The main acquisition of the transitional period is a kind of children's speech, called L.S. Vygotsky autonomous. It differs significantly from adult speech both in sound form and in meaning. Children's words in their sound sometimes resemble "adults", sometimes they are sharply different from them. There are words that are not similar to the corresponding words of adults (for example, “ika” - a closet, “giligilicha” - a pencil), words - scraps of words from adults (“how” - porridge, “pa” - fell), words - distortions of the words of adults, preserving their phonetic and rhythmic pattern (“titi” - clock, “ninyanya” - no need), onomatopoeic words (“av-av” - dog, “mu-mu” - cow).

Even more interesting semantic differences. A small child puts a completely different meaning into the word than an adult, since he has not yet developed our "adult" concepts. For us, a word is most often associated with a certain group of objects that are identical in some essential, usually functional, feature. So, "clock" is a thing with which we determine time. All clocks that we designate in one word have this substantive meaning - both large and small, and round, and square, and manual, and wall with a pendulum. A child cannot generalize things like that. He has his own logic, and his words become ambiguous and situational.

It is possible to distinguish a number features of autonomous speech. Autonomous speech occurs only with bright affective coloring the situation perceived by the child and the activity of the child himself, experiencing this situation. Therefore, they say that the formation of polysemantic words has an emotionally effective character.

Another feature of autonomous speech is unique connections between words. The language of a small child is agrammatical. Words do not combine into sentences, but pass into each other like interjections, resembling a series of incoherent exclamations. Autonomous children's speech is understandable only to the closest people who are constantly next to the child and understand the meaning of his words. Communication with other adults using such speech is almost impossible, although non-linguistic means can help here - gestures and expressive facial expressions of the child accompanying incomprehensible words.

From a psychological and pedagogical point of view, early childhood (from one to three years old) is one of the key in a child's life and largely determines his future psychological development. This age is associated with three fundamental life acquisitions of the child: upright posture, verbal communication and objective activity.

Bipedalism provides the child with a broad orientation in space, a constant influx of new information necessary for his development. Speech communication allows the child to acquire knowledge, to form the necessary skills and abilities through communication with an adult. Objective activity directly develops the child's abilities, especially his manual movements. Each of these factors is irreplaceable, and all of them, taken together, are sufficient for the full mental development of a small growing person.

Early childhood is a sensitive period for language acquisition. Autonomous speech of the child rather quickly (usually within six months) is transformed and disappears. Words that are unusual both in sound and in meaning are replaced by words of “adult” speech. Conditions for speech development . The transition to a new level of speech development is possible only under favorable conditions - with full communication between the child and adults. If communication with adults is not enough or, on the contrary, relatives fulfill all the wishes of the child, focusing on his autonomous speech, speech development slows down. There is a delay in speech development in cases where twins grow up, intensively communicating with each other in a common children's language.

Stages of speech development.

First stage speech development falls on the age of one to 1.5 years and is associated with the formation of passive and active speech.

passive speech. At an early age, the passive vocabulary grows rapidly - the number of understood words. The speech of an adult, which organizes the actions of a child, is understood by him quite early. By this time, the child begins to understand the instructions of the adult regarding joint actions. Nevertheless, until about 1.5 years old, the child develops only understanding of speech, with a still very slight increase in the active vocabulary.

First of all, the child learns the verbal designations of the things around him, then the names of adults, the names of toys, and, finally, parts of the body and face. These are all nouns and are usually acquired during the second year of life. By the age of two, a normally developing child understands the meanings of almost all words related to objects around him.

active speech. Active speech is also developing intensively: the active vocabulary is growing, while the number of spoken words is much less than understood. The child begins to call things in their own words at the age of about one year. By this time, children usually already have ideas about the world around them in the form of images. Under these conditions, in order to start mastering speech, the child remains to associate the images he has with the combinations of sounds uttered by adults in his presence when there are corresponding objects or phenomena in the field of view.

Grammar of speech. The first period of speech development, covering the age from 1 to 1.5 years, is characterized by poor development of grammatical structures and the child's use of words mostly unchanged.

Second phase speech development falls on the age of approximately 1.5 to 2.5 years. In the second year of life, the child's active vocabulary increases dramatically. Up to a year and a half, a child on average learns from 30-40 to 100 words and uses them extremely rarely. After a year and a half, there is a sharp jump in the development of speech. By the end of the second year of life, children already know about 300, and by the age of three, 1200-1500 words. At this stage of speech development, children begin use sentences in your speech.

