**1. Introduction**

Communication is a basic need for all living beings since their birth. It is the foundation of society itself, as it implies an interaction between interlocutors and therefore an exchange, that can be social, interpersonal, verbal, nonverbal, analogical, digital and so on. During the evolution process, the majority of the animal species developed the ability of conveying and receiving messages that could be understood by every member of the same species. These messages may be about: reporting of food or warning of danger, sexual desire, prohibition linked to the social hierarchy, the will to play (which may be found in cubs) and so on. Even newborns are able to communicate in a comprehensible way and the adults who take care of them are able to understand and reply to their messages.

All these forms of communication belong to the nonverbal type and are extremely varied and complex. In each species, the nervous system has evolved so that it could decode and produce nonverbal and at times very complex messages. The human brain is "naturally" suitable to communicate in a nonverbal way within our species. Moreover, the human form of nonverbal communication, which until 4–5 million years ago was identical to the one of chimpanzees, has evolved even

more, becoming extremely sophisticated and allowing humans to interact and cooperate in a more and more well-structured way [1].

How preschool and school children communicate today? Do they prefer verbal or nonverbal channel? Do they use their body? What is the task of Kindergarten and Primary school teachers to encourage the nonverbal channel?

Communicating means sending, passing down, handing over, notifying, making see, making feel, describing, meeting, spending, infecting, sharing, connecting, share with others what belongs to us. Communicate means so many things and can mean nothing: it all depends on the meaning we want to give to the word itself and on the way we act to achieve the aim [2].

Communication is linked to the exchange of information between two or more entities capable of produce and receive signals, but, to do it at best, it is necessary to pay attention to have consistency between the explicit message, given by the verbal language, and the implicit message, transmitted by using the nonverbal language. Although it may seem obvious, the two types of message do not go hand in hand, so that communication can leave the interlocutor in a situation of ambiguity and uncertainty towards the other one. In that case, he tends to rely on the message got nonverbally, compared to the verbal one, which is more spontaneous and more difficult to hide [3].

A communicative event, besides the fundamental abilities of "know the language", "know how to do the language" and "know how to do with the language", requires complementary abilities. The complementary ability par excellence is the emotional intelligence, discovered in 1990 by Salovery and Mayer, who defined as "the ability to control ourselves and others feelings and emotions, distinguish between them and use this information to guide his own thoughts and actions".

Therefore, communication is the process of transmission of an idea or emotion from one person to another through facial expressions, gestures, speech or via means of communication like writing, telephone, radio, television, etc. Communication skill can be defined as "one's ability to express his/her emotions, ideas, beliefs and attitudes comprehensibly way and relevantly" [4].

About it, Mehrabian (1967), having regard to the results of his research, has pointed out the importance of nonverbal communication for years. His studies determined that of any given message, only thirty–five percent is verbal; the remaining sixty–five percent is communicated through various nonverbal channels. The nonverbal component of a message includes movements and body position which we unconsciously sense but often overlook. The major part of any message is conveyed through non-verbal channels, but then why do the education system, from the first childhood, takes the most of his time and efforts in ensuring that children master the thirty–five percent of communication, which means words?

The ability to communicate is an essential skill that has roots in early childhood. Children begin communicating from birth, but they need attention of adults, be they parents or caregivers, so they can develop communicative skills to express themselves clearly and confidently. Parents are the young child's first teachers of communication who help him to master non-verbal and verbal communication through listening, watching and responding to the sounds, communicative gestures and language the child uses [5]. The child learns to know the body language by observing the one of the adult and by imitating him, that's why the first step to improve communicative abilities is to recognise non-verbal signs that we are sending in relation to the verbal ones sent.

Therefore, this research try to investigate and consider all aspects of nonverbal communication in today society, focusing on a target audience of preschool and school children.

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**Figure 1.**

*Source: own elaboration.*

*The Body Speaks Society, School and Culture DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94586*

In 1967, Mehrabian claims that, daily, the human being communicates through

• verbal, composed of words and content, that accounts on the communication

Therefore, verbal channel, even though it is considered the main communication channel, accounts for 10% in living beings communication; more than 90% of what is communicated is not given by words, so it is not verbal, it does not come out of

This distribution is not related to a particular age group or to a temporary vital moment; in fact, at the moment when, growing, the use of word is acquired, the nonverbal transmission aspects of messages are not lost, they become a particular feature of every person. Many of these attitudes are linked to a characteristic of the person itself, while others are more properly identifiable in each of us, at the

Nonverbal communication is a highly efficient and pervasive means of interpersonal exchange [6]; therefore, in a communication, the aspects that have to be considered are not only the verbal ones (digital language), that is, related to the meaning of words and on <what>, but also the nonverbal ones (analogical lan-

Know the nonverbal language is therefore very important to communicate well, to transmit or interpret others messages, to hear and understand at the same time. The essential aim of a communication is that it results effective; the communication effectiveness, encouraged by nonverbal communication and his main elements,

• paraverbal, composed of tone of voice and rhythm of word, that accounts

• nonverbal, composed of gesture, mimicry, posture, proxemics, that

moment we are in a specific situation, with a specific mood [3].

**2. Nonverbal communication**

three different channels (**Figure 1**):

for 7%;

for 38%;

accounts for 55%.

the mouth and it is not received by ears.

guage), that is, related on <how> [7].
