Assessing adaptation capabilities in primary school children attending schools with different educational processes

Abstract

Introduction. Innovative teaching and learning systems involve intensification of the educational process and greater academic loads; it results in the exertion of adaptation systems in a body, especially when it comes to primary school children. Purpose of the study. Our research goal was to assess peculiarities of adaptation capabilities in primary school children who attended schools with different educational processes. Material and methods. To study peculiarities of adaptation capabilities in primary school children, we performed a clinical examination of 183 children (51.4% boys and 48.6% girls, the average age being 9.51±0.17) who attended a lyceum (group A), a school with advanced studies of physics and mathematics (Group B), and an ordinary secondary school (Group C). We also analyzed how intense educational loads were in all three educational establishments. Children’s adaptation capabilities were assessed as per functional parameters of their cardiovascular and vegetative nervous systems and catecholamines’ contents in blood. Results. The entry-level secondary schools tend to have more intense educational processes. We established that primary school children who attended a lyceum faced 1.5 times greater intellectual and sensory loads; children who attended a school with advanced studies of physics and mathematics had educational loads that were 1.3-1.4 times more monotonous than in other establishments; children who attended an ordinary school had to bear 1.8 times higher emotional loads. ⅔ primary school children had exertion of functional reserves in their cardiovascular system caused by a longer educational load duration. 36% of primary school children who attended a school with advanced studies of physics and mathematics had tension in their adaptation mechanisms caused by monotonous educational loads combined with lower noradrenalin contents in blood. Those children also ran up to 4.9 times higher risks of adaptation mechanism exertion. 48.5-56.7% of children who attended a lyceum and an ordinary school had vegetative imbalance that became apparent via activated adaptation-trophic influence promoted by the sympathetic section in the vegetative nervous systems and related to the duration of learning activities. Conclusion. Intensification of the educational process results in disorders of compensatory-adaptation mechanisms in primary school children.