18.10.2018MANIFESTATION OF COMPUTER SYNDROME DURING PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SPEECH DEVELOPMENTAL DELAY
Siranush Antonyan
PhD, psychologist of Republican Pedagogical-Psychological Center
Personal development is largely determined by the economic, social and technical changes and developments of that period. Particularly, at the end of the 20th century, technical innovations, computers and the Internet, as well as many positive changes, have made life easier and have sown various unwanted phenomena: today, man in the world is considered as a tecnical-based creature and is in the center of technical changes and developments. It is important to emphasize the founder of the historical-cultural theory L. S. Vigotsky's idea that personality is a consequence of mastering historical and cultural values and the social environment is the main source of personal development [1]. In this sense, 21st century is computer era, in this century should be expected to have a great impact of computer activity on the person's life and mental development.
Today, as an activity, especially in the child's life, a special place is occupied by computer activities. According to A.N. Leontiev's activity and S.L. Rubinstein's subjective approach, activity, determines the person's development. According to A.N. Leontiev's observation "..the person in no way precedes the activity, as is his consciousness, he is born of the activity"[2, с. 173]. S. L. Rubinstein notes: "The subject is not only discovered and manifested in his deeds, but also forms them and becomes definite. For that reason, the person can be defined and formed by the direction of his activity. "[3, p. 438]. In the context of psychological development, it is especially important to investigate the impact of computer activity in the process of personal and mental development of children up to age 6, as various social and psychological impacts in the early stages of personal development are crucial for future activities. And the development of the child's speech, the self-consciousness, the formation of social "I", the development of communication skills, etc. are taking place in this period. In addition, L.S. Vigotsky, M. Montesori [5], N. S Leitz [6] and others under the age of six emphasize the importance of the "sensitive areas"1 for the development of speech, mental processes, and behavioral patterns. Computer addiction and abuse, therefore, will have logically their unique effect on sensitive areas of mental processes.
Particular attention should be paid to the impact of computer activity on sensitive speech development (0-6 years of age, particularly, age 1.5 is an important period for speech development [7]), since the first important achievement, age neoplasm2 of a child in pre-school age is speach and it is viewed as a pillar of personal and mental developments.
The development of speech also coincides the development of other mental processes, and in spite of speech delay, the child's mental development is often delayed. It is a necessary ingredient of communication and is formed during communication. According to M. Yu. Koolagina, in the case if the contact need is not satisfied or is not fully satisfied at the age of 1, the mental development of the child is falling, and the speech of such children appears too late [7, p. 30-31]: "... Full contact with an adult in the first year is vitally important for a child" [7, p. 31]. Hence, computer dependence and abuse, lack of live communication, and lack of dialogue can have a negative impact on the psychological and speech development. If adults overlook or do not pay sufficient attention to the child's sensitive stage of speech development, it can be formed later, contributing to the delay in mental processes.
Based on theoretical analyzes, the goal was to study the role of computer activity in children with psychological and speech developmental delay.
For the research there were selected 4 year old 11 children with a diagnosis of "psychological and speech developmental delay" whose anemnestic data allowed to conclude that they don’t have disfunctions in CNS, brain developmental deviations, and other biological causes. Additionally, with the parents of these children, a child-related post-retirement questionnaire was implemented for the study of the stages of speech development, the duration of computer activity of the child during the speech formation, and the study of various manifestations of the child in the socialization institutes. Parents emphasized the abuse and dependence of the child's computer activity during the sensitive stage of speech development (up to the age of 1.5-2), as well as the difficulties of communicating with the family, the scattering, the stubbornness.
One of the manifestations of computer dependence has a computer activity while dining. It was interesting to note that they were learning about children's cognitive knowledge, ability to count in foreign languages, knowledge of animals, fruits, rhythms, and songs, although their native language was not clearly formulated in these children. The parent's most common expression was: "He or she does not speak well, but he or she can count, he or she is good in Russian, English, " and other similar comments.
During the survey, a systematic integrated observation3 was launched, as well as a natural and laboratory experiment4 was used. The monitoring was conducted according to the psychological development criteria of a child aged 3-4. The purpose of the monitoring and experiment was to identify the computer activity in the context of the child's psychological and speech development. During the natural experiment, the child's peculiarities were observed at home, outside, during playing, and other natural environments. The laboratory experiment was carried out in a purposeful and specially equipped game room. During the research, the following symptoms of childhood malnutrition and dependence were detected in children with psychological and speech developmental delay.
1. A combination of limited vocabulary with a mechanical, template word, accompanied by echolalias and a foreign language vocabulary and monologue.
