Impact of Computer Games on Social Determinants of School Readiness in Preschoolers

The article focuses on how reduction of the preschoolers’ traditional game and its substitute by computer games affect the social development of children at the end of the preschool age as well as their readiness for school education with regard to the social determinants of their personalities. This study is a part of a series of works dealing with: 1) social maturity as a specific new formation in personality of children, entering upon systematic schooling, and 2) assessment of factors, determining the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of this new formation. To clear up the logic of the current study, we consider it necessary to familiarize readers with the content of the preceding phases.

The main purpose of the study, carried out in early 2000es, was to test the hy­pothesis that the real role behavior (as an opposite to the pretend play behavior) as a special form of voluntary self-regulation, typical for 6-7 year-olds, reflects the child’s concept of his/ her social competence and his/ her special attitude to this quality of self and thus can be regarded as a unit of analysis for social development in preschool age and as an indicator of the child’s school readiness on this parame­ter.

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