Early age- an extremely important and responsible period of the mental development of the child. This is the age when everything is for the first time, everything is just beginning - speech, play, communication with peers, the first ideas about oneself, about others, about the world. In the first three years of life, the most important and fundamental human abilities are laid - cognitive activity, curiosity, self-confidence and trust in other people, purposefulness and perseverance, imagination, creativity and much more. Moreover, all these abilities do not arise by themselves, as a result of the small age of the child, but require the indispensable participation of an adult and forms of activity appropriate for the age.

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PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF EARLY AGE

(from 1 to 3 years)

Early age is an extremely important and responsible period of a child's mental development. This is the age when everything is for the first time, everything is just beginning - speech, play, communication with peers, the first ideas about oneself, about others, about the world. In the first three years of life, the most important and fundamental human abilities are laid - cognitive activity, curiosity, self-confidence and trust in other people, purposefulness and perseverance, imagination, creative position and many others. Moreover, all these abilities do not arise by themselves, as a result of the small age of the child, but require the indispensable participation of an adult and forms of activity appropriate for the age.

Communication and cooperation between a child and an adult

At an early age, the content of the joint activity of a child and an adult becomesassimilation of cultural ways of using objects. An adult becomes for a child not only a source of attention and goodwill, not only a "supplier" of the objects themselves, but also a model of human actions with objects. Such cooperation is no longer limited to direct assistance or to the demonstration of objects. Now the complicity of an adult is needed, simultaneous practical activities with him, the performance of the same thing. In the course of such cooperation, the child simultaneously receives the attention of an adult, and his participation in the actions of the child, and, most importantly, new, adequate ways of acting with objects. The adult now not only gives the child objects, but together with the object passes way to deal with it.

In joint activities with a child, an adult performs several functions at once:

• firstly, the adult gives the child the meaning of actions with the object, its social function;
• secondly, he organizes the actions and movements of the child, transfers to him the technical methods of carrying out the action;
• thirdly, through encouragement and censure, he controls the progress of the child's actions.

Early age is the period of the most intensive assimilation of methods of action with objects. By the end of this period, thanks to cooperation with an adult, the child is basically able to use household items and play with toys.

Subject activity and its role in the development of the baby

The new social situation of development also corresponds to a new type of leading activity of the child -subject activity.

Objective activity is leading because it is in it that the development of all aspects of the psyche and personality of the child takes place. First of all, it must be emphasized that in the objective activity of the baby, development takes place. perception , and the behavior and consciousness of children of this age is entirely determined by perception. Thus, memory at an early age exists in the form of recognition, i.e. perception of familiar objects. The thinking of a child under 3 years of age is predominantly direct in nature - the child establishes connections between perceived objects. He can only be attentive to what is in his field of perception. All experiences of the child are also focused on perceived objects and phenomena.

Since actions with objects are mainly aimed at their properties such asshape and size, it is these signs that are the main ones for the child. Color at the beginning of early childhood does not have much significance for the recognition of objects. The kid recognizes painted and unpainted images in the same way, as well as images painted in the most unusual colors (for example, a green cat remains a cat). He focuses primarily on the form, on the general contour of the images. This does not mean that the child does not distinguish colors. However, color has not yet become a feature that characterizes an object and does not determine its recognition.

Of particular importance are actions that are called correlating . These are actions with two or more objects, in which it is necessary to take into account and correlate the properties of different objects - their shape, size, hardness, location, etc. does not try to arrange them in a certain order. Correlating actions require taking into account the size, shape, location of various objects. Typically, most toys intended for children early age, (pyramids, simple cubes, inserts, matryoshkas) suggest exactly correlating actions. When the child tries to perform such an action, he picks up and connects objects or their parts according to their shape or size. So, to fold the pyramid, you need to hit the hole of the rings with a stick and take into account the ratio of the rings in size. When assembling a nested doll, you need to select halves of the same size and perform actions in a certain order - first collect the smallest one, and then put it into the largest one.

Initially, the baby can perform these actions only through practical tests, because he still does not know how to visually compare the size and shape of objects. For example, when putting the bottom half of a matryoshka to the top, he discovers that it does not fit and starts trying another. Sometimes he tries to achieve a result by force - to squeeze in unsuitable parts, but soon becomes convinced of the failure of these attempts and proceeds to trying on and trying out different parts until he finds the right part.

From external orienting actions, the baby moves tovisual correlationproperties of objects. This ability is manifested in the fact that the child selects the necessary details by eye and performs the correct action immediately, without preliminary practical tests. He can, for example, pick up rings or cups of the same or different sizes.

Perception throughout early childhood is closely connected with objective actions. The child can accurately determine the shape, size or color of an object, if it is necessary to perform the desired and accessible action. In other cases, perception can be very vague and inaccurate.

In the third year of life, they develop representation about the properties of things and these ideas are assigned to specific objects. To enrich the child's ideas about the properties of objects, it is necessary that he gets acquainted with the various characteristics and signs of things in specific practical actions. A rich and varied sensory environment, with which the baby actively operates, is the most important prerequisite for the formation of an internal plan of action and mental development.

By the beginning of an early age, the child has separate actions that can be considered manifestations of thinking. These are the actions in which the child discoversconnection between individual items or phenomena- for example, pulls up a rope to bring a toy closer to him. But in the process of assimilation of correlative actions, the child begins to focus not just on individual things, but onconnection between objects, which further contributes to the solution practical tasks. The transition from using ready-made connections shown by adults to establishing them independently is an important step in the development of thinking.

First, the establishment of such links occurs through practical trials. He tries different ways of opening a box, getting an attractive toy, or getting new experiences, and as a result of his trials, he accidentally gets the effect. For example, by accidentally pressing the nipple of a water bottle, he discovers a splashing jet, or by sliding the lid of the pencil box, he opens it and takes out a hidden object. The child's thinking, which is carried out in the form of external orienting actions, is calledvisual-effective. It is this form of thinking that is characteristic of young children. Toddlers actively use visual-effective thinking to discover and discover a wide variety of connections between things and phenomena in the objective world around them. Persistent reproduction of the same simple actions and obtaining the expected effect (opening and closing boxes, extracting sounds from sounding toys, comparing different objects, the action of some objects on others, etc.) give the baby an extremely important sensory experience that forms the basis of more complex , internal forms of thinking.

Cognitive activity and the development of thinking at an early age is manifested not only and not so much in the success of solving practical problems, but primarily in the emotional involvement in such experimentation, in perseverance and in the pleasure that the child receives from his research activities. Such knowledge captures the baby and brings him new, cognitive emotions - interest, curiosity, surprise, the joy of discovery.

Speech acquisition

One of the most important events in the development of a young child is mastery of speech.

The situation in which speech occurs is not limited to direct copying speech sounds, but should represent the substantive cooperation of the child with the adult. Behind each word should be what it means, i.e. its meaning, any subject. If there is no such object, the first words may not appear, no matter how much the mother talks to the child, and no matter how well he reproduces her words. In the event that the child enthusiastically plays with objects, but prefers to do it alone, the active words of the child are also delayed: he does not have the need to name the object, ask someone to ask, or express his impressions. The need and need to speak involves two main conditions:the need to communicate with an adult and the need for an object to be named. Neither one nor the other individually leads to the word yet. And only the situation of substantive cooperation between a child and an adult creates the need to name an object and, therefore, to pronounce one's own word.

In such substantive cooperation, the adult puts before the child speech task , which requires a restructuring of his entire behavior: in order to be understood, he must pronounce a very specific word. And this means that he must turn away from the desired object, turn to an adult, single out the word he utters and use this artificial sign of a socio-historical nature (which is always the word) to influence those around him.

The first active words of the child appear in the second half of the second year of life. In the middle of the second year, a "speech explosion" occurs, which manifests itself in a sharp increase in the vocabulary and the child's increased interest in speech. The third year of life is characterized by a sharply increasing speech activity of the child. Children can already listen and understand not only speech addressed to them, but also listen to words that are not addressed to them. They already understand the content simple fairy tales and poems and love to listen to them performed by adults. They easily memorize small poems and fairy tales and reproduce them with great accuracy. They are already trying to tell adults about their impressions and about those objects that are not in the immediate vicinity. This means that speech begins to separate from the visual situation and becomes an independent means of communication and thinking of the child.

All these achievements become possible due to the fact that the child mastersgrammatical form of speech, which makes it possible to connect individual words, regardless of the actual position of the objects they represent.

Speech acquisition opens up the possibilityarbitrary behavior of the child. The first step towards voluntary behavior isfollowing adult verbal instructions. When performing verbal instructions, the child's behavior is determined not by the perceived situation, but by the word of an adult. At the same time, the speech of an adult, even if the child understands it well, does not immediately become a regulator of the child's behavior. It is important to emphasize that at an early age the word is a weaker stimulus and regulator of behavior than the child's motor stereotypes and the directly perceived situation. Therefore, verbal instructions, calls or rules of behavior at an early age do not determine the actions of the child.

The development of speech as a means of communication and as a means of self-regulation are closely related: developmental delay communicative speech accompanied by underdevelopment regulatory function. Mastering the word and separating it from a specific adult at an early age can be regarded as the first stage in the development of the child's volitionality, at which situationality is overcome and a new step is taken towards freedom from direct perception.

The birth of the game

The actions of a small child with objects are not yet a game. The separation of subject-practical and play activities occurs only at the end of an early age. At first, the child plays exclusively with realistic toys and reproduces familiar actions with them (combs the doll, puts it to bed, feeds it, rolls it in a stroller, etc.) At about 3 years, due to the development of objective actions and speech, children appear in the gamegame substitutionswhen the new name of familiar objects determines the way they are gaming use(the stick becomes a spoon or a comb or a thermometer, etc.). However, the formation of game substitutions does not arise immediately and not by itself. It requires a special introduction to the game, which is possible only in joint activities with those who already own the game and can build an imaginary situation. Such initiation gives rise to a new activity - story game , which becomes leading in preschool age.

The symbolic play substitutions that arise at the end of an early age open up enormous scope for the child's imagination and, naturally, free him from the pressure of the present situation. Independent, playful images invented by the child are the first manifestations of the child's imagination.

Emergence of the need to communicate with peers

A very important acquisition of an early age is the formation of communication with peers. The need to communicate with a peer develops in the third year of life and has a very specific content.

The content of contacts between young children, despite its outward simplicity, does not fit into the usual framework of communication between adults or a child with an adult. The communication of children with each other is associated with pronounced motor activity and is brightly emotionally colored, at the same time, children react weakly and superficially to the individuality of their partner, they mainly seek to identify themselves.

The communication of young children can be calledemotional and practical interaction. The main characteristics of such interaction are: immediacy, lack of substantive content; looseness, emotional intensity, non-standard means of communication, mirror reflection of the actions and movements of the partner. Children demonstrate and reproduce emotionally colored game actions in front of each other. They run, squeal, take bizarre poses, make unexpected sound combinations, etc. The commonality of actions and emotional expressions gives them self-confidence and brings vivid emotional experiences. Apparently, such interaction gives the child a sense of his resemblance to another being equal to him, which causes intense joy. Receiving a response and support from a peer in their games and undertakings, the child realizes his originality and uniqueness, which stimulates the most unpredictable initiative of the child.

The development of the need to communicate with a peer goes through a number of stages. At first, children show attention and interest in each other; by the end of the second year of life, there is a desire to attract the attention of a peer and demonstrate to him his successes; in the third year of life, the sensitivity of children to the attitude of their peers appears. The transition of children to subjective, actually communicative interaction becomes possible to a decisive extent thanks to the adult. It is the adult who helps the child to single out a peer and see in him the same creature as himself. The most efficient way to do this is to organizesubject interactionchildren, when an adult draws the attention of children to each other, emphasizes their commonality, their attractiveness, etc. Interest in toys, characteristic of children of this age, prevents the child from “seeing” his peer. The toy, as it were, closes the human qualities of another child. A child can open them only with the help of an adult.

