Children's speech as an object of study and education

In the works of Comenius, Pestalozzi, Rousseau, Lomonosov, Radishchev, Odoevsky, Ushinsky and others, there is, to varying degrees, information about the role of speech in the development of a child, the sequence of formation of children's speech, oral and written speech, perceived and audible speech, and mandatory prerequisites speech formation (mental and physiological components), about the constituent components of spoken speech (sound, word, phrase, voice, expressiveness, gestures, facial expressions, tempo) and written speech (reading, writing).

It is characteristic that humanist educators considered the child’s speech as an obligatory part of the child’s overall development and as a means of his upbringing.

Comenius and Rousseau considered the child’s ability to speak well to be an obligatory component of the child’s general upbringing. According to Comenius, we all learn in childhood to “know, act, speak.” Therefore, the main tasks of raising a child are:

1) to his knowledge of nature and social relations;

2) to the ability to act;

3) to the ability to speak.

Among the elements of knowledge that a child must master in early childhood, knowledge of his native language thus occupies one of the important places.

As an integral part of the general upbringing of a child, the development of his speech is closely related to the development of his cognitive and mental abilities. The development of a child’s speech and mental abilities are inseparable. Moreover, speech significantly contributes to the development of the child’s mental abilities. “From that time,” wrote Radishchev, “as the child begins to speak, the disintegration of his mental powers becomes more and more noticeable.” He saw a particularly close connection in the development of a child’s speech with the development of his thinking and memory. According to Odoevsky, a child’s mental development begins when he comes into contact with the world around him and becomes acquainted with it through personal experience. The initial knowledge obtained in this way is supplemented and expanded through speech, namely conversations with children.

The importance of language as a source of knowledge is limitless. “Speech is intended for learning,” wrote Comenius. Considering language to be the most important means of cognition, Pestalozzi classified it as an “auxiliary force of human nature,” intended to help the child fruitfully assimilate knowledge acquired through sensory perception. Therefore, he saw the main goal and importance of language in leading the child from vague sensory perceptions to clear concepts.

At the same time, Pestalozzi noted that “language gives a child in a short moment what a person has received from nature over thousands of years.” This idea was later beautifully developed by Ushinsky. Seeing a close connection between a language and the people who speak it, Ushinsky found that each new generation, mastering its native language without much difficulty, “at the same time assimilates the fruits of the thoughts and feelings of a thousand previous generations.” Therefore, a child, mastering his native language, learns not only conventional sounds, but “drinks spiritual life and strength from the native breast of his native word.” At the same time, the child learns not only words, their additions and modifications, but an infinite variety of thoughts, feelings, artistic images, logic and philosophy of language.

And he does it easily and quickly. In this regard, he does so much that he could not even do half of it in 20 years of diligent and methodical study.

Assessing the role of language in the development of children’s cognitive and mental abilities, Ushinsky rightly calls him in this regard “a great national educator,” “mentor and teacher.”

What has been said above about the meaning of language, about its role in the overall development of a child already presupposes the conclusion about what irreparable harm imperfections, shortcomings, and speech disorders can have for a developing person. We do not find direct indications of this in the works of encyclopedist educators, but it is quite legitimate to assume such a conclusion.

A characteristic feature of children with developmental disabilities is their lack of knowledge and ideas about the surrounding reality. It is known that in the development of the psyche an important role is played by the relationship between action and speech. Although effective analysis and synthesis precedes the development of the verbal method of cognition, the participation of speech is necessary in the formation of correct and meaningful ideas.

Designating an object or phenomenon with a word helps both to identify each of them and to combine them. In the process of a child’s active interaction with the world around him, children form complex associations from which ideas develop. In children with motor disorders, the formation of complex associations is difficult, so their ideas about the environment are not only limited, but sometimes erroneous.

Defects in the development of speech lead to difficulties in the formation of comparison operations and differentiated perception of objects. Therefore, children with speech underdevelopment usually have mental retardation.

The development of sensorimotor functions and preverbal communication in the first year of life is the basis for the formation of speech and thinking. Between the ages of one and three years, speech begins to occupy a central place in the child’s mental development.

By the age of 3, the child communicates with others in detailed phrases. His active vocabulary increases spasmodically. There is pronounced speech activity, the child constantly comments with speech on his play actions, and begins to ask questions to adults.

The development of speech at this age stage rearranges all the mental processes of the child. It is speech that becomes the leading means of communication and development of thinking. By the age of 3, the child begins to talk about himself in the first person, he develops a sense of “I”, that is, the ability to distinguish himself from the world around him.

