Development of perception in preschool children: types and features

Perception of the world in preschool age

Preschoolers are attracted to bright objects, melodic or original sounds, and emotional situations. They perceive the surrounding reality involuntarily, directing their attention to what attracts them most.

A child, seeing an object, is able to evaluate the functions known to him, intuitively analyze his experience and understand what he sees, hears or feels. A little baggage of life experience helps to understand what kind of sensation it is, to recognize an object, sound or smell.

The development of perception in preschool children allows them to move to the next step, when they learn to purposefully study objects, determine their characteristics, and differentially perceive individual properties.

What is a child's perception

Over the course of several preschool years, a child goes from directly perceiving an object through touch to the ability to isolate essential features and form a generalized idea of objects.

The function of cognition works as follows: perception arises as a reflection of a phenomenon or object using vision, hearing or touch.

Perception or perception is the process of receiving and transforming information using the senses, thanks to which a person develops a picture of the real world.

The perception mechanism can be briefly described as follows:

the world around us consists of many signals - sounds, colors, pictures, tangible objects;
by inhaling a smell or touching a piece of paper (any object), the baby evaluates the object using one of the senses;
this information enters the brain, where the sensation is born;
sensations are combined into a complex “picture”, forming perception.

Perception is also influenced by previous experience. The senses help the child reduce information processing where he sees a familiar environment. Having received an idea of the toy bunny once, he will not need to touch or taste it again.

Perception is the basis for the further formation of cognitive functions necessary for full development and successful study. Thanks to perception, the development of cognitive processes in general is accelerated.

Formation of sensation and perception

From birth, a child has what is called sensory perception. Smells, tactile sensations, and noise reach his brain, but the baby does not yet know how to use these signals. In the first years of life, children master object-related activities and accumulate information about the properties of objects, as a result of which sensory standards are formed.

From the age of three, perception gradually becomes accurate and meaningful. Higher analyzers – visual and auditory – develop.

The child cannot yet comprehensively analyze an object or phenomenon, but he grasps the most noticeable signs, involuntarily comparing them with standards and drawing conclusions.

From a general understanding of objects at 3-4 years old, the youngest preschooler moves on to more complex forms of interpretation. With the active support of adults, the characteristics of sensations change, the child manages to realize that shape, color, material, size are more abstract characteristics and are not tied to a specific object.

By the senior preschool age, the child becomes familiar with the basic figures of geometry, identifies all the colors, and learns to determine the sizes of objects. He also understands that there is time in the world - morning always turns into day, and then gives way to night. Awareness of space is an achievement - you need to walk from your house to the park, but the houses and trees stretch upward.

The importance of the development of perception in preschool age lies in the fact that with its limited functioning, the development of speech, memory, thinking, attention and imagination will be significantly hampered. This cognitive process becomes a necessary assistant for the manifestation of various types of thinking, the ability to speak figuratively and come up with vivid stories.

Development of perception at an early age

The article examines the development of the perception process in early childhood. The relevance of the study is due to the most favorable, sensitive period of perception development. An analysis of visual perception indicators from two to three years of age shows that at the age of two, 67% of preschoolers coped with the tasks, and at the age of three, 90%.

Key words: perception, development of the perception process, visual perception, early childhood, leading activity

The article considers development of the perception process in early childhood. Relevance of this study is conditioned by the most favorable, sensitive period of perception's development. Analysis of indicators of visual perception from two years to three years of age shows, that with tasks coped by 67% preschoolers of two years of age, and 90% preschoolers of three years of age.

Keywords: perception, development of the perception process, visual perception, early childhood, leading activity

Perception in early childhood is the leading mental function, on the basis of which mental functions such as memory, attention, thinking and imagination develop. It follows from this that the further mental development of the child is determined by the development of the process of perception in early childhood.

This topic is explored in the works of such authors as: M. M. Bezrukikh, L. A. Wenger, L. S. Vygotsky, P. Ya. Galperin, T. S. Komarova, E. E. Kravtsova and others.

At an early age, a psychological separation of the child from the mother occurs, the range of available objects expands, orientation in space and a certain independence appear, visual-figurative thinking is formed, and the first stable personality qualities emerge.

The leading activity of the child in this period is objective activity, which gradually emerged from the manipulative and instrumental activities of infants. Mastery of objective activity is the basis for the complete and comprehensive development of perception, since the child’s perception in early childhood is woven into the leading activity and is closely related to the objective actions performed [4, p.188].

The development of perception is determined by three components - perceptual actions, which consist in identifying the most characteristic qualities for a given object (information points), sensory standards, which are stable images, and actions of correlating standard images with objects in the surrounding world [1, p.265].

According to L. S. Vygotsky, “all functions of early childhood occur around perception, through perception and with the help of perception. This puts perception in favorable conditions for development at a given age. Perception is served by all aspects of a child’s activity, so no function experiences such a magnificent flourishing at an early age as the perception function” [2, p. 140].

Shapovalenko I.V. believes that for the best development of the ability to perceive at an early age, it is necessary to perform objective actions that require taking into account the properties of objects. These include correlative and instrumental actions aimed at selecting objects by shape, size, color and location in space, as well as actual visual actions, which are aimed, first of all, at the shape and size of objects [4, p. 188].