Crisis 3 years

The child's serious successes in objective actions, in speech development, in play and in other spheres of his life, achieved during early childhood, qualitatively change his entire behavior. By the end of early childhood, there is a rapidly growing tendency towards independence, the desire to act independently of adults and without them. Toward the end of infancy this finds expression in the words "I myself" which are evidence crisis 3 years.

Obvious symptoms of the crisis are negativism, stubbornness, self-will, obstinacy, etc. These symptoms reflect significant changes in the child's relationship to close adults and to himself. The child is psychologically separated from close adults with whom he was previously inextricably linked, opposed to them in everything. The child's own "I" is emancipated from adults and becomes the subject of his experiences. Characteristic statements appear: "I myself", "I want", "I can", "I do". It is characteristic that it is during this period that many children begin to use the pronoun "I" (before that, they spoke of themselves in the third person: "Sasha plays", "Katya wants"). D.B. Elkonin defines the new formation of the crisis of 3 years as a personal action and consciousness of “I myself”. But the child's own "I" can stand out and be realized only by repelling and opposing another "I", different from his own. The separation (and distance) of oneself from the adult leads to the fact that the child begins to see and perceive the adult in a different way. Previously, the child was primarily interested in objects, he himself was directly absorbed in his objective actions and, as it were, coincided with them. All his affects and desires lay precisely in this sphere. Objective actions covered the figure of an adult and the child's own "I". In the crisis of three years, adults with their attitude towards the child appear for the first time in the inner world of the child's life. From a world limited by objects, the child moves into the world of adults, where his "I" takes a new place. Having separated from the adult, he enters into a new relationship with him.

At the age of three, the effective side of the activity becomes significant for children, and fixing their success by adults is a necessary moment of its implementation. Accordingly, the subjective value of one's own achievements also increases, which causes new, affective forms of behavior: exaggeration of one's merits, attempts to devalue one's failures.

The child has a new vision of the world and himself in it.

A new vision of oneself consists in the fact that the child for the first time discovers the material embodiment of his Self, and his own specific abilities and achievements can serve as its measure. The objective world becomes for the child not only a world of practical action and cognition, but a sphere where he tries his possibilities, realizes and asserts himself. Therefore, each result of activity also becomes an affirmation of one's Self, which should be evaluated not in general, but through its concrete, material embodiment, i.e. through his achievements in subject activity. The main source of such assessment is an adult. Therefore, the baby begins to perceive the attitude of an adult with a special predilection.

A new vision of "I" through the prism of their achievements lays the foundation for the rapid development of children's self-awareness. The self of the child, being objectified as a result of activity, appears before him as an object that does not coincide with him. And this means that the child is already able to carry out elementary reflection, which does not unfold in an internal, ideal plane, but has an externally developed character of assessing his achievement.

The formation of such a system of the Self, where the starting point is the achievement appreciated by others, marks the transition to preschool childhood.

Psychological characteristic preschool age (3 - 6-7 years)

Play as a Leading Activity

Preschool childhood is a fairly long period of a child's life. During this period, the child discovers the world of human relations, various activities and social functions of people. The world of social relations is becoming a new social situation of development.

At this age, children, on the one hand, strive to actively participate in adult life (which is not yet available to them), on the other hand, to be independent. Out of this contradiction, a role-playing game is born - independent activity children, simulating the life of adults. “The impossibility of acting like an adult in the real plane, the impossibility of realizing desire in independent social behavior causes the appearance of activity on the plane of imagination. That's how the game comes about."

The game is a criterion for the mental and emotional development of the child. During the period of preschool childhood, it undergoes significant changes.

Types of games according to age according to E.E. Kravtsova:

The structure of the game can be divided into several elements:

1. Subject. Any game has a theme - that area of ​​reality that the child reproduces in the game. The theme is taken from the surrounding reality or from fairy tales, cartoons (“family”, “hospital”, “shop”, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, “rangers”, etc.). D.B. Elkonin singled out two thematic groups of games: 1) adults, their work and relationships with other people; 2) emotionally significant events.

2. Plot. In accordance with the theme, the plot, the scenario of the game is built. Plots refer to a certain sequence of events played out in a game. The types of stories are varied:

Industrial (plants, factories), agricultural, construction games;

Games with everyday (family, garden, school) and socio-political (demonstrations, rallies) subjects;

War games;

Dramatizations (performances of fairy tales and stories, puppet theater, circus, cinema), etc.

3. Role - a mandatory set of actions and rules for their implementation. Roles are performed by game actions: the "doctor" gives an injection to the "sick", the "seller" weighs out the "buyer" "sausage", the "teacher" teaches the "students" to "write", etc.

4. The content of the game is what the child highlights as the main point of the activity or relationship of adults. As the child grows older, the content of the game changes. For younger preschoolers, this is a repeated repetition of an action with an object (“pumping a doll”, “cutting bread”, “healing a bear”, “feeding a dog”; for middle-aged children, this is modeling the activities of adults and emotionally significant situations in role-playing (rocking a doll to put them to bed, cut bread to put in front of each doll for lunch, etc.);

5. Play material and play space. These include toys and substitute items (food, furniture, carpets, money) and the boundaries of the territory within which the game takes place.

6. Role and real relationships. The first reflect the attitude to the plot and role (specific manifestations of the characters). The second ones express the attitude towards the quality and correctness of the performance of the role (they allow to agree on the distribution of roles, the choice of the game and are implemented in the evaluation "remarks" such as "you must do this", "you said wrong", etc.)

Thus, the game changes and reaches a high level of development by the end of preschool age. There are two main stages in the development of the game:

Another basis for the development of the game is the composition of its participants:

The influence of the game on the overall mental development of the child according to V.S. Mukhina:

The game is a criterion for the normality of the child, by the way he plays, you can learn a lot about him. The game has importance and for the emotional development of children. It helps to cope with fears generated by traumatic situations (nightmares, horror stories, long hospital stays).

The main thing that the child gets in the game is the opportunity to take on a role. In the course of playing this role, the child's actions and his attitude to reality are transformed.

The game in modern culture is a kind of cult. Until the age of seven, until the child goes to school, he is allowed to play. It wasn't always like that. Where the child is included in the work of adults from childhood, there is no play. Children always play in what is not available to them. Therefore, in a society where the child is attached to the work of adults, games are not needed. There children play in "rest".

Other preschool activities

AT preschool childhood there are also types of activities that differ not only in content, but also in the way an adult is present in them:

The differentiation of these types of activity occurs gradually; at the very beginning of preschool age, they are all quite close to each other. Development of relationships between adults and children in all, specified types activity leads to the end of the preschool period to the allocation and awareness of the child of the specific functions of an adult and his own specific duties. There is an awareness of the role of the teacher, his public function- to teach children, awareness of their social function - to learn.

Communication of preschoolers

Communication between a child and an adult has a special logic of development in preschool age. M.I. Lisina found that during normal development during preschool age, three forms of communication between a child and an adult are replaced, each of which is characterized by a specific content.

General psychological characteristics of communication of preschoolers

Mastering the ways of interaction of people with each other occurs through the development of mechanisms of identification and isolation. Identification is the identification of oneself with others. In communication, the child is immersed in an experience for another, projecting himself into the place of this other (fairy tales, films, cartoons and communication). A girl (4 years old) is crying near a hill, standing next to a little boy. When asked about the reason for crying, he answers: “His mother left, I feel sorry for him.” (characteristic for this age identification in the form of sympathy). Isolation is the desire to confirm one's independence, to insist on one's own: “I said so!”, “I will do it!” and so on.

The child's communication is mainly directed towards satisfying the need for love and approval. A child is highly dependent on the attitude that adults show him - in order to receive love, tenderness, a positive assessment of an adult, he is ready for anything: from fawning to demonstrative neglect, rivalry with other children. The need for love and approval is a condition for gaining emotional protection, developing a sense of confidence, a friendly attitude towards other people.

If the child lacks love, he loses self-confidence, feels abandoned and alone - there is a violent alienation in the form of fear (intimidation, denial of support in an unusual situation - alienated, aggressive position of parents). There may be a fear of the dark, a fear of an elevator, a fear of strangers in kindergarten, etc.

In general, communication in preschool age undergoes the following changes:

With the advent of independence, the forms of communication with both parents also change (they no longer belong to him undividedly). Such relationships do not suit the child - he is indignant, jealous - this manifests itself either in stormy love and preference for one of the parents (Oedipus complex), then after a while the other - and with the same force (identification - resolution of the Oedipus complex). Finally, these jealous forms of communication pass (by the age of 6), the child recovers peace of mind He loves both his father and mother. In the absence of a father - when the child discovers and realizes this - anxiety, concern, excitability may arise. Male communication is required (grandfather, uncle, section coach, etc.)

In addition, since verbal communication becomes not only a means of exchanging information, but also carries an expressive function (emotionally colored), then, imitating parents and close people, the child unconsciously adopts their communication style. Child's communication style in terms of speech culture and emotional manifestations - a cast of relationships in the family.

This need for communication with peers develops in games, activities, self-service, etc. In the conditions of public education ( Kindergarten), the child acquires the skills of behavior in a team, learns mutual understanding, cooperation, mutual assistance, the ability to take the position of another person. Interpersonal reflection develops.

The development of mental functions of a preschooler

Development of the personality of a preschooler

“Preschool age is the period of the initial actual warehouse of the personality” (A.N. Leontiev). It is at this time that the formation of the main personal mechanisms and formations takes place. Emotional and motivational sphere self-consciousness is formed.

New motives also appear - achieving success, competition, rivalry, motives associated with the moral standards that are being assimilated at this time.

The individual motivational system of the child begins to take shape, which includes an individual stable hierarchy of motives (the first stage is the identification of dominant motives - the desire to lead, compete or help everyone, or achieve success in a serious matter, or enjoy the process of activity). The hierarchy will end in primary school and adolescence.

There is an assimilation of moral norms, which, together with emotional regulation, contributes to the development of arbitrary behavior of a preschooler.

Self-esteem appears in the second half of the period on the basis of purely emotional self-esteem (“I am good because I can do this and that, because I obey adults,” etc.) and a rational assessment of someone else's behavior. The child first acquires the ability to evaluate the actions of other children, and then his own actions, moral qualities and skills. In general, the self-esteem of a preschooler is very high, which allows him to master new activities, without doubt and fear to join classes training type. According to studies (M.I. Lisina), a child's self-esteem is formed mainly depending on the expectations of parents. If the assessments and expectations in the family do not correspond to age and individual characteristics child, his self-image will be distorted.

The character of a child at preschool age is formed in the totality of his attitudes to various aspects of life: to activities, to others, to himself, to objects and things. The decisive role in the formation of character also belongs to adults, their behavior and assessment of the behavior of the child.

Another line of development of self-consciousness is awareness of one's experiences. In the first half of preschool childhood, the child, having various experiences, is not aware of them. At the end of preschool age, the child is oriented in his emotional states and can express them in words. Self-awareness begins in time. At 6-7 years old, a child remembers himself in the past, is aware of the present and imagines himself in the future: “when I was small”, “when I grow up big”. General and special abilities are formed: musical, artistic, dance.

The main neoplasms of preschool age (D.B. Elkonin):

The central neoplasms of preschool age are the subordination of motives and self-awareness.

Psychological characteristics of primary school age

By the beginning of schooling, the child is aware of his capabilities, he is ready to obey the requirements and instructions, he is able to see a different point of view (decentration of thought processes has occurred), he is active and he wants to learn. Primary school age is the time of gaining skill and competence. Adults have almost no problems, first-graders are diligent students and obedient pupils. A schoolchild is the first social status of a child. Almost every child strives to do everything right.

