ABSTRACT
The study of childhood anxiety has become an area of increased focus over the past 20 years, fueled by both an increased understanding of the scope of anxiety conditions and their sequelae (Kashani and Orvashel, 1990; Lewinsohn et al., 1993) and an accumulation of sophisticated theories of anxiety in adults (e.g., Barlow et al., 1996; Clark, 1986; Clark and Watson, 1991, Fowles, 1995). This development of the childhood anxiety literature has distinguished itself with some considerable achievements, including major advances in treatment (e.g., Barrett et al., 1996; Kendall, 1994; Kendall et al., 1990), diagnostic assessment (Silverman and Albano, 1996) and theory (Chorpita and Barlow, 1998; Lonigan and Philips, in press; Thompson, in press; Vasey and Dadds, in press). From a research and methodology perspective, the process has involved a dialectic or bootstrapping process (Cronbach and Meehl, 1955), with each successive achievement inspiring revisions in the basic understanding of the domain, revisions which in turn foster new developments in a feed-forward cycle.