At an early age, visual and auditory perception develops especially actively. A one-year-old child does not have the ability to consistently and systematically examine an object. It is characterized by picking out one conspicuous sign, reacting to it and recognizing objects only by it. Children of the second year are characterized by the perception of any depicted objects as completely independent; they are not able to perceive drawings or photographs as images of any object or person. The child identifies one specific detail in both the object and the image that attracts his attention, and therefore can name them the same, thereby identifying the object and its image. Subsequently, for children two and a half to three years old, visual choice based on a model becomes possible, which consists in the fact that the child can choose from two objects different in shape, size and color, one that will correspond to the object given as a sample. The characteristic thing is that the child will begin to choose by shape, and then by size and finally by color. Over time, in the third year of a child’s life, well-known objects become permanent models with which he compares the properties of other objects. Such samples can be not only real objects, but also ideas about them that were previously formed and consolidated in the child.

The development of auditory perception is somewhat similar to the development of visual perception. With it, the properties of sounds become significant for the child when they are necessary for his activity, i.e., auditory perception, just like visual perception, is woven into the child’s leading activity. Such an activity associated with the perception of sounds is, first of all, speech communication. That is why phonemic hearing develops especially intensively at an early age [2, p. 142].

With the help of objective actions, the child actively learns about the world around him, which contributes to the development of visual actions that form the basis of perception at an early age. As a result, early age is the most favorable period for the intensive development of perception. It is included in the leading activity and therefore is the leading mental function of the early period of childhood. The development of other mental functions in the future depends on perception.

The relevance of studying perception in early childhood determined the goals and objectives of empirical research. The study of the characteristics of perception in early childhood was carried out on the basis of the municipal budgetary preschool educational institution “Kindergarten No. 1” of a general developmental type with priority implementation of activities for the physical development of children in the city of Melenki, Vladimir region. It was attended by preschoolers 2–3 years old, two-year-old children and seven three-year-old children.

The study used such techniques as “Find paired pictures”, “Disassemble and fold the matryoshka doll” and “Fold the cut pictures” by E. A. Strebeleva [3, p.18].

At the first stage, the “Find paired pictures” technique was used, which was presented to two-year-old children. Individual work was carried out with each child, which involved interaction with the child, observation of his actions and methods of comparing paired pictures, as well as help if difficulties arose when completing tasks. During the research process, the children easily made contact, listened carefully to the task and tried to achieve a positive result.

As a result, the results were obtained, which are presented in Fig. No. 1:

Rice. 1. Indicators of the level of development of visual perception of object pictures

As a result, 90% of two-year-old children received the highest score in finding paired pictures. 90% of children accepted the task and adequately completed the task assigned to them without the help of an adult. Their interest in the final activity was also noticeable. Children enjoyed searching for identical pictures, which made it easier to compare paired pictures. All this indicates that their visual perception of object pictures is developed in accordance with their age. The exception was 10% of children who were unable to complete the task independently and were not interested in the final result, which indicates their developmental delay.

At the second stage, the “Fold the cut pictures” technique was used, which was presented to three-year-old children. Individual work was also carried out with them. During the study, 57% of children had difficulties completing the task, which were solved by showing them a whole picture, which was identical to the cut picture presented to the children earlier.

The results of this stage of the study are presented in Fig. No. 2:

Rice. 2. Indicators of the level of development of holistic perception of an object picture

From the graph shown in Fig. No. 2, it is clear that holistic perception in 57% of three-year-old children is not sufficiently developed. These children were able to make a picture only after the help of an adult who showed them how to complete this task. The rest of the children, making up 43%, by the age of three and a half can quite independently assemble cut pictures the first time. They understand what is required of them and take on the activity with pleasure and strive for a positive final result. It follows from this that holistic perception in these children is developed in accordance with the age norm and develops intensively towards the end of early childhood.

At the next stage of the study, the “Take apart and fold the nesting doll” technique was used, which was presented to both two-year-old and three-year-old preschoolers. Individual work was carried out with each of the children, during which the children easily made contact.

During the study, 43% of two-year-old children had difficulties. Of these, 67% were able to complete the task after being shown the correct actions required to complete the task. 33% of children were unable to complete the task even after being shown the actions.

In three-year-old children, only 10% experienced difficulties. It was possible to solve these difficulties by showing the actions necessary to complete the task. After training, the children easily completed the task.

The results of this stage of the study are shown in Fig. No. 3:

Rice. 3. Comparative analysis of the development of practical orientation to the size of objects at the ages of 2 and 3 years

Using this graph, we can consider the development of practical orientation to the size of objects at an early age. Two-year-old children typically develop this perception by two years and three months. Before this age, especially at 2 years and one month, children, as a rule, already understand the task and are interested in a positive result, but can independently perform the necessary actions only after being shown by an adult. At two years, three months and beyond, children are already able to complete a task independently, that is, they can freely distinguish objects by size. At this age, children do not have problems with disassembling and folding matryoshka dolls.

The development of practical orientation to the size of objects continues at the age of three years. Consequently, children of this age are already characterized by free and independent performance of actions to disassemble and fold a nesting doll, which is proven by the results of the study, which showed that 90% of three-year-old children do not experience difficulties in performing the necessary actions, they do not experience confusion when completing the task.

Consequently, practical orientation to the size of objects begins to develop intensively from 2 years to three months and is fully formed by the age of three.

Thus, in the course of an empirical study of the development of perception at an early age, it was found that perception during this period experiences intensive development and, therefore, is the most favorable period for active formation, and, if necessary, correction.

