Online Education And Degree. Part 23. Common Features of Anxiety Disorders

Although different types of anxiety disorders exist, according to Michael Telch, Jasper Smits, Matt Brown, and Victoria Beckner, there are some common features across these different disorders. Common features include escape and avoidance behaviors, chronic worry, attentional hypervigilance, faulty threat perception, and sympathetic activation. Individuals with an anxiety disorder try to avoid or escape from stimuli or situations that make them anxious, and they constantly worry about current and future events. These individuals attend excessively to cues that they perceive as threatening. The excessive attention given to these cues is referred to as attentional hypervigilance. Faulty threat perception is another common feature found among individuals with an anxiety disorder. These individuals erroneously perceive situations as threatening. Sympathetic activation is also a core feature found among individuals with an anxiety disorder. Activation of the sympathetic nervous system producing physiological changes in the body occurs in individuals with an anxiety disorder when there is no real or potential threat. Physiological changes experienced by these individuals in the absence of a real or potential threat may include accelerated heart rate, muscle tension, and increased perspiration and respiration.
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Types of Anxiety Disorders
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fourth Edition, Text Revision) (DSM-IV-TR) has identified 15 types of anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder, specific phobia, social anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, acute stress disorder, panic attack, panic disorder with and without agoraphobia, agoraphobia without a history of panic disorder, anxiety disorder not otherwise specified, anxiety disorder due to a general medical condition, and substance-induced anxiety disorder. Generalized anxiety disorders, phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorders, panic disorders, and posttraumatic stress disorders are the most common types of anxiety disorders.
Although there are several types of anxiety disorders, each involves an excessive degree of worry or fear about certain stimuli, situations, or events, which significantly interferes with an individual's normal state of functioning. Generalized anxiety disorder is characterized by a chronic, excessive, and uncontrollable degree of worry about a variety of events or situations, such as friends, family, school, work, or the future. Symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder include fatigue, irritability, restlessness, muscle tension, and difficulties with concentration and sleep. Another common anxiety disorder, specific phobia, is characterized by an extreme and irrational fear in response to a specific stimulus, such as animals or insects (e.g., dogs), aspects of the natural environment (e.g., storms), blood (e.g., viewing blood or receiving an injection), situations (e.g., being in small spaces), or other stimuli (e.g., loud sounds or costumed characters). This worry must be present for at least 6 months and may lead to symptoms in children such as crying, clinging, tantrumming, dizziness, shortness of breath, and fainting.
Like a specific phobia, social phobia is associated with particular circumstances and must involve symptoms present for at least 6 months. An individual with a social phobia experiences extreme worry regarding social situations. The individual may worry over or fear the possibility of ridicule, humiliation, or embarrassment in social situations, such as speaking in class or conversing with peers. Individuals with a social anxiety disorder may attempt to avoid or escape social behaviors, and they often have poor social skills. These individuals may also experience symptoms such as trembling hands or voice, perspiration, muscle tension, and blushing.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder involves obsessions (recurrent or persistent thoughts or worries that intrude on, and interfere with, an individual's normal functioning) and compulsions (repetitive behaviors, rituals, or practices in which the individual engages to provide relief from, or comply with, the obsessive thoughts or worries). Common obsessions and compulsions in children include contamination (hand washing), safety (checking), preoccupations with orderliness and symmetry (ordering, aligning), and counting or touching rituals. Individuals with an obsessive-compulsive disorder may feel embarrassed by their compulsions and may experience difficulties related to concentration, preoccupations, and perfectionist tendencies.
Posttraumatic stress disorder refers to stress or worry experienced by an individual following a traumatic event (such as a serious injury, death, or catastrophic event). The individual reexperiences the event (via flashbacks, nightmares, or images), as well as the accompanying physiological arousal, and may attempt to avoid stimuli associated with the event. Following the event, the individual may feel helpless, fearful, agitated, or disorganized and may experience hypervigilance, irritability, and difficulties with concentration or sleep. These symptoms must be present for at least 1 month following the traumatic event. If symptoms are present for less than 1 month, then an acute stress disorder may be present. Similar to posttraumatic stress disorder, acute stress disorder also results from witnessing or experiencing a traumatic event. Symptoms include reexperiencing the event and the accompanying physiological arousal; however, these symptoms are present for no more than 1 month.
A panic disorder refers to recurrent and unexpected panic attacks that are followed for at least 1 month by concern about, or consequences of, having another attack and/or a change of behavior related to the attack. Panic attacks develop abruptly, often last for approximately 10 minutes, and involve symptoms such as heart palpitations, sweating, chest pain, dizziness, fear of dying, feelings of detaching from one's body, and feelings of losing control. If the attacks become more frequent, the individual may come to fear experiencing a panic attack in public places, and develop agoraphobia (fear of public places) as well. However, agoraphobia may also develop in the absence of, and without resulting from, a panic disorder. In these cases, individuals may avoid public situations, such as being in a crowd or traveling in a train, and may experience symptoms of panic in these situations.
Separation anxiety disorder is an anxiety disorder commonly found in children. Separation anxiety disorder refers to excessive and unrealistic worry in response to separation from home or a caregiver. Children with separation anxiety disorder may experience nightmares with separation themes, headaches, stomachaches, or nausea. These symptoms must be present for at least 4 weeks. Separation anxiety disorders tend to decrease with an increase in age. That is, this type of anxiety disorder is common during the childhood years but declines during the adolescent and adulthood years.
Anxiety disorders may also result from external factors, such as a general medical condition or substance use. Finally, for individuals who experience symptoms of anxiety, but whose symptoms, duration, or impairment do not meet the criteria for a specific disorder, a diagnosis of anxiety disorder not otherwise specified (NOS) may be appropriate.
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EDITOR Neil J. Salkind
Copyright © 2008 by SAGE Publications, Inc.

