The study evaluates the test-gain benefits of an accelerated desensitization and adaptive attitudes intervention for test-anxious students. College students were screened for high test anxiety. Twenty anxious students, half of them on academic probation, were assigned to an Intervention or to a minimal treatment Control group. The Intervention was…

Systematic desensitization, implosive therapy, and study counseling have all been effective in reducing test anxiety. In addition, systematic desensitization has been compared to study counseling for effectiveness. This study compares all three methods and suggests that systematic desentization is more effective than the others, and that implosive…

Self-referred college students registered for test-anxiety desensitization workshops. No difference was found in initial student participation based on assignment to groups led by same-sex or opposite-sex counselors. Continued student participation in the workshops was greater where the leader and student were the same sex. (Author)

Test-anxious subjects were assigned to condition groups: (1) desensitization only; (2) cognitive only; (3) cognitive plus desensitization; and (4) neither cognitive nor desensitization. On test anxiety and self-rating measures, combined treatment and desensitization were less effective than the cognitive-only treatment. Results are consistent with…

A 15-month follow-up study found that anxiety management training and self-control desensitization groups continued to report significantly less debilitating test anxiety than the control group. Anxiety management training and self-control desensitization groups also reported significantly less nontargeted anxiety than controls on both measures of…

Examines the long-term effects of cognitive modification and informed teachers on communication apprehension among fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students. Results indicate that the treatment had lost its effect two months after termination for the majority of students. Informed teachers had no effect on the children's communication…

Two levels of prevention can be used to counter the key stressors of personnel at work; the first deals with organizational techniques and the second with individual techniques such as systematic desensitization, biofeedback, or aerobic exercise. (Author)

Stress inoculation training and systematic desensitization treatment provided to 45 college students resulted in significantly lower mathematics anxiety ratings and less subjective distress reported prior to a mathematics aptitude test, with no significant changes found in a delayed treatment control. No treatment group differences were found for…

Many children with autism display reactions to auditory stimuli that seem as if the stimuli were painful or otherwise extremely aversive. This article describes, within the contexts of three experimental designs, how procedures of systematic desensitization can be used to treat hypersensitivity to auditory stimuli in three young children with…

This manual describes the establishment and operation of a Computerphobia Reduction Program on a university campus which is directed by a licensed psychologist who trains and supervises graduate student interns to deliver three brief skills-acquisition modules. The manual describes the clinic facility, including staffing requirements; general…

A study examined stages and objectives of a systematic desensitization (SD) program and its effects on subject reported apprehension levels and perceived benefits and behavior changes toward public speaking. Subjects, 19 freshmen and sophomore university students, were administered the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension-24 (PRCA-24).…

Psychology students at the University of Minnesota were studied for the effects of different interventions on test anxiety and the academic performance of students with debilitating test anxiety. One group of students received peer tutoring and training in the use of study skills; a second group received training in cue-controlled desensitization…

College students with difficulty falling asleep were treated with either progressive relaxation, systematic desensitization, or a thought control procedure. All three treatment groups showed significant lower latency to sleep onset times than a waiting-list control group at the end of the three-week treatment period. A three-week followup revealed…

Apprehension on the part of students who must engage in public speaking figures high on the list of student fears. Speech anxiety has been viewed as a trait--the overall propensity to fear giving speeches--and as a state--the condition of fearfulness on a particular occasion of speech making. Methodology in therapy research should abide by the…

The author describes a counseling technique which: (1) is based upon behavior theory and treats acts and thoughts as operants, and anxiety as a respondent controlled by classical conditioning; (2) entails in vivo desensitization, requiring the construction of a hierarchy of anxiety-producing situations which can be enacted; (3) uses peer- or…