Based on the results obtained, preschool teachers can effectively organize their educational activities and provide advisory assistance to parents. Based on the fact that early age is a sensitive period for the development of perception, they will be able to help the child achieve the level of perception necessary for the further development of mental functions.

Literature:

Martsinkovskaya T. D. Developmental psychology: Textbook. for students. higher psychol. textbook institutions / Ed. T. D. Martsinkovskaya. - 3rd ed. / T. Martsinkovskaya, T. Maryutina, Yu. Mikadze, etc. - M.: Academy, 2007. - 528 p. ISBN: 978–5-7695–4471–2
Smirnova, E. O. Child psychology: Textbook for universities. 3rd ed., revised. - SPb.: Peter. 2009. - 304 p.: ill. ISBN 978–5-388–00494–9
Strebeleva E. A. Psychological and pedagogical diagnostics of the development of children of early and preschool age: method, manual: with appendix. album “At a Glance. material for examining children”/E. A. Strebeleva, G. A. Mishina, Yu. A. Razenkova and others; edited by E. A. Strebeleva. — 2nd ed., revised. and additional - M.: Education, 2004. - 164 p. +Adj. (268. pp. ill.). ISBN 5–09–012040–4
Shapovalenko I. V. Developmental psychology (Developmental psychology and developmental psychology). - M.: Gardariki, 2005. - 349 p. ISBN 5–8297–0176–6.

Types of perception in preschoolers based on perceptual systems

The main types of perception in preschoolers develop on the basis of various analyzers:

visual, which allows you to visually evaluate all the properties of an object;
auditory, which helps to learn speech, recognize one’s native language, feel the sounds of nature, hear music;
tactile, providing knowledge of an object through touch.

Auditory

With the help of hearing, the child learns to recognize the sounds of his native language, words and syllables. If in infancy the perception of speech is based on the rhythmic and melodic structure of words and sentences, then already at 1 year the formation of phonemic hearing begins. The baby needs another year for the acceptance of all the sounds of his native language to take shape and for the formation of a sound culture of speech to begin.

The development of auditory perception is most effective during walks, when the baby listens to the noise of the street, birdsong, the sound of rain, and steps. An excellent exercise is to close your eyes and try to understand from which side the bird is singing, or whether a car is driving far or close.

Visual

Visual perception is leading in preschool age in relation to other species. The ability to read, see the beauty of the world, and assess danger depends on it. Its leading role is justified by the fact that vision allows you to capture the entire object as a whole, as well as see details.

Visual signals arrive before the preschooler touches or tastes an object. In addition, examining an object is much safer than other methods of research.

Only at an early age, when the baby begins to comprehend the surrounding reality, his “eyes” are his hands. But at this stage, parents make sure that the child is in a protected space and that only safe objects are in his hands.

According to statistics, the number of visual people (who prefer visual perception) prevails in the world, so the development of this type requires special attention. The task of an adult in preschool age is to sharpen the child’s visual perception, and also to help him expand the range of perceived details.

With preschoolers you need to draw more, study pictures and illustrations. It is these children who enthusiastically engage in appliqué, putting together puzzles and mosaics, continuing to develop their visual senses. Drawing with children 3-4 years old can include both the traditional use of pencils and paints, and original techniques.

Tactile

Tactile or kinesthetic perception is directly related to touch. Younger preschoolers still trust their hands even more when familiarizing themselves with a new subject. That’s why they so insistently ask to give them something that interests them.

More details: How to develop tactile perception in preschool age.

Playing with materials of different structures, modeling, natural substances is a great way to develop the sense of touch. With their eyes closed, children enjoy rolling the foil into balls and smoothing it out. Great joy comes from the exercise of identifying bulk material in a cup. The eyes, of course, must also be blindfolded.

EARLY CHILDHOOD

(from 1 year to 3 years)

DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL FUNCTIONS

Speech . The child’s autonomous speech transforms and disappears quite quickly (usually within six months). Words that are unusual in sound and meaning are replaced with words of “adult” speech. But, of course, a rapid transition to the level of speech development is possible only in favorable conditions - first of all, with full communication between the child and adults. If communication with adults is insufficient or, conversely, relatives fulfill all the child’s wishes, focusing on his autonomous speech, speech development slows down. Delayed speech development is also observed in cases where twins grow up and intensively communicate with each other in a common children's language.

At an early age, passive vocabulary grows quickly. By the age of two, a child understands almost all the words that an adult utters, naming the objects around him. Since a child actively explores the world of things, manipulation with objects is the most significant activity for him, and he can only master new actions with objects together with adults. Later, at 2-3 years of age, understanding of speech-story emerges.

Active speech is also developing intensively: an active vocabulary is growing, the first phrases and first questions appear. By the age of three, the vocabulary reaches 1,500 words. Sentences initially, at about 1.5 years old, consist of 2-3 words. This is most often the subject and his actions, actions and the object of the action, or the action and the place of action. By the age of three, the basic grammatical forms and basic syntactic structures of the native language are mastered. Almost all parts of speech occur in a child’s speech.

A child's speech activity usually increases sharply between 2 and 3 years of age. His circle of contacts is expanding - he can already communicate through speech not only with close people, but also with other adults and children.

