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Table of contents

1. Developmental psychology as a science (Subject and tasks of developmental psychology. Factors determining the development of developmental psychology. Research methods in developmental psychology. Historical analysis of the concept of “childhood”)
2. Theories of mental development (Biogenetic and sociogenetic concepts. The theory of convergence of two factors of child development. Psychoanalytic theories of child development. Epigenetic theory of personality by Erik Erikson. Theory of social learning. The problem of the development of thinking in the early works of Jean Piaget. The theory of cognitive development (the concept of Jean Piaget). Cultural-historical concept. Concept of mental development of a child by D.B. Elkonin)
3. Psychological problems of personality development (Features of the development process. Driving forces, conditions and sources of personality development. Patterns of mental development. Mechanisms of personality development. Personal self-awareness. Structural links of self-awareness. Their genesis)
4. 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)
5. Mental development of a newborn, baby (Newborn crisis. Mental development of a child during the newborn period. Neoplasms of the newborn period. Crisis of the first year of life. Leading activity. Neoplasms of infancy)
6. 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)
7. Preschool childhood (from 3 to 6-7 years) (Social situation of development. Leading type of activity. Game and toys. Mental development of a preschool child. New formations of preschool age. Psychological readiness for school)
8. Junior school age (from 6-7 to 10-11 years) (Social situation of development. Educational activities. Other types of activities. Seven-year crisis. Problems of transition from primary school age to adolescence)
9. Adolescence (from 10-11 to 14-15 years) (Social situation of development. Physiological changes. Psychological changes. Crisis of adolescence. Leading activities in adolescence. Neoplasms of adolescence)
10. Youth (from 15-16 to 20 years old) (Cognitive changes. Educational and professional activities. The process of developing self-awareness. Relationships with others)
11. Psychological foundations educational work with children with mental disabilities development (Children with developmental disabilities. Psychology of a mentally retarded child. Psychological characteristics of gifted children)
12. Personal development in extreme situations and situations of deprivation
13. Methods of developmental work of a psychologist (Content and organization of developmental and correctional work. Traditional forms of group correctional and developmental work (trainings). Non-traditional forms of group developmental work. Individual work of a psychologist)
14. Psychology of an adult (Early adulthood (20-40 years). Middle adulthood (40 to 60 years). Late adulthood (60 years and older))

Topic 1. AGE PSYCHOLOGY AS A SCIENCE

1.1. The subject and tasks of developmental psychology

Developmental psychology is a branch of psychological science that studies the regularities of the stages of mental development and personality formation throughout human ontogenesis from birth to old age.

The subject of developmental psychology is the age-related dynamics of the human psyche, the ontogeny of mental processes and personality traits of a developing person, and the patterns of development of mental processes.

Developmental psychology studies age-related features of mental processes, age-related opportunities for acquiring knowledge, leading factors in personality development, age-related changes, etc.

Age-related changes are divided into evolutionary, revolutionary and situational. Evolutionary changes include quantitative and qualitative transformations that occur in the human psyche during the transition from one age group to another. Such changes occur slowly but thoroughly, and cover significant periods of life, from several months (for infants) to several years (for older children). They are due to the following factors:

a) biological maturation and psychophysiological state of the child’s body;

b) its place in the system of social relations;

c) level of intellectual and personal development.

Revolutionary changes are carried out quickly, in a short time, they are deeper than evolutionary ones. These changes occur at the moment of the crisis of age development, which occurs at the turn of the ages between relatively calm periods of evolutionary changes in the psyche and behavior.

Situational changes are associated with the impact on the child's psyche of a particular social situation. These changes reflect the processes taking place in the psyche and behavior of the child under the influence of education and upbringing.

Age-related evolutionary and revolutionary changes in the psyche and behavior are stable, irreversible, and do not require systematic reinforcement. They transform the psychology of a person as a person. Situational changes are unstable, reversible and require consolidation in subsequent exercises. Such changes are aimed at transforming private forms of behavior, knowledge, skills and abilities.

The theoretical task of developmental psychology is to study the laws of mental development in ontogeny, to establish periods of development and the reasons for the transition from one period to another, to determine development opportunities, as well as age-related characteristics of mental processes, age-related opportunities for acquiring knowledge, leading factors in personality development, etc.

The object of study is a child, a teenager, a young man, an adult, an elderly person.

1.2. Factors that determine the development of developmental psychology

Child psychology as a science of the mental development of a child originated at the end of the 1891th century. The beginning of this was the book of the German scientist-Darwinist W. Preyer "The Soul of a Child" (St. Petersburg, XNUMX). In it, Preyer described the results of daily observations of the development of his daughter, paying attention to the development of the senses, motor skills, will, reason and language. Preyer's merit lies in the fact that he studied how the child develops in the earliest years of life, and introduced into child psychology a method of objective observation, developed by analogy with the methods of the natural sciences. He was the first to make the transition from an introspective study of the child's psyche to an objective one.

The objective conditions for the formation of child psychology, which had developed at the end of the XNUMXth century, should first of all include the rapid development of industry and, accordingly, a qualitatively new level of social life. This entailed the need to reconsider approaches to the upbringing and education of children. Parents and teachers stopped considering physical punishment as an effective method of education - more democratic families and teachers appeared. The task of understanding the child has become one of the priorities. In addition, scientists came to the conclusion that only through the study of the psychology of the child is the way to understand what the psychology of an adult is.

Like any field of knowledge, child psychology began with the collection and accumulation of information. Scientists simply described the manifestations and further development of mental processes. The accumulated knowledge required systematization and analysis, namely:

▪ search for relationships between individual mental processes;

▪ understanding the internal logic of holistic mental development;

▪ determining the sequence of development stages;

▪ research into the causes and ways of transition from one stage to another.

In child psychology, knowledge of related sciences began to be used: genetic psychology, which studies the emergence of individual mental functions in an adult and a child in history and ontogenesis, and educational psychology. Increasing attention has been paid to the psychology of learning. An outstanding Russian teacher, the founder of scientific pedagogy in Russia, K.D. Ushinsky (1824-1870). In his work "Man as an Object of Education", he wrote, addressing teachers: "Study the laws of those mental phenomena that you want to control, and act in accordance with these laws and those circumstances to which you want to apply them."

The development of developmental psychology was facilitated by the evolutionary ideas of the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882), which served as the basis for understanding the reflex essence of mental factors. The Russian physiologist I.M. Sechenov (1829-1905). In the classic work "Reflexes of the Brain" (1866), he gave a complete scientific substantiation of the reflex theory.

At the beginning of the XNUMXth century, methods of experimental research into the mental development of children began to be introduced into practice: testing, the use of measuring scales, etc. Child psychology becomes a normative discipline that describes the achievements of the child in the process of development.

Over time, scientists came to the conclusion that it is necessary to distinguish the stages of personality development in ontogeny. This problem was dealt with by K. Buhler, Z. Freud, J. Piaget, E. Erickson, P.P. Blonsky, L.S. Vygotsky and others. They tried to comprehend the patterns of changing periods of development and analyze the cause-and-effect relationships in the mental development of children. All these studies have given rise to many theories of personality development, among which are, for example, the theory of three stages of child development (K. Buhler), the psychoanalytic concept (S. Freud), and the cognitive theory (J. Piaget).

Developmental psychology has risen to a new level with the introduction of the formative experiment method developed by the Russian psychologist L.S. Vygotsky (1896-1934). This method made it possible to determine the patterns of development of mental functions. Its use has also given rise to a number of theories of personality development. Let's consider some of them.

Cultural and historical concept of L.S. Vygotsky. The scientist argued that the interpsychic becomes intrapsychic. The emergence and development of higher mental functions is associated with the use of signs by two people in the process of their communication. Otherwise, the sign cannot become a means of individual mental activity.

Theory of activity A.N. Leontiev. He believed that activity first acts as a conscious action, then as an operation, and only then, as it forms, does it become a function.

The theory of the formation of mental actions P.Ya. Galperin. In his opinion, the formation of mental functions occurs on the basis of an objective action: it begins with the material performance of the action, and ends with mental activity, affecting the speech function.

The concept of educational activity - research by D.B. Elkonin and V.V. Davydov, in which a strategy for personality formation was developed not in laboratory conditions, but in real life - through the creation of experimental schools.

The theory of "initial humanization" by I.A. Sokolyansky and A.I. Meshcheryakov, in which the initial stages of the formation of the psyche in deaf-blind-mute children are noted.

1.3. Research methods in developmental psychology

The complex of research methods used in developmental psychology consists of several blocks of techniques borrowed from general, differential and social psychology.

Methods for studying the cognitive processes and personality of the child are taken from general psychology. They are adapted to the age of the child and explore perception, attention, memory, imagination, thinking and speech. Using these methods, one can obtain information about the age-related characteristics of the cognitive processes of children and the transformations of these processes as the child grows up, that is, about the specifics of the transition from one age group to another.

Methods for studying individual and age differences in children are borrowed from differential psychology. The so-called "twin method", which studies the similarities and differences between homozygous and heterozygous twins, is very popular. Based on the data obtained, conclusions are drawn about the organic (genotypic) and environmental conditioning of the child's psyche and behavior.

Social psychology has provided developmental psychology with methods to study interpersonal relationships in various children's groups, as well as relationships between children and adults. These methods include: observation, survey, conversation, experiment, sectioning method, testing, questioning, analysis of activity products. All these methods are also adapted to the age of the child. Let's consider them in more detail.

Observation - the main method when working with children (especially preschool age), since tests, experiments, surveys are difficult to study children's behavior. It is necessary to begin observation by setting a goal, drawing up an observation program, and developing an action plan. The purpose of observation is to determine why it is being carried out and what results can be expected as a result.

In order to obtain reliable results, monitoring must be carried out regularly. This is due to the fact that children grow up very quickly and the changes that occur in the behavior and psyche of the child are just as fleeting. For example, the behavior of an infant changes before our eyes, therefore, missing one month, the researcher is deprived of the opportunity to obtain valuable data on his development during this period.

The younger the child, the shorter the interval between observations should be. In the period from birth to 2-3 months, the child should be monitored daily; at the age of 2-3 months to 1 year - weekly; from 1 to 3 years - monthly; from 3 to 6-7 years - once every six months; at primary school age - once a year, etc.

The method of observation when working with children is more effective than others, on the one hand, because they behave more directly and do not play the social roles characteristic of adults. On the other hand, children (especially preschoolers) have insufficiently stable attention and can often be distracted from their work. Therefore, whenever possible, covert surveillance should be carried out so that children do not see the observer.

Interview may be oral or written. When using this method, the following difficulties may arise. Children understand the question they are asked in their own way, that is, they put a different meaning into it than an adult. This is because the system of concepts in children differs significantly from that used by adults. This phenomenon is observed in adolescents. Therefore, before getting an answer to the question being asked, it is necessary to make sure that the child understands it correctly, explaining and discussing the inaccuracies, and only after that interpret the answers received.

Experiment is one of the most reliable methods of obtaining information about the behavior and psychology of the child. The essence of the experiment is that in the process of research the mental processes of interest to the researcher are evoked in the child and the conditions necessary and sufficient for the manifestation of these processes are created.

The child, entering an experimental game situation, behaves directly, emotionally responding to the proposed situations, and does not play any social roles. This allows you to get his true reactions to the influencing stimuli. The results are most reliable if the experiment is carried out in the form of a game. At the same time, it is important that the direct interests and needs of the child are expressed in the game, otherwise he will not be able to fully demonstrate his intellectual abilities and the necessary psychological qualities. In addition, being included in the experiment, the child acts momentarily and spontaneously, so throughout the experiment it is necessary to maintain his interest in the event.

slices - Another method of research in developmental psychology. They are divided into transverse and longitudinal (longitudinal).

The essence of the cross-sectional method is that in a group of children (a class, several classes, children of different ages, but studying in the same program), some parameter (for example, intellectual level) is studied using certain methods. The advantage of this method lies in the fact that in a short time it is possible to obtain statistical data on age-related differences in mental processes, to establish how age, gender, or another factor affects the main trends in mental development. The disadvantage of the method is that when studying children of different ages it is impossible to obtain information about the process of development itself, its nature and driving forces.

When using the method of longitudinal (longitudinal) sections, the development of a group of the same children can be traced for a long time. This method allows you to establish qualitative changes in the development of mental processes and personality of the child and identify the causes of these changes, as well as to study development trends, minor changes that cannot be covered by cross sections. The disadvantage of the method is that the results obtained are based on the study of the behavior of a small group of children, so it seems incorrect to extend such data to a large number of children.

The test is allows you to identify the level of intellectual abilities and personal qualities of the child. It is necessary to keep children interested in this method in ways that are attractive to them, such as encouragement or some kind of reward. When testing children, the same tests are used as for adults, but adapted for each age, for example, the children's version of the Cattell test [1], Wexler test [2] and more

Conversation - this is obtaining information about the child during direct communication with him: the child is asked targeted questions and expect answers to them. This method is empirical. An important condition for the effectiveness of the conversation is a favorable atmosphere, goodwill, tact. Questions must be prepared in advance and the answers recorded, if possible without attracting the attention of the subject.

Questionnaires is a method of obtaining information about a person based on his answers to pre-prepared questions. Questioning can be oral, written, individual or group.

Product Analysis - this is a method of studying a person by analyzing the products of his activity: drawings, drawings, musical works, essays, study books, personal diaries, etc. Thanks to this method, you can get information about the inner world of the child, his attitude to the surrounding reality and people, about features of his perception and other aspects of the psyche. This method is based on the principle of the unity of consciousness and activity, according to which the child's psyche is not only formed, but also manifested in activity. Drawing or creating something, the child provides researchers with the opportunity to reveal aspects of his psyche that would be difficult to learn with the help of other methods. Based on the drawings, one can study cognitive processes (sensations, imagination, perception, thinking), creativity, personal manifestations, and the attitude of children to people around them.

1.4. Historical analysis of the concept of "childhood"

Childhood is the term for the initial period of ontogeny, from birth to adolescence. Childhood covers infancy, early childhood, preschool age and primary school age, that is, it lasts from birth to 11 years.

Surely, for some, childhood is associated with carelessness, carelessness, games, pranks, study, while for others, childhood is a time of active development, change and learning. In fact, childhood is a period of paradoxes and contradictions, without which there can be no development. So, what is this period characterized by?

It has been observed that the higher a living being ranks among the animals, the longer his childhood lasts and the more helpless this being is at birth. Undoubtedly, man is the most perfect being in nature. This is confirmed by its physical structure, organization of the nervous system, types of activity and methods of its regulation. However, when born, a person is endowed with only the most elementary mechanisms for maintaining life. He is helpless and cannot stand up for himself, he needs care, which is carried out for a long time. This is one of the paradoxes of nature that predetermines the history of childhood.

Many scholars have paid attention to childhood stories. An outstanding specialist in the field of child and educational psychology D.B. Elkonin wrote: “Throughout human history, the starting point of child development has remained unchanged. The child interacts with some ideal form, that is, with the level of development of the culture achieved by the society in which he was born. This ideal form is constantly developing and developing spasmodically, i.e. it changes qualitatively" (Elkonin D.B., 1995). His words are confirmed by the fact that people of different eras are not similar to each other. Consequently, the development of the psyche in ontogenesis must also change radically.

Time does not stand still. With the development of scientific and technological progress, the life of society becomes more complicated and, accordingly, the position of the child in it changes. Previously, children mastered primitive tools of labor, helping their parents to work the land; they learned this from adults, watching them and repeating their actions. With the development of scientific and technological progress and the emergence of new production relations, tools of labor became more complex, and observation of adults alone was not enough to master them. Therefore, it became necessary to first study the process of mastering these tools and only then proceed to their use. Consequently, a new stage of learning was due to the complexity of tools.

D.B. Elkonin connected the periods of child development with the periodization of the development of society (Table 1)

Table 1

Periods of child development according to D.B. Elkonin

It is possible that in the near future it will become mandatory for the development of society that everyone have a higher education. This is due primarily to the development of computer technology. But it is impossible to expand the age limits of childhood indefinitely, therefore, pedagogical and developmental psychology will most likely face the task of improving teaching methods in order to reduce the time for mastering the school curriculum.

It turns out that the duration of childhood is directly dependent on the level of material and spiritual development of society and even its individual strata. In many ways, the duration of childhood also depends on the material well-being of the family: the poorer the family, the earlier the children begin to work.

Topic 2. THEORIES OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT

2.1. Biogenetic and sociogenetic concepts

Supporters of the biogenetic concept of development believe that the basic mental properties of a person are embedded in the very nature of a person (biological principle), which determines his life destiny. They consider intelligence, immoral personality traits, etc. to be genetically programmed.

The first step towards the emergence of biogenetic concepts was Charles Darwin's theory that development - genesis - obeys a certain law. In the future, any major psychological concept has always been associated with the search for the laws of child development.

The German naturalist E. Haeckel (1834-1919) and the German physiologist I. Müller (1801-1958) formulated a biogenetic law according to which an animal and a person during intrauterine development briefly repeat the stages that a given species goes through in phylogenesis. This process was transferred to the process of ontogenetic development of the child. The American psychologist S. Hall (1846-1924) believed that the child in his development briefly repeats the development of the human race. The basis for the emergence of this law was the observation of children, as a result of which the following stages of development were distinguished: cave, when the child digs in the sand, the stage of hunting, exchange, etc. Hall also assumed that the development of children's drawing reflects the stages that the fine arts went through in the history of mankind.

Theories of mental development associated with the idea of ​​repetition in this development of human history are called recapitulation theories.

Outstanding Russian physiologist I.P. Pavlov (1849-1936) proved that there are acquired forms of behavior that are based on conditioned reflexes. This gave rise to the point of view that human development comes down to the manifestation of instinct and training. The German psychologist W. Köhler (1887-1967), conducting experiments on anthropoid apes, discovered the presence of intelligence in them. This fact formed the basis of the theory according to which the psyche goes through three stages in its development:

1) instinct;

2) training;

3) intelligence.

The Austrian psychologist K. Buhler (1879-1963), based on the theory of W. Köhler and influenced by the works of the founder of psychoanalysis, the Austrian psychiatrist and psychologist Z. Freud (3-1856), put forward the principle of pleasure as the main principle of the development of all living things. He associated the stages of instinct, training and intelligence not only with the maturation of the brain and the complication of relations with the environment, but also with the development of affective states - the experience of pleasure and the action associated with it. Buhler argued that at the first stage of development - the stage of instinct - due to the satisfaction of an instinctive need, the so-called "functional pleasure" occurs, which is a consequence of the performance of an action. And at the stage of intellectual problem solving, a state arises that anticipates pleasure.

W. Koehler, studying the development of the child with the help of a zoopsychological experiment, noticed a similarity in the primitive use of tools in humans and monkeys.

Supporters of the sociogenetic (sociological) concept adhere to a diametrically opposite approach to the development of the child's psyche. They believe that there is nothing innate in human behavior, and each of his actions is only a product of external influence. Therefore, by manipulating external influences, you can achieve any results.

Back in the 1632th century. English philosopher John Locke (1704-XNUMX) believed that a child is born into the world with a pure soul, like a white sheet of paper on which you can write anything you like, and the child will grow up the way his parents and relatives want to see him. According to this point of view, heredity plays no role in the development of the psyche and behavior of the child.

The American psychologist J. B. Watson (1878-1958) put forward the slogan: "Stop studying what a person thinks, let's study what a person does!". He believed that there is nothing innate in human behavior and that each of his actions is a product of external stimulation. Consequently, by manipulating external stimuli, one can "create" a person of any type. In learning studies that took into account the experimental results obtained by I.P. Pavlov, the idea of ​​a combination of stimulus and reaction, conditioned and unconditioned stimuli came to the fore, the time parameter of this connection was singled out. This formed the basis of the associationist concept of learning by J. Watson and E. Gasri, which became the first program of behaviorism. Behaviorism is a direction in American psychology of the XNUMXth century that denies consciousness as a subject of scientific research and reduces the psyche to various forms of behavior, understood as a set of reactions of the body to environmental stimuli. According to J. Watson, "all such terms as consciousness, sensation, perception, imagination or will can be excluded from the description of human activity." He identified human behavior with animal behavior. Man, according to Watson, is a biological being that can be studied like any other animal. Thus, in classical behaviorism, the emphasis is on the process of learning based on the presence or absence of reinforcement under the influence of the environment.

Representatives of neobehaviorism, American psychologists E. Thorndike (1874-1949) and B. Skinner (1904-1990) created the concept of learning, which was called "operant learning". This type of learning is characterized by the fact that the functions of the unconditioned stimulus play an important role in the establishment of a new associative stimulus-reactive connection, i.e., the main emphasis is on the value of reinforcement.

N. Miller and American psychologist K.L. Hull (1884-1952) - the authors of the theory, in which the answer was given to the question: does learning, i.e., the establishment of a connection between a stimulus and a reaction, depend on such states of the subject as hunger, thirst, pain.

On the basis of existing theories, it can be concluded that in sociogenetic theories, the environment is considered as the main factor in the development of the psyche, and the activity of the child is not taken into account.

