Bibliotherapy for Specific Phobias of Dogs in Young Children: A Pilot Study.
Four weeks of a dog storybook plus weekly 15-minute video coaching wiped out dog phobia in seven young kids.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Seven preschool and early-elementary kids who were terrified of dogs got a short storybook about friendly dogs.
Parents read the book at home for four weeks. A therapist jumped on a 15-minute video call once a week to coach.
The team watched each child’s fear rating before and after to see if the story plus tiny chats helped.
What they found
Dog-phobia scores dropped a lot. Kids also said they felt less scared and stopped running away from dogs.
All seven children hit the big improvement goal in one month with only four brief calls.
How this fits with other research
Bryant et al. (1984) did the same idea first. Moms and dads used a manual to end fear of the dark in two weeks. Both studies show parents can wipe out a specific fear fast with a slim book and no office visits.
Hilton et al. (2010) gave parents a book for defiant behavior but left out the therapist calls. Their gains were small. SRieth et al. (2022) added a 15-minute video check-in and got large drops in fear. The tiny dose of telehealth seems to turn a weak book into a strong tool.
Dimitropoulos et al. (2021) also used short remote sessions for kids with Prader-Willi syndrome. Large gains with little contact now pop up across two very different goals, so the brief telehealth model is looking solid.
Why it matters
You can hand a family a dog storybook, schedule four quick Zoom calls, and watch a crippling phobia fade. No clinic room, no long exposure list, no travel. If you serve anxious preschoolers, try pairing any parent manual with a 15-minute weekly video boost. The extra contact appears to supercharge an old idea.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Bibliotherapy, particularly when supplemented with therapist contact, has emerged as an effective treatment for anxiety symptoms in children. However, its effectiveness in treating specific phobias in young children has been explored in only one study which targeted nighttime fears. The current study tested a novel bibliotherapy for fears of dogs in four to seven-year-old children. The therapy was conducted over four weeks and was supplemented with brief, weekly videoconference calls with a therapist. A non-concurrent multiple baseline design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of this treatment in a sample of seven children between four and seven years of age. Significant reductions in specific phobia diagnostic severity, parent and child fear ratings, and child avoidance during a behavioral approach task were all observed. Additionally, treatment adherence, retention, and satisfaction were all high. Future research is needed to replicate the findings in larger, more heterogeneous samples and to explore possible predictive variables; however, this study provides initial support for bibliotherapy as a non-intensive, first-line intervention for specific phobias in young children.
, 2022 · doi:10.1007/s10826-022-02304-2