Perception . Early childhood is interesting because among all these interrelated functions, perception dominates. Children are maximally connected by the present situation - by what they directly perceive. All their behavior is field, impulsive; nothing that lies outside this visual situation attracts them. At an early age, elementary forms of imagination are observed. A small child is not capable of inventing something or lying. Only towards the end of early childhood does he have the opportunity to say something other than what he really is.

Memory . Although the child can already involuntarily reproduce what he saw and heard before, he remembers something. Since memory becomes, as it were, a continuation and development of perception, it is still impossible to talk about relying on past experience. Early childhood is forgotten just like infancy.

An important characteristic of perception at this age is its affective coloration

.
Observed objects really “attract” the child, causing him to have a strong emotional reaction. The affective nature of perception also leads to sensorimotor unity
.

L.S. Vygotsky: “At an early age, visual, affectively colored perception dominates, which directly turns into action.”

Actions and thinking . Thinking in this age period is usually called visual-effective.

. It is based on the perceptions and actions carried out by the child. And although at about the age of two the child develops an internal plan of action, throughout early childhood objective activity remains an important basis and source of intellectual development.

Thinking initially manifests itself in the very process of practical activity. This is especially clear when a child is faced with a task that adults have not taught him how to solve. Thinking develops in the process of practical activity and from practical activity, therefore, according to domestic psychologists, it lags behind it in terms of the general level of development and the composition of operations.

Not only thinking develops thanks to external activity. The objective actions themselves are also improved. In addition, they acquire a generalized character, being separated from the subjects in which they were originally learned. The mastered actions are transferred to other conditions. Following the separation of actions from the objects with which they were associated and their generalization, the child develops the ability to correlate his actions with the actions of adults, to perceive the actions of an adult as models. The joint activity, in which the actions of an adult and a child were initially merged and intertwined, begins to disintegrate. The adult sets examples of actions for the child, controls and evaluates their implementation.

In addition to actual objective activities, such activities as drawing and playing are also important for the development of a young child. A drawing by a child under 2 years old can hardly be called a drawing; it is more like a scribble. But in the third year, forms that are similar to the depicted object already appear. At 2.5 years old, children can quite clearly draw a person.

The leading activity during this period is object-manipulative. While playing, the child manipulates objects, including toys, focusing on the actions with them. Nevertheless, at the end of early childhood, play with a plot already appears in its original forms. This is the so-called director's game

, in which the objects used by the child are endowed with playful meaning.
For the development of play, the appearance of symbolic or substitutive
actions is important.

2. EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

The development of mental functions is inseparable from the development of the emotional-need sphere of the child. The dominant perception at an early age is affectively colored. The child reacts emotionally only to what he directly perceives.

The child’s desires are unstable and quickly transient, he cannot control and restrain them; They are limited only by punishments and rewards from adults. All desires have equal strength: in early childhood there is no subordination of motives

. This is easy to observe in a choice situation. If a 2-3 year old child is asked to choose one of several new toys, he will spend a long time looking at and sorting through them. Then she will still choose one, but after the next request - to go with her to another room - she will begin to hesitate again.

The development of the emotional-need sphere depends on the nature of the child’s communication with adults and peers. In communication with close adults who help the child explore the world of “adult” objects, the motives of cooperation

, although purely emotional communication, which is necessary at all age stages, is also preserved. In addition to unconditional love and emotional warmth, a child expects direct participation from an adult in all his affairs, a joint solution to any task, be it mastering cutlery or building a tower of cubes. It is around such joint actions that new forms of communication with adults develop for the child.

Communication with other children in early childhood usually only appears and does not yet become full-fledged. In the second year of life, when a peer approaches, the child feels anxious and may interrupt his studies and rush to the protection of his mother. In the third year, he already calmly plays next to other children, but the moments of common play are short-lived, and there can be no talk of any rules of the game. They may show aggressiveness - push or hit another child, especially if he somehow infringed on their interests, say, tried to take possession of an attractive toy. A young child, when communicating with children, always proceeds from his own desires, completely disregarding the desires of others. He is self-centered and not only does not understand the other child, but also does not know how to empathize with him. The emotional mechanism of empathy will appear later, in preschool childhood. Nevertheless, communication with peers is useful and also contributes to the child’s emotional development, although not to the same extent as his communication with adults.

Early childhood is characterized by strong emotional reactions

, related to the immediate desire of the child. At the end of this period, when approaching the 3-year crisis, affective reactions to the difficulties faced by the child are observed. He tries to do something on his own, but nothing works out for him, or there is no adult nearby at the right moment - there is no one to come to the rescue and do it with him.

In addition to “uncontrollable” things, the cause of anger or crying may also be a lack of attention to it from close adults who are busy with business at the very time when the child is trying his best to capture their attention.

self-awareness at this time

.
At about 2 years old, the child begins to recognize himself
in the mirror.
Self-recognition is the simplest primary form of self-awareness. A new stage in the development of self-awareness begins when the child calls himself - first by name, in the third person, then, usually by the age of 3, the pronoun “I” appears. Moreover, the child also develops primary self-esteem
- awareness not only of his “I”, but of the fact that “I am good.” This is a purely emotional formation that does not contain rational components.

The consciousness of “I”, “I am good”, “I myself” and the emergence of personal actions promote the child to a new level of development. The transition period begins - a crisis of 3 years.

