Smirnova, Ya.K.

Background. It is analyzed how the method of eye movement registration can be used to study the learning processes of children with hearing impairment. On the basis of oculomotor activity data, difficulties are identified that impede the learning of children with hearing impairment, which contributes to the discovery of effective ways of learning. A separate research issue is the search for the effective use of different forms of instruction.

Objective. Eye-tracking study of learning difficulties with different forms of instruction (as different forms of multimodal means of establishing joint attention).

Methods. A task was used in the form of a correction test to fill in the figures (according to the Pieron-Ruser method). To understand different forms of instruction in 4 series of the experiment, the combination of the speech form and the use of action in explaining the rule for filling in the figures varied. The main method is the method of eye movement registration using the PLabs portable tracker-the eye tracker.

Sample. The study sample consisted of 15 preschool children with hearing impairment (sensoneural hearing loss, class H90 according to ICD-11), eight girls, seven boys, mean age 5.4±0.8.

Results. The most important criterion for the effectiveness of different forms of instruction is the time from the beginning of the presentation of the instruction to the first fixation on the target object and the duration of attention delay in non-target areas. With multimodal instruction, longer fixations are observed in relevant areas and short fixations in irrelevant areas, fixations are more often and faster in relevant areas. With the transition to independent analysis, tasks at the beginning of fixation in relevant and irrelevant areas become reduced in time and quantity, and then begin to take on an increasingly long character.

Conclusion. A different form of instruction allows you to restructure the perception of a child with a hearing impairment, focusing attention on the elements that are relevant to the task. The most effective is the simultaneous use of multimodal means of explaining instructions to attract and regulate attention. 

Relevance. The article discusses the relationship between the development of joint (shared) attention of a child with an adult, and the social and cognitive development of the child. Based on previous studies of typically developing children that demonstrate their participation and responsiveness to fundamental social characteristics, it is significant to identify manifestations of atypical joint attention when a child does not register which object (event) or which aspects of this object (event) are the focus of an interlocutor's attention. The question of which aspects of joint attention are related to the normative development of the child makes this relevant for comparing groups with different forms of atypical development. For the study, the main indicator of understanding the intentions of the other in the direction of view was used, as one of the aspects of joint attention.

Objective. To compare the development of social cognition and joint attention among typically developing children and children with various forms of atypical development in order to identify the correlation between the theory of mind and cognitive lesion.

Methods. In a sample of preschool children with typical development and of those with mental retardation, hearing impairment, speech impairment, or visual impairment (N = 90), the following methods were used to evaluate the children's understanding of the intentions, desires, and interests of others by their behavioral manifestations: “Test for Erroneous Opinion”, “Sally-Ann”; the “What does Charlie want?” task, and others. The task was also used to assess the child’s ability to use the direction of a character’s gaze in a picture to determine the person’s intentions.

Results. We identified the “primary psychological” characteristics of the atypical development of the child, which prioritize violations of social communication. Several variations of the violation of joint attention were singled out by determining a person’s intentions by the direction of their gaze. It was shown that determining intentions by the direction of gaze is associated with the normative age formation of the child. Symptoms of deficiency in this skill vary depending on the specifics of the child’s atypical development.

Conclusions. Secondary deviations in the development of social cognition are specific to a particular primary defect. The limited inflow of information in the event of a violation of the analyzer creates unusual conditions in the children’s accumulation of the experience of social interaction that is necessary to form a mental model.