Topic 5. MENTAL DEVELOPMENT OF A NEWBORN, INFANT

5.1. neonatal crisis

The first year of a child's life can be divided into two periods: newborn and infancy. The neonatal period is the period of time when the child is physically separated from the mother, but physiologically connected with her, and lasts from birth until the appearance of the "revitalization complex" (in 4-6 weeks). The period of infancy lasts from 4-6 weeks to one year.

neonatal crisis is the process of birth itself. Psychologists consider it a difficult and turning point in a child's life. The reasons for this crisis are as follows:

1) physiological. The child, being born, is physically separated from the mother, which is already a trauma, and in addition to this, it falls into completely different conditions (cold, air, bright light, the need to change food);

2) psychological. Separating from the mother, the child ceases to feel her warmth, which leads to a feeling of insecurity and anxiety.

The psyche of a newborn child has a set of innate unconditioned reflexes that help him in the first hours of life. These include sucking, breathing, protective, orienting, grasping ("cling") reflexes. The last reflex we inherited from animal ancestors, but, being not particularly needed, it soon disappears.

The neonatal crisis is an intermediate period between intrauterine and extrauterine lifestyles. This period is characterized by the fact that at this age the child is mostly asleep. Therefore, if there were no adults nearby, he could die after a while. Adults surround him with care and satisfy all his needs: food, drink, warmth, communication, peaceful sleep, care, hygiene, etc.

A child is considered not adapted to life, not only because he cannot satisfy his needs, but also because he does not yet have a single formed behavioral act. Watching him, you can see that even sucking a child has to be taught. He also lacks thermoregulation, but the instinct of self-preservation is developed: having taken an intrauterine position, he reduces the area of ​​\uXNUMXb\uXNUMXbheat exchange.

The neonatal period is considered a time of adaptation to new living conditions: the time of wakefulness gradually increases; visual and auditory concentration develops, i.e., the ability to focus on visual and auditory signals (for details, see 6.2); the first associative and conditioned reflexes develop, for example, to the position during feeding. There is a development of sensory processes - vision, hearing, touch, and it occurs much faster than the development of motor skills.

5.2. Mental development of the child in the neonatal period

During this period, the child is able to distinguish between salty, bitter, sweet tastes and respond to sound stimuli. However, the most important moment in his mental development is the emergence of auditory and visual concentration. Auditory concentration occurs in 2-3 weeks. The child freezes and becomes silent at a sharp sound, such as a slamming door. In the third or fourth week, he already reacts to the voice of a person. This manifests itself as follows: he not only freezes, but also turns his head towards its source. In the third or fifth week, visual concentration appears. It happens like this: the child freezes and briefly holds his gaze on a bright object that has fallen into his field of vision.

Thus, thanks to the development of auditory and visual concentration in a child, by 5-6 weeks, the foundation for the transition from sensations to perception begins to be laid. He can already perceive an object not in parts, but as a whole, follow a moving object with his eyes or turn his head behind a moving sound source. He reacts to a stimulus in the following way: he freezes and focuses only on the sound source or object, all other reactions stop at the moment.

Over time, after acquiring the ability to recognize the voice of the mother caring for the child, to see her face, an emotional contact is established with her. The so-called "revitalization complex" appears (see 5.3).

5.3. Neoplasms of the neonatal period

From the first hours of a child's life, adults are sources of sound and auditory signals for him. They look at the newborn, show him various objects, talk to him, thus activating his orienting reactions.

When observing the birth and the first weeks of a child's life, the following results were obtained.

A child starts his life with a cry, and this is considered normal. Then the cry becomes a manifestation of negative emotions. A newborn cries when there are unpleasant sensations associated with the need for sleep, food, warmth, the cry is a reaction to wet diapers, etc. The cry is accompanied by mimic changes: wrinkling of the face, reddening of the skin, in addition, the child begins to make uncoordinated movements.

In the first week of life, movements similar to a smile are noted on the face of a newborn during sleep. Since this happens during sleep, the researchers considered them to be spontaneous and reflex muscle contractions. Also, in the first week of life, an unconscious smile appears on the child’s face with high sounds and various sound stimuli, but by the fifth week of life, a simple human voice does not cause a smile, the child needs visual stimuli, in particular, the sight of a human face. The reaction to the image and voice of an adult proceeds as follows: the child experiences inhibition of general movements, after 10 seconds an expressive smile appears on his face, which disappears after 35 seconds. This is how communication with an adult occurs, which is considered a manifestation of the first social need of the child.

