Evaluation of Preschool Children’s Verbal Communication Skills in Group Discussions and Its Automation

Abstract

In recent years, ”First Grade Problem,” which occurs when children in the first grade of elementary school fail to adapt to school life, has become a problem, and one of the factors causing the problem is a lack of communication skills. One of the reasons for this problem is the lack of communication skills. Since children have more opportunities to speak after entering elementary school, it is important to nurture communication skills in the pre-entry stage. Currently, nursery schools and kindergartens are required to understand the developmental status of children and provide appropriate guidance accordingly, but it is difficult to observe and provide guidance to children in the midst of various tasks. The purpose of this research was to evaluate verbal communication skills based on each preschool child ’s utterances during discussions in order to develop a support system for understanding the developmental status of children. By creating an evaluation index, classifying utterances, and estimating topics, we were able to evaluate verbal communication skills at the same level as subjective evaluation.