Leading activity is education.The world at this age is represented by a system scientific knowledge and concepts to be mastered. In his activity, the student is guided by general cultural patterns of action that he takes in dialogue with adults. The teacher is very significant person, as he is a "socially established" authority. The difference in the positions of parents and teachers for a younger student lies precisely in the fact that the teacher is a “representative of society”, a “bearer of general knowledge”, which by definition cannot know less than the parents or be wrong. Such an unequivocal attitude towards the personality of the teacher on the part of the child determines the position of the parents towards the teacher. Wise everyday advice to the parents of a future first-grader is the advice "to choose not a school, but a teacher."

Orientation to "correctness", the desire to match certain patterns (behavior, feelings, thoughts), makes children at this age receptive to any technology. Quickly and skillfully adopted models – external behavior, physical exercises, operational skills in managing equipment - from a bicycle to a computer. This tendency in its positive direction allows the development of industriousness. But it is also fraught with the danger of excessive "fixation" on external rules and patterns. In an effort to comply with all prescriptions, the child begins to treat everyone else with increased demands, often falling into “pharisaism”. They require the strict implementation of certain instructions from both their peers and adults. Sometimes adults themselves violate the rules that they taught the child, and in this situation conflicts and misunderstandings arise. And sometimes it turns out that the child, trying to comply with all the rules prescribed by adults, at some point weakens under this unbearable burden. Then he can begin to live his "secret" life.

One of the directions of development at this age is the establishment of various social ties. Ripe by the end of preschool age inner life allows the child to realize his "opacity" to others. This allows him to build his own psychological space and "try himself" in different roles. “Children at this age can invent their own biography, especially when they meet new people for themselves, and this acquaintance cannot develop into a long one.” Structuring your psychological space manifests itself in dealing with material world- the child marks his personal items, “decorates” as he can. This is the age of the creation of "caches" and "secrets", the construction of "headquarters", the beginning of the development of attics and basements. Books are signed, a bicycle, a bed are decorated, pictures are pasted in the most incredible places - by “marking” his thing, the child seems to transfer part of his personal properties. So you can touch the "boundaries of your Self." Therefore, sometimes even an accidental violation of these established boundaries - a sticker erased by parents, a picture taken, etc. - are perceived very tragically.

Learning activities

Most authors consider the content of mental development in primary school age through the analysis of learning activities. According to D.B. Elkonin educational activity is an activity that has as its content the mastery of generalized methods of action in the field of scientific concepts. In the course of learning activity, the child seeks and appropriates generalized ways of solving problems, he develops theoretical thinking with its components such as meaningful reflection, analysis, planning, abstraction, and generalization (Davydov, 1986). Distinctive features of educational activity according to D.B. Elkonin:

1) learning activity is not productive in the sense that it does not have an external product; its purpose and result is a change in the subject of activity itself;

2) it theoretical activity, i.e. aimed at comprehending the method of carrying out activities, and not at achieving an external result, therefore, educational activity is a reflexive activity. For V.V. Davydov's theoretical activity is an activity based on conceptual thinking;

3) learning activity is a search and research activity, but the student makes discoveries only for himself, and does not discover something fundamentally new.

Where does learning activity come from? Does it "grow" out of the game or does it have other "roots"? V.V. Davydov denies the existence of a connection between play and learning activity, opposing them to each other. G.A. Zuckerman solves the issue of the continuity of leading activities and the problem of age-related neoplasms in the context of studying the system of relations between a child and an adult, when for each leading activity a leading (genetically initial) form of cooperation and, accordingly, two types of neoplasms are distinguished.

At primary school age, educational activity corresponds to the educational form of cooperation. The central new formation of educational activity is reflection as the ability to separate the known from the unknown, which the author associates with the child's mastery of a system of concepts and theoretical thinking. The central new formation of the educational form of cooperation is the “ability to learn”, i.e. the ability to teach oneself, to be the subject of learning. The main goal of the ability to learn is seen by the author in the ability to go beyond the current situation, when any task appears as a task with missing conditions. G.A. Zuckerman speaks of a younger student as a subject of learning activity, if the child is involved in the search for and construction of new ways of acting in a situation of a learning task.

In recent years, the idea has been advocated that the subject of educational activity is the main neoformation of primary school age (Davydov, 1996).

In contrast to the approach, where all neoplasms of primary school age are associated with educational activity and its formation, in the studies of G.G. Kravtsova (2000), the portrait of a junior schoolchild is “described” on the basis of an analysis of the content and characteristics of the child’s communication with adults and peers in various situations, and they are the main criteria for the emergence of neoplasms.

According to the scientist, a preschooler is characterized by situational communication with adults and peers, his behavior is determined by the current situation, he is impulsive and direct. While the younger student acquires the ability to control himself, he becomes supra-situational in his behavior and pays attention to the method of solving the problem, and not to the direct achievement of the goal. A preschooler thinks by acting and manipulating, a younger student first thinks and then acts, i.e. distinguishes them theoretical attitude to the task. G.G. Kravtsov connects the emergence of a theoretical attitude to the task with the appearance in the child of arbitrariness of actions and a change in position in communication. The child, acting voluntarily, realizes the purpose of his action and correlates it with the means of activity.

An indicator of the formation of a theoretical attitude to a task is the child's ability to consistently focus on the method, which implies the ability to separate oneself from one's activity and verbalize its operational composition. Central location in understanding and comprehending the course of solving problems, the directed organization of one's actions belongs to reflection. To diagnose this ability, the author, in a situation of communication between a child and an adult and a peer, "called" the position of "teaching" in the subject. This position is optimal for understanding, rethinking and turning any skill memorized by imitation into a reflective plan of action. It is thought that this methodical technique can be used as a diagnostic principle in developmental psychology in order to study the position of subjectivity in any kind of activity.

Experimentally, G.G. Kravtsov singled out the stages, the stages of the formation of a theoretical attitude to a task in a younger schoolchild in connection with a change in the child's position in joint activity with an adult:

1. The child is inside the task, cannot treat it as if from the outside, does not comply with the requirements of an adult. He is guided by his own subjective meanings, does not pay attention to the adult, his requirements, to the way of solving the problem.

2. The child begins to actively search for reasons for action, "speaks" for two - for the one who sets the task, and for himself. His activity is internally two-subjective. Children change their attitude towards an adult and accept his hint, realizing the difficulty that has arisen in solving a problem.

3. The child identifies a method and copes with the task with the help of an adult. He is ready to take a conditionally dynamic position, capable of a theoretical attitude to the problem.

4. He solves the problem himself without the help of an adult, understands and owns the instructions, is consistent with the position of the adult who sets the task.

Thus, at first the child is in the position of "teaching" and begins to realize the method he uses. Then he voluntarily and consciously takes the position of a student and actively seeks the help of an adult himself. As a result, the child becomes able to demonstrate the mode of action to another child or adult, to cooperate with them "on an equal footing"; learns to transfer the method to another without acting in in practical terms, but only by recreating the sequence of actions from memory, finally, the children form a “conditionally dynamic position”, which implies an established theoretical attitude to the task.

The works of the same author show the opposite position of V.V. Davydov's point of view on the genetic continuity of play and learning activities. If V.V. Davydov believes that educational activity is in no way derived from psychological achievements and activities of the preschool period, but is introduced into the life of a child from the outside by an adult, then
G.G. Kravtsov understands the emergence of learning activity as a process of its natural and organic emergence from the prerequisites that develop within the preschool period of childhood. Based on this idea, he formulated the following theoretical positions:

- Responsible for the entire course of mental development in preschool age, play activity has genetic continuity with the leading activity of the next age level - educational;

- from the very fact of this connection it follows that the psychological readiness of children to study at school is directly and directly conditioned by the appropriate level of development of gaming activity;

- gaming activity, which has lost its leading status, does not disappear or diminish, but, on the contrary, finds its natural place in the life of school-age children;

- in preschool age, that central quality or that ability of the individual develops, which makes possible unhindered learning at school.

The "bridge" that connects the game and learning activities is a game with rules, the highest kind of children's game. More L.S. Vygotsky once wrote that the logic of the development of children's play lies in the movement from games with an explicit role and hidden rules to games with a hidden role and explicit rules. Children who know how to play this or that game agree with their peers how they will play this time. In this phase, children's activities are inherently an exact model and prototype of the learning activities that they will carry out at school. Learning activity in its inner psychological essence is a collectively distributed activity, it is collective theorizing. It is this feature of educational activity that acts as a social situation for the development of the child.

If we approach the consideration of the genetic links between play and learning activity in this way, then the question arises: is it possible to introduce learning activity from the first days of a child's stay at school? And if he is psychologically not ready to learn? How to move from playing to learning activities? Modern scientists are also trying to give a scientifically sound answer to these questions. AT pilot study E.L. Gorlova proved that at primary school age (at the beginning of education) there should be a special activity that “amplifies” the age: playful in form and educational in content. This type of activity allows you to implement an individual approach to the child, i. take into account the level of his psychological development at the time of admission to school.

As already noted, the game remains in the life of the child and takes up a lot of space, taking the form of a director's game of the second level, where the objective conditions for organizing activities are included in the process of imagination. The child imagines not as he wants, but as he needs within the framework of the task being performed. He is able to control himself as a subject of imagination, which makes possible collective creativity, often realized by him in circles and sections. This same feature of the imagination provides an important ability for school-age children - they begin to consciously learn from each other. The child's thinking becomes creative (Kravtsova, 1999). Not only the nature of imagination itself changes, but also the role of its components. If at preschool age the imagination was built in logic subject environment – past experience- a supra-situational internal position, then in the primary school - an extra-situational internal position - past experience - subject environment.

Collecting as a new activity

At primary school age, a special type of activity, inherent only to this age, which was absent at the previous age stage, appears - the activity of collecting. Scientists (Berezhkovskaya, 2000) associate its appearance with the development of the prerequisites for scientific concepts in primary school age.

Collecting is a specifically new cultural children's activity, the meaning of which is to organize the world, bring it into a hierarchical system and create psychological conditions to develop scientific concepts and achieve personal level reflections in adolescence.

For a preschooler, a collection is a “heap” in which especially valuable items stand out. Gathering is not structured and takes place according to the principle “the more the better”. emotional attachment to one or another copy is determined only by subjective factors - the history of the acquisition that gave it to the person. With the help of an adult, the child can systematize the collection, becoming its subject.

At primary school age, a child is able to set the consistency of his collection himself. This happens due to the fact that he acquires the ability to take a supra-situational position in relation to his collection and enter into substantive communication with other people about it. A real collection of a schoolboy has as its limit some kind of ideal, fully compiled, impeccably systematized collection.

Thus, we see that the first sign of any scientific concept - systemic, hierarchical - is directly reproduced in this cultural children's activity. The second sign - fundamental revision, rethinking, introduction to a new system - is also set by the development of collecting activities. Collecting implies a constant appeal of the collector's consciousness to the hierarchical structure of the collection, to its improvement. This is the reflective level of collecting that becomes the foundation of professional collecting.

Reflection as a central neoplasm of primary school age

Reflection is traditionally called the central age-related psychological neoplasm of primary school age. According to E.L. Gorlova (2002), the study of reflection is carried out in two directions: 1) it is studied as an independent process developing according to its own logic; 2) the problem of reflection is considered in the plane of the ontogeny of communication.

An example of the first approach is the research of B.D. Elkonin, who defines reflection as a mechanism for the transition from direct forms of behavior to mediated ones and explores the functions of a sign that acts according to the cultural and historical concept of L.S. Vygotsky as a means of organizing a person's behavior. Reflexive action according to B.D. Elkonin is an action of mediation, which takes place in two stages: 1) discovery and 2) retention of meaning.

Yu.N. Karandyshev defines reflection as a principle of thinking that “penetrates” mental phenomena, and considers the projective ideas of older preschoolers to be the initial stage in the development of cognitive reflection. In the theory of learning activity D.B. Elkonin and V.V. Davydov reflection is considered as one of the components theoretical thinking, which is developed in educational activities (along with analysis and planning). G.A. Zuckerman proposes to study reflection as the ability of a person to determine the boundaries of his knowledge and find ways to overcome these boundaries. According to this author, main function reflection and a generalized characteristic of the ability to learn is the ability to go beyond the boundaries of the current situation and one's own capabilities.

