| Information-processing models have demonstrated utility in understanding etiological and maintenance factors in adult anxiety disorders such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Schema theory has proposed that pathological anxiety may be characterized by cognitive distortions in the appraisal of threat and personal coping resources. Cognitive distortions that have been found to play a significant role in OCD include hypersensitivity to threatening stimuli in the environment, inflated perceptions of personal responsibility for harm, and difficulties with decision-making. The purpose of this study was to examine the applicability of these adult models of anxiety to children with OCD, ages 9--14. The current study compared the information processing of 10 children diagnosed with OCD, to 13 children diagnosed with another anxiety disorder (Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Separation Anxiety Disorder, or Social Phobia), and to 14 nonanxious control children. All children were assessed using a structured diagnostic interview, as well as several parent-report and child self-report measures of anxiety and OCD. In addition, children completed a Visual Probe Task, a child version of the Responsibility Questionnaire (Rheaume, Ladouceur, Freeston, & Letarte, 1994), and a decision-making task. Contrary to hypotheses, results indicated that children diagnosed with an anxiety disorder did not demonstrate biased attention to threat-relevant stimuli. Instead, children in all three conditions demonstrated enhanced performance on the visual probe task when reading a physical threat word, and impeded performance in the presence of a social threat word. On the Child Responsibility Questionnaire, control children reported significantly greater perceptions of severity of and responsibility for harm than children in the anxious group. Finally, there were no differences among the three groups on any of the decision task variables, including approach to predecisional information search and amount of information required prior to arriving at a decision. Potential reasons for these divergent findings are explored, and factors influencing the information-processing of anxious and nonanxious children are discussed. These findings suggest that adult models of anxiety may not simply be translated downwards to similarly-distressed children. Instead, a developmental perspective that takes into consideration the concerns and information-processing styles of children within this age range may demonstrate greater applicability. |
