Changes and Stability in Daily Cortisol Values and Their Correlation to Attention Measured In a Prolonged Working Task among Finnish Six-Year-Old Day-Care Children

Abstract

Recently, there has been growing interest in studying stress reactivity in children which is usually accomplished by detecting atypical daily patterns of salivary cortisol. It is assumed that chronic high or low levels of stress hormones are detrimental to attentional performance, a behaviour strongly suggested to be at the core of learning. In the present study, we firstly examined the stability of daily changes in the stress hormone, cortisol. The levels of cortisol were measured five times per day, during one day in autumn and one day in spring. The second aim of our study was to explore whether attention measured in prolonged working tasks was associated with daily cortisol change. Three day care centres in Metropolitan Helsinki, Finland participated in this study and 59 6-year-old preschool children (24 girls, 35 boys) comprised the study sample. The results revealed that the children's daily cortisol variation-in particular, from morning to pre-school and from morning to evening show stability-and this stability was detectable over a six-month period. Children who had lower daily variation in cortisol values in both autumn and spring demonstrated poorer attention. We discuss possible explanations for these findings and implications for early identification.

Stres berhubungan dengan atensi pada siswa sekolah menegah atas

“…Tetap fokus atau berkonsentrasi secara terus-menerus sangat penting untuk memperoleh arus informasi secara baik dalam situasi formal maupun informal. (17)(18)(19) Penelitian ini masih memiliki keterbatasan yaitu, sampel penelitian dilakukan hanya di dua lokasi sekolah dengan waktu penelitian yang relatif singkat. Faktor perancu lain seperti faktor biologis, kebiasan, sosiopsikologis dan sikap tidak dilakukan analisis.…”