Internal representations: predicting anxiety from children's play narratives.

OBJECTIVE: This research uses children's story-stem play narratives to examine whether certain specified internal representations of self and experiences will predict later childhood anxiety. METHOD: Thirty-five nonclinical children were studied from 5 to 6 years of age. Narratives of the 5-year-old children were coded for negative expectations of self, others, and experiences. Parents and teachers completed the Child Behavior Checklist and Teacher's Report Form when the children were 5 and 6 years of age. Mothers completed the anxiety section of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children when the children were 6 years of age. Parental anxiety and child temperament were also measured. RESULTS: Five-year-old child negative expectations significantly predicted mother/father/teacher reports of internalizing and anxiety symptoms and mother reports of separation anxiety, overanxious, and social phobia/avoidant disorder symptoms in the children at 6 years of age, even when anxiety and internalizing symptoms at 5 years of age were entered first in the regression equations. Child negative expectations predicted later anxiety in these analyses better than parental anxiety and child temperament. CONCLUSIONS: Child negative expectations may be a risk factor or a mechanism for the development of later anxiety. Children's narratives may be useful for examining such representations and identifying children at risk.