A new therapy-based intervention between parent and child may help preschool-aged children with depression, according to research published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

The new model is one of the first psychotherapeutic treatments to target clinical depression in children, who can be as young as 3 years old. Researchers said the results of the study show that the new intervention therapy is a “powerful and low-risk” approach to treatment.

“The main aim is to come up with a treatment for depression at its very earliest manifestations when children are rapidly developing … in the hope that you can treat it more effectively earlier in life,” said lead study author Dr. Joan Luby of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Researchers funded by the National Institute of Mental Health published their findings online Wednesday, detailing an adaptation on a form of psychotherapy called “Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT)” to treat children with disruptive behavioural disorders such as Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The new treatment method is three-pronged. In standard PCIT treatment, parents are taught techniques for successfully interacting with their children through child-directed sessions as well as parent-directed sessions. In the third and novel module, what researchers call the “emotional development module” (or ED), parents are trained to be more effective “emotion coaches” for their kids.

“The goal is to teach the child to become more emotionally competent and to be able to experience a broad range of emotions, to recognize them in themselves and in others, to label them, and to regulate intense emotions,” said Luby.

During the sessions, parent and child are observed by a therapist interacting in play through a one-way mirror. The parent takes the child through “emotionally evocative tasks” that induce emotions such as frustration and guilt. The parent, wearing a bug in their ear, is prompted how to respond in order to teach the child how best to express and understand how they are feeling.

“(The therapy) is designed to change the way a parent parents,” said Luby.

After analyzing data from nearly 230 children between the ages of 3 and 6 who met the criteria for early childhood depression, researchers found that the therapy was “almost as powerful as the effects of medication,” said Luby.

Children who underwent the therapy were less likely to meet criteria for depression, more likely to have a less severe case of depression, and more likely to have achieved remission. They were found to have improved emotional functioning, including their ability to regulate emotions, and generally had fewer disorders. The children’s parents also experienced relief from the treatment and were found to have decreased symptoms of depression and less stress relating to parenting.

Children as young as three may be prescribed anti-depressant medications, but Luby said this therapy offers a lower risk alternative.

“Anti-depressants have not been tested in young children,” Luby told CTV News Channel on Wednesday. “We don’t know if they’re safe or effective.”

While further research needs to be done to determine how effective the therapy is treating depression in the long-term, Luby hopes it could become the “first line of treatment”. Researchers are currently analyzing data from a period of assessment three months after initial treatment and plan on looking at the effectiveness of the therapy several years down the line.

"It will be very important to determine if gains made in this early treatment are sustained over time and whether early intervention can change the course of the disorder,” she said in a statement.