ABSTRACT
As a symptom state, nearly all humans have personal experience with the feeling of social anxiety. For most individuals, the feeling state is transitory, or limited to relatively circumscribed developmental periods. For others, social anxiety is a chronic condition resulting in significant functional impairment. Social anxiety disorder is defined in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) as a “marked and persistent fear of one or more social or performance situations in which the person is exposed to unfamiliar people or to possible scrutiny by others” (1). In order to qualify for a diagnosis of social anxiety disorder, children must demonstrate capacity for age-appropriate social relationships. Pervasive developmental disorder must be considered as an alternative diagnosis for children who demonstrate deficits in social relatedness even with family members and others with whom they have extended contact. Further, diagnosis of social anxiety disorder requires that the child experience anxietyrelated symptoms in the presence of other children, not merely in interaction with adult authority figures. Reticence only in the presence of adults, while potentially disconcerting, falls within the normative scope of shyness and is not necessarily grounds for intervention.
