Features of communication between preschool children and adults

Organization of communication between teacher and children

Communication between children and adults occurs spontaneously in all areas of life. But, like any skills, communication techniques must be developed for successful use in the future. And you should start doing this as early as possible, of course, taking into account the baby’s age.

The closest adults to children are:

• parents and relatives (grandparents, uncles, aunts);
• teachers of preschool educational institutions (DOU);
• teachers of additional education clubs;
• trainers of children's sports clubs.

In preschool educational institutions, pedagogical communication in one form or another has been actively used throughout their existence and, like any properly organized process, it will bring more benefits the more carefully it is planned and prepared (presentations, abstracts, introduction and comparison with foreign languages).

The age of the child and his characteristic form of communication

When planning lessons in the form of pedagogical dialogue, you should take into account the age of your interlocutors. After all, each child’s age is characterized by only a certain form, and a preschooler is able to perceive information only within the framework of his skills (if the baby is told in a friendly, businesslike manner, with a friendly smile, Einstein’s special theory of relativity or Slastenin’s holistic contribution to the development of heuristics, then the baby will react with a smile , may even nod in response, but is unlikely to understand a word of what was said to him).

Teacher communicating with children in kindergarten

A preschool teacher is often the most significant person (after parents and close relatives) and also has a strong influence on them. Therefore, the teacher needs to take into account many factors in order for the dialogue with children to proceed successfully. Common ones for any age:

It's always worth telling the truth

attention to the individual characteristics of the baby; respect for him as a person; attention to his opinion.

When planning the topic and method of presenting the material, the teacher must take into account that younger preschoolers are interested in information about the essence of objects and their characteristics. Questions: “Why, where, why, how” will be asked constantly, and you need to be ready to answer in an engaging and intelligible way, and most importantly, reliably.

For your information! It’s better to admit that you don’t know than to give a deliberately wrong answer. Kids will appreciate such a gesture and will only trust you more in the future.

In the older group, children, in addition to knowledge, also need from the teacher an assessment of their participation in the process, understanding from the teacher in case of failure or error, or praise when the child’s efforts were successful.

Pedagogical dialogue in kindergarten is a fairly successful form of teaching cognitive material to children. The teacher has to “run the show,” and this will be more effective if you take into account the age of the interlocutors.

Characteristics of non-situational forms of communication with adults of older preschool children

Bibliographic description:

Chebotareva, N.P. Characteristics of non-situational forms of communication with adults in senior preschool children / N.P. Chebotareva. — Text: immediate // Current tasks of pedagogy: materials of the IX International. scientific conf. (Moscow, June 2022). - Moscow: Buki-Vedi, 2022. - pp. 46-50. — URL: https://moluch.ru/conf/ped/archive/279/14314/ (access date: 02/09/2022).


Communication with an adult is of great importance for a child at all stages of his development. But it is especially important in childhood, in the first seven years of his life, when all the foundations of the personality and activity of a growing person are laid [1]. It is communication with an adult that contributes to the child’s formation of a holistic picture of the world and a positive attitude towards others. The formation of the child’s worldview and the formation of the personality of a future citizen and member of society depend on how the adults around the child behave.

The Federal State Educational Standard for Preschool Education determines the requirements for the structure of the educational program and indicates one of the directions is “creating conditions for the development of the child, opening up opportunities for his positive socialization, his personal development, the development of initiative and creative abilities based on cooperation with adults and peers and age-appropriate activities” [4 ].

One of the educational areas that ensures the “development of personality, motivation and ability of children in various types of activities” is socio-communicative development. This educational area involves “the development of communication and interaction of the child with adults and peers” [4].

Many teachers and psychologists dealt with the problems of communication between an adult and a child: M. I. Lisina, L. N. Galiguzova, E. O. Smirnova, etc. In particular, Elena Olegovna Smirnova, based on the concept of the genesis of communication by Maya Ivanovna Lisina, identified and described four forms of communication child with an adult from birth to the end of preschool childhood. The transition from one form to another involves the development of the child’s interests, his personal motives, and needs for various types of activities.

What are the main forms of communication between a child and an adult in preschool age? Thus, the first, situational-personal form of communication occurs in the second month of life and consists of close contact between the child and the most important adult in the child’s life - the mother. In the second half of life, situational business communication with adults is formed, in which the main thing for the child is joint play with objects. Against the background of such communication, the child’s speech develops, visual and effective thinking is formed, and sensory experience is enriched. At the age of four or five years, when the child already has a good command of speech and can talk with an adult on abstract topics, non-situational-cognitive communication becomes possible. And at the age of six, that is, towards the end of preschool age, verbal communication with adults on personal topics arises [2].

Let us consider in detail non-situational forms of communication with adults, which are basic for older preschoolers.

The content of these forms of communication goes beyond the immediate, visual situation. The subject of communication between a child and an adult can be such phenomena and events that cannot be seen in a specific interaction situation. For example, they can talk about a rainbow seen yesterday after the rain, about what a toy is made of, etc. Also, the content of communication can be experiences, relationships, memories from their own, albeit limited, experience. All this also cannot be seen with the eyes and felt with the hands, however, through communication with an adult, all this becomes quite real and meaningful for the child. It is obvious that the emergence of non-situational communication significantly expands the horizons of the life world of a preschooler [3].

Communication, the content of which is not based on a specific situation given at that moment, is called non-situational. Extra-situational communication becomes possible only due to the fact that the child masters active speech. After all, speech is the only universal means that allows a person to create stable images and ideas about objects that are currently absent before the child’s eyes, and to act with these images and ideas that do not exist in a given interaction situation. [3].

There are two forms of extra-situational communication - cognitive and personal [6].

In the normal course of child development, cognitive communication develops around the age of four to five years. Clear evidence of the child’s emergence of such communication is his questions addressed to an adult. It is not for nothing that this age is called the age of “why”. These questions are mainly aimed at clarifying the patterns of living and inanimate nature. Children of this age are interested in everything: why fish don’t drown and birds don’t fall from the sky, what paper is made from, etc. Only an adult can give answers to all these questions. An adult becomes for preschoolers the main source of new knowledge about events, objects and phenomena of the world around them.

It is typical that children at this age are satisfied with any answer from an adult. It is not at all necessary for them to give scientific justification for the questions that interest them, and this is impossible to do, since the kids will not understand everything and will become bored. It is enough to simply connect the phenomenon that interests them with what they already know and understand. For example: insects overwinter under the snow, they are warmer there; paper is made from wood, etc. Such very superficial answers completely satisfy children and contribute to the fact that they develop their own, albeit primitive, picture of the world [2].

At the same time, vivid childhood impressions and ideas about the world remain in a person’s memory for a long time. Therefore, an adult’s answers and explanations should not distort reality and be overloaded with magic. What is important here is the line between real scientific explanations and the fairy-tale images inherent in the world of childhood, which remain in the memory for a long time and, undoubtedly, give it charm and unforgettableness. The main thing is that the adult does not brush aside the children’s questions and does not leave them unnoticed. The fact is that in preschool age a new need develops - the need for respect from an adult. Simple attention and cooperation with an adult is no longer enough for a child, as in infancy and early preschool age. He needs a serious, respectful attitude towards his questions, interests and actions. The need for respect and recognition by adults becomes the main need that encourages the child to communicate [5].

