Development of memory, attention, imagination and perception in a 2-5 year old child
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Perception in children from 2 to 5 years old is of an active-active nature. To perceive an object means for the child to perform some kind of practical action with him. Gradually, perception becomes an independent process. The child perceives above all bright and colorful, although, perhaps, it is not essential. For the development of perception, walks in the forest, in the field, viewing of paintings are useful.
Along with the development of perception, memory is perfected. The child is dominated by involuntary memorization and reproduction. However, gradually developing and arbitrary memory. This is facilitated by a significant expansion of the sphere of communication with adults. For a child to understand an adult, he has to memorize and reproduce a lot. In addition, the process of mastering speech makes serious demands on memory: it is necessary to remember not only the nature of pronunciation of words, but also their combination. Without this it is impossible to understand the speech of adults, listen to tales, stories and poems.
Play the child can for quite some time and carefully. He repeats many times the same thing and all with the same interest, ascent. As a result, he better remembers what he has heard. All of you have seen how a child "reads" a rather large volume of tales or poems!
Due to the intensive development of speech, verbal and logical memory also arises. Naturally, the child is easier to remember what is associated with his activities, and especially the game. If the need to memorize something follows from the instructions of an adult or is associated with a game, then remembering is easier. Studies have shown that children better remember something when they make it meaningful. But also the mechanical memorization takes a very large place in the formation of the child's memory.
The child at this age is the easiest to remember bright material. And the brighter it is, the longer it keeps in memory. The child hardly remembers similar objects or events. So, for example, when talking about a holiday, a child can combine memories of him with memories of another holiday. If the event is so full of action, characters and impressions, then the child may not even remember anything from what he saw. For example, a boy of three years after watching a circus performance, he could not recall anything from what he saw except the loud music. Thus he remembered only what he already knew from past experiences.
Children are very easily distracted. It is not always possible to concentrate them on something, for example, on reading a fairy tale. A child can listen carefully to a fairy tale, but when a new person enters the room (especially with a gift), he immediately becomes distracted and his attention is concentrated on the new object. But over time, the interests of the child begin to expand, he can already listen carefully to the fairy tale, or look at the toy, or follow the actions of the mother in the kitchen. Particularly strong influence on the change in the nature of attention (which gradually becomes arbitrary from the involuntary) is provided by labor activity. She teaches children to pay attention to the need to achieve one goal or another, to follow the directions of adults.
The basis for the development of the imagination is the accumulation of ideas, the expansion of experience. But since the experience of the baby is still a little, then his imagination is poor. Sometimes it is said that the child has a very rich imagination, because his fantasies are sometimes limitless. In fact, the imagination of the child is much "... Poorer, and weaker, and monotonous than that of an adult person ..." (K.D. Ushinsky). Just for the child there is nothing impossible! He does not understand that something in life can not happen (for example, a person can not fly like a bird), and because of a lack of knowledge he fantasizes "to the fullest."
It is because of the lack of knowledge that babies easily believe in Baba Yaga, Snake Gorynycha, Koshchey the Immortal and other fairy-tale characters. For them, there is no question - where did Santa Claus and Snow Maiden come from for the New Year - of course, from the forest. Therefore, the child from 3 to 5 years can still inspire any fiction and he will easily believe in it. "... For the child there is no impossible, because he does not know what is possible and what is not" (KD Ushinsky).
By the age of five, the imagination of children is becoming much more developed. If before the game, even role-playing, was of a relatively simple nature, now, before the game begins, the children plan it in their imagination. For example, if this trip to Africa, the children begin to stipulate all the nuances of the trip known to them: "You need an airplane, you need a pilot, you need a flight attendant, a hunter (of course, with a gun), you need a doctor, etc.". And by the time the game starts, all the roles have been distributed, the script of the game has been written, and then the game follows a pre-planned plan, although, of course, with some improvisations of the participants.
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