During this period, the child has a pronounced desire for independence. Attempts by his parents to treat him like a child evoke a feeling of protest in him. If parents persistently suppress the child’s independence, he develops stubbornness and a desire to do everything the other way around, which later becomes the rule.

If a child aged 2.5–3 years does not begin to speak simple two-word phrases, he should definitely consult a doctor (child neurologist or psychiatrist) and a speech therapist.

Features of developmental disorders in young children

Disorders of mental development in a child aged from one to 3 years are very diverse depending on the causes and nature of the lesion/central nervous system. At the same time, many forms of intellectual, sensory, and motor disorders manifest themselves in the form of delays in speech development.

Diagnosis of speech development disorders at this age stage is very difficult, since individual periods of initial speech development vary widely. It should also be taken into account that any adverse effect on the child’s body during a period sensitive to the formation of speech leads to speech underdevelopment. Therefore, any child with a speech delay requires a comprehensive clinical, psychological and speech therapy examination, as well as an assessment of the state of hearing.

A delay in speech development at this age stage may be reversible, functional-dynamic in nature. It should be distinguished from systemic persistent speech disorders in children with organic damage to the central nervous system, including mild brain dysfunction. In addition, a delay in speech development can be one of the initial manifestations of various neuropsychiatric diseases.

In some cases, at this age stage, on the contrary, excessively intense and uneven development of speech may be observed, which, in the presence of accompanying unfavorable factors, can be the cause of evolutionary age-related stuttering.

In addition, children with mild brain dysfunction often exhibit various disorders of psychomotor development in combination with hyperactivity syndrome.

It is especially important to pay attention on the presence of regressive psychomotor and speech disorders, which can be observed in various hereditary syndromic forms of neuropsychiatric diseases. They are characteristic primarily of early childhood autism syndrome. It is at this age stage that the main manifestations of this syndrome become more distinct: the child’s isolation from the outside world, weak emotional response towards loved ones, monotonous, stereotypical behavior, intolerance of eye contact, peculiar speech disorders, playing with non-game objects, fears, etc. . P.

At the same stage, the “happy doll” syndrome, a rare disease first described in 1965, more clearly manifests itself. With this syndrome, children are lagging behind in mental development from birth. At the end of the 1st and beginning of the 2nd year of life, they develop epileptiform seizures and there are attacks of laughter and motor disturbances, reminiscent of clockwork movements.

Mental development of children in conditions of bilingualism

2.1 Bilingualism and mental development of the child: myths and reality

In this section, we will consider the most common myths about the characteristics of a child’s mental development in conditions of bilingualism, as well as the degree to which they correspond to reality.

Myth No. 1. Learning two languages ​​is harmful for a child, because it only reduces the child’s intelligence. He will stop receiving new, general knowledge, and will only focus on speech perception. This myth arose based on research conducted in the USA about 40 years ago. True, they were not fully planned, which led to a distortion of the results. During this time, new research has appeared under the supervision of the best specialists and teachers. It has been proven that bilingualism in children does not lead to a decrease in intelligence at all. The results even showed that such students, on the contrary, have higher mental performance. Bilingual children have better developed thinking and memory, and they understand mathematics better. Research has shown that the initial results were obtained at a time of mass migration into the country. At that time, the intellectual abilities of bilingual children really suffered. But this was not based on learning a second language, but on the difficult life situation around them, frequent stress common to immigrant families, and difficult living and social conditions. At that time, the children tested did not know the second language well at all, experiencing difficulties with communication. It was impossible to classify them as bilingual at all.

Myth No. 2. The child will begin to get confused in languages. Many parents notice that children growing up in a bilingual environment can use words from different languages ​​in the same phrase in the initial stages of communication. This is understandable, because certain words have an easier pronunciation or are simply shorter than their counterparts from another language. This reaction is quite normal for a child; it is as if he is protecting himself from the mental flow. However, this phenomenon is only temporary, passing with age. Naturally, this will only happen when learning languages ​​from birth. In addition, some words, say, have no Russian analogues in English. In this case, the confusion of languages ​​is understandable and justified.

Myth No. 3. A bilingual child will definitely have speech therapy problems. Under no circumstances should concepts be substituted. Problems with a child's diction have nothing to do with his bilingualism. This is a consequence of stress, a difficult situation in the family, when the child is forced to speak a different language. The careless introduction of the student into a new language environment may also be to blame. In this case, parents should be as prudent as possible, taking correct and verified actions step by step. After all, the baby must avoid stress, pressure and anxiety. Recent studies have shown that the difference in the pronunciation of sounds, on the contrary, has a positive effect on the development of the child’s speech apparatus. As a result, his speech in both languages ​​becomes clearer and his diction more pronounced.