3. CRISIS 3 YEARS

The crisis of 3 years - the border between early and preschool age - is one of the most difficult moments in a child’s life. This is destruction, a revision of the old system of social relations, a crisis of identifying one’s “I”, according to D.B. Elkonin. The child, separating from adults, tries to establish new, deeper relationships with them.

Changing the child’s position, increasing his independence and activity, require timely restructuring from close adults. If a new relationship with a child does not develop, his initiative is not encouraged, his independence is constantly limited, and the child experiences actual crisis phenomena that manifest themselves in relationships with adults.

L.S. Vygotsky describes 7 characteristics of the 3-year crisis.

The first is negativism.

The child gives a negative reaction not to the action itself, which he refuses to perform, but to the adult’s demand or request. He does not do something because a certain adult suggested it to him. The main motive for action is to do the opposite, i.e. exactly the opposite of what he was told.

The second is stubbornness.

This is the reaction of a child who insists on something not because he really wants it, but because he himself told adults about it and demands that his opinion be taken into account. Stubbornness is not the persistence with which a child achieves what he wants.

Third - obstinacy

It is directed not against a specific adult, but against the entire system of relationships that developed in early childhood, against the norms of upbringing accepted in the family. The child strives to insist on his desires and is dissatisfied with everything that others offer him and do.

Fourth – protest

—
riot
.

For some children, conflicts with their parents become regular; they seem to be constantly at war with an adult.

Fifth - despotism

If the child is the only one in the family, then he can harshly exercise his power over the adults around him.

Sixth – jealousy

Seventh – depreciation

Old rules of behavior, affection, etc. are devalued.

All these phenomena indicate that the child’s attitude towards other people and towards himself is changing. He is psychologically separated from close adults. This is an important stage in the emancipation of the child; An equally stormy stage awaits him later – in adolescence.

Peculiarities of perception in younger preschoolers

In early preschool age, perception is characterized by a number of features.

Inseparability of property from the object. For example, a large fluffy tiger in a zoo would be called a kitty cat.
When studying objects, the most vivid, memorable detail stands out. That is why the wide witch's hat in the picture turns all the elegant old ladies on the street into evil witches.
A sharp change in the usual surroundings around a familiar object prevents the baby from identifying it. Mom and dad in ballroom dresses become strangers.

Such specificity is typical for children of 3-4 years of age; in the future, perception will become more differentiated, individual functions will be highlighted, and the whole will be fragmented into particulars.

Perception of space by children 3 - 4 years old

The difficulty of understanding space lies in the inability to touch, smell and see it. The first step is to recognize the “close” space, that is, the surrounding world at arm’s length with the toy.

Subsequently, the younger preschooler begins to understand the concepts of “far and close,” but they are not accurate. The small statues on the bridge may appear to be dolls, and the child may well ask the mother to get one of them.

According to research, in order for a preschooler to begin to correctly perceive space, he must first evaluate his own body in this world. Learn to distinguish and name left-right arms and legs, understand which parts of the body are paired. An additional way to master the concept of space is the constant work of an adult aimed at indicating the direction. The more often the words “right”, “left”, “side”, “in front”, “above” are heard, the easier it will be for the baby to master orientation in space.

The next stage is tasks to compare length, width and height. Over time, the child begins to solve such tasks “by eye,” demonstrating an understanding of what space is and how people and objects are located in it.

Color perception

The difference in colors is available to the baby from an early age. Now we are not talking about the finest shades, but it highlights the main tones of the spectrum.

At 3-4 years old, a preschooler clearly distinguishes 4 primary colors:

red;
yellow;
blue;
green.

This aspect is associated with the age-related feature of seeing the main thing, discarding the unimportant, that is, incomprehensible and unknown shades. These reference shades are learned casually, without special training. But in order for the baby not to suffer from “poverty” of color perception, the names of the remaining tones and shades must be named and shown to him.

Children tend to replace color with the concepts of “beautiful” and “ugly,” which results in pictures where the shades of objects do not closely correspond to reality. In this age period, colors are discarded as an unimportant factor, and form becomes the basis.

Therefore, the development of color perception should consist of exercises where the simplest tasks of adding up an elementary color figure are replaced by more complex ones.

Features of development of infants

Infancy in psychology is the period from two months to one year. It is characterized by the most rapid development. By the end of it, the child turns from a helpless baby into an independent researcher. During the first year of life, children undergo various physical changes: motor skills (general, fine) are formed; coordination of movements is normalized; the mechanism of muscle tone is improved; vision and hearing develop. By the end of the period, speech and walking are actively developing. The psychological features of the development of infants include the processes of memory formation and mental function. Some of the conditioned reflexes can be attributed to the manifestation of facial functions. For example, when a baby stops crying when a caring adult appears. The next stage is recognizing objects. After four months, babies begin to perceive melodic sounds. Then the child distinguishes mother from strangers. The older he gets, the wider the range of memorized objects and associations. Closer to one year (9–11 months), at the request of their parents, babies bring or point to a certain thing or toy. By the end of infancy, associative memory develops. Mental development in the first year of life is considered multichannel. Individual, social, and behavioral characteristics are formed. The participation of an adult and a developmental environment provide the child with full development.

The leading activity of the first half of infancy is emotional communication with adults. From the age of three months, the baby searches for it and attracts the mother’s attention. The first year of life, the child is completely dependent on the adults around him. His basic need is a feeling of security. It is this feeling that makes the baby understand that everything is fine with him, there are no threats. If this need is fully satisfied, he is open to the world and ready for full contact with it. It is full communication with the baby that allows him to successfully develop physically, mentally, mentally.