2.2. The theory of convergence of two factors of child development

The theory of convergence, or, as it is also called, the theory of two factors, was developed by the German psychologist W. Stern (1975-1938), who was a specialist in the field of differential psychology, which considers the relationship between biological and social factors. The essence of this theory lies in the fact that the mental development of the child is seen as a process taking shape under the influence of heredity and the environment. The main question of the theory of convergence is to establish how acquired forms of behavior arise and what influence heredity and the environment have on them.

At the same time, there were two theoretical concepts in psychology, empiricism ("man is a blank slate") and nativism (there are innate ideas). Stern believed that if there are grounds for the existence of these two opposing points of view, then the truth lies in their combination. He believed that mental development is a combination of internal data with external conditions, but the leading value still remains with the innate factor. An example of this is the following fact: the world around provides the child with material for play, but how and when he will play depends on the innate components of the instinct to play.

V. Stern was a supporter of the concept of recapitulation and said that the child in the first months of the infantile period is at the stage of a mammal: this is confirmed by incomprehensible reflex and impulsive behavior; in the second half of life, he reaches the stage of a higher mammal (monkey) due to the development of grasping objects and imitation; later, having mastered upright posture and speech, he reaches the initial stages of the human condition; in the first five years of play and fairy tales, he stands at the level of primitive peoples; a new stage - admission to school - is associated with the mastery of social duties of a higher level. The first school years are associated with the simple content of the ancient and Old Testament worlds, the middle classes with Christian culture, and the years of maturity with the culture of modern times.

The theory of convergence of development is confirmed by the statements that "the apple does not fall far from the tree" and "with whom you behave, you will get rich." The English psychologist G. Eysenck (1916-1997) believed that intelligence is 80% determined by the influence of heredity and 20% by the influence of the environment.

Austrian psychologist 3. Freud created a structural theory of personality, the basis of which was the conflict between the instinctive sphere of a person's mental life and the requirements of society. He believed that every person is born with innate sexual desires, which are subsequently controlled by the "Super-I" and "It". "It" is an internal mental instance, which, under the influence of prohibitions, allocates a small piece of "I" from itself. "Super-I" is an instance that limits human desires. It turns out that "I" is pressed by "It" and "Super-I". This is a typical scheme of two factors of development.

Psychologists were able to establish the influence of biological and social aspects on the developmental process by observing twins and comparing the results obtained. This method was called the twin method. As shown by D.B. Elkonin, from a methodological point of view, there is one serious flaw in the study of twins: the problem of the hereditary fund is considered from the standpoint of identity or non-identity, and the problem of environmental influences is always considered from the standpoint of identity. But there is no one (identical) social environment in which twins are brought up - it is imperative to take into account what elements of the environment the child actively interacts with. Therefore, to obtain reliable results, it is necessary to choose such situations in which the equation contains not one, but two unknowns. This leads to the conclusion that this method can be used to study individual differences, and not developmental problems.

2.3. Psychoanalytic theories of child development

Psychoanalysis originally arose as a method of treatment, but was soon adopted as a means of obtaining psychological facts, which formed the basis of a new psychological system.

3. Freud, analyzing the free associations of patients, came to the conclusion that the diseases of an adult are reduced to childhood experiences. The basis of the theoretical concept of psychoanalysis is the discovery of the unconscious and sexual principles. To the unconscious, the scientist attributed the inability of patients to understand the true meaning of what they say and what they do. Childhood experiences, according to Freud, are of a sexual nature. This is a feeling of love and hatred for a father or mother, jealousy for a brother or sister, etc.

In the model of personality, Freud identified three main components: "It", "I" and "Super-I". "It" is the bearer of instincts, the "seething cauldron of drives." Being irrational and unconscious, "It" obeys the principle of pleasure. "I" follows the principle of reality and takes into account the features of the external world, its properties and relationships. "Super-I" is a critic, a censor and a bearer of moral norms. The requirements for the "I" from the "It", "Super-I" and reality are incompatible, therefore, an internal conflict arises, which can be resolved with the help of "protective mechanisms", such as repression, projection, regression, sublimation.

In Freud's understanding, personality is the interaction of motivating and restraining forces. All stages of human mental development, in his opinion, are associated with sexual development. Let's look at these stages.

oral stage (from birth to 1 year). Freud believed that at this stage the main source of pleasure is concentrated in the zone of activity associated with feeding. The oral stage consists of two phases - early and late, occupying the first and second half of life. In the early phase there is a sucking action, in the late phase there is a biting action. The source of displeasure is connected with the inability of the mother to immediately satisfy the desire of the child. At this stage, the "I" is gradually disconnected from the "It". The erogenous zone is the mouth.

anal stage (1-3 years). It consists of two phases. Libido is concentrated around the anus, which becomes the object of attention of the child, accustomed to cleanliness. The "I" of the child learns to resolve conflicts, finding compromises between the desire for pleasure and reality. At this stage, the "I" instance is fully formed, and it can control the "It" impulses. Social coercion, parental punishment, and the fear of losing their love force the child to mentally imagine prohibitions. The "Super-I" begins to form.

phallic stage (3-5 years). This is the highest stage of children's sexuality, the genital organs are the main erogenous zone. Parents of the opposite sex with the child are the first to attract their attention as an object of love. 3. Freud called such attachment in boys the "oedipal complex", and in girls the "Electra complex". According to Freud, the Greek myth of Oedipus Rex, who was killed by his own son and subsequently married to his mother, contains the key to the sexual complex: the boy loves his mother, perceiving his father as a rival, causing both hatred and fear. But at the end of this stage there is a release from the "oedipal complex" due to the fear of castration, the child is forced to give up attraction to the mother and identify with the father. After this, the instance of the "Super-I" is completely differentiated.

Latent stage (5-12 years old). There is a decrease in sexual interest, the instance of "I" completely controls the needs of "It". The energy of libido (attraction) is transferred to the establishment of friendly relations with peers and adults, to the development of universal human experience.

genital stage (12-18 years old). 3. Freud believed that a teenager strives for one goal - normal sexual intercourse; during this period, all erogenous zones are combined. If the implementation of normal sexual intercourse is difficult, then phenomena of fixation or regression to one of the previous stages can be observed. At this stage, the instance of the "I" must fight against the aggressive impulses of the "It", which again makes itself felt.

Normal development occurs through the mechanism of sublimation [3]. Other mechanisms give rise to pathological characters.

3. Freud's concept of development is a dynamic concept, which shows that in the development of a person the other person plays the main role, and not the objects that surround him. This is one of its main advantages.

An outstanding domestic psychologist L.S. Vygotsky (1896-1934) in this concept considered it valuable to establish the fact of the subconscious determinability of a number of mental phenomena (for example, neuroses) and the fact of latent sexuality, but criticized the transformation of sexuality into a metaphysical principle that penetrated into different branches of psychology.

Psychoanalysis was carried out by such scientists as K. Jung, A. Adler, K. Horney. S.D. Smirnov analyzed the driving forces and conditions for the development of personality in foreign concepts. The following data was received:

▪ according to 3. Freud, the basis of individual and personal development are innate drives and instincts, where biological attraction (libido) is recognized as the only source of psychic energy;

▪ according to K. Jung, development is “individualization” as differentiation from community. The ultimate goal of individualization is to achieve the highest point of “selfhood,” integrity and complete unity of all mental structures;

▪ according to A. Adler, a person is inherent from birth with a “sense of community”, or a “social feeling”, which encourages him to enter society, overcome the feeling of inferiority that usually arises in the first years of life, and achieve superiority through various types of compensation;

▪ according to K. Horney, the main source of energy for personality development is a feeling of anxiety, discomfort, “root anxiety” and the desire for security generated by it, etc.

3. Freud's daughter Anna Freud (1895-1982) continued and developed the classical theory and practice of psychoanalysis. In the instinctive part of the personality, she singled out the sexual and aggressive components. She also believed that each phase of a child's development is the result of resolving the conflict between internal instinctual drives and the limitations of the social environment. Child development, in her opinion, is a process of gradual socialization of the child, subject to the law of transition from the principle of pleasure to the principle of reality. Promotion from one principle to another is possible only when the various functions of the "I" have reached certain stages of development. An example of this is the following: with the development of memory, the child can act on the basis of experience and foresight, the acquisition of speech makes him a member of society, logic contributes to the understanding of cause and effect, and therefore adaptation to the world becomes conscious and adequate. The formation of the principle of reality and thought processes opens the way to the emergence of new mechanisms of socialization: imitation (imitation), identification (assuming a role), introjection (taking on the feelings of another person). These mechanisms contribute to the formation of "Super-I". The emergence of this instance means for the child a decisive progress in his socialization.

It has also been shown that the development of the child is influenced by the individual likes and dislikes of the mother.

According to A. Freud, inharmonious personal development is based on the following reasons: uneven progress along the line of development, unevenly lasting regressions, features of isolation of internal instances from each other and the formation of links between them, etc. "Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that individual differences between people are so great, the deviations from the straight line of development go so far, and the definitions of a strict norm are so unsatisfactory. The constant mutual influences of progress and regression bring with them innumerable variations within the framework of normal development."

2.4. Erik Erikson's epigenetic theory of personality

The emergence of the personality theory of the American psychoanalyst E. Erickson (1904-1994) was facilitated by works on psychoanalysis. Erickson accepted the structure of personality 3. Freud and created a psychoanalytic concept about the relationship between the "I" and society. He paid special attention to the role of the "I" in the development of the individual, believing that the foundations of the human "I" lie in the social organization of society.

He came to this conclusion by observing the personal changes that occurred with people in post-war America. People have become more anxious, tougher, prone to apathy, confusion. Having accepted the idea of ​​unconscious motivation, Erickson in his research paid special attention to the processes of socialization.

Erickson's work marks the beginning of a new method of studying the psyche - psychohistorical, which is the application of psychoanalysis to the study of the development of the individual, taking into account the historical period in which she lives. Using this method, Erickson analyzed the biographies of Martin Luther, Mahatma Gandhi, Bernard Shaw, Thomas Jefferson and other prominent people, as well as the life histories of contemporaries - adults and children. The psychohistorical method demands equal attention both to the psychology of the individual and to the character of the society in which the individual lives. Erickson's main task was to develop a new psychohistorical theory of personality development, taking into account a specific cultural environment.

In conducting ethnographic field studies of child rearing in two Native American tribes and comparing it with child rearing in urban families in the United States, Erickson found that each culture has its own particular style of motherhood, which each mother perceives as the only correct one. However, as Erickson emphasized, the style of motherhood is always determined by what exactly the social group to which he belongs - his tribe, class or caste - expects from the child in the future. Each stage of development corresponds to its own expectations inherent in a given society, which an individual can justify or not justify, and then he is either included in society or rejected by it. These considerations of E. Erickson formed the basis of the two most important concepts of his concept - group identity and ego-identity.

Group identity is based on the fact that from the first day of life, the upbringing of a child is focused on including him in a given social group and on developing a worldview inherent in this group.

Ego-identity is formed in parallel with the group identity and creates in the subject a sense of stability and continuity of his "I", despite the changes that occur to a person in the process of his growth and development.

Based on his works, E. Erickson singled out the stages of a person's life path. Each stage of the life cycle is characterized by a specific task that is put forward by society. Society also determines the content of development at different stages of the life cycle. However, the solution of the problem, according to Erickson, depends on the already achieved level of psychomotor development of the individual, and on the general spiritual atmosphere of the society in which this individual lives.

In table. 2 shows the stages of a person's life path according to E. Erickson.

Table 2

Stages of a person's life path according to E. Erickson

The crisis of development is accompanied by the formation of all forms of identity. According to E. Erickson, the main identity crisis falls on adolescence. If the development processes go well, then an "adult identity" is acquired, and if developmental difficulties arise, an identity delay is noted.

Erickson called the interval between adolescence and adulthood a "psychosocial moratorium." This is the time when a young person, through trial and error, seeks to find his place in life. The turbulence of this crisis depends on how successfully the previous crises (trust, independence, activity, etc.) were resolved and on the spiritual atmosphere in society. If the crisis is not successfully dealt with in the early stages, there may be a delay in identity.

E. Erickson introduced the concept of ritualization into psychology. Ritualization in behavior is an interaction built on an agreement between two or more people, which can be renewed at certain intervals in repeating circumstances (a ritual of mutual recognition, greetings, criticism, etc.). The ritual, having once arisen, is successively included in the system that arises at higher levels, becoming a part of subsequent stages.

The concept of E. Erickson is called the epigenetic concept of the life path of a person, according to which everything that grows has a common plan. Proceeding from this general plan, separate parts develop, and each of them has the most favorable period for development. This happens until all the parts, having developed, form a functional whole.

Erickson believed that the sequence of stages is the result of biological maturation, and the content of development is determined by what society expects from a person. He admitted that his periodization cannot be considered as a theory of personality, it is only the key to building such a theory.

2.5. Social learning theory

The concept of social learning shows how a child adapts to the modern world, how he learns the habits and norms of modern society. Representatives of this trend believe that along with classical conditioning and operant learning, there is also learning by imitation and imitation. Such learning began to be regarded in American psychology as a new, third form of learning. It should be noted that in the theory of social learning the problem of development is posed from the position of the initial antagonism of the child and society, borrowed from Freudianism.

Scientists have introduced such a thing as socialization. Socialization is the process and result of the assimilation and active reproduction of social experience by an individual, carried out in communication and activity. Socialization can occur both under conditions of spontaneous influence on the personality of various circumstances of life in society, which sometimes have the character of multidirectional factors, and in conditions of upbringing, i.e., the purposeful formation of the personality. Education is the leading and defining beginning of socialization. This concept was introduced into social psychology in the 1940s-1950s. in the works of A. Bandura, J. Kolman and others. In different scientific schools, the concept of socialization has received a different interpretation: in neobehaviorism it is interpreted as social learning; in the school of symbolic interactionism - as a result of social interaction; in "humanistic psychology" - as self-actualization of the "I-concept". The phenomenon of socialization is multidimensional, therefore each of these areas focuses on one of the sides of the phenomenon under study.

The American psychologists A. Bandura, R. Sears, B. Skinner and other scientists dealt with the problem of social learning. Let's take a closer look at some of their theories.

A. Bandura (1925) believed that in order to form a new behavior, reward and punishment are not enough. Therefore, he opposed the transfer of results obtained on animals to the analysis of human behavior. He believed that children acquire new behavior through observation and imitation, that is, by imitating people significant to them, and by identification, that is, by borrowing the feelings and actions of another authoritative person.

Bandura conducted research on childhood and youth aggressiveness. A group of children were shown films in which different patterns of adult behavior were presented (aggressive and non-aggressive), which had different consequences (reward or punishment). So, the film showed how an adult aggressively handles toys. After watching the film, the children were left alone and played with toys similar to those they saw in the film. As a result, aggressive behavior in children who watched the film increased and manifested itself more often than in children who did not watch it. If aggressive behavior was rewarded in the film, the children's aggressive behavior also increased. In another group of children who watched a film where aggressive behavior from adults was punished, it decreased.

Bandura singled out the "stimulus-response" dyad and introduced four intermediate processes into this scheme to explain how imitation of the model leads to the formation of new behavior in children:

1) attention to the action of the model;

2) memory about the influences of the model;

3) motor skills that allow you to reproduce what you see;

4) motivation, which determines the desire of the child to reproduce what he saw.

Thus, A. Bandura recognized the role of cognitive processes in the formation and regulation of behavior based on imitation.

The famous American psychologist R. Sears (1908-1998) proposed the principle of dyadic analysis of personality development. This principle lies in the fact that many personality traits are initially formed in the so-called "dyadic situations", because a person's actions depend on another person and are focused on him. Dyadic relationships include the relationship of mother and child, teacher and student, son and father, etc. The scientist believed that there are no strictly fixed and unchanging personality traits, since human behavior always depends on the personal properties of another member of the dyad. Sears identified three phases of child development:

1) the phase of rudimentary behavior - based on innate needs and learning in early childhood, in the first months of life);

2) the phase of primary motivational systems - learning within the family (the main phase of socialization);

3) the phase of secondary motivational systems - learning outside the family (goes beyond early age and is associated with school entry).

Obviously, Sears considered the influence of parents on the upbringing of children to be the main thing in the process of socialization.

Sears considered dependence, that is, the need of the child, which cannot be ignored, to be the central component of learning. It is known that the first dependence that occurs in a child is dependence on the mother, the peak of which falls on early childhood. Sears identified five forms of addictive behavior.

1. "Search for negative attention" - the child tries to attract the attention of adults with the help of quarrels, disobedience, breaking up relationships. The reason for this may be the low requirements and insufficiency of restrictions in relation to the child.

2. "Seeking permanent confirmation" is an apology, a request, an unnecessary promise or a search for protection, comfort, consolation. The reason is the excessive demands on the child, especially regarding his achievements on the part of both parents.

3. "Search for positive attention" - expressed in the search for praise, the desire to join the group or leave it.

4. "Staying nearby" - the constant presence near another child or group of children, adults. This form can be called an "immature", passive form of manifestation in the behavior of positive dependence.

5. "Touch and hold" is non-aggressive touching, hugging or holding others. Here we can talk about "immature" dependent form of behavior.

R. Sears believed that parents need to find a middle path in education. We must adhere to the following rule: not too strong, not too weak dependence; not too strong, not too weak identification.

The role of reward and punishment in the formation of new behavior was considered by the American neo-behaviorist psychologist B. Skinner (1904-1990). The main concept of his concept is reinforcement, i.e., reducing or increasing the likelihood that a given behavior will be repeated. He also considered the role of reward in this process, but shared the role of reinforcement and reward in the formation of new behavior, believing that reinforcement enhances behavior, and reward does not always contribute to this. In his opinion, reinforcement can be positive and negative, primary (food, water, cold) and conditional (money, signs of love, attention, etc.).

B. Skinner opposed punishment and believed that it cannot give a stable and lasting effect, and ignoring bad behavior can replace punishment.

The American psychologist J. Gewirtz paid great attention to studying the conditions for the emergence of social motivation and attachment of an infant to an adult, and an adult to a child. It was based on advances in social psychology and the ideas of Sears and Skinner. Gewirtz came to the conclusion that the source of motivation for the child's behavior is the stimulating effect of the environment and reinforcement-based learning, as well as the various reactions of the child, for example, laughter, tears, smile, etc.

The American psychologist W. Bronfenbrenner believed that the results of laboratory tests should be checked in natural conditions, that is, in a family or peer group. He paid special attention to the structure of the family and other social institutions as the most important factors in the development of children's behavior. Therefore, he conducted his research by observing families.

Bronfenbrenner studied the origin of the phenomenon of "age segregation" in American families. This phenomenon lies in the fact that young people cannot find their place in society. As a result, a person feels cut off from the people around him and even experiences hostility towards them. Having finally found something to his liking, he does not get satisfaction from the work, and interest in it soon fades away. This fact of isolation of young people from other people and the real thing in American psychology is called alienation.

Bronfenbrenner sees the roots of alienation in the following features of modern families:

▪ mothers’ work;

▪ an increase in the number of divorces and, accordingly, the number of children growing up without fathers;

▪ lack of communication between children and fathers due to the latter being busy at work;

▪ insufficient communication with parents due to the advent of televisions and separate rooms;

▪ rare communication with relatives and neighbors.

All these and many other, even more unfavorable conditions affect the mental development of the child, which leads to alienation, the causes of which are the disorganization of the family. However, according to Bronfenbrenner, the disorganizing forces do not initially originate in the family itself, but in the way of life of the whole society and in the objective circumstances that families face.

2.6. The problem of the development of thinking in the early works of Jean Piaget

The task set by the outstanding Swiss psychologist J. Piaget (1896-1980) was to reveal the psychological mechanisms of integral logical structures. But first, he studied hidden mental tendencies and outlined the mechanisms of their emergence and change.

Using the clinical method, J. Piaget explored the content and forms of children's thoughts:

1) the child’s ideas about the world that are unique in their content;

2) qualitative features of children's logic;

3) the egocentric nature of children's thoughts.

Piaget's main achievement is the discovery of the child's egocentrism as a central feature of thinking, a hidden mental position. The peculiarity of children's logic, children's speech, children's ideas about the world is only a consequence of this egocentric mental position.

The peculiarity of the child's conception of the world lies in the fact that at a certain stage of his development he considers objects as their perception gives them, and does not see things in their internal relations. For example, a child thinks that the moon follows him when he walks, stops when he stops, runs after him when he runs. J. Piaget called this phenomenon realism. It is this realism that prevents the child from considering things independently of the subject, in their internal interconnection. The child considers his instantaneous perception to be absolutely true. This happens because children cannot separate their "I" from the world around them, from things.

Realism is of two types: intellectual and moral. For example, a child is sure that the branches of trees make the wind. This is intellectual realism. Moral realism is expressed in the fact that the child does not take into account the internal intention in evaluating the act and judges the act only by the external effect, the material result.

Piaget believed that the development of ideas about the world proceeds in three directions:

1) from realism to objectivity;

2) from realism to reciprocity (reciprocity);

3) from realism to relativism.