Myth No. 4. You should start learning a second language only when the child already speaks his native language well. This is a fairly common misconception. If a child, from birth, in an atmosphere of warmth, love and responsiveness, learns not two, but three languages ​​at once, then parents will get good results from such training. And if you force a child to speak one language or another, this will lead to stress, and subsequently to a number of speech therapy disorders. His sudden immersion from his native monolingual environment into a different language community will also have an adverse effect on the child’s psyche. With children, it is necessary to comprehend everything new gradually, avoiding sudden steps, like “throwing a puppy into the water.” We must remember the principle of introducing complementary foods during breastfeeding. At first the baby received food in drops, then in small spoons. The same principle should be applied in this case.

Myth No. 5. If a child speaks two languages, he will not feel comfortable in either of the two language spaces. The student will simply get lost between two cultures, unable to determine his place. Such myths are cultivated by those who experienced similar problems when they found themselves in a different language environment in adulthood. People live and communicate in a language foreign to themselves, experiencing problems with social adaptation. But among children who grew up in a bilingual environment from an early age (from birth to 11 years), there are simply no such problems. Children easily identify themselves with two linguistic cultures and environments at the same time. After all, a new generation is born, global. But this happens under the condition that linguistic cultures are not initially hostile to each other. But this is a question of a different nature.

Myth No. 6. A bilingual child constantly translates words from the language he knows worse to the one he knows better. Only those who speak only one language have this opinion. The fact is that all bilinguals can think in two languages, regardless of the environment or speech situation. If the matter concerns an English-speaking person, or a situation or event occurred in an English-speaking environment, then to understand this, the bilingual mentally resorts to the English language.

Myth No. 7. Real bilingualism can be considered a state of affairs when words from one language are not mixed with another. If this were to happen, then there would be no talk of any linguistic diversity in the world. After all, languages ​​constantly penetrate each other, as a result of which the vocabulary is constantly enriched with new elements. Even the most inveterate monolinguals do not suspect that in their speech every day they use some words borrowed from other languages. Many of our “original Russian” words actually once came from other peoples. For example, the familiar “pencil” and “barn” are actually of Turkic origin. But if a child, from an early age, is in a difficult situation among languages ​​alien to him, and even without systematic education, then the speech development of a growing person occurs spontaneously in a society like him. In this case, a person runs the risk of not learning any language properly at all. Unfortunately, history knows many similar examples.

Myth No. 8. Bilingualism is a fashionable entertainment exclusively for wealthy people. This myth exists among most people who speak one language. In fact, this picture of the world is incorrect. After all, peoples are constantly migrating, and the general linguistic situation in the world today is such that learning several languages ​​is often a normal and even necessary means of existence. In this case, financial status often does not play any role.

Myth No. 9. Knowing two languages ​​will inevitably lead to a split personality. This opinion is controversial. All of us, including monolinguists, to some extent have speech, and sometimes even personality, duality. One can take, for example, the fact that monolinguists at home and at work communicate in two completely different varieties of the same language. It turns out that a person identifies himself as a person differently in a particular environment. However, this behavior is normal; there is no need to talk about such a complex mental illness as split personality.

Myth No. 10. To properly raise a bilingual child, you must follow certain rules exactly. It is usually said that the use of a second language should be completely prohibited at home. After all, it is intended exclusively for a different language environment. Another technique involves the mandatory use of two languages ​​at home, even if the parents are not native speakers. As a result, many rules have been created; they adapt to a specific life situation. But you cannot follow strict canons; any rule can be broken if necessary. It is better for a child to grow up in a friendly atmosphere, spontaneously switching from one language to another, than to follow the rules read somewhere by parents under duress and pressure. No one is saying that general patterns should be discarded altogether. They just should not be indulged so zealously as to disturb the psychological peace of the child and the whole family.

Myth No. 11. You can start learning a second language at the age of three or six. There is no difference, because by the age of 14 the level of language proficiency will be the same. In fact, this is a first, superficial glance. Practice shows that the earlier a child begins to learn a language, the larger his vocabulary will be. Speech in this case will be distinguished by confidence and a wider range of concepts used.

Myth No. 12. After being in a monolingual environment for three years, a child will never be able to become bilingual. Recent research suggests that children who are bilingual are exposed to a bilingual environment between the ages of birth and 11 years. But this indicator is also very individual. The circumstances of each student’s life must be taken into account. In addition, if a language, even a native one, is not supported at all, if there is no practice, then it will gradually degrade and die out. As a result, any bilingual has every chance of transforming into a monolingual.

