Social stress task with parental support or self-instruction decreases negative cognitions in children with social anxiety disorder

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is highly prevalent in childhood, yet research on cognitive processes in children with SAD is limited. This study examined anticipatory rumination (AR), self-focused attention (SFA), and post-event processing (PEP) in children with SAD and healthy controls (HC), and the impact of possible influencing factors (two conditions: parental support, self-instruction). Based on adult cognitive models, we hypothesized that children with SAD would report more negative and similar positive AR, more internal SFA, similar external focus, more negative and similar positive PEP compared to HCs. We predicted that both conditions would reduce negative AR, internal SFA, and negative PEP, with stronger effects in HCs. Participants (ages 9–14; SAD: n = 43, HC: n = 48) completed two speech tasks (T1, T2) in front of a peer audience. Children with SAD reported more negative AR, internal SFA, and negative PEP than HCs in both sessions. All children reported more negative AR, internal SFA, and negative PEP in T1 than T2. Surprisingly, these effects were equally strong in both groups. Condition effects were comparable across groups, with reduced negative cognitive processes in T2. These findings highlight cognitive biases in childhood SAD and the need for further research on their modifiability.