2-170 - Developmental Considerations in the Treatment of Depression in Children and Adolescents

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Despite the early belief before the 1970s that children could not become depressed due to limited cognitive and emotional development, empirical evidence now clearly shows that even preschool-age children can become depressed. The debate has now shifted away from “Can children become depressed?” to “How can we best treat depression in children?” More specifically, what developmental factors should be considered when constructing and implementing treatments for depression in children? The current symposium addresses this question in several ways. Presentations 1 and 2 will focus on two different but important developmental skills (scientific reasoning; meta-cognition, respectively) that are thought to be needed for a child to engage in one of the most efficacious treatments for depression – cognitive therapy (CT). The third presentation will describe the results of an experimental trial testing the impact of working memory training (activation) on cognitive reappraisal in a sample of youth with depressive symptoms. The final paper, presented by a leading scholar in the field of depression in children, will report the results of a randomized clinical trial testing the efficacy of Contextual Emotion Regulation Therapy (CERT). CERT is a new, developmentally sensitive intervention focusing on depressed children’s ability to modulate their sadness. The main objective of this symposium is to highlight several different developmental skills that are linked to therapeutic interventions aimed at reducing depression, and to discuss how to create treatments that directly target these skills. The Chair will moderate a discussion of these issues among the panel members and the audience.

Sub Unit

• Developmental Psychopathology

Chair

• Judy Garber, Vanderbilt University

Individual Presentations

• Scientific Reasoning Ability and Learning of Skills Taught in Cognitive Therapy for Depression in Children - Presenting Author: Sarah A. Frankel, University of Pennsylvania; Catherine Gallerani Herrington, Vanderbilt University; Judy Garber, Vanderbilt University

• Children’s Metacognitive Development and Learning of Skills Taught in Cognitive Therapy for Depression - Presenting Author: Catherine Gallerani Herrington, Vanderbilt University; Sarah A. Frankel, University of Pennsylvania; Judy Garber, Vanderbilt University

• Developmental Constraints on Cognitive Reappraisal in Youth: Testing the Impact of Working Memory Activation - Presenting Author: Emma L. Peterson, University of Denver; Stephen R Shirk, University of Denver

• A Randomized Clinical Trial of Contextual Emotion Regulation Therapy for Depressed Children - Presenting Author: Maria Kovacs, Western Psych Inst & Clinic