Fears, Anxieties and Cognitive Behavioral Treatment of Specific Phobias in Youth

“…Theoretically, treatment principles are based on the use of operant procedures, shaping and extinction, used during repeated and controlled graduated exposures, with therapists providing reinforcement and verbal feed-back for overcoming avoidance behavior (Davis & Ollendick, 2005). Three randomized controlled studies have compared the efficacy of graduated exposure with verbal coping skills (Sheslow, Bondy, & Nelson, 1983), vicarious exposure (Menzies & Clarke, 1993) or computer-aided vicarious exposure (Dewis et al, 2001) in children with phobias or assessed as having severe fears.…”

“…In the study by Sheslow, Bondy, and Nelson (1983), 32 children in private day-care, aged 4 to 5 years, were recruited via a parental survey report on children's fear of the dark. The children who met a criterion of strong fear of the dark from two repeated behavioral avoidance tests (32 of 74 (43%)), were matched for gender and duration of dark tolerance and randomized to one of four conditions: 1.…”

Psicoterapia baseada em evidências em crianças e adolescentes

“…Existem evidências de que sejam mais eficazes do que modelagem ao vivo e estratégias verbais de autocontrole (Sheslow et al, 1983;Menzies e Clarke, 1993;Silverman et al, 1999).…”

Phobias in Children and Adolescents: A Review

“…Sheslow et al [93] provided yet another demonstration of the effectiveness of reinforced practice. This study compared reinforced practice (labelled graduated exposure by the authors), verbal coping skills and their combination in treating fear of the dark in 32 young children (4 to 5 years old).…”

“…Thus, on the basis of these four randomized control studies, it can be concluded that reinforced practice has also earned well-established status: it has been shown to be more effective than no-treatment control conditions in two studies [91,92] and to be superior to two other treatment modalities, verbal coping skills [93] and live (adult) modelling [28,36], both of which have been shown to be more effective than no treatment.…”