Temperament and behavior problems in the classroom

In the past 40 years much of interest to educators, physicians, and psychol ogists has been learned about temperament differences among children, but t his information may not yet have been fully incorporated into the thinking and practice of school psychology. Children's temperament can arouse concer n in teachers as well as parents in three main situations: (a) when the chi ld's temperament is challenging for the caregivers or teachers but the chil d's adjustment is not dysfunctional in social relationships or school perfo rmance as with shyness; (b) when the child's temperament becomes reinforced by becoming incorporated into the child's coping strategies as when the te mperament trait of initial withdrawal enlarges to a general pattern of avoi dance for dealing with all stressors, thereby increasing the risk of interf ering with adjustment; and (c) when the child's temperament contributes to a "poor fit" with the environment that leads to a behavioral or other funct ional problem as when inappropriately handled low adaptability produces a r eaction pattern of oppositional or aggressive behavior. The recent great in crease in the diagnosis of attentiondeficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) m ay be related to an insufficient appreciation of the existence and importan ce of normal temperament variations. School psychologists may be helped in their work by more information and research on children's temperament, more use of the concept when making assessments of school problems, and conside ration of the "goodness-of-fit' in planning interventions.