Cognitive Aspects of Posttraumatic Stress Reactions and their Treatment in Children and Adolescents: An Empirical Review and Some Recommendations

This paper reviews empirical research on cognitive factors associated with the experience of trauma and with the development of posttraumatic stress, Acute Stress Disorder (ASD) and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in children and adolescents. The review covers three main areas: cognitive experimental and neuropsychological studies; large scale studies on representative samples; and, randomized clinical trial data examining cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT) interventions. Overall, the conclusions are that progress in all three areas lags far behind that in adult work and that, perhaps, the studies to date raise more questions than they provide answers provided by the studies to date. The paper concludes with detailed empirical recommendations for future research in the three chosen domains.