According to J. Peugee, manifestation of echolalias is normal for the child's speech development stages, characteristic of early speech development [8, p. 18-19]: "From the point of view of a social imitation, it is a confusion between "I"and"non-I"... [8, p. 19] and often comes in the form of a game. "... The child is pleased to repeat the words just for fun ..." [8, p. 19]: The child seemed to confirm by saying the other one. Unlike normal development of children with short-term relationships, the reactions taking place under computer influence are relatively longer. We also encounter repercussions for children with autistic spectrum disorders. However, unlike those who have autism, whose repeating words and phrases are inadequate and do not understand the meaning, in the case of computerized intercourse, children generally understand the meaning of repeated expressions, thereby confirming what others have said. For example, when asked by a parent, "do you want bread," the child confirms what he says. In autism, couples play a sense of emotionality, attention, or avoidance5. In addition, while working with these children, echolalias are easier to replace with meaningful speech than those with autism. And, unlike children with autism, the meaningful speech of these children is more obvious.
These children often use foreign-language words and phrases from computer games and cartoons, as well as monologue without interacting with objects. Monologue is also one of the stages of speech development, but unlike normal development children interpret their actions when performing some action, and the monologue in terms of meaning is related to their actions [8, p. 18-20], children with computer dependence play solely outside the game, without the meaning of word and action, and the main content of the monologue are computer themes, included in foreign language. They often use words and phrases that are likely to be used in computer activities, which are probably targeted to the situation in a computer-friendly way, such as "good", "very good," "a moisture like a go-round", and "a cute little doll". Children with psychological and speech developmental delay and computer dependence often speak mechanicaly, memorized phrases. Some examples of mechanical speech are: "Hello, how are you, good guys", or in the role-playing game, "I'm selling a car, how much is the cost, it's 500 drams", which they say in a breeze. Computer-based reactions, foreign vocabulary, monologue are probably due to early childhood development and imitation.
Parents who are very busy,or want to make easier their parental duties often do not control, but also encourage abuse of computer games and foreign-language cartoons, thus limiting live contact with people around them. Instead of listening to the family members’ speech in the sensitive stage of speech developement, the child begins to use computer speech, which becomes the main object of imitation. One of the most exciting computer games is "Talking Tom"6, where the main character, the cat, repeats the same words said from another side of the computer.
2.Weak expression of joint attention, lack of attention.
Children with psychological and speech developmental delay and computer addiction find it difficult to concentrate attention on the same action. They play alone, do not want to communicate, apply and interact with anybody else. They can turn to and try to grasp their wishes, especially when encountering barriers and obstacles. Attention is not stable, often they move from one action to another, with difficulty responding to instructions. The reasons for such behavior are as follows:
- The first is a lack of live communication and dialogue in the case of computer priorities, during which the child should adopt different social behaviors, communication skills, and communicate with people.
- Next is a one-way communication with a computer, which results in a child learning to play alone, doing different actions without listening to someone, and their desire to engage in joint activities is very weak.
- And, of course, the child often does not respond to the instructions when they apply to him, since no one is applying from the computer, and does not give instructions and does not need to listen to someone. Therefore, unlike autistic spectrum disorders, which are also characterized by the lack of joint attention, the ability to listen to instructions, not responding to the name, children with computerized impairments are more easily engaged in joint activities and, thanks to the visual contact, they are able to execute instructions when focusing on the specialist, respond to the surrounding signals. Short-term psychological studies make the most obvious changes in the attention of these children.
3. The development of motion coordination, spatial orientation, superiority of practical-minded thinking.
The dominant computer effect is the development of the child's visual-motor coordination and spatial orientation, as the child's hand movements combine with the image during computer operation, particularly during the game7. Hence, they have developed and dominated prominent-practical thinking, even though after three years an evolved-imaginary, then abstract (logical) thinking should develop. The latter two types of thinking are weak in these children because they need live communication, dialogue, which is lacking in children with computer impairments, so the speech is delayed, abstract thinking, and so on.
These children have a great deal of cognitive knowledge, know the functional meaning of things, and can use themselves without the help of adults, different things such as adjusting the chair, taking the cup from the cupboard, pouring water from the bowl and drinking it. However, when the adult appeals to him, "go and bring the cup from the cupboard," he can not understand, because in this case the abstract thinking of a child should be activated.
