On the Problem of Pupils’ Psychological Adaptation

Introduction. The article examines the problem of pupils’ psychological adaptation to the conditions of the lesson. The author argues that children’s adaptation to school should not be reduced to adjustment to school requirements, routines, a new social role and a new environment. Particular importance is attached to adaptation to the acquisition of knowledge in lesson conditions, where the teacher is constrained by time, the curriculum and the need to address the class as a whole rather than the individual state of each pupil.

Method. The article is based on the analysis of diagnostic assessments of first-grade pupils’ psychological readiness for schooling, individual consultations with children and parents, and observations of children’s difficulties in adapting to the lesson-based system. The author discusses specific cases of children who performed tasks successfully in individual interaction but experienced difficulties in the lesson situation. The analysis draws on the idea that higher mental functions develop within social relations, as well as on the principle of the unity of psychological and physiological processes.

Results. The article shows that difficulties in mastering educational material in lesson conditions may be connected not with developmental delay or insufficient special preparation, but with the child’s adaptation to habitual individual conditions of activity. These conditions include the specific ways in which motivation is formed, how the child is addressed, how the task is presented, the pace of work, repetitions, support and encouragement. As a result, the child becomes maladapted to the standard organisation of classroom learning. The author emphasises that such problems may be formed both in family interactions and in individual or group lessons that are excessively oriented towards the child’s individual characteristics.

Conclusion. Pupils’ psychological maladaptation is considered to be connected with the organisation of their mental processes and, given the unity of psychological and physiological processes, may be understood as psychophysiological maladaptation. Corrective work should be based on the child’s actual level of development and carried out within the zone of proximal development in the direction of the required changes. Its main conditions are the formation of the value of change, the selection of tasks corresponding to the child’s real capacities, reinforcement of every success, monitoring of the acquisition of educational material, and the development of a positive attitude towards school and the lesson situation. When the child’s specific psychological problems are accurately identified and the efforts of the psychologist, teacher and parents are consolidated, the child begins to adapt to the conditions of acquiring knowledge in the lesson.