School Phobia and Separation Anxiety

Functional school refusal subtypes: Anxiety, avoidance, and malingering

“…As has been noted, operant and classical paradigms may also supplement initial refusal development. Vicarious conditioning through parents and peers may also supplement classical and operant paradigms; it is not yet clear if vicarious conditioning alone can result in chronic school refusal (Ollendick & King, 1990). …”

“…In addition, chronic refusors appear to have average intelligence (e.g., Blagg & Yule, 1984). Studies have not found higher than normal rates of chronic refusal in mentally impaired or learning disabled students (Ollendick & King, 1990).…”

“…Instead, characteristics of avoidance and malingering may make treatment more complicated and less successful than for anxiety disorders. Fears, phobias and other focal anxieties appear to be relatively common and transitory during childhood (Ollendick & King, 1990). In addition, chronic refusors appear to have average intelligence (e.g., Blagg & Yule, 1984).…”

Separation Anxiety Disorder

“…Ollendick and Hersen (1984) also emphasized that empirically validated, multiline assessment methods should be used to gain the best "picture of a child," including sensitivity to developmental processes and a solicitation of information from the child as well as relevant adults. Currently, unstructured and semistructured clinical interviews and informal in vivo behavioral observation constitute the primary methods available for gathering information about SAD, as empirically validated rating scales for this particular disorder do not exist (Ollendick & King, 1990). Detailed descriptions of the available methods can be found in general texts on childhood behavioral assessment (King et al, 1988;Mash & Terdal, 1981), and in reviews of SAD by Thyer and Sowers-Hoag (1988) and Ollendick and King (1990).…”

“…Theoretical views on the relationship between separation anxiety and school phobia have a fairly complex history. Early psychodynamic thinkers emphasized underlying separation fears, whereas behavioral proponents tended to focus on the school avoidance per se (see Ollendick & King, 1990, for summary). Contrary to early estimates that 75%-80% of school-phobic children suffer underlying SAD (Waldron, Shrier, Stone, & Tobin, 1975), recent empirical work suggests that SAD accompanies school phobia 33%-50% of the time (Bernstein & Garfinkel, 1986;Bernstein, Svinger, & Garfinkel, 1990;Last & Strauss, 1990), and a variety of other DSM-ID-R diagnoses are represented in school-phobic samples as well (Bernstein et al, 1990;Last & Strauss, 1990).…”