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Social anxiety disorder (SAD), a highly prevalent and impairing psychological condition in adolescents, is characterized by persistent fear of social and performance situations. Existing evidence suggests that racism and discrimination may heighten risk for SAD and present barriers to treatment in Black youth. Yet, intervention research on SAD in Black adolescents is virtually nonexistent. This paper discusses the development of the first culturally responsive, school-based intervention for SAD in Black adolescents, referred to as Interacting and Changing our Narratives (ICON). Following recommendations by Castro et al. (Ann Rev Clin Psychol 6(1):213-239, 2010), a multiple stage process was used to adapt an empirically based, school intervention for SAD to be culturally responsive to the unique lived experiences of Black teenagers. Utilizing a university-community-school partnership, key stakeholders, including content area experts, school personnel, caregivers and students, were invited to participate in this process. Their recommendations guided the modifications, and were clearly reflected in the newly developed intervention. Initial piloting showed high acceptability and feasibility of ICON, and informed further revisions prior to a controlled trial. This adaptation process highlights the significant value of learning directly from the community for which an intervention is being developed.

Interventions that build compassion for others may help increase social connectivity, combat loneliness, and promote positive adjustment in youth. However, limited research has examined the effects of this type of intervention on youth well-being. The goal of this small open pilot study was to examine the feasibility, acceptability, and outcomes of Inspiring Comfort, a 12-session group program in which youth learn and practice compassion, empathy, and helping others in distress. The program was implemented virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic with a sample of 10 students (ages 11 to 14) attending a non-profit special education school. Following the program, reductions in child-reported loneliness, depressive symptoms, and social anxiety were observed, along with increases in compassion for others and self-compassion. Students reported high satisfaction with the program, though challenges with the virtual format were noted. Findings suggest that a compassion-focused intervention may hold promise for addressing loneliness and internalising symptoms in youth, though randomised controlled trials with larger samples are needed.

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by significant distress and avoidance surrounding social and performance situations with marked interpersonal and academic impairment. This review paper highlights cultural considerations relevant to the conceptualization, identification and treatment of SAD in Black youth. Research evaluating the utility of evidence-based measures to assess SAD suggest they are culturally relevant; however, gaps in knowledge regarding psychometric properties of even the most widely used instruments are evident. In regards to intervention, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) approaches hold promise, yet there is a lack of research on the use of CBT with Black adolescents. Recommendations to incorporate cultural factors into CBT are provided and future work investigating culturally adapted interventions are needed. Finally, given significant disparities in access and utilization of mental health services with Black youth, strategies to increase treatment engagement, such as school-based services, are important to consider.

Online racial discrimination (ORD) has been found to have deleterious effects on the psychological and academic outcomes of youth of color. Racial centrality (i.e., the extent to which one regards their racial group membership as important to their identity) may be a powerful buffer of these effects and has been identified as an important sociocultural asset for Black youth in particular. This study examined the relations among ORD, racial centrality, academic self-efficacy (ASE), and academic achievement among Black children and adolescents (ages 8-17). Results indicated that ORD and centrality increased with age, and the majority (76%) of youth reported at least one incident of ORD in the last year. Racial centrality moderated ORD's relationship with ASE but not with achievement; specifically, ORD and ASE were more strongly related at higher levels of centrality. Centrality was not significantly related to achievement; however, it was indirectly related to achievement via ASE. These findings underscore the importance of disrupting ORD as well as providing support for children and adolescents who experience it. This study also highlights racial centrality as an important mechanism for promoting academic achievement among Black youth.

Objective: Online racial discrimination (ORD) is rampant; however, little is known about its associations with mental health among undergraduates. This study explored the relations between ORD and mental health among Black undergraduates. It also investigated gender differences in these relations. Participants: Two hundred seventy-eight Black, cisgender men and women enrolled in a minority-serving public university in the Northeast U.S. Methods: Participants completed measures of ORD, depression, generalized anxiety (GA), and social anxiety (SA) via a Web-based survey. Results: Eighty-five percent of participants experienced at least one ORD incident in the last year. Men and women reported comparable exposure. Gender moderated the relations between ORD and depression and SA, respectively; these associations were stronger for women. Conclusions: Exposure to ORD is prevalent among Black undergraduates and is associated with adverse mental health outcomes, especially for women. Campus mental health interventions should address online discrimination in the context of students' intersecting identities.

