Exceptional Children Mental Conditions

Question: Discuss about theExceptional Childrenfor Mental Conditions. Answer: Introduction Anxiety disorders are a group of mental conditions that are characterized by persistent and prolonged excessive fear, nervousness and related behavioral disturbances. There is usually a subjective and physiologic manifestation of fear which is the emotional response to real, perceived imminent threat or in anticipation of future threat. It is symptomatically associated with muscle tension, vigilance and avoidant behavior. Thus, children with anxiety disorder commonly exhibit solitude, not participating in social activities both in school and at home. They also find it difficult doing what their peers are interested in doing (Lawrence D, Johnson S, Hafekost, Boterhoven, Sawyer, Ainley, Zubrick, 2015). Anxiety disorders can be classified into separation anxiety, selective mutism, panic disorder, generalized anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder and specific phobia which can be social phobia or agoraphobia. All these anxiety disorders have physical manifestations through excessive sweating, tremor, dizziness, headaches, palpitations, mydriasis, and syncope, tingling in extremities, gastrointestinal disturbances, urinary urgency, and frequency. However, other conditions are associated with the same anxiety symptoms that include excessive caffeine intake, vitamin B12 deficiency, thyroid dysfunction, hypoglycemia, cardiac arrhythmias and Pheochromocytoma (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Some of the factors that have been implicated to influence anxiety disorders in children are the family type, household income, parent education, parent labor force status, the area of residence and general family functioning among others (McMahon et al. 2012). These disorders have detrimental impacts on the physical and social wellbeing of a child. According to Lawrence et al. (2015), the four domains that are most affected are school work, relationship with other, social activities and family. There is increased tendency of school absence in children having these conditions as compared to those having no anxiety disorder. Consequently, their academic performance is in most instances poor a phenomenon that leads to reduced self-confidence and low self-esteem. They are also easily irritable and therefore their family coherence, performance in sports and punctuality. Due to a large amount of sympathetic stimulator chemical neurotransmitters secreted in the body such as serotonin and norepinephrine that are associated with anxiety, there is prolonged increased metabolism as well as fatigue and sleeplessness and restlessness. Moreover, there is increased tendency of self-harm, harm to others and suicide. As stipulated by American Psychiatric Association (2013), diagnosis of anxiety disorders primarily relies on the symptoms that a child has. A substantive number of specific symptoms for each of the anxiety disorder must have been exhibited by the child for at least six months for a diagnosis to be made. Additionally, the management method and therapy choice are made depending on the etiology and extent or severity of the condition. Social phobia is distinctively characterized by persistent fear and avoidance of activity that involve public participation which is perceived to result in evaluation by others, humiliation or embarrassment. On the other hand, separation anxiety can be diagnosed when one shows social and academic distress or a significant distress in other areas of functioning that is not expected in their developmental age after a place, and person one is attached to and cant adapt for at least six months. Generalized anxiety usually exhibits most of the symptoms, and it is non-specific to the triggering event or activity. References American Psychiatric Association, (2013).Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5. Washington, D.C: American Psychiatric Association. Lawrence D, Johnson S, Hafekost J, Boterhoven De Haan K, Sawyer M, Ainley J, Zubrick SR (2015) The Mental Health of Children and Adolescents. Report on the second Australian Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing. Department of Health, Canberra McMahon, R. J., In Peters, R. D. V., Banff International Conference on Behavioural Science. (2012).The effects of parental dysfunction on children.