First three years are
vital in development of children. This period is the most sensitive for
psychological basis of a child and main traces of character are formed
at this age.
The period is subdivided into 2 periods:
- birth – one year old
- 1-3 years old
Psychology of the first year started to be studied seriously only in the second half of the 20th century.
Several
first weeks after the birth children do not see well yet. Their perception
of things around is only dim unclear objects but they recognize the voice
of mother and father from the beginning because they heard it before
their birth. From the first month the eyesight becomes better and better
and children already can see objects as they are.
Children spend a lot of time on hands and it helps them to learn the environment.
But during first months they sleep most of the time.
Active development starts when
they begin to crawl. Children touch different things that come to their
hands, learn about shape, colour. It is the time when they start to pronounce
different syllabus in the language of their own.
Push to more development is given when a child begins to walk at about 9-10 months.
First year
is very important because children get the first experience about the
world; they get vocabulary that remains passive on subconscious level.
Very important thing during second and third year is learning about every day objects and using them. It is impossible without the help of adults. Adults show objects to children, explain how to use them and they use them together.
Usually by the end of the third year a child knows how to use main everyday objects on practice.
Activity with objects is one of the main activities of this period because it is not only learning of practical skills but development of mind operations.
First of all
it is development of perception. Memory in this age is recognizing, that
is perception of familiar objects. Child is attentive only to things
that are in the area of his perception here and now. For example, if
you take away interesting object, a child will cry only as long as he
sees it. If you replace it from his view, he will stop crying and start
doing something else.
At the beginning of the period a child works mainly with shape and size of objects. He can differentiate colours but colour is not important characteristic feature of a thing yet. For example, blue fox will be fox for a child and he will not tell that something is wrong. Only by the end of period colour begins to play its role.
Relations
between objects play important role in the development too. Children
learn characteristics of objects and learn how they are connected with
each other according to their characteristics. They learn to group objects
to achieve different aims (for example, make toy pyramid). First of all
children try it practically, if something does not fit, they take another
object but little by little they start doing it in mind. By the end of
the period children are usually able to group things without preliminary
practical trying.
Thinking begins to develop at this age. At the beginning thinking is connected with definite situation and independent from adults, they own practical attempts to achieve the aim but later children begin to predict what can happen if they do this or that. What is important in discovery activity of children is not practical purpose but emotions involved: interest, curiosity, surprise, joy.
One of the vital things during this period is development of speech.
First children copy sounds
and syllables then active words begin to appear at the first half of
the second year of life. By the end of second year and beginning of the
third year children experience the burst of speech activity.
Learning to speak is impossible without adults. If adults speak a lot with children, demand them to obey different orders from early age, then in most cases children begin to speak early and their vocabulary is rich.
First speech is connected with definite situation or object and it is important because beginning to speak is impossible on abstract level. Children learn to speak naming objects or making different requests.
Important condition
of speech development is need to speak. If nobody is interested in child,
he does not have need to speak and his speech is very poor.
When children are about 3 years old, their speech becomes richer and more grammatically correct. They are able to learn simple poems and fairy tales and reproduce them.
By two years old children begin to have need in communication
with other children of their age or close to it. Playing with
others, children learn important skills of relations.
When children are three years old, specialists speak about crisis of 3 years. A child changes a lot, he becomes very stubborn, disobedient. The main phrase is “I”, “myself”. He wants to do everything his own way and himself.
The crisis happens because a child begins to differentiate himself in the world and think about his place. That is why the tendency to independence and disobedience takes place.