In this study, we validated the "ReadFree tool", a computerised battery of 12 visual and auditory tasks developed to identify poor readers also in minority-language children (MLC). We tested the task-specific discriminant power on 142 Italian-monolingual participants (8-13 years old) divided into monolingual poor readers (N = 37) and good readers (N = 105) according to standardised Italian reading tests. The performances at the discriminant tasks of the "ReadFree tool" were entered into a classification and regression tree (CART) model to identify monolingual poor and good readers. The set of classification rules extracted from the CART model were applied to the MLC's performance and the ensuing classification was compared to the one based on standardised Italian reading tests. According to the CART model, auditory go-no/go (regular), RAN and Entrainment100bpm were the most discriminant tasks. When compared with the clinical classification, the CART model accuracy was 86% for the monolinguals and 76% for the MLC. Executive functions and timing skills turned out to have a relevant role in reading. Results of the CART model on MLC support the idea that ad hoc standardised tasks that go beyond reading are needed.

A learner's perception of what a career in physics is like has a major impact on their decision to pursue physics professionally. This decision can also be influenced by a high school student's awareness of issues concerning diversity within the physics community. We surveyed current high school physics students and investigated their perception of physics careers and knowledge of diversity issues within the field. When we explored student responses, we found that students are generally unaware of the variety of careers available within physics. In addition, we see that many students are uninformed about issues regarding diversity within the physics community. Furthermore, we found physics teachers can have a noticeable impact on how students perceive these issues.

This qualitative investigation explored the social and academic experiences of socially anxious adolescents and young adults in Portugal and the US as they lived through the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were 10 Portuguese adolescents (mean age = 16.9 years; 50% female) and 7 young adults in the US (mean age = 19.67 years; 71% female; racially/ethnically diverse). Participants completed a semi-structured interview evaluating how the pandemic and social restrictions impacted social anxiety symptoms and associated functional impairment in social and academic domains. Thematic analysis was used to categorize responses across developmental stages and countries. Findings show consistent patterns across cultures, with symptoms of SAD extending to virtual contexts. Participants reported avoidance behaviors that were reinforced by social distancing mandates and declines in academic engagement during remote learning. Anticipatory anxiety about the return to normal social routines was also evident. Schools should be aware of the impact of social confinement on socially anxious students as they return to in person school schedules and social demands.

Cross-cultural studies have suggested that reading deficits in developmental dyslexia (DD) can be moderated by orthographic depth. To further explore this issue and assess the moderating role of orthographic depth in the developmental cognitive trajectories of dyslexic and typical readers, we systematically reviewed 113 studies on DD that were published from 2013 to 2018 and selected 79 in which participants received an official DD diagnosis. Each study was classified according to orthographic depth (deep vs. shallow) and participant age (children vs. adults). We assessed the difference between DD and control groups' performance in reading tasks and in a wide range of cognitive domains associated with reading (phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN), short-term working memory (WM), and nonverbal reasoning), including age and orthographies as moderators. We found an age-by-orthography interaction effect in word reading accuracy and a significant effect of age in pseudoword reading accuracy, but we found no effect of age and orthographic depth on the fluency parameters. These results suggest that reading speed is a reliable index for discriminating between DD and control groups across European orthographies from childhood to adulthood. A similar pattern of results emerged for PA, RAN, and short-term/WM. Our findings are discussed in relation to their impact on clinical practice while considering the orthographic depth and developmental level.

Contribution: Significant gender differences are observed on primary school students' perception of self-efficacy and test anxiety in mathematics. Girls perceive themselves to be significantly worse than boys in mathematics and report higher test anxiety toward mathematics exams. Gender differences in self-efficacy become more pronounced as students grow up, and test anxiety increases for all students. However, the present study shows that teachers' do not perceive differences in self-efficacy in mathematics between boys and girls. Background: The low presence of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) might be explained by the attitude of young students toward mathematics. Different studies show that girls are less interested in STEM areas than boys during secondary school. A study on the reasons for this fact pointed out that the early years of education can provide a relevant insight to reverse the situation. Research Questions: Is there any age-dependent gender difference in primary school students in aspects related to mathematics? Are teachers aware of students' perceptions? Methodology: This work presents a study of over 2000 primary school students (6-12 years old) and 200 teachers in Aragón (Spain). The study consists of a survey on aspects that influence the experience of female and male students with mathematics and Spanish language for comparison purposes and teacher's awareness of students' perception. Findings: The present study shows that during primary school, girls are more likely to experiment a negative attitude toward mathematics than boys as they grow up, and teachers may not perceive girls' situation.

