Abstract:

Taking into consideration the psycho-physical development of a young person, especially a child during the pre-school period, it is crucial to recognise children’s abilities connected with their cognitive development which will play a significant role in the school education process as well as in adult life. In the cognitive area, child’s intellectual potential is of great importance as it determines child’s abilities to quick perception, attention focus and imagination.

Perception is the ability to recognise what is seen, heard, touched, felt and what smells and tastes. Appropriate perception is one of the most necessary elements thanks to which a child is capable of acquiring new knowledge, developing the language, gaining the sense of orientation in the surroundings. Simple cognitive activities – impressions and perception, which provide information about stimuli directly affecting the organs of the senses, enable the child elementary orientation. Perception is the foundation of learning in primary school. Disturbances in perceptual function are the foundation of serious causes leading to learning difficulties in school education – recognising letters, numbers or symbols. The time of perception reaction is also of great importance. That is why, it is significant to recognise disorders as fast as possible and start improvement, and even therapy. If a child starts education with a limited ability both to receive stimuli correctly and select them, and his/her difficulties are not recognised and eliminated, then a child’s further development may be disturbed. Child’s activity and creative attitude towards tasks may be inhibited. A child may become passive and not attempt to undertake the tasks connected with learning or may compensate for the difficulties in an inappropriate for him/her way.

In connection with the aforementioned, it seems to be right and justified to undertake research related to perception among children aged 5-7, attending kindergartens in one of the average size cities in Poland. Measurement research was conducted in Psychomotor Laboratory in Biała Podlaska using the appropriate measurement device: Eye Tracking Glasses. This measurement device, thanks to a special measurement system, tracks, records and analyses which picture, in which order and at what pace an examined person looks at. The research conducted with the use of this tool allows to identify areas attention is focused on and points out omitted and sparsely visible areas. In the first stage of the research, which was conducted in May in 2018, 122 children attending kindergartens were examined, with the consent of their parents. The research project has been positively evaluated by the University Bioethics Committee. Not only was the children’s ability to differentiate between flat geometric figures, such as a circle, square, rectangle and a triangle examined, but also the pace of their perception. In the research such variables as gender and age were taken into consideration. Learning the aforementioned geometric figures by pre-school children is stipulated in the core curriculum which is obligatory in Polish kindergartens. The developed research results were made available to kindergartens and children’s parents. The results of the research can be applied in individual didactic work with a child who was found to have a limited perception and selection of visual stimuli.

Keywords:

Children, pre-school age, cognitive development, perception.