Researcher of the Department of Educational Psychology and Pedagogy, Faculty of Psychology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russian Federation
Background. Today’s common typologies and categories of children’s toys are mainly decided by the manufacturers and retailers of children’s products. Such categorizations are not based on a theoretical understanding of child development and therefore cannot provide information about the opportunities that toys provide for the young.
Objective. This study proposed three criteria for categorizing toys based on the cultural-historical approach: their degree of realism; their degree of anthropomorphism; and their degree of detail. These criteria were chosen as a result of an analysis of theoretical works carried out in the framework of cultural-historical approach.
Design. The proposed criteria were tested through an experiment measuring children’s toy preferences. The participants were 129 children of ages 3-4 years. Experimental data confirmed that most children do prefer realistic and detailed toys rather than those with fewer of these properties. The contribution of socio-demographic factors and the children’s individual developmental indicators to their toy preference was also analyzed.
Results. The study revealed that among various socio-demographic factors, only the child’s gender and the number of siblings in the family acted as significant predictors for the toy preferences. None of child’s developmental characteristics (non-verbal intelligence, executive functions, and emotional understanding) were found to be significant predictors of preference for particular toys.
Conclusions. The assumption that toys can be assessed in terms of their realism and degree of detail found empirical support. The results of this study may be useful in designing further research and in the practical issue of toy selection for children age 3-4 years.
The article is devoted to the practical aspect of the development of self-regulation of preschoolers in the play. The introduction provides a definition of self-regulation as a multidimensional construct that includes the regulation of emotions, cognitive processes and behavior. The definition of executive functions based on A. Miyake’s model is also proposed. The literature review covers the results of new studies on the influence of play on the development of self-regulation in preschoolers. The article considers studies showing the effectiveness of role play, play with rules, digital games, as well as the relationship between play preferences at home and the development of self-regulation in preschool children. In the final part, practical recommendations are formulated for the use of games in order to develop self-regulation of preschoolers. Recommendations are given for choosing games that are most suitable for this purpose, their duration, increasing children’s involvement in play, and the nuances of organizing play. The conditions for creating different types of play (play with rules, role play, digital games) are described in detail. The Appendix contains names and brief descriptions of digital and board games that can be used to train all components of executive functions.