Cognitive Bias Modification Reduces Social Anxiety Symptoms in Socially Anxious Adolescents with Mild Intellectual Disabilities: A Randomized Controlled Trial.
Anke M Klein, Elske Salemink, Eva de Hullu and 3 others
PMID 29680962WHAT IT FOUND
In adolescents with mild intellectual disabilities, a five-session school training did not reduce social anxiety immediately, but it reduced negative social thinking and anxiety was lower at 10-week follow-up.
Key findings
01Adolescents in the positive training group showed a significant reduction in negative interpretation bias from pre-training to post-training and from pre-training to 10-week follow-up.
02Self-reported social anxiety did not decrease directly after training, but decreased significantly from post-training to 10-week follow-up in the positive group.
03A different interpretation task improved in the positive group from pre-training to post-training, but the change was not maintained from post-training to 10-week follow-up.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The adolescents were selected using a questionnaire cut-off score, not a diagnostic interview, so the study does not show what happens in clinically diagnosed social anxiety disorder. IQ was not measured during the study, and school IQ reports could not be collected, so the paper cannot say how IQ related to the training effect. Follow-up was only 10 weeks, and the effect on the more different interpretation task was not maintained, so durability beyond that period is unknown. The sample was small and the authors describe the results as showing small effects, so this single trial should not be treated as firm evidence. The control group also showed a small decrease in interpretation bias by follow-up, which makes the training effect less clean.
Declared interests
The study was funded by Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Fonds Psychische Gezondheid, and 's HeerenLoo.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that five training sessions immediately reduce social anxiety in adolescents with mild intellectual disabilities. Anxiety was lower only at 10-week follow-up, not directly after training, and the sample was small and selected by questionnaire cut-off rather than diagnosis.