Interactive therapy that involves parents and children helped youth as young as 3 years of age reduce rates of depression and lower their severity of depressive symptoms, findings published in American Journal of Psychiatry showed.

“Clinical depression can arise in early childhood and has phenotypic and biological characteristics similar to those of the adult form,” Joan L. Luby, MD, Samuel and Mae S. Ludwig professor of child psychiatry and director of the Early Emotional Development Program at Washington University in St. Louis, and colleagues wrote. “Such findings underscore the importance of identifying and treating this disorder at these early developmental stages. However, to date there are no empirically tested treatments for early childhood depression.”