IMPROVING CHILD’S SITTING POSITION, BACK COMFORT AND ATTENTION IN CLASSROOM WITH A POSTURAL EDUCATION

Introduction
Back pain concerns 30 to 50% of children and can appear as soon as primary school; mainly due to poor sitting position1. In addition it seems posture have an effect on school achievement².
Purpose
This study aimed to evaluate the influence of school furniture and postural education on schoolchildren’s sitting position, back complaints and attention in classroom.
Methods
Nine children aged 6-7 years constitute the experimental group (EG) and took part in this 2-school-year-follow-up study including 5 phases of evaluation (E1 to E5) consisting of assessing the children’s sitting position (SP) with a specific observation form. Nine other children (representative of the EG) constituted a control group (CG). In the first year, the children’s SP was assessed before (E1) and after having provided new school furniture fitted to the children’s size (E2) and after having provided a triangular cushion and postural education (E3). In the second year, the long term effect was evaluated (E4) and then, a tilted desk was installed and its influence was assessed after a second postural education period (E5). An oral questionnaire about spinal pains and adapted attention tasks of the Nepsy³ were submitted to children at the beginning and the end of each school-year. Student t-tests were used to compare children of both classroom and Friedman’s and Wilcoxon signed-rang tests to compare each evaluation with others.
Results
Compared with the CG and except from E3 to E4, the children’s of the EG significantly improved their SP at each step of the study (p<0.02). Furthermore, interventions tend to decrease back complaints and to improve attention.
Conclusions
The children’s SP was improved using appropriate furniture and specific tools (triangular cushion and tilted desk) combined with a postural intervention. This approach also tends to reduce back complaints and to improve attention. Further studies are needed to determine if this kind of programs is efficient to reduce the risk of LBP in adulthood and to really improve school achievement.