The child's interest in the world around him grows. The child wants to know, touch, see, hear everything. He is especially interested in the names of objects and phenomena, and every now and then he asks adults the question: “What is this?” Having received an answer, the child independently repeats it, and, as a rule, memorizes the name immediately, without much difficulty remembering and reproducing it. The passive vocabulary of a child at this age does not differ much from the active one, and their ratio at the age of three is approximately 1:1.3.

Offers. At first, the child uses one-word sentences expressing some complete thought. Such words-sentences arise in connection with some specific, visually perceived situation. Then there are sentences consisting of two words, including both the subject and the predicate. The meaning of such two-word sentences is the same: some thought or a complete statement. This is most often the subject and its action (“mother is coming”), the action and the object of the action (“give me a roll”, “I want candy”), or the action and the scene of the action (“the book is there”).

At this age, children learn to combine words, combining them into small two- or three-word phrases, and they progress quite quickly from such phrases to complete sentences. The second half of the second year of a child's life is characterized by a transition to active independent speech, aimed at controlling the behavior of the people around him and mastering his own behavior.

Grammar of speech. The second period of speech development is the beginning of the intensive formation of the grammatical structure of the sentence. Separate words at this time become parts of the sentence, their endings are coordinated. By the age of three, the child basically uses cases correctly, builds verbose sentences, within which grammatical agreement of all words is ensured. At about the same time, conscious control over the correctness of one's own speech utterance arises.

Third stage speech development corresponds to the age of 3 years. By the age of three, the basic grammatical forms and basic syntactic constructions of the native language are assimilated. Almost all parts of speech, different types of sentences are found in the child’s speech, for example: “Remember how we went to the river, dad and Nyura swam, and where was mom?” "I am my father's and mother's son, all uncles' nephew, grandmother's and grandfather's grandson." “You are big and I am small. When I am long - up to the carpet ... to the lamp ... then I will be big.

The most important acquisition of a child's speech at the third stage of speech development is that the word acquires objective meaning for him. The child denotes in one word objects that are different in their external properties, but similar in some essential feature or mode of action with them. The first generalizations are connected with the appearance of objective meanings of words.

Functions of children's speech.

The communicative function of children's speech associated with the use of speech as a means of communication, control of the behavior of other people and self-regulation. At the age of one to three years, the child's social circle expands - he can already communicate with the help of speech not only with loved ones, but also with other adults, with children. What does the child say when communicating with adults? Basically, the practical actions of the child or the visual situation in which communication takes place. The child answers the adult's questions and asks questions about what they do together. When a child enters into a conversation with a peer, he does not delve into the content of the other child's remarks, therefore such dialogues are poor, and children do not always answer each other. The semantic function of children's speech associated with the definition of the meaning of words and the acquisition by words of generalized meanings. Between one and three years of a child's life, there is a stage of speech development, when polysemantic words appear in the child's speech. Their number is relatively small, from 3 to 7% of a child's vocabulary. Further, the disintegration of polysemantic words occurs, the words in the child's speech acquire stable meanings.

At the age of one to 1.5 years in the child's speech, stages of development of verbal generalizations can be distinguished. At the first step the child groups objects according to their external, most striking and conspicuous features. On the second step generalization occurs according to functional characteristics, that is, according to the role in which objects are used in children's play. Third step characterized by the ability to isolate common and stable features of objects that reflect their nature and are independent of the situational, functional use of these objects.

Cognitive function of speech. At about three years of age, the child begins to listen carefully to what adults say to each other. He especially likes to listen to stories, fairy tales, poems. At 2-3 years, there is an understanding of the speech-story. It is easier to understand stories relating to the things and phenomena surrounding the child. In order for him to understand a story or a fairy tale, the content of which goes beyond the situation he directly perceives, additional work is needed - adults must specifically teach this.

The emergence of the cognitive function of speech determines an important moment in the speech development of the child. It testifies that the child is already able to cognize reality not only directly through the senses, but also in its ideal, conceptual reflection in language.

The first words actively used by the child have a number of features that distinguish them from the speech of adults. These differences are so significant that a number of researchers call the initial speech of a child autonomous speech. L. S. Vygotsky identifies four main features of autonomous speech. First, the sound composition of the words used by the child differs sharply from the sound composition of the words of the normative language. There are big phonetic differences between the speech of an adult and the speech of a child. Words used by children, as a rule, are fragments of words of adults, distorted words of the language, onomatopoeic words, completely different words, etc.

