Comparative analysis of L. S. Vygotsky's and M. I. Lisina's approaches to child - adult communication problem is presented. The most important M. I. Lisina's achievements, rendering concrete L. S. Vygotsky's concepts, are micro-periodization of infancy, the study of communication influence on cognitive and personal child's development, the analysis of personal age-specific new formations. The discrepancies between activity and cultural-historical approaches to communication are analyzed.