Developmental continuities in anxiety and anxiety disorders

The developmental perspective is especially relevant to anxiety disorders since symptoms of childhood anxiety disorders typically represent exaggerations of behaviors that are characteristic of normal adjustment through development. The relevance of anxious behavior to normal development is reinforced by the observation that anxiety is not exclusive to humans, and occurs in animals. These features suggest evolutionary processes in the development in anxiety, and, in turn, biological mechanisms that must be in place for its potential expression. A number of investigations have examined the stability of anxious behavior in normal children. It is only very recently that the long-term consistency of childhood anxiety disorders has been studied in population and clinical samples. These data will be reviewed and examined for their relevance to current views of adult anxiety disorders.