Gradually, by about one month, the newborn develops a special emotional-motor reaction: when he sees his mother’s face, he fixes his gaze on it, stretches out his arms to her, quickly moves his legs, makes joyful sounds and begins to smile. This reaction is called the revitalization complex. The appearance of the revitalization complex is a new formation of this period, is considered the end of the neonatal period and indicates the transition to infancy.

D.B. Elkonin wrote: "A smile on a child's face ... is the end of the neonatal crisis. From that moment on, he begins an independent mental life. The child's further mental development is primarily the development of his means of communication with adults" (Elkonin D.B., 1989).

M.I. Lisina believed that the revitalization complex indicates the emergence of the child's need to communicate with adults.

R. Spitz and F. A. Wolf in their studies proved that at the age of 2 to 5 months the child smiles at any person, and from 4-5 months he begins to smile at his mother when he sees other familiar faces. Through a smile, a positive emotional contact is established between the child and parents, which leads to affection and a tender, warm relationship.

The revitalization complex comes to the fore when an adult comes into the child's field of vision - then other needs lose their significance. The child begins to smile and move, wanting to attract the attention of adults. Such a reaction to close people suggests that they are for the child not only a necessary condition for development, but also its source. It has also been established that frequent, friendly communication between an adult and a child contributes to the development of a revitalization complex, and rare and indifferent communication hinders, which can lead to a delay in the child's mental development.

5.4. Crisis of the first year of life

In the first year of a child's life, in infancy (from 1 month to a year), vision, perception, speech, memory, thinking develop, emotional contacts with others are formed. Let's see how this happens.

Vision is one of the main human senses. Therefore, it begins to develop in the first place. At first, the child can only focus on the object for a very short period of time. After the second month of life, visual concentration becomes longer and the ability to distinguish between the simplest colors appears. At 2 months, during wakefulness, the child is engaged in examining surrounding objects, especially when he is fed and is in a calm state. At this age, the baby begins to distinguish people from surrounding objects, but vision is still weak.

By three months, a fairly good level of development of eye movement is noted, the duration of concentration reaches 7-8 minutes. The child begins to distinguish the shape of objects, can follow their movement. An infant's eye movements will develop faster and become more perfect if bright, attractive objects or people making a variety of movements that he will observe begin to enter the field of view.

At 4 months, the child looks actively: emotionally reacts to what he sees, moves, squeals.

A variety of experiences that an infant receives contribute to its cognitive development. Therefore, to meet his needs for new experiences, the environment must be made attractive and interesting - otherwise cognitive development will slow down.

Consider the development of perception. By one year there is such a property of perception as objectivity. Objectivity is the correlation of one's sensations and images with the objects of the surrounding reality. The child can distinguish between timbre, loudness and pitch, he develops the ability to memorize and store images in their primary forms. Until the age of three or four months, he can store the image of a perceived object for no more than one second, later the storage time increases, and gradually the baby will begin to recognize his mother at any time. At 8-12 months, he begins to highlight objects in the visual field, and not only as a whole, but also in parts.

Domestic psychologist A.V. Zaporozhets believed that the process of cognitive development in an infant proceeds as follows. At the age of three months, the perception of the shape and size of an object begins simultaneously with the formation of grasping movements. Further development of perception begins from the moment the object moves in space.

When studying the visual perception of children, it was found that objects located close to each other are perceived by the child as a whole. For example, taking a turret of cubes by the top, the child wonders why not the entire tower, but only part of it, turned out to be in his hands. A baby may try for a long time to take a flower from his mother's dress, not realizing that it is drawn.

As a result of observations of children, it was found that when perceiving objects, they first focus on their shape, then on size, and only then on color (at the age of about 2 years).

Babies have a highly developed curiosity. They can look at objects for a long time, highlighting their contours, contrasts, simple shapes, moving from horizontal to vertical elements of the picture, paying special attention to color. They also have an orienting-exploratory reaction to everything new.

In the first year of a child's life, there is an active development Memory. All its genetic types develop: emotional, motor, imaginative, verbal. Emotional memory helps him orient himself in reality, fixing attention and directing his senses to the most emotionally important objects. Motor memory appears at 7-9 weeks. The child can repeat any movement, and characteristic gestures appear. Then babies begin to develop figurative memory. If at 4 months he can simply recognize an object, then at 8-9 months he is able to reproduce it from memory. If you ask a child where a certain object is, he begins to actively look for it, moving his gaze, turning his head and torso. The development of figurative memory affects his communication and the formation of the motivational sphere. When a child learns to recognize, he begins to divide adults into pleasant and unpleasant. He smiles at people who are pleasant, but when he sees someone who is unpleasant he shows negative emotions. Verbal memory begins to develop from 3-4 months, when the child begins to recognize the mother's voice. Then, from 6 months, he can correctly indicate the named object or find it if it is out of sight.

