59-05-032 Proceeding

279 Proceedings of the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Congress BLOCK-SHAPED TOYS AND VISUAL ELEMENTS USED FOR COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN AGED 4-5 YEARS Napat Suksubsri, Lertsiri Bovornkitti and Khanobbhorn Sangvanich The objectives of this study were 1) Development of block-shaped toys based on the cognitive thinking theory, i.e. visual elements in art, e.g. colors, size, and shapes, for use to be primary elements in the study. According to the experimental type of research method, 16 play sessions of activities planwere used for the inclusion of research subjects, i.e. 10 preschool students of Wat Tawanrueng School, randomly recruited by a draw method. The methodology was that of the pretest-posttest comparative results of the subjects’ cognitive thinking levels. Sophisticated observation on the students’ behaviors disclosed clear cognitive thinking developed steadily during the art-making sessions, on which the observation was emphasized on their performances regarding classification, grouping, and sequencing. Assessment of results after 16 sessions of block-shaped toy activities showed a statistic significance of .05, which was indicative of the improvement of their cognitive thinking. Of note the observation on the children under study showed full engagement in playing with the block- shaped toy, denoting their attention on cognitive thinking owing to the visual attraction by the colored block-shaped toys resulting in enhancing the cognitive thinking. Conclusion: Results of the present study have proved the efficiency of colored block-shaped toys as visual art elements to be used to develop cognitive thinking of preschool children. Keywords: block-shaped toy, visual elements, cognitive thinking, preschool children Introduction The rapid changes in society that emphasizes on trends and fashions hadmade newparents to raise their siblings in too easy ways, as they give too much freedom to their children but think instead of them, so these children are easily persuaded by new trends and could not solve stressful problems, as Kriangsak Charoenwongsak (2003: Introduction) had said that “The rooted problem on children’s thinking today is that the children are not allowed to speak out and do not know how to think by themselves,” they only just listened. They do not have thinking skill, lack of cognition, and so they are not confident. Thinking and expression of ideas are important for children to use their cognitive thinking, and to do things by themselves, as the children developmental period are suitable for them to collate, distinguish, and identify things of their environment, that is the beginning of all thinking processes learnt with perceptions, as the Office of National Promotion andCoordination for Youth ( 1997: 12) had said that “thinking can be divided into creative thinking, problem-solving thinking,