In the behavior of children, this is expressed in the fact that they begin to be offended when an adult negatively evaluates their actions, scolds them, and often makes comments. It is important for them that an adult not only notices, but also praises their actions. If an adult makes comments too often, constantly emphasizing the child’s inability or inability to do some activity, then the latter loses all interest in this activity and tries to avoid it. On the contrary, the encouragement of an adult instills in the child confidence in his abilities, and makes the activity for which he was praised important and loved. The child, trying to win, maintain and strengthen the positive attitude and respect of the adult, will try to act better. [5].

Over time, preschoolers are increasingly attracted to the actions, behavior of the people around them, human relationships, norms of behavior, and the qualities of individual people. What is good and what is bad - these and other similar questions concern older preschoolers. And again, only an adult can give answers to them. Of course, even before, parents drew the children’s attention to how to behave, what is possible and what is not, but younger children only obeyed (or did not obey) the demands of the adult. Now, at six or seven years old, children themselves are interested in rules of behavior, human relationships, qualities, and actions. It is important for them to understand the demands of adults and to confirm that they are right. Therefore, in older preschool age, children prefer to talk with adults not about educational topics, but about personal ones, relating to the rules of human behavior. This is how the most complex and highest non-situational-personal form of communication arises in preschool age, with the goal of understanding the social world of people.

A significant adult is still a source of new knowledge for children, and children still need their respect and recognition. But for a child, at this stage of development, it becomes important to evaluate not specific skills, but to evaluate his moral qualities and personality as a whole, and it is important that his attitude to certain events coincides with the attitude of an adult. The commonality of views and assessments is for the child an indicator of their correctness. It is very important for a child in older preschool age to be good, to feel that he is assessed as good. This affects his self-esteem and behavior among his peers. If a child is sure that an adult treats him well and respects his personality, he can calmly, in a business-like manner, treat his comments regarding his individual actions or skills. [2].

The need for mutual understanding among adults is a distinctive feature of the personal form of communication. But if an adult often points out to a child only negative character traits, this can greatly offend and wound the child, and will not lead to correction. Here, again, to maintain the desire to be good, it will be more useful to encourage his correct actions and positive qualities than to condemn the child’s shortcomings.

In older preschool age, non-situational-personal communication exists independently and represents “pure communication”, not included in any other activity, as it was before. This communication is prompted by personal motives, when another person attracts the child on his own. [6].

Thus, we have proven that extra-situational personal communication is of great importance for the development of a child’s personality. Firstly, the child consciously learns the norms and rules of behavior and begins to follow them in his actions and actions. Secondly, through personal communication, children learn to see themselves as if from the outside, which is a necessary condition for consciously managing their behavior. Thirdly, in personal communication, children learn to distinguish the roles of different adults: educator, doctor, teacher, etc. - and, in accordance with this, build their relationships in communication with them differently. Adults who have direct contact with children - teachers and parents - should take into account the age characteristics of older preschoolers in order to form adequate self-esteem in the latter, as well as develop correct, from a social point of view, behavior. [5].

Extra-situational-cognitive communication is one of the forms of communication between a child and an adult in the concept of the genesis of communication by M. I. Lisina, which arises in the middle of preschool age and is typical for children 4–5 years old. A clear sign of the emergence of this form of communication is the child’s questions about objects and phenomena of the physical world (about natural phenomena, about machines, about the life of animals, etc.) Extra-situational-personal communication is the highest form of communication between a child and an adult in the concept of M. I. Lisina, which arises in older preschool age and typical for children 6–7 years old. Extra-situational-personal communication is aimed at understanding the social world: the behavior of different people in different situations, the motives of actions. It is not included in any other activity and represents communication in its purest form.

Literature:

1. Galiguzova L.N., Smirnova E.O. Stages of communication: from one to seven years. - M.: ARKTI, 2012. - 143 p. 480 pp.
2. Lisina M.I. Communication, personality and the psyche of a child / ed. A. G. Ruzskoy. - M.: Moscow Psychological and Social Institute, Voronezh: NPO "MODEK", 2001. - 384 p.
3. Lisina M.I., Galiguzova L.N. Formation of children's need to communicate with adults and peers // Research on problems of age-related and pedagogical psychology / Ed. Lisina M.I. - M.: Pedagogy, 1980. - P.145–167.
4. Order of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia dated October 17, 2013 No. 1155 “On approval of the federal state educational standard for preschool education.” Access mode: https://www.consultant.ru/law/hotdocs/29614.html
5. Smirnova E. O. Communication between a child and an adult - Access mode: https://adalin.mospsy.ru/l_03_00/l0301121.shtml
6. Smirnova E. O. Communication of preschool children with adults and with peers and its influence on the development of the child’s personality: methods for diagnosing and correcting children’s communication with adults and with peers. - Abakan: Khakass State Publishing House. University named after N. F. Katanova, 1996. - 102 p.

Key terms
(automatically generated)
: child, adult, preschool age, non-situational-personal communication, communication, senior preschool age, form of communication, non-situational-cognitive communication, personal communication, rule of behavior.

Why is it necessary to communicate with different speech partners?

By communicating with peers, the child makes his vocabulary richer, his speech becomes more coherent and detailed, he is understood not only by peers, but also by adults. This happens because, unlike communication with dad or mom, a peer will not guess what is being discussed when the baby wants something or is dissatisfied with something. Unlike children, adults are always on the alert and very carefully monitor the gestures or facial expressions of their baby. But a peer will not do this. And in this case, the child will have to adapt to the new way of communication himself.

Communication with adults teaches the child new phrases and words. The baby learns to pronounce sentences and words correctly and learns the norms of communication. Although this knowledge is practically not useful to a child in everyday life. The application of this knowledge in practice involves the creation of certain life situations. Peers help the child find himself in an environment in which he can actively use everything he has learned from adult friends or relatives.

Therefore, in order for the speech of a child who will later go to school to develop fully, it is necessary to create precisely such conditions in which the child could communicate with active partners in speech contacts, that is, adults. From them he will receive a lot of new information and learn to speak correctly. And in parallel with peers who will help the child realize all his speech achievements received from his parents.

Mowgli children

A person gradually develops the ability to transmit information and attract attention, bringing it to a certain level that corresponds to his inner world, his temperament, his expectations. If a person does not receive this information about his own kind within a certain period of time, then such a person cannot be fully formed.

The example with the “Mowgli” children is a vivid illustration of this judgment. If a person found himself in an animal environment as a child, then he lost his human qualities, and such cases have happened many times in history. He became the same beast

If a person does not receive this information about his own kind over a certain period of time, then such a person cannot be fully formed. The example with the “Mowgli” children is a vivid illustration of this judgment. If a person found himself in an animal environment as a child, then he lost his human qualities, and such cases have happened many times in history. He became the same beast.

Rice. 4. Child “Mowgli” ()

Reluctance to communicate and the child's temperament

Many parents try to justify their child’s introversion by his innate temperament. Of course, this opinion may well be correct. However, even in this case, it is necessary to carefully understand what exactly he feels when he does not want to communicate.

There are the following types of temperament:

• Sanguines.
• Cholerics.
• Phlegmatic people.
• Melancholic people.

In addition to these types, there is another important factor that influences the definition of everyone’s personality. It can be determined by how a person tends to replenish his reserves of mental energy. For example, extroverts need to connect with other people. They cannot live without their energy and often become discouraged when they have to be alone for a long time. Introverts are a completely different type of people. They replenish energy from themselves. Only by being in solitude do they gain spiritual strength.