Reflection manifests itself in three areas: activity and thinking; communications and cooperation; self-awareness. The problem of transforming intellectual reflection into a personal characteristic, using the acquired reflexive ability not only when considering the grounds for one's own learning activities in the classroom, but also in other contexts of life that are important for the child, has not found its solution in the theory of learning activity. Thus, the content of reflection by different authors is understood in different ways: as a rule, they try to define reflection through other terms generally accepted in psychology: self-consciousness, mediation, decentration, awareness, etc.

An example of the second approach to the study of reflection can be the studies of E.E. Kravtsova, G.G. Kravtsova, E.L. Berezhkovskaya, E.L. Gorlova, where it is considered in the plane of the ontogeny of communication. The prerequisites for learning activity, according to these scientists, are formed on the basis of the child's passage through the pre-situational, situational and supra-situational stages in the development of communication in preschool childhood. These stages allow the child to master their own communication and acquire a reflective position in it, i.e. use different internal positions in building your communication. Thus, reflection has as its source the development of the child's communication, his mastery of various communal positions.

In an experimental study by E.L. Gorlova revealed that the psychological prerequisites for reflection of primary school age are imagination and arbitrariness of communication with adults. Imagination contributes to the development of supra-situation, independence from specific situation, the possibility of making it the subject of its consideration. Arbitrariness in communication with an adult is a step towards "internal dialogism", the ability to simultaneously hold two positions - "acting" and "observing". This study proved that reflection cannot be considered a neoplasm of a stable period of primary school age: in the author's experimental methodology, only children aged 12–13 showed a semantic level of reflection. Throughout the entire primary school age, there is an increase in answers at the knowledge level of reflection, while preschoolers demonstrated pre-reflexive and formal reflexive levels. Two peaks in the development of reflection were identified: a significant increase in responses at the knowledge level after 8 years and their sharp increase at the semantic level after 12. It was these data that allowed the author to put forward and prove the hypothesis that the central psychological neoplasm of primary school age is voluntary attention, understood the author after L.S. Vygotsky as a function of structuring what is perceived (from perception) and what is represented (by memory), characterized by the ability to arbitrarily mark a figure and a background. The conditions for the formation of voluntary attention are the game with the rules and the director's game as a form of learning (“rule-making” and “plot-making”), which ensures the continuity of age-related neoplasms and activities.

Regarding the reflection of E.L. Gorlova suggests that this is a neoplasm of the transition period (crisis) from primary school age to younger adolescence.

Arbitration of mental functions

In general, primary school age is called the age of the global regulation of all mental functions.

Volunteering is clearly manifested in the development of memory - the central mental function of the consciousness of a child of primary school age. This is a new position of domestic developmental psychologists, based on a more thorough experimental study of age-related development. L.S. Vygotsky placed memory at the center of the preschooler's consciousness. However, the studies of A.V. The Zaporozhian was forced to doubt this. Therefore, today such a mental function as emotions is “fixed” as a central one for preschool age, and memory is “fixed” for younger school age. The famous "parallelogram of memory" clearly demonstrates that only at primary school age intentional use means of memorization allows the child to increase the amount of memorized, in comparison with preschool age, where the amount of arbitrary and involuntary memorization about the same.

Spiritual development in educational activities

The paradox of educational activity lies in the fact that, while assimilating knowledge, the child does not change anything in them. He becomes the subject of change. For the first time, a child performs an activity that turns him on himself, requires reflection, an assessment of “what I was” and “what I have become”. An important indicator of the learning process is the change in a person's spiritual experience. The Orthodox meaning of such a change is defined by the word "repentance". In the book "Orthodox Pedagogy" Fr. Yevgeny Shestun defines learning as a special case of repentance. In such an attitude to learning, there will be no room for the development of vanity and self-satisfaction for the believing child, no matter how successful he may be. The comprehension of knowledge, as the secrets of God's Creation, is associated with reverence and will certainly have a positive impact on the spiritual life of the student. And the educational process proceeds in a completely different way in a situation heated by the development of self-expression and self-affirmation of the student. In this case, there may be good knowledge subjects, but such a motivation to study is detrimental to spiritual development growing person. “It is very difficult to deal with former geeks in the scientific community, who then turned out to be sterile research assistants"- wrote Professor and Archpriest Gleb Kaleda. In his opinion, real study is like prayer and has nothing to do with the satisfaction of one's own vanity. “Wandering through the forest, rafting through the taiga in a boat, being on the dazzling mountain peaks, one wants to sing “Praise the name of the Lord.” The beauty of being in all its manifestations - from the Cosmos when contemplating the night sky to the smallest creatures when examining the shells of radiolarians and diatoms in optical or electron microscopes - rises before us when studying nature.

Recognition of educational activity as the leading one at primary school age is based on the fact that children at this age are active researchers of everything new. Therefore, the best reward for teaching should be the new knowledge that the student has acquired. Experts note that external reinforcements, such as praise and approval, are not the best motivation for learning. The educational process, which has the character of a journey through an unknown country, where amazing discoveries await at every step, will allow the child to develop a stable motivation for learning. In addition, relationships with adults will not be mediated by school grades. Sometimes it happens that parents build their relationship with their children based on their school success or failure. “My mother doesn’t love me, I don’t have enough fives.” In the drawings of first-graders, one can often find "pretty fives" and gloomy monsters-twos or threes. Assessment, according to V.A. Sukhomlinsky, becomes an idol. One of pedagogical tasks at this age, the overthrow of the idol begins, which replaces the adult's appeal to the child's personality, by evaluating his individual qualities - memory, thinking, attention, will.

Speaking about educational activities at this age, it is necessary to note the most important directions in overcoming the difficulties that a child encounters in the process of learning. The first major factor isrelationship between adult and child. Not only should it not be mediated by school grades, itmust be generally positivetowards the child. Psychologists note a common mistake in the interaction between an adult and a child - the child is praised for certain manifestations of his personality - he did the assignment well, did his homework correctly, painted beautifully, and the whole personality of the child is often condemned - “what a clumsy you are!”, “Well, why are you so inattentive?”, “you always mix everything up”, etc. A necessary condition for a child to realize and assert his "I" is a positive assessment of his personality. At the same time, the condemnation of negative behavior, bad deeds, of course, should take place in the educational process, but it refers to one of the manifestations of the child, and not to his entire personality.

The second important point in the difficulties of schooling is the orientation towards mistakes. All activities of the child are evaluated by adults in the context of the mistakes he made. “The child tries with all his might to avoid a mistake, but the fear of it causes such excessive control that the latter limits the child, restrains his initiative and creativity.” An adult’s consideration of an error from the point of view of its cognitive significance and transient nature will allow the child not to make it a measure of action, but a starting point for working on himself.

The third point that causes difficulties in schooling is the depreciation of children's achievements by adults. If adults attribute the reasons for school success to luck, chance, teacher loyalty, etc., the child loses the incentive to be active. The approval and support of an adult, even with the slightest success, helps to overcome school hardships.

The fourth moment experts call the shortened life prospect of the child. “It manifests itself in the fact that the child has situational interests, he is easily influenced by others, as if he does not know how, and does not seek to perceive his actions as relatively independent of others. Such children have little initiative, cannot organize their own behavior on their own, wait for adult prompts in everything and are guided by their peers. The development of independence of such children is a rather time-consuming task. It requires parents to be able to dose, and then gradually reduce to a minimum assistance to the child.

Communication with peers and subculture

Communication with peers also undergoes significant changes for the younger student. Now they jointly learn new knowledge. Numerous assimilation experiments educational material allowed us to conclude that knowledge is more effectively acquired in the interaction of the child with peers than with the teacher. In relations with an adult, a separation of functions is inevitable for a child - an adult gives a task, controls and evaluates a child. A paradox arises - the child cannot fully master the action, since some components of this action remain with the adult. Cooperation with peers allows you to internalize knowledge in a different way (make it your own). In the group of peers, relations are equal and symmetrical, and in communication with the teacher there is a hierarchy. “J.. Piaget argued that such qualities as criticality, tolerance, the ability to take the point of view of another, develop only when children communicate with each other. Only through the sharing of points of view of persons equal to the child - first of other children, and later, as the child grows up, and adults, genuine logic and morality can replace egocentrism, logical and moral realism.

The expression of emotions continues, which is reflected in the emergence of such a phenomenon as “intellectualization of affect”, when the child becomes able to take an extra-situational position in relation to emotionally charged situations and find a way out of them. A striking example of this is children's writing, a new cultural activity for a given age, where a child in a specific setting (in a group of children) comes up with a plot according to certain rules. Most often, furtively from adults, children jointly invent and tell each other horror stories. According to M.V. Osorina (1999), in this way, children work through fears in a symbolic form. Joint "fear", caused arbitrarily, intentionally, acts as a means of controlling one's emotional state. For the same purpose, children jointly indulge in magical practice. All ways of mastering one's emotional states, fears of the unknown contribute to the transfer of "terrible places" into the category of "terribly interesting" ones, about which one wants to know more. In the future, thanks to such practice, and as scientific concepts are mastered, the child's concrete-shaped picture of the world is restructured into a scientific picture.

At this age, the child discovers an interlocutor in himself, his consciousness becomes dialogical, inner speech appears, which contributes to the need for solitude, finding secluded places. The child learns the wrong side of the adult world through visiting attics, basements, garbage dumps. Here he finds himself in a situation of lack of structure, things without owners, which increases the degree of freedom of his behavior and actions. There is a development of new territories, new ways and space.

Physical development

In primary school age, the child, as a rule, enters with the front teeth that have fallen out. And by middle age, the first permanent teeth appear, which sometimes seem too big for a child's mouth, until the bones of the facial part of the skull acquire the appropriate size. “The toothless smile of a 6-year-old child and the “beaver fangs” of an 8-year-old” clearly show how the skeletal system of a growing child changes in such a short period. At this age, the bones are elongated in longitudinal and transverse dimensions. Sometimes rapid growth is accompanied by aching pains, numbness of the limbs, which are especially frequent at night. Experts note that this is just a normal reaction of the body to growth. At the same time, it is worth remembering that the skeleton and ligaments of the child have not yet matured, so heavy loads in training are fraught with dangerous injuries.

The development of motor skills continues - strength, speed, coordination and control over one's movement, both in gross and fine motor skills. Children, both boys and girls, improve, for example, in jumping and throwing, the ability to stand on one leg for a long time, ride a bicycle “without hands”, as well as the ability to write in different handwriting, weave with beads. Sometimes the demonstration of possession of one's own body is so captivating that the child is forgotten - many adults can remember from their own childhood contests "for the farthest spit" or "who will overcome whom?". Perfect control of one's body gives the child a sense of mental comfort and promotes recognition from peers. Clumsy, with poor coordination of movements, children at this age often suffer.

The development of a child's personality at this age is almost completely determined by the position of an adult - he determines the content of education, social circle, and the child's hobbies. The type of thinking, assessments and attitudes of an adult become standards for a child. “But at primary school age, an important change occurs in the life of a child: he masters the skills of orientation in his inner world.” This skill prepares the transition to adolescence.

Teenage years. Psychological features

Every age is good in its own way. And at the same time, each age has its own characteristics, has its own difficulties. No exception is teenage years.

This is the longest transition period, which is characterized by a number of physical changes. At this time, there is an intensive development of the personality, its rebirth.

