Browsing by Subject "erityisherkkyys"

Objectives. The study investigated whether differences in children's sensitivity affect the manifestation of stress after the day of early childhood education. The theoretical part provides a broad theoretical framework of sensitivity with an emphasis on the perspective of early childhood. In addition, at the end of the theory part, we consider what concepts should be used in Finland for this type of sensitivity. The theoretical framework includes the theory of sensory processing sensitivity (SPS), the theory of biological sensitivity to context (BSC) and the theory of differential susceptibility (DS). Previous studies show that sensitive children are more likely to be affected by environmental conditions. The theory part also defines childhood stress, its manifestation, and stress studies on early childhood education. Based on previous research, the early childhood education environment can be stressful for the child. Stress in early childhood education is related to the quality of early childhood education and the child's temperament. Methods. The information was collected from parents of children aged 2-5 and 1603 responses were received to the survey. The survey consisted of multiple-choice questions and three sections, which were early childhood education, signs of the child's stress, and a survey about the child's sensitivity. According to the sensitivity questionnaire scores, the respondents were divided into three groups: low sensitivity, medium sensitivity and high sensitivity. For the survey, a measure of the manifestation of stress in children (LSI measure) was made. A factor analysis was used to examine the manifestation of stress in the child and the subscales of the large measure that described different signs of stress in children. With the correlation coefficients, the results of the factor analysis were examined in relation to the parents' assessments of the child's burden. The correlation was also investigated between the manifestations of stress and the children's sensitivity scores. Variance analysis was used to examine the differences in the mean values of different sensitivity groups in different areas of the LSI-measure, whether different sensitivity groups had differences in the suggestion of different stress manifestations. Regression analysis was used to examine whether factors related to early childhood education, together with high sensitivity scores, explain the manifestation of children's stress after days in early childhood education. Results and conclusions. Factor analysis revealed six manifestations of stress: 1. Restlessness, difficulties in attention and concentration, 2. Joylessness, passivity, withdrawal, 3. Strong emotional reactions, 4. Separation anxiety and sleep difficulties, 5. Stomach problems and 6. Ag-gressive behavior. All factors were statistically very significantly connected to the assessment of the child's burden. Sensitivity scores were statistically very significantly related to children's behavior in all cases, except for aggressive behavior where the connection was smaller. Analysis of variance was performed for all six factors. In all cases, the mean of the highly sensitive differed statistically very significantly from the other groups, and the mean in stress manifestations was higher, the higher the sensitivity scores. Explanatory factors for the various stress manifestations were the children's high sensitivity scores, the little support and encouragement the children received in the daycare, the conflicts that occur in the interaction between the children in the daycare group, the absence of familiar adults, and the short time since daycare started. As the main results of the study, it can be stated that the LSI-measure is a potentially effective meter when measuring children's stress based on behavior and that sensitive children show signs of stress more often than other children. High sensitivity scores were most associated with joylessness, passivity, and withdrawal, and least associated with aggressive behavior.