Many parents believe that a child’s isolation is a manifestation of introversion of temperament. To figure out whether this is really the case, you need to learn to distinguish a real introvert from a shy child.

Features of communication between preschool children

In the preschool period, the child’s world no longer lies only in the family. Now, significant people for him are not only his parents, grandparents, older brothers or sisters, but also other children of approximately the same age. As children grow older, relationships and conflicts with peers will become increasingly important to them. Preschoolers are friends with each other and get into quarrels, make up and get offended again, sometimes even get jealous and do little “dirty tricks”, help each other. All emotions associated with communication and interaction with peers are acutely experienced by preschoolers.

The experience of first relationships with peers is considered the basis on which the further formation of the child’s personality is based. The child’s sense of calm, satisfaction, and his assimilation of the norms of relationships with other children depend on the style of communication and on his place among his peers. The first such experience largely determines the individual’s attitude towards himself, towards others, and towards the universe as a whole. This experience does not necessarily have to be positive. Many preschoolers at this age may develop and further consolidate a negative attitude towards society, which will have quite sad consequences in the future. In the communication interaction of preschoolers, relationships are formed relatively quickly, characterized by the appearance of preferred and rejected peers.

The most important task of parents is the timely identification of problems in interpersonal interaction and assistance in overcoming them, which should be based on an understanding of the psychological motives underlying problematic situations in children's interpersonal communication. After all, it is internal motives that cause constant conflict between the child and his peers, lead him to objective or subjective isolation, and force the child to feel lonely, which is one of the most serious and destructive experiences of the individual.

Communication with peers is considered a school of social relations. As children grow up, by the age of seven, their attitude towards peers of the same age again changes significantly. At this age, they are capable of extra-situational communication, which is in no way related to the situation that is happening now. Kids can share with each other what they have seen and where they have been, talk about their plans or preferences, and evaluate the qualities, character traits and actions of other children. At preschool age, children can already talk for a long time without performing any practical actions. By the age of six, the child’s friendliness and emotional involvement in the experiences of peers or in joint activities increases significantly. Preschoolers can often be caught closely observing the actions of their peers.

The peculiarities of communication between preschool children are characterized by the fact that children no longer just talk about themselves, but also ask questions to their peers. At this age, they become interested in what their friend is going to do, what he likes and what he doesn’t, where he has been and what he has seen. Such naive questions reflect the emergence of an altruistic personal attitude towards other individuals. By the age of six, many children develop a desire to help their peers, to give something or give in to them.

Cognitive communication between a child and an adult

Elena Naberezhnykh

Cognitive communication between a child and an adult

The need for communication is one of the earliest social needs of a person. Communication is defined by psychologists as an important factor in a child’s throughout childhood.

From the first days, the baby develops a thirst for active activity, a desire to effectively learn about surrounding objects and phenomena. He quickly develops a circle of ideas about “a little bit of everything”

at a level he understands.
Connections emerge between new and existing knowledge. They are systematized, a kind of “arrangement”
into shelf-concepts.
The child moves from ignorance to knowledge, from the incomprehensible to the understandable, distinct.
In the course of cognitive communication between the child and his parents, emotional difficulties are also overcome. Parents can be advised to take children's questions and statements seriously. If a child’s is satisfied and skillfully guided by adults , he will develop a need for new knowledge.

Children's questions surprise and sometimes perplex both parents and educators. Sometimes children tire adults and cause dissatisfaction: “Tormented you with your “why?” and “why”, stop asking, get busy!”

So why the "why"

so important?
Yes, because the affirmation of one’s Self, which begins with the crisis of three years, ends with the age of “why”
.
The child wants to simultaneously separate from the adult , demonstrating his “I myself!”
, and at the same time not to lose the more and more necessary emotional connection with his parents.
Sometimes it seems that adults anymore. But the baby, annoying with his stubbornness, uncontrollability and whims, is afraid to completely alienate his parents. And he himself becomes the initiator of communication , especially since he is already making progress in mastering the peculiarities of speech, and masks the passionate desire to communicate with his parents with his endless and annoying “whys”
.

"Why"

becomes the main word dominant in the house.
And many parents get overwhelmed, spending all their free time running around libraries to find the only correct answer. They reread textbooks, monographs, encyclopedias, and look on the Internet. But the child does not satisfy his cognitive appetite .
It is not at all important for a three-year-old child to hear the correct answer to his question. It is more important for him to simply ask his parents a question, and only so that when answering, they draw their attention to him, to the fact that he is always near them, to the fact that he is always here somewhere. And he’s no longer just a fool, but one who asks the smartest questions “why”

. He really wants the parents to not just answer, but for the answer to coincide with what the child considers necessary for himself, in short, with his opinion. And his opinion is that the world only exists so that he can exist in this world.

At three years old, the baby is only surprised by something new and shows curiosity. But then, a little later, after three, these questions will no longer be witnesses of curiosity, but will become signs of the baby’s curiosity, when the child will no longer just be surprised by the new, but will want to know everything about it.

Now, when encountering the unknown, the child wants to understand it , and the numerous “whys”

usually indicate only
cognitive motives . They become smarter and more meaningful, and answering them is much easier. But when answering them, it is still necessary to proceed from the child’s . At the same time, you need to know that with age the stability of all cognitive motives increases .
How important are questions for children's development? The child discovers the world . As he develops, he becomes more and more interested in the objects around him, the lives of people, nature, and thinks about what he sees and hears. But the range of his concepts is very narrow, which is why he resorts to the help of an adult - he asks a question . Questions that show how his consciousness grows. From children's questions you can find out what children are interested in, what knowledge they have, how their horizons expand, and what difficulties they encounter. A child’s question is at the same time an answer, because it tells a lot about the child , his needs, observations, doubts, fears, guesses, judgments, priorities. Questions, as indicators, show the dynamics of a preschooler’s development. The degree of “intellectual
maturation ” of a child is reflected in the nature of the questions.
Already at 5-6 years old all the questions are “why”

- the desire of children to comprehend the essence of their surroundings, to understand the causes and connections between most objects and phenomena.
The child constantly asks his parents “a hundred thousand whys
,” and only because he asks himself many more.

At the same time, the questions show what influence adults have on a child’s . Adults should listen carefully to children's questions, answer them wisely and correctly, develop children's attention, memory, observation, and curiosity. This will help in the future while studying at school.

The duty of parents is to support curiosity in the child and awaken it so that the number of questions constantly increases. But it must be remembered that children are more accessible to superficial connections between various natural phenomena. They are even satisfied with a simple analogy and a reference to an example. Therefore, you should not overload the world of childhood with your enormous erudition, although your answers should be based on all the features of the child’s intelligence. Of course, if the child is gifted , then you can give him an encyclopedic answer.

Interest in each other is the basis of cognitive communication between an adult and a child . The pitfalls of such communication - a didactic tone , moral teachings, which
an adult “slips into” - make the conversation one-sided. At the same time, the adult, due to his age and educational status, takes a position above the child , teaches, demands that he “listen and learn
.
the child’s attempt , to treat his erroneous judgments without irony, can gradually suppress the preschooler’s activity, including thinking. Such a balance of power deprives children of independence and teaches them intellectual dependency - the expectation that adults will tell and explain everything.
How should an adult respond to the questions and statements of preschoolers?

