Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior
Open Access

Research Article

Fear of Heights and Visual Height Intolerance in Children 8 10 Years Old

Doreen Huppert^1,2* and Thomas Brandt^1,2

¹Institute of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Munich, Germany

²German Center for Vertigo and Balance Disorders, University of Munich, Germany

*Corresponding Author:

Doreen Huppert
Institute of Clinical Neurosciences
and German Center of Vertigo and
Balance Disorders University
of Munich, Marchioninistr 15
81377 Munich, Germany
Tel: +49 89 4400 72380
Fax: +49 89 4400 78883
E-mail: doreen.huppert@med.uni-muenchen.de

Received Date: March 06, 2015; Accepted Date: July 07, 2015; Published Date: July 13, 2015

Citation: Huppert D, Brandt T (2015) Fear of Heights and Visual Height Intolerance in Children 8–10 Years Old. J Child Adolesc Behav 3:219.doi: 10.4172/2375-4494.1000219

Copyright: © 2015 Huppert D, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Objective: To evaluate the prevalence, symptoms, spontaneous course, and behavioral consequences of visual height intolerance in children in comparison to adults. Methods: Survey in three primary schools on the frequency of visual height intolerance in 455 children aged 8 to 10 years. Individual structured interviews of 90 susceptible children and 54 of their parents. Results: The prevalence of visual height intolerance in children amounted to 34%; there was no gender preponderance. The condition began at a mean age of 5.9 years and rarely showed a tendency to generalize with respect to trigger stimuli. Triggers and symptoms were similar to those in adults. Avoidance behavior was reported by less than one third of the children, and there was only minimal subjective impairment of life quality. The condition was not perceived to be a disease or an individual weakness. Frequency and severity had already spontaneously improved in nearly one half of the children by the time of the survey. Conclusion: More than one third of prepubertal girls and boys exhibited susceptibility for visual height intolerance which - in contrast to the adult-onset type of the condition – appeared to take a benign spontaneous course.

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