Education And Degree. Part 17. Alternative academic assessment - 2.

Advantages
Efficiency
The administration of AAAs is quick (taking as little as 1 minute) and requires few resources. Items can be developed easily by teachers and taken right from the curriculum. Furthermore, AAAs require little training to administer or score. Also, because they are flexible and can be designed to assess specific domains of academics, AAAs allow school psychologists and other educators to test specific assessment questions rather than routinely test across a broad number of academic domains.
Use of Local Norms
Performances on AAA are often interpreted with reference to local normative data. Local norms are developed from samples of student behavior using AAA procedures. Local norms directly represent the school district population, academic goals, and outcomes rather than the performance of students nationwide. They also decrease the likelihood of bias in decision making because they are representative of student age, grade, race, educational background, and socioeconomic status.
Another advantage of local norms is that there is greater overlap between what is taught and what is tested. Districts have the flexibility to design comparative data based on the specific curriculum. This high teaching-testing overlap yields more meaningful data on student progress. CBM-R is the most common alternative academic assessment that is used to create local norms. In many districts, students complete CBM-Rs in the fall, winter, and spring.
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Benchmarking
Benchmarks are sometimes used to evaluate student performance with a criterion-referenced interpretation.
Both benchmarks and local norms are used as referents to evaluate whether students are making adequate progress to achieve expected long-term goals. For example, if students are expected to read 60 words correctly per minute in CBM-R by spring of first grade, then by winter, it is likely they should read 45 words correctly per minute. A student who scores significantly lower than the winter benchmark is identified as at-risk. The student is then given additional help so that by spring, he or she achieves the targeted level of performance. Benchmarking provides information that will help in determining which students are at risk and should be monitored more closely. To this end, benchmarking is also a vital component of prevention. It allows educators to identify and fix small problems before they become larger.
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Utility Within the Problem-Solving Model
Historically, students were placed in special education based on their scores on large norm-referenced tests (the "test and place" model). An intelligence score below a certain criterion resulted in a label such as "learning disabled." The student was then matched to special education services based on that label, and the problem was viewed as an inherent trait within the student. Beginning in 2001, a shift has occurred away from the traditional model and toward the problem-solving model.
The problem-solving model focuses not on traits of the student but on environmental and situational factors that can be modified to increase student outcomes. The problem-solving model follows these steps: identify the problem, measure the severity of problem, explore possible interventions, implement an intervention, and measure progress in hopes that the student can be successful in the general education setting. The problem-solving model is a circular process, as progress is constantly being monitored and interventions are adjusted accordingly. The problem-solving model does not rely on unproven inferences as does the traditional model. Hypotheses are continually tested and monitored with AAAs. Thus, decisions are evidence-based because student data are considered when creating and modifying interventions.
AAAs provide the necessary tools to implement the problem-solving model, as they efficiently assess student performance and can be repeated often. As the popularity of the problem-solving model increases, so does that of AAAs.
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Utility for Progress Monitoring
Alternative academic assessments not only identify students who are at-risk but also determine if intervention efforts are successful. Because they are efficient and drawn directly from the curriculum, AAAs can be used repeatedly to monitor student progress and response to intervention. Repeated measures provide not only the level of performance but also the student's rate of growth. This allows educators to determine if the student is making adequate improvement or not. If the intervention does not produce the desired rate of growth, then changes are made to the intervention.

