The Role of Semantic Syntax in the Development of Narratives in Preschool Children

Abstract

The aim of our research is to identify the role of semantic syntax in building a coherent monological narrative by preschoolers. The study was carried out with Russian monolingual preschool children from Moscow, Russia in the environment of the kindergarten, where the children get organised training on their language and cognitive development. Twenty children between the age of 4 to 6 years old were tested with 2 series of pictures and the semantic syntax of the children's narratives were observed. The pictures are known form the developmental psychology as Theory of Mind series of pictures. (Seymour et al. 2015). They were used to collect narratives and in the narratives of the children the semantic syntax was observed specially. The compression between the age groups was done with the t- criteria. The results showed that the children between 4-5 years old mainly listed the characters that were drawn in the picture, and their stories lacked logic. The older children's narratives - between 5-6 years old were distinguished by their completeness and logic, and they demonstrated an understanding of the characters' actions, the ability to finish a story, the ability to evaluate the heroes' actions and give the story a name. The study shows that in the process of developing speech and verbal communication and getting to know others, it is necessary not only to enrich the subject matter and conceptual and logical content of words, but also to develop the ability to use the word as a unit of lexical and semantic language system. The Russian children achieve the ability to develop the logically well structured and semantically rich narratives in the age between 5-6 years old.