Secondly, the words of autonomous speech differ from the speech of adults in meaning. The first children's words are polysemantic, that is, they refer not to one, but to a number of objects. Many children, for example, call a cat, fur, hair, and other soft and fluffy objects with the word "kh-kh". Thirdly, communication using autonomous speech is possible only between a child and an adult who understands the meaning of his words, can “decipher” the meaning of the child’s unique words. Therefore, as a rule, verbal communication between a child and an adult is initially possible only in a specific situation. The word can be used in communication only when the object denoted by it is in front of the eyes.

Fourth, a distinctive feature of autonomous speech is that the possible connection between individual words is also extremely peculiar. This language is agrammatic, does not have an objective way of connecting words and meanings into coherent speech. The child combines words into sentences according to the logic of desire, affect.

L. S. Vygotsky suggested that the main reason for the negativism of a child of this age (the crisis of the first year life) is a misunderstanding of the adult child. From the difficulties of mutual understanding, more precisely, from the misunderstanding of the child by adults, all the negative forms of his behavior follow.

The beginning of a new stage in the development of the child is evidenced by the new behavior of the child. In connection with the crisis, the child has the first acts of protest, opposition, opposing himself to an adult. Negativism in relationships with adults is recorded as a normal phenomenon in the development of a child in the second year of life. The child begins to behave as an independent being, resists the simplest demands and instructions of adults.

This is the time when the child seeks to oppose his will to the will of the adult caring for him. He shows independence - the words “no”, “I won’t”, “I don’t want” become common for him. It is also common for the child to disobey the instructions and demands of the adult. Conflict situations arise during this period in the child and with his older brothers and sisters. In relation to them, he can behave aggressively.

The negative reactions of a child at a crisis age are sometimes revealed with great force and sharpness. Usually a child who has been denied something or who has not been understood shows a sharp increase in affect: he throws himself on the floor, refuses to walk, etc. In his behavior, the child, as it were, returns to an earlier period of his development. All children of this period show similar reactions, even those who develop safely. In some children, negativism can last 6-7 months. Everything here depends on the behavior of adults, on their patience, wisdom and tact.

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Reproduced by children according to the pattern of adult speech, they are significantly distorted, for example, due to repetition. Autonomous speech is situational, indefinite and ambiguous, because the child does not yet own the content of the concept -; generalizations - in it they are based on the combination in one word of signs of unrelated objects. For formal reasons, it does not have inflections and other signs of syntactic relations. Depending on the variety and quality of the child's language environment, it can persist for a long time and serve as a brake on mental development.

Psychological Dictionary. 2000 .

See what "Autonomous Speech" is in other dictionaries:

autonomous speech- Etymology. Comes from the Greek. autonomos self-governing. The authors. Analyzed in the studies of L.S. Vygotsky and A.R. Luria. Category. One of the early stages in the development of a child's speech. Specificity. It is characterized by the fact that words or syllables, ... ...

AUTONOMOUS SPEECH- AUTONOMOUS (from Greek autos - self + nomos - law) SPEECH. One of the early stages in the development of a child's speech (highlighted by L. S. Vygotsky and A. R. Luria). It is expressed in the fact that words or syllables reproduced by children according to the pattern of adult speech are distorted, ... ... A new dictionary of methodological terms and concepts (theory and practice of teaching languages)

Autonomous speech- one of the early stages in the development of a child's speech (highlighted by L.S. Vygotsky and A.R. Luria). A.r. expressed in the fact that words or syllables reproduced by children according to the pattern of adult speech are significantly distorted, for example, due to repetition. A.r.… … Pedagogical terminological dictionary

Autonomous speech- the speech activity of children at that stage of its development, when they mechanically repeat the words and statements of others, not understanding the content of what was said ... Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychology and Pedagogy

speech- a form of communication that has developed historically in the process of the material transforming activity of people, mediated by language. R. includes the processes of generation and perception of messages for the purposes of communication or (in a particular case) for the purposes of regulation and ... ... Great Psychological Encyclopedia

autonomous speech- according to L. S. Vygotsky, A. R. Luria, etc., one of the early stages in the development of a child’s speech, characterized by the fact that words or syllables reproduced by children according to the model of adult speech are significantly distorted, for example, due to repetition. Autonomous speech... Great Psychological Encyclopedia