1. Parents and teachers need to understand that cognitive questions are of great importance and reflect the dynamics of the child's , therefore they should be encouraged in every possible way. Questions "why"

, which are abundant in an extraordinary
child and almost completely absent in children with delayed intellectual development.
A child with mental retardation practically does not ask “why”

, and even if he asks, then the most elementary ones and most often characteristic of children who are much younger than himself.
Therefore, by the quality and quantity of such questions it is possible to indirectly judge the child’s .
The more “why”

, the more gifted
the child and the higher his creative potential. The absence of such questions is one of the main signals of trouble in a child’s .
2. Children's questions tell an adult that the child is open to intellectual communication and strives for it . The dialogue will develop if each of its participants is interested in the judgments of the other.

Is it worth giving , comprehensive answer to all his questions right away First, it is important to understand at what stage of understanding the situation the child , what his reasoning is on this matter. What does he think? Most often, he has his own thoughts, and he willingly shares them with his interlocutor. Often children ask questions that they could answer themselves if they thought a little. There is no need to rush to give answers in such cases. Satisfying a child's , it is necessary to awaken his own mental activity, teach him to use his own experience and knowledge. For example, if a child asks whether a stone, tree, or icicle will float, you need to invite him to check it himself and draw his attention to what floats and what sinks.

3. Sometimes children are suppressed by the authority of adults (parents, teachers, older brothers and sisters, so smart, knowing the answers to all questions. Sometimes it seems to them that adults have always been like this . At the same time, the child may develop a guilt complex for his inability, slow-wittedness, lack of intelligence. Therefore, there is no need to emphasize your intellectual superiority over the child , but encourage his curiosity and inquisitiveness. Children love to listen to stories from the life of mom, dad, grandmother, older children in the family. They are interested in the memories of loved ones or a teacher about their childhood misconceptions, mistakes, difficulties, guesses, failures, reasoning. Now you can remember this with a smile. A frank conversation with a child , of course, will not affect the authority of the parents and will not change his attitude towards them, but will create a favorable atmosphere in the cognitive communication of adults and children .

There is no need to answer children’s questions formally or in a mocking manner, or to make excuses with some nonsense. This will offend the child , and he will be embarrassed to ask anything in the future.

4. How to answer children’s questions? Say: “When you grow up, you’ll find out”

- means keeping them in the pursuit of knowledge.
At the same time, you should not talk about inaccessible, difficult things. Sometimes children explain what they hear in their own way. So, to the question of six-year-old Kolya, “Where did the first man come from?”
the father began to talk about evolution in the animal world and about the origin of man from the monkey. The boy understood his father’s explanation in his own way. The next day in kindergarten, he shared his knowledge with his friends: “I know, my grandfather was a monkey, he started working and became a man. Then he gave birth to dad, and dad gave birth to me.”

Some parents complain that their children do not like to read. Reading is a way of obtaining information, and children may have no interest in this, since adults once discouraged them from learning new things.

5. How and where to get answers to all children’s questions? Children are not satisfied with the distant prospect: you will go to school, you will study a lot and be able to answer any question. The child needs an answer immediately. This is where it is necessary and advisable to introduce a child to books , educational and reference literature. A lot can be learned if you teach a child to address her . It helps quickly enough, even in preschool and primary school age, to obtain the necessary information. Some children's questions puzzle an adult . For example: why is the water salty in the sea, but not in the river? Why do frogs croak? Why is he a boy and I am a girl? Why does the hand have five fingers and not four or six? Why doesn't the water burn? Why does a dog need a tail? An adult may admit that he finds it difficult to answer some question and needs the help of a reference book or encyclopedia. A thick volume is removed from the shelf and the search begins. Special publications for children contain concise and accessible information. Simplicity of explanation, use of clarity (pictures, diagrams, sketches)

help him understand the problems being discussed.

In what format can communication take place?

In modern society, communication is by no means limited to phone calls and personal meetings, because new opportunities have appeared. And many elderly parents have mastered instant messengers and video communication, switching to new formats.

Examples and stories from parents

• “My son gave me his old smartphone. I installed Viber, Skype, Telegram on it... I mastered sending messages, emoticons, postcards, gifs. Now every morning I send my son virtual greetings and wishes for a good day. He responds in kind, and we know that everything is fine with each other. It takes seconds, but it sets a good mood for the whole day.”
• “WhatsApp has become our new “intermediary” when communicating with our daughter’s family. We constantly send each other photos - I take pictures of my beds, cats, my father and me, she takes pictures of our beloved grandchildren. Before we call, we now write off in advance so that we know for sure that everyone is free and can chat.”
• “I help my grandson do his homework via Skype. The son and daughter-in-law are at work, he comes home from school and tries to do his homework before his parents return. I remember English and physics, and I can help with 7th grade geometry. We have more fun together, the grandson says thank you, tells the news, and in the process we can just chat. He and I have become much closer, he says: “Grandfather, how advanced you are,” and I am very pleased with that.”

Examples and stories from children

• “We live far from our parents, we see each other in person once a year, in the summer, when we have a vacation and our eldest daughter has a vacation. We decided to give them a laptop to communicate via video conference. At first, my parents were worried that they wouldn’t understand anything and wouldn’t be able to turn it on... I wrote down the passwords in large block letters and showed them everything. Now once a week we have a communication session. Mom and dad are simply delighted when the eldest granddaughter shows them a diary with fives, and the youngest shows them drawings from kindergarten.”
• “My sister and I organized a chat with my parents on Telegram. It’s very convenient, we always keep abreast of each other’s news, exchange photos and short messages. This format, of course, does not replace personal meetings, but it helps to always be in touch. And without empty chatter and lectures.”
• “At first, my parents were against gadgets, they said: “Just call more often.” But when we were visiting them, we dialed Aunt Valya from Syktyvkar via video call and let them talk, see each other - they appreciated it. Now they have their own tablet and regularly call not only us, but also other relatives, they even show off their flower beds and proudly display their mother’s cake.”

Important

Communication must come from both sides. Both children and parents should take the initiative in communication

There is no need to be embarrassed to remind yourself or ask if everything is okay. It is important to feel needed and loved.

According to psychologists, proximity and the presence of common topics for conversation are important for normal communication between adult children and parents. Modern means of communication allow you to choose different formats of communication, share both photos and videos. But nothing can replace personal communication, because this is the only way to touch each other, hug, and not depend on the quality of the Internet and connection.

From 2 years

Children's communication is activated simply because the baby has already gained the necessary experience. He already knows how to play various story games, he has already developed speech, the need for communication, and the ability to communicate is slowly gaining.

But most importantly, he imitates others well. This is the most favorable time for building independent games between children. The younger one is ready to play with the older one, repeat what is shown to him, etc. But, of course, this does not mean that everything will work out for them right away. Vice versa! Right now, the role of an adult is very important. Right now they are especially actively learning to interact with each other. And this process goes on for more than one day, or even one year. Psychologists identify a period of up to 4 years.

What is the most difficult thing at this time, what we need to pay attention to, what we need to teach children:

• address each other by name or by the role the child plays;
• resolve conflicts, look for a way out of difficult situations;
• take turns;
• sympathize with each other;
• treat each other kindly;
• see your partner’s advantages, his strengths.