Background: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) typically onsets in adolescence and is associated with multiple impairments. Despite promising clinical interventions, most socially anxious adolescents remain untreated. To address this clinical neglect, we developed a school-based, 12-week group intervention for youth with SAD, "Skills for Academic and Social Success" (SASS). When implemented by psychologists, SASS has been found effective. To promote dissemination and optimize treatment access, we tested whether school counselors could be effective treatment providers. Method: We randomized 138, ninth through 11th graders with SAD to one of three conditions: (a) SASS delivered by school counselors (C-SASS), (b) SASS delivered by psychologists (P-SASS), or (c) a control condition, "Skills for Life" (SFL), a nonspecific counseling program. Blind, independent, evaluations were conducted with parents and adolescents at baseline, post-intervention, and 5 months beyond treatment completion. We hypothesized that C-SASS and P-SASS would be superior to the control, immediately after treatment and at follow-up. No prediction was made about the relative efficacy of C-SASS and P-SASS. Results: Compared to controls, adolescents treated with C-SASS or P-SASS experienced significantly greater improvement and reductions of anxiety at the end of treatment and follow-up. There were no significant differences between SASS delivered by school counselors and psychologists. Conclusion: With training, school counselors are effective treatment providers to adolescents with social anxiety, yielding benefits comparable to those obtained by specialized psychologists. Questions remain regarding means to maintain counselors' practice standards without external support.

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is highly prevalent yet largely undetected and untreated in adolescents despite the availability of effective treatments. Implementing interventions in schools enhances recognition and access to treatment for SAD. However, without reliable means to accurately identify youth in need of services, school-based interventions are not feasible. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the utility of a two-step, school-based screening approach to identify youth with SAD. Students at three public high schools were screened with self-report questionnaires or nominated by school personnel. Subsequently, a brief telephone assessment of student symptoms was completed with students' parents. Results showed that using both questionnaires and telephone assessments yielded acceptable detection rates, while school staff nominations were not beneficial. This study provides support for the use of a two-step screening procedure consisting of student self-reports followed by brief parent telephone interviews to identify youth with clinically impairing social anxiety. Implications for enhancing school-based detection of and intervention for socially anxious adolescents are discussed.

This paper describes the experience of applying a new teaching strategy to a basic mathematics course at the Open University of Catalonia. This strategy requires students to engage with practice and assessment tests with automatic feedback. The main aim of this research is to look into the extent to which the key elements of this teaching strategy influence the students' course completion and academic achievement. In order to achieve this purpose, qualitative and quantitative variables over one term have been measured weekly. Our findings suggest that this teaching strategy significantly reduced the number of students who dropped out and improved academic results. More specifically, regular practice activities at the beginning of the semester help to engage students in the completion of the course. (Contains 4 figures and 2 notes.)

The high prevalence and early onset of anxiety disorders have inspired innovative prevention efforts targeting young at-risk children. With parent-child prevention models showing success for older children and adolescents, the goal of this study was to evaluate a parent-child indicated preventive intervention for preschoolers with mild to moderate anxiety symptoms. Sixteen children (ages 3-5) and at least one of their parents participated in Strengthening Early Emotional Development (SEED), a new 10-week intervention with concurrent groups for parents and children. Outcome measures included clinician-rated and parent-rated assessments of anxiety symptoms, as well as measures of emotion knowledge, parent anxiety, and parental attitudes about children's anxiety. Participation in SEED was associated with reduced child anxiety symptoms and improved emotion understanding skills. Parents reported decreases in their own anxiety, along with attitudes reflecting enhanced confidence in their children's ability to cope with anxiety. Reductions in child and parent anxiety were maintained at 3-month follow-up. Findings suggest that a parent-child cognitive-behavioral preventive intervention may hold promise for young children with mild to moderate anxiety. Improvements in parent anxiety and parental attitudes may support the utility of intervening with parents. Fostering increased willingness to encourage their children to engage in new and anxiety-provoking situations may help promote continued mastery of new skills and successful coping with anxiety.

Objective: Research on child and adolescent anxiety disorders has seen a surge in investigations of parenting factors potentially associated with their etiology. However, many of the well-established parenting measures are limited by over-reliance on self-report or lengthy behavioral observation procedures. Such measures may not assess factors most salient to anxiety etiology, since most family functioning measures were not originally developed for this purpose. The Family Assessment Clinician Interview (FACI) was developed as a clinician-administered interview of parent and family factors associated with child and adolescent anxiety. The present study is the first to investigate the psychometric properties of the FACI. Method: Using a clinical sample of 65 children with various anxiety disorders, and their parents, inter-rater reliability, convergent validity and associations with child-reported and clinician-evaluated anxiety severity were examined. Results: Results suggest that the FACI has good to excellent inter-rater reliability with kappas ranging from 0.79 to 1.0 across FACI scales and subscales. Some evidence of convergent validity with relevant portions of the Family Environment Scale was observed, although the latter findings varied by respondent (mother versus father). The Family Warmth/Closeness subscale of the FACI was consistently associated with increased child anxiety symptoms. Contrary to expectations, higher levels of parental expectations were associated with lower levels of child anxiety. Conclusion: Results suggest that the FACI is a promising measure of family anxiety constructs that may be useful in both research and clinical settings.

