Cognitive Bias Modification Reduces Social Anxiety Symptoms in Socially Anxious Adolescents with Mild Intellectual Disabilities: A Randomized Controlled Trial

J Autism Dev Disord. 2018 Sep;48(9):3116-3126. doi: 10.1007/s10803-018-3579-9.

Abstract

The goal of this study was to examine the effects of Cognitive Bias Modification training for Interpretation (CBM-I) in socially anxious adolescents with Mild Intellectual Disabilities (MID). A total of 69 socially anxious adolescents with MID were randomly assigned to either a positive or a neutral control-CMB-I-training. Training included five sessions in a 3-week period, and each session consisted of 40 training items. Adolescents in the positive training group showed a significant reduction in negative interpretation bias on the two interpretation bias tasks after training compared to adolescents in the control-training group. Furthermore, in contrast to the control-training group, adolescents in the positive training reported a significant reduction of their social anxiety symptoms 10 weeks post-training.

Keywords: Cognitive bias modification; Content-specificity; Interpretation bias; Mild intellectual disability; Social anxiety.

Publication types

  • Randomized Controlled Trial

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Anxiety / epidemiology
  • Anxiety / psychology*
  • Anxiety / therapy*
  • Cognition / physiology*
  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy / methods*
  • Fear / psychology
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Intellectual Disability / epidemiology
  • Intellectual Disability / psychology*
  • Intellectual Disability / therapy*
  • Male
  • Motivation / physiology
  • Netherlands / epidemiology