Anxiety Is A Common Mental Health Concern Affecting Children Essay

Childhood anxiety is quickly becoming the most challenging of all childhood problems. As the root of most problems, anxiety covers a long range of stressors that spread quickly if not treated or relieved early in life. Anxious feelings in children varies from children of all backgrounds. All people feel anxious at one point or another, and it is only when children are affected daily and unable to be calmed when people should become concerned. Many times, children are feeling overwhelmed and cannot express themselves or struggle to understand his/her feelings. Social and emotional development then plays a big part when facing concerns like anxiety in a young childhood environment. Teachers and caregivers need to take a step back and focus on what the child needs rather than what he/she can do to make children calm down. Through interventions, patience, and caring teachers, a young child does not need to be known as "The Child Who is Anxious", he/she can just be a child.

The most recent data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that 1 in 68 children are diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) (CDC, 2014). Children diagnosed with ASD often have difficulty with functional performance in several key areas including; social participation, communication, school based activities, motor performance and play. These impairments in functional performance are not exclusive to the child alone as the caregiver often assumes a great deal of burden in managing the symptoms of a child with ASD. Furthermore, these difficulties along with the rising diagnosis rate has pushed ASD to the forefront of clinical research and has raised issues regarding which Ayres

Over the years, more people are becoming aware of Autism Spectrum Disorder, ASD. The growing number of individuals who are affected by ASD have been increasing over the years. This could be do to the new DSM development of what is considered ASD or simply more children are being born with ASD. Either way, ASD is more predominate in our society today. ASD is defined in the DSM 5 as having abnormal social aspects, lack of social skills, non-verbal communications skills, deficits in development, lack of understanding of relationships, and self-stimulation through repetitive behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Although these are not all of the symptoms caused by ASD

The concept of “pediatric anxiety” emerged as a central theme in a study of pediatric patients in the Pediatric Emergency Department in order to better care for the pediatric population, determine the source of the patient’s fears, along with providing all encompassing care to pediatric patients. Therefore, I decided to examine the concept of pediatric anxiety. Pediatric patients often attribute hospitals, nurses, and doctors with needles as most often the healthy child sees their pediatrician for well child check ups and immunizations. Some pediatric patients have been diagnosed with anxiety and deal with anxiety on a daily basis while others ' anxiety arises with emergency department visits and hospitalizations. Pediatric anxiety in the hospital can be a result of a multitude of factors and can be demonstrated in a multitude of ways. While some patients may scream and cry, others may become withdrawn. Walking into the doors of an unknown place while feeling sick or experiencing pain, can certainly produce anxiety for patients of all ages. Particularly pediatric patients, with their fear of strangers, inability to comprehend the rationale behind illness or providing care for such illnesses and diseases, and fear of "getting hurt or needles" can all be contributors to anxiety. “Hospitalization can be a threatening and stressful experience for children. Because of unfamiliar with the environment and medical procedures and unaware

ASD is a pervasive developmental disorder that consists of abnormal development and functioning of the brain. ASD may involve deficits in social behaviors, abnormalities in communication, cognitive delays, and repetitive behaviors (UC San Diego Autism Center of Excellence, 2016). ASD is a broad spectrum neurological disorder with a variety of symptoms affecting each individual differently (Debbaudt & Rothman, 2001). ASD involves severe impairments of reciprocal social interactions, impaired

There is little research to examine experiences and needs of individuals with ASD, or proper and effective support systems such as educational and family support needed for young adults making this transition. Most information that is provided on this topic is based on professional’s experience and knowledge. It is essential more research is provided to develop programs to help individuals transition from secondary education to higher education, this could decrease stress, anxiety as

Over the past years, the prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders has increased rapidly and so have the development of strategies to help children with ASD to acquire milestones in classroom settings. The prevalence of children being diagnosed with ASD is 1 in 68 children in the United States. The causes of Autism are not well known, however, research studies suggest that causes of ASD may include neurological, heredity and genetic mutations, and environmental influences. Characteristics of children with ASD include lack of delay in spoken language, peer relationships and pretend play; fixation on objects and repetitive use of language are as well characteristics children with Autism may display. Professionally, ASD is characterized as

ASD is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by pervasive difficulties since early childhood across reciprocal social communication and restricted repetitive interests

She finds herself constantly worrying that there is no reason; such as the status of her home, being late to work despite waking up an hour before departure, any possible accidents which may lead to her death, and various scenarios which lead to unfortunate events. She states that she has been married for about 10 years to her college sweetheart. She has no children due to her worries of complications during childbearing and raising children. She worries that her children whether children will turn out to be normal, pretty, or crazy like their mother. She describes her marriage as ‘hell’ due to her husband’s lack of support. She does not mention any other family member besides her husband when asked about her family. Janine holds s a job in as a tax accountant. She works from 6am to 11pm, and she brings her work home with her. This is due to her anxiousness interfering with her concentration on tasks. Recently work has been overwhelming for her since there is no method for relieving her stress. She states that her husband does not help her with housework, which adds to the stress from work. In fact, she does not see her husband often which prompts her to worry if her husband is having an affair. She is not on medication at the moment; however, she used to take Xanax once every morning for 2 years. As for meals, she states that she only eats quarry, animals hunted for food, and that she