In the second half, the child becomes more mobile. He can roll over on his own, learns to grab, sit, and crawl. He is increasingly focused on studying the world around him. Manipulation with objects closer to 9 months becomes the basis of his activity. He cannot yet use them for their intended purpose, but he finds his own use. To move on to objective activities (using things for their intended purpose), he needs the help of adults. Changing the type of activity closer to the year means the end of the infancy period and the beginning of the early childhood stage.

The main acquisitions of infancy are the ability to walk and the first consciously spoken words. The ability to move without the help of an adult takes the child to a new stage of cognitive activity. In psychology, he is considered as a subject capable of performing independent actions. This is due to the emergence of motivating needs. They mean emotionally charged images of objects that appear in the baby’s memory, with which some of the needs are associated. By the end of infancy, children master voluntary actions with objects. From manipulation they gradually move to substantive activity.

A child around one year of age becomes emotionally separated from the mother or other significant adult. Thanks to the emergence of speech, the social situation changes and new opportunities for communication appear.

A new development in children aged about one year is the transition from passive speech through the autonomous to active phase. If previously the child only understood intonations and part of the words, now he is developing his own “bird” language. He is understandable only to the closest people who come into contact with him on a daily basis.

Autonomous speech is characterized by:

The ambiguity of the same words depends a lot on the emotional coloring and the situation.
The discrepancy with normal speech is not phonetic or articulatory.
It is difficult to find a connection between spoken words. The phrases are more like emotionally charged exclamations.

Many psychologists associate the appearance of autonomous speech with the beginning of the crisis of the first year of life. And the transition from it to the usual one is with its completion.

educational psychologist of the Early Help Department Tatyana Anatolyevna Musilovich

Peculiarities of perception in older preschoolers

Senior preschool age is marked by the presence of formed spatial representations. The child is well oriented in space, perceives distances and relationships between objects, and is able to visually model part of a specific room. He is also able to construct a model of the plot of a story or fairy tale.

The future schoolchild is already able to evaluate such an abstract concept as time, as well as see the world around him from an aesthetic point of view. It is these two areas that require the most attention.

Perception of time

The main features of perception in children of senior preschool age are the awareness of the combination of space and time. However, the inability to hear or touch these quantities leads to their prolonged recognition.

A child of 5-6 years old is able to remember time periods: yesterday, today, tomorrow, minute, hour, but there are no skills in using these concepts. The uniqueness of the perception of time is due to the fact that the child does not have the opportunity to manipulate it in a direction, and the terms are simply words that do not have a visual expression.

At this age, time indicators of the sequence of events are still poorly differentiated - yesterday, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow. The future tense is already realized, but the past causes difficulty. Preschoolers are happy to say who they will be when they grow up, what they will have, what they will do. They perceive the past discretely and emerge in the images of remembered events.

However, older preschoolers are already able to understand how to define the present tense. It's time to teach your child to tell time using a clock with arrows.

Adults will help the child perceive small periods of time if they correlate his activities with the time interval: draw a house with a garden in 10 minutes, sit at the table in 3 minutes, brush your teeth in 1 minute.

Aesthetic perception

But aesthetic perception blossoms “lushly.” In older preschool age, every child is a creator. Children sculpt, draw, design. The listed types of activities help them understand the world better.

Much of the credit for this activity goes to visual perception. An older preschooler learns to examine objects holistically, tracing the outline and isolating details.

This information becomes a model that the child follows in his drawing and modeling.

If a 5-year-old child’s judgment about aesthetics is determined by appearance, and objects are evaluated according to the “like or dislike” principle, then at 6-7 years old a preschooler pays attention to artistic composition and color compatibility. For example, in a painting he is already able to capture characteristics that are not on the surface, which the artist put into the content.

The task of parents and educators is not just to inform the child about the beauty of this or that object. It is important to explain in clear words what exactly ensures the aesthetics of a phenomenon, the relationship between individual features and the overall result.

Regular activities of this nature help to cultivate a sense of beauty in a little person. He will learn to see beauty in the sound of drops on glass or falling leaves.

Peculiarities of perception in early preschool age (3-4 years)

The perception of 3-4 year old children is characterized by specificity and lack of clarity. The main parameters of perception in early preschool age are color, shape and size. Most often, children pay attention to the most striking of these signs, and the rest of the details are guessed by them. For example, seeing buttons with numbers on the TV remote control, children often decide that it is a telephone. It is interesting that three-year-olds do not recognize even the closest people if they are dressed in carnival costumes. At this age, children clearly distinguish primary colors (red, yellow, blue, green). Little-known shades are perceived as unimportant signs, and therefore are often simply ignored. However, kids learn quickly and remember everything on the fly. The more color standards you introduce your child to, the brighter the baby’s perception will be. Sometimes children evaluate the color characteristics of objects as “beautiful” and “ugly”, so in drawing you can see the child’s color preferences, and not real images of objects.

The properties of objects for younger preschoolers are inseparable from the things themselves, so they are firmly fixed in perception. For example, a baby knows that a cucumber is always green, and can call zucchini, avocado, and green beans cucumbers.

