For parents who worry that their boisterous children might have a hard time succeeding in school, a new study suggests that extreme shyness can actually affect academic success as early as preschool.
That’s because shyness can cause problems with engagement and learning, which can hinder development of academic skills, according to the study by University of Miami researchers. They found that “children displaying shy and withdrawn behavior early in the preschool year started out with the lowest academic skills and showed the slowest gains in academic learning skills across the year,” a press release says.
The study was published online this month in the Journal of School Psychology. It draws on teacher assessments of more than 4,400 low-income preschoolers who attended Head Start programs.