And one more important point that we cannot forget about. For children under 5 years of age, the main component in communication is emotions. They are the ones that matter most to the child. That is, if communication causes strong emotional experiences, not necessarily positive, the child will strive for it again and again. If communication is unemotional, then it is of little significance and of little interest to the child.

But the need for emotions does not mean that the child himself knows how to manage them! Vice versa! Until the age of 5, children are predominantly impulsive, spontaneous, and completely unstable in their emotions. And if it's fun together, it makes a great game. But if the emotions do not coincide, if the interests of all players in the game were not met, frustrations and experiences can be very violent.

And here, without a regulating adult, a good game will not work

It is very important for us to learn to intervene in a situation in a timely manner, to prevent it from escalating into aggression or a fight, and to teach children to cope with both contradictions in the game and their own experiences.

Forms of communication between children and adults

Communication with adults is, in essence, interactions in the “zone of proximal development,” since a preschooler uses his potential and fills in the blank spots in his knowledge.

Starting from the age of 3, the baby becomes an active explorer of everything around him.

The need for cognitive activity and the desire to get answers to puzzling questions directs him to his parents or other significant adults. Interaction takes on an extra-situational character and is realized in two forms of communication that follow each other.

Extra-situational-cognitive communicative form

Communication can be situational in nature, and the child may ask to draw the same bunny that he has in his hands. But increasingly, interest goes beyond situations. The preschooler asks where the bunny lives, if he has a house, and immediately continues to ask questions about all the animals he knows.

An adult is an expert for a child who knows everything and can do everything. The kid accepts any answer. Often these answers are presented in a fantasy or fairy tale context. And how else can a child answer the question in style, does the Bear sing songs to her Little Bear?.. Nevertheless, the preschooler satisfies his current cognitive interest.

Cognitive communication with an adult gives the child real ideas about the world and expands his understanding of the cause-and-effect relationships between surrounding objects and phenomena.

Extra-situational-personal form of communication

The older a preschooler gets, the more he understands that the social environment is much wider and more diverse than his usual environment. The child realizes that he needs to learn how to behave and act correctly in different situations. Moreover, he sees the different behavior of his peers, which leads him to the conclusion that not everyone behaves as they should.

By talking with adults, the child learns standards of expression and behavioral cultural norms. The preschooler begins to develop his own authorities. To understand a certain situation, he increasingly turns to the adult whom he considers most competent in this matter.

Communication with adults as the main factor in child development

Definition 1
Communication is a connection between people, during which psychological contact appears (in understanding, experience and in the exchange of information, thoughts, emotions).

The importance of communication between a preschool child and adults lies in the fact that the child, due to his age and the lack of skills and abilities necessary for life, is almost completely dependent on the adult. The adults around the child ensure his safety, organize leisure time, promote development and socialization, and much more. However, the emotions that an adult gives him in the process of communication and interaction are of particular importance for a child.

Only communication between a child and an adult can shape him as a person. In addition, communication has a positive impact on the formation of the cognitive sphere of preschool children, their worldview and socialization in society.

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Psychology identifies two leading aspects of communication between a child and an adult:

1. Communication with adults directly affects the success of the mental and personal development of a preschool child.
2. Communication between children and adults ensures the development of speech in preschoolers and their mastery of communication skills.

The need for communication is a natural need that is inherent in a person from his birth. From early childhood, children are drawn to close adults for the purpose of communication and interaction. The world of adults is very attractive for them, as there is a lot of interesting and unknown things in it. A child can comprehend all this only through communication with adults.

Features of communication in preschool age

The famous Soviet psychologist M.I. Lisina identifies the following stages in the development of communication between children and adults:

Communication with peers and adults are very different from each other. If an adult is perceived by a child, to a greater extent, as a teacher, judge and role model, then communication with peers occurs on equal terms. It is more emotional and intense. The norms of communication between children are less strict, so the kids feel relaxed.

Stages of development of communication with peers in children:

Age Features of communication with peers 0.5 -1.5 years The basis for future communication is being formed. A peer is perceived by a child as someone new and interesting, but children of this age do not strive to attract each other’s attention. There is no such communication with peers and joint actions with them at this age. 2-4 years At this age, children usually already know how to play together and, therefore, situational communication occurs between them. In a peer, the child sees a like-minded person who can participate in his pranks and games. At the same time, the action itself, and not the communication process, has the greatest value for the baby. 4-6 years old At this age, communication with peers is one of the strongest needs of the child. Together, children play role-playing games, during which they learn to negotiate, cooperate, and listen to each other.

Recognition from peers is important for kids. 6-7 years Older preschoolers already have fairly well-developed communication skills. They sincerely try to take care of their friends, empathize with them, and take into account the interests of their peers during group activities.

Six-year-old children can talk to each other for a long time about their impressions, thoughts, and desires.

Article “Communication between a child and an adult.” An article on speech development on the topic

Article “communication between a child and an adult.”

The development of a child largely depends on communication with adults, which affects not only the mental, but also, in the early stages, the physical development of the child.

Communication with adults is of exceptional importance for a child at all stages of childhood. But it is important in the first seven years of life, when all the personalities and activities of a growing person are formed. And the younger the child is, the more important communication with an adult is for him. At the same time, communication plays a decisive role not only in enriching the content of a child’s consciousness, but also determines its structure.

The psychological need for communication consists of the desire to know oneself and other people.

In addition to the need, which is determined by the nature of the relationship to another, communication every time has certain motives for the sake of which it occurs. In a broad sense, the motive for communication is another person, in our case for a child - an adult. However, man is an extremely complex and multifaceted subject. It has a variety of properties and qualities. Those qualities that encourage a person to communicate, and are the main ones at this stage, become the motives for communication.

Business motives are expressed in the ability to cooperate, to play, and to be generally active. In communication with a child, an adult acts as a partner, as a participant in joint activities. It is important for a child how an adult knows how to play, what interesting objects he has, what he can show, etc. Cognitive motives arise in the process of satisfying the need for new impressions, for learning new things. In this case, the adult acts as a source of new information and at the same time as a listener, able to understand and evaluate the child’s judgments and questions.

Business and cognitive motives of communication are included in other activities (practical or cognitive) and play a service role in it. Communication here is only part of the broader interaction between a child and an adult.

In contrast, the third category of communication motives—personal motives—are characteristic only of communication as an independent type of activity. In this case, communication is prompted by the person himself, his personality. These may be individual personal qualities, or they may be relationships with another person as a whole person.

The needs and motives of communication are satisfied through certain means.

1) expressive facial expressions (looks, smiles, grimaces, different facial expressions); 2) object-active (postures, gestures, actions with toys, etc.); 3) speech. The first ones express, the second ones depict, the third ones denote the content that the child seeks to convey to an adult or receive from him.

Psychological research has shown that these aspects of communication give rise to several stages at which the activity of communication appears in a holistic, qualitatively unique form. Needs, motives and means of communication form stable combinations - forms of communication that naturally change throughout childhood.

Communication between a child and a peer.

At preschool age, other children begin to occupy an increasingly larger place in a child’s life. If at the end of early childhood the need for communication with peers is just taking shape, then for a preschooler it already becomes one of the main ones. At four or five years old, a child knows for sure that he needs other children, and clearly prefers their company.

Communication between preschoolers and peers has a number of significant features that qualitatively distinguish it from communication with adults.