The development of reproduction leads to the emergence first motives. They contribute to the formation of his personality and the development of independence from others. Incentives and motives appear that begin to guide the child’s activities.

At this age, development thinking baby. So far, this is visual-effective thinking, which is expressed in manipulative hand movements and the formation of operational structures. As a rule, the longer a child examines a toy, the more different qualities he discovers in it, the higher his intellectual level.

Develops speech. Until one month, passive speech is observed: the child simply listens and distinguishes sounds. At about one month of age, he begins to make simple sounds, such as ah, uh, uh. By the end of the first - beginning of the second month of life, the child develops special attention to speech, called auditory concentration. Then, at 2-4 months, humming occurs, and at 4-6 months, humming and repetition of simple syllables appear. At 4 months, the baby distinguishes adult speech by intonation, which indicates the ability to use speech as a means of emotional communication. From 6 months, babbling is observed, in which some repeating sound combinations can be distinguished, mainly associated with the child’s actions. He also focuses on the emotional tone, nature of the statement and rhythm. At 9-10 months, the baby speaks its first words. By the end of the first year of life, he understands 10-20 words spoken by adults.

L.S. Vygotsky called the infant's speech autonomous, since it is very different from the speech of an adult, although in its sound it sometimes resembles "adult" words.

At this age, development psyche child. E. Erikson believed that in infancy a feeling of trust or distrust of the world is formed, i.e., closedness or openness to the world around us. The main role in the emergence of this feeling is played by parents, in particular the mother. It is this feeling that will subsequently help children adapt to the world around them, establish contacts with people and believe in the best.

The same opinion was held by the English psychologist and psychiatrist D. Bowlby, the author of the so-called "attachment theory". He believed that the close emotional connection established between the child and the mother from the first days of his life forms a sense of security and safety in the infant. If the establishment of this connection is violated, then problems may arise in the mental development of the child, primarily in the structure of his personality. So that he does not have problems in the future, in the first years of his life, it is necessary to give children warmth and affection, which, according to D. Bowlby, is more important than any proper care and education for him.

These changes in the development of the child lead to the emergence of a critical period, which is accompanied by stubbornness, aggression, negativism, and resentment. These qualities are not sustainable and disappear with the end of the crisis.

The crisis of one year occurs at the junction of two periods: the end of infancy and the beginning of early childhood. This crisis is accompanied by external manifestations and internal causes. External manifestations are as follows: when an adult forbids something to a child or does not understand him, he begins to worry, scream, cry, tries to show independence, affective states may even arise. The internal causes of the crisis are as follows: contradictions are growing between the needs for knowledge of the surrounding world and the opportunities that the child has.

The essence of the crisis of the first year of life is that the child begins to feel more independent. The social situation of the fusion of a child with an adult disappears, two appear: a child and an adult. And this is justified, because the child begins to talk, walk, actions with objects develop. But its possibilities are still limited, because, firstly, the child's speech is autonomous, and secondly, an adult helps him in carrying out any action. This is clearly expressed in the construction of objects that the child manipulates. D.B. Elkonin pointed out that the child should be exposed to the social way of using objects. It is impossible to show this to a baby, so an adult has to design objects himself.

5.5. Leading activity

The leading activity in infancy is emotional and personal communication with adults, that is, with those who mainly care for the baby: mother, father, grandmother, grandfather or other adult. A child cannot do without the help of an adult, since at this age he is weak and completely helpless. He is not able to satisfy any of his needs on his own: they feed him, bathe him, dress him in dry and clean clothes, move him in space (pick him up and walk around the room, take him out for a walk, etc.), monitor his health and, which is very important, just communicate with him - talk. The need for communication occurs in a child in 1-2 months. The revitalization complex that appears at the sight of a mother or another adult caring for a child indicates the emergence of a need for communication that must be fully satisfied, since with positive emotional communication with an adult, the child appears increased activity, a joyful mood arises, which contributes to the development of his movements , perception, thinking and speech.

