Anxiety disorders are characterized by an excessive and often persistent sense of dread along with physical symptoms, such as sweating, heart palpitations, stomach aches and feelings of stress. The incident rate is 6.4% of all students across Canada.
Anxiety disorders can have biological and environmental causes. They are usually treated with either therapy and/or medication. Anxiety disorders can coexist with many other disorders and disabilities.
Trait Anxiety: students who tend to be anxious in many situations
State Anxiety: situations that are especially anxiety provoking
Generalized Anxiety Disorder: A type of anxiety that can disrupt everyday life; worrying about small things almost constantly
Characteristics &/or Observable Behaviours
● Persistent worry and negative thoughts
● Sweaty palms, upset stomach, racing heartbeat, fear
● Often students with learning disabilities and emotional disorders will experience anxiety
● Highly anxious students will have trouble focusing as their attention will be preoccupied with negative thoughts. As a result, these students will have trouble learning new material if it relies heavily upon memory. These students may also appear somewhat disorganized.
● Anxious students may have difficulty making good choices: either choosing to select extremely difficult tasks making it very hard to succeed, or choosing to do extremely easy tasks therefore underachieving
● Anxiety is prevalent or heightened when in situations involving high pressure or competition
● Students with anxiety may have trouble sleeping/eating/studying
● Students with anxiety may appear tired, irritable, sweaty
● Students with anxiety may feel light-headed, sick, headachy, or out-of-breath
A child or teen with generalized anxiety disorder may also:
● Feel overly anxious to fit in
● Be a perfectionist
● Redo tasks because they aren't perfect the first time
● Spend excessive time doing homework
● Lack confidence
● Strive for approval
● Require a lot of reassurance about performance
Teaching Strategies & Resources
● Teachers should meet with the student and parents early in the school year to discuss how the school can support this student's needs: this includes learning about the student's strengths, interests and areas of needs, specifying triggers that may affect the student, asking about medication side-effects, asking about other associated disorders that need to be addressed and finding out about successful strategies that are used at home that could also be used at school.
● Discuss with student and parents about the quality of sleep the student is getting. Low quality of sleep is related to debilitating anxiety and decreased school performance.
● Ensure student, with parents help, is eating a well-balanced diet (to reduce low-blood sugar) and limiting caffeinated beverages
>In order to apply these first three strategies in your classroom you need to ensure you are making yourself available for open communication between yourself and the parents as well as the child. You could consider regular emails or phone communication, surveys to parents initially at the beginning of the school year to find out interests of their children and any other pertinent information, and meetings with the individual student as some ideas.
>You would want to use these three strategies in your classroom in order to ensure that you are getting all the relevant information you will need from all perspective parties involved in order to help the student to the best of your ability.
● Work on building a strong relationship with that student.
>In order to establish a strong relationship with your student you will want to treat them as an individual with their own strengths and interests and be willing to take the time to get to know them as an individual (within your professional boundaries). You will also want to make yourself approachable, and create a classroom environment that is safe and welcoming.
>You would want to use this strategy in your classroom because students that trust their teachers and feel safe in your classroom will be more open to speaking about their anxiety with them.
● In school, teachers can help students set realistic goals
● Teach students self-regulation techniques
● Try to help the students identify what their triggers are: is the anxiety the cause or the outcome of academic or other school issues
● Teach positive self-talk
>The above three strategies all relate to helping the student develop their own self-regulating strategies to manage their anxiety. In order to help students set realistic goals, you may wish to introduce goal cards, progress charts, or goal-planning journals. To teach students self-regulation you may wish to include breathing exercises, and journaling in your everyday classroom, or allow the student to take “time away” breaks to walk away from uncomfortable situations. Getting the student to express their feelings with words, and including activities in the classroom that get students to look positively at themselves and others may also be beneficial.
>You would want to use these strategies in your classroom because it will help the student in the long run by learning how to manage their own anxiety either by knowing their own triggers, as to avoid them, or by learning how to cope with those anxious negative feelings.
● Competition should be used carefully
● Situations in which highly anxious students are required to perform in front of large groups might need to be avoided
● Ensure that all instructions are clear: uncertainty can lead to anxiety
● Avoid unnecessary time pressures
● Remove unnecessary pressure to perform, severe consequences for failure, or competitive comparisons between themselves and their peers
● Allowing for accommodations within exam situations (i.e. stopping the time and recommencing once the student has started writing again is recommended, along with writing in a private space or getting breaks)
>These strategies all have to do with possible triggers for anxiety. In order to apply them in your classroom, you need to make yourself aware of these possible triggers and create situations in your lesson plans that allow for accommodations or other options for this student in order to avoid these triggers.
>You would want to apply these strategies in your classroom in order to avoid having the student get to a really anxious state in the first place.
● Counselling may be beneficial for students with generalized anxiety disorder
● Explore the use of distractions to refocus a student’s anxiety
● Allow student to sit at the front of the class which will help them feel safer and less distracted
● Watch for behavioural cues that indicate a student is getting anxious (refusing to do tasks, not speaking, frequent trips to the washroom)
● Provide a selection of sensory tools to reduce anxiety (fidgets)
>These additional strategies may be used to both collaborate with other members of the staff in order to best support this student, and to enable you to gauge when a student is becoming anxious and how anxious that student is becoming. For example, you may learn that when this student picks up this stress ball, that means they are becoming anxious and may need a break.
>You would want to use these strategies in your classroom so that you can identify when that student may need a break and potentially gauge how they are feeling at that time.
Links & Sources
http://www.cmha.ca/mental-health/understanding-mental-illness/anxiety-disorders/ (summarizes different types of anxiety disorders)
http://education.alberta.ca/media/6446756/07-dip-gib-2014-15_accommodations.pdf
(different exam accommodations)
http://www.learnalberta.ca/content/inmdict/html/anxiety_disorders.html
http://www.worrywisekids.org/schools/index.html
http://www.cprf.ca/publication/pdf/teacher_02_eng.pdf
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/cphorsphc-respcacsp/2009/fr-rc/cphorsphc-respcacsp06-eng.php (Incidence rate)
http://www.learnalberta.ca/content/inmdict/html/medicaldisabilityinformation.pdf
https://myhealth.alberta.ca/health/Pages/conditions.aspx?hwid=zd1045 (Generalized Anxiety Disorder)
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/generalized-anxiety-disorder/basics/symptoms/con-20024562
(MAYO clinic: Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Symptoms)
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Finlayson, M. (2014). Addressing math anxiety in the classroom. Improving Schools, 17, 99–115. doi:10.1177/1365480214521457
Lobman, C. (2013). “I Feel Nervous . . . Very Nervous” Addressing test anxiety in inner city schools through play and performance. Urban Education, 49, 329–359. doi:10.1177/0042085913478621
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Tuncer, M., Do, Y., & Tana, R. (2013). Investigation of vocational high-school students’ computer anxiety. The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 12(4), 90–95.
Woolfolk, A.E., Winne, P.H., Perry, N.E. (2012). Interests, Curiosity, Emotions, and Anxiety. Educational Psycology (399-401). Toronto: Pearson Canada Inc.