Myth No. 13. Bilingualism is just a pleasant exception, but monolinguals are the rule. There has never been an exact count of the number of bilinguals in the world. It is absolutely clear that this is a rather complicated procedure from a practical point of view, and most likely it will never be carried out. But it is reasonable to assume that more than half of the world's population is bilingual. Most of those reading this text live in a country where monolingualism is the rule. But this sample of the world is highly unrepresentative. There are many places on the planet where people are forced to speak several languages; in the case of national minorities, the native language simply does not coincide with the state language.

Myth No. 14. Bilinguals make good translators. The profession of a translator is not as simple as it seems. It is not enough to know languages ​​perfectly; you also need to have some other qualities. Therefore, one should not automatically classify a bilingual person as an excellent translator. Their translations are often angular and suffer from inaccuracies. Processing a literary text is quite complex, because it contains various syntactic structures and stylistic coloring, and there are nuances in the translation of political speeches and negotiations. After all, there is a lot of attention paid to halftones and hints, and not every bilingual can realize this. But the profession of a guide-translator is much easier for such people. In general, everything depends on the individual characteristics of a person, the development of his speech and education.

You should not think that it is enough just to speak two languages ​​to your child from birth - and he will master them perfectly.

Alas, in a situation of bilingualism, the automatic development of a second language does not occur. Parents will have to make a lot of effort and take into account some important circumstances in order for their child to begin to speak two languages ​​fluently.

The fact is that the human brain, having enormous potential, strives in every possible way to “save” its efforts. In this situation, this manifests itself in the desire for monolingualism: the brain seems to be constantly looking for a “loophole” in order to build only one language system, the most necessary for communication.

Therefore, simply being a child in a bilingual environment does not at all guarantee mastery of a second language: it can remain only a background sound for the child.

In addition, you should not expect that when changing the language environment (for example, when moving to another country where everyone communicates in a foreign language) the child will retain his native language without much effort.

A language that ceases to be necessary for communication is forgotten completely or partially, even if it was developed at a fairly high level. Thus, only the preservation over a long period of time of both language environments that are important for the child leads to bilingualism.

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CHAPTER 3. Speech development at an early age

The role of speech in child development

Mastery of speech, which occurs at an early age, produces a whole revolution in the mental life of a child. Speech rearranges all mental processes: perception, thinking, memory, feelings, desires, etc. Mastering speech allows a child to control himself and his behavior, think and fantasize, build an imaginary situation and be aware of his actions. Speech has such a magical effect due to the fact that it frees the child from situational confinement and allows him to build his own inner world. Unlike any other signal or any vocalization, a word is a sign that always carries a universal human meaning, including not just a specific object, but a thought, an image of a concept. By mastering language, a child masters a sign system, which becomes a powerful tool for thinking, self-control and, of course, communication.

The child masters speech in communication with adults. The primary function of speech is communicative. Speech is, first of all, a means of communication, a means of expression and understanding. Communication, based on the transmission of thoughts and experiences, certainly requires an adequate system of means, which is speech. To convey some content to another, there is no other way than attributing this content to a class or group of phenomena known to both. And this presupposes not just speaking, but necessarily generalization. Thus, it turns out that communication necessarily involves generalization and development of verbal meaning.

The development of speech is inextricably linked with the development of a child’s thinking. In the first year of life, thinking and speech develop independently of each other - thinking exists in the form of manipulations with objects and objective actions, and speech - in the form of babbling speech, emotional exclamations, and directed gestures. But at an early age (about two years), the lines of development of thinking and speech, which until now had been separate, intersect and coincide. According to L.S. Vygotsky, there is a meeting of thinking and speech, which gives rise to a completely new form of mental life, so characteristic of humans. Vygotsky considered the meaning of the word “not only as the unity of thinking and speech, but also as the unity of communication and generalization, communication and thinking.” Growing out of communication and becoming a means of thinking, speech opens the way to a completely new form of human life - verbal, speech thinking, which is the most specific for a person and the possibilities of which are limitless.

CHAPTER 1. Subject activity of a young child

CHAPTER 2. Development of cognitive processes at an early age

Introduction

child speech mental

The professional purpose of speech therapy work is never limited to eliminating speech deficiencies (impairments); The main task of speech therapy practice is the formation of linguistic (speech) ability - the ability to carry out speech activity.

The formation of speech (as an active, purposeful, conscious speech-thinking activity) is the main subject of the professional activity of a speech therapist. Working professionally on the formation of the language ability of each pupil, the speech therapist significantly expands the scope of speech therapy influence, in practice implementing an integrated approach to speech formation.

