Dynamics of changes in the functional state of primary school children when working with textbooks provided by the «New ukrainian school» education reform

Abstract

The aim of the study was to assess the impact of this type of visual load on children's organism on the basis of the dynamics of changes in the functional state of primary school pupils while working with textbooks provided by the educational environment «New Ukrainian School» Materials and methods: Physiological and ophthalmological, which are used in hygienic practice for donosological diagnostics. Statistical processing was performed using Statistica 6.0 (StatSoft, USA). Results: The study involved 87 primary school pupils aged 6-9 years old. The influence of visual load on the state of children's visual and nervous systems was studied in the conditions of a full-scale experiment. It has been determined that the process of working with textbooks provided by the New Ukrainian School educational environment, both in the language and literary field of education and in mathematics, causes functional shifts in the state of the visual analyser - accommodation spasm and visual fatigue in both eyes in more than 20% of children. The dynamics of the nervous system lability index revealed the development of fatigue in 52.0% of boys and 57.2% of girls when working with humanities textbooks, and in 74.1% of boys and 33.3% of girls when working with mathematics textbooks. In the process of working with both types of textbooks, there was an increase in the time of visual-motor reaction with a simultaneous decrease in the number of accurate answers in almost a third of pupils. Conclusions: It has been established that under the influence of visual load in the form of work with textbooks there is a temporary visual adaptation of the myopic type. It has been proved that the process of working with textbooks causes functional overload of the nervous system in almost half of children, as indicated by the negative dynamics of its lability, mobility and balance. The regularities of functional shifts in the body of children depending on their gender are revealed.