A child is born helpless, but with a huge potential of development, which appears more intensively in babyhood and infancy. Every day of his life is important to appear something new in a child’s behavior, and losses in development are irretrievable. A newborn develops quickly. While analyzing psycho development of a newborn every day is taken into consideration. For example (Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale, (NBAS), composed by T. Berry Brazelton studies newborn’s reflexes, the scale helps to control changes in his conditions and determine peculiarities of his reactions to physical and social motivations.
A fact of “hospitalism syndrome” is known when to some reasons a child was in an environment in which there was no communication with adults. The care was taken formally, there was poor communication and did not enrich a child’s sensor experience. More often such situation happens with newborns left in public institutions and maternity hospitals.
Sensor experience supposes not excessive stimulation of child’s sensory organs, but the ability of an adult to show love and attention to a child. An adult should not forget that a baby see the world for the first time ad everything is interesting to him. It is important that an adult accompanies his every action with words: “This ia a ball. It is round. It is nice and red. It can bowl.” The more often an adult communicates with a child, the more intensive a child develops. The communication should be of personal orientated, contextual character and accompany all actions of a child. That’s why it is called contextual-practical communication (according to M.I. Lisina Lisina M.I. Problems of communication ontogeny. – M.: Pedagogy 1986. – 144 с.) And it is also so important to develop manual abilities. Even in babyhood thanks to inborn reflexes a child clenched his fists when an adult put into his hand a finger. Then in infancy a child studies any subject in his hands. Under sensor experience we understand a total of perception actions for the reception of subject’s features. The perception of the environment comes with the help of a child’s sensory organs and is accompanied with words. It seems that sensor experience is accumulated spontaneously , without organized study, but it is not so. If the process of perception comes spontaneously than a child may not pay attention to this or that object. Perception is a result of sensor experience. Physiologically perceptions are formed thanks to memory, thinking and speech. After an action of a specific stimulus upon a child’s sensory organs, fixated in the act of perception, nervous connections are left in cortex, which are activated in verbal mention. Such connections are unsteady with children and can be easily destroyedб that’s why it is necessary to have certain development of memory and thinking for more steady perception fixation. In the situations of a child’s sensor deprivation such development is slow. At the same time excessive stimulation and early teaching of children is also harmful to mind. When a child has no sensor experience due to his age abilities, intellectual operations are not developed (synthesis, classification) and mnemonical memory mechanism are not enough mastered (association remembering), children can be put in a situation of frustration. A requirement to think about unknown problems and remember information patently not mastered through sensor experience, brings a child’s mind to frustration. That’s why a child’ teaching should have situational character, so that the information is presented to child in that amount that is necessary to him at the moment and through sensor perception.
The most appropriate educational activity for a child is graphics. The value is that working with graphic materials we get natural enrichment of sensor experience. Working with a marker, a pencil or a wax pencil an infant develops fine motor skills, a hand becomes stronger. Manual abilities come as a result of fine motor skills development. And what a child cannot yet depict, he describes with words. In graphic activity right hemisphere is developing, which responds for creative thinking, intuition.
The research is carried out with financial support from RHSF as part of science-research project of RHSF “Formation of the beginning of graphics literacy with infants (from 1 to 3 years old)”, project № 07-06-00652а.
The work was submitted to the international scientific conference “The Problems of International Integration of Educational Standards”, England (London) – France (Paris), 23 April - 1 May, 2010. Came to editorial hand on 27.03.2010.