In children of this age, their perception of space is formed through actions with objects. A 3-year-old child is just beginning to distinguish between the concepts of “far” and “close”, so he has difficulty assessing the size of distant objects. For example, looking at the panorama of the city, a child may well think that the houses are toy. To develop the baby’s spatial understanding, you need to pay his attention to his own body (the child will quickly remember that the legs are below, the head is above, and the arms are at the side), and also more often give the child requests indicating the direction (for example, “turn right” , “take the candy from the top shelf” and so on).

Ways to develop the perception of preschoolers

In preschool age, the leading activity is play. It is in this form that children learn and develop the necessary functions in the best way.

Didactics presents many games for the development of perception that will help parents or educators engage with their children.

Droplets – teach how to combine objects based on color criteria. The essence of the task is that you need to put circles of the corresponding shades into containers.
Umbrellas - form an understanding of the shape and color of objects. To play you need 4 umbrellas of primary colors and cardboard geometric shapes. The teacher reports that it is raining, it is urgent to hide the circles and triangles under umbrellas of different colors.
Bag of secrets - allows you to identify an object based on tactile sensations. An opaque bag is filled with small toys. The child, without looking, must describe what came into his hand.

Similar games are played to develop the ability to recognize an object or item by smell or sound.

Regular classes to develop perception in preschoolers will ensure further effective cognitive advancement and the formation of a holistic, moral personality. Such a person will most likely have unconventional thinking and a high level of creativity.

Mechanism and types of perception

For the full development and effective learning of a child, a sufficient level of development of perception is necessary. It is the basis for the formation of other cognitive processes (memory, attention, thinking, speech and imagination). How does the process of perception occur?

The world around us consists of various objects and phenomena that can be seen, heard, touched, tasted, smelled.
With the help of our senses we learn about what an object is. For example, an orange has the following properties: round, orange, smooth, with small dimples on the peel, sour, and has a specific citrus smell.
Information from the senses enters the brain, where individual sensations are combined into a holistic “picture” - perception.
Perception is greatly influenced by accumulated life experience. If a child has already seen and eaten an orange, he does not need to taste it to guess what it is.

Classification of types of perception:

Visual perception allows you to obtain a visual image of an object, as well as study its details;
Auditory perception makes it possible to understand speech, recognize various sounds of nature, household noises and hear music;
Tactile perception - cognition of objects through touch;
Olfactory perception – recognition of odors;
Taste perception – receiving information from taste buds (perception of sweet, salty, sour and bitter).

Most experts believe that each of us has a leading channel for receiving “data” about the world (usually vision, hearing or touch). Pay attention to the form in which your baby absorbs information better - this should be the main one in his learning.

Games and exercises for developing perception in preschoolers

Play is the leading activity in preschool age. This is why exercises and games are an effective and fun way to develop children's perception.

Sorting by color, shape, size. Items for sorting can be any available materials: toys, lids, construction parts, cubes, buttons, cereals, pencils, etc. You can organize the game in various ways: placing objects in bowls, “hiding” an object (arranging objects so that they blend into the background), throwing objects into holes of the desired color/shape/size.
"What is missing". This exercise develops visual perception, thinking and attention to detail. Draw several objects or animals on a piece of paper, but do not finish drawing them. One or more essential features of the objects must be missing (for example, a hare without ears, a table without legs, a car without wheels), and the baby’s task is to say what is missing in the picture.
"Confusion." Show your child a picture with the contours of familiar objects superimposed on each other. The child must name everyone who is depicted on it.

Regular exercises will help your child develop a high level of various types of perception.

Puzzles and cut-out pictures. These games, in which the child needs to assemble a whole picture from pieces, are excellent for developing visual perception.
"Guess by the smell." From available ingredients you can create a whole aroma set (for example, garlic, coffee, cinnamon, berries, cucumber, lemon, chocolate, and so on). Ask your baby to close his eyes and guess the object by smell. You can also invite your child to draw what he associates this or that scent with.
“Whose sound?” An adult hides behind a screen and uses objects to make various sounds: rustling a bag, tearing paper, knocking with spoons, ringing a bell, pouring water, and so on. The baby must guess which object each sound corresponds to.
"Magic bag" For this game you will need an opaque bag and small objects of various shapes and textures. Based on his tactile sensations, the baby should pull out the thing that you describe to him.

Psychological-medical-pedagogical commission Psychological-medical-pedagogical commission

Perception is the reflection by the human consciousness of objects and phenomena of reality at the moment of their impact on the senses.

In early childhood, perception is the leading mental process . It is on the basis of perception that memory, attention, thinking and imagination develop. That is, perception is the foundation for the development of mental processes.

It is customary to divide the stages of development of perception in children into three periods (early age, preschool and junior preschool age).

The child’s perception is formed in the process of developing the child’s objective activity, and in connection with the mastery of new actions, especially correlative ones (actions with two or more objects in which it is necessary to take into account and correlate the properties of different objects - their color, shape, size). Therefore, toys for young children involve correlating actions (pyramids, simple cubes, inserts, nesting dolls).

The development of perception does not happen by itself. An adult specially organizes the child’s activities in the perception of certain objects, teaches him to identify essential features, properties of objects and phenomena. It is necessary to carry out didactic games and exercises systematically!

It is very significant that in order to carry out work on the development of perception in children, there is no need to purchase expensive toys. You can make teaching aids yourself, without much difficulty, based on your child’s interests, constantly updating and varying them.

