Leer te Durven! (Learn to dare!)

Anxiety difficulties in children often result in anxiety disorders and anxiety difficulties as well as anxiety disorder are highly continuous. Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent type of psychopathology in children. Cognitive Behavior Therapy is an effective method of reducing anxiety difficulties. However, children cannot profit optimally from CBT due to three barriers. First, only 20% of the children with anxiety disorders receive a training or treatment to treat the disorder. This is due to accessibility and availability of the treatment. Second, the working mechanisms of CBT in children have not been identified. Based on the theoretical models of CBT in adults, children are often offered strategies to change their cognitions and to reduce avoidance behavior. However, empirical studies on the working mechanisms of cognitive and behavioral strategies in children and only limited and incomplete. Third, interventions are not sufficiently adapted to suit the specific needs of children, because it is not clear in which children CBT works well, and in which children CBT works less well. Possibly, the developmental level of children strongly affects the amount to shich children can profit from CBT.


The current project aims to address these three barriers that obstruct children from profiting optimally from CBT. For this purpose, an easy accessible, online, CBT-based training. for anxious children (aged 8-13 years) will be developed and assessed on its efficacy by performing a randomized controlled trial (barrier 1). It will be examined whether the training sorts its effects via reducing dysfunctional cognitions and via reducing avoidance behavior (barrier 2). Finally, the effect of the cognitive developmental level on the training's working mechanisms will be studied (barrier 3). Both increasing CBT's availability for anxious children by offering and online, and providing insight into the working mechanisms and elements that affect CBT's efficacy, will contribute to the optimalisation of CBT for anxious children.

- Offering the CBT training 'Learn to dare' will decrease child anxiety

- The CBT training will decrease child anxiety via the decrease of disfunctional cognitions and avoidance behavior

- The child's cognitive developmental level will directly affect the decrease of disfunctional cognitions but not the decrease of avoidance behavior

- High levels of child's cognitive developmental level will establish a synergetic positive effect of the working mechanisms disfunctional cognitions and avoidance behavior

- Low levels of child's cognitive developmental level will not add to the effect of decreasing child anxiety

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CBT