From the psychological dictionary:"Adolescence is a stage ontogenetic development between childhood and adulthood (from 11–12 to 16–17 years), which is characterized by qualitative changes associated with puberty and entry into adulthood»

Features of the "teenage complex":

• sensitivity to outsiders' assessment of one's appearance
• extreme arrogance and peremptory judgments in relation to others
• attentiveness sometimes coexists with striking callousness, painful shyness with swagger, a desire to be recognized and appreciated by others - with ostentatious independence, a struggle with authorities, generally accepted rules and widespread ideals - with the deification of random idols

The essence of the "teenage complex" is their own, characteristic of this age and certain psychological characteristics, behavioral models, specific adolescent behavioral reactions to environmental influences.

Cause psychological difficulties connected withpuberty, this is an uneven development in various directions. This age is characterized by emotional instability and sharp mood swings (from exaltation to depression). The most affective violent reactions occur when someone around tries to infringe on the vanity of a teenager.

The peak of emotional instability occurs in boys at the age of 11-13 years, in girls - 13-15 years.

Adolescents are characterized by the polarity of the psyche:

• Purposefulness, perseverance and impulsiveness,
• Instability can be replaced by apathy, lack of aspirations and desires to do something,
• Increased self-confidence, peremptory judgments are quickly replaced by vulnerability and self-doubt;
• The need for communication is replaced by a desire to retire;
• Cheekiness in behavior is sometimes combined with shyness;
• Romantic moods often border on cynicism and prudence;
• Tenderness, tenderness are against the background of childish cruelty.

A characteristic feature of this age is curiosity, inquisitiveness of the mind, the desire for knowledge and information, a teenager seeks to acquire as much knowledge as possible, but sometimes not paying attention to the fact that knowledge must be systematized.

Stanley Hall called adolescence the "Sturm und Drang" period. Since during this period, opposite needs and traits coexist in the personality of a teenager. Today, a teenage girl sits modestly with her relatives and talks about virtue. And tomorrow, depicting on the face war paint and having pierced his ear with a dozen earrings, he will go to a night disco, stating that "everything must be experienced in life." But nothing special (from the point of view of the child) happened: she just changed her mind.

As a rule, teenagers direct their mental activity to the area that fascinates them the most. However, interests are unstable. After swimming for a month, the teenager suddenly declares that he is a pacifist, that killing anyone is a terrible sin. And by this he will be carried away with the same passion for computer games.

One of the neoplasms of adolescence -sense of maturity.

When they say that a child is growing up, they mean the formation of his readiness for life in the society of adults, moreover, as an equal participant in this life. From the outside, nothing changes for a teenager: he studies at the same school (unless, of course, his parents suddenly transferred to another), lives in the same family. All the same in the family, the child is treated as a “small”. He does not do much himself, much is not allowed by his parents, whom he still has to obey. Parents feed, water, dress their child, and for good (from their point of view) behavior they can even “reward” (again, according to their own understanding - pocket money, a trip to the sea, going to the cinema, a new thing). adulthood is far away - both physically, and psychologically, and socially, but one wants so much! He objectively cannot be included in adult life, but strive for it and claim equal rights with adults. So far they cannot change anything, but outwardly imitate adults. Hence and attributes of “pseudo-adulthood” appear: cigarette smoking, parties at the entrance, trips out of town ( outward manifestation"I also have my own life." Copy any relationship.

Although claims to adulthood can be ridiculous, sometimes ugly, and role models are not the best, in principle it is useful for a teenager to go through such a school of new relationships. After allexternal copying of adult relationships- this is a kind of enumeration of roles, games that occur in life. That is a variant of teenage socialization. And where else can you train, if not in your family? There are truly valuable options for adulthood, favorable not only for loved ones, but also for the personal development of the teenager himself. This is inclusion in a completely adult intellectual activity, when a teenager is interested in a certain area of ​​​​science or art, deeply engaged in self-education. Or taking care of the family, participating in solving both complex and daily problems, helping those who need it. However, only a small proportion of adolescents reach a high level of development of moral consciousness and few are able to take responsibility for the well-being of others. More common in our time is social infantilism.

The appearance of a teenager is another source of conflict.Changing gait, manners, appearance. More recently, a freely, easily moving boy begins to waddle, putting his hands deep in his pockets and spitting over his shoulder. He has new expressions. The girl begins to zealously compare her clothes and hair with the patterns she sees on the street and magazine covers, throwing out emotions at her mother about the discrepancies.

The appearance of a teenager often becomes a source of constant misunderstandings and even conflicts in the family. Parents are not satisfied with either youth fashion or prices for things that their child needs so much. A teenager, believing himself unique personality, at the same time strives to be no different from peers. He can experience the absence of a jacket - the same as everyone in his company - as a tragedy.

Most often friends with a teenager of the same sex, social status, the same abilities (although sometimes friends are selected by contrast, as if in addition to their missing features). Friendship is selective, betrayal is not forgiven. And coupled with teenage maximalism, friendships are peculiar character: on the one hand - the need for a single, devoted friend, on the other - a frequent change of friends.

Adolescents also have so-called reference groups.Reference group- this is a significant group for a teenager, whose views he accepts. The desire to merge with the group, not to stand out in any way, which meets the need for emotional security, is considered by psychologists as a mechanism psychological protection and is called social mimicry. It can be a yard company, and a class, and friends in the sports section, and neighbors on the floor. Such a group is a greater authority in the eyes of the child than the parents themselves, and it is she who will be able to influence his behavior and relationships with others. The teenager will listen to the opinion of the members of this group, sometimes unquestioningly and fanatically. It is in it that he will try to establish himself.

Psychological characteristics of adolescence

Adolescence is a period in development corresponding to the transition from adolescence to independent adulthood. This determines the social situation of development at this age: the young man occupies an intermediate position between a child and an adult. The position of the child is characterized by his dependence on adults, who determine the main content and direction of his life. With the complication of the life of a young man, there is not only a quantitative expansion of the range of social roles and interests, but also a qualitative change, there are more and more adult roles with the ensuing measure of independence and responsibility. But along with elements of adult status, the young man still retains features of dependence that bring his position closer to that of a child.

The chronological boundaries of adolescence are defined in psychology in different ways, most often researchers distinguish early youth, that is, senior school age (from 15 to 18 years old), and late youth (from 18 to 23 years old).

The tasks that determine the general characteristics of age are as follows. By the end of adolescence, the processes of physical maturation of a person are completed. Psychological content This stage is associated with the development of self-awareness, the solution of problems of professional self-determination and entry into adulthood. Cognitive and professional interests, the need for work, the ability to build life plans, social activity. In adolescence, the dependence on adults characteristic of the previous stages of ontogenesis is finally overcome, and the independence of the individual is affirmed. In relations with peers, along with the preservation of the great role of collective-group forms of communication, the importance of individual contacts and attachments is growing. Youth is a tense period of the formation of moral consciousness, the development of value orientations and ideals, sustainable outlook, civil personality traits.

The social situation of development in adolescence determines the fact that this age is characterized as “sustainable conceptual socialization, when stable personality traits are developed”, all mental processes are stabilized, the personality acquires a stable character. Thus, Youth is a period of transition to independence, a period of self-determination, the acquisition of mental, ideological and civic maturity.

The leading activity in early youth is professional self-determination. The psychological basis for self-determination in early youth is, first of all, the need of a young man to take the internal position of an adult, to realize himself as a member of society, to define himself in the world, that is, to understand himself and his capabilities along with an understanding of his place and purpose in life .

The psychological basis of professional self-determination constitutes a new personality structure in youth:

1. the formation of a worldview;

2. a generalized form of self-awareness, the work of which is manifested in the desire of a young man to approach himself from the position of values ​​prevailing in society;

3.discovery of one's own "I", experienced as an active active principle; 4. the need for labor and the ability to work;

5. developed reflection for awareness and a critical attitude towards oneself;

6.development of theoretical thinking and change to navigate in various forms of theoretical consciousness: scientific, artistic, ethical, legal;

7.nebnost in communication and possession of ways of its construction;

8.formation of moral self-awareness, development value orientations and ideals, civic qualities of the individual.

The problem of professional self-determination is complex and diverse. Thus, Pryazhnikov believes that the center of self-determination is the value and moral aspect, the development of self-awareness and the need for professional competence. In his opinion, the psychological factors that form the basis of professional self-determination are: awareness of the value of socially useful labor, general orientation in the socio-economic situation, awareness of the need for general and professional training for full-fledged self-determination and self-realization, general orientation in the world of professional work, the allocation of professional goal and its coordination with other important life goals, knowledge of the chosen goals, knowledge of internal obstacles that complicate the achievement of the chosen goal.

In adolescence, two opposite tendencies in communication are noted: the expansion of its sphere, on the one hand, and the growing individualization, isolation, on the other.

In girls, due to their earlier maturation, the need for intimate friendship matures earlier than boys. If we compare the ideal of friendship between boys and girls of approximately the same age, then the requirements for friendship are higher for girls than for boys. At older ages, this difference seems to level off. The intimacy of friendship depends on personal qualities(not everyone is capable of deep feelings, trust, interest in another) and the level of reflectivity of the individual (and this, in turn, is related to the level of education).

Youth is uncompromising, for a young man the desire to be himself, the thirst for self-disclosure is typical. But until a person has found himself in practical activity, his idea of ​​himself will inevitably be to some extent diffuse and unstable. Hence - the desire to test oneself by playing "foreign" roles, panache, intentional and unintentional self-denial. The young man wants to be completely sincere, longs for understanding.

Special attention should be given to the communication of boys and girls with adults. These relationships are not as tense as in adolescence, but remain complex, and the reason for the complexity lies in the autonomy of the young man, due to the social situation of his development. But with regard to deeper problems - political views, worldview, choice of profession - the authority of parents is much more significant, outweighing, as a rule, the influence of friends - peers. Topics of communication with adults are various aspects of life self-determination, provided that communication with adults will have a confidential form. Adults' trust in the development of the student's personality, faith in his potential "I" is the best condition for trust in communicating with him.

Psychological characteristics of the period of maturity

Maturity is the longest period of life - chronologically from 30-35 to 65 years. What signs testify to the change and continuity of development in middle age. Some signs are social . Those who have reached middle life are aware of their isolation not only from young people, but also from those who have retired and lived to old age. Other signs are physical and biological . A woman may notice that her son has outgrown her, a man that his arthritis is beginning to affect his professional skills.There are also psychological; most of them are related to issues of continuity and life change. People are beginning to realize that they have made a number of important decisions regarding their professional career and family life; these structures of life have almost taken shape by now - it remains only to implement them to the end. The future no longer carries limitless possibilities.

In modern developmental psychology, there are different points of view on the problem of development in adulthood:

1) development stops, is replaced simple change individual psychological characteristics;

2) this is the age of not only the preservation of everything acquired, but also the further development of the personality;

3) both the physical state of a person and his characteristics as a person and subject of activity are rebuilt.

For some people, the period of adulthood is only a chronological concept, adding nothing in development. Others achieve certain goals and reduce their vital activity. Still others continue to develop, constantly expanding their life prospects.

Whether middle age turns out to be a time of transition and further growth or a period of mid-life crisis depends on how people react to its onset. Those who view middle age as a period of transition into a new state perceive the process of development as a series of expected important events in life, while those inclined to the crisis model perceive normative age-related changes in the form of predictable crises.

Social situation of developmentin maturity it is the realization of oneself, the full disclosure of one's potential in professional activities and family relationships. Awareness of personal responsibility for one's own life and the lives of loved ones, and readiness to accept this responsibility is the key experience of the social situation of the development of maturity.

At maturitythe leading type of activity is work,but not as an inclusion in the productive life of society, but labor as an activity, as a result of whichmaximum realization of the essential forces of man.

Psychophysiological and cognitive development during adulthood

With age, human cognitive function declines, but this process is much slower than previously thought. The structure of the development of psychophysiological and psychological functions adult person combinesprocesses of increasing, stabilizing and lowering the functional levelindividual cognitive abilities.

