Asperger's syndrome is a relatively newly diagnosed developmental disorder within the autistic spectrum. Children and adults with Asperger's syndrome have an intellectual ability within the normal range but due to their unusual profile of cognitive, social and emotional abilities are vulnerable to the development of a secondary mood disorder. This paper provides an explanation of the abilities associated with Asperger's syndrome, and modifications to cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for this very unusual client group. In particular, the paper emphasises the importance of affective education for this clinical population and describes a new strategy used in cognitive restructuring, namely, the emotional toolbox. The paper concludes with a brief description of a current evaluation study of the effectiveness of CBT to treat anxiety and anger in children who have Asperger's syndrome. However, the strategies described in this paper can also be used with adults with Asperger's syndrome and applied to other clinical populations.

Social Anxiety Disorder is a heterogeneous and distressing problem for many children and youth. Unravelling its multiple causes is essential for a full understanding of the condition. This selective review focuses on the etiology and maintenance of SAD, and examines research findings in several key areas of investigation: genetic or hereditary factors (twin and family studies), temperament characteristics (behavioural inhibition), and parent-child interactions (attachment, parenting styles). We conclude that genetic influences, behavioural inhibition and parent-child interactions play significant and interactive roles in the development and maintenance of social anxiety disorder. Other influences are also acknowledged, such as peer relationships, social skills deficits and traumatic experience. Ultimately, an understanding of such pathways should facilitate effective early screening and intervention of children at risk for severe social anxiety.

Behavioural avoidance tests (BATs) are a cornerstone of objective assessment of phobias. However, live BATs have several disadvantages. They are practically difficult and time-consuming to set up and are not standardised. This study examined two computer-delivered BATs (using slide and video presentations of phobic stimuli respectively): first, in respect to their ability to discriminate fearfuls from nonfearfuls, and second, in terms of convergent validity with a live BAT and the Spider Phobia Questionnaire (SPQ). Sixty-four low (n = 32) and high (n = 32) spider-fearful undergraduate participants were administered the three BATs in counterbalanced order. Results showed that subjective anxiety on all BATs was highly discriminative of low and high spider-fearfuls. The number of steps completed did not discriminate between phobics and nonphobics on the computer BATs. However, there was good convergent validity between the live BAT, the SPQ and both computer-delivered BATs on subjective anxiety. Overall, the live BAT gives a clearer indication of avoidance behaviour while the video BAT assesses subjective anxiety across a wider range of steps. The development of computer-delivered BATs that reliably measure avoidance is necessary before contemplating them as an alternative to a live BAT.

This paper describes the application of danger ideation reduction therapy (DIRT) to a case of atypical obsessive—compulsive disorder (OCD) with prominent magical ideation. Treatment consisted of eight weekly sessions. It was cognitive in nature, did not include any exposure or response prevention, and was aimed solely at reducing threat expectancy. The treatment components were adapted from the original DIRT package for compulsive washing, and comprised attentional focusing, corrective information, cognitive restructuring and the probability of catastrophe estimation task. At posttreatment, the subject demonstrated normal functioning on all assessment measures, and met Jacobson and Truax's criteria for ‘recovery’ on the MOCI, OCI-R, DASS depression scale and DASS stress scale. The findings provide preliminary support for the effectiveness of DIRT in individuals with atypical OCD symptoms characterised by magical ideation. Implications of these findings are discussed.