Emotional Reaction of Children to the Dental Environment

Abstract

The subjects were a total of 33 children (4 to 8 years of age), of which 23 were kindergarteners, and 10 were school age children. They had previous dental experience.
Changes in internal behavior were observed when the subjects were auditorily stimulated by the sound of air, vacuum, engine, turbine and crying. The change ratios of resistance in stimulation were analyzed by galvanic skin reflex (GSR).
The change ratios to the auditory stimuli were compared with the sequence of response, sex difference and age difference.
The results obtained were as follows.
1) There was no significant difference between each auditory stimulation on kindergarteners and school age children.
2) Comparing sex groups of kindergarteners and school age children, there was no significant difference on each stimulation.
3) Comparing age groups, kindergarteners showed larger change ratios than school age children by all stimuli except the sound of crying.