First, in order to better understand the extent of treatment gains, there needs to be research that includes long-term follow-ups with the children who participated (Ehrenreich-May et al., 2014). Currently, most of the research does not investigate beyond the six-month follow-up mark. Introducing long-term follow-ups will help us to better understand just what kind of effect CBT treatment is having on anxiety in children with ASD (Ehrenreich-May et al., 2014). It is important to know if these results last long-term, as many of these children can experience severe problems with anxiety later on in life (Farrugia & Hudson, 2006; Gillott & Standen, 2007). Another important aspect of the research that needs to be further investigated is how these treatment gains transition into more complex academic and social environments (Reaven et al., 2012). Since academic and social environments are where these children face the majority of their anxiety and spend a good amount of time, it is crucial to see if the CBT treatment gains withstand even in these complex environments (Reaven et al., 2012). Also, extended research is needed on daily living skills interventions for children with ASD and comorbid anxiety. Daily living skills are often impacted when children with ASD are dealing with the symptoms of anxiety, which can cause a decrease in independence and more of a reliance on parents (Drahota et al., 2011). Extended research needs to investigate whether or not daily living skill gains resulting from CBT can be maintained over the course of many years, rather than a few months (Drahota et al., 2011). In children with ASD and comorbid anxiety, acquiring daily living skills are crucial in attaining age-appropriate levels of independence (Drahota et al., 2011). Overall, the research makes it clear that CBT that has been modified for individuals with ASD is having an impact on

While there are many difficulties imposed by ASD, it does not appear that ASD has the power to take away one’s ability to learn. During the aforementioned 2003 study of symptom severity in autism, a group of adolescents (age 10-21, mean age = 15.61) was compared to a cohort of adults (age 22 and older, mean age = 31.57), it was observed that symptoms seem to improve overtime. The study attempted to compare childhood symptoms to current symptoms. The results indicated that there was differential improvement; there was a pattern of symptoms suggesting and improved use of language, ability to communicate nonverbally, and reduced stereotyped, repetitive, or idiosyncratic speech over time

After knowing of the diagnosis parents go through a process of denial and uncertainty that leads to high level of distress after knowing of the diagnosis .These feelings increments as they realized how limited is their knowledge of their child’s condition. Among the issues that parents encounter is understanding the disorder, with so much information at hand is difficult to choose which information is reliable. Lack of access to appropriate information, both early on and as the child ages, is a significant barrier to adjustment for families with a child with ASD (Mitchell & Sloper,2002; Russa, Matthews, & Owen-DeSchryver, 2014; Turnbull, Turnbull, Erwin, & Soodak, 2006). Reaching out for professional assistance allows for them to get access

Content: We presented over the intervention aspects for ASD. We touched on three types of intervention: behavioral, relationship-based, and medical/CAM. In behavioral, we talked about ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis). In my first reflection, I defined ABA and described it. So here, I want to discuss things I have learned about it since then. I learned there are several types of ABA therapy, including: Discrete Trial Training, Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention, Pivotal Response Training, and Verbal Behavior Intervention. I learned that Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention is for young children under the age of three, and many of these children in this therapy are actually under the age of three. I also learned that insurance did not cover ABA until 2016. If a child is diagnosed after the age of three, insurance covers them for six years post diagnosis. For relationship based, we talked mostly about DIR. I also defined and described this intervention in an earlier post, so I will again talk about things I did not know. First, the two central goals of DIR is to follow the child’s lead and to create a shared world between the child and the adult. It is extremely play based, and adults can use sabotage play as a communication temptation. This method seems rather fun to me because it is just playing and interacting with the child! I also learned that most of the evidence for DIR was developed by the creators of the method, creating a conflict of

Anxiety Disorder is a sudden feeling of qualms, uneasiness, nervousness, and anxiousness. Symptoms vary for each person. In the adolescent years anxiety shines the most. With school work, and social interaction. In our society, many people diagnose themselves with anxiety, because they are nervous, they believe they have an anxiety disorder. In the adolescent years anxiety is there, but usually mild, in today’s society, because studies show that anxiety has increased over the years. The denotation of anxiety is a sudden feeling of sickness, apprehension, paranoia. Eager and anxious are often used incorrectly, using the opposing one as the other. Anxiety means anticipation of an impending event. However, eager implies that the person looks

Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD, is characterized by various symptomology ranging from inappropriate social behavior due to inability to experience and express situation-appropriate affect and lack of interest in other persons in general to repetitive, stereotyped behavior like insistence on routine, situation-specific actions, or obsessive focus on object-placement or sensory aspects of objects. There have been several attempted strategies at correcting these characteristics of ASD over the years, including cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) which focuses on thought process correction and behavior alteration,