The study included three groups of children and teenagers aged 6–14 years: with the diagnosis (ICD-10) “F70 – mild mental retardation” (n = 674), “F83 – mixed specific developmental disorder” (n = 438) and normally developing peers (n = 1034). Structural and dynamic approach made it possible to identify three major components of communication – emotional need, cognitive and regulatory. Considering the identified components, phenomenology of age patterns of communicative development was investigated in children and adolescents with diagnosis of F70. Specific manifestations of socialization disorders in mental retardation were identified; they manifest as persistent underdevelopment and heterochrony of the major components, discreteness of the studied parameters. Sporadicity of the age dynamics is manifested in the cyclicity of the emotional-need component.