Literal period of child speech development

When a baby is born, it experiences what psychologists call the neonatal crisis. And in fact, in one instant all the usual conditions of its dwelling change: from a humid environment a child passes into an airy environment; changes are the power supply system, oxygen exchange. All this can not but cause severe stress, the consequences of which are overcome the first month of life. At this time, the interest of the newborn to the surrounding world is greatly weakened. How do the first signs of a linguistic personality begin to appear? How does the way of mastering the communication system begin?

Man is born with undoubted prerequisites for mastering speech: he has a hearing, he immediately shouts at birth - this is his first unconscious phonation; He has a number of instincts and unconditioned reflexes, allowing him to react to the world visually, tangibly, olfactory and taste. Congenital, for example, is the grasping reflex and the developing ability to fix the gaze on a particular subject. The face and the whole body of the child are adapted to express the first (still primitive) emotions, signaling his condition. Later, there will be a gesture of “reaching and possession”,

associated with the object that attracted his attention. This moment will become fundamental in the formation of gestures as a whole: the gesture of “reaching out” along with facial expressions and eye movements will subsequently shrink and turn into an indicating gesture that will last for a lifetime. The unconditional feeling reflex of a passing object will eventually turn into a descriptive gesture, as if repeating the contours of the object being represented (“round”, “square”, “large”, etc.). Throughout the first year of his life, the child diligently converts the inherited reflex-motor responses — the cry, the grasping reflex, the turning of the head, the direction of gaze, and so on — into sign (protoznachnye) means of communication. The transformation of the reflex into a sign can be traced to the example of infant screams.

A cry is an instinctive defensive reaction of a child to any discomfort he experiences: hunger, thirst, pain, wet diapers, etc. At first, the cry is not addressed to anyone. However, soon enough, at the reflex level, the infant establishes a connection between his own cry and the subsequent elimination of the inconveniences. The cry gets the addressee, it becomes discontinuous. The child will give a voice and wait: have you heard his call? And if during a pause nothing changes - no one comes to the crib, - the cry resumes, sometimes - with increased expression. So the cry takes on sign functions.

Another reflex reaction of a newborn is a smile. The biological meaning of a smile has not been clarified yet. A survey of many young mothers showed that a smile appears on the face of a baby in the first days of his stay in the world. However, like the cry, she initially has no addressee. At first, a smile is just a physiological manifestation of pleasure. But already after three weeks of the child’s life, she acquires the features of psychologically conditioned behavior: she becomes a kind of gesture addressed to an adult. Subsequently, she will enter a “revitalization complex” —a joyful reaction to the appearance in the field of view of an infant of any adult — and somewhere around the age of three months will acquire an instrumental function: it will be aimed at causing a response.

So, the physiological, genetically inherited reflex motor manifestations become the first protozodkami , together forming the fact that a well-known specialist

in the children's speech, E. I. Isenina calls the proto-language , i.e., the primary pre-verbal communication system. Note again that the proto-language has a non-verbal paralinguistic nature. It consists of gestures, facial movements, manipulations with objects, non-speech sounds, etc.

The basis of the proto-linguistic system are gestures (they are also called kinesacks). Psychologists distinguish between two types of kinoznak ", which are used by babies to transmit any desires.

1. Signs that were invented by the child in the process of communication. These are pictorial signs that do not have a socially fixed form (indication, repulsion, etc.).

2. Paralinguistic gestures that form part of the speech behavior inherent in this particular culture. These signs appear somewhat later and may differ from different nations. For example: among Russians, consent denotes a nod with the head, among Bulgarians and Turks, denial; Russians, helping themselves with the score, bend their fingers, starting with the little finger, Europeans and Americans - bend, starting with the thumb; and so on

Non-verbal proto-signs form the basis of the child's speech activity during the first two years of his life. With the emergence of a "normal" verbal language, they do not disappear at all, but go deep into the linguistic consciousness of a becoming personality. After going inside, proto-language forms the basis for the formation of a special language of intelligence, which, as we have said, N. I. Zhinkin called the universal objective code. Later this system will be improved along with the language, affecting the process of generating

In parallel with the formation and functioning of the proto-language, the voice development of the child occurs, which at first is carried out within the framework of the hereditary program.