The first and most important distinguishing feature is the great variety of communicative actions and their extremely wide range. When communicating with a peer, you can observe many actions and addresses that are practically not found in contacts with adults. The child argues with a peer, imposes his will, calms, demands, orders, deceives, regrets, etc. It is in communication with other children that complex forms of behavior such as pretense, the desire to pretend, express resentment, coquetry, and fantasy first appear.

Such a wide range of children's contacts is determined by the wide variety of communicative tasks that are solved in this communication. If an adult remains for a child until the end of preschool age mainly a source of assessment, new information and a model of action, then in relation to a peer, already from the age of three to four years, the child solves a much wider range of communicative tasks: here both management of the partner’s actions and control over them execution, and assessment of specific behavioral acts, and joint play, and imposition of one’s own models, and constant comparison with oneself. Such a variety of communicative tasks requires mastering a wide range of relevant actions.

The second striking feature of peer communication is its extremely vivid emotional intensity. The increased emotionality and looseness of contacts of preschoolers distinguishes them from interaction with adults. Actions addressed to a peer are characterized by a significantly higher affective orientation. When communicating with peers, a child exhibits 9-10 times more expressive and facial expressions, expressing a wide variety of emotional states - from furious indignation to wild joy, from tenderness and sympathy to anger. On average, preschoolers are three times more likely to approve of a peer and nine times more likely to enter into conflict relationships with him than when interacting with an adult.

Such a strong emotional intensity of contacts between preschoolers is due to the fact that, starting from the age of four, a peer becomes a more preferred and attractive communication partner. The importance of communication, which expresses the degree of intensity of the need for communication and the degree of aspiration towards a partner, is much higher in the sphere of interaction with a peer than with an adult.

The third specific feature of children’s contacts is their non-standard and unregulated nature. If, when communicating with adults, even the youngest children adhere to certain generally accepted norms of behavior, then when interacting with peers, preschoolers use the most unexpected actions and movements. These movements are characterized by a special looseness, irregularity, and not set by any patterns: children jump, take bizarre poses, make faces, imitate each other, come up with new words and sound combinations, compose various fables, etc. Such freedom suggests that the company of peers helps the child express its original beginning. If an adult provides culturally normalized patterns of behavior for a child, then a peer creates conditions for individual, non-standardized, free manifestations. Naturally, with age, children’s contacts become more and more subject to generally accepted rules of behavior. However, unregulated and relaxed communication, the use of unpredictable and non-standard means remain a distinctive feature of children's communication until the end of preschool age.

Another feature of peer communication is the predominance of proactive actions over reactive ones. This is especially evident in the inability to continue and develop the dialogue, which falls apart due to the lack of responsive activity from the partner. For a child, his own action or statement is much more important, and in most cases he does not support the initiative of his peer. Children accept and support an adult’s initiative approximately twice as often. Sensitivity to partner influences is significantly less in the sphere of communication with other children than with adults. Such inconsistency of communicative actions often gives rise to conflicts, protests, and grievances among children.

1.2. Development of communication in preschool age.

Preschool age is a period of active acquisition by a child of spoken language, the formation and development of all aspects of speech - phonetic, lexical, grammatical. Full command of the native language in preschool childhood is a necessary condition for solving the problems of mental, aesthetic and moral education of children in the most sensitive period of development. The sooner learning the native language begins, the more freely the child will use it in the future. At preschool age, children's social circle expands. By becoming more independent, children go beyond narrow family ties and begin to communicate with a wider range of people, especially peers. Expanding the circle of communication requires the child to fully master the means of communication, the main one of which is speech. The increasingly complex activities of the child also place high demands on speech development.

The development of speech goes in several directions: its practical use in communication with other people is improved, at the same time speech becomes the basis for the restructuring of mental processes, a tool of thinking. This determines the relevance of this topic.

Speech development is considered as the development of skills to understand and use language: the development of phonemic hearing and sound analysis, vocabulary, awareness of the composition of words, the formation of grammatical categories, the development of communication skills, abilities and skills of coherent speech. Mastery of language is an important condition for mental development, since the content of historical experience appropriated by a child in ontogenesis is generalized and reflected in speech form and, above all, in the meanings of words.

There are two aspects to the development of the vocabulary of preschool children: the quantitative growth of vocabulary and its qualitative development, i.e. mastery of the meanings of words. Preschool age is a period of rapid vocabulary enrichment. Its growth depends on living conditions and upbringing.

A huge leap in the development of vocabulary occurs not only and not so much due to mastering the methods of forming words from the speech of adults, but rather due to mastering the methods of forming words. The development of vocabulary is carried out through words denoting objects in the immediate environment, actions with them, as well as their individual characteristics.

Mastering the grammatical structure of speech has a huge impact on the overall development of the child, providing him with a transition to learning the language at school. The formation of the grammatical structure of speech involves the formation of the morphological side of speech (changing words by gender, number, case), methods of word formation and syntax (mastering different types of phrases and sentences). Without mastering grammar, verbal communication is impossible. Mastering grammatical structure is very difficult for children, since grammatical categories are characterized by abstractness and abstraction. In addition, the grammatical structure of the Russian language is distinguished by the presence of a large number of unproductive forms and exceptions to grammatical norms and rules.

Mastering the methods of word formation is one of the aspects of children’s speech development. Preschoolers use mainly the morphological method of word formation, which is based on a combination of morphemes of different meanings. To form words, a child must master word-formation models, lexical meanings of word stems, and the meaning of significant parts of a word. In the psychological and psycholinguistic literature, word formation is compared with children's word creation, which indicates the active acquisition of grammatical structure by children. By the end of preschool age, children's word formation approaches the normative one, and therefore the intensity of word creation decreases.

In preschool age, speech is separated from direct practical experience. The main feature of this age is the emergence of the planning function of speech. In the role-playing game that guides the activities of preschoolers, new types of speech also arise: speech instructing the participants in the game, speech-message telling an adult about impressions received outside of contact with him. Speech of both types takes the form of a monologue, contextual.

Preschoolers’ awareness of speech, the formation of ideas about a word, the assimilation of its semantics, the identification of linguistic means of expressiveness and figurative speech contribute to the acquisition of their native language in kindergarten and thereby solve the problem of preparing a child for school in terms of his speech development.

By the time they enter school, children should have formed an attitude towards speech as a linguistic reality, an elementary awareness of the structure of speech, in particular an awareness of its verbal composition, and an initial understanding of the word as a linguistic unit. This is important both for preparing for literacy and for learning the native language in primary school.

1.3. Development of coherent speech as a way to form communicative competencies in preschool age.

The objectives of the formation of communicative and speech competence are: 1. Increasing the general level of speech development, vocabulary, grammatical and phonetic aspects of speech (speech component). 2. Development of grammatical and linguistic knowledge and skills, determined by the program requirements for the training and education of preschool children. 3. Development and formation of a culture of communication and constructive interaction with adults (respectful attitude, use of polite words) and peers (cultural component).

4. Development of communicative motivation, communication abilities, desire for self-expression through speech and communication means.

Communicative speech competence begins to develop in a child in preschool age. This is facilitated by the pre-school preparation of children.