The development of children's ideas, proceeding from realism to objectivity, lies in the fact that this development goes through several stages: participation (participation), animism (universal animation) and artificalism (understanding of natural phenomena by analogy with human activity), on which egocentric relations between " I and the world are gradually reduced. Only after realizing his own position among things, the inner world of the child stands out and is opposed to the outside world.

Parallel to the evolution of children's ideas about the world, directed from realism to objectivity, there is a development of children's ideas from realism to reciprocity (reciprocity). At this stage, the child discovers for himself the points of view of other people, ascribes to them the same meaning as his own, establishes a certain correspondence between them. From that moment on, he begins to see reality not only as directly given to himself, but as if established through the coordination of all points of view taken together.

The child's thought also develops in a third direction - from realism to relativism. At first, the child thinks that there are absolute substances and absolute qualities. Later, he realizes that the phenomena are interconnected, and our assessments are relative. For example, at first the child thinks that in every moving object there is a motor, thanks to which this object moves, but then he understands that the movement of an individual body is the influence of external forces.

Along with the qualitative originality of the content of children's thought, egocentrism determines the following features of children's logic: syncretism (the tendency to connect everything with everything), juxtaposition (the absence of a causal relationship between judgments), transduction (the transition in reasoning from the particular to the particular, bypassing the general position), insensitivity to contradiction etc. All these features of children's thinking have one common feature, which also internally depends on egocentrism. It consists in the fact that a child under 7-8 years old cannot perform the logical operations of addition and multiplication of a class. Boolean addition is finding a class that is least common between two other classes, but contains both of these classes in itself, for example:

"animals = vertebrates + invertebrates".

Logical multiplication is an operation that consists in finding the largest class contained simultaneously in two classes, i.e., finding a set of elements common to two classes, for example:

"Genevians + Protestants = Genevan Protestants".

This inability is reflected in how children define concepts. It was experimentally established that each child concept is determined by a large number of heterogeneous elements that are in no way connected by hierarchical relations. For example, a child, giving a definition of strength, says: "Strength is when you can carry many things." It is especially difficult for him to define relative concepts - such as brother, right and left hand, family, etc.

The inability to perform logical addition and multiplication leads not only to the fact that children give incorrect definitions of concepts, but also to the inconsistency of these definitions. Piaget saw the reason for this in the absence of equilibrium: the concept gets rid of contradiction when equilibrium is reached. He considered the appearance of the reversibility of thought to be the criterion of stable equilibrium. In his opinion, each mental action corresponds to a symmetrical action that allows you to return to the starting point.

In his early work, Piaget associated the lack of reversibility of thought with the child's egocentrism. But before turning to the characteristics of this central phenomenon, let us dwell on one more important feature of the child's psyche - the phenomenon of egocentric speech.

Piaget believed that children's speech is egocentric because the child speaks only "from his own point of view" and does not try to understand the position of the interlocutor. For him, anyone he meets is an interlocutor. The child only cares about the appearance of interest. Verbal egocentrism is manifested in the fact that the child speaks without trying to influence the other and without realizing the difference between his point of view and the point of view of the interlocutor.

Egocentric speech does not cover the entire speech of the child, its share depends, firstly, on the activity of the child himself, and secondly, on the type of social relations established both between the child and the adult and between children of the same age. Where adult authority and coercive relations dominate, egocentric speech occupies a significant place. In a peer environment where discussions and disputes can take place, the percentage of such speech decreases. But with age, the coefficient of egocentric speech decreases regardless of the environment. At the age of three, it reaches its maximum value - 75%, from three to six years, egocentric speech gradually decreases, and after seven years it completely disappears.

The significance of the experimental facts obtained in Piaget's research lies in the fact that thanks to them, the most important psychological phenomenon, which remained little studied and unrecognized for a long time, is revealed - the child's mental position, which determines his attitude to reality.

Piaget paid special attention to the egocentrism of knowledge. He considered egocentrism as the inability of an individual to change his cognitive position in relation to some object, opinion or idea. The roots of egocentrism, according to him, lie in the subject's misunderstanding of the existence of a point of view that is different from his point of view. This happens because the subject is confident in the identity of the psychological organization of other people and his own.

Egocentrism can be cognitive, moral, communicative. Cognitive egocentrism characterizes the processes of perception and thinking. Moral egocentrism reflects the inability to perceive the moral actions and deeds of other people. Communicative egocentrism is observed when transmitting information to other people and denies the existence of another meaning in the transmitted information.

The original egocentrism of cognition is not a hypertrophy of awareness of the "I", but, on the contrary, a direct relationship to objects, where the subject, ignoring the "I", cannot leave the "I" in order to find his place in the world of relations, freed from subjective ties. Piaget believed that the decrease in egocentrism is not associated with an increase in knowledge, but with the ability of the subject to correlate his point of view with others.

The transition from egocentrism (or, as Piaget later called it, centration) to decentration characterizes cognition at all levels of development. The universality and inevitability of this process allowed Piaget to call it the law of development.

To overcome egocentrism, you must:

1) realize your “I” as a subject and separate the subject from the object;

2) coordinate your own point of view with others.

According to Piaget, the development of knowledge about oneself occurs in the subject only during social interaction, that is, under the influence of the developing social relationships of individuals. Piaget considers society as it appears to the child, that is, as the sum of social relations, among which two extreme types can be distinguished: relations of coercion and relations of cooperation.

The relationship of coercion does not contribute to the change of mental positions. In order to realize one's "I", one must be free from coercion, in addition, an interaction of opinions is necessary. But an adult and a child cannot achieve such interaction at first - the inequality between them is too great. Only individuals who consider themselves equal can exercise "developmental" mutual control. Such relationships are possible among representatives of the same age, for example, in a children's team, where relationships begin to form on the basis of cooperation.

Cooperation relations are built on the basis of mutual respect. Immediately there is a need to adapt to another person and the need to realize the existence of a different point of view. As a result, rational elements are formed in logic and ethics.

Another important concept that exists in the system of psychological views is socialization. According to Piaget, socialization is a process of adaptation to the social environment, consisting in the fact that the child, having reached a certain level of development, becomes capable of cooperating with other people due to the division and coordination of his point of view and the points of view of other people. Socialization causes a decisive turn in the mental development of the child - the transition from an egocentric position to an objective one. This transition occurs by 7-8 years.

2.7. Theory of cognitive development (concept of J. Piaget)

When studying the psychology of a developing child, great attention has always been paid to thinking and speech, because they form the basis of intelligence. This problem was dealt with by L.S. Vygotsky, N.B. Shumakova, J. Piaget, J. Bruner and others. Let us dwell in more detail on the theory of J. Piaget.

Piaget studied in detail the development of thinking up to the moment when it is combined with speech, especially visual-active and visual-figurative thinking. He believed that thinking takes shape long before it becomes verbal. Piaget singled out the logical structures of thinking, called operations. An operation is a mental action that has the property of reversibility, i.e. if the child has completed the necessary task, then he can return to its beginning by performing the opposite action. (Paired mathematical operations can be classified as reversible.) According to Piaget, the essence of a child's intellectual development lies in mastering operations.

Knowledge for J. Piaget is a process. To know means to act in accordance with existing knowledge. Actions can be done mentally or practically.

Piaget believed that the main goal of rational behavior, or thinking, is adaptation to the environment. Ways of adaptation are called by him schemes. A schema is a repetitive structure or organization of actions in certain situations. It can be simple movements, a complex of motor skills, skills or mental actions.

Piaget called assimilation, accommodation and balance the main mechanisms by which a child moves from one stage of development to another. Assimilation is an action with new objects based on already established skills and abilities. Accommodation - the desire to change their skills as a result of changing conditions and in accordance with them. Accommodation, restoring the disturbed balance in the psyche and behavior, eliminates the discrepancy between the existing skills, abilities and conditions for performing actions.

Piaget believed that one should strive to ensure that assimilation and accommodation are always in balance, because when assimilation dominates accommodation, thinking becomes rigid, behavior becomes inflexible. And if accommodation prevails over assimilation, the behavior of children becomes inconsistent and unorganized, there is a delay in the formation of stable and economical adaptive mental actions and operations, i.e., problems arise in learning. The balance between assimilation and accommodation ensures reasonable behavior. Achieving balance is a difficult task. The success of its solution will depend on the intellectual level of the subject, on the new problems that he will face. It is necessary to strive for balance, and it is important that it be present at all levels of intellectual development.

Thanks to assimilation, accommodation and balance, cognitive development occurs, continuing throughout a person's life.

Based on the theory of development, in which the main law is the desire of the subject to balance with reality, Piaget put forward a hypothesis about the existence of stages of intellectual development. This is the next (after egocentrism) Piaget's major achievement in the field of child psychology. According to Piaget, there are four such stages: sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operations stage, formal operations stage.

The sensorimotor stage lasts from birth to 18-24 months. During this period, the child becomes capable of elementary symbolic actions. There is a psychological separation of oneself from the outside world, knowledge of oneself as a subject of action, volitional control of one’s behavior begins, an understanding of the stability and constancy of external objects appears, the realization that objects continue to exist and be in their places even when they are not perceived through the senses .

The preoperative stage covers the period from 18-24 months to 7 years. Children of this age begin to use symbols and speech, they can represent objects and images in words, describe them. Basically, the child uses these objects and images in the game, in the process of imitation. It is difficult for him to imagine how others perceive what he observes and sees himself. This expresses the egocentrism of thinking, that is, it is difficult for a child to take the position of another person, to see phenomena and things through his eyes. At this age, children can classify objects according to individual characteristics, cope with solving specific problems related to the real relationships of people - the difficulty lies only in the fact that it is difficult for them to express all this in verbal form.

The stage of concrete operations takes place from 7 to 12 years. This age is called so because the child, using concepts, associates them with specific objects.

This stage is characterized by the fact that children can perform flexible and reversible operations performed in accordance with logical rules, logically explain the actions performed, consider different points of view, they become more objective in their assessments, come to an intuitive understanding of the following logical principles: if A = B and B = C, then A = C; A + B \u6d B + A. At 7 years old, ideas about the conservation of number are assimilated, at 9 years old - mass, about XNUMX years old - the weight of objects. Children begin to classify objects according to certain essential features, to distinguish subclasses from them.

Consider the development of the child's seriation on the following example. Children are asked to arrange the sticks by size, from the shortest to the longest. In children, this operation is formed gradually, passing through a series of stages. At the initial stage, children claim that all sticks are the same. Then they divide them into two categories - large and small, without further ordering. Then the children note that among the sticks there are large, small and medium. Then the child tries to arrange the sticks by trial and error, based on his experience, but again incorrectly. And only at the last stage does he resort to the method of seriation: first he chooses the largest stick and puts it on the table, then he looks for the largest of the remaining ones, etc., correctly lining up the series.

At this age, children can arrange objects according to various criteria (height or weight), imagine in their mind and name a series of actions performed, performed or those that still need to be performed. A seven-year-old child can remember a difficult path, but is only able to reproduce it graphically at 8 years old.

The stage of formal operations begins after 12 years and continues throughout a person's life. At this stage, thinking becomes more flexible, the reversibility of mental operations and reasoning is realized, the ability to reason using abstract concepts appears; the ability to systematically search for ways to solve problems with viewing many solutions and evaluating the effectiveness of each of them develops.

Piaget believed that the development of the child's intellect is influenced by maturation, experience and the actual social environment (training, upbringing). He believed that the biological maturation of the body plays a certain role in intellectual development, and the effect of maturation itself is to open up new possibilities for the development of the body.

Piaget also believed that the success of learning depends on the level of intellectual development already achieved by the child.

2.8. Cultural-historical concept

This concept was developed by L.S. Vygotsky with a group of scientists - such as A.N. Leontiev, A.R. Luria, L.I. Bozhovich, A.V. Zaporozhets and others. Their experimental studies formed the basis of a cultural-historical theory, according to which the development of mental functions (attention, memory, thinking, and others) has a social, cultural, lifetime origin and is mediated by special means - signs that arise in the course of human history. According to L.S. Vygotsky, a sign is a social tool for a person, a “psychological tool”. He wrote: "... a sign that is outside the body, like a tool, is remote from the individual and serves, in essence, as a public organ or social tool." (Here and below in 2.8 cit. from: Solodilova O.P., 2004).

At the initial stage of creating this theory, L.S. Vygotsky believed that the “elementary functions” of a child are of a natural hereditary nature, that is, they are not yet mediated by cultural means - signs, but later he came to the following conclusion: “... Functions that are usually considered the most elementary, obey completely different laws in a child than at earlier stages of phylogenetic development, and are characterized by the same mediated psychological structure ... A detailed analysis of the structure of individual mental processes makes it possible to verify this and shows that even the doctrine of the structure of individual elementary processes of children's behavior needs a radical revision.

L.S. Vygotsky formulated the genetic law of the existence of any mental function of a person, any psychological mechanism of his behavior or activity: ". Any function in the cultural development of a child appears on the stage twice, on two planes: first - social, then psychological, first between people. then inside the child Functions are first formed in the collective in the form of relations between children, then they become mental functions of the individual.

Vygotsky believed that there are two types of mental development: biological and historical (cultural). He believed that these types actually exist in a merged form and form a single process in ontogeny. In this, the scientist saw the greatest and fundamental originality of the mental development of the child. He wrote: "The growth of a normal child into civilization is usually a single fusion with the processes of its organic maturation."

According to Vygotsky, the idea of ​​maturation underlies special periods of heightened response - sensitive periods. The sensitive period of development is the period when it is most reasonable to start and conduct the education and upbringing of children, since it is at this time that psychological and behavioral properties will be best formed - the development of memory, thinking, attention, volitional qualities, etc. For example, intensive development of speech is at the age of one to eight years, and the intonational and grammatical structure of speech develops well at the age of 1,5 to 3 years, and phonetic hearing - at the age of 5 years.

Vygotsky's position on the formation of higher mental functions due to verbal communication of people refuted the notion of classical psychology about the internal nature of mental activity. The provision on the "growing from outside to inside" of higher mental functions outlined a new path for their objective study and led to the creation of a new method - experimental genetic. It was used by L.S. Vygotsky in the study of the origin and development of voluntary attention, the development of concepts.

2.9. The concept of mental development of the child D.B. Elkonin

There are many approaches to the periodization of the mental development of a child, but the most acceptable is the periodization of development proposed by an outstanding specialist in the field of child and educational psychology D.B. Elkonin. It is a cross between empirical periodization, based on real life experience, and theoretical periodization, potentially possible under ideal conditions for the education and upbringing of children. Consider the concept of D.B. Elkonin in more detail.

Elkonin divided the period from birth to graduation into seven stages.

1. Infancy: from birth to 1 year of age.

2. Early childhood: from 1 year of life to 3 years.

3. Junior and middle preschool age: from 3 to 4-5 years.

4. Senior preschool age: from 4-5 to 6-7 years.

5. Junior school age: from 6-7 to 10-11 years old.

6. Adolescence: from 10-11 to 14-15 years old.

7. Early adolescence: from 14-15 to 16-17 years.

The whole development process can be divided into three stages:

preschool childhood - from birth to 6-7 years; junior school age - from 6-7 to 10-11 years; middle and senior school age - from 10-11 to 16-17 years.

Each period of development has its own characteristics and boundaries, which can be seen by observing the child. At each psychological age, it is necessary to apply special techniques and methods of training and education, to build communication with the child, taking into account his age characteristics. Age periods are accompanied by the development of interpersonal communication, aimed mainly at personal and intellectual development, characterized by the formation of knowledge, skills, and the implementation of the operational and technical capabilities of the child.

The transition from one stage of development to another occurs in situations resembling an age crisis, i.e., when there is a discrepancy between the level of personal development achieved and the operational and technical capabilities of the child.

The personal development of children is carried out through the reproduction and modeling of interpersonal relations between adults and the personality traits manifested in them, as well as in the process of communication between the child and other children during role-playing games. Here he is faced with the need to master new objective actions, without which it is difficult to be understood by peers and look more mature.

The developmental process begins in infancy with the fact that the child begins to recognize the parents and perk up at their appearance. This is how a child communicates with an adult.

At the beginning of an early age, objects are manipulated and practical, sensorimotor intelligence begins to form. At the same time, there is an intensive development of verbal (speech) communication. The child uses speech to establish contact and cooperation with others, but not as an instrument of thinking. Objective actions serve as a way to establish interpersonal contacts.

At preschool age, the role-playing game becomes the leading activity, in which the child models relationships between people, as if fulfilling their social roles, copying the behavior of adults. In the process of role-playing, the child's personal development takes place, he masters objective activity and initial communication skills.

At primary school age, teaching becomes the main activity, as a result of which intellectual and cognitive abilities are formed. Through teaching, the whole system of relations between the child and adults is built.

In adolescence, labor activity and an intimate-personal form of communication arise and develop. Labor activity consists in the emergence of a joint passion for any business. Teenagers begin to think about their future profession. Communication at this age comes to the fore and is built on the basis of the so-called "camaraderie code". The "Code of Partnership" includes business and personal relationships similar to those of adults.

In senior school age, the processes of adolescence continue to develop, but intimate-personal communication becomes the leading one. High school students begin to think about the meaning of life, their position in society, professional and personal self-determination.

These are the main provisions of the development concept of D.B. El-horse. It was further developed in the works of D.I. Feldstein.

Topic 3. PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

3.1. Features of the development process

Development is a qualitative change - the emergence of neoplasms, new mechanisms, new processes, new structures. They are characterized by the following patterns:

▪ progressive nature, when the stages already passed seem to repeat the well-known features and properties of the lower ones, but at a higher level;

▪ irreversibility, i.e. movement at a new level where the results of previous development are realized;

▪ development represents the unity of struggling opposites, which are the driving force of the development process. It is the resolution of internal contradictions that leads to a new stage of development.

The main signs of development include:

▪ differentiation, i.e. dismemberment of a phenomenon that was previously unified;

▪ the emergence of new sides, new elements in development;

▪ restructuring connections between the parties to the object. The modern idea of ​​the mental development of the individual sees its causes in various biological and social factors, in the uniqueness of the path of development of each personality. Gradually, there is an expansion and clarification of the conceptual apparatus necessary for revealing the laws of human development. A number of concepts appear that clarify the term “development”.

1. Evolutionary development, i.e., the emergence of a new one compared to the previous stage - this can include neoplasms of age periods.

2. Involutionary changes. This is the loss of previously formed mental properties and qualities that took place in the previous period. Such changes occur not only in old age, but also in adolescence, adolescence - as a result of the accumulation of changes that turn into neoplasms.

3. Heterochromic development. This is a manifestation of mental qualities at different times: some functions are ahead of other functions in development.

4. Biological development. It is believed that development is determined by hereditary and congenital factors. The congenital is determined by intrauterine development, and the hereditary is determined by the appearance of a new one due to the gene apparatus.

5. Social development. It occurs under the simultaneous influence of the natural and social environment, the historical development of society, nationality and other factors.

6. Special development. This is the development of mental functions, processes, personality traits in the framework of professional training, for example, the development of professional memory, thinking, attention, abilities, etc.

The formation of a personality is a complex process that has its own tendencies, prospects for self-determination, self-realization, and includes all of the above stages.

3.2. Driving forces, conditions and sources of personality development

The driving forces of personality development are understood as the needs of the child himself, his motivation, external incentives for activity and communication, goals and objectives set by adults in the education and upbringing of children. If the goals of education and training correspond to the motivation of the child, then favorable conditions will be created for development in terms of driving forces.

Human needs are divided according to the degree of severity and necessity, ranging from simple, lower, and ending with the highest.

1. Biogenic: the need for security and self-preservation, emotional contact, indicative need, the need for motor activity, play.

2. Psychophysical: needs for emotional saturation, freedom, energy restoration.

3. Social: the need for self-respect, communication, knowledge, self-expression.

4. Higher: the need to be a person, moral and aesthetic needs, the need to find the meaning of life, preparedness and overcoming difficulties, the need for creation and creative work.

Each age has its own needs, the satisfaction of which is important for normal personal development. The delay in the satisfaction of certain needs or their incomplete satisfaction can adversely affect the development of the individual.

One of the important moments of the driving force is motivation. It performs several functions:

▪ encourages behavior;

▪ directs and organizes it;

▪ gives it personal meaning and significance (meaning-forming motivation).

In order for motivation to be stable and positive, it is necessary to have all three functions. The last function is the most important, it is of central importance for the nature of the motivational sphere. The manifestations of the motivating and guiding functions depend on the meaning of the activity for the child. Consequently, the success of the activity depends on how the meaning-forming function is formed. Therefore, it is on this function that one should first of all pay attention when educating.

These motivational functions are implemented by many motives, among them such as ideals and value orientations, needs, motives, goals, interests, etc. At different age stages, their significance manifests itself in different ways. This fact must also be taken into account in education.

The process of child development takes place in certain conditions, surrounded by objects of material and spiritual culture, people and relationships between them. In other words, the development of the child depends on the social situation. The social situation is the starting point for all changes that occur in the development of the child during the period of growing up. It determines the forms and ways of the development of the child, the types of activity, the new mental properties and qualities he acquires. All this is the conditions for the psychological development of the child. Indeed, the same children, whose driving forces of development are the same, can develop differently in different conditions. The more favorable the conditions for the development of the child, the more he can achieve in a short period of time. Therefore, special attention should be paid to the social conditions of development.

