Attentional Bias in Anxious Youth: Clinical Applications

Over the past decade, the clinical applications of cognitive psychology and neuropsychology methods have increased in popularity, permeating the clinical, education, and public health sectors. At the federal level, NIMH and the Institute of Education Sciences are regarding clinical-translation research as a top priority area for empirical investigation, and several national organizations including APA, the National Academy of Neuropsychology, the Society for Neuroscience, and the Neurocognitive Therapies/Translational Research Special Interest Group are recognizing the important influence of neuroscience and neuropsychology in understanding clinical pathology and guiding intervention plans. This line of inquiry has opened significant avenues for research and innovation in clinical practice, and the study of attentional bias in the etiology, assessment, and treatment of anxiety disorders is one of these important avenues. In recent years, researchers have extended early findings about the neurocognitive processes underpinning threat bias to enhance our understanding of risk factors and mechanisms of anxiety disorders, and inform the development of novel applications for clinical assessment and intervention. However, studies exploring these practical applications of attentional bias and dot probe methodology with anxious children and adolescents lag far behind. The following chapter will briefly review the literature on the clinical implications and direct clinical utility of cognitive psychology methods for measuring attentional threat bias in anxious youth. Applications for enhancing clinical assessment and intervention will be reviewed and discussed. Ultimately, advancing our knowledge of brain-behavior relationships, cognitive mechanisms of therapeutic change, and the efficacy of novel neurocognitive interventions may contribute to a better understanding of emotional and behavior disorders in children and the development of targeted interventions that result in greater treatment efficacy.