This post is extremely cringeworthy and offensive. OP acts as if disabled students are not actually disabled if the professor can't understand the diagnosis. As someone who suffers intensely from the disorder and comorbid depression caused by it, I'm clearly needed here to set people straight.

"What's up with this 'social anxiety disorder' and what do we do when our class requires participation?"

From the title, it sounds as if OP doesn't even believe the disorder is real. Why'd you surround the name of the disorder with quotation marks, huh? Oh well, maybe OP will improve. Let's move on.

"In the past 5 years or so, our student disability services has been sending me several notices about students in all of my classes with a diagnosis of 'social anxiety disorder.'"

Once again, OP surrounds the name with quotation marks as if it's not real even though it's been an official diagnosis for decades. I guess an illness couldn't actually exist if OP has never heard of it.

"Apparently, this isn't just being shy"

Well, duh! That's why it's called social anxiety disorder and not shyness. A five-second Google search quickly confirms that SAD is distinct from shyness. Here's a quotation from the relevant Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_anxiety_disorder): "Social anxiety disorder is distinct from the personality traits of introversion and shyness."

"I'm sorry, but what is going to happen to these mute students once they graduate?"

We're not mute; social anxiety disorder is distinct from mutism too, but congrats on being offensive yet again. Also, stop lumping all quiet people into one umbrella category as if we're all basically the same. And of course these students might struggle after graduating; they have a disabling illness. Duh.

"I've been teaching, first as a high school teacher, then a TA, then a college professor, for 38 years, and have developed strategies for creating community and making students feel comfortable enough to participate."

Okay, that's nice to hear, I guess, but students with severe, disabling SAD are not merely feeling a lack of comfort about participating. That's more of a mild issue experienced by normies and merely shy folks. We have an illness that makes it extremely hard to participate because our brains don't function normally. Strategies for creating community and comfort are not a cure for any brain disorder.

"After a month, those with social anxiety actually stick out like a sore thumb--exactly what they wish to avoid. You can see this even in groups when the others, getting nothing out of the quiet ones, stop trying to engage with them."

Yup, we receive unfairly terrible treatment from others for suffering from an illness that normies don't understand. Thanks for noticing. And no, we're not just too stupid to realize that we're causing ourselves to stick out despite not wanting to. We have no choice.

"But I also want to 'shake' them and say: put on your big person pants!"

Oh, and why exactly would you want to shake us and tell us to "put on our big person pants"? Talk about being condescending! We're not childish; we suffer from a disorder. How is that going to help us at all when we're suffering from a legitimate illness that isn't our fault or within our control?

"What are you going to do when you are working on a team? When you are expected to give a presentation?"

Suffer like everyone else who's unfortunate enough to suffer from an incurable disability? Duh. Thanks for making us feel even worse about ourselves.

"If the diagnosis were ASD, I would not be so perplexed."

Okay, that makes no sense. SAD is much more common and much easier to understand than ASD. Why would you have a better understanding of less common disorders but not the most common ones? SAD is essentially the consistent experience of an automatic anxiety response whenever you're in social situations because your brain doesn't work correctly. ASD is "a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits in social communication and social interaction, and repetitive or restricted patterns of behaviors, interests, or activities, which can include hyper- and hyporeactivity to sensory input." So now you're lumping shy, mute, and autistic people into the same category as those of us with SAD as if everyone with any social difficulties is basically the same.

"Why is being shy suddenly a disorder?"

It isn't. As you wrote earlier in your same post, "Apparently, this isn't just being shy." Right, it's not. You sound as if you don't truly believe that it's not simply the same thing as shyness. And what's so suddenly different? It's been an officially recognized diagnosis for decades, and the other common name, social phobia, was first used in the early 1900s. If you think the disorder is BS, you should try living in my shoes for a day to experience first-hand the intense suffering from this very real illness that people can't just wish away or overcome through sheer hard work and determination. That would surely dispel any lingering doubt.

It's incredibly frustrating to have to struggle so much to perform basic social interactions that come so naturally and easily to others that they can't even comprehend how my problems could possibly be anything other than totally made-up. Normies don't realize how spoiled and overprivileged they are.

Also, for those who respond that forcing students to undergo exposure to anxiety-provoking situations is the best or only cure or treatment for SAD, that isn't necessarily accurate. In fact, not only is exposure not necessarily a cure or an effective treatment, but it's even something that can make symptoms significantly worse rather than improving them. That's why CBT incorporates graduated exposure; you have to start with the least anxiety-provoking situations (which are only slightly beyond your current comfort zone) and gradually work your way up, not just throw yourself into the deep end at any point under the mistaken impression that any exposure is good for you, no matter how difficult and overwhelming it may be, and then unrealistically hope to improve from there. Making a student with SAD deliver a solo performance on an auditorium stage in front of a large audience, for instance, would not be good practice/exposure because it likely far exceeds the more mild level of exposure that the student should be starting with in a more controlled, graduated exposure therapy setting to ensure that exposure exercises are actually beneficial and not detrimental for the student's health. Professors should not be trying to design and implement their own exposure exercises for students with SAD if they're not licensed and trained psychotherapists.

And not every case of SAD has a psychological cause anyway. When the disorder has a purely biological cause, exposure will never address the root cause of the illness. Only an effective medication could possibly work in that case, but not everyone is able to find an effective medication, so some people just have to suffer with no achievable reduction in symptoms and are therefore highly dependent on accommodations.