The sources of development are the leading activity, the leading type of communication and the crisis of development.

The leading type of communication is communication, as a result of which the main positive personality traits are formed and consolidated.

Leading activity is an activity that results in the greatest success in the development of cognitive processes and the formation of neoplasms at a certain stage of development.

Each age period is characterized by a special type of activity. During the transition from one period to another, the leading activity also changes. Modern psychologists have identified the following types of leading activities.

1. At the age from birth to 1 year, direct emotional communication of the child with adults is noted. Neoplasm - the need for communication and grasping.

2. At the age of 1 to 3 years, object-manipulative activity is present. The new formation is self-awareness (“I myself”).

3. Children of preschool age (from 3 to 6 years old) are characterized by playing activities, role-playing games. Neoplasms - the inner position of the student appears, arbitrary behavior, personal consciousness, subordination of motives, primary ethical instances, the first schematic outline of an integral children's worldview arise.

4. Educational activity is observed in children of primary school age (from 6 to 10 years). Neoplasms - there is an intensive intellectual development, "memory becomes thinking, and perception becomes thinking", prerequisites are being created for the development of a sense of adulthood.

5. Adolescence (from 10-11 to 14-15 years old) is characterized by communication, which extends to various types of activities: labor, educational, sports, artistic, etc. Neoplasms are: the emergence of a sense of adulthood, a tendency to reflection, self-knowledge, interest in the opposite sex, puberty, irritability, frequent mood swings; there is a development of volitional qualities, there is a need for self-affirmation, self-determination. A change in leading activity leads to a crisis in development. This is due to the fact that the needs of the child are changing, but he is not yet able to satisfy them.

The crisis of development in the interpretation of L.S. Vygotsky is a concentration of sharp and major shifts and shifts, changes and fractures in the child's personality. A crisis is a turning point in the normal course of mental development. It arises when "when the internal course of child development has completed some cycle and the transition to the next cycle will necessarily be a turning point ..." (L. S. Vygotsky, 1991).

L.S. Vygotsky believed that the essence of each crisis is the restructuring of internal experiences, the relationship of the child and others, changes in needs and motives. The crisis occurs at the junction of two age periods and characterizes the end of one period and the beginning of another.

3.3. Patterns of mental development

The patterns of mental development include unevenness and heterochrony, instability, sensitivity, cumulativeness, divergence - convergence.

Irregularity and heterochrony. Unevenness is the uneven development of various mental functions, properties and formations. This process is characterized by rise, stable flow and decline, and is oscillatory in nature. When they talk about uneven mental development, they mean the pace, direction, and duration of the changes taking place. It has been noted that the highest frequency of fluctuations in the development of any function occurs during the period of the highest achievements of this function. E.F. Rybalko said that the higher the level of productivity (achievements) in development, the greater the oscillatory nature of its age dynamics.

Heterochrony means a discrepancy in the time of development of individual organs and functions. If the cause of unevenness is the non-linear nature of the development system, then heterochrony is associated with the peculiarities of its structure and the heterogeneity of its elements.

Domestic physiologist P.K. Anokhin (1898-1974) believed that heterochrony lies in the uneven deployment of hereditary information. As an example, he cited the following fact: first, older analyzers are formed, and then younger ones.

The German educator and psychologist E. Meiman (1862-1915) showed the following: the more necessary this or that function, the faster it develops. For example, a child learns faster to navigate in space than in time.

Unsustainability of development. This pattern, closely related to unevenness and heterochrony, is clearly manifested in development crises. This is due to the fact that development always goes through unstable periods, including crises. Stability is possible if two conditions are met:

1) with frequent small-amplitude fluctuations;

2) when there is a discrepancy in the time of development of different mental processes, functions and properties. It follows that stability is possible through instability.

Sensitivity of development. As mentioned above, the sensitive period of development is the period when it is most reasonable to begin and conduct the education and upbringing of children (see 2.8). Domestic psychologist B.G. Ananyev understood sensitivity as temporary complex characteristics of correlated functions, sensitized at a certain moment of learning.

These periods are limited in time, and if during the sensitive period the development of a certain quality was not given due attention, then later the process of its development will be longer.

Cumulativeness. This pattern of development is that the developmental results of the previous age period are included in the subsequent one, but with certain changes. For example, in the process of development of thinking, visual-effective thinking first develops, then visual-figurative and finally verbal-logical thinking. This process indicates a qualitative transformation of mental development.

Divergence - convergence. These are two contradictory but interrelated trends. Divergence is about increasing diversity in the process of mental development, convergence is about increasing selectivity.

3.4. Mechanisms of personality development

A personality is a person taken in the system of such psychological characteristics that are socially conditioned, manifested in social connections and relationships by nature, are stable, determine the moral actions of a person that are essential for himself and those around him (R.S. Nemov).

The question of personality development was of interest to many scientists. As a result of numerous studies and experiments, the mechanisms of personality development have been identified. These include assignment, isolation and identification.

In domestic psychology, the position was established that a personality develops through appropriation its "comprehensive essence": the personality of a person is also "produced", that is, created by social relations into which the individual enters in his activity. Thus, in psychology, the problem of external determination is created, which determines the development and formation of the personality.

The idea of ​​"appropriation" in itself would be mechanical if it were not presented in dialectical unity with the idea of ​​the inner essence of man, his activity and the dependence of circumstances on the "self-realization of the individual." People create circumstances and each other. Even in relation to himself, a person acts from a subject-subject position.

Separation - this is the upholding by an individual of his natural and human essence. In other words, it is the desire to stand out from the crowd. Isolation acts as a process of individualization.

Separation is external and internal. External isolation includes physical parameters, external data, nationality, gender, etc., internal - individual psychological characteristics, intellectual development, character traits, temperament, etc. Alienation is a special case of isolation.

Identification - this is the process of emotional and other self-identification of a person with another person, group, model, the experience by the subject of his similarity (identity) with the desired object. Therefore, identification acts both as a mechanism for the "appropriation" by the individual of his human essence, and as a mechanism for the socialization of the personality.

Children learn the norms, attitudes and forms of behavior characteristic of their parents, peers, and people around them. The process of identifying oneself with them proceeds spontaneously. The child adopts their views and life experiences. For young children, the main source of identification is the parents, later - peers and other adults.

The identification process continues throughout life. Its source can be other people who are carriers of those qualities and forms of behavior that a person wants to develop in himself.

3.5. Self-awareness of the individual

Self-consciousness is a set of mental processes through which an individual realizes himself as a subject of activity (I.S. Kon).

Self-consciousness reflects the real being of a person, and it is important that he learns to realistically, adequately evaluate himself. But this is not always the case for humans. Even trying to explain his actions to other people and to himself, he is not necessarily sincere. As a result, the motives that prompted him to act remain unknown to others, and sometimes to himself. Therefore, self-consciousness can be called a process of cognition, during which a person is aware of his experiences and motivations.

Self-consciousness is not given from birth, it is one of the developmental processes. Over the years, as life experience accumulates, a person rethinks his life. Rethinking determines the motives of his activities and the inner meaning of the tasks that he faces on the path of life. The ability to understand what the meaning of life is, to recognize what is really important in it and what is not, to determine a life goal and strive for its implementation, to successfully solve the tasks that life sets - this is what is called wisdom and what you need to strive for. . This is possible only with the normal development of self-consciousness.

In the formation of self-awareness, it is very important that a person can develop a positive attitude towards himself as a person. This can be achieved by generalizing practical knowledge about other people. The child early begins to separate people from the surrounding world in his mind, and then to distinguish one person from another, to distinguish between their gestures, movements, to understand that people's relationships are built according to certain rules, etc. Thanks to this, he begins to master the movements and produce actions, realizing them with the help of adult assessments. But it takes several years of life for a child to begin to develop partial forms of self-consciousness. This is expressed in awareness of oneself in different situations, in relation to different things. This awareness leads to the formation of self-awareness of the individual.

Any change in the life situation in social, labor, personal life leads to a change in attitude towards oneself as an agent and subject of this situation. B.G. Ananiev believed that to realize oneself means to realize oneself not only as a psychophysical being, but, first of all, as a worker, family man, father, educator, comrade, as part of a team.

3.6. Structural links of self-consciousness. Their genesis

The structural links of self-consciousness are:

1) identification of a person with his body, name, i.e. value attitude to the body and name; what is noted already in children of one month of age, when the infant begins to distinguish sensations emanating from his own body from sensations caused by external objects;

2) self-esteem, expressed in the context of claims for recognition;

3) awareness of oneself as a representative of a certain gender, gender identification;

4) self-representation in the aspect of psychological time, individual past, present and future;

5) social and moral self-esteem, which is formed in adolescence and youth.

The development of self-esteem in ontogenesis is carried out as follows. First, there is a spontaneous formation of personality, not directed by self-consciousness, characterized by the appearance of polymotivation and subordination of actions. The development of a person's self-awareness begins at the age of two - at this time the child already distinguishes himself as a person and bearer of a certain name (proper name, pronoun "I", a certain physical appearance). This process continues throughout the early and preschool years. From the emotional attitude towards people, the psychological "image of I" begins to form. The emotional coloring of this image can be both positive and negative. The "image of I" is also formed by expressing one's will ("I want", "I myself"), which acts as a specific need of the child. Then the claim to recognition begins to emerge. It can have both a positive and a negative direction. Then the child begins to form a sense of gender, then there is a feeling of being in time. He has a psychological past, present and future. He begins to relate to himself in a different way, the prospect of developing himself opens up before him.

Consider the stages of development of self-consciousness.

В early childhood (from 1 year to 3 years) the formation of self-consciousness takes place. The child begins to recognize himself in the mirror, respond to his name, actively use the pronoun "I" - that is, he is aware of himself as a person.

The development of self-awareness will lead to the formation of self-esteem. It is after realizing oneself as a person that a child has a need to compare himself with other people, on the basis of which self-esteem is formed. At this age, self-esteem is a purely emotional formation, it does not contain rational components and is based on the child's need for emotional security and acceptance. And since parents often admire the child and praise him, the self-esteem of children in early childhood is usually overestimated.

В preschool childhood (from 3 to 6-7 years) the formation of self-consciousness continues, which is considered the main neoplasm of this age. The child's idea of ​​himself, his "I", his place in the system of social relations is changing. When realizing oneself, separating oneself from the surrounding world, the child has a desire to actively influence situations and change them the way he himself wants. He begins to realize his experiences ("I am cheerful", "I am angry", etc.), and there is an awareness of himself in time ("I am small", etc.). (For more on the formation of self-awareness, see Topic 7.)

В primary school age (from 6-7 to 10-11 years old) the development of the child's self-awareness is greatly influenced by the assessment that the teacher puts for doing work or evaluating his behavior. Focusing on the teacher, the child begins to consider himself an "excellent", "three", "lo", a good or average student, endowing himself with a set of qualities corresponding to the group to which he attributed himself.

From this we can conclude that the assessment of academic performance becomes an assessment of the individual and affects the social status of the child. Therefore, excellent students and "good students" have an overestimated self-esteem, while those who do not succeed have an underestimated one, since constant failures and poor grades reduce faith in their strengths, reduce self-confidence.

In order for self-esteem to be adequate, it is necessary to develop in any child, regardless of academic performance, a sense of competence, dignity, and responsibility.

В adolescence (from 10-11 to 14-15 years old) the development of self-awareness, the formation of the ideal of personality is aimed at a person's awareness of his personal characteristics. This is determined by a special, critical attitude of a teenager to his shortcomings. The "I" of a teenager usually consists of the qualities and virtues of other people, especially valuable in his eyes. But since both adults and peers can be a role model for a teenager, the ideal image turns out to be contradictory. Perhaps this is the reason for the teenager's inconsistency with his ideal, which is a reason for worry.

At this age, adolescents develop a tendency to self-knowledge (reflection). He begins to compare himself with other people (adults and peers), is critical of himself, goes through a lot of emotional experiences, as a result of which his self-esteem is formed and his revenge in society is determined.

As a rule, in younger teenagers, self-esteem is contradictory, so their behavior is characterized by unmotivated actions. (See Topic 9 for more on this.)

В youth (from 15-16 to 20 years old) there is a formation of self-consciousness and a stable image of "I". Scientists believe that the reason for this formation is that at this age abstract-logical thinking develops, the inner world is discovered, the image of the perceived person changes, a feeling of loneliness appears, an exaggeration of one's uniqueness and stability over time.

I.S. Cohn noted that the image of “I” is a social attitude consisting of three interrelated components:

1) cognitive (knowing oneself, understanding one’s qualities and properties);

2) emotional (assessment of these qualities and associated pride, self-esteem, etc.);

3) behavioral (practical attitude towards oneself). The process of developing self-awareness is very complex, and not everyone experiences it smoothly and painlessly. (This process is described in more detail in topic 10.)

In the period early adulthood (from 20 to 40 years) the development of self-awareness, self-esteem and “I-concept” continues. This process is influenced by the individual’s self-definition as a sexual partner, spouse, parent, professional and citizen (for more information on this, see topic 12).

In the period middle adulthood (from 40 to 60 years old) self-consciousness is enriched with new images, self-assessments become generalized, because the "I-image" of a developing personality turns into a "I-image" associated with the development of children, students, colleagues and other people (see also the topic 12).

In the period late maturity (60 years and older) a person integrates his past, present and future. And if his "I-concept" is positive and active, then his personal development will continue (see also topic 12)

Topic 4. PERIODIZATION OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT

4.1. Approaches to the periodization of mental development in developmental psychology

There are different points of view on the process of child development as a whole. Some scientists believe that this process is continuous, others consider it discrete.

Supporters of continuous development argue that the process goes on without stopping, without accelerating or slowing down; There are no boundaries separating one stage from another. According to the adherents of discrete development, it is uneven, sometimes accelerating, sometimes slowing down, and has the main, leading factor of development. That is why it is necessary to single out the stages and stages of development, which will be qualitatively different from each other. It is believed that children consistently go through all stages of development, not missing a single stage and not looking ahead.

Currently, preference is given to a discrete position in the development of children, so we will consider it in more detail.

There are two approaches to periodization of development: spontaneous and normative. Proponents of the spontaneous approach believe that the development process develops spontaneously, under the influence of many random factors and circumstances that occur in the lives of children. An ideal development process is considered normative, taking into account all influencing factors with the correct organization of training and education.

According to L.S. Vygotsky, all periodizations can be divided into three groups.

The first group of includes periodizations built on the basis of an external criterion associated with the development process. It includes periodization created according to the biogenetic principle, periodization by K. Buhler, the author of the theory of three stages of development (instinct, training (skills), intellect), who believed that a child begins to realize something after preschool age.

The French psychologist R. Zazzo built his periodization in such a way that the systems of education and training coincide with the stages of childhood: 0-3 years - early childhood; 3-5 years - preschool childhood; 6-12 years - primary school education; 12-16 years old - education in secondary school; 17 years and older - higher and university education.

Many scholars have proposed to single out some feature when constructing periodization, for example, P.P. Blonsky proposed to build a periodization according to the change of teeth: toothless childhood, milk teeth, the period of permanent teeth.

Ко second group include periodizations based on one internal criterion chosen arbitrarily. Here is some of them.

3. Freud built a periodization taking into account puberty and proposed the following stages: oral, anal, phallic, latent, genital, corresponding to asexual, neutral-sex, bisexual and sexual childhood.

The American psychologist L. Kohlberg (1927-1987) emphasized moral development and singled out the following three levels.

1. Fear of punishment (up to 7 years): fear of the right to power, fear of being deceived and not receiving benefits.

2. Shame in front of other people (13 years old): in front of comrades, inner circle; shame of public condemnation, negative assessment of large social groups.

3. Conscience (after 16 years): the desire to comply with their moral principles, their own system of moral values.

E. Erickson's periodization includes eight stages:

1) trust - distrust (1 year);

2) achieving balance: independence and indecision (2-4 years);

3) enterprise and guilt (4-6 years);

4) skill and inferiority (6-11 years;

5) identification of personality and confusion of roles (12-15 years old - girls and 13-16 years old - boys);

6) intimacy and loneliness (beginning of maturity and family life);

7) general humanity and self-absorption (mature age);

8) integrity and hopelessness.

At each stage, a new quality necessary for social life, opposite character traits, is formed, and preparations are underway for the next life stage.

J. Piaget took intellectual development as the basis of his periodization and identified the following four stages:

1) sensorimotor stage (from birth to 18-24 months);

2) preoperative stage (from 1,5-2 to 7 years);

3) the stage of specific operations (from 7 to 12 years);

4) the stage of formal operations (from 12 to 17 years).

The third group allocates periods of development on the basis of essential criteria, signs. This group includes the following periodizations. Periodization L.S. Slobodchikov:

Stage 1 - revitalization (from birth to 1 year);

Stage 2 - animation (from 1 year to 5-6 years);

Stage 3 - personalization (from 6 to 18 years old);

Stage 4 - individualization (from 17 to 42 years). A. Diesterweg established three age stages:

Stage 1 - the dominance of sensation:

Stage 2 - the dominance of memory;

Stage 3 - the dominance of the mind.

The problem of identifying the main age periodization is still relevant, since none of the proposed periodizations has been confirmed in the specific results of the study of human mental development.

L.S. Vygotsky, working on the problem of periodization, wrote: "Only internal changes in development itself, only fractures and turns in its course can provide a reliable basis for determining the main epochs in the construction of a child's personality" (Vygotsky L.S., 1991). When creating periodization, he suggested using an analysis of the social situation of a child's development and mental neoplasms, taking into account transitional critical periods of development from birth to adolescence.

This problem was also of interest to A.N. Leontiev, who in the article "On the theory of the development of the child's psyche" introduced the concept of "leading type of activity". He pointed out that with age, the place of the child in the system of social relations changes, which is accompanied by the activity of the child, which is decisive in its development.

Ideas L.S. Vygotsky and A.N. Leontiev served as the basis for the creation of D.B. Elkonin of the age periodization of the development of the child, which is now considered generally accepted in developmental psychology (Table 3). Elkonin proceeded from the following provisions:

▪ age-related development is a general change in personality, the formation of a new plan of reflection, a change in activity and life position, the establishment of special relationships with others, the formation of new motives of behavior and value systems;

▪ development is a dialectical process, determined by internal contradictions, purposeful, uneven, with critical periods;

▪ the nature of childhood should be considered in its specific historical understanding;

▪ periodization is based on the patterns of development of activity and a growing person.

All mental activity of a person is considered as a process of continuous change of activity. The leading activity and neoplasms of this age are distinguished.

Table 3

Age periodization according to D.B. Elkonin

4.2. The concept of age

The concept of age is closely related to the psychological development of children. R.S. Nemov defined age as a qualitatively unique period of physical, psychological and behavioral development, characterized by its own characteristics.

According to L.S. Vygotsky, age is a relatively closed cycle of child development, which has its own structure and dynamics.

In psychology, age is divided into physical (chronological) and psychological.

Physical age is the time of a child's life in days, months, years that have passed since his birth. It can be called an external grid, against which the process of the mental development of the child takes place, the formation of his personality.

Psychological age, according to Vygotsky, is a qualitatively unique period of mental development, characterized primarily by the appearance of a neoformation prepared by the entire course of previous development. In other words, it indicates the level of psychological development achieved by a certain age.

Sometimes it happens that a child is physically five years old, and in terms of psychological development it corresponds to a six- or seven-year-old, and it happens vice versa, but here we will talk about mental retardation.

Age is a temporary characteristic of human ontogenetic development. B.G. Ananyev, considering the “age factor,” pointed to the unity of the influences of growth, general somatic and neuropsychic maturation in the process of upbringing and human life. Individual development of a person occurs over time. Therefore, age is not only the number of years lived, but also the inner content, the spiritual development of a person, the changes in his inner world that have occurred over these years. It is the inner world that people differ from each other, thanks to which we can talk about the dissimilarity, uniqueness and originality of people.

Both a person as a whole and his temporal characteristics (meaning age) are an interpenetration of nature and history, biological and social. Therefore, age-related changes in individual properties of a person are both ontogenetic and biographical.

4.3. Age Options

Among the parameters of age, two groups are distinguished: the foundations of development and the results of development.

Development bases include:

▪ social development situation;

▪ circle of relationships;

▪ leading type of activity;

▪ sensitivity.

Development results include:

▪ personality developments;

▪ forms of communication;

▪ emotional-volitional sphere;

▪ communication abilities;

▪ new type of activity.

Compiling a description of a person, taking into account these parameters, you can get a complete description of her age.

4.4. The concept of sensitivity. Critical and crisis periods

Sensitivity is a characterological feature of a person, manifested in increased sensitivity to events happening to him; usually accompanied by increased anxiety, fear of new situations, people, all kinds of trials, etc.