A child deprived of full communication with an adult (is alone in the hospital for treatment, placed in an orphanage, etc.) has a mental retardation. This is manifested in the following: the child has a meaningless and indifferent look directed upwards, he moves little, is lethargic, apathetic, and has no interest in his surroundings. All this leads to a delay in physical development and a late appearance of speech. Therefore, we must remember the following: in order for a child to develop both psychologically and physically normally, it is necessary not only to properly care for him, but also to communicate.

5.6. Neoplasms of infancy

Neoplasms of infancy are grasping, walking and the first word (speech). Let's consider each act in more detail.

grabbing - This is the first organized action that occurs at about 5 months. It is organized by an adult and is born as a joint activity of an adult and a child. In order for grasping to occur, it is necessary that the baby's hand turn into an organ of touch, in other words, "open". The fact is that the baby's hand is clenched into a fist, so only when he can unclench it, an act of grasping will occur. The behavior of the child is very interesting: he looks at his hands, watches how the hand approaches the object.

This act gives him the opportunity to expand the possibilities of manipulating objects: at the age of 4 to 7 months, the child begins to move objects, move, extract sounds from them; in 7-10 months, correlated actions are formed, i.e. he manipulates two objects at once, moving them away from himself and correlating with each other (takes the object away from himself and brings it closer to another in order to put, put, string on it). From 10-11 to 14 months, the stage of functional actions begins: the child performs more perfect actions of stringing, opening, inserting, manipulating with all possible objects.

The act of grasping is of great importance for the development of object perception. The image of an object arises when there is a practical, effective contact between the image and the object. Thanks to grasping, the child begins to develop a sense of space, since in order to grab an object, you need to stretch out your hand. The space that appears in the child is the space of an outstretched hand. In addition, to grasp an object, one must open the fist, which leads to the development of the hand.

The desire to reach for an object and take it (grab) stimulates the process of sitting, which, in turn, opens up a world of other objects for the child. There are objects that are impossible to reach, they can only be obtained with the help of adults. Therefore, a new type of communication arises between a child and an adult - communication that arises as a result of the child's desire to master an object that is currently inaccessible to him. M.I. Lisina called such communication situational business.

With the change in communication, the way of influencing adults also changes: a pointing gesture appears. Regarding this gesture, L.S. Vygotsky wrote: “At first, a pointing gesture is simply a failed grasping movement directed at an object and indicating an upcoming action. The child tries to grab an object that is too far away, his hands, extended towards the object, remain hanging in the air, his fingers make pointing movements. This situation is - initial for further development... Here there is a movement that objectively points to an object, and only. When a mother comes to the aid of a child and comprehends his movement as an indication, the situation changes significantly. A pointing gesture becomes a gesture for others "(Vygotsky L.S, 1991 ).

The stages of development of grasping and movements of the baby are given in Table. four.

Table 4

Development of movements and actions

By 9 months old baby starts to walk. D.B. Elkonin considered the main thing in the act of walking, firstly, to be the expansion of the child’s space, and secondly, that the child separates himself from the adult, and it is no longer his mother who leads him, but he who leads his mother. This indicates a break in the old development situation.

The appearance of the first word (speech) - another neoplasm of this age. Speech is situational, autonomous, emotionally charged, understandable only to loved ones, specific in its structure and consists of fragments of words. This kind of speech is called "nanny language." Nevertheless, this speech is a new quality that can serve as a criterion that the old social situation of the child’s development has exhausted itself and a different content has arisen between the adult and the child - objective activity.

Authors: Marina Khilko, Maria Tkacheva

<< Back: Periodization of mental development (Approaches to the periodization of mental development in developmental psychology. The concept of age. Parameters of age. The concept of sensitivity. Critical and crisis periods)

>> Forward: Early childhood (from 1 year to 3 years) (Social situation of development. Development of the child’s cognitive sphere. Personal formations. Three-year crisis. Leading activity in early childhood)

We recommend interesting articles Section Lecture notes, cheat sheets:

▪ International economic relations. Lecture notes

▪ Theory of accounting. Crib

▪ Financial management. Crib

See other articles Section Lecture notes, cheat sheets.

Read and write useful comments on this article.