In early maturity, there is an increase in the degree of integration of the entire system of intelligence.Stabilization periodobserved at 33-35 years. By the age of 40, attention, memory, thinking weaken, creative activity decreases. Average maximum creative activity for many specialists, it is observed at the age of 35–38, however, in such areas as mathematics, physics, chemistry, the peak of creative achievements was recorded before the age of 30–34; for geologists, physicians - at 35-39 years old, and for philosophy, psychology, politics - a little later, between 40 and 55 for years.

The factors for optimizing the intellectual potential of adults are: the level of education (higher, technical or humanitarian; secondary special, etc.); type of professional activity; the nature of labor activity (the presence of components of creativity, the need for mental stress), etc.

In addition to preservation, there is a qualitative transformation of the structure of the intellect of an adult.The dominant place is occupied by generalization on verbal material. A new possible stage in the development of the intellect is the ability to pose problems for oneself, sometimes worthy of the efforts of many generations.

Mobile (free, fluid) intelligence represents the basic ability to comprehend the content, to process information. It is independent of culture. It peaks during adolescence and then gradually declines throughout adulthood.crystallized(associated) intelligence, which includes cultural knowledge, education, competence, functions on the basis of accumulated knowledge and experience and increases with age. (This is the subject-content and operational-dynamic components of intelligence).

So, many people throughout middle age continue to demonstrate high level various intellectual abilities. However, there is one factor that invariably weakens in middle age. Skills that require speed become more and more difficult with age, as many psychomotor processes begin to slow down. At the age of 40–50, this slowdown is not yet so noticeable, so the decrease in speed can be compensated by an increase in the efficiency of one's actions and one's extensive knowledge. Soin middle age, one of the factors affecting cognition is the richness of life experience. Repeated experience contributes not only to an increase in the volume of information, but also to its the best organization. Older people are able to cope with many tasks better than younger people.

Central age-related neoplasmmaturity can be considered productivity . The concept of productivity, according to Erickson, includes both creative (professional) productivity and contribution to the upbringing and affirmation in the life of the next generation, associated with caring for people.

Lack of productivity, inertia lead to inertia and stagnation, personal devastation. In psychology, this situation is described as maturity crisis . Some researchers see the cause of the crisis of adulthood in a person's awareness of the discrepancy between his dreams, life plans and the course of their implementation. A person personally does not feel fulfilled, and his life - filled with meanings.

Other major concernsmiddle age crisisdecrease in physical strength, sexuality, deterioration in health, rigidity.

Rice. The physical abilities of a person reach their peak in their development in the years of youth or early adulthood; in middle age, their development reaches a plateau, and the first physical decline appears.

Resolution of the midlife crisismay be twofold. It is necessary either to find ways for further self-improvement and thereby achieve a correspondence between one’s capabilities and motives, or to reconsider life goals towards greater restraint and realism. For example, giving greater value relationships with spouse, friends, children can lead to a period of new stability.

Unresolved crisis experiences, refusal to update activity returns the crisiswith new force by the age of 50. Ignoring the changes taking place with him, a person plunges into work, clings to his administrative position, to his official chair in hopeless attempts to strengthen his authority.

Personal development in late adulthood

The state of maturity does not appear in a person unexpectedly. It flows from the entire previous life of a person. Internal changes occur gradually and, as a rule, come along with important life events.

The period of maturity is the pinnacle of a person's life path. By this time a person reaches the heights professional excellence and certain position in society.

A person who develops consistently reaches a creative culmination in the mid-fifties. Most characteristic features The personality of a person of mature age is the realism of aspirations, increased attention to the course of one's self-realization in industrial, family and personal life, increased attention to the state of one's health, emotional flexibility, craving for stability in everyday life. The values ​​that a person finds in the crisis of adulthood are the values ​​of meaningful being, which he realizes in his personal existence.

Thus, a normal mature personality is not a personality devoid of contradictions and difficulties, but a personality capable of accepting, recognizing and evaluating these contradictions, productively resolving them in accordance with its most common goals and moral ideals, which leads to new stages, steps of development.

Psychological characteristics of the period of old age

late adulthood,old age like psychological age - this is the final period of life, including a change in the position of a person in society and playing its special role in the life cycle system. It is difficult to determine the chronological boundaries of the onset of old age, since the range individual differences in the appearance of signs of aging is enormous.

According to the classification of the Regional Office for Europe, aging (old age) lasts for men from 61 to 74 years, for women - from 55 to 74 years. From the age of 75 comes old age (advanced age). The period over 90 years is longevity (elderhood).

how biological phenomenon, old age is associated with an increase in the vulnerability of the body, with an increase in the likelihood of death.Social criterion of transition to old ageoften associated with retirement, with a decline in social status, with the loss of important social roles, with the narrowing of the social world.Psychological criteriathe end of the period of maturity and the transition to old age are not clearly defined. It is necessary to establish qualitative differences in the psyche of an elderly person, to show the features of mental development,taking place against the background of deteriorating psychophysiology, in conditions of involutional changes in the nervous system.

For a long time there have been ideas about old age as a difficult, inert, "sunset" time of life. Common stereotypes, social expectations regarding old age are reflected in many proverbs and sayings of the Russian people:“it’s time to write off to the archive”, “it’s time for soap”, “there was a horse, but he rode”, “sand is pouring”.

Indeed, old age for a person is accompanied by losses orlosses in the economic, social and individual spheres, which lead to a state of dependence, often psychologically perceived as humiliating and painful. But in old age there are also positive aspects - this is a generalization of experience, knowledge and personal potential, which helps to solve the problem of adaptation to the new requirements of life and age-related changes. In the period of old age, one can deeply understand and understand life as a holistic phenomenon, its essence and meaning..

Existing in society negative character"cultural standards" of old age and the uncertainty of social expectations regarding an elderly person in the family do not allow us to considersocial situation of lifeelderly person as a completedevelopment situation. When retiring, a person is faced with the need for an important, difficult and completely independent choice in resolving the question: “How to be old?” Active comes to the fore creativity the person himself to his own aging.

The transformation of the social situation of life into a situation of development becomes an individual personal task of each elderly person.

Preparing for retirement, seen as developing readiness for change social position, - a necessary moment of mental development in old age, as a focus on schooling at the age of five or six or as career guidance, professional self-determination in youth.

The solution of the universal problem of "living/experiencing old age",choosing an aging strategyis not considered narrowly, as a kind of one-time action, it is a protracted, perhaps for years, process associated with overcoming several personal crises.

On the threshold of old age, a person decides for himself the question: should he try to maintain old ones, as well as create new social ties, or move on to life in the circle of interests of loved ones and his own problems, that is, move on to life as a whole individual. This choice determines one or another strategy of adaptation - the preservation of oneself as a person and the preservation of oneself as an individual.

In accordance with this choice and, accordingly, the adaptation strategyleading activity in old agecan be aimed either at preserving the personality of a person (maintaining and developing his social ties), or at separating, individualizing and “surviving” him as an individual against the background of the gradual extinction of psychophysiological functions. Both variants of aging obey the laws of adaptation, but provide a different quality of life and even its duration.

Adaptation strategy"closed loop type"manifests itself in a decrease in interests and claims to outside world, egocentrism, decreased emotional control, a desire to hide, a feeling of inferiority, irritability, which over time is replaced by indifference to others. They talk about such a model of aging"passive aging".It is accompanied by a loss of social interest.

An alternative model is to maintain and develop diverse ties with society. In this caseleading activityin old age can bestructuring and transferring life experience. Variants of species socially significant activities there may be continuation of professional activities, writing memoirs, teaching and mentoring, raising grandchildren, students, social activities. Preserving oneself as a person implies the ability to work hard, have diverse interests, try to be needed by close people, and feel “involved in life”.

For example, a very elderly, sick, bedridden woman rejoices that she can be of benefit to loved ones: “After all, you are at work all day, the apartment is unattended, but here at least I’ll look after at home.”

A decrease in mental activity, expressed in a narrowing of the volume of perception, difficulty in concentrating attention, slowing down psychomotor reactions, is the main age characteristic of mental response in old age. In older people, reaction time increases, the processing of perceptual information slows down, and the speed of cognitive processes decreases.

However, despite these changes in strength and mobility, the mental functions remainqualitatively unchangedand practically intact. The change in the strength and mobility of mental processes in old age turns out to be purely individual.

Selectivity is manifested in the gradual reduction of activities, when only the most perfect are selected and all resources are concentrated on them. Some lost qualities, for example physical strength, are compensated by new strategies for performing actions.

Memory . There is a widespread idea of ​​memory impairment as the main age-related symptom of mental aging. If a young man, when leaving a building, cannot remember where he put his hat, no one sees anything wrong in this; but if such inattention is noticed in an old man, people shrug their shoulders and say:"Sclerosis".

Fixation on memory impairments is also typical of old people themselves.

The general conclusion of numerous studies in recent years regarding the effect of aging on memory is that memory does decline, but this is not a homogeneous and unidirectional process. Different types memory - sensory, short-term, long-term - suffer to varying degrees. The "basic" amount of long-term memory is preserved. Short-term or working memory is sharply weakened. In the period after 70 years, it mainly suffersrote,and works bestlogical memory.

Another feature of memory in older people is its pronounced professional orientation, selectivity. It is best to remember what is especially important and significant for professional activities.

Intelligence. When characterizing cognitive changes in old age, “crystallized intelligence” and “mobile intelligence” are distinguished.Crystallized Intelligenceis determined by the amount of knowledge acquired during life, the ability to solve problems based on the available information (give definitions of concepts, explain why stealing is not good).Movable intelligenceimplies the ability to solve new problems for which there are no usual ways. Grade general intelligence(Q-factor) consists of a set of assessments of both crystallized and mobile intelligence.

It is shown that a significant decrease in intellectual indicators can be ascertained only after 65 years. Crystallized intelligence is more resistant to agingcompared with mobile, the decrease in which, as a rule, is expressed more sharply and at an earlier date. Although the assessment of intelligence, determined by the number of correct answers on the test, decreases in old age, however, the intellectual quotient (IQ) almost does not change with age. In comparison with other members of his age group throughout life, a person retains approximately the same level of intelligence. A person who showed an average IQ in early adulthood is most likely to have an average IQ in old age.

Although most mental skills are not affected by aging, in terms of providing advice and practical assistance to older people, it is important to take into account the following characteristic psychophysiological changes during normal aging:

1. Slowdown of reactions with greater and faster fatigue.

2. Deterioration of the ability to perceive.

3. Narrowing the field of attention.

4. Reducing the duration of attention.

5. Difficulties in distribution and switching of attention.

6. Decreased ability to concentrate and focus.

7. Increased sensitivity to extraneous interference.

8. Some decrease in memory capacity.

9. Weakening of the tendency to "automatic" organization of the memorized.

10. Difficulties in reproduction.

To address the cognitive challenges of aging older adultsmay apply the principle « defect compensation» . In one of his interviews, the famous literary critic D.S. Likhachev, when asked how he manages, despite his advanced age, to lead an active scientific and social life, replied that a measured lifestyle, a clear regimen, the absence of long breaks in work, and a selective approach to choosing topics help. He explained: “My main specialty is ancient Russian literature, but I write about Pasternak, then about Mandelstam, I even turn to questions of music and architecture. The fact is that there are areas of science that are already difficult for me due to my age. For example, textual criticism is the study of texts: this requires a very good memory, but for me it is no longer the same as in my youth.(“Novaya Gazeta”. 1997. No. 46 (466)).

A special group of studies and discussions is the problem of wisdom as a cognitive property, which is based on crystallized, i.e., culturally conditioned intelligence associated with the experience and personality of a person. When they talk about wisdom, they mean, first of all, the abilityweighed judgmentson practical obscure questions of life.

It was found that the list of needs in old age is largely the same as in previous periods of life. Its structure, the hierarchy of needs is changing: in the sphere of needs, the needs for avoiding suffering, for security, for autonomy and independence begin to predominate. And the needs for creativity, love, self-actualization and a sense of community move to more distant plans.

