Learning disabilities

Assessing fears and related anxieties in children and adolescents with learning disabilities or mild mental retardation



Assessing fears and related anxieties in children and adolescents with learning disabilities or mild mental retardation

Introduction

Fears are viewed as normal reactions to a specific environmental threat, either real or perceived, such as darkness, lightning, deep water, tombs, or spiders. Researchers have suggested that normal fears are essential for people to survive in the world, with such fears having a protective function for children (e.g., [Morris and Kratochwill, 1983] and [Morris and Kratochwill, 1998]). According to Barrios and Hartmann (1997), anxieties are a broad collection of distressing subjective, motoric, and somatic responses. Anxieties are also described as apprehension without apparent cause, and they can be distinguished from fears based on the specificity of the threatening stimuli and accompanying responses (Coleman, 1996). In spite of researchers' attempt to differentiate the two concepts,“fears” and “anxieties” are often used interchangeably in the literature (Morris & Kratochwill, 1998).

Researchers have found gender differences in children's fears and related anxieties, with females reporting higher prevalence and intensity of fears and anxieties than males (American Psychiatric Association, 2000; Beidel, Turner, Hamlin, & Morris, 2000; Dong, Yang, & Ollendick, 1994; Ollendick & King, 1991). Such differences appear to persist across a variety of assessment instruments, like the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS; Reynolds & Richmond, 1997), Fear Survey Schedule for Children-Revised (FSSC-R; Ollendick, 1983), and Revised Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS; Chorpita, Daleiden, Moffitt, Yim, & Umemoto, 2000).

Moreover, the nature and content of children's fears and related anxieties appear to change as children mature, although some overlap occurs across ages ([Morris and Kratochwill, 1983] and [Morris and Kratochwill, 1998]; Ollendick, Matson, & Helsel, 1985). For example, children of elementary school age are reportedly fearful of supernatural beings, bodily injury, and loud noises. In addition, they are increasingly sensitive to and fearful of failure in social situations and in their academic performance. As children enter middle school and high school, social, academic, and health-related fears become predominant, and these fears may continue to exist into adulthood (Barrios & Hartmann, 1997; [Morris and Kratochwill, 1983] and [Morris and Kratochwill, 1998]).

Although considerable efforts have been directed towards the understanding of fears and related anxieties amongst children and adolescents without disabilities, far less is known about the levels and nature of fears and related anxieties in young people having disabilities. Depending on the specific disability category under investigation, there are some differences in adjustment and outcome status, but a substantial body of evidence supports the claim that children and youth with learning disabilities (LD) and mild mental retardation (MIMR) are at heightened risk for experiencing emotional difficulties and manifesting higher levels of fears and anxieties than their typical (or regular education) peers (Al-Yagon & Mikulincer, 2004; Pearl & Bay, 1999). To further illustrate, almost three million children (ages 6-21 years) have some form of a learning disability and receive special education in schools (Twenty-Fourth Annual Report to Congress, ...