The individual with high anxiety in the structured classroom may approach the learning task with the same increased energy and lowered powers of discrimination. But the symbols he is asked to learn are simple. As shown earlier, the highly anxious individual may be superior in his memorizing of simple elements. Success reduces the prospect of threat and his powers of discrimination are improved. By the time the child first attacks the actual problem of reading, he is completely familiar and at ease with all of the elements of words. Apparently academic challenge in the structured setting creates an optimum of stress so that the child with high anxiety is able to achieve because he is aroused to an energetic state without becoming confused or panicked.

Sarason et al. present evidence that the anxious child will suffer in the test like situation, and that his performance will be impaired unless he receives supporting and accepting treatment from the teacher. Although the present study was not a direct replication of their investigations, the results do not confirm their conclusion. Observers, in the two school systems studied here, judged the teachers in the structured schools to be more impersonal and demanding, while the atmosphere in the unstructured schools was judged to be more supporting and accepting. Yet the highly anxious child suffered a tremendous disadvantage only in the unstructured school, and performed as well or better than average in the structured setting.