Many scientists have paid attention to the features of the sensitive period (see 2.8). So, C. Stockard believed that during the embryonic development of animals and humans there are periods of increased growth and increased sensitivity of individual organs and systems to external influences. And if, for some reason, development slows down, this leads to its slowdown in the future. According to this point of view, if some function does not develop during the sensitive period in childhood, then its correction in the future is impossible.

MM. Koltsova, D.B. Elkonin, B.G. Ananiev hold the opposite point of view. In their opinion, it is possible to catch up during the sensitive period at a later age, although this will have to face some difficulties. B.G. Ananiev in laboratory conditions established favorable periods for the development of attention, thinking, various types of memory and motor functions in children and adults. They have a wave-like character, i.e., periods of active development are replaced by a slight decline.

L.S. Vygotsky introduced the concept of "critical period" into psychology. Under it, he understood global restructuring at the level of the individual and personality, occurring at a certain time. The critical period is calm in development (lysis) and critical (crisis). L.S. Vygotsky noted that these periods act as "turning points in child development, sometimes taking the form of a crisis ... development sometimes acquires a stormy, impetuous, sometimes catastrophic character" and believed that "development here, in contrast to stable periods, is more destructive than creative work" (Vygotsky L.S., 1991). But he also noted positive trends in development, which constitute the main and basic meaning of any critical period. At the end of each transitional period, new properties and qualities are formed that were not in the previous period - they are called neoplasms.

There is more than one critical period throughout a person's life. Vygotsky singled out several such periods: the neonatal period, one year, three years, six or seven years, and adolescence. Some researchers identify critical periods of adulthood.

In physiology, critical periods are called age-related crises. Age crisis! - these are the reactions of the human body to the restructuring of physiological processes in different age periods. These are rapid shifts, each of which marks the beginning of a new phase of the life cycle. Transitions from one age period to another are associated with a change in the physical data and psychological characteristics of the child, with a holistic restructuring of his body and behavior. The behavior of children during such a transition usually does not change for the better, many become withdrawn, irritable, which causes concern for adults. Thus, the age crisis indicates that significant changes are taking place in the body and psychology of the child, that difficulties have arisen on the path of physical and psychological development that the child himself cannot cope with. And overcoming the crisis is a confirmation that the child is already at a higher level and has moved into the next psychological age.

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.

Topic 6. EARLY CHILDHOOD (FROM 1 YEAR TO 3 YEARS)

6.1. Social situation of development

Early childhood is the period from 1 year to 3 years. At this age, changes occur in personal development, the cognitive sphere, and the social situation of development.

Neoplasms of infancy lead to the fact that the relationship between the child and the adult changes, which in turn leads to the formation of a new social situation of development, which consists in the emergence of a joint activity of the child and the adult, and also in the fact that this activity becomes objective. The essence of joint activity is the assimilation of socially developed ways of using objects, that is, an adult teaches the child to use the surrounding objects correctly, and also explains why they are needed and where they should be used. The social situation of a child's development at this age looks like this: "Child - OBJECT - adult". As can be seen from this triad, the subject is important for the child. You can be convinced of this by watching how the child plays: he constantly looks at the object he is passionate about, be it a typewriter, chair, doll, spoon, etc. You may get the feeling that he doesn’t need anything else and no one needed, his attention is focused only on the object of passion. But this is not so, because without an adult, a child cannot master human ways of using objects.

Joint activity becomes objective, because the motive of this activity lies in the object itself and the way it is used. Communication at this age takes the form of organizing objective activity. In other words, it occurs at the moment of explaining the correctness of the use of one or another object. Communication develops intensively and becomes verbal, because mastering objects using only emotional coloring cannot be effective.

6.2. The development of the cognitive sphere of the child

At this age, perception, thinking, memory, speech develop. This process is characterized by the verbalization of cognitive processes and the emergence of their arbitrariness.

Development of perception is determined by three parameters: perceptual actions (the integrity of the perceived object), sensory standards (the emergence of sensation standards: sound, light, taste, tactile, olfactory) and correlation actions. In other words, the process of perception consists in highlighting the most characteristic qualities, features, properties for a given object or situation; drawing up on their basis a certain image; correlation of these standard images with objects of the surrounding world. So the child learns to divide objects into classes: dolls, cars, balls, spoons, etc.

From the year the process of cognition of the surrounding world begins to actively develop. A child from one to two years old uses different options to perform the same action, and from one and a half to two years old he has the ability to solve a problem by guessing (insight), i.e. the child suddenly finds a solution to this problem, avoiding trial and error method.

From the second year of life, the perception of the child changes. Having learned how to influence one object on another, he is able to foresee the outcome of the situation, for example, the possibility of dragging a ball through a hole, moving one object with the help of another, etc. The child can distinguish between such shapes as a circle, oval, square, rectangle, triangle, polygon; colors - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet.

Thanks to the development of perception, by the end of an early age, the child begins to develop mental activity. This is expressed in the emergence of the ability to generalize, to transfer the experience gained from the initial conditions to new ones, to establish a connection between objects through experimentation, memorizing them and using them in solving problems. A one and a half year old child can predict and indicate the direction of movement of an object, the location of a familiar object, overcome obstacles on the way to achieving the desired goal. And after a year and a half there is a reaction of choosing an object according to the most striking and simple features: shape and color.

Continues in early childhood development of thinking, which from visual-effective gradually turns into visual-figurative, i.e. actions with material objects are replaced by actions with images. The internal development of thinking proceeds in this way: intellectual operations develop and concepts are formed.

Visual-effective thinking arises by the end of the first year of life and remains leading up to 3,5-4 years. At first, the child can abstract and highlight the shape and color, therefore, when grouping objects, he first of all pays attention to the size and color of the object. At the age of about two years, he identifies objects based on essential and non-essential features. At 2,5 years old, the child distinguishes objects according to essential features: color, shape, size.

A feature of thinking in early childhood is syncretism. Syncretism means indivisibility: the child, solving a problem, does not single out individual parameters in it, perceiving the situation as a complete picture. The role of an adult in this case is to isolate from the situation and analyze individual details, from which the child will then highlight the main and secondary ones.

Visual-figurative thinking arises at 2,5-3 years and remains leading until 6-6,5 years. The formation of this thinking is associated with the formation of elementary self-consciousness and the beginning of the development of the ability for arbitrary self-regulation, accompanied by a developed imagination.

Memory development. By the age of two, a child develops working memory. Easy logic and thematic games are available to him, he can draw up an action plan for a short period of time, and does not forget the goal set a few minutes ago.

The development of speech. By the age of one year, a child can already call things by their proper names. He has a wealth of experience in understanding the world around him, he has formed an idea of ​​\u200b\u200bparents, food, the environment, toys. And yet, of the many qualities contained in a word as a concept, the child first assimilates only individual properties characteristic of the object with which this word was initially associated in his perception.

A one-year-old child reacts to words as to the situation as a whole. The word turns out to be associated with the situation, and not with the object representing it. The child carefully observes the facial expressions and gestures of the speaking adult, catching on them the meaning of what is being said.

From 11 months, the transition from pre-phonemic to phonemic speech and the formation of phonemic hearing begins, which ends by two years, when the child can distinguish words that differ from each other by one phoneme. The transition from prephonemic to phonemic speech lasts 3 years and ends in the fourth year of life. At the age of 3, the child learns to use cases correctly, first begins to use one-word sentences, then, at the age of 1,5 to 2,5 years, he can combine words, combining them into two-three-word phrases or two-word sentences, where there is also a subject and predicate. Then, thanks to the development of the grammatical structure of speech, he masters all cases and is able to build complex sentences with the help of function words. At the same time, there is a conscious control over the correct pronunciation of speech statements.

After 1,5 years, the activity of independent speech and verbal communication is noted. The child begins to ask for the names of objects or phenomena that interest him. At first, he uses the language of gestures, facial expressions and pantomimes or a pointing gesture, and then a question expressed in verbal form is added to the gesture. The child learns to control the behavior of other people with the help of speech. But a child between the ages of 2,5 and 3 years cannot follow the instructions of adults, especially when it is necessary to choose one action from several; he will be able to make this choice only closer to 4 years.

During the second year of life, the child begins to learn the verbal designation of surrounding objects, and then the names of adults, the names of toys, and only then - parts of the body, i.e. nouns, and by the age of two, with normal development, understands the meaning of almost all words related to the surrounding reality . This is facilitated by the development of the semantic function of children's speech, i.e., the definition of the meaning of the word, its differentiation, clarification and assignment to words of generalized meanings that are associated with them in the language.

By the age of 2, children have a clear understanding of the purpose of the household and personal hygiene items around them. They understand general questions that require a yes or no answer.

At about 3 years old, the child begins to listen carefully to what adults are talking about, loves when stories, fairy tales, and poems are read to him.

Up to 1,5 years, the child learns from 30 to 100 words, but rarely uses them. By the age of 2, he knows 300 words, and by 3 - 1200-1500 words.

The following stages were identified in the development of speech:

1) syllables (instead of words);

2) sentence words;

3) two-word sentences (for example, "mom here");

4) sentences of three or more words;

5) correct speech (grammatically consistent sentences).

The main trends in the development of the speech of a young child are as follows.

▪ Passive speech is ahead of active speech in development.

▪ The child discovers that every object has its own name.

▪ At the border between the 2nd and 3rd years of life, the child intuitively “discovers” that the words in a sentence are related to each other.

▪ There is a transition from the polysemy of children's words to the first functional generalizations built on the basis of practical actions.

▪ Phonemic hearing is ahead of the development of articulation. The child first learns to listen to speech correctly and then to speak correctly.

▪ Mastery of the syntactic structure of the language is carried out.

▪ Speech functions develop, a transition occurs from the indicative (indicative) to the nominative (denoting) functions of speech.

6.3. Personal formations

In early childhood, along with the development of the cognitive sphere, personal development also takes place. First of all, the child's personal socialization takes place, because, observing adults, he tries to imitate them: to do as they do, to behave as they behave in certain situations. The process of imitation goes through communication and interaction between an adult and a child. Thus, observing the behavior of people and imitating them becomes one of the main sources of personal socialization of the child. In the development of personality, an important role is played by the feeling of attachment, which is formed in the child by the end of the first year of life and continues to develop in early childhood. The reason for attachment may lie in the fact that adults satisfy the basic needs of the child, reduce their anxiety, provide a safe environment for existence and active study of the surrounding reality, form the basis for normal relationships with people at a more mature age.

When the mother is near the child, he is more active and prone to exploring the environment. A positive assessment of the actions and personal qualities of the child by the parent forms in him a sense of self-confidence, faith in his abilities and capabilities. If a child is attached to his parents and they pay him the same, then he is more obedient and disciplined. If parents are friendly, attentive and strive to meet the needs of the child, then he develops a personal, personal attachment.

If a child is deprived of constant positive emotional contact with his mother or loved ones, then he will have problems in the future in establishing normal, trusting relationships with others.

Self-awareness develops in early childhood. The development of self-awareness will lead to the formation of self-esteem (for details, see 3.6). The development of independence is noted. The phrase "I myself" is the best way to describe its manifestation. The child does not always want to be helped. Having mastered walking, he finds himself obstacles, obstacles and tries to overcome them. All this gives the child pleasure and indicates that he begins to develop such qualities as willpower, perseverance, determination.

At this age, many children show disobedience. When they are told that it is impossible to do this, they continue to do it their own way. Often this is due to the desire of children to know the world around them as quickly as possible.

From the age of 1,5, the child begins to realize his abilities and his own personality traits. A two-year-old child understands that he can influence people and achieve the desired goal.

Children begin to develop empathy - understanding the emotional state of another person. One can observe how a one and a half year old child strives to console an upset person: he hugs him, kisses him, gives him a toy, etc.

The child has a need to succeed. This need is being built up in stages. First, the child begins to realize his successes and failures, then he can explain the successes and failures of other people, then he acquires the ability to distinguish tasks according to the degree of difficulty and evaluate the degree of development of his own skills necessary to complete this task, and, finally, he can evaluate his abilities and the applied efforts.

Table 5

The main achievements in the mental development of a child from 1 to 3 years

In table. 5 shows the achievements of the mental development of the child, with which he approaches the crisis of three years.

6.4. Crisis of three years

The crisis of three years is characterized by the fact that the personal changes that occur with the child lead to a change in his relationship with adults. This crisis arises because the child begins to separate himself from other people, realizes his possibilities, feels himself a source of will. He begins to compare himself with adults, and he involuntarily has a desire to perform the same actions that they do, for example: "When I grow up, I will brush my own teeth."

At this age, the following traits appear: negativism, stubbornness, depreciation, obstinacy, self-will, protest-rebellion, despotism. These characteristics were described by L.S. Vygotsky. He believed that the emergence of such reactions contributes to the emergence of the need for respect and recognition.

Negativism is manifested in a negative reaction to the demand or request of an adult, and not to the action itself. For example, a child ignores the demands of one family member or teacher, while others obey. It was also noted that negativism is mainly manifested in relationships with relatives, and not with strangers. Perhaps, subconsciously, the child feels that such behavior towards relatives will not bring him serious harm. Therefore, we must remember that negativism and disobedience are two different things.

Another characteristic of the three-year crisis is stubbornness. Its reason is not in the child's desire to get what he wants or needs at all costs, but in the fact that his opinion is taken into account. It doesn't matter to the child whether he gets this thing or not, he needs to establish himself in his "adulthood", in the fact that his opinion also means something. Therefore, a stubborn child will insist on his own even if he does not really need this thing.

The next characteristic - depreciation - is inherent in all crises. It manifests itself in the fact that all the habits and values ​​\uXNUMXb\uXNUMXbthat used to be dear begin to depreciate. For example, a child may throw and even break a favorite toy in the past, refuses to follow previously accepted rules of behavior, now considering them unreasonable, etc.

Obstinacy is directed against the accepted norms of behavior in the family and is similar to negativism and stubbornness. For example, if it is customary in the family to have dinner together, then the child begins to refuse to eat at this particular time, and then he develops an appetite.

Self-will is expressed in the desire of the child to do everything himself. If in infancy he strove for physical independence, now his behavior is aimed at independence of intentions and plans. Such behavior is manifested not only in the actions offered by adults, for example: "Do it yourself", "You are already big and you can do it", etc., but also in a stubborn desire to do this and not otherwise. This feeling captures the child to such an extent that he openly opposes his desires to the expectations of others. The manifestation of independence is reflected in relationships with adults. When a child realizes that he can do something himself, he does not need the help of adults. They should understand this and try to avoid negative statements about this, not to criticize the child, but to allow him to show independence.

The protest riot is expressed in frequent quarrels between children and their parents. According to L.S. Vygotsky, "the child is at war with others, in constant conflict with them" (Vygotsky L.S., 1991).

The manifestations of despotism are as follows: the child begins to dictate to everyone around him how to behave, and strives to be obeyed and act as he says. Such behavior can be observed when the child is alone in the family or the last in a row.

6.5. Leading activity in early childhood

In early childhood, the subject activity becomes the leading one, which affects both mental development and communication with adults.

In infancy, activity is manipulative in nature: the child can repeat the actions shown by adults, transfer the learned action to another object, and master some of his own actions. But in manipulating, the child uses only the external properties and relations of objects. In early childhood, objects become for the child not just an object, but a thing that has a specific purpose and a specific way of using it. The child tries to master more and more new actions of the subject, and the role of an adult is to mentor, cooperate, and help in difficult situations.

By manipulating an object at the end of infancy and early childhood, the child will never be able to understand its function. For example, he can open and close a closet door an infinite number of times, but he will never understand its functional purpose. Only an adult can explain why this or that thing is needed.

Assimilation of the purpose of the object does not guarantee that the child will use it only for its intended purpose, but the important thing is that he will know how, when and where this should be done. For example, having learned that pencils are needed for writing and drawing, a child can still roll them around the table or build something with them.

At first, the action and the object in the understanding of the child are closely related. An example of this is the following fact: he cannot comb his hair with a stick or drink from a cube. But over time, there is a separation of the object from the action.

There are three phases in the development of the connection between an action and an object:

1) any actions can be performed with the object;

2) the item is used only for its intended purpose;

3) the free use of an object is possible, but only if its true purpose is known.

D.B. Elkonin singled out two directions for the development of objective activity:

1. Development of action from joint with an adult to independent performance.

The path of action development from joint to independent was studied by I.A. Sokolyansky and A.I. Meshcheryakov. They showed that at first the orientation, execution and evaluation of the action are in the hands of the adult. This is manifested, for example, in the fact that an adult takes the child's hands and performs actions with them. Then a partial or joint action is performed, i.e. the adult starts it, and the child continues. Then the action is performed on the basis of the display and, finally, on the basis of the verbal indication.

2. Development of means and methods of orientation of the child in the conditions of the implementation of the action. It goes through several stages. The first stage consists of:

a) in the non-specific use of tools (manipulation of objects);

b) using an object when the methods of its use have not yet been formed, for example, the child understands what a spoon is for, but takes it very low when eating;

c) mastering a specific way of using.

The second stage occurs when the child begins to perform actions in an inadequate situation. In other words, there is a transfer of action from one object to another, for example, a child, having learned to drink from a mug, drinks from a glass. There is also a transfer of action according to the situation, for example, having learned to put on shoes, the child tries to pull them on the ball.

The third stage is accompanied by the emergence of a game action. Here the adult does not tell the child what to do, how to play or use the object.

Gradually, the child begins to correlate the properties of objects with operations, i.e., learns to determine what can be done best with an object, which operations are most suitable for a particular object.

The stages of formation of such fastenings were identified by P.Ya. Galperin. He believed that at the first stage 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 the object itself. He called this stage "targeted trials". At the second stage - "waiting" - the child finds an effective way of acting with the object and tries to repeat it. At the third stage - the "stage of obsessive intervention" - he tries to reproduce an effective method of influence and master it, at the fourth stage he discovers ways to regulate and change the action, taking into account the conditions in which it will have to be performed.

Correlative and instrumental actions are significant for mental development.

Correlating actions consist in bringing several objects into certain spatial interactions - for example, folding pyramids from rings, using collapsible toys, etc.

Instrumental actions are actions in which one object is used when acting on other objects. The child masters instrumental actions in the process of learning under the guidance of an adult.

It was found that gun actions can be an indicator of the intellectual development of children, and subject actions indicate the degree of their learning, the breadth of contacts with adults.

By the end of early childhood, play and productive activities are born in object-tool activity.

Topic 7. PRESCHOOL CHILDHOOD (from 3 to 6-7 years old)

7.1. Social situation of development

Preschool childhood covers the period from 3 to 6-7 years. At this time, the child is disconnected from the adult, which leads to a change in the social situation. The child for the first time leaves the world of the family and enters the world of adults with certain laws and rules. The circle of communication is expanding: a preschooler visits shops, a clinic, begins to communicate with peers, which is also important for his development.

The ideal form with which the child begins to interact is the social relations that exist in the world of adults. The ideal form, according to L.S. Vygotsky, is that part of objective reality (higher than the level at which the child is), with which he enters into direct interaction; this is the realm the child is trying to enter. At preschool age, the world of adults becomes such a form.

According to D.B. Elkonin, the entire preschool age revolves, as if around its center, around an adult, his functions, his tasks. An adult here acts as a carrier of social functions in the system of social relations (an adult is a dad, a doctor, a driver, etc.). Elkonin saw the contradiction of this social situation of development in the fact that the child is a member of society, he cannot live outside society, his main need is to live together with the people around him, but he cannot do this, since the life of the child passes in conditions of indirect, and not direct connection with the world.

The child is not yet able to fully participate in the life of adults, but can express his needs through the game, since only it makes it possible to model the world of adults, enter it and play all the roles and behaviors that interest him.

7.2. Leading activity

The leading activity in preschool age is the game. Play is a form of activity in which the child reproduces the basic meanings of human activity and learns those forms of relationships that will be realized and carried out later. He does this by substituting some items for others, and real actions - abbreviated.

A role-playing game is especially developed at this age (see 7.3). The basis of such a game is the role chosen by the child, and actions to implement this role.

D.B. Elkonin argued that the game is a symbolic-modeling type of activity in which the operational and technical side is minimal, operations are reduced, objects are conditional. It is known that all types of activities of a preschooler are of a modeling nature, and the essence of modeling is the reconstruction of an object in a different, non-natural material.

The subject of the game is an adult as a carrier of some social functions, entering into certain relationships with other people, adhering to certain rules in his activities.

In the game, an internal plan of action is formed. It happens in the following way. The child, playing, focuses on human relationships. In order to reflect them, he needs to internally play out not only the entire system of his actions, but also the entire system of the consequences of these actions, and this is possible only when creating an internal plan of action.

As shown by D.B. Elkonin, the game is a historical education, and it occurs when the child cannot take part in the system of social labor, because he is still small for this. But he wants to enter adult life, so he does it through the game, touching a little with this life.

7.3. Game and toys

Playing, the child not only has fun, but also develops. At this time, the development of cognitive, personal and behavioral processes.

Children play most of the time. During the period of preschool childhood, play goes through a significant path of development (Table 6).

Table 6

The main stages of play activity in preschool age

Younger preschoolers play alone. The game is subject-manipulative and constructive. During the game, perception, memory, imagination, thinking and motor functions are improved. In the role-playing game, the actions of adults are reproduced, which the child is watching. Parents and close friends serve as role models.

