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Poster #164 - Developing the BRAVE Intervention to Target Child Anxiety

Sat, March 23, 9:45 to 11:00am, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 1, Exhibit Hall B

Integrative Statement

Children with school anxiety in preschool are at risk for poor school readiness and academic adjustment in the transition to kindergarten. Children in contexts with more environmental risks are at a heightened risk for developing school anxiety. The Family Stress Model suggests that the impact of environmental risks on child psychopathology is mediated through parents (Conger & Elder, 1994). The purpose of the current project was to gather input from teachers and parents in Head Start classrooms about their experiences with child anxiety symptoms and use this to develop a preventative intervention for anxiety at the transition between preschool and kindergarten.

We first conducted a qualitative survey with Head Start teachers (N = 11) to understand their experiences of anxiety in the classroom. Ten of the teachers reported that children in their classrooms experienced anxiety or stress on a daily basis, and over 33% of the children experienced frequent and severe anxiety. When asked about the potential causes for children’s anxiety, teachers cited the amount of stressors children experience at home and their lack of self-regulation and coping skills in order to manage their anxiety. Additionally, teachers described “stress contagion” in the classroom in which children who come into the classroom with high levels of anxiety affect other children through the course of the year by acting out in the classroom.

We then conducted a quantitative study with mothers to examine the environmental and parental factors that are shaping children’s school anxiety. We recruited families (N = 51) of 3- and 4-year-olds (63% female; 63% African American/Black, 17% multiethnic/multiracial, 9% White, and 8% Hispanic) from two Head Start schools in a small, mid-Atlantic city. Fifty-eight percent of families reported an annual income that was lower than $15,000. These schools were located in underserved, high-risk areas in which the average unemployment rate was 22%, the average high school dropout rate was 24%, the average percentage of single-parent households was 37%, and 33% of families live below the poverty level (ACS, 2016). Mothers reported on their own symptoms of anxiety (CES-D; Radloff, 1987) and depression (BAI; Beck et al., 1988), as well as their child’s school anxiety (SCARED; Birmaher et al., 1999). Furthermore, they also reported their neighborhood characteristics (ICPSR Community Survey; Felton et al., 1994).

We examined relations among neighborhood risk, maternal psychopathology, and child school anxiety symptoms (Figure 1). We found evidence for an indirect effect, such that neighborhood risk was related to children’s school anxiety through maternal anxiety (indirect effect = 0.18, 95% CI = [.01, .52]) and marginally, through maternal depression (indirect effect = 0.13, 95% CI = [.01, .20]). These findings suggest that neighborhood risk could impact the development of children’s anxiety symptoms through maternal psychopathology. Therefore, any intervention targeting children’s anxiety symptoms in this community should engage parents and help them improve their coping and regulatory skills.

These results led us to design the BRAVE intervention. This program will continue to be designed with community input to help support children and families through the transition to kindergarten.

Authors