4. Standart thinking, template behavior.
The computer's viewing and control take place under algorithmic rules. "Characteristics such as compiling a slide and symbol on a computer display, repetition of computer work-based instructions, its tempororistic feature, limited display size, and standardization of work on the display make the user's intellectual functioning new system of algorithmic rules, making it more template than in the traditional system8. With the computer the interaction also contributes frequently to the uniformity of the activity and its being template9. Among children who cannot control the computer's impact, behavior is clearly manifested in template operations. With computer impulses and pace of development, children often eat, sleep and carry out their activities in the same sequence, for example, one child picks up a pillow, wishes good night to his brother, goes to the bedroom, puts the clothes in the same chair, wears his uniform, lies down and every day repeats these same actions without breaking the sequence. While during role-playing games, they retain and repeat the sequence of actions that they have mastered for the first time playing the game. Computerized behavioral patterns should not be confused with children with autistic spectrum disorders, with stereotypical behavior when those children are exposed to an emotional instability in case of any activity. Unlike them, children with computer abuse are not confused and do not have negative emotional impulses during interruption of any component of template behavior, which is more easily substituted. Also, these children do not exhibit stereotypes, repetitive movements, lack of tenderness, as opposed to autism. As an example of a computer game shaping behavior, one should again mention "Talking Tom"10, the main character of which is to feed the cat, for example, to feed, sleep with identical, stereotypical, consecutive actions.
5. Lack of consciousness, miscarriage, contraceptive behavior, accompanied by crying or aggressive actions.
In case of computer priorities, children with psychological and speech development delay often display contrasting behavior when their desires are not fulfilled. They often use the expression "I do not want". Controversial behavior is often accompanied by unwanted behavioral manifestations, throwing things, breaking, shouting, and lying on the floor, and so on. These children are not directly exposed to the rules and are unable to do what they are not interested in at the moment. For example, in pre-school institutions they are not exposed to the established regime, they cannot stand the line, do not perceive the rules of the class generally do what they want. Perhaps one of the reasons for this behavior is that while a computer runs, the child manage the process as there is no difficulty in self-regulation of behavior, so he assumes that everything should be at his/her own will. Since computer dependence minimizes the contact with people in the environment, the child does not adopt behavioral norms and discipline-adjusting skills. It should also be noted that it is just 0-3 years of sensory perception of discipline perception [7], and if there are no circumstances contributing to this feeling, it is difficult for the child to comprehend the order, becomes stubborn and contradictory.
Summarizing the carried out researches, it should be noted that the above-mentioned phenomena are the main symptoms that are manifestly interconnected. So, in a sense, it is possible to state that they form the modern computerized syndrome for the 21st century, which characterizes the process of child's psychoverbal development. Their isolated and unstable manifestations do not yet testify to the abuse and dependence of computer activity. This syndrome is characterized by time and stability.
Based on these rewards, the initial stage of psychological and pedagogical work with these children should be built in the following directions:
1. Limitation of computer activity,
2. Frequent use of live communication, frequent use of dialogues, directives, vocabulary of child actions,
3. Formation of joint attention,
4. Implementation of joint activities,
5. Creation of problem situations in order to develop thinking and creation a need for a child to communicate,
6. Formation of non-standard behavior, development of the same behavior with different actions,
7. Formation of order perception.
To sum up, we should notice that the child's mental development runs in a unique course when in the sensitive period of speech development computer activities begin to play a special role in perception, cognition and communication. A teenage child is unintentionally assigned to another reality, which captures him in his or her colors, the availability of information, and so on. In fact, by not recognizing the real world around him, he first gets acquainted with the computer world that is becoming a primary reality for the development of the child, pushing the real world and contacts to the background.
Although the studies require continuity, deep and multidisciplinary approach, it has to be noted that in the 21st century, the spread of the above-mentioned computer syndrome among children is possible to gradually shape a new kind of human cultural development, who with some reservations can be called a “human-computer”.
1 The concept of "Sensitive Stage" has been introduced by L. S. Vigotsky. He emphasized the importance of certain stages of age development, being more favorable and sensitive to certain behaviors, psychological peculiarities, and mental processes.
2 Age neoplasms are formed at a certain stage of development, and the child's consciousness, its relationship with the environment, mental and social changes that determine the development process, as well as the generalization of the mental development of the child's mental development at the given age are qualitative changes.
3 A systematic observation is carried out according to the plan, and the researcher chooses this or that particularity and the way he / she manages his / her position in different situations. In an integrated observation, the researcher is a direct participant.
4 Natural experiment is carried out in the natural conditions of life, with minimal participation of the examined, laboratory experiment, in artificially created conditions, where all possibilities for interaction of the investigator with factors are created.
5 https//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2598746/#!po=35.7955
6 https//play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.outfit7.mytalkingtomfree&hl=ru
7 https://dou24.ru/49/images/16-17/psiholog/reb_i_komp.pdf
8 http://prac.psy.msu.ru/science/public/voyskunskiy/voyskunskiy_2008a.pdf
9 In the same place.
10 https//play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.outfit7.mytalkingtomfree&hl=ru
June, 2017
Sources and literature
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