AUTONOMOUS (or small) SPEECH- (English telegraphic speech) one of the early stages in the development of children's speech, transitional to mastering the speech of adults (L. S. Vygotsky, A. R. Luria, etc.). Syn. telegraphic speech. According to the form of the "word" A. p. this is mostly the result of children's distortion of words ... Great Psychological Encyclopedia

autonomous children's speech- one of the early stages of the development of a child's speech, transitional to mastering the speech of adults. According to the form of the "word" R. a. are the result of children distorting the words of adults or parts of them repeated twice (for example, “ko ko” instead of “milk”, “kika” instead of ... Great Psychological Encyclopedia

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AUTONOMOUS ETHICS- [from Greek. αὐτóς itself and νόμoς law; self-law], a direction in ethics, whose supporters consider morality as the only and sufficient basis for deriving the basic rules (or laws) of morality and consider the explanation untrue ... ... Orthodox Encyclopedia

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Considering the second half of life, we say that this period is a pre-verbal, preparatory period in the development of speech. At this stage, speech is replaced by other, non-verbal means - emotional expressions, facial expressions, and then gestures, postures, locomotion, vocalizations. In the third year of life, a child basically acquires human language and begins to communicate through speech. Between these two periods there is an amazing stage when the child begins to speak, but not in ours, but in some of his own. This stage in child psychology is called the stage of autonomous children's speech.

Ch. Darwin was the first to describe autonomous children's speech. He noticed that before using the common speech, the child speaks in a peculiar language, very vaguely reminiscent of the language of adults. This children's language differs from the language of an adult, firstly, by phonetics (the sound of words), and secondly, by its semantic side, i.e. the meaning of words.

The sound composition of the first words of the child differs sharply from the sound composition of our words. This speech from the articulatory and phonetic side does not coincide with the speech of adults. Sometimes these sound combinations are completely different from the words of adults (for example, “adika”, “ika”, “giliga”), sometimes fragments of our words (“pa” - fell; “bo-bo” - it hurts; “ka” - porridge and etc.), sometimes strongly distorted words of adults, but retaining their rhythmic pattern (for example, “titi” - a clock, “ninyanya” - no need, “abavlya” - an apple). But in all cases, this is not a reproduction of the words of an adult, but the invention of their own sound combinations. Another feature of children's words is the originality of their meaning.

Darwin first drew attention to the fact that the words of autonomous children's speech differ from our words in their meaning. He gave such an example.

The boy, once seeing a duck swimming in the pond, began to call her “wa”. These sounds were uttered by the child when he saw a duck swimming in the water by the pond. Then the boy began to call milk spilled on the table, a puddle, any liquid in a glass, and even milk in a bottle with the same sounds. One day a child was playing with old coins depicting birds. He began to call them "wa" too. Finally, all small, round shiny objects (buttons, medals, coins) began to be called “wa”.

There are many examples of autonomous children's words. So, the childish word “pu-fu” can mean iodine, a wound, hot porridge, a cigarette from which smoke comes, fire, the extinguishing process itself, and much more where you need to blow. The word "kh" can mean a cat, fur, hair, a hat, a fur coat, and many other things related to the feeling of softness and fluffiness. From an adult's point of view, these things have nothing in common. For an adult, this sign of softness and fluffiness is completely unimportant, but for a baby it can be the main one, because in his first generalizations he is guided, first of all, by direct sensation and his own, unique experience. It is interesting that objects can be called one word according to a variety of criteria.

In one girl (1 year 3 months), the word “ka” had 11 meanings, which were constantly expanding. At first (at 11 months) she called this word the yellow stone with which she played, then she called yellow soap with this word, then stones of any color. At the age of 1, she called the word “ka” porridge, then lumps of sugar, then sweets, jelly, jam, then a coil, pencil, soap dish with soap, etc. You can see that some objects are part of the meaning of the word according to one attribute, others - differently. For example, yellow soap entered on the basis of color, jelly - on the basis of sweetness, and the reel and pencil - on the basis of sound similarity. All these meanings form a set of objects that are denoted by one word “ka”.

None of the words of children's speech can be adequately translated into our language, because children see and designate objects in a completely different way. It is interesting that the same children perfectly understand the meanings of all adult words: they easily distinguish a cat from their mother's hair or a bottle of iodine from a cigarette. But they continue to say “kh” or “pu-fu” not at all out of whim, but because their words have a different meaning.