In the middle period of preschool childhood, the child needs a peer with whom he will play. Now the main direction of the game is the imitation of relationships between people. Role-playing games have different themes; certain rules are introduced, which the child strictly adheres to. The orientation of the games is diverse: family, where the heroes are mom, dad, grandmother, grandfather and other relatives; educational (nanny, kindergarten teacher); professional (doctor, commander, pilot); fabulous (goat, wolf, hare), etc. Both adults and children can participate in the game, or they can be replaced with toys.

In older preschool age, role-playing games are distinguished by a variety of topics, roles, game actions, and rules. Objects can be conditional, and the game turns into a symbolic one, that is, a cube can represent various objects: a car, people, animals - it all depends on the role assigned to it. At this age, during the game, some children begin to show organizational skills, become leaders in the game.

During the game, mental processes develop, in particular voluntary attention and memory. If the child is interested in the game, then he involuntarily focuses on the objects included in the game situation, on the content of the actions being played and on the plot. If he is distracted and does not properly fulfill the role assigned to him, he can be expelled from the game. But since emotional encouragement and communication with peers are very important for a child, he has to be attentive and remember certain game moments.

In the process of playing activity, mental abilities develop. The child learns to act with a substitute object, that is, he gives it a new name and acts in accordance with this name. The appearance of a substitute object becomes a support for the development of thinking. If at first, with the help of substitute objects, the child learns to think about a real object, then over time, actions with substitute objects decrease and the child learns to act with real objects. There is a smooth transition to thinking in terms of representations.

In the course of the role-playing game, imagination develops. From the substitution of some objects for others and the ability to take on various roles, the child proceeds to the identification of objects and actions with them in his imagination. For example, six-year-old Masha, looking at a photograph showing a girl who propped her cheek with her finger and looks thoughtfully at a doll sitting near a toy sewing machine, says: "The girl thinks that her doll is sewing." According to this statement, one can judge the way of the game peculiar to the girl.

The game also affects the personal development of the child. In the game, he reflects and tries on the behavior and relationships of significant adults, who at this moment act as a model of his own behavior. The basic skills of communication with peers are being formed, feelings and volitional regulation of behavior are being developed.

Reflective thinking begins to develop. Reflection is the ability of a person to analyze his actions, deeds, motives and correlate them with universal human values, as well as with the actions, deeds and motives of other people. The game contributes to the development of reflection, because it makes it possible to control how the action that is part of the communication process is performed. For example, playing in the hospital, the child cries and suffers, playing the role of a patient. He gets satisfaction from this, because he believes that he played the role well.

There is an interest in drawing and designing. At first, this interest manifests itself in a playful way: the child, drawing, plays out a certain plot, for example, the animals drawn by him fight among themselves, catch up with each other, people go home, the wind blows away the apples hanging on the trees, etc. Gradually, the drawing is transferred to the result of the action and a drawing is born.

Learning activity begins to take shape within play activity. Elements of learning activity do not appear in the game, they are introduced by an adult. The child begins to learn by playing, and therefore treats learning activities as a role-playing game, and soon masters some learning activities.

Since the child pays special attention to the role-playing game, we will consider it in more detail.

Role-playing game is a game in which the child performs the role he has chosen and performs certain actions. Plots for games children usually choose from life. Gradually, with a change in reality, the acquisition of new knowledge and life experience, the content and plots of role-playing games are changing.

The structure of the expanded form of the role-playing game is as follows.

1. Unit, the center of the game. This is the role that the child chooses. In the children's game there are many professions, family situations, life moments that made a great impression on the child.

2. Game actions. These are actions with meanings, they are pictorial in nature. In the course of the game, values ​​are transferred from one object to another (an imaginary situation). However, this transfer is limited by the possibilities of showing the action, since it obeys a certain rule: only such an object can replace an object with which at least a picture of the action can be reproduced.

The symbolism of the game is of great importance. D.B. Elkonin said that abstraction from the operational and technical side of objective actions makes it possible to model a system of relations between people.

Since the system of human relations begins to be modeled in the game, it becomes necessary to have a comrade. One cannot achieve this goal, otherwise the game will lose its meaning.

The meanings of human actions are born in the game, the line of development of actions goes as follows: from the operational scheme of action to human action that has meaning in another person; from a single action to its meaning.

3. Rules. During the game, a new form of pleasure arises for the child - the joy of the fact that he acts as required by the rules. Playing in the hospital, the child suffers as a patient and rejoices as a player, satisfied with the performance of his role.

D.B. Elkonin paid great attention to the game. Studying the games of children aged 3-7 years, he singled out and characterized four levels of its development.

First level:

1) actions with certain objects aimed at an accomplice in the game. This includes the actions of the "mother" or "doctor" directed at the "child";

2) roles are defined by action. The roles are not named, and the children in the game do not use the real relationships that exist between adults or between an adult and a child relative to each other;

3) actions consist of repetitive operations, for example, feeding with the transition from one dish to another. Apart from this action, nothing happens: the child does not lose the process of cooking, washing hands or dishes.

Second level:

1) the main content of the game is an action with an object. But here the correspondence of the game action to the real one comes to the fore;

2) roles are called children, and a division of functions is outlined. The execution of a role is determined by the implementation of the actions associated with this role;

3) the logic of actions is determined by their sequence in reality. The number of actions is expanding.

Third level:

1) the main content of the game is the performance of actions arising from the role. Special actions begin to stand out that convey the nature of relations with other participants in the game, for example, an appeal to the seller: "Give me bread," etc.;

2) the roles are clearly delineated and highlighted. They are called before the game, determine and guide the child's behavior;

3) the logic and nature of actions are determined by the role taken on. Actions become more diverse: cooking, washing hands, feeding, reading a book, putting to bed, etc. There is specific speech: the child gets used to the role and speaks as required by the role. Sometimes, during the game, real-life relationships between children can manifest themselves: they begin to call names, swear, tease, etc .;

4) the violation of logic is protested. This is expressed in the fact that one says to the other: "This does not happen." The rules of conduct that children must obey are defined. The incorrect performance of actions is noticed from the side, this causes grief in the child, he tries to correct the mistake and find an excuse for it.

Fourth level:

1) the main content is the performance of actions related to the attitude towards other people, the roles of which are performed by other children;

2) the roles are clearly delineated and highlighted. During the game, the child adheres to a certain line of behavior. The role functions of children are interconnected. Speech is clearly role-playing;

3) actions occur in a sequence that clearly recreates the real logic. They are varied and reflect the richness of the actions of the person portrayed by the child;

4) violation of the logic of actions and rules is rejected. The child does not want to break the rules, explaining this by the fact that it really is, as well as by the rationality of the rules.

During the game, children actively use toys. The role of the toy is multifunctional. It acts, firstly, as a means of the child's mental development, secondly, as a means of preparing him for life in the modern system of social relations, and thirdly, as an object that serves for fun and entertainment.

In infancy, the child manipulates the toy, it stimulates him to active behavioral manifestations. Thanks to the toy, perception develops, that is, shapes and colors are imprinted, orientations to the new appear, preferences are formed.

In early childhood, the toy plays an autodidactic role. This category of toys includes nesting dolls, pyramids, etc. They contain the possibility of developing manual and visual actions. While playing, the child learns to distinguish sizes, shapes, colors.

The child receives many toys - substitutes for real objects of human culture: cars, household items, tools, etc. Thanks to them, he masters the functional purpose of objects, masters tool actions. Many toys have historical roots, such as bow and arrow, boomerang, etc.

Toys, which are copies of objects that exist in the everyday life of adults, introduce the child to these objects. Through them, there is an awareness of the functional purpose of objects, which helps the child psychologically enter the world of permanent things.

Various household items are often used as toys: empty reels, matchboxes, pencils, shreds, strings, as well as natural material: cones, twigs, slivers, bark, dry roots, etc. These items in the game can be used in differently, it all depends on its plot and situational tasks, so in the game they act as polyfunctional.

Toys are a means of influencing the moral side of a child's personality. A special place among them is occupied by dolls and soft toys: bears, squirrels, bunnies, dogs, etc. First, the child performs imitative actions with the doll, i.e., does what the adult shows: shakes, rolls in a stroller, etc. Then the doll or soft toy acts as an object of emotional communication. The child learns to empathize with her, patronize, take care of her, which leads to the development of reflection and emotional identification.

Dolls are copies of a person, they are of particular importance for a child, as they act as a partner in communication in all its manifestations. The child becomes attached to his doll and, thanks to her, experiences many different feelings.

7.4. Mental development of a preschooler

All mental processes are a special form of objective actions. According to L.F. Obukhova, in Russian psychology there has been a change in ideas about mental development due to the separation of two parts in action: indicative and executive. Research by A.V. Zaporozhets, D.B. Elkonina, P.Ya. Galperin made it possible to present mental development as a process of separating the orienting part of the action from the action itself and enriching the orienting part of the action due to the formation of ways and means of orientation. The orientation itself is carried out at this age at different levels: material (or practical-active), perceptual (based on visual objects) and mental (without relying on visual objects, in terms of representation). Therefore, when talking about development perceptions, mean the development of methods and means of orientation.

At preschool age, orientation activity develops very intensively. Orientation can be carried out at different levels: material (practically effective), sensory-visual and mental.

At this age, as studies by L.A. Wenger, there is an intensive development of sensory standards, i.e. colors, shapes, sizes, and the correlation (comparison) of objects with these standards. In addition, there is an assimilation of the standards of phonemes of the native language. About phonemes D.B. Elkonin said the following: "Children begin to hear them in a categorical manner" (Elkonin D.B., 1989).

In the general sense of the word, standards are the achievements of human culture, the "grid" through which we look at the world. When a child begins to master the standards, the process of perception acquires an indirect character. The use of standards allows the transition from a subjective assessment of the perceived world to its objective characteristics.

Thinking. The assimilation of standards, changes in the types and content of the child’s activities lead to a change in the nature of the child’s thinking. By the end of preschool age, there is a transition from egocentrism (centration) to decentration, which also leads to the perception of the world around us from a position of objectivity.

The child's thinking is formed in the course of the pedagogical process. The peculiarity of the development of the child lies in the active mastery of the methods and means of practical and cognitive activity that have a social origin. According to A.V. Zaporozhets, mastering such methods plays a significant role in the formation of not only complex types of abstract, verbal-logical thinking, but also visual-figurative thinking, characteristic of preschool children.

Thus, thinking in its development goes through the following stages:

1) improvement of visual and effective thinking on the basis of developing imagination;

2) improvement of visual-figurative thinking based on voluntary and indirect memory;

3) the beginning of the active formation of verbal-logical thinking through the use of speech as a means of setting and solving intellectual problems.

In his research, A.V. Zaporozhets, N.N. Poddyakov, L.A. Wenger and others confirmed that the transition from visual-active to visual-figurative thinking occurs due to a change in the nature of orienting-research activity. Orientation, based on the method of trial and error, is replaced by a purposeful motor, then visual and, finally, mental orientation.

Let us consider the process of development of thinking in more detail. The emergence of role-playing games, especially with the use of rules, contributes to the development of visual-figurative thinking. Its formation and improvement depend on the imagination of the child. First, the child mechanically replaces some objects with others, giving the substitute objects functions that are not characteristic of them, then the objects are replaced by their images, and the need to perform practical actions with them disappears.

Verbal-logical thinking begins its development when the child knows how to operate with words and understands the logic of reasoning. The ability to reason is found in the middle preschool age, but is very clearly manifested in the phenomenon of egocentric speech, described by J. Piaget. Despite the fact that the child can reason, illogicality is noted in his conclusion, he is confused when comparing size and quantity.

The development of this type of thinking takes place in two stages:

1) first, the child learns the meaning of words relating to objects and actions, and learns to use them;

2) the child learns a system of concepts denoting relationships and learns the rules of the logic of reasoning.

With the development of logical thinking, the process of forming an internal plan of action takes place. N.N. Poddyakov, studying this process, identified six stages of development:

1) first, the child manipulates objects with the help of his hands, solves problems in a visual-effective way;

2) continuing to manipulate objects, the child begins to use speech, but so far only for naming objects, although he can already verbally express the result of the performed practical action;

3) the child begins to mentally operate with images. There is a differentiation in the internal plan of the final and intermediate goals of the action, i.e., he builds a plan of action in his mind and, when executed, begins to reason aloud;

4) the task is solved by the child according to a pre-compiled, thought-out and internally presented plan;

5) the child first thinks out a plan for solving the problem, mentally imagines this process, and only then proceeds to its implementation. The purpose of this practical action is to reinforce the answer found in the mind;

6) the task is solved only internally with the issuance of a ready-made verbal solution, without subsequent reinforcement by actions.

N.N. Poddyakov made the following conclusion: in children, the stages passed and achievements in the improvement of mental actions do not disappear, but are replaced by new, more advanced ones. If necessary, they can again join in solving the problem situation, i.e., visual-effective, visual-figurative and verbal-logical thinking will begin to work. It follows that in preschoolers the intellect already functions according to the principle of systemicity.

At preschool age, concepts begin to develop. At 3-4 years old, the child uses words, sometimes not fully understanding their meanings, but over time, a semantic awareness of these words occurs. J. Piaget called the period of incomprehension of the meaning of words the stage of the speech-cogitative development of the child. The development of concepts goes hand in hand with the development of thinking and speech.

Attention. At this age, it is involuntary and is caused by externally attractive objects, events and people. Interest comes to the fore. A child fixes attention on something or someone only during the period of time in which he retains direct interest in the person, object or event. The formation of voluntary attention is accompanied by the appearance of egocentric speech.

At the initial stage of the transition of attention from involuntary to voluntary, the means that control the child's attention and reasoning aloud are of great importance.

Attention during the transition from younger to older preschool age develops as follows. Younger preschoolers look at the pictures they are interested in, can engage in a certain type of activity for 6-8 seconds, and older preschoolers - 12-20 seconds. At preschool age, different degrees of stability of attention are already noted in different children. Perhaps this is due to the type of nervous activity, physical condition and living conditions. It has been observed that nervous and sick children are more likely to be distracted than calm and healthy ones.

Memory. The development of memory goes from involuntary and immediate to voluntary and indirect memorization and recollection. This fact was confirmed by Z.M. Istomina, who analyzed the process of formation of voluntary and indirect memorization in preschool children.

Basically, in all children of early preschool age, involuntary, visual-emotional memory predominates, only in linguistically or musically gifted children does auditory memory prevail.

The transition from involuntary memory to voluntary memory is divided into two stages:

1) the formation of the necessary motivation, i.e. the desire to remember or remember something;

2) the emergence and improvement of the necessary mnemonic actions and operations.

Various memory processes develop unevenly with age. Thus, voluntary reproduction occurs earlier than voluntary memorization, and involuntarily precedes it in development. The development of memory processes also depends on the interest and motivation of the child in a particular activity.

The productivity of memorization in children in play activities is much higher than outside the game. At the age of 5-6 years, the first perceptual actions aimed at conscious memorization and recall are noted. These include simple repetition. By the age of 6-7, the process of arbitrary memorization is almost completed.

As a child grows older, the speed of retrieving information from long-term memory and transferring it to operational memory increases, as well as the volume and duration of operative memory. The child's ability to assess the possibilities of his memory is changing, the strategies for memorizing and reproducing the material used by him become more diverse and flexible. For example, a four-year-old child from 12 presented pictures can recognize all 12, and reproduce only two or three, a ten-year-old child, having recognized all the pictures, is able to reproduce eight.

Many children of primary and secondary preschool age have a well-developed direct and mechanical memory. Children easily remember and reproduce what they saw and heard, but on condition that it aroused their interest. Thanks to the development of these types of memory, the child quickly improves his speech, learns to use household items, and is well oriented in space.

At this age, eidetic memory develops. This is one of the types of visual memory that helps to clearly, accurately and in detail, without much difficulty, restore visual images of what has been seen in memory.

Imagination. At the end of early childhood, when the child first demonstrates the ability to replace some objects with others, the initial stage of imagination development begins. Then it gets its development in games. How developed a child’s imagination is can be judged not only by the roles he plays during play, but also by his crafts and drawings.

O.M. Dyachenko showed that imagination in its development goes through the same stages as other mental processes: involuntary (passive) is replaced by arbitrary (active), direct - mediated. Sensory standards become the main tool for mastering the imagination.

In the first half of preschool childhood, the child's reproductive imagination predominates. It consists in the mechanical reproduction of the received impressions in the form of images. These can be impressions from watching a TV show, reading a story, a fairy tale, direct perception of reality. The images usually reproduce those events that made an emotional impression on the child.

At the older preschool age, the reproductive imagination turns into an imagination that creatively transforms reality. Thinking is already involved in this process. This type of imagination is used and improved in role-playing games.

The functions of the imagination are as follows: cognitive-intellectual, affective-protective. Cognitive-intellectual imagination is formed due to the separation of the image from the object and the designation of the image with the help of a word. The role of the affective-protective function is that it protects the growing, vulnerable, weakly protected soul of the child from experiences and traumas. The protective reaction of this function is expressed in the fact that through an imaginary situation, a discharge of the emerging tension or conflict resolution can occur, which is difficult to provide in real life. It develops as a result of the child's awareness of his "I", the psychological separation of himself from others and from the actions performed.

The development of imagination goes through the following stages.

1. "Objectification" of the image by actions. The child can manage, change, refine and improve his images, i.e., regulate his imagination, but is not able to plan and mentally draw up a program of upcoming actions in advance.

2. Children's affective imagination at preschool age develops as follows: at first, negative emotional experiences in a child are symbolically expressed in the heroes of fairy tales he heard or saw; then he begins to build imaginary situations that remove threats from his "I" (for example, fantasy stories about himself as supposedly possessing especially pronounced positive qualities).

3. Appearance of substitutive actions, which, if implemented, are able to relieve the emotional stress that has arisen. By the age of 6-7, children can imagine an imaginary world and live in it.

Speech. In preschool childhood, the process of language acquisition is completed. It is developing in the following directions.

1. There is a development of sound speech. The child begins to realize the peculiarities of his pronunciation, he develops phonemic hearing.

2. Vocabulary is growing. It is different for different children. It depends on the conditions of their life and on how and how much his relatives communicate with him. By the end of preschool age, all parts of speech are present in the child's vocabulary: nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, numerals and connecting words. The German psychologist W. Stern (1871-1938), speaking about the richness of the vocabulary, gives the following figures: at three years old, the child actively uses 1000-1100 words, at six years old - 2500-3000 words.

3. The grammatical structure of speech develops. The child learns the laws of the morphological and syntactic structure of the language. He understands the meaning of words and can construct phrases correctly. At the age of 3-5 years, the child correctly captures the meanings of words, but sometimes uses them incorrectly. Children have the ability, using the laws of grammar of their native language, to create statements, for example: “From mint cakes in the mouth - a draft”, “A bald head has a barefoot”, “Look how the rain has poured” (from the book by K.I. Chukovsky " two to five").

4. There is an awareness of the verbal composition of speech. During pronunciation, the language is oriented towards the semantic and sound aspects, and this indicates that the speech is not yet understood by the child. But over time, the development of a linguistic instinct and the mental work associated with it occurs.

If at first the child treats the sentence as a single semantic whole, a verbal complex that denotes a real situation, then in the process of learning and from the moment the reading of books begins, an awareness of the verbal composition of speech occurs. Education accelerates this process, and therefore, by the end of preschool age, the child already begins to isolate words in sentences.

In the course of development, speech performs various functions: communicative, planning, symbolic, expressive.

The communicative function is one of the main functions of speech. In early childhood, speech for a child is a means of communication mainly with loved ones. It arises out of necessity, about a specific situation in which both an adult and a child are included. During this period, communication plays a situational role.

Situational speech is clear to the interlocutor, but incomprehensible to an outsider, because during communication the implied noun drops out and pronouns are used (he, she, they), there is an abundance of adverbs and verbal patterns. Under the influence of others, the child begins to rebuild situational speech to a more understandable one.

In older preschoolers, the following tendency can be traced: the child first calls the pronoun, and then, seeing that they do not understand him, pronounces the noun. For example: "She, the girl, went. He, the ball, rolled." The child gives a more detailed answer to the questions.

The range of interests of the child grows, communication expands, friends appear, and all this leads to situational speech being replaced by contextual speech. Here is a more detailed description of the situation. Improving, the child often begins to use this type of speech, but situational speech is also present.

Explanatory speech appears at the senior preschool age. This is due to the fact that the child, when communicating with peers, begins to explain the content of the upcoming game, the device of the machine, and much more. This requires a sequence of presentation, indication of the main connections and relationships in the situation.

The planning function of speech develops because speech turns into a means of planning and regulating practical behavior. It merges with thinking. In the speech of the child, many words appear that seem to be addressed to no one. These may be exclamations reflecting his attitude to the action. For example, "Knock-knock... scored. Vova scored!".

