Empirically supported psychosocial interventions for children: an overview

Abstract

Discusses issues related to the identification of psychosocial interventions for children that have demonstrated efficacy. Recent debate concerning differences between clinical trials research and clinical practice is summarized, including the tradeoff between interpretability (internal validity) and generalizability (external validity) of outcome studies. This article serves as an introduction to the special issue containing articles that have as their focus the identification of empirically supported psychosocial interventions for children as part of a task force. The article provides an overview of the history, agenda, and methodology used by the task force to define and identify specific empirically supported interventions for children with specific disorders. Whereas a number of well-established or probably efficacious interventions are identified within the series, more work directed at closing the gap between research and practice is needed.