<< Back

Latest news of science and technology, new electronics:

The existence of an entropy rule for quantum entanglement has been proven 09.05.2024

Quantum mechanics continues to amaze us with its mysterious phenomena and unexpected discoveries. Recently, Bartosz Regula from the RIKEN Center for Quantum Computing and Ludovico Lamy from the University of Amsterdam presented a new discovery that concerns quantum entanglement and its relation to entropy. Quantum entanglement plays an important role in modern quantum information science and technology. However, the complexity of its structure makes understanding and managing it challenging. Regulus and Lamy's discovery shows that quantum entanglement follows an entropy rule similar to that for classical systems. This discovery opens new perspectives in the field of quantum information science and technology, deepening our understanding of quantum entanglement and its connection to thermodynamics. The results of the study indicate the possibility of reversibility of entanglement transformations, which could greatly simplify their use in various quantum technologies. Opening a new rule ... >>

Mini air conditioner Sony Reon Pocket 5 09.05.2024

Summer is a time for relaxation and travel, but often the heat can turn this time into an unbearable torment. Meet a new product from Sony - the Reon Pocket 5 mini-air conditioner, which promises to make summer more comfortable for its users. Sony has introduced a unique device - the Reon Pocket 5 mini-conditioner, which provides body cooling on hot days. With it, users can enjoy coolness anytime, anywhere by simply wearing it around their neck. This mini air conditioner is equipped with automatic adjustment of operating modes, as well as temperature and humidity sensors. Thanks to innovative technologies, Reon Pocket 5 adjusts its operation depending on the user's activity and environmental conditions. Users can easily adjust the temperature using a dedicated mobile app connected via Bluetooth. Additionally, specially designed T-shirts and shorts are available for convenience, to which a mini air conditioner can be attached. The device can oh ... >>

Energy from space for Starship 08.05.2024

Producing solar energy in space is becoming more feasible with the advent of new technologies and the development of space programs. The head of the startup Virtus Solis shared his vision of using SpaceX's Starship to create orbital power plants capable of powering the Earth. Startup Virtus Solis has unveiled an ambitious project to create orbital power plants using SpaceX's Starship. This idea could significantly change the field of solar energy production, making it more accessible and cheaper. The core of the startup's plan is to reduce the cost of launching satellites into space using Starship. This technological breakthrough is expected to make solar energy production in space more competitive with traditional energy sources. Virtual Solis plans to build large photovoltaic panels in orbit, using Starship to deliver the necessary equipment. However, one of the key challenges ... >>

Random news from the Archive 5G could hurt weather forecasts 21.05.2019 According to scientists, smartphones with support for fifth-generation networks will create interference that will reduce the accuracy of weather forecasting by almost a third - by 30%. During a speech to US congressmen, the acting head of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Neil Jacobs, spoke about the potential harm from the deployment of fifth-generation mobile networks. The fact is that, according to scientists, smartphones with 5G support will create interference that will reduce the accuracy of forecasting weather conditions by almost a third - by 30%. And all because in the process of formation of water vapor, weak signals at a frequency of 23,8 GHz enter the atmosphere, which are precisely what meteorologists “catch”, while in 5G it is planned to use very close frequencies of 24 GHz. Jacobs noted that this would set meteorology back almost forty years, since it was in 1980 that forecasting was inferior to the modern one by the same 30%. It seems, well, what's wrong with the fact that the forecast will be wrong by a couple of degrees? Not that meteorologists' predictions are super accurate right now. However, such changes can have very significant implications when it comes to predicting the movement of hurricanes that can lead to widespread destruction and loss of life. Reducing the accuracy of forecasts by 30% can lead to the fact that people living in the affected area will have two or even three days less to prepare for a natural disaster or evacuate.

Other interesting news:

▪ The invisibility cloak is almost ready

▪ Cloning of ancient animals is discussed by Russian scientists

▪ The All-Seeing Eye of the Israeli Army

▪ Mean Well PSC-160 Security Power Supplies

▪ Samsung The Premiere 4K Laser Projectors

News feed of science and technology, new electronics

Interesting materials of the Free Technical Library:

▪ site section Preamplifiers. Article selection

▪ article Economics of the enterprise. Crib

▪ article Who is genetically closer to a man than a woman? Detailed answer

▪ article Composition of the first-aid kit. Tourist tips

▪ article Block of electronic ignition. Encyclopedia of radio electronics and electrical engineering

▪ article Rules for the installation of electrical installations. Scope, definitions. Encyclopedia of radio electronics and electrical engineering

Leave your comment on this article:

All languages ​​of this page

Arabic	Hebrew	Polish
Bengali	Hindi	Portuguese
Chinese	Italian	Spanish
English	Japanese	Turkish
French	Korean	Ukrainian
German	Malay	Vietnamese

Home page | Library | Articles | Website map | Site Reviews

www.diagram.com.ua
2000-2024