Biomedical subjects

C L Masia

Publications and source records attributed to C L Masia.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2001

School-based behavioral treatment for social anxiety disorder in adolescents: results of a pilot study.

OBJECTIVE: To provide preliminary estimates of feasibility and effectiveness for school-based behavioral treatment in adolescents with social anxiety disorder. METHOD: Six adolescents with social anxiety disorder were treated in a 14-session group treatment program conducted at their school. Assessments were conducted at baseline and after treatment. RESULTS: All participants were classified as treatment responders (markedly or moderately improved). Half of the participants did not meet diagnostic criteria for social phobia after treatment. Clinician severity ratings, as measured by the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Children for DSM-IV: Child Version and the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale for Children and Adolescents (LSAS-CA), decreased significantly after intervention, with effect sizes of 2.5 and 1.8, respectively. All LSAS-CA scale scores decreased significantly after treatment. Self-reported social phobia symptoms on the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for Children were not significantly reduced. Fear and avoidance ratings of the 10 most feared situations significantly decreased after treatment, with effect sizes of 1.5 for anxiety and 2.1 for avoidance. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides preliminary support for the promise of school-based behavioral intervention for treating social phobia in adolescents. The school environment may be a rich and innovative setting for implementation of behavioral treatment because this is the setting where adolescents with social phobia endure the most distress.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1998

Psychometric evaluation of the social phobia and anxiety inventory for children: concurrent validity and normative data.

Examined the relation of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for Children (SPAI-C) to the Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised (SASC-R). The association between the SPAI-C and the SASC-R was moderate, suggesting that the measures assess overlapping, although not identical, constructs. Initial normative data are reported on the SPAI-C for a community sample of 277 4th-through 6th-grade children. Girls reported higher social anxiety on both measures than did boys. Notably, a substantial proportion of children were found to exceed suggested cut-off scores on both measures for identifying children with high levels of social anxiety, which suggests the importance of screening elementary-age children for social fears.

Anxiety Disorders↗

PubMed1997

Systematic assessment of social phobia in clinical practice.

The purpose of this review is to propose a systematic approach to the assessment of social phobia for monitoring treatment outcome in clinical settings. A selection of measures is available, including questionnaires and structured interviews varying in length, complexity, and content. To design an assessment protocol for a particular patient or patient population, the clinician needs to be familiar with the characteristics of these available measures. The measures selected for detailed description and discussion here: (a) are specifically designed to assess social anxiety and social phobia, (b) have been demonstrated to have acceptable psychometric characteristics, and (c) have been utilized in treatment outcome research. Five questionnaire measures will be reviewed: (1) the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI) (Turner et al., 1989a: Psychol Assessment 1:35-40), (2) the Social Interaction and Anxiety Scale (SIAS) (Mattick and Clarke, 1989 in Heimberg et al., 1992), (3) the Social Phobia Scale (SPS) (Mattick and Clarke, 1989 in Heimberg et al., 1992: Behav Therapy 23:53-73), (4) the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (FNES) (Watson and Friend, 1969: J Consult Clin Psychol 33:448-457), and (5) The Social Anxiety and Distress Scale (SADS) (Watson and Friend, 1969: J Consult Clin Psychol 33:448-457). Two interview measures will be reviewed, the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS) (Liebowitz, 1987: Modern Problems Pharmacopsych 22:141-173) and Brief Social Phobia Scale (BSPS) (Davidson et al., 1991: J Clin Psychiatry 52:48-51). Measures developed for specific subgroups, including patients with speech anxiety and musical performance anxiety, as well as the application of other evaluation methods, such as the Behavioral Assessment Test, will also be discussed. Guidelines for selecting appropriate social phobia measures for varying clinical and research situations will be proposed that take into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of these methods.

Anxiety Disorders↗

PubMed1997

Vicarious learning revisited: a contemporary behavior analytic interpretation.

Beginning in the 1960s, social learning theorists argued that behavioral learning principles could not account for behavior acquired through observation. Such a viewpoint is still widely held today. This rejection of behavioral principles in explaining vicarious learning was based on three phenomena: (1) imitation that occurred without direct reinforcement of the observer's behavior; (2) imitation that occurred after a long delay following modeling; and (3) a greater probability of imitation of the model's reinforced behavior than of the model's nonreinforced or punished behavior. These observations convinced social learning theorists that cognitive variables were required to explain behavior. Such a viewpoint has progressed aggressively, as evidenced by the change in name from social learning theory to social cognitive theory, and has been accompanied by the inclusion of information-processing theory. Many criticisms of operant theory, however, have ignored the full range of behavioral concepts and principles that have been derived to account for complex behavior. This paper will discuss some problems with the social learning theory explanation of vicarious learning and provide an interpretation of vicarious learning from a contemporary behavior analytic viewpoint.

Cognition↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Multimodal comparisons of social phobia subtypes and avoidant personality disorder.

The purpose of the present study was to further clarify the behavioral, physiological, and verbal response of patients with circumscribed social (speech) phobia, generalized social phobia without avoidant personality disorder, and generalized social phobia with avoidant personality disorder. Patients completed a battery of verbal report instruments and participated in two behavioral assessment tests. Measures of avoidance/escape behavior, cardiac response, level of behavioral skill, state anxiety, and positive and negative self-statements during performance were collected. Significant differences across response domains were found between the circumscribed social phobia and the generalized groups. Most of the distinctions were between individuals with circumscribed social phobia and those with both generalized social phobia and avoidant personality disorder, with the former group having less overall psychopathology. In addition, there was substantial overlap of problems between generalized social phobia individuals with and without avoidant personality disorder. Implications for the conceptualization of social phobia are discussed in terms of the differences among social phobia subtypes.

Adult↗