The ARCH Lab collaborated with colleagues from the EDI (Early Development Instrument) Team at the Offord Centre for Child Studies on a recently published paper titled “Population-Based Teacher-Rated Assessment of Anxiety Among Canadian Kindergarten Children”.

The purpose of this study was to measure the pervasiveness and levels of anxiety symptoms in kindergarteners in a Canadian sample from 2004 to 2015.

Data from nearly one million children were analyzed and 2.6% of the sample was classified as “highly anxious”. These children were more likely to more likely to be male, have English/French as a second language, and have a special needs designation.

Findings suggest that anxious behaviors are related to children’s overall health and illustrate the consistency and extensiveness of anxiety at a very young age among Canadian children.