The developmental goals of development in old age can be summarized as follows:

adaptation to age-related changes (bodily, psychophysiological);

Adequate perception of old age (opposition to negative stereotypes);

reasonable distribution of time and purposeful use of the remaining years of life;

role reorientation, rejection of old and search for new role positions;

opposition to affective impoverishment associated with the loss of loved ones and the isolation of children; preservation emotional flexibility;

striving for mental flexibility (overcoming mental rigidity), the search for new forms of behavior;

Striving for inner integrity and comprehension of the life lived.

So the long-awaited peanut appeared in your house, so small and defenseless. You intuitively understand that now he needs your care, guardianship, tenderness and love. But time passes, the baby grows, actively getting acquainted with the outside world, the first character traits appear. And suddenly the moment comes when the child becomes capricious, uncontrollable, many parents do not know how to react to such a situation and make a gross mistake using "educational" methods. Why does a child suddenly begin to act up and how to respond to it correctly?

To answer this question, you need to understand how it develops from birth. Here we can distinguish two, the most important stages of the child - this is infancy (from birth to a year) and the period early development(from 1 to 3 years). It is during this period that character is formed, behavioral reactions to surrounding objects and people are laid.

Infancy.

This period is characterized by strong attachment and complete dependence of the child on the mother, the baby needs close physical and emotional contact with the mother to feel secure. The baby gradually gets acquainted with the world around him and reacts with crying to a sharp change in the usual environment or sensations. The most important thing at this time is for parents to be patient, because psychology of young children very fragile and sensitive during infancy. For a child under one year of age, whimpering or crying is a form of communication, but often parents react to such behavior with irritability and sometimes uncontrollable anger. Hug your baby more often, smile, sing funny songs and tell rhymes, because the positive emotions of parents give the child a sense of security, peace and happiness.

Early development period.

Psychology of development of children of early age in the period from 1 to 3 years, it is characterized by the fact that the child becomes more independent, knowledge about the world around them becomes wider, and at the same time the need for communication and attention from parents grows. This period is complicated by frequent crises in the development of children, which manifest themselves in capriciousness, denial, negativism, affective reactions of the child. The whims of a child are not a character trait, but simply the next stage of development. At such moments, it is very important to gently and calmly communicate with the baby, take care of any emotional manifestations.

It is at an early age that the self-esteem of the baby is formed, which is laid by the parents. Therefore, do not reproach the child if something does not work out for him, encourage him to be independent. Be patient, attentive and be sure to discuss and explain your actions, because only in this way the baby will understand what is good and what is bad.

Help the child to develop comprehensively, accustom to the regime, since the constancy of the world around him is very important for him. And remember that there is never a lot of love, do not be afraid to praise and rejoice in the time that you spend together, because it will fly by so quickly!

Early age is the period from one year to 3 years. At this time, major changes are taking place in mental development children - thinking is formed, the motor sphere is actively developing, the first stable qualities of the personality appear.

The leading activity at this age is objective activity, which affects all areas of the psyche of children, largely determining the specifics of their communication with others. It arises gradually from the manipulative and instrumental activity of infants. This activity implies that the object is used as a tool according to the rules and norms enshrined in a given culture - for example, they eat with a spoon, dig with a spatula, and hammer nails with a hammer.

Revealing the most important properties of an object in the process of activity, the child begins to correlate them with certain operations that he performs, while discovering which operations are best suited to a particular object. In this way, children learn to use objects in such a way that they are not just an extension of their hand, but are used based on the logic of the object itself, i.e. from what they can best do. The stages of the formation of such actions assigned to the object-tool were studied by P.Ya. Galperin.

He showed that at the first stage - purposeful trials - the child varies his actions based not on the properties of the tool with which he wants to get the object he needs, but on the properties of this object itself. At the second stage - lying in wait - children accidentally find in the course of their attempts an effective way of working with a tool and strive to repeat it. At the third stage, which Halperin called "the stage of obsessive interference", the child actively tries to reproduce an effective method of acting with a tool and to master it. The fourth stage is objective regulation. At this stage, the child discovers ways to regulate and change the action based on the objective conditions in which it has to be performed.

Halperin also proved that in the case when an adult immediately shows a child how to act with an object, the trial and error stage is bypassed, and children immediately begin to act, starting from the second stage.

When diagnosing the development of object actions in children, it must be remembered that tool actions include object actions, since one of the options for tool action is historically assigned to this object. So, you can dig with a spoon, pour the contents from one container to another, eat soup and perform other tool actions, but only the last way of using is also subject, historically assigned to this tool. During the second year of life, children learn most objective actions, and when studying their mental development, it is important to remember that tool actions can, to a certain extent, be an indicator of the intellectual development of children, while object actions in more reflect the degree of their education, the breadth of contacts with adults.

The formation of sensorics is also of great importance for mental development at this age. It was mentioned above that the studies of many scientists (K. Buhler, A.V. Zaporozhets, L.A. Venger) showed that in the first years of life the level of development of perception significantly affects thinking. This is due to the fact that the actions of perception are associated with such operations of thinking as generalization, classification, summing up under the concept, and others.

The development of perception is determined by three parameters - perceptual actions, sensory standards and actions of correlation. Thus, the formation of perception consists in highlighting the most characteristic qualities for a given object or situation (informative points), compiling stable images (sensory standards) on their basis, and correlating these standard images with objects of the surrounding world. When diagnosing the level of development of perception, it is important to determine the level of formation of all these three processes. It is also necessary to correlate the causes of the mistakes made by the child with these processes, since there are practically no children in whom all of them would be violated at the same time. Therefore, as a rule, the correction of one of the sides helps to correct the entire activity of perception.

Perceptual actions help to study the main properties and qualities of the perceived object, highlighting the main and secondary ones from them. On the basis of such a selection, the child perceives informative points in each of the objects of the surrounding world, which helps to quickly recognize this object during repeated perception, assigning it to a certain class - a doll, a typewriter, a plate, etc. The actions of perception, which at first are external and developed (the child must not only look at the object, but also touch it with his hands, act with it), then move into the internal plane and become automated. Thus, the development of perceptual actions helps the formation of generalization, as well as other mental operations, since the selection of the most significant qualities of each object makes it possible to further combine them into classes and concepts.

At an early age, the formation of sensory standards also begins - at first as objective ones (appearing already by the end of infancy), which then, gradually generalizing, move to the sensory level. At first, ideas about the form or color are associated in the child with specific subject(eg round ball, green grass, etc.). Gradually, this quality is generalized and, breaking away from the subject, becomes a generalized standard - color, shape, size. It is these three main standards that are formed in children by the end of an early age.

The actions of correlating an object with a standard help to systematize the knowledge that children have when they perceive new objects. It is this knowledge that makes the image of the world integral and permanent. At the same time, at an early age, children still cannot divide a complex object into a number of standards of which it consists, but they can already find differences between a specific object and a standard - for example, by saying that an apple is an irregular circle.

Due to the close connection between perception and thinking, some of the tests used to diagnose children of this age are used to study both processes.

At an early age, in addition to visual-effective thinking, visual-figurative thinking begins to form. Based on the fact that thinking involves orientation in the connections and relationships between objects, in the studies of Zaporozhets and Wenger, methods were developed for studying and diagnosing thinking, based on the ways a child orients himself in a situation. This orientation can be associated with direct actions with objects, their visual study or verbal description, thereby determining the type of thinking - visual-effective, figurative, schematic, verbal-logical. At the same time, visual-effective thinking arises by the end of the first year of life and is the leading type of thinking up to 3.5-4 years. Visual-figurative thinking occurs at 2.5-3 years and is leading up to 6-6.5 years. Visual-schematic thinking occurs at 4.5-5 years old, remaining the leading type of thinking until 6-7 years old. And, finally, verbal-logical thinking arises at 5.5-6 years old, becoming the leading one from 7-8 years old, and remains the main form of thinking in most adults. Thus, at an early age, the main (and practically until the end of this age, the only) type of thinking is visual-effective, involving direct contact of the child with objects and the search for right decision tasks through trial and error. As in the case of the formation of objective actions, the help of an adult who shows the child what parameters of the situation should be paid attention to in order to correctly orientate and correctly solve the problem is necessary for the development of the child’s thinking and his transition to a higher figurative level. At the same time, by the end of an early age, when solving simple problems related to past experience, children should be able to orient themselves almost instantly, without resorting to trial actions with objects, i.e. solve problems based on imaginative thinking.

characteristic feature the child's thinking during this period is his syncretism, i.e. inseparability - the child tries to solve the problem without highlighting individual parameters in it, but perceiving the situation as a complete picture, all the details of which are of the same importance. Therefore, the help of an adult should be directed primarily to the analysis and selection of individual details in a situation, from which the child (perhaps also with the help of an adult) will then highlight the main and secondary ones. Thus, communication with an adult, joint objective activity can significantly accelerate and optimize the cognitive development of children, not without reason M.I. Lisina called the leading type of communication during this period situational business.

However, communication with an adult great importance not only for the formation of the cognitive sphere, but also for the development of the personality of young children. People around should remember that the self-image, the first self-assessment of children at this time is in fact an internalized assessment of an adult. Therefore, constant remarks, ignoring even if not always successful attempts of children to do something on their own, underestimating their efforts can lead already at this age to self-doubt, reducing claims to success in the activities carried out.

E. Erickson also spoke about this, arguing that at this age children develop a sense of independence, autonomy, or, in an unfavorable direction of development, a sense of dependence on it. The dominance of one of the two options is connected, in his opinion, with how adults react to the child's first attempts to achieve independence. To some extent, Erickson's description of this stage correlates with the description of the formation of the neoformation "I - myself" in Russian psychology. So, in the studies of D.B. Elkonina, L.I. Bozhovich and other psychologists emphasized that by the end of early childhood, children have the first ideas about themselves as a person who differs from others in the independence of their own actions.

At the same time, the first signs of negativism, stubbornness and aggression appear in children, which are symptoms of a crisis of 3 years. This is one of the most significant and emotionally intense crises in ontogeny. Fixation at the negative stage of this crisis, obstacles that arise in the formation of independence, activity of children (high degree of guardianship - hyper-guardianship, authoritarianism, high requirements and criticism from adults), not only hinder the normal development of self-awareness and self-esteem of children, but also lead to the fact that negativism, stubbornness, aggression, as well as anxiety, isolation become stable properties personality. These qualities, of course, affect all types of children's activities - both their communication with others and their studies, and can lead to serious deviations in primary school and, especially, adolescence.

An important characteristic of this age stage is the lability of the emotional sphere of the child. His emotions and feelings that are formed at this time, reflecting attitudes towards objects and people, are not yet fixed and can be changed when the situation changes. Fixation on prohibition when another positive stimulus appears, the absence of a positive emotional reaction to a new toy and other indicators of emotional rigidity, as well as fixation on negative emotions, are serious indicators (evidence) of deviations not only in the development of the emotional sphere, but also in the general mental development at this age.

Early age refers to the period from one year to 3 years. At this time, the most important changes in the mental development of children take place - thinking is formed, the motor sphere is actively developing, the first stable qualities of the personality appear.

The leading activity at this age is objective activity, which affects all areas of the psyche of children, largely determining the specifics of their communication with others. It arises gradually from the manipulative and instrumental activity of infants. This activity implies that the object is used as a tool according to the rules and norms fixed in this culture (for example, they eat with a spoon, dig with a spatula, and hammer nails with a hammer).

Revealing in the process of activity the most important properties of an object, the child begins to correlate these properties with certain operations that he performs, discovering which operations work best with a particular object. In this way, children learn to use objects so that they are not just an extension of their hand, but are used according to the logic of the object itself, that is, from what it is best for them to do. The stages of the formation of such actions assigned to an object-tool were studied by P. Ya. Galperin.

He showed that at the first stage - goal-directed trials - the child varies his actions based not on the properties of the tool with which he wants, for example, to get the object he needs, but on the properties of this object itself. At the second stage - lying in wait - the child accidentally finds in In the course of his attempts, an effective method of action with a tool and seeks to repeat it.At the third stage, which Halperin called the stage of obsessive intervention, the child actively tries to reproduce an effective method of action with a tool and master it.The fourth stage is objective regulation.At this stage, the child discovers ways of regulating / changing an action, based on the objective conditions in which it has to be performed.

Halperin also proved that in the case when an adult immediately shows the child how to act with an object, the trial-and-error stage is bypassed, and the children begin to act from the second stage.

When diagnosing the development of object actions in children, it must be remembered that tool actions include object actions, since one of the options for tool action is historically assigned to this object. So, you can dig with a spoon, pour the contents from one container to another, eat soup and perform other tool actions, but only the last way of using is also subject, historically assigned to this tool. During the second year of life, children learn most objective actions, and when studying their mental development, it is important to remember that instrumental actions can to a certain extent serve as an indicator of the intellectual development of children, while object actions to a greater extent reflect the degree of their learning, the breadth of contacts with adults. .

Of great importance for mental development at this age is the formation of sensory. It was mentioned above that the studies of many scientists showed that in the first years of life the level of development of perception significantly affects thinking. This is due to the fact that the actions of perception are associated with such operations of thinking as generalization, classification, summing up under the concept, etc. The leading role of perception, according to A. V. Zaporozhets, explains the features of the development of figurative memory and figurative thinking in this age period. He also argued that there are certain types of activities to which perception is sensitive (drawing, construction), and showed how their formation affects the dynamics of the formation of the cognitive sphere of children.

The development of perception is determined by three parameters - perceptual actions, sensory standards and actions of correlation. Thus, the formation of perception consists in highlighting the most characteristic qualities for a given object or situation (informative points), compiling stable images (sensory standards) on their basis, and correlating these standard images with objects of the surrounding world. When diagnosing the level of development of perception, it is important to determine the level of formation of all these three processes. It is also necessary to correlate the causes of the mistakes made by the Child with these processes, since there are practically no children in whom all mental processes would be disturbed. Therefore, as a rule, the correction of one of the sides helps to correct the entire activity of perception.

Perceptual actions make it possible to study the main properties and qualities of a perceived object, highlighting the main and secondary ones in them. Based on this selection, the child perceives information. positive points in each of the objects of the surrounding world, which helps to quickly recognize THIS object during repeated perception, assigning it to a certain class - a doll, a typewriter, a plate, etc. The actions of perception, which at first are external and developed (the child must not only look at the object, but also touch it with his hands, act with it), then move into the internal plane and become automated. Thus, the development of perceptual actions helps the formation of generalization and other mental operations, since the selection of the most significant qualities of each object makes it possible to further combine them into classes and concepts.

At an early age, the formation of sensory standards also begins - at first objective (appearing already by the end of infancy), which then, gradually generalizing, move to the sensory level. Thus, at first, the child's ideas about the form or color are associated with a specific object (for example, a round ball, green grass, etc.). Gradually, this quality is generalized and, breaking away from the subject, becomes a standard - color, shape, size. It is these three main standards that are formed in children by the end of an early age.

Correlating an object with a standard helps to systematize the knowledge that children receive when they perceive new objects. It is this knowledge that makes the image of the world integral and permanent. At the same time, at an early age, children still cannot divide a complex object into a number of standards of which it consists, but they can already find differences between a specific object and a standard (for example, by saying that an apple is an irregular circle).

Due to the close connection between perception and thinking, some tests are used in the diagnosis of children of this age to study both processes.

At an early age, in addition to visual-effective thinking, visual-figurative thinking begins to form. Since thinking involves orientation in the connections and relationships between objects, A.V. Zaporozhets and L. A. Wenger developed methods for studying and diagnosing thinking, based on the methods of orienting a child in a situation. This orientation can occur through direct actions with objects, their visual study or verbal description, thereby determining the type of thinking - visual-effective, visual-figurative, visual-schematic, verbal-logical. Visual-active thinking occurs by the end of the first year of life and is the leading type of thinking up to 3.5-4 years, visual-figurative thinking arises at 2.5-3 years and remains the main one up to 6-6.5 years, visual-schematic thinking appears at 4.5-5 years and remains leading until 6-7 years; finally, verbal-logical thinking arises at 5.5-6 years old, becomes the leading one from 7-8 years old, remaining the main form of thinking in most adults. Thus, at an early age, the main and practically until the end of this age the only type of thinking is visual-effective, which involves direct contact of the child with objects and the search for the correct solution to the problem through trial and error. As in the case of the formation of objective actions, the help of an adult who shows the child what parameters of the situation it is necessary to pay attention to in order to correctly orientate and solve the problem correctly helps the development of thinking and its transition to a higher, figurative level. At the same time, when solving simple problems related to past experience, by the end of an early age, all children should already be able to navigate almost instantly, without trial actions with objects, that is, rely on figurative thinking.

Studying the development of thinking at an early age, J. Piaget studied the process of transition from external operations to internal, logical ones, as well as the formation of reversibility. In his experiments with young children, he analyzed their ability to find hidden things, including those that disappeared before their eyes. He paid special attention to the child's discovery of the fact that an object that has disappeared from view can be detected using external operations that make the situation reversible (for example, when opening a box in which a handkerchief was hidden). Of interest are Piaget's data on the accumulation in children of knowledge, experience of action with objects, which allows the child to move from sensorimotor thinking to figurative thinking.

A characteristic feature of the child's thinking during this period is its syncretism (non-segmentation) - the child tries to solve the problem without highlighting individual parameters in it, but perceiving the situation as a complete picture, all the details of which are of equal importance. Therefore, the help of an adult should be directed primarily to the analysis and separation of details, from which the child (perhaps with the help of an adult) will then single out the main and secondary ones. Thus, communication with an adult, joint objective activity can significantly accelerate and optimize the cognitive development of children; not without reason M. I. Lisina called the leading type of communication in this period situational business.

The formation of speech is of great importance for mental development during this period. Investigating the stages of mental development of children, Stern for the first time conducted a systematic observation of the formation of speech. Having singled out several periods in this process, he emphasized that the most important of them is the one associated with the discovery by children of the meaning of the word, that each object has its own name (the child makes such a discovery at about a year and a half). This period, about which Stern first spoke, later became the starting point for the study of speech by almost all scientists who dealt with this problem. Having singled out five main stages in the development of speech in children, Stern described them in detail, in fact, having developed the first standards in the development of speech in children under 5 years of age. He also identified the main trends that determine THIS development, the main of which are the transition from passive to active speech and from word to sentence.

Developing these ideas of Stern, L. S. Vygotsky showed that the transition from a word to a sentence is characteristic of the child's external speech, while internal speech, on the contrary, develops from sentence to word. for him, it means a whole phrase, for example, the word “mother” a child can associate with a request to give him something or help. As a rule, close adults, by the gestures and intonation that accompany these first words, guess the desires of the children, coming to their aid. Over time, having learned to build sentences in the external plane, the children also in the internal speech give each word its own meaning, without expanding it to a whole phrase.

A somewhat different interpretation of the development of speech is given in Buhler's concept. Linking speech with the process of creativity, which, in his opinion, is the leading line in the formation of the psyche, he put forward a heuristic theory of speech. Buhler believed that speech is not given to a child in ready-made, but invented, invented by him in the process of communicating with adults. Thus, unlike other psychologists, Buhler insisted that the process of speech formation is a chain of discoveries.

At the first stage, the child discovers the meaning of words by observing the impact on adults of the sound complexes that the child invents. By manipulating an adult with the help of vocalization, the child realizes that certain sounds lead to a certain reaction of an adult (give, I'm afraid, I want, etc.), and begins to use these sound complexes purposefully. At the second stage, the child discovers that every thing has its own name, which expands his vocabulary, since he no longer only invents names for things himself, but also begins to ask adults questions about names. In the third stage, the child discovers the meaning of grammar, this also happens on his own. Through observation, he comes to understand that the relations between objects and their number can be expressed by changes sound side words, for example, changing the ending (table - tables).

L. S. Vygotsky paid great attention to the study of the development of speech. In his work, he proved that the combination of two various processes- the formation of thinking and the formation of speech, occurs in children at the age of one and a half years. At this age, the vocabulary of children increases sharply, questions about the names of objects appear, i.e., as Stern wrote, “the child discovers the meaning of words.” Vygotsky explained this discovery by the fact that speech is combined with thinking, and thus the child begins to comprehend the sounds that the adult utters. From Vygotsky's point of view, the word is for thinking the sign that turns visual-active thinking into a higher mental function.

Psychologists different directions showed the existence of a connection between the formation of thinking and the sign function of consciousness. This is manifested not only in the formation of speech, as shown above, but also in the development of the ability to draw. Stern's work research of the genesis of children's drawings, revealed the role of the scheme that helps children move from ideas to concepts. This idea of ​​Stern, later developed by K. Buhler, helped to discover a new form of thinking - visual-schematic, or model thinking, on the basis of which many modern concepts of developing children's education were developed.

Analyzing the connection between thinking and creativity, Buhler came to the conclusion that drawing has direct influence on the intellectual development of children. He believed that a drawing is a graphic story built on the principle of oral speech, that is, a child's drawing is not a copy of an action, but a story about it. Therefore, Buhler noted, children love stories in pictures so much, they love to look at them and draw on their own.

The analysis of children's drawings led Buhler, like Stern, to the concept of "scheme" and its significance in the formation of the psyche. He said that if a child uses a concept in speech, then in a drawing it uses a diagram, which is a generalized image of an object, and not an exact copy of it. Thus, the scheme is intermediate concept making it easier for children to master abstract knowledge. These provisions of Buhler are used in modern developmental programs (primarily designed for 3-6-year-old children).

Communication with an adult is of great importance not only for the formation of the cognitive sphere, but also for the development of the personality of young children. People around should remember that the self-image, the first self-assessment of children at this time, is, in fact, an internalized assessment of an adult. Therefore, constant remarks, ignoring, even if not always successful, attempts by children to do something on their own, underestimating their efforts can lead already at this age to self-doubt, a decrease in claims to success in the activities carried out.

E. Erikson also spoke about this, proving that at an early age children develop a sense of independence, autonomy from an adult, or, in an unfavorable direction of development, a feeling of dependence on him. The dominance of one of the two options is connected, in his opinion, with how adults react to the child's first attempts to achieve independence. To some extent, Erickson's description of this stage correlates with the description of the formation of the "I-Myself" neoformation in Russian psychology. So, in the studies of D. B. El’konin, L. I. Bozhovich and other psychologists, it was emphasized that by the end of early childhood, children have the first ideas about themselves as a person who differs from others in the independence of their own actions.

At the same time, the first signs of negativism, stubbornness and aggression appear in children, which are symptoms of a 3-year-old crisis. This is one of the most significant and emotionally intense crises in ontogeny. Fixation at the negative stage of this crisis, the obstacles that arise during the formation of independence, activity of children (high degree of guardianship - hyper-guardianship, authoritarianism, excessive demands, excessive criticism from adults), not only hinder the normal development of self-awareness and self-esteem of children, but also lead to the fact that negativism, stubbornness, aggression, as well as anxiety, isolation, become stable personality traits. These qualities, of course, affect all activities of children (their communication with others, study) and can lead to serious deviations in school and especially adolescence.

An important characteristic of this age stage is the lability of the emotional sphere of the child. His emotions and feelings that are formed at this time, reflecting the attitude towards objects and people, are not yet fixed and can be changed when the situation changes. Fixation on prohibition when another positive stimulus appears, the absence of a positive emotional reaction to a new toy, and other indicators of emotional rigidity, as well as fixation on negative emotions, are serious indicators of a deviation not only in the development of the emotional sphere, but also in the general mental development in this sphere. age. 8.3.