Communication is one of mankind’s primary needs, representing a life-long process. It is divided into verbal and non-verbal communication, which are closely linked, following and complementing each other throughout a person’s development. This dissertation, titled ‘The Use of Communication Matrix in Pre-School Children Aged from 1 to 3’, consists of theoretical and empirical parts.
The theoretical part introduces themes such as speech, language, communication, Communication Matrix as well as describing the importance of a nursery teacher in the development of verbal and non-verbal communication in a pre-school stage.
The empirical part consists of research into the abilities of communication among pre-school children. These children - between one and three years old - are described in accordance with the Communication Matrix. The sample consisted of 25 pre-school children of normal development, which means that none of the children had special educational needs. Non-verbal communication occurs before verbal communication. This development depends on various factors. The accuracy of a child’s communication at a certain point was measured using the Communication Matrix. The Communication Matrix defines four main reasons for communication, indicating different behaviours, such as: how children decline things they do not want; how children acquire things they want; how they become involved in social interactions and how they offer and seek information.
We have found that most children have adopted appropriate communication behavior at the age of one to three years. We also found that girls on average achieve higher results in the area of communication than boys.
The ability to communicate was measured by nursery teachers. The results show that the majority of children achieve the appropriate level of communication. However, noticeable differences were shown between boys and girls.
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