Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center

Abbe Garcia, PhD

Research Interests

Garcia’s current research interests are focused on parent-child interaction patterns and temperamental factors that may be associated with anxiety disorders in children.

She is the recipient of a junior faculty training and research award from the National Institutes of Mental Health. The objective of this project is to identify and describe the inter-relationship between behavioral patterns and child psychophysiology that are associated with anxiety disorders.

Other interests include research on the assessment and treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder in children and adolescents, with particular emphasis on family-based cognitive behavioral interventions.

Garcia is a licensed clinical psychologist, with a particular interest in the treatment of pediatric anxiety disorders. She specializes in cognitive behavioral treatment for children and adolescents with anxiety disorders.

Selected Research Projects

Child Anxiety Disorders: Parenting & Temperament Effects
This project proposes to describe the relationship between child reactivity, regulation, and parent-child interactive behavior for children with anxiety disorders. Training goals include developing expertise in designing and conducting observational research with anxious youth that incorporates specialized technical training in microanalytic observational research methods, psychophysiological and behavioral assessment of reactivity and regulation, and sequential data analysis.

Selected Publications

Kendall, P.C., Marrs-Garcia, A., Nath, S.R., Sheldrick, R.C. (1999). Normative comparisons for the evaluation of clinical significance. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 67(3), 285-299.

Friedlander, M.L., Heatherington, L., Marrs, A.L. (2000). Responding to blame in family therapy: A constructionist/narrative perspective. American Journal of Family Therapy, 28, 133-146.

Freeman, J.B., Garcia, A.M., Leonard, H.L. (2002). Anxiety disorders. In M. Lewis (Ed.), Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: A Comprehensive Textbook, 3rd Edition. (pp. 821-834). Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins.

Black, B., Garcia, A.M., Freeman, J.B., Karitani, M., Leonard, H.L. (2003). Specific Phobia, Panic Disorder, Social Phobia, & Selective Mutism. In J.M. Wiener (Ed.), Textbook of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 3 rd Edition. (pp.589-607). Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press.

Freeman, J.B., Garcia, A.M., Swedo, S.E., Rapoport, J.L., Fucci, C.M., Leonard, H.L. (2003). Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. In J.M. Wiener (Ed.), Textbook of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 3 rd Edition. (pp.575-588). Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press.

Freeman, J.B., Garcia, A.M., Fucci, C., Karitani, M., Miller, L., Leonard, H.L. (2003). Family-based treatment of early-onset OCD. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, 13 (Suppl. 1), S71-S80.

Freeman, J.B., Garcia, A.M., Miller, L.M., Dow, S., Leonard, H.L. (2004). Selective Mutism. Invited chapter in T. L. Morris & J. S. March (Eds.), Anxiety Disorders in Children and Adolescents, 2 nd Edition. (pp.280-301). New York: Guilford Press.

Garcia, A.M ., Freeman, J.B., Leonard, H.L., Francis, G., Miller, L.M. (2004). Selective mutism. In T. Ollendick & J. March (Eds.), Phobic and Anxiety Disorders in Children and Adolescents. (pp.433-455). New York: Oxford University Press.

The Pediatric OCD Treatment Study (2004). Cognitive-behavior therapy, sertraline, and their combination for children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder. JAMA, 292(16), 1969-1976.

Francis, G., Garcia, A., & Freeman, J. (in press). Selective Mutism. In Ollendick, T.H. & Schroeder, S. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Pediatric and Child Psychology. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.

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