Feeling and Body Investigators
Feeling and Body Investigators
This study will provide tools to develop and pilot an intervention for Functional Abdominal
 Pain (FAP) using a ten session intervention with children ages 5-8. Investigators will train
 the subjects to be "Feeling and Body Investigators". During treatment phases the following
 will occur 1) gather clues (learn), 2) investigate (experience: perform interoceptive mystery
 missions to explore a body sensation), 3) organize body clues (contextualize: recall other
 contexts that evoke similar sensations), and 4) go on increasingly daring missions
 (challenge: decrease avoidance and safety behaviors). The FBI intervention will be developed
 and refined in 26 child-caregiver dyads during the current R21 phase. In the R33 phase
 investigators will randomize 100 subjects with FAP to FBI or an active control group in order
 to conduct a pilot-test of the feasibility, acceptance, and clinical significance of FBI.
 Young children with FAP who complete the FBI early intervention will learn to experience
 changes in the viscera as fun and fascinating, rather than scary, and will develop new
 capacities for pain management, adaptive functioning, and emotion regulation. For the R21
 Phase (assessing initial feasibility) investigators hypothesize that ≥ 80% of participants
 enrolled in FBI will complete treatment and that ≥ 80% of participants will complete
 home-based practice assignments.
Inclusion Criteria:

 -  Child is between 60 and 107 months old.

 -  Parent/legal guardian is present at the clinic visit who speaks English

 -  Child screens positive for recurrent abdominal pain by having: 1) 8 episodes of
 abdominal pain over 2 months (based on Rome III criteria), or 2) 2 or more episodes of
 abdominal pain which are causing an incapacity greater than or equal to 25% of the
 time in the past two months).

 -  Based on pediatric medical assessment, child meets criteria for functional abdominal
 pain (FAP) based on absence of other organic causes of recurrent abdominal pain.

 -  Consent given by caregiver and assent by child to participate.

 -  Presence of internet access, including that accessed by cell phone with video
 capabilities.

 Exclusion Criteria:

 -  The index child being known to have mental retardation (IQ < 70) or other pervasive
 developmental disorders.

 -  Subject has a sibling who is already enrolled in our study. ***Possible Exclusion***

 -  Parent/ guardian who would be participating in the study is pregnant.