One of the most important principles of speech therapy work, formulated by R.E. Levina, is the ontogenetic principle - the principle of relying on the development of speech in ontogenesis.

The features of speech formation in ontogenesis have been studied by many researchers - psychologists, linguists, teachers, defectologists, physiologists, and representatives of other sciences, within which speech activity is studied from various positions. Among the works of domestic scientists, one should first of all mention the studies of L.S. Vygotsky, D.B. Elkonina, S.L. Rubinshteina, F.A. Sokhina, G.L. Rosengard-Pupko, P.M. Boskis et al. In the studies of specialists in the linguistics of children's speech, the main sequence of its formation has been determined: from the babbling stage to seven to nine years (A.N. Gvozdev, N.I. Lepskaya, S.N. Tseitlin, A.M. Shakhnarovich) .

The purpose of this work: to study the stages of formation of speech activity in ontogenesis.

To achieve this goal, the following tasks have been set:

Determine the role of speech function in the mental development of the child;

Describe the main stages of normal speech development of a child.

The role of speech function in the mental development of a child

Ontogenesis is the process of individual development throughout a person’s life path. In a narrow sense, ontogenesis is understood as a period of intensive mental development of a child.

The development of children's speech is also subject to certain patterns that must be taken into account when communicating with children, and especially when correcting their “speech errors.” It is known that children do not immediately or suddenly master correct speech, that some phenomena of the native language (types of sentences, length of words, speech sounds, etc.) are acquired by the child earlier, others much later. The natural sequence of acquisition of linguistic elements is directed by various factors. The simpler a word is in sound and structure, the faster and easier it is remembered by children.

The emergence of the gift of speech is preceded by the formation of a certain level of auditory and visual attention, memory, and the accumulation of a passive vocabulary. In the early stages of speech development, the child’s desire to imitate words is of great importance. In addition to the mechanism of imitation, imitation or reproduction by children of the words of others, there is the action of a hidden, unusually complex system of functional nervous connections that ensure the implementation of speech.

The speech function plays an important role in the mental development of the child, during which the development of cognitive activity and the ability to conceptual thinking occurs. Full speech communication is a necessary condition for the implementation of normal social human contacts, and this, in turn, expands the child’s understanding of the life around him. A child’s mastery of speech to a certain extent regulates his behavior and helps to plan adequate participation in various forms of collective activities. Therefore, pronounced deviations in the child’s speech development have the most negative consequences:

The child’s mental development lags behind;

The formation of higher levels of cognitive activity slows down;

Violations of the emotional-volitional sphere appear, which leads to the formation of special personal qualities (withdrawal, emotional instability, feelings of inferiority, indecisiveness, etc.);

Difficulties arise in mastering writing and reading, which reduces the child’s academic performance and often leads to repetition.

Table 1 provides a comparative description of the main stages of speech development in children with normal speech ontogenesis and in cases of dysontogenesis (A.N. Gvozdev, R.E. Levina), as well as their comparison with the periodization of speech development in children accepted in linguistics.

Table 1 - Main stages of development of children's speech in normal conditions and with dysontogenesis

Periodization of speech development	Normal speech ontogenesis	Speech dysontogenesis
S.N. Tseytlin	A.N. Gvozdev	R.E. Levina
I. Pre-speech stage	Pre-verbal stage (up to the first words independently produced by the child)	Regular observations began after one year	Information about early speech development is fragmentary and unsystematic.
II. Stage of primary language acquisition	Stage of one-word utterances (before the first two-component utterances)	One word sentence. 1 year 3 months - 1 year 8 months	I. First level of speech development (abnormal): there is a lack of commonly used means of communication at 5-6 years old
Stage of initial two-component utterances (up to the first three-component ones)	A sentence of two root words. 1 year 8 months	II. The second level of speech development: the beginnings of phrasal speech
III. The stage of mastering basic grammatical rules in the language system of the native language	Stage of elementary complex sentences. The period of early speech development is over: 3 years	Mastering the grammatical structure of sentences 1 year 10 months - 3 years. The sound side of speech has been mastered	III. The third level of speech development: everyday phrasal speech with problems of lexical, grammatical and phonetic structure
IV. Stage of assimilation of morphological phonetic norms and development of coherent speech	The transitional stage from knowledge of the language system to knowledge of the norm, children's innovations	Child's acquisition of the morphological system of language. 3 years - 6 years

In the next chapter we will dwell on the main stages of the development of children's speech.