Theodore James Christ and Sarah Scullin




EDITOR Neil J. Salkind
Copyright © 2008 by SAGE Publications, Inc.

Online degree, online education, part 6.

A Model for Academic Acceleration
It is important to see academic acceleration not as a single intervention but rather as an ongoing, holistic, whole-school process necessarily involving the student, the student's caregivers, and his or her teachers.
Accordingly, Peter Merrotsy has developed an acceleration model that recommends six steps toward a better curriculum for gifted students: identification, communication, a negotiated curriculum, academic acceleration, access to advanced courses while still at school, and support.
Identification
Identification of a gifted student should imply that educational action will take place. It needs to be remembered that identification is notoriously unreliable, especially for gifted students from a background of disadvantage (e.g., low socioeconomic status or forced cultural minority status). That is one of the reasons why it is important to have a broad, inclusive curriculum and to have students involved in making decisions about getting online degree.
Communication
Each gifted student has a right to know the curriculum options and pathways to earn online bachelor degree available to him or her. Information about enrichment programs, extracurricular activities, meeting outcomes in alternative ways, high-level courses, senior courses, academic acceleration, and access to advanced-level courses online degree while still at school should be clearly communicated to gifted students, and indeed to all students and their caregivers.
A Negotiated Curriculum
Gifted students are in a position to make informed decisions about their education. They should be actively involved in decision-making processes concerning their curriculum. Gifted students should be empowered to negotiate their curriculum.
Academic Acceleration
Academic acceleration appears to be the best and most feasible method for providing a challenging, rewarding, and continuous education which matches a gifted student's academic ability and comes closest to meeting his or her educational—intellectual, social, and emotional—needs. In order to earn online bachelor degree it may be necessary to change the organization of the school's curriculum and, in some cases, to change systemic policy.
Advanced-Level Courses
Access to advanced-level courses while still at school is an appropriate and natural progression for a gifted student who has academically accelerated. It is important to remember that an accelerated student could choose instead to study a greater number of secondary subjects, complete fewer secondary subjects but in greater depth, or take a year off, perhaps as an exchange student in another country. Whichever option is pursued, careful long-term planning, clear communication, and a negotiated curriculum are needed.
Support for Gifted Students
To help their intellectual, social, and emotional development, academically accelerated students need appropriate support, in terms of policy, administration, coordination of courses, enriched educational experiences, access to high-level courses, access to specialist teachers, tutors, counselors and mentors, and resources. In particular, gifted students from dis-advantaged backgrounds, and from rural and isolated settings, need financial support so that they have access to resources and to educational experiences and opportunities enjoyed by others.
Guidelines for online bachelor degree
The Iowa Acceleration Scale offers a thoughtful and careful objective guide for whole-grade, academically accelerated progression and is supported by research and many repetition studies. There are four critical items: If a student's measured IQ is below 120, if a sibling is either in the same grade from which the student will accelerate or in the new grade to which the student will accelerate, or there is any antipathy by the student, then whole-grade acceleration is not recommended. School history; an assessment of ability, aptitude, and achievement; academic and developmental factors; interpersonal skills; and attitude and support by the school and family are then taken into account in order to give, or not give, as the case may be, a recommendation for whole-grade acceleration. If whole-grade acceleration is not recommended, then advice is available on the suitability of other forms of acceleration or on enrichment and extension online degree programs.