The development of communicative and speech competence is a leading component of preparing a child for school. Without a certain level of speech development, learning is not only difficult, but practically impossible. The development of a preschooler’s thinking is based on the formation of mental actions. Initially, mental operations take place in practical activities, in experimenting with objects. Gradually, developing coherent speech is included in thought processes. The child learns to reason, prove, substantiate his conclusions, that is, speech turns into a tool of intellectual activity, into a means of solving problems. Reasoning out loud helps a child develop voluntary attention. The better a child’s speech is developed, the higher the level of development of perception, the earlier voluntary attention is formed. The development of the sound side of speech is closely related to a child’s learning to read and write, the ability to recognize the place of sound in a word, to identify hissing, whistling, sonorant, hard and soft, vowel and consonant sounds. All these skills are necessary for a child to further learn to read. However, various speech disorders are common - in almost 60% of first-graders. As a rule, this is a violation of sound pronunciation, difficulties in sound-letter analysis, poor vocabulary, inability to conduct a dialogue and lack of coherent speech.

Classes in pre-school groups help children clarify concepts such as sound, syllable, word, sentence. It is from the correct understanding of these words that children move on to consciously composing coherent statements of various types - narration, description, reasoning. Most often, various communicative games are used to develop communicative and speech competence in children aged 5-6 years.

Play, during which the child learns about the world around him and masters new ways of thinking, helps create a holistic picture of the world. And first of all, this is facilitated by communicative play, since when communicating, children share new knowledge with each other. The creation of images and their playback are integral components of a collective game, which is used to train communication skills and can be carried out in pair (dialogue) or group (polylogue) form, followed by analysis of the speech actions of the game participants.

1.4. Features of the development of coherent speech in children of senior preschool age.

One of the main tasks of raising and teaching preschool children is the development of speech and verbal communication. Knowledge of your native language is not only the ability to construct a sentence correctly. The child must learn to tell: not just name an object, but also describe it, talk about some event, phenomenon, sequence of events. Such a story must consist of a number of sentences and characterize the essential aspects and properties of the object being described; the events must be consistent and logically connected with each other, that is, the child’s speech must be coherent.

Connected speech is the most complex form of speech activity. It has the character of a consistent, systematic, detailed presentation.

In the formation of coherent speech, the close connection between the speech and mental development of children, the development of their thinking, perception, and observation is clearly evident. In order to talk coherently about something, you need to clearly imagine the object of the story (object, event), be able to analyze, select the main (for a given communication situation) properties and qualities, establish cause-and-effect, temporal and other relationships between objects and phenomena. To achieve coherence in speech, it is also necessary to skillfully use intonation, logical (phrase) stress, select words suitable for expressing a given thought, be able to construct complex sentences, and use linguistic means to connect sentences.

In children with normal speech development in older preschool age, coherent speech reaches a fairly high level. This is very important for further successful schooling and for the comprehensive development of the child’s personality.

Connected speech is the most complex form of speech activity. It has the character of a consistent, systematic, detailed presentation. The main function of coherent speech is communicative. It is carried out in two main forms - dialogue and monologue.

Dialogue as a form of speech consists of replicas, a chain of speech reactions, it is carried out either in the form of alternating questions and answers, or in the form of a conversation (conversation) of two or more participants. The dialogue is based on the commonality of perception of the interlocutors, the commonality of the situation, and knowledge of what is being discussed.

Monologue speech is understood as the coherent speech of one person, the communicative purpose of which is to communicate some facts of reality. Monologue is the most complex form of speech, serving for the purposeful transmission of information. The main properties of monologue speech include: the one-sided nature of the statement, arbitrariness, conditionality of the content by focusing on the listener, limited use of non-verbal means of transmitting information, arbitrariness, comprehensiveness, and logical sequence of presentation. The peculiarity of this form of speech is that its content, as a rule, is predetermined and pre-planned.

The development of both forms (dialogue and monologue) of coherent speech plays a leading role in the process of a child’s speech development and occupies a central place in the overall system of work on speech development in kindergarten. Learning coherent speech can be considered both a goal and a means of practical language acquisition. Mastering different aspects of speech is a necessary condition for the development of coherent speech, and at the same time, the development of coherent speech contributes to the child’s independent use of individual words and syntactic structures.

In children of senior preschool age, the development of coherent speech reaches a fairly high level.

The development of children's ideas and the formation of general concepts is the basis for improving mental activity - the ability to generalize, draw conclusions, express judgments and conclusions. In dialogical speech, children use a fairly accurate, short or detailed answer in accordance with the question. To a certain extent, the ability to formulate questions, give appropriate remarks, correct and supplement a friend’s answer is demonstrated.

Under the influence of improving mental activity, changes occur in the content and form of children's speech. The ability to isolate the most essential in an object or phenomenon is demonstrated. Older preschoolers participate more actively in a conversation or conversation: they argue, reason, quite motivatedly defend their opinion, convince a friend. They are no longer limited to naming an object or phenomenon and incompletely conveying their qualities, but in most cases they isolate characteristic features and properties and provide a more detailed and fairly complete analysis of the object or phenomenon.

The ability to quite consistently and clearly compose descriptive and plot stories on the proposed topic appears. However, children, especially in the older group, still need a previous example of a teacher. The ability to convey in a story one’s emotional attitude towards the objects or phenomena described is not yet sufficiently developed.

In preschool age, speech is separated from direct practical experience. The main feature is the emergence of the planning function of speech. It takes the form of a monologue, contextual. Children master different types of coherent statements (description, narration, partly reasoning) with and without the support of visual material. The syntactic structure of stories becomes more complex, the number of complex and complex sentences increases.

Children five to six years old must master the basic types of monologue speech: story and retelling (in their elementary form). There is not only a commonality between them, typical of monologue speech, but also a significant difference.

Thus, the functions of the child’s speech activity develop from the sign (denoting, nominative) and communicative functions of communication to planning and regulating their actions. By the end of preschool age, the child masters the basic forms of oral speech characteristic of adults.

Up to 1 year

Young children are very serious about communication. Verbal interaction with mom becomes more harmonious. In fact, this takes up a significant amount of their resources. But for now this is quite uncontrollable communication

The child mirrors us. He tries to repeat sounds and facial expressions, he becomes more active when he sees attention paid to him

It is in the first year that attachment is formed - emotional communication in which the child receives satisfaction of his needs for care, attention, love, and security. Attachment is a necessary condition for the normal development of a child.

In the first year of life, a child’s communication is mainly situational and personal. That is, the specific interaction of a child with another person. And the most important thing in such communication for a child is emotions. Can an older child create those same positive emotions? If so, then such communication will be very cool both to develop the baby and to help children begin to build their relationships.

Congenital forms of the baby’s psyche and behavior

A baby who is only 1-2 days old is already able to distinguish chemical substances by taste. The sense of smell, one of the most ancient and important senses, begins to function immediately after birth. Elementary vision, movement and hearing have the same characteristics.

In the first two months of life, the baby exhibits the ability to reflexively turn its head to the corner of its mouth in response to touching an object, strongly squeezes its hands when touching their surface, and makes general uncoordinated movements of the arms, legs and head. He also has the ability to visually track moving objects by turning his head in their direction. In maternity hospitals, babies in the first days of life instinctively turn their faces towards the window through which daylight enters.

The baby is able to distinguish the substances that he tastes. He definitely prefers sweet liquids over others and is even able to detect the degree of sweetness. The newborn perceives odors, reacts to them by turning the head, changing the heart rate and breathing. These motor and physiological reactions are similar to those observed in adults with increased attention and special interest in something.