From these two features of autonomous children's speech follows the third, associated with its use. If this speech is unlike the usual one, neither in its sound nor in its meaning, then only one who knows the child well, who can decipher his cipher, can understand it. No outsider can guess what “wa” or “pu-fu” means. But close people can easily understand the baby, because they are guided not only by his words, but also by the situation in which the child is. For example, if a child shouts “wah” while walking, it means that he wants to go to the pond, and if he says the same “wah” in the room, it means he wants to play with buttons. Communication with children during this period is possible only about a specific situation (which is why it is called situational). The word can denote the object that the child directly perceives. If the object is in front of the eyes, then it is immediately clear what the “speech” is about. But it is impossible to understand the meaning of these words when they are divorced from the situation. If our words can replace the situation, then the words of autonomous children's speech do not carry this function. They are used to highlight something important in a particular situation. They have an indicative function, a naming function, but they do not have a meaningful or significative function. The child's words cannot replace missing objects, but they can, in a visual situation, point to its individual aspects and give them names.

The peculiarity of autonomous children's speech reflects the peculiarities of the child's thinking at this transitional stage of development. At the stage of children's speech, there is still no possibility of verbal thinking, divorced from the visual situation. The child still cannot think with the help of words outside the visual situation. Although his thinking acquires some initial features of speech, it cannot yet be divorced from the visual. The child's words reflect only the direct relation of things. The meaning of the words of children's speech are not in relation to each other, i.e. one value is not related to another value. For example, if “f-f” means fire and “ding” is an object that moves, “fa-ding” could mean a train. Meaningful, non-situational connections of things are still inaccessible to the child. His thinking is not independent in nature, it seems to be subject to perception, and the affective moment prevails in it over the thinking. The child's statements do not correspond to our judgments, but rather to our exclamations, with the help of which we convey an emotional reaction to the situation. It conveys perceived impressions, states them, but does not generalize or conclude. It is characteristic that the words of children's speech do not have a permanent meaning - in each new situation, something different is indicated than in the previous one. The first children's words mean almost everything or a lot, they are applicable to any subject. Their meaning is extremely unstable - it slides over the surrounding objects, absorbing all the new ones. These are more indicative voice gestures than real words.

There is a period of autonomous children's speech in the development of every child. During this period, it is impossible to say whether the child has speech or not, because he does not have speech in the adult sense of the word and at the same time he is already speaking. The next stage in the development of a child's speech is marked by the appearance of his first real words.

Approximately in the second half of the 2nd year, an extraordinary event occurs in the child's life - he begins to speak.

For a long time it was assumed that children's speech arises from direct imitation of the speech sounds of an adult. Such imitation does take place (after all, children always begin to speak the same language as their parents). However, it is not the main one. A child can easily reproduce this or that word at the request of an adult, but at the same time never use it in a real situation of interaction with others. This means that the ability to imitate, perceive and reproduce other people's words does not yet lead to the appearance of the child's own words.

At the same time, it is obvious that the first words appear only in communication with an adult. But the “speech-producing” situation of interaction between an adult and a child cannot be reduced to a direct copying of speech sounds, but must represent their substantive cooperation. We have already said that the word is, first of all, a sign, i.e. substitute for another item. This means that behind each word there must be what it means, i.e. its meaning. If there is no such object, if a mother and a child up to 1.5 years old are limited to manifestations of mutual love, the first words may not appear, no matter how much the mother talks to the child and no matter how well he reproduces her words. In the event that the child enthusiastically plays with objects, but prefers to do it alone, the appearance of active words in the child is also delayed: he does not have a need to name the object, turn to someone with a request, or express his impressions. The need and need to speak presuppose two main conditions: the need to communicate with an adult and the need for an object to be named. Neither one nor the other in isolation leads to the word. And only the situation of substantive cooperation between a child and an adult creates the need to name an object and, therefore, pronounce one's own word.

In such substantive cooperation, an adult sets a speech task for the child, which requires a restructuring of his entire behavior: in order to be understandable, he must produce a completely definite word. And this means that he must turn away from the desired object, turn to an adult, single out the word he utters and use this artificial sign of a socio-historical nature (which is always the word) to influence those around him.

The process of generating the first words in a child was studied by M.G. Elagina. The essence of her experimental situation was to cause the child to actively use a certain word as the only adequate means of communication with an adult.