Ongoing Issues
Two key issues need to be addressed worldwide if gifted students are to gain adequate access to a curriculum that includes options for online bachelor degree. These issues need to be addressed to overcome the impact of social and cultural disadvantage and to give equity of access to appropriate educational programs for gifted students.
First, the findings of research concerning the academic and affective benefits of well-administered acceleration online bachelor degree programs need to be accepted by educational administrators, communities, and teachers. System-organizational patterns of social grouping and the lockstep method of promotion constitute an effective barrier to the development of giftedness, suggesting the deep and urgent need for more flexible forms of school organization that ensure continuity of experience based on criteria other than age or years of attendance and that permit student progression based on individual development and performance.
Second, the end result or consequence of acceleration must be appropriately supported and managed by the education system. For example, with respect to advanced-level subjects studied while still at school, clarification is needed concerning equity of access, which can only be maintained through flexible forms of delivery and alternative modes of study; recognition that they constitute a formal component of secondary school studies, with continuity and articulation of curriculum; the status of secondary students who have completed advanced level units of studies, inter alia that they are still eligible for university entrance scholarships; and credit transfer.
Peter Merrotsy


EDITOR Neil J. Salkind
Copyright © 2008 by SAGE Publications, Inc.

Online degree, part 4. ACCELERATION.

The classical understanding of the term acceleration is progress through an educational program at a rate faster, or at an age younger, than conventional. This is now referred to, more appropriately, as academic acceleration and is based on the premise that each child has a right to realize his or her potential.
Academic acceleration is valid pedagogy, is grounded in and supported by research, and is an appropriate response to the educational and social needs of a student whose cognitive ability and academic achievement are several years beyond those of their age-peers. Yet worldwide it is an educational option little used. Even though the research on acceleration is so uniformly and distinctly positive and the benefits of well-administered acceleration are so unequivocal, educators are reluctant to accelerate children, and some educational systems proscribe its transparent use.
This entry presents an outline of current theory of academic acceleration through a discussion of a curriculum for gifted students, the benefits of acceleration, a model for acceleration, guidelines for implementing an acceleration program, and ongoing issues related to the practice of acceleration.
Curriculum for Gifted Students
The literature is adamant: Gifted students are exceptional students who have three basic educational needs. They require the provision of a curriculum that is substantially and qualitatively differentiated; that is prescribed, planned, articulated, permanent, ongoing, and defensible; that is based on students' exceptionality; and that is predicated on the needs of each student. Gifted students require accelerated, enriched, and challenging learning experiences, with carefully planned, relevant enrichment and with content acceleration to the level of each student's ability. They also require counseling and guidance to foster cognitive and affective growth. Whereas most teachers and researchers involved with the education of gifted students agree that gifted students do require a differentiated curriculum, there is passionate debate concerning the form that this provision should take.
Counseling certainly is important for the social and emotional development of the gifted student and should be part of the framework for any program devised for gifted students.
Academic enrichment is worthwhile for most students and should not be offered to gifted students only. Relevant academic enrichment requires the provision of a program specifically designed for the individual. For gifted students, this will naturally entail advanced material and higher-level treatment of topics within their area of special aptitude, and the more relevant and excellent the enrichment is, the more it calls for acceleration of subject matter or grade placement later. Indeed, acceleration may well be the most appropriate form of enrichment.
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The notion of academic acceleration is evidently contentious, with an enormous hiatus existing between what research has revealed and what most practitioners believe and do. The literature uniformly emphasizes that academic acceleration should form an integral component of a school's program for gifted students, complementing enrichment programs and provisions and following relevant enrichment. Resistance to academic acceleration, especially through concerns for the social and emotional development of the accelerated student, is not grounded in research. Clearly, educators need to be aware of the empirical research on the positive effects of academic acceleration. Moreover, the literature carefully points out that academic acceleration appears to be the best and most feasible method for providing a challenging, rewarding, and ongoing education that matches a gifted student's academic and intellectual ability and comes closest to meeting his or her educational, social, and emotional needs.
Whatever the status of the debate, if service delivery is predicated on a gifted student's precocious development and educational needs, then a differentiated curriculum should be challenging and educationally relevant and should be adapted by acceleration, enrichment, sophistication, and novelty. Such an eclectic approach to programming for the gifted will be employed within an integrative framework, adaptable to the cognitive and affective needs of the individual.
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The issue may be placed in perspective by cor-rectly noticing that a gifted student is already accelerated and that what is accelerated through academic acceleration is simply the student's progress through the formal school curriculum. The key point is that matching the curriculum to the student's abilities is not acceleration per se, but rather it is a developmentally appropriate teaching practice.

EDITOR Neil J. Salkind
Copyright © 2008 by SAGE Publications, Inc.