We must also name a group of processes that contribute to the self-preservation and development of the child’s body, and recognize them as innate. They are associated with the regulation of digestion, blood circulation, respiration, body temperature, metabolic processes, etc. Undoubtedly, sucking, protective, indicative, grasping, motor and other reflexes are innate, which are clearly expressed in the second month of life.

Not only the most important sense organs, but also the brain showed readiness to function from birth. The number of neurons in the cerebral cortex of a newborn is almost the same as in an adult, but these cells are immature, and the connections between them are weak. The maturation of the baby's brain and body and its transformation into an adult brain and body occurs within several years after birth and does not end until the child enters school. The maturation and development of the brain is directly influenced by various external influences and impressions that the child receives from the environment.

Studies have shown that in the brain of a child born within a day and a half, various electrical potentials can be recorded that arise in response to color stimuli on the organ of vision. At this moment, the brain is already able to form conditioned reflexes.

It is important for a baby to know not only the innate forms of the psyche and behavior, but also the process of natural development of the body. The development of movements in the first months of life is of particular importance.

The motor abilities of a baby from birth are organized quite complexly. It involves many mechanisms that regulate posture. A newborn often experiences increased motor activity of the limbs, which has a positive effect on the formation of complex, coordinated movements in the future.

The development of movement in a child in the first year of life occurs very quickly, and the progress made in this respect in twelve months is amazing. From a practically helpless creature with a limited set of elementary general congenital movements of the arms, legs and head, the child turns into a small person who can not only easily stand on two legs, but also move relatively freely and independently in space, and is capable of performing complex manipulative movements with his hands simultaneously with movements of the legs, is freed from locomotion (the function of ensuring movement in space) and is intended for exploring the surrounding world.

During infancy, children rapidly develop motor skills, especially complex, sensory-coordinated movements of the arms and legs. These movements subsequently play a very important role in the development of the child’s cognitive and intellectual abilities. It is through the movements of the arms and legs that the child receives a significant amount of information about the world; It is through the movements of the arms and legs that the eye learns to see like a human being. Complex hand movements are included in the primary forms of thinking and become its integral part, which ensures the improvement of human mental activity.

Features of contact with peers

The first feature of communication with peers is vivid emotions, different ways of expressing one’s feelings. In a conversation with adults, a child cannot freely make faces, scream, or squeal. Only with people of equal age can a child behave naturally.

The second feature is a change in the existing understanding of the norms of speech accepted in the adult world. Communication with adults involves the use of certain accepted speech patterns and established phrases. When talking with peers, a child can come up with a new word, combine sounds in a new way, imitate a peer and simply fool around. From the outside, it seems that all of the above does not carry an educational meaning and does not affect the speech development of children. But in fact, these activities provide scope for creativity, helping the child form his own speech, whereas this does not happen in conversations with adults.

The third feature of communication with peers is the child’s opportunity to show his own initiative. Communication with parents comes down to the fact that the baby mostly listens to the elders or gives answers to general questions. When communicating with peers, he strives to be the first to express what he thinks. However, his peers do the same thing; it turns out that children say what they want, vying with each other, without trying to listen to each other. When talking with adults, the child gives the initiative into the hands of adults, and he himself acts as a listener or gives answers to questions asked by an adult.

Functional richness is the fourth feature of such communication. The child receives new information from adults and solves the tasks assigned to him. When communicating with peers, the child solves completely different problems. He will have to find out with the children what or who to play with, compare himself with another child, show his imagination, express his opinion on a particular issue that arises during the game. All this presupposes the manifestation of feelings, moods, desires, and needs. Such communication will help the child find a common language with his partner, take his place in this world, and find a way out of any situation.

How do preschoolers communicate with others?

If we briefly consider how forms of communication progress in preschool age, then it is best to turn to the work of the famous psychologist M.I. Lisina, who identified four levels of communication from infancy to 7 years, designating them as a form:

• Situational-personal
• Situational business
• Extra-situational-cognitive
• Extra-situational-personal

The first ones in this list are formed earlier, based on specific actions, objects, and experiences. By older preschool age, they do not disappear, but partially give way to more developed forms that are not tied to the situation. These changes are facilitated by the development of children's speech and verbal-logical thinking.

The highest form of communication for preschool age is one that promotes understanding of the meaning of human relationships, as well as the assimilation of the norms and values ​​of society. Consequently, this is an extra-situational-personal form of communication.

Features of communication between an infant and adults

The first object that distinguishes a child from the surrounding reality is a human face. This may be due to the fact that it is the stimulus that most often accompanies the child at the most important moments of satisfying his organic needs. The baby's eyes, which first turn to the mother's face, and the smile on the mother's face serve as indicators of object attribution.

From the reaction of concentration on the mother's face, an important new formation of the newborn period arises - a complex of animation. An animation complex is an emotionally positive reaction accompanied by movements and sounds. Previously, the child's movements were chaotic and uncoordinated. The complex gives birth to coordination of movements. The animation complex is the first act of behavior, the act of identifying an adult. This is also the first act of communication. An animation complex is not just a reaction, it is an attempt to influence an adult.

The animation complex is the most important new development of the critical period. It marks the end of the neonatal period and the beginning of a new stage of development - infancy. Therefore, the appearance of the revival complex is a psychological criterion for the end of the neonatal crisis. The physiological criterion for the end of the neonatal period is the appearance of visual and auditory concentration, the possibility of forming conditioned reflexes to visual and auditory stimuli. The medical criterion for the end of the neonatal period is the achievement of the initial weight with which the child was born, which indicates the normal functioning of the physiological systems of life.

The social situation of the inextricable unity of a child and an adult contains a contradiction: the child needs the adult as much as possible and at the same time does not have specific means of influencing him. This contradiction is resolved throughout the entire period of infancy. The resolution of this contradiction leads to the destruction of the social development situation that gave rise to it.

The social situation of a child’s life together with his mother leads to the emergence of a new type of activity - direct emotional interaction between the child and mother. As studies by D.B. show Elkonin and M.I. Lisina, the peculiarity of this type of activity is that its subject is another person. But if the subject of the activity is another person, then this activity is communication. D.B. Elkonin emphasized that what is important is not what people do with each other, but that the other person becomes the subject of the activity. This type of communication is very strong in infancy. On the part of the adult, the child becomes the subject of activity. From the child's side, one can observe the emergence of the first forms of influence on an adult. Thus, the child’s vocal reactions very soon acquire the character of an emotionally active appeal; whining becomes a behavioral act directed at an adult. This is not yet speech in the proper sense of the word, as long as it is only emotionally expressed reactions.

Communication at this time should be emotionally positive. This leads to a positive emotional state in the child, which is a sign of physical and mental health.

Is communication the dominant activity in infancy? Research has shown that lack of communication during this period has a negative impact. Thus, after the Second World War, the term @hospitalism@ entered into psychology to describe the psychological development of children who lost their parents and ended up in hospitals or orphanages.

Most researchers (R. Spitz, J. Bowlby) note that the separation of a child from his mother in the first years of life causes significant disturbances in the mental development of the child and indelibly shapes his entire life. R. Spitz described numerous symptoms of behavioral disorders in children, as well as delayed mental and physical development in children growing up in orphanages. Although the care, food and hygienic conditions in these institutions were good, the mortality rate was very high.