When conducting games and exercises, it is important that the child acts, and not just contemplates! For educational games with children, you need to use various composite toys (inserts, pyramids, cubes, etc.), which require correlating the properties of several parts. Identical items (for display, sample, and reproduction) may be useful. At the end of the lesson, it is necessary to put away the toys and aids so that the child does not get used to them and becomes indifferent. The behavior and consciousness of young children is entirely determined by perception. A child of two or three years old can only be attentive to what is in his field of perception. Memory manifests itself in the form of recognition, that is, the perception of familiar objects. The thinking of a child under three years of age is predominantly immediate—the child establishes connections between perceived objects. All experiences are also focused on perceived objects and phenomena.

Color is an important property of objects in the surrounding world. Color primarily attracts attention, allows you to choose an object among others and remember it.

Young children are first introduced to red, yellow, green and blue. Only after this should children be taught to recognize and name white, black, orange and purple.

Shape is the appearance of an object, its external contour. The shape can be simple or complex, consisting of several simple shapes.

In the first stages of development, children are introduced to simple shapes: a circle and a square. They play with these figures, comparing them (a circle is smooth, even, and a square has sides and corners). In this case, you need to trace the contours of the figures with your finger. Only after mastering their shapes are children introduced to the triangle, rectangle and oval.

Magnitude can mean the size of an object, volume, extent, which can be measured with the eye, comparing objects or using special instruments. Young children become familiar with quantity during activities aimed at comparing objects.

Games for children 2 - 3 years old to develop color perception

«Find the same color"

Start by learning comparison, comparing colors according to the principle “this way - not that way”

“Build also” or “lay out also” from 3-4 objects of different colors

Or so

"Collect by color"

“I’ll put a blue ball (button) in this glass, and we’ll take a full glass of the same ones.”

After the child has learned to compare, he can follow instructions like “give me a red mug” or “bring me blue trousers.”

You can come up with such games yourself, and the equipment for them is available, these can be clothespins, colored dishes, objects, tokens, cut-out pictures.

Games for children 2-3 years old to develop shape perception

Start also by comparing forms.

In the third year of life, permanent models for comparison appear - these are objects that are well known to the child and have a clearly defined shape. Such samples can be not only actually perceived objects, but also ideas about them. For example, a child defines triangular objects as “like a roof,” and round objects as “like a ball.”

“Find a patch” or find the same one

“Put the pieces in their places!” or "Mail"

In a box with slots of different shapes, you need to place the corresponding shapes.

It is possible to complicate the game when it is also necessary to compare color, size

If the games are accompanied by competent comments from an adult who names the shapes, the child will soon distinguish them independently and name them correctly.

After this, you can complicate the work of developing shape perception

Games for children 2-3 years old to develop the perception of size

First, when developing the perception of size, it is important that objects (ribbons, strips of paper, scarves, etc.) be of contrasting sizes and differ in only one feature!

Constantly draw children's attention to the size of toys, show and name large and small objects.

“Matryoshka” and “Pyramid” Use 3-5-piece nesting dolls in classes with kids. Start with three figures. At the same time, say which one is the smallest, which is the largest, which is the middle one. Ask your child this later. It is important that the child engages with the nesting doll and pyramid not only for the sake of the action itself.

Initially, the baby can perform these actions only through practical tests and is not able to visually compare the size and shape of objects. For example, when placing the lower half of a matryoshka doll against the upper one, he discovers that it does not fit and begins to try another. From external indicative actions, the child gradually moves to visual correlation of the properties of objects, when the property of one object turns into a model, a standard for measuring the properties of others. For example, the size of one ring of the pyramid becomes the measure for the rest. Already at 2-2.5 years old, visual selection based on a model becomes available to a child, when from two objects of different shapes or sizes he can, at the request of an adult, select one as a model.

A similar, accessible game is “Pick the Buttons”. Together with the children, we arrange the buttons into groups: the largest, the smallest. Considering the sizes of buttons, compares and applies button to button. First we teach the child application (because there is only one distinguishing feature), then application.

"Arrange by size" . The game uses cards with images of large and small objects (only two sizes) and two boxes - large and small.

“Make a row of figures . To play, you need figures of different sizes, which the child needs to arrange in a row - from the largest to the smallest or vice versa.

When mastering these techniques, the child can be offered more complex exercises, for example, placing two dolls of different sizes on different-sized cribs.

By regularly doing such exercises, the development of the child’s mental abilities is guaranteed. Closer to five years, you will be able to begin the next stage in the development of a child’s perception, which we will discuss in the next article.

Kharlova N.N., educational psychologist at the PMPK city of Tyumen

Peculiarities of perception in older preschool age (5-7 years)

In older preschool age, as before, visual sensations dominate perception. Auditory perception begins to actively develop: children are able to identify sounds in words, recognize familiar musical compositions, and feel the tempo and rhythm of a piece. Six-year-old children are well oriented in space (they practically do not confuse “right” and “left”, perceive distances between objects quite accurately, and can navigate plans and diagrams). The perception of time periods (minute, hour, day, and so on) depends on how often parents mention them in communication with their children. If you give your child tasks in which time is one of the guidelines (for example, “draw as many circles as possible in a minute” or “you need to brush your teeth for 2 minutes”), gradually it will no longer be so incomprehensible to the child.

The leading channel of perception for most older preschoolers is vision. At the same time, other types of sensitivity (especially auditory and tactile) are also actively developing.