Question

How do Towe-Goodman and colleagues contribute to our understanding of anxiety in young children?

Answer 1

Towe-Goodman and colleagues studied the impact of child anxiety disorders of functioning of the family as a unit. They also studied impact of preschool anxiety compared to other early childhood disorders, and if varied according to age and gender of the child. As anxiety is one of the most common psychiatric disorders among children, they found that having a child with an anxiety disorder resulted in many negative effects for the family. It causes stress and strained relationships among family members along and also leads to change in family dynamics. Their experiment consisted of more than 900 preschool children and a control group. They found that the families of children with anxiety have a 3.5 times more chance of reporting negative impact on family functioning.