When a child turns to himself in the process of activity, then they speak of egocentric speech. He pronounces what he is doing, as well as the actions that precede and direct the procedure being performed. These statements are ahead of practical actions and are figurative. By the end of preschool age, egocentric speech disappears. If a child does not communicate with anyone during the game, then, as a rule, he does the work silently, but this does not mean that egocentric speech has disappeared. It simply passes into inner speech, and its planning function continues. Consequently, egocentric speech is an intermediate step between the child's external and internal speech.

The sign function of the child's speech develops in the game, drawing and other productive activities, where the child learns to use sign objects as substitutes for missing objects. The sign function of speech is the key to entering the world of human socio-psychological space, a means for people to understand each other.

The expressive function is the most ancient function of speech, reflecting its emotional side. The speech of the child is permeated with emotions when something does not work out for him or he is denied something. The emotional immediacy of children's speech is adequately perceived by surrounding adults. For a child who reflects well, such speech can become a means of influencing an adult. However, the "childishness", specially demonstrated by the child, is not accepted by many adults, so he has to make an effort on himself and control himself, to be natural, not demonstrative.

Personal Development preschool child is characterized by the formation of self-awareness. As mentioned above, it is considered the main neoplasm of this age.

The idea of ​​oneself, one's "I" begins to change. This is clearly seen when comparing the answers to the question: "What are you?". A three-year-old child replies: "I'm big," and a seven-year-old - "I'm small."

At this age, speaking of self-awareness, one should take into account the child's awareness of his place in the system of social relations. The child's personal self-awareness is characterized by awareness of his "I", the isolation of himself, his "I" from the world of objects and people around him, the emergence of a desire to actively influence emerging situations and change them in such a way as to satisfy his needs and desires.

In the second half of preschool age, self-esteem appears, based on the self-esteem of early childhood, which corresponded to a purely emotional assessment ("I am good") and a rational assessment of someone else's opinion.

Now, when forming self-esteem, the child first evaluates the actions of other children, then his own actions, moral qualities and skills. He has an awareness of his actions and an understanding that not everything can. Another innovation with the formation of self-esteem is the awareness of one's experiences, which leads to orientation in one's emotions, from them one can hear the following statements: "I'm glad. I'm upset. I'm calm."

There is an awareness of himself in time, he remembers himself in the past, realizes in the present and imagines in the future. That's what children say: "When I was little. When I grow up big."

The child is gendered. He is aware of his gender and begins to behave according to the roles, like a man and a woman. Boys try to be strong, brave, courageous, not cry from resentment and pain, and girls try to be neat, businesslike in everyday life and soft or coquettishly capricious in communication. In the course of development, the child begins to appropriate behavioral forms, interests and values ​​of his gender.

The emotional-volitional sphere develops. Regarding the emotional sphere, it can be noted that preschool children, as a rule, do not have strong affective states, their emotionality is more "calm". However, this does not mean that children become phlegmatic, the structure of emotional processes simply changes, their composition increases (vegetative, motor reactions, cognitive processes predominate - imagination, imaginative thinking, complex forms of perception). At the same time, the emotional manifestations of early childhood are preserved, but emotions are intellectualized and become "smart".

The emotional development of a preschooler, perhaps, most of all contributes to the children's team. In the course of joint activities, the child develops an emotional attitude towards people, empathy (empathy) is born.

Changes during preschool age motivational sphere. The main personal mechanism that is formed at this time is the subordination of motives. The child is able to make a decision in a situation of choice, whereas before it was difficult for him. The strongest motive is encouragement and reward, the weakest is punishment, and the weakest is promise. At this age, demanding promises from your child (e.g., “Will you promise not to fight again?”, “Will you promise not to touch that thing again?”, etc.) is pointless.

It is at preschool age that the child begins to master ethical norms, he has ethical experiences. Initially, he can only evaluate other people's actions: other children or literary heroes, but he is not able to evaluate his own. Then, in the middle preschool age, the child, evaluating the actions of a literary hero, can substantiate his assessment, based on the relationship between the characters in the work. And in the second half of preschool age, he can already evaluate his behavior and tries to act in accordance with the moral standards that he has learned.

7.5. Neoplasms of preschool age

To neoplasms of preschool age D.B. Elkonin attributed the following.

1. The emergence of the first schematic outline of an integral children's worldview. A child cannot live in disorder, he needs to put everything in order, to see the patterns of relationships. Children use moral, animistic, and artifical reasons to explain natural phenomena. This is confirmed by the statements of children, for example: "The sun moves so that everyone is warm and light." This happens because the child believes that at the center of everything (beginning with what surrounds a person and up to natural phenomena) is a person, which was proved by J. Piaget, who showed that a child in preschool age has an artificalistic worldview.

At the age of five, the child turns into a "little philosopher". He talks about the origin of the moon, sun, stars, based on the television programs he watched about astronauts, moon rovers, rockets, satellites, etc.

At a certain moment of preschool age, the child has an increased cognitive interest, he begins to torment everyone with questions. This is the peculiarity of his development, therefore, adults should understand this and not be annoyed, not dismiss the child, but, if possible, answer all questions. The onset of the "age of the whys" indicates that the child is ready for school.

2. Emergence of primary ethical instances. The child tries to understand what is good and what is bad. Simultaneously with the assimilation of ethical norms, aesthetic development takes place ("Beautiful cannot be bad").

3. Appearance of subordination of motives. At this age, deliberate actions prevail over impulsive ones. Perseverance, the ability to overcome difficulties are formed, a sense of duty to comrades arises.

4. Behavior becomes arbitrary. Arbitrary is the behavior mediated by a particular representation. D.B. Elkonin said that at preschool age, the image orienting behavior first exists in a specific visual form, but then becomes more and more generalized, acting in the form of rules or norms. The child has a desire to control himself and his actions.

5. Emergence of personal consciousness. The child seeks to take a certain place in the system of interpersonal relations, in a socially significant and socially valued activity.

6. The emergence of the inner position of the student. The child develops a strong cognitive need, in addition, he seeks to get into the world of adults, starting to engage in other activities. These two needs lead to the fact that the child has an internal position of a schoolboy. L.I. Bozovic believed that this position may indicate the readiness of the child to go to school.

7.6. Psychological readiness for school

Psychological readiness is a high level of intellectual, motivational and arbitrary spheres.

The problem of readiness of the child to study at school was dealt with by many scientists. One of them was L.S. Vygotsky, who argued that readiness for schooling is formed in the learning process: “Until the child is taught the logic of the program, until then there is still no readiness for learning; usually readiness for schooling develops by the end of the first half of the first year learning" (Vygotsky L.S., 1991).

Now training is also carried out in preschool institutions, but there the emphasis is only on intellectual development: the child is taught to read, write, and count. However, you can be able to do all this and not be ready for schooling, because readiness is also determined by the activity in which these skills are included. And at preschool age, the development of skills and abilities is included in the game activity, therefore, this knowledge has a different structure. Therefore, when determining school readiness, it is impossible to evaluate it only by the formal level of writing, reading, and numeracy skills.

Speaking about determining the level of school readiness, D.B. Elkonin argued that one should pay attention to the occurrence of voluntary behavior (see 8.5). In other words, it is necessary to pay attention to how the child plays, whether he obeys the rule, whether he takes on roles. Elkonin also said that the transformation of a rule into an internal instance of behavior is an important sign of readiness for learning.

The degree of development of voluntary behavior was devoted to the experiments of D.B. Elkonin. He took children aged 5, 6 and 7, put a bunch of matches in front of each and asked them to move them one by one to another place. A seven-year-old child with a well-developed volitionality scrupulously carried out the task to the end, a six-year-old child rearranged matches for some time, then began to build something, and a five-year-old child brought his own task to this task.

In the process of schooling, children have to learn scientific concepts, and this is possible only if the child, firstly, is able to distinguish between different aspects of reality. It is necessary that he sees in the subject separate sides, the parameters that make up its content. Secondly, in order to master the basics of scientific thinking, he needs to understand that his point of view cannot be absolute and unique.

According to P.Ya. Galperin, by the end of preschool age there are three lines of development:

1) the formation of arbitrary behavior, when the child can obey the rules;

2) mastering the means and standards of cognitive activity that allow the child to move on to understanding the conservation of quantity;

3) the transition from egocentrism to centralization.

Motivational development should also be included here. Tracking the development of the child, taking into account these parameters, it is possible to determine his readiness for schooling.

Consider the parameters for determining the level of school readiness in more detail.

Intelligent Readiness. It is determined by the following points:

1) orientation in the surrounding world;

2) stock of knowledge;

3) development of thought processes (ability to generalize, compare, classify);

4) development of different types of memory (figurative, auditory, mechanical);

5) development of voluntary attention.

Motivational readiness. The presence of internal motivation is of particular importance: a child goes to school because it will be interesting for him and he wants to know a lot. Preparing for school implies the formation of a new “social position”. This includes the attitude towards school, educational activities, teachers, and oneself. According to E.O. Smirnova, it is also important for learning that the child has personal forms of communication with adults.

Willful readiness. Her presence is very important for the further successful education of a first-grader, because hard work awaits him, and he will be required to be able to do not only what he wants, but also what is necessary.

By the age of 6, the basic elements of volitional action are already beginning to form: the child is able to set a goal, make a decision, outline a plan of action, carry out this plan, show a certain effort in overcoming obstacles, and evaluate the result of his action.

Topic 8. JUNIOR SCHOOL AGE (FROM 6-7 TO 10-11 YEARS)

8.1. Social situation of development

Many psychologists dealt with the problems of primary school age: D.B. Elkonin, V.V. Davydova, L.I. Aidarova, Yu.A. Poluyanov and others. This age attracts the close attention of scientists because it has not yet been fully studied, since it historically stood out quite recently, with the introduction of compulsory and universal incomplete and complete secondary education. The tasks and content of secondary education have not yet been fully defined, so the psychological characteristics of primary school age cannot be considered final and unchanged.

Let us consider the identified and experimentally proven features of the social situation in the development of children of primary school age.

The first and most important moment is the beginning of schooling. The child undergoes a restructuring of all systems of relations with reality. If a preschooler had two spheres of social relations: "child - adult" and "child - children", now there have been changes in the system of relations "child - adult". It was divided into two parts: "child - parent" and "child - teacher".

The "child-teacher" system begins to determine the child's attitude to both parents and children. This was experimentally shown by B.G. Ananiev, L.I. Bozhovich, I.S. Slavina. These relationships become central for the child, because an evaluation system appears: good grades and good behavior, evaluation comes from the teacher. Relationships with peers and parents depend on what grades he will receive. Peers try to be friends with those who study well. If earlier parents asked: "How are you doing?" Now: "What grade did you get?". The child sees that bad grades upset parents, while good grades make them happy.

Relations "child - teacher" are transformed into relations "child - society". The demands of society are embodied in the teacher. "At school, the law is common to all," wrote G.-F. Hegel. A system of certain relations has been built in the school, and the teacher is its bearer.

D.B. Elkonin noted that children are very sensitive to how the teacher treats children. If the child notices that the teacher singles out someone, then respect for him is reduced. At first, children strictly follow the instructions of the teacher, but if he shows loyalty to the rule, then the rule begins to collapse from the inside.

With the beginning of schooling, the child's relationship with the people around him changes. Despite the fact that he continues to live in the same house, walk along the same streets, his life changes dramatically. The freedom of preschool childhood is replaced by relations of dependence and submission to certain rules. Parents begin to control him: they are interested in grades and express their opinion about them, check homework, make up the daily routine. The child begins to feel that the parents began to love him less, because now they are most interested in grades. This places a new responsibility on him: he has to control his situational impulses, to organize his life. As a result, the child begins to experience a feeling of loneliness and alienation from loved ones.

The new social situation tightens the child's living conditions and acts as a stressful one for him. Every child's emotional state changes, mental tension increases, which affects both physical health and behavior.

The nature of the child's adaptation to new conditions of life and the attitude of relatives towards him contribute to the development of a sense of personality. Thus, primary school age is characterized by the fact that the child has a new status: he is a student and a responsible person.

8.2. Educational activity. Other activities

Learning activity is the process of acquiring new knowledge, skills and abilities or changing old ones. The objects of science and culture are special objects with which one must learn to act.

Educational activity is not given to a person from birth, it must be formed. Therefore, the task of elementary school is to teach the child to learn.

In order for the educational activity to be successful, positive motivation is necessary, that is, the child himself really wants to learn. But the motive and the content of educational activity do not correspond to each other, and over time, the motive loses its strength. Therefore, one of the main tasks of the success of educational activities is the formation of cognitive motivation, which is closely related to the content and methods of learning.

The subject of changes in educational activity is the student himself. Educational activity is an activity that turns the child on himself, requires reflection, an assessment of "who I was" and "who I have become." Therefore, the process of self-change becomes a new subject for the student. The main thing in learning activity is that a person looks at himself and appreciates his own changes. Self-assessment is the subject of learning activity.

D.B. Elkonin presented the following structure of learning activities:

1) learning motivation - a system of motives that makes a child learn, gives meaning to educational activities;

2) a learning task, i.e., a system of tasks during which the child masters the most general methods of action;

3) learning actions - those actions with the help of which the learning task is assimilated, i.e. all those actions that the student performs in the lesson (specific for each subject and general);

4) control actions - those actions with the help of which the progress of mastering the learning task is controlled;

5) assessment action - those actions with the help of which the success of mastering the learning task is assessed.

Consider the form in which educational activities are carried out. At the initial stages, this is a joint activity of the teacher and the student. By analogy with the mastering of objective actions at an early age, it turns out that at first everything is in the "hands of the teacher" and he "acts with the hands of the student." Only at school age, activity is carried out with ideal objects (numbers, sounds), and the teacher's "hands" are his intellect. Educational activity can be compared with the subject, only in the educational activity the subject is theoretical and ideal, which leads to problems in joint activities during the educational process. But in the learning process, the child interacts not only with the teacher, but also with each other, which also affects the development of educational activities.

G.A. Zuckerman explored the role of cooperation with peers in the mental development of younger students. The material for the study was the experimental teaching of the Russian language to first-graders. The experimental and control classes were compared. In the experimental class, the teacher worked with a group of students working together, his main task was to organize business communication between students about the material being studied. In the control class, the teaching was traditional, in which the influence of the teacher was addressed separately to each student. At the end of the study, the results in the experimental class were better than in the control class. It follows that children learn the educational material better in joint work with their peers.

G.A. Zuckerman put forward the idea that peer collaboration is qualitatively different from adult collaboration. In the relationship of a child with an adult, the latter sets goals, controls and evaluates the actions of the child. It has been noticed that children can make mistakes in already formed actions and easily find them, but only with the help of adults. According to G.A. Zuckerman, this happens because the teacher transmits only the operational composition of the action, but remains the holder of its meanings and goals.

When working together with peers, equal communication enriches the child with the experience of control and evaluation actions and statements. Analyzing the interaction of children in the experimental class, G.A. Zuckerman identified two characteristics of learning activity.

1. Independence from an adult. The role of an adult is to organize the work and "start" it, and then the children work independently. They turn to the teacher very rarely, but interact with their peers. This ensures that the partner's position, his point of view is taken into account, promotes decentration, which leads to the development of reflection.

2. Focus not so much on the result, but on the way of one's own and the partner's actions. The work was structured in the form of a “pedagogical council situation”: the children played the role of teachers of different classes and discussed what rules should be given assignments to this or that class. During the discussion, a high motivational level of students was noted.

A developed form of learning activity is a form in which the subject sets himself the task of his own change. This is precisely the purpose of education - to change the student.

Educational activity is connected with other activities of younger students - play and labor. Let's consider what effect it has on gaming activity. At primary school age, the relevance of the game remains, but changes occur in the nature of play activity (Table 7). The importance of games with the achievement of a certain result (sports, intellectual games) is increasing. At this age, the game is hidden, i.e., there is a transition from games in terms of external actions to games in terms of imagination (dramatization game). In addition, the game begins to obey educational activities.

Nevertheless, for a younger student, the game is very important, because it allows you to make the meaning of things more obvious. With the help of the game, the child brings the meaning of these things closer to himself. At primary school age, the game continues to have, although auxiliary, but still essential. It allows the child to master the high social motives of behavior.

Table 7

Stages of play activity in primary school age

Educational activity is also associated with labor. In connection with the restructuring of the school, the question of the connection between educational activity and labor becomes especially important. The participation of children in labor activity has a significant impact on the process of learning. One of the main difficulties in mastering knowledge at school is isolation from life. The child acquires knowledge, knows the formulations and can illustrate them with an example, but this knowledge is not applied in practice. Therefore, when a child is faced with a life task, he is forced to resort to worldly ideas. This happens because the school does not organize activities aimed at applying the acquired knowledge in practice. Perhaps the introduction of pre-profile education at school will mitigate these problems a little.

But the task of the school is not only to give the child a certain amount of knowledge - you need to educate him in a moral sense. The school is faced with the task of forming the moral qualities of the child in the course of educational activities. It is not possible to fully ensure the solution of this problem, since there are no favorable conditions for this. And in labor, the social result of activity appears in a real, objective, material form; in labor activity, the need for joint efforts of the team in achieving a certain result is more tangible. That is why labor is of particular importance for the formation of the moral qualities of the individual.

8.3. Neoplasms of primary school age

The neoplasms of primary school age include memory, perception, will, and thinking.

Memory. At this age, great changes occur in the child’s cognitive sphere. Memory acquires a pronounced cognitive character. Mechanical memory develops well, while indirect and logical memory lags slightly behind in its development. This is due to the fact that these types of memory are not in demand in educational, work, and play activities and the child lacks mechanical memory. There is an intensive formation of memorization techniques: from the most primitive (repetition, careful long-term examination of the material) to grouping and understanding the connections of different parts of the material.

Perception. There is a transition from involuntary perception to targeted voluntary observation of an object or object. At the beginning of this period, perception is not yet differentiated, so the child sometimes confuses letters and numbers with similar spellings.

If at the initial stage of education, the child's analyzing perception prevails, then by the end of primary school age, a synthesizing perception develops. He can establish connections between the elements of the perceived. This is clearly seen in the following example. When children were asked to tell what was drawn in the picture, children from 2 to 5 years old listed the objects depicted in it, from 6 to 9 years old - described the picture, and a child over 9 years old gave his interpretation of what he saw.

Will. Educational activity contributes to the development of will, since learning always requires internal discipline. The child begins to develop the ability to self-organize, he masters planning techniques, self-control and self-esteem increase. The ability to focus on uninteresting things is formed.

Significant changes at this age occur in the area thinking. The cognitive activity of a child of primary school age is very high. This is expressed in the fact that he asks a lot of questions and is interested in everything: how deep is the ocean, how do animals breathe there, etc.

The child seeks knowledge. He learns to operate with them, imagine situations and, if necessary, tries to find a way out of a particular situation. The child can already imagine the situation and act in it in his imagination. Such thinking is called visual-figurative. This is the main type of thinking at this age. A child can also think logically, but since learning in the lower grades is successful only on the basis of the principle of visibility, this kind of thinking is still necessary.

At the beginning of primary school age, thinking is distinguished by egocentrism - a special mental position due to the lack of knowledge necessary to correctly identify certain problematic points.

The learning process in the lower grades is aimed at the active development of verbal and logical thinking. The first two years in the learning process are dominated by visual samples of educational material, but gradually their use is reduced. Thus, visual-figurative thinking is replaced by verbal-logical thinking.

Already at the end of primary school age (and later), individual differences between children appear: some are "theorists" or "thinkers" who easily solve problems verbally; others are "practitioners", they need reliance on visibility and practical actions; the "artists" have a well-developed figurative thinking. In many children, these types of thinking are developed in the same way.

At primary school age, theoretical thinking begins to develop, leading to the restructuring of all mental processes, and, as D.B. Elkonin: "Memory becomes thinking, and perception becomes thinking." An important condition for the development of theoretical thinking is the formation of scientific concepts and their application in practice. This can be illustrated by the following example. Children of preschool and school age were asked the question: "What is a fetus?" Preschoolers said that this is what they eat and what grows, and schoolchildren answered that the fruit is the part of the plant that contains the seed.

Theoretical thinking allows solving problems based on internal features, essential properties and relationships. The development of theoretical thinking depends on the type of education, that is, on how and what the child is taught.

V.V. Davydov in the book "Types of generalization in teaching" (M., 1972) gave a comparative description of empirical and theoretical thinking. He showed that the development of theoretical thinking requires a new logic of the content of educational processes, since theoretical generalization does not develop in the depths of the empirical (Table 8)

Table 8.

Comparative characteristics of empirical and theoretical thinking

If we use the structural units of theoretical generalization in the learning process, then theoretical thinking will actively develop and be fully formed by the end of primary school age.

In the process of schooling, the assimilation and generalization of knowledge and skills take place, intellectual operations are formed. Thus, at primary school age there is an active intellectual development.

By the end of primary school age, elements of labor, artistic, socially useful activities are formed and prerequisites are created for the development of a sense of adulthood.

8.4. Crisis of seven years

Personal development and the emergence of self-awareness in preschool age become the causes of the crisis of seven years. The main features of this crisis are:

1) loss of immediacy. At the moment the desire arises and the action is carried out, an experience arises, the meaning of which is what meaning this action will have for the child;

2) mannerisms. Secrets appear in the child, he begins to hide something from adults, build himself smart, strict, etc .;

3) a symptom of "bitter candy". When a child feels bad, he tries not to show it.