Background: Anxiety disorders are often undetected and untreated in adolescents. This study evaluates the relative efficacy of a school-based, cognitive-behavioral intervention compared to an educational-supportive treatment for adolescents with social anxiety disorder. Methods: Thirty-six students (30 females), ages 14 to 16, were randomized to a 12-week specific intervention, Skills for Social and Academic Success (SASS), or a credible attention control matched for structure and contact, conducted in school. Results: Independent evaluations and adolescent self-reports indicated significant reduction in social anxiety for SASS compared to the control group. Parent reports of their children's social anxiety did not discriminate between treatments. In the specific intervention, 59%, compared to 0% in the control, no longer met criteria for social anxiety disorder following treatment. Superiority of the SASS intervention was maintained 6 months after treatment cessation. Conclusions: The study provides evidence that intervention for social anxiety disorder that emphasizes exposure and social skills is efficacious. Results indicate that clinical improvement is sustained for at least 6 months, and that, overall, adolescents with social anxiety disorder do not respond to non-specific treatment. This investigation has public health implications by demonstrating that effective interventions can be transported to nonclinical settings.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the factor structure of the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale for Children and Adolescents (LSAS-CA). The LSAS-CA was administered to 225 children and adolescents as a component of various clinical studies. In addition, other measures of psychopathology and impairment were administered to a subgroup of the sample. Confirmatory factor analyses of the social interaction and performance subscales for the anxiety and avoidance ratings yielded poor fit indices. Exploratory factor analysis supported a two-factor solution with a higher order factor for the LSAS-CA anxiety and avoidance ratings. Based on item content, factors were named Social and School Performance. The internal consistency of the factors was high and the convergent and divergent validity was supported vis-a-vis correlations with measures of depression and social anxiety, and clinician ratings of impairment and functioning. Findings suggest that the anxiety and avoidance ratings are best explained by a two-factor solution that measures social anxiety and avoidance in social and school performance interactions. This factor structure appears to be a reliable and valid framework for assessing childhood social phobia.

This paper describes Skills for Academic and Social Success (SASS), a cognitive-behavioral, school-based intervention for adolescents with social anxiety disorder. Clinic-based treatment studies for socially anxious youth are reviewed, and a strong rationale for transporting empirically-based interventions into schools, such as SASS, is provided. The SASS program consists of 12, 40-min group sessions that emphasize social skills and in-vivo exposure. In addition to group sessions, students are seen individually at least twice and participate in 4 weekend social events with prosocial peers from their high schools. Meetings with teachers provide information about social anxiety and facilitate classroom exposures for socially anxious participants. Parents attend 2 psychoeducational meetings about social anxiety, its treatment, and approaches for managing their child's anxiety. Initial findings regarding the program's effectiveness are presented. We conclude by discussing the challenges involved in implementing treatment protocols in schools and provide suggestions to address these issues.

This study examined the relationship of overt and relational victimization to social anxiety, loneliness, and prosocial behaviours in a sample of female adolescents. The Social Experience Questionnaire, Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents, and Asher Loneliness Scale were administered to 561 girls in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh grades of an urban parochial high school. Consistent with prior work, overt and relational victimization were positively associated with fear of negative evaluation, social avoidance of general and new situations, and loneliness. In addition, prosocial behaviours from peers moderated the effects of relational victimization on loneliness. Implications of these findings for the role of peer victimization and prosocial behaviours in female relationships are discussed.

We examined the relation of overt and relational victimization to depressive symptoms, fear of negative evaluation (FNE), social avoidance, and loneliness in a sample of Hispanic and African-American children. The Social Experience Questionnaire, Children's Depression Inventory, Social Anxiety Scale for Children--Revised, and Asher Loneliness Scale were administered to 190 children in the fifth and sixth grades of an urban elementary school. Consistent with prior work, overt victimization was positively associated with depressive symptoms, FNE, social avoidance, and loneliness for both boys and girls. Relational victimization was found to be uniquely associated with depressive symptoms, FNE, and social avoidance of general situations for girls only. Prosocial behaviors from peers moderated the effects of relational victimization on loneliness, but no other social-psychological adjustment variables. Implications of our findings for the role of peer victimization and prosocial behaviors in the peer relationships of Hispanic and African-American children are discussed.

Examined the relations among overt and relational victimization, social anxiety, loneliness, and prosocial behaviors from peers in ninth- and tenth-graders. Found that boys reported higher overt victimization rates and fewer peer prosocial behaviors compared to girls. Found support for the hypothesis that overt and relational victimization were positively associated with fear of negative evaluation, physiological symptoms, social avoidance, and loneliness. Peer prosocial behaviors moderated effects of victimization on loneliness. (Author/KB)

Used the Social Anxiety Scale for Children-Revised and additional questions to examine the relationship of social anxiety to sport anxiety and avoidance in a sample of urban Hispanic American fifth and sixth graders. Found that, for girls, fear of negative evaluation and social avoidance of general and new situations were associated with sport anxiety. Found little relation between social anxiety and sport anxiety for boys. (Author/KB)