A child’s sensory development is the formation of ideas and concepts about the most important properties of objects, their shape, color, size, position in space, smell, and taste. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of sensory development in the early preschool age. This period is the most favorable for improving the activity of the senses and the accumulation of ideas about the world around us. This gradual assimilation of the sensory culture was created by mankind.
Sensory development is a condition for the successful mastery of any practical activity, and the origins of abilities lie in the overall level of sensory development achieved in the younger preschool age. Psychological research shows that without such training, children’s perception for a long time remains superficial and fragmented and does not create the necessary foundation for overall mental development (Davies & Troy, 2020). Children’s cognition of the reality around them begins with the analysis of information they receive from the world in different forms (Kranowitz, 2022). The data is analyzed in the appropriate parts of the brain and produces a holistic picture.
Sensory education has its own tasks at each age, forming a particular part of the sensory culture. Improvement of any activity depends on the child’s sensory development level (Meadows, 2017). Knowledge of the return features of children’s perception allows educators to adjust teaching methods at the right time to connect new, accessible forms.
Along with the need to teach children ways of examining objects: their grouping by color, shape around reference samples, and the performance of more and more complex actions. In the older preschool age, when acquiring literacy, a great role is played by phonemic hearing, more precisely, the differentiation of speech sounds and the differentiation of the perception of lettering. The low level of sensory development dramatically reduces the possibility of successful learning in school.
References
Davies, D., & Troy, M. F. (2020). Child development: A practitioner’s Guide. The Guilford Press.
Kranowitz, S. C. (2022). The out-of-sync child: Recognizing and coping with a sensory processing disorder. Penguin Random House LLC.
Meadows, S. (2017). Understanding child development: Psychological perspectives and applications (2nd ed.). Routledge.