The Possible Categorization of Anxiety as a Disability

The notches keep clicking, and you're almost to the top; you're viewing the ground from the peak of a rollercoaster. Remember the feeling as you climb – stomach aching, palms sweating, terrified. This is the feeling someone with anxiety is antagonized with each day. So, how is it acceptable for an individual with this thin emotional skin not to be given a special advantage over an average individual? The drastic development in the neurological science behind mental disorders in the past few years showcases exactly how much anxiety can change one's life.

Anxiety disorders are labeled as an Axis I disorder in the DSM.

These are the most common disorders, and also those believed to need the most treatment. The people suffering from these disorders could experience: clammy hands, panic attacks, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Each of the symptoms listed above are time consuming factors that cause reason to be recognized as a disability while standardized testing. Panic attacks can range as anything from heavy breathing with trembling vision to physically shaking, and even fainting.

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There are a multitude of ways to control panic attacks including fast-action medication, and coping techniques.

Although, in the heat of the moment, putting the once trivial methods into action may be difficult. Manually forcing your cardiac system out of its primal fight-or-flight mode is no small feat. Standardized testing is one of the most impactful events for a young scholar. Students are taught how to begin bubbling in Scantrons before middle-school, and that a #2 pencil is more important than eating breakfast.

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The education system forcing these tests upon students isn't teaching them any real information - it's teaching them how to test out.

I couldn't reiterate a single fact I memorized in the duration of high school, but I could give you the repeated steps to maintain 34 out of a possible 36. "Exams used to be administered mostly to decide where to place kids or what kind of help they needed..."2 It's not as if these tests were created in hopes to diminish the creative fire exclusively aligned with childhood ignorance, but that doesn't mean they haven't. Asking what a child wants to be when they're older puts a 6-year-old on a 12 year plan. The job market as of late is excruciatingly difficult to simply waltz into with a GED - millennials must go to college.

But then there's the aspect of if they can afford college, or if they've taken difficult enough classes. Also, they must attempt to transfer in enough credits pre-university to begin at the base of most difficult majors. Although that's granted you went to an elite enough high school; if your school wasn't well equipped with AP or equivalent courses, say goodbye to any Ivy League. People may argue the fact that schools are gaining funding through the tests that I criticize - which is the case - but, that funding is going back into funneling the correct answers into students minds rather than actually teaching any subject.

The teachers with students getting the highest AP scores teach around the test. Their curriculum covers only the material most likely to be on each exam. If the teachers aren't getting the proper results from the students they are forced to study the exams, and find the pattern. Ill-equipped teachers create students who may be better at a subject than those only taught tailored to the exam; better than those who've simply memorized data rather than using their own cognitive abilities. From the beginning students have a set outcome based upon where they're born. Consider this: a white male, raised in the Midwest, top of class.

Based on Harvard's 2013 acceptance pool, 6.2% of around 35,000 applicants were accepted - 3,800 of them being first in class, so that's nothing special. Out of those 2,167 students accepted, 10% were from the Midwest, and out of those 217 students around 49% were female leaving a whopping 106 spots. 106 spots not including the acceptance rate per major.3 Each day of this boy's life must be spent doing incredulous amounts of test prepping, homework, and don't forget the extracurricular activities that, "help you stand out".

So now let's factor in that this Midwestern boy also has Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), which typically allows their brain to classically condition a neutral stimulus to be paired with anxiety behaviors.4 If this boy had taken this test once and not received a high enough score, as most students don't the first time, his mind could pair the SAT/ACT/AP exam with panic attacks. The moment the test administrator sets down the packets all hell would break loose. His body is screaming danger cue: slimy hands, over sensitized senses, and disordered behaviors. His entire life path is relying on a test that only allows 45-minutes per section and his thoughts won't stop swirling. Who can focus with all the screaming inside of their mind?

"...studies of students of different ages have found a statistical association between high scores on standardized tests and relatively shallow thinking."

“......most tests punish the thinking test-taker-to the point that some teachers advise their students, in effect, to dumb themselves down so they can do better on the tests."

IQ's have been proven repetitively to suffer from mental disorders; disorders that strip them of their persona - and abilities. The least society can do is take some pressure off the minors that'll attempt to put the ruins of Earth back together. If the most intellectual adolescents are continually beat down they'll be lucky to graduate high school, and then we'll all have panic attacks.

Updated: Oct 11, 2024
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The Possible Categorization of Anxiety as a Disability. (2022, Dec 18). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/the-possible-categorization-of-anxiety-as-a-disability-essay

The Possible Categorization of Anxiety as a Disability essay
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