For some time, the adult acted with objects (matryoshka, chicken, testicle) in front of the child's eyes and distinctly named this object. At some point, the adult interrupted the game and placed the object in a position in which the child saw but could not reach the desired object. There was a difficult situation for the child. An adult, who was nearby, gave the object to the child only if he turned to him for help in words and called the object with the corresponding word. If the request was made by other means (babble, autonomous words, expressive gestures, etc.), the adult distinctly named the object, but did not give it. The adult did this until the child, addressing the adult, either correctly named the object or refused to communicate.

Out of 33 children from 13 to 19 months old, 27 learned in this experimental situation to correctly name objects.

Of particular interest in this work is the process itself, as a result of which the children switched to the adequate use of the word. On the basis of fixing the behavior of children and their visual reactions, M.G. Elagina identified three main periods, each of which has its own semantic center for the child.

At the first stage, the object is such a center. The child directly reaches out to him, accompanying his futile attempts with mimic and intonation-expressive movements that bear the character of influencing an adult. In some cases, these manifestations developed into expressions of anger, displeasure and even crying. However, in most children, the focus gradually shifted to the adult.

In the second stage, the adult becomes the main component of the situation. First, the child shifted his gaze from the object to the adult and back, and then fixed his eyes on the adult. Turning to an adult, the child tried a variety of verbal and non-verbal means. Instead of direct attempts to get the object, pointing gestures, active babble (give-give-give) and other ways of influencing the adult appeared. In some cases, children switched to an emotional impact on an adult (snuggled, caressed, stroked him), in others, on the contrary, they turned away and closed their eyes. These manifestations, different in appearance, were the same in their function: to bring the adult out of the state of neutrality and draw his attention to their attempts. However, the tactics of the adult remained the same: he uttered the right word and expected to hear it from the child.

As a result, at the third stage, the word becomes the center of the situation. The child began not only to look at the adult, but focused on his lips, looked closely at the articulation. The first attempts to pronounce the word appeared. In these attempts, the child built an articulatory image of the word. At the end of this stage, the child pronounces the required word more or less correctly and receives the desired object.

Elagina notes a very interesting fact: having named an object and received it, the children did not leave the adult, but called him to repeat the situation. Some of them returned the object to the adult, others themselves tried to put the toy where it stood, others only touched the object, as if indicating the fact of its receipt. The children lost interest in the toy and were happy to repeat the correct word. They seemed to discover the sound form of the word, and it was the word, and not the toy, that became the subject of their activity.

In the work of M.G. Elagina, it is important to emphasize that in her situation the word acted as a tool-means in its own communicative function. The process of forming the use of the word, traced in this experiment, shows that the child first orients himself in the general sense of the situation. At first, this situation acts as a communicative one for him (you need to turn to an adult); then the situation prompts him to use the word to involve the adult (you must turn to the adult with the word); at the third stage, a specific word turns out to be in the center of the situation, which becomes a means of communication (it is necessary to address an adult through a specific word). Thus, as in the case of the formation of objective tool actions, the child first learns the basic meaning of the situation, which makes his actions purposeful and meaningful. Mastering the operational-technical composition of the action (in the case of speech, the perception and articulation of the word) is worked out on the basis of the already discovered meaning of verbal communication and cooperation with an adult.

The generation of a word is fully developed only at the beginning. Subsequently, the process is curtailed, the child immediately proceeds to orientation in the articulatory-pronunciation features of the word, to the active creation of the articulatory image of the word. This indicates that the orientation in the sense of the situation and in the function of the word as an instrument of communication, once having arisen, is preserved and does not require special repetitions. At the same time, it is important to emphasize that the speech task, i.e. The task of conveying something in words is set before the child for the first time by an adult. Children begin to actively pronounce words only under the influence of the persistent influences of an adult, when he turns the word into the center of the child's attention.

The literature provides descriptions of long delays in the development of speech at the transitional stage. Often such delays are explained by the fact that adults, well understanding the meaning of the child's autonomous speech and guessing his slightest desires, do not stimulate him to turn to normal human speech, do not set him a speech task.

A more common cause of speech delay is insufficient communication between adults and the child. Although the child's individual games with objects free adults from the importunity of children, they in no way stimulate the child's speech development. Under such conditions, the very need of the child to communicate with an adult is drowned out: he stops communicating with him, immerses himself in stereotypical actions with objects, and as a result, the child’s mental development in general and speech development in particular is delayed.