Abstinence Education pt.2 - Federal Funding

The first federal funding of abstinence programs was created in 1981 with the Adolescent Family Life Act as Title XX of the Public Health Service Act. According to the Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs, the Adolescent Family Life (AFL) program supports demonstration projects to develop, implement, and evaluate program interventions to promote abstinence from sexual activity among adolescents and to provide comprehensive health care, education, and social services to pregnant and parenting adolescents.
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The program supports two basic types of demonstration projects: (1) prevention demonstration projects to develop, test, and use curricula that provide education and activities designed to encourage adolescents to postpone sexual activity until marriage; and (2) care demonstration projects to develop interventions with pregnant and parenting teens, their infants, male partners, and family members in an effort to ameliorate the effects of too-early-childbearing for teen parents, their babies, and their families. The AFL program also funds grants to support research on the causes and consequences of adolescent premarital sexual relations, pregnancy, and parenting. The Title XX funds not only help the teens and families they serve directly, but they also provide valuable information and evaluation findings that can serve as a basis for future strategies. Every program that receives AFL grant funds is required to include an independent evaluation component. This ensures that the lessons learned by each community will benefit others in the future.
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In 1996, federal abstinence education programs narrowed the definitions of abstinence when Section 510(b) of Title V of the Social Security Act, P.L. 104-193 was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The abstinence-only federal funding was created as part of "welfare reform," or the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Act (TANF). This third funding stream provides grants to states for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. The absti-nence-only-until-marriage educational or motivational programs must adhere to the following eight criteria as established by law:
1. Has as its exclusive purpose teaching the social,
psychological, and health gains to be realized by
abstaining from sexual activity
2. Teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside
marriage as the expected standard for all school-age children
3. Teaches that abstinence from sexual activity is the
only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually
transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems
4. Teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship
in the context of marriage is the expected standard of sexual activity
5. Teaches that sexual activity outside of the context
of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological
and physical effects
6. Teaches that bearing children out-of-wedlock is
likely to have harmful consequences for the child,
the child's parents, and society
7. Teaches young people how to reject sexual
advances and how alcohol and drug use increases
vulnerability to sexual advances
8. Teaches the importance of attaining self-sufficiency
before engaging in sexual activity
As of 1997, all abstinence projects funded under the Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention must adhere to the eight criteria. The funded projects must be evaluated, and the curricula must be medically accurate.
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Title V grantees cannot provide educational programming that goes against any one of the criteria listed previously in this section, but the states have the latitude to focus on only a few of the criteria. The states can direct the funding to schools, community-based organizations, health districts, media campaigns, or faith-based entities. Each state has the discretion to decide who receives the funding, how programs are delivered, and if and how they will be evaluated.
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In October 2000, the federal government expanded the abstinence-only projects and created Special Projects of Regional and National Significance-Community-Based Abstinence Education (SPRANS-CBAE). The SPRANS grants are awarded to states and community organizations and can fund only abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. In 2005 oversight of the SPRANS-CBAE grants was moved from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau to the Adminis-tration for Children and Families (ACF); both are within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This program is now known as Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE). The program requirements have been tightened; to receive funding, each program now must adhere to all eight criteria. Process evaluation is now required for new grantees, but programs do not have to measure impact on program participants. So how does one select an abstinence program?
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Selecting and Evaluating Programs
Abstinence education programs are evolving, and the types of programs offered are vast in terms of quality, cost, and effectiveness. When choosing a program, educators can look for teacher training, medical accuracy, evidence of effectiveness with similar populations, costs, whether the program is theoretically based, and how it fits with community guidelines. Other considerations include whether the program is taught by a teacher or peers and how much time can be devoted to the program. Programs can range from a single 1-hour presentation to 25 sessions over 5 weeks. The curricula and desired learning outcomes should coincide. A final component is the effectiveness of the program; currently, long-term research on the effectiveness of abstinence education is limited to a few programs, and the results are mixed.
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Few rigorous, long-term studies focusing on behavioral outcomes have been conducted on specific abstinence-only programs. The Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs (OAPP) does require all of its abstinence programs to be evaluated, and most of the published abstinence evaluations are former OAPP projects. Most of the programs have shown immediate differences in attitudes and intent to remain abstinent. One problem with the evaluations of many abstinence programs is the limited ability to assign students to experimental or control groups, the presence of follow-up evaluations, and the limited sample sizes.

Research is needed to determine the long-term impacts on behavior.
Caile E. Spear

EDITOR Neil J. Salkind
Copyright © 2008 by SAGE Publications, Inc.