How to prevent school anxiety

The aim of this paper is to suggest useful ways of study and prevention of the school related anxiety disorders. First of all we delimited these disorders within the vast field of children s anxiety. After a brief review of the aspects of prevalence and development we examine the assessment and diagnostic concerns. We suggest the main hypothesis that anxiety can not only be the cause of school achievement problems but also an effect of the cognitive deficits that lead to those problems. Therefore, prevention has to emphasize the importance of the cognitive and metacognitive preocesses and skills. When they are improved, the child will cope with the academic school problems successfully, and he or she will experience a greater sense of self-efficacy. According to our hypothesis, at least the anxiety that comes from the school failures will not appear in this case.