Developmental Skills required for the effectiveness of Cognitive Behavior Therapies in children: An umbrella review

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is used for a wide range of psychological problems in children. However, Children should have reached the level of development required to benefit from this treatment. The aim of this study is to examine developmental skills needed to effectiveness of cognitive behavior therapy in children.
In this umbrella review, review articles related to subject of study in Scopus, PubMed, springer in the period from 1900 to 2018 were extracted. Among articles extracted, 6 articles were selected for this study.  The results indicated that a variety of emotional, social and cognitive skills including understanding and recognizing of emotions, social perspective taking, metacognition, causal reasoning, logical reasoning, scientific reasoning, verbal abilities and cognitive flexibility, play an important role in effectiveness of CBT. Some children may respond poorly because they do not yet have the cognitive, social, or emotional maturity needed to understand and apply the skills being taught in therapy. In conclusion, treatments for children may need to be tailored to match children’s ability to both comprehend and implement the therapeutic techniques, otherwise, the effectiveness of the treatment is limited.