Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology
Young Children’s PTS Symptom Improvement During ARC Treatment: Caregiver Functioning and Conjoint Sessions as Moderators
Peer-Reviewed
PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATION
December 2025
Co-authored by Jason Lang, PhD, and Kellie Randall, PhD, this study examines changes in preschool-aged children’s posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptom severity during Attachment, Regulation, and Competency (ARC) treatment and whether those changes were moderated by a caregiver's own PTS symptoms and the number of caregiver-child ARC sessions received.
Findings indicated that PTS symptoms generally improved for children whose caregivers reported lower PTS symptom severity, regardless of the number of conjoint sessions. Among pairs with higher caregiver PTS symptom severity, changes in child PTS symptoms were moderated by the number of conjoint ARC sessions.