Author Description

About the Author Christopher A. Kearney, Ph.D., is an associate professor of child psychology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is also the Director of the UNLV Child School Refusal and Anxiety Disorders Clinic. Dr. Kearney received his BA from the State University of New York at Binghamton, and his MA andPh.D. at the State University of New York at Albany. He completed his internship at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Dr. Kearney's research has focused mainly on the classification, assessment, and treatment of school refusal behavior and internalizing disorders in children andadolescents. He also works with adults with severe developmental disabilities. Dr. Kearney has served in editorial positions for the Journal of Clinical Child Psychology and Behavior Therapy. Dr. Kearney has co-authored and co-edited two books on anxiety disorders in youth, authored a casebook onchildhood behavior disorders and a book on school refusal behavior, and written numerous journal articles and book chapters. He is the recipient of the Barrick Scholar Award, the William Morris Award for Excellence in Scholarship, and the Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of Nevada,Las Vegas. Anne Marie Albano, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of psychiatry in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Columbia University. She has held positions as the Director of the Anxiety Disorders Clinical Research Service at the Child Study Center of New York University Medical Center, asan assistant professor of psychology at the University of Louisville, and as Assistant Director of the Phobia and Anxiety Disorders Clinic of the State University of New York at Albany. Dr. Albano received her Ph.D. from the University of Mississippi and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at theSUNY Phobia Clinic. Dr. Albano has served in editorial positions for Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, and serves on the editorial boards of several journals. She is the former Chair of the Continuing Education Issues Committee for AABT. Her main clinical and research interests are in thedevelopment and dissemination of empirically supported assessment and treatment protocols for youth. In addition to school refusal, she and her colleagues have developed cognitive behavioral treatment programs for social phobia, obsessive compulsive disorder, and mixed anxiety and depression. Product Description This program is a unique prescriptive model for the treatment of school refusal behavior of children ages 5 to 17. Using a two-component program, this model divides the school refusal behavior into four basic groups based on the reasons why children refuse school: avoidance of school situations that provoke general negative affectivity; escape from aversive social/evaluative situations; attention; and positive tangible reinforcement. Use it with children who are completely absent from school, who attend but then leave school during the day, who go to school following intense morning behavioral problems, or who display unusual distress during school days leading to pleas to parents or others for future non-attendance.