Helping Students Overcome Social Anxiety: Skills for Academic and Social Success (SASS)

Social anxiety disorder causes significant distress and academic impairment for many adolescents. This unique book gives front-line school professionals innovative, easy-to-use tools for identifying and intervening with socially anxious students in grades 6-12. It presents Skills for Academic and Social Success (SASS), a school-based intervention with demonstrated effectiveness. Case examples and sample scripts demonstrate how to implement psycho-education, cognitive strategies, social skills training, exposure, and relapse prevention with groups and individual students.

In a large-size format with lay-flat binding for easy photocopying, the book includes 22 reproducible handouts. Purchasers get access to a Web page where they can download and print the reproducible materials.

Table of Contents

I. Recognizing and Addressing Social Anxiety at School

1. What Is Social Anxiety?
2. Why Treat Social Anxiety at School?
3. Identifying Students Struggling with Social Anxiety

II. Promoting Skills for Academic and Social Success (SASS)

4. Educating Teenagers about Social Anxiety
5. Socially Anxious Thinking 101
6. Realistic Thinking
7. Go Ahead, Start the Conversation
8. Maintaining Conversations and Extending Invitations
9. The Secret to Meaningful Conversations: Listening to What Others Say
10. Your Needs Matter: Learn to Speak Up!
11. Facing Your Fears: Creating a Fear Ladder
12. Climbing the Ladder: Exposure Practice in School

III. Supplementary Strategies

13. Getting Parents Involved: How Can They Help?
14. School Social Events and Peer Facilitators
15. Classroom Strategies for Teachers

IV. Other Practical and Clinical Considerations

16. The Nuts and Bolts of Helping Anxious Students at School: Putting It All Together
17. Applying Intervention Skills to Other Anxiety Concerns
18. Keep It Up!: Ways to Maintain Student Progress