The Effect of Habituation and Changes in Cognition on Anxious Children's
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Master's Theses Graduate School 2014 The effect of habituation and changes in cognition on anxious children's performance on the WISC- IV Franziska Noack Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses Part of the Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Noack, Franziska, "The effect of habituation and changes in cognition on anxious children's performance on the WISC-IV" (2014). LSU Master's Theses. 988. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/988 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Master's Theses by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE EFFECT OF HABITUATION AND CHANGES IN COGNITION ON ANXIOUS CHILDREN’S PERFORMANCE ON THE WISC-IV A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in The Department of Psychology by Franziska Noack B.S., University of Houston-Clear Lake, 2012 May 2014 To my husband Daniel NoackLeSage and my parents Ilona and Ralf Noack. Thank you for your continuous support, kind words of encouragement, and loving patience. ------ An meinen Mann Daniel NoackLeSage und meine Eltern, Ilona und Ralf Noack. Danke für eure grenzenlose Unterstützung, eure freundlichen Worte der Ermutigung, und euer liebevolles Verständnis. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my appreciation for the support and time allocated to this project by my advisor and mentor Thompson E. Davis III, Ph.D. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.................................................................................... iii LIST OF TABLES.................................................................................................. v LIST OF FIGURES................................................................................................ vi ABSTRACT........................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION......................................................................... 1 1.1 Impairment, Trajectories, and Consequences.................................... 2 1.2 Anxiety Disorders.............................................................................. 5 1.3 Prevalence.......................................................................................... 8 1.4 Etiology.............................................................................................. 10 1.5 Assessment......................................................................................... 11 1.6 Theoretical Framework...................................................................... 12 1.7 Habituation and the Cognitive Model................................................ 13 1.8 Intelligence and Anxiety..................................................................... 15 1.9 Hypotheses and Rationale................................................................... 22 CHAPTER 2. METHOD....................................................................................... 25 2.1 Participants.......................................................................................... 25 2.2 Measures............................................................................................. 29 2.3 Procedures........................................................................................... 30 CHAPTER 3. RESULTS........................................................................................ 32 3.1 Power Analysis.................................................................................... 32 3.2 Preliminary Analyses........................................................................... 32 3.3 Primary Analyses................................................................................. 36 CHAPTER 4. DISCUSSION.................................................................................. 42 REFERENCES........................................................................................................ 49 APPENDIX............................................................................................................. 59 IRB Approval............................................................................................... 59 VITA....................................................................................................................... 63 iv LIST OF TABLES 1. Table 1. Demographic Information of Participants..................................... 28 2. Table 2. Means and Standard Deviations for WISC-IV Subtests.............. 36 3. Table 3. Summary of One-Way and Repeated Measures ANOVAs......... 41 v LIST OF FIGURES 1. Figure 1. Indices and subtests of the WISC-III and WISC-IV................... 18 2. Figure 2. Participant flow chart ………..................................................... 26 3. Figure 3. Bar graph representing mean FSIQ scores of the WISC-IV for the anxious, comorbid, and control group............................................. 37 4. Figure 4. Profile Plot Block Design and Symbol Search........................... 38 5. Figure 5. Profile Plot Digit Span and Letter-Number Sequencing............. 39 6. Figure 6. Profile Plot Block Design and Coding......................................... 40 vi ABSTRACT Researchers have shown that children with anxiety disorders perform worse on intelligence tests than children with no diagnosable disorders. At this point, two theories have been put forth to describe the direction of this relationship: anxiety results in lowered test performance, and underlying cognitive deficits result in the development of anxiety. Lowered test performance as a result of anxiety may either be due to attention-deficits due to state anxiety or anxiety-elicited difficulties with long-term retention and learning. The purpose of this study was to further examine the first theory: that clinical levels of anxiety can hamper intelligence test performance in children with anxiety disorders due to attention-deficits in the testing situation. Although anxious children were expected to perform worse at the beginning of testing than non-anxious controls, this discrepancy should have diminished over time as a result of habituation. This study drew from data collected at the Psychological Services Center at Louisiana State University as part of the child psychoeducational testing performed there. From an overall possible sample of 259, a total of 72 children (52% male) were identified as candidates for the current study. Subsequently, they were assigned to one of three groups based on their diagnostic profiles: Anxious Group (n=22), Control Group (n=30), or Comorbid Group (n=20). Contrary to the hypothesis, no differences were observed between children in the anxious, comorbid, and control groups on FSIQ. Further, no significant improvements were seen across subtests in the anxious group. The current findings suggest that habituation to the testing situation has no significant effect on anxious children’s performance on IQ tests. Suggestions for future studies and limitations are outlined in the discussion section. vii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION Anxiety disorders are defined as fear or anxiety that is persistent or excessive, often leading the affected individual to engage in dysfunctional or maladaptive behaviors (Barlow, 2004). Whereas fear is considered the immediate physical response (e.g., increased heart rate) to a specific stimulus, anxiety is based on the individual’s anticipation of adverse outcomes in the future (Barlow, 2004). Although distinct, anxiety and fear often overlap to varying degrees among the different types of disorders. One way to differentiate between the various anxiety diagnoses is the stimuli that elicit the fear or anxiety in an individual, however many other differences exist. But even individuals with the same anxiety diagnosis differ in the way they experience (e.g., intensity, duration) and react to the feared stimulus. Behavioral responses to the aversive stimulus can range from avoidance to aggression, in accordance with the familiar fight or flight response (Cannon, 1929). The fight or flight response is a concept describing two categories of behaviors in which a person may engage in when feeling threatened. More recent conceptualizations have pushed towards the inclusion of the freeze and fright response into the fight or flight model (Bracha, Ralston, & Matsukawa, 2004). Overall these behaviors are responses to the activity of the sympathetic nervous system that may result in lower or higher blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate. Whereas the freeze, flight, or fight responses are a result of increased activity of the sympathetic nervous system, the fright response result in decreased activity. According to Bracha, Ralston, and Matsukawa (2004), freeze and fright responses may appear similar, but have different underlying mechanisms and different evolutionary benefits. Whereas the freeze response allows for heightened awareness of the surrounding environment, fright results in tonic immobility and may have previously increased survival by mimicking death and allowing escape from a deceived predator (Bracha, Ralston, & 1 Matsukawa, 2004). Whether a