Stages of voice development of the child .

The cry stage lasts the first two months of a person’s life. From a physiological point of view, an infant cry is a defensive reaction to any physical discomfort. It cannot be broken down into separate constituent components, it is possible to select certain sounds in it. In this case, the vocalizations of the newborn are infinitely variable: not a single child screams the same twice and no two children scream alike. The vocal cords do not participate in spawning

cry: the production of sound here is associated with the work of the breathing apparatus, primarily the diaphragm. When the diaphragm is working, the glottis is either wide open or spasmodically compressed. This creates the prerequisites for the appearance of sounds like vowels or consonants. However, the analysis of these sounds shows that they have nothing to do with vowels or consonants. They are just as structureless as the animal’s beeps.

The cry stage is essential for coordinating breathing and voice apparatus; she sets the stage for the subsequent development of voice intonation, for activating the articulatory apparatus.

Stage of walking and hukaniya (2-3 months. -4-5 months). Like shouting, gutturing and grunting are the essence of a hereditary voice development program: they do not imply “feedback” and are characteristic even of deaf-and-dumb children. Externally, the walking is a phonation of the sub-type, monotonous vocalization, resembling the cooing of a pigeon. Gukanie - these are short sound reactions, which are sound complexes of the type: agu, slaughter; Egn, Eqh, Ebm, etc. And the gut and grunting develop on the basis of genetic prerequisites that are associated with reflexes of breathing, sucking, swallowing.

The main function of walking (gukanya) is the expression of positive emotions. Gulit and gurgling child when he is experiencing a comfortable state. In the child's speech development, the walking (and gutting) performs the role of training (warming up) the vocal apparatus, which is necessary for the subsequent speech activity.

In parallel with the hulling and shaking during this period of vocal development, a cry continues to function, which is transformed into crying and crying. Crying becomes a means of expressing negative emotions. Vskriki realized in situations of unexpected negative contact with the outside world: fear, unexpected pain, etc.

The stage of babble (4-5 - 19-20 months). Babble is a syllable phonation, where double syllables like “yes-yes”, “ma-ma”, “ba-ba”, etc., are most often produced. At the early stage of babbling development, the child utters sounds that exist in many different languages, and even sounds that are not characteristic of human speech: clicking, gurgling, snorting, bird chirp, etc.

Voice evolution in the looping period is subject to the action of the imitative reflex. This is its fundamental difference from the cooling: now, in addition to the “warm-up” of the musculature of the speech apparatus, the auditory analyzer also begins to work. The most important role here belongs to the mechanism, called echolalia, the unconscious imitation of the sounds of a child's speech. At the same time, in their vocalizations, the child first “imitates” himself. This phenomenon is called autoechohalia . The mechanism of autocholarity and echolalia is implemented at the syllable level: the baby repeats not sounds and words, but syllable formations. On its basis, well-known words appear in the child's vocalizations: dad, mom, nanny, uncle, aunt, etc. The child himself does not put any sense into these pseudowords. Adults borrowed these sound shells to refer to relatives for the baby. There are similar lexemes in different languages, but they may differ in meaning. So, in Georgian, Dada is the father, Nana is the mother, and so on.

The “work” of the echolalia mechanism proceeds in accordance with the general imitative reflex: outsiders, alien to this speech medium, are cut off, while their own vocalizations are “tuned” to audible speech. By six-seven months, the phonetic features of the language are well represented, which is spoken by adults around a child, as evidenced by the experiments of American scientists who recorded babble of babies: Americans and Chinese on the tape. The recording was proposed for listening by American and Chinese Dent, who unmistakably learned vocalizations of their tribesmen.

In the development of babble, auditory and motor speech analyzers work in conjunction. The most important role is acquired by the ear, which allows the child to perceive the sounding speech of others and to compare (at an unconscious level) with her own sound pronunciation. It is very important that parents pay attention to the state of the organs not only of speech, but also of hearing during this period of the life of their child. Deficiencies in hearing (for example, sulfur plugs in the ears) can cause irreversible or difficult to repair defects in speech development.