The appearance of these signs leads to difficulties in communicating with adults, the child closes, becomes uncontrollable.

At the heart of these problems are experiences, the emergence of the inner life of the child is associated with their appearance. The formation of an inner life, a life of experiences, is a very important moment, since now the orientation of behavior will be refracted through the child's personal experiences. The inner life is not directly superimposed on the outer, but influences it.

The crisis of seven years entails a transition to a new social situation that requires a new content of relationships. The child needs to enter into relationships with people who are new to him, obligatory, socially necessary and socially useful activities. The former social relations (kindergarten, etc.) have already exhausted themselves, so he tends to go to school as soon as possible and enter into new social relations. But, despite the desire to go to school, not all children are ready for learning. This was shown by observations of the first days of the child's stay within the walls of this institution.

D.B. Elkonin, who worked for several years at school, noticed that when first-graders were asked to draw four circles in the first lessons and color three of them yellow and one blue, they painted them in different colors and explained this by saying that it was so beautiful. This fact suggests that the rules have not yet become the rules of behavior for the child.

Another example: in the first lessons, first-graders are not given homework, but they ask: "What about the lessons?" This suggests that receiving homework puts them in a certain relationship with the outside world, and since children at this age seek adult relationships, this question arises.

During the break, first-graders try to approach the teacher, touch him or hug him. These are the remnants of former relationships, former forms of communication characteristic of preschool age.

The symptom of loss of spontaneity delimits preschool childhood and primary school age. According to L.S. Vygotsky, a new moment arises between the desire to do something and the activity itself: orientation in what the implementation of this or that activity will bring to the child. In other words, the child thinks about the meaning of the activity, about getting satisfaction or dissatisfaction from what place he will take in relations with adults, i.e., an emotional-semantic orientation of the basis of the act arises. D.B. Elkonin said that there and then, where and when an orientation toward the meaning of an act appears, there and then the child passes into a new age.

The course of the crisis will depend on when the child goes to school, how ready he is for learning. If the child comes to school late (7,3-8 years), then he will have to go through the following phases.

1. Subcritical phase. The game is no longer interested in the child as before, it fades into the background. He tries to make changes in the game, there is a desire for a productive, meaningful, adult-appreciated activity. The child begins to have a subjective desire to become an adult. critical phase. Since the child is subjectively and objectively ready to study at school, and the formal transition is late, he becomes dissatisfied with his position, he begins to experience emotional and personal discomfort, negative symptoms appear in his behavior, directed primarily at parents.

2. Postcritical phase. When a child comes to school, his emotional state stabilizes and inner comfort is restored.

Children who come to school early (6-6,3 years) have the following phases.

1. The child at this stage is more concerned not with learning, but with the game, while it remains his leading activity. Therefore, he can only have subjective prerequisites for teaching at school, while the objective ones have not yet been formed.

2. Since the child has not yet formed the prerequisites for the transition from play to learning activities, he continues to play both in the classroom and at home, which leads to problems in learning and behavior. The child experiences dissatisfaction with his social position, experiences emotional and personal discomfort. Negative symptoms that appear in behavior are directed against parents and teachers.

3. The child has to simultaneously, on equal terms, master the curriculum and the desired gaming activity. If he manages to do this, then emotional and personal comfort is restored and negative symptoms are smoothed out. Otherwise, the negative processes characteristic of the second phase will intensify.

Lagging behind in learning in children who come to school early can be observed not only in the first grade, but also in subsequent grades and lead to a general failure of the child at school.

8.5. Problems of transition from primary school age to adolescence

Any transition period brings forward specific problems that require special attention. This includes the transition of students from elementary school (9-11 years old) to the secondary level. The changed conditions of teaching place higher demands on intellectual and personal development.

However, this level of development of students is not the same. For some, it corresponds to the conditions for the success of their further education, for others it reaches a barely acceptable limit. Therefore, this transitional period may be accompanied by various kinds of difficulties.

So what happens to children, what characterizes the peculiarities of the mental and personal development of schoolchildren at the junction of these ages? Let's consider these features, using the data of domestic psychology, based on the works of L.I. Bozhovich, V.V. Davydova, T.V. Dragunova, I.V. Dubrovina, A.V. Zakharova, A.K. Markova, D.I. Feldstein, D.B. Elkonina and others.

1. Thinking becomes theoretical (thinking in concepts), which leads to a restructuring of all other mental processes. It is the restructuring of the entire cognitive sphere in connection with the development of theoretical thinking that constitutes the main content of mental development by the end of primary school age.

2. The development of theoretical thinking contributes to the emergence of reflection in students (introspection, reflection, self-observation). It is a neoplasm of a given age, changing the cognitive activity of students, the nature of their relationship to others and to themselves.

3 Neoplasms of this age are also arbitrariness and the ability to self-regulate. Arbitrariness is characterized by the fact that in children the development of arbitrary memory, attention, thinking is completed, the organization of activity becomes arbitrary. The ability for self-regulation lies in the psychological readiness of the child to master the skills of self-regulation and apply them in practice, stabilizing their emotional state.

Reflection, self-regulation, arbitrariness pass at this time only the initial stage of formation. In the future, they are fixed and become more complicated, extending not only to situations related to educational activities, but also to other areas of the child's life. However, the transition from self-regulation, voluntary behavior, which manifests itself mainly in educational activities, to situations where the solution of moral problems is required, to moral self-regulation of behavior by the child himself occurs precisely at this stage.

The attitude of schoolchildren to the learning process is changing. Despite the fact that study remains their main activity, it loses its leading role in the mental development of students. Educational activity continues to be socially evaluated, still affects the content and degree of development of the intellectual, motivational spheres of the personality of students, but its role and place in the overall development of children are changing significantly. This is characterized by a decrease in academic performance, a weakening of the motivation for learning, and the coming to the fore of communication with peers.

If primary school age is a period of initial acquaintance with educational activity and mastery of its structural components, then by the beginning of adolescence, students should master independent forms of work; this is the time of development of intellectual activity, cognitive activity, educational and cognitive motivation. Teaching can now be carried out independently, purposefully. But such a way of developing cognitive activity is possible only when interest in learning becomes a sense-forming motive (learning moves from the area of ​​"meanings" to the area of ​​"personal meanings"), in other words, it is important that the child was interested in the lessons and wanted to learn.

The turn of the 4th-5th grades, according to many teachers and psychologists, is characterized by a significant decrease in students' interest in learning, in the learning process itself. All this forms a negative attitude towards the school as a whole and to the obligation to attend it, unwillingness to do homework; conflicts with teachers begin, the rules of behavior at school are violated.

The reasons for the negative manifestations of children's dissatisfaction with learning, firstly, can be associated with the peculiarities of the work of teachers. Thus, teachers of third-graders often continue to teach their pupils, guided by the same principles as when working in grades 1-2, not contributing to the development of activity and initiative of schoolchildren, their creative understanding of the knowledge communicated, and the development of creativity. Secondly, these are the reasons caused by the peculiarities of the development of children at a given age.

As mentioned above, a neoplasm of this transitional age is reflection, which changes the view of children on the world around them, makes them develop their own views, their own opinions, ideas about the value and significance of teaching. Awareness of one's personal relationship to the world and other people is just beginning and therefore affects the sphere of activity more familiar to children - educational. A personal relationship to learning is formed. As a result, a "motivational vacuum" may arise, when the former ideas of many children are no longer satisfied, and the new ones are not yet realized, have not taken shape, have not arisen. Therefore, many fifth graders to the question: "Do you like to study?" answer: "I don't know."

During this transitional period, relationships with adults and with peers change. There are claims of children to a certain relationship in the system of business and personal relationships in the team, a fairly stable status of the student in this system is formed. The child seeks to find his place in the group, therefore, the emotional state of the child is influenced by how relations with comrades develop, and not only academic success and relationships with adults - teachers and parents.

The norms that regulate the relations of schoolchildren to each other are also changing: "spontaneous children's norms" associated with the qualities of "real camaraderie" come to the fore. There is an unspoken division: "a good student" and "a good friend." A good student may not always be a good comrade, and a good comrade may not always be a good student. And this is understandable, because the content of the norms, moral qualities that characterize a good student and a good friend cannot and should not completely coincide, since they reflect different spheres of schoolchildren's life.

The nature of schoolchildren's self-esteem is changing significantly. If earlier the student's attitude towards himself was formed by the teacher on the basis of the grades received, now it is not the educational characteristics that are taken into account, but the qualities manifested in communication. The number of negative self-assessments sharply increases. Dissatisfaction with oneself in children of this age extends not only to a relatively new sphere of their life activity - communication with peers, but also to the educational one. Therefore, children have a need for a general positive assessment of their personality by other people, primarily adults, as well as a need and need for a general positive assessment of themselves as a whole, regardless of specific results.

A person throughout his life needs unconditional acceptance and love, this is vital for everyone in order to become successful, confident, harmoniously developed, but this need is more developed in children. At primary school age, it becomes the basis for the favorable personal development of schoolchildren in the future.

A change in the social situation, development and change in the content of the student's internal position underlie the motivational crisis. This crisis is still poorly expressed in behavior, in external manifestations. The experiences of schoolchildren associated with such changes are by no means always realized by them, often they cannot even formulate their difficulties, problems, questions. As a result, psychological insecurity arises before a new stage of development.

Dissatisfaction with oneself, relationships with others, critical assessment of learning outcomes can lead to the development of a need for self-education, and can become an obstacle to the full formation of a personality. The path along which the formation of the student's personality will go depends largely on how successfully this stage of growing up will proceed.

Topic 9. ADOLESCENT AGE (FROM 10-11 TO 14-15 YEARS)

9.1. Social situation of development

The social situation of human development at this age is a transition from childhood to independent and responsible adult life. In other words, adolescence occupies an intermediate position between childhood and adulthood. There are changes at the physiological level, relationships with adults and peers are built in a different way, the level of cognitive interests, intelligence and abilities undergo changes. Spiritual and physical life moves from home to the outside world, relationships with peers are built on a more serious level. Teenagers engage in joint activities, discuss vital topics, and games are a thing of the past.

At the beginning of adolescence, there is a desire to be like the elders, in psychology it is called a sense of adulthood. Children want to be treated like adults. Their desire, on the one hand, is justified, because in some ways parents really begin to treat them differently, they allow them to do what was not allowed before. For example, now teenagers can watch feature films, access to which was previously prohibited, take longer walks, parents begin to listen to the child when solving everyday problems, etc. But, on the other hand, a teenager does not fully meet the requirements for an adult, he has not yet developed in himself such qualities as independence, responsibility, a serious attitude to his duties. Therefore, it is still impossible to treat him the way he wants.

Another very important point is that, although a teenager continues to live in a family, study at the same school and is surrounded by the same peers, shifts occur in the scale of his values ​​and the accents related to family, school, and peers are placed in a different way. The reason for this is reflection, which began to develop towards the end of primary school age, and in adolescence, it develops more actively. All adolescents strive to acquire the qualities characteristic of an adult. This entails external and internal restructuring. It begins with the imitation of their "idols". From the age of 12-13, children begin to copy the behavior and appearance of significant adults or older peers (lexicon, way of relaxing, hobbies, jewelry, hairstyles, cosmetics, etc.).

For boys, the object of imitation is people who behave like "real men": they have willpower, endurance, courage, courage, endurance, and are loyal to friendship. Therefore, boys at the age of 12-13 begin to pay more attention to their physical data: they enroll in sports sections, develop strength and endurance.

Girls tend to imitate those who look like a "real woman": attractive, charming, popular with others. They begin to pay more attention to clothes, cosmetics, master coquetry techniques, etc.

The current situation of development is characterized by the fact that advertising has a great influence on the formation of the needs of adolescents. At this age, emphasis is placed on the presence of certain things: for example, a teenager, receiving an advertised thing for personal use, acquires value both in his own eyes and in the eyes of his peers. It is almost vital for a teenager to own a certain set of things in order to acquire a certain significance in their own eyes and in the eyes of their peers. From this we can conclude that advertising, television, the media to some extent form the needs of adolescents.

9.2. Physiological changes

During adolescence, physiological changes occur that lead to changes in the behavior of children.

The period of activity of the dominant center of the cortex is reducedг brain. As a result, attention becomes short and unstable.

Decreased ability to differentiate. This leads to a deterioration in the understanding of the material presented and the assimilation of information. Therefore, during classes it is necessary to give more vivid, understandable examples, use demonstrative material, and so on. In the course of communication, the teacher should constantly check whether the students understood him correctly: ask questions, use questionnaires and games if necessary.

Increases latent (hiddenгty) period of reflex reactions. The reaction slows down, the teenager does not immediately answer the question asked, does not immediately begin to fulfill the requirements of the teacher. In order not to aggravate the situation, one should not rush the children, it is necessary to give them time to think and not offend.

subcorticalгe processes youгout of control of the cerebral cortex. Adolescents are not able to control the manifestations of both positive and negative emotions. Knowing this feature of adolescence, the teacher needs to be more tolerant, treat the manifestation of emotions with understanding, try not to be "infected" with negative emotions, and in conflict situations, switch attention to something else. It is advisable to familiarize children with the techniques of self-regulation and work out these techniques with them.

The activity of the second signaling system is weakened. Speech becomes short, stereotyped, slowed down. Adolescents may have difficulty understanding auditory (verbal) information. You should not rush them, you can suggest the necessary words, use illustrations when telling a story, that is, visually reinforce the information, write down key words, draw. When telling or communicating information, it is advisable to speak emotionally, reinforcing your speech with vivid examples.

During adolescence, sexual development begins. Boys and girls begin to treat each other differently than before - as members of the opposite sex. For a teenager, it becomes very important how others treat him, he begins to pay great attention to his appearance. There is an identification of oneself with representatives of the same sex (for details, see 9.6).

Adolescence is usually characterized as a turning point, transitional, critical, but more often - as the age of puberty.

9.3. Psychological changes

Changes at the psychological level in adolescence are manifested as follows.

All cognitive processes and creative activity reach a high level of development. Memory is being rebuilt. Logical memory begins to develop actively. Gradually, the child moves to the use of logical, arbitrary and mediated memory. The development of mechanical memory slows down. And since at school, with the advent of new subjects, you have to memorize a lot of information, including mechanically, children have problems with memory. Complaints about poor memory at this age are common.

The relationship between memory and thinking is changing. Thinking is determined by memory. To think is to remember. For a teenager to remember is to think. In order to memorize the material, he needs to establish a logical connection between its parts.

There are changes in reading, monologue and writing. Reading from fluent, correct gradually turns into the ability to recite, monologue speech - from the ability to retell the text to the ability to independently prepare oral presentations, written - from presentation to composition. Speech becomes rich.

Thinking becomes theoretical, conceptual due to the fact that a teenager begins to assimilate concepts, improve the ability to use them, reason logically and abstractly. General and special abilities are formed, including those necessary for the future profession.

The emergence of sensitivity to the opinions of others about appearance, knowledge, abilities is associated with the development of self-awareness at this age. Teenagers become more touchy. They want to look their best and make a good impression. It is better for them to remain silent than to speak and make a mistake. Knowing this feature of this age, adults should avoid direct assessments, speak with adolescents using the "I-statement", that is, a statement about oneself, one's feelings. Adolescents should be accepted as they are (unconditional acceptance), given the opportunity to speak to the end when necessary. It is important to support their initiative, even if it seems not entirely relevant and necessary.

In the behavior of adolescents, demonstrativeness, external rebellion, and the desire to free themselves from the care and control of adults are noted. They can defiantly break the rules of behavior, discuss the words or behavior of people in a not entirely correct way, defend their point of view, even if they are not entirely sure of its correctness.

There is a need for trusting communication. Teenagers want to be heard, they need to have their opinion respected. They are very worried when they are interrupted without listening to the end. Adults should talk to them on an equal footing, but avoid familiarity.

Teenagers have a great need for communication and friendship, they are afraid of being rejected. They often avoid communication for fear of "not being liked." Therefore, many children at this age have problems in establishing contacts both with peers and with older people. To make this process less painful, it is necessary to support and encourage them, to develop adequate self-esteem in those who are unsure of themselves.

Adolescents strive to be accepted by peers who, in their opinion, have more significant qualities. To achieve this, they sometimes embellish their "exploits", and this may apply to both positive and negative actions; there is a desire for outrageousness. Adolescents may not express their point of view if it disagrees with the opinion of the group and painfully perceive the loss of authority in the group.

There is an appetite for risk. Since teenagers are highly emotional, it seems to them that they can cope with any problem. But in reality this is not always the case, because they still do not know how to adequately assess their strength, do not think about their own safety.

At this age, susceptibility to influence from peers increases. If a child has low self-esteem, then he does not want to be a "black sheep"; this can be expressed in the fear of expressing one's opinion. Some adolescents, who do not have their own opinion and do not have the skills of independent decision-making, turn out to be "guided" and commit some acts, often illegal, "in company" with others who are stronger psychologically and physically.

Adolescents have low resistance to stress. They can act thoughtlessly, behave inappropriately.

Despite the fact that adolescents actively solve various problems related to study and other matters, encourage adults to discuss problems, they show infantility in solving problems related to the choice of a future profession, ethical behavior, and a responsible attitude to their duties. Adults need to learn to treat teenagers differently, try to communicate with them on an equal footing, as with adults, but remember that they are still children who need help and support.

9.4. Adolescence crisis

The teenage crisis occurs at the age of 12-14 years. In terms of duration, it is longer than all other crisis periods. L.I. Bozhovich believes that this is due to the faster pace of physical and mental development of adolescents, leading to the formation of needs that cannot be satisfied due to insufficient social maturity of schoolchildren.

The teenage crisis is characterized by the fact that at this age the relationship of adolescents with others is changing. They begin to make increased demands on themselves and on adults and protest against being treated as if they were small children.

At this stage, the behavior of children changes dramatically: many of them become rude, uncontrollable, do everything in defiance of their elders, do not obey them, ignore comments (adolescent negativism) or, conversely, may withdraw into themselves.

If adults are sympathetic to the needs of the child and, at the first negative manifestations, rebuild their relationship with children, then the transition period is not so violent and painful for both parties. Otherwise, the teenage crisis proceeds very violently. It is influenced by external and internal factors.

External factors include continued adult control, dependency and guardianship, which seem excessive to the adolescent. He seeks to free himself from them, considering himself old enough to make his own decisions and act as he sees fit. A teenager is in a rather difficult situation: on the one hand, he really has become more mature, but, on the other hand, childish traits have been preserved in his psychology and behavior - he does not take his duties seriously enough, cannot act responsibly and independently. All this leads to the fact that adults cannot perceive him as an equal to himself.

However, an adult needs to change his attitude towards a teenager, otherwise resistance may arise on his part, which over time will lead to misunderstanding between an adult and a teenager and interpersonal conflict, and then to a delay in personal development. A teenager may have a feeling of uselessness, apathy, alienation, and the opinion that adults cannot understand and help him or her may be established. As a result, at the moment when a teenager really needs the support and help of elders, he will be emotionally rejected from an adult, and the latter will lose the opportunity to influence the child and help him.

To avoid such problems, you should build a relationship with a teenager based on trust, respect, in a friendly way. The creation of such relationships contributes to the involvement of a teenager in some serious work.

Internal factors reflect the personal development of a teenager. Habits and character traits that prevent him from carrying out his plans change: internal prohibitions are violated, the habit of obeying adults is lost, etc. There is a desire for personal self-improvement, which occurs through the development of self-knowledge (reflection), self-expression, self-affirmation. A teenager is critical of his shortcomings, both physical and personal (character traits), worries about those character traits that prevent him from establishing friendly contacts and relationships with people. Negative statements about him can lead to affective outbursts and conflicts.

At this age, there is an increased growth of the body, which entails behavioral changes and emotional outbursts: the teenager begins to get very nervous, blame himself for failure, which leads to internal tension that is difficult for him to cope with.

Behavioral changes are manifested in the desire to "experience everything, go through everything", there is a tendency to take risks. A teenager is attracted to everything that was previously banned. Many of the "curiosity" try alcohol, drugs, start smoking. If this is done not out of curiosity, but because of courage, psychological addiction to drugs may occur, although sometimes curiosity leads to persistent addiction.

At this age, spiritual growth occurs and mental status changes. Reflection, which extends to the surrounding world and oneself, leads to internal contradictions, which are based on the loss of identity with oneself, the discrepancy between former ideas about oneself and the current image. These contradictions can lead to obsessive states: doubts, fears, depressing thoughts about yourself.

The manifestation of negativism can be expressed in some adolescents in senseless opposition to others, unmotivated contradiction (most often adults) and other protest reactions. Adults (teachers, parents, loved ones) need to rebuild relationships with a teenager, try to understand his problems and make the transition period less painful.

9.5. Leading activities in adolescence

The leading activity in adolescence is communication with peers. Communicating, teenagers master the norms of social behavior, morality, establish relations of equality and respect for each other.

At this age, two systems of relationships are formed: