Umeek familia eta haur eskola testuinguruetan erakus ditzaketen kortisol patroien arteko ezberdintasunen azterketa

Abstract

Spending all day in a child care centre might entail the reversal of cortisol patterns. That is, while during the day, from the morning to the afternoon, while the cortisol level drops within the family context, it might remain steady in the child care centre. In view of that, this PhD thesis aims at analysing if the size of the children group; the sensitivity of the caretakers' responses; the children's temperament; the children's security towards their parents, and the sensitivity of the parents' responses have any influence in the alteration of cortisol standards. The following conclusions are draw from the analysis: the cortisol standards reverse when spending a full day at the child care centre; those children with a difficult temperament run the risk of losing the basal cortisol standards within the child care centre context; when children's temperament is difficult the caretakers' high sensitivity is a protective variable whereas low sensitivity is a risk variable; and, finally, those children who proved to be very secure and have parents with high sensitivity maintain the mid-morning cortisol peak identified within the family context also in the context of child care centre.