Recent Study Reveals Social Anxiety Linked to Poor Classroom Performance

As per a recent study conducted at the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of the University of Minnesota, has found that social anxiety in children might result in impairment in classroom performance.

It is well known that a person suffering from social anxiety also have impaired social functioning, although the study sought to find any connection between social anxiety and academic performance. As researchers sought to base their study of the children in a non-clinical environment, the selection of children and their diagnosis was done through school-wide screenings as well as follow-up diagnostic interviews.

Analysis was determined by researchers on each child regarding the kind of fears, its severity, interpersonal relationships, social situations stayed away from, and capability to function in the classroom. Children suffering from social anxiety also were evaluated against children recognized to be anxious but not suffering from social anxiety in all categories and studied for any other emotional disorders to establish dissimilarities in the results.

As anticipated, the outcomes showed that children suffering from social anxiety experienced avoidance and fear in a considerably higher number of social situations when compared to children not experiencing social anxiety. Also children suffering from social anxiety were found to be more prone to experience trouble in making friends and to spend more time alone than children not having a social phobia.

However, the most interesting result of this study was the finding that in a classroom setting, the children suffering from social anxiety seemed more likely to have bad leadership skills, greater difficulty in concentrating and considerable learning problems. The extent of these problems which each socially anxious child underwent was revealed to be more severe in case of higher levels of social anxiety, showing that there is a direct link between the level of social anxiety and the degree of learning impairment.

This study is a preliminary one which means that further research is required to determine the reasons for the appearance of such a strong connection between social anxiety and learning problems in a classroom situation. According to the researchers who conducted the study, in the case of social anxiety disorders it is essential to have a higher level of understanding, diagnosis and treatment. Since the study focused on the effects of social anxiety on the ability of a child to learn in the classroom, it is probable that the connection has not much to do with intelligence. In its place, it is most possible that the child is not at ease in group learning environments. In case the ability of a child to learn is impaired by social anxiety, they could experience a lot of difficulty later in life in relation to carrying on their education, finding a job or experience a higher level of social anxiety.