Project-Based Activities to Enhance Communicative Development in Young Children: Findings of a Double-Blind Control Study

Project-based activity is gaining increasing recognition in early childhood education as a means of fostering communicative development. While many studies assess the outcomes, the specific mechanisms through which these activities foster developmental change remain insufficiently explored. The present study aimed to investigate the conditions that facilitate communicative development in preschool children through project-based activities. A double-blind, randomized control experiment involving 66 children aged 5-6 was conducted across four groups: Creative Project, Research Project, Free Play, and Control group. Communicative development was assessed using the MAIN (Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives) and the SCBE-30 (Social Competence and Behavior Evaluation) tools. In addition, structured observational analyses based on the “Play Matrix” and “Project Matrix” was performed to video-recorded sessions. The findings revealed that children in the Creative Project group demonstrated significantly greater improvements in narrative macrostructure, reduced social anxiety, and stable levels of aggression, compared to other groups. These children also exhibited higher levels of self-initiated actions and regulatory speech, with a corresponding decrease in adult-prompted behavior, suggesting greater internalization of initiative and agency. The results highlight the significance of organizing activities around challenging tasks, collaborative interaction, and personal meaning-making, as these elements can promote developmental shifts through the process of perezhivanie . These findings provide an empirical foundation for designing educational interventions aimed at enhancing communicative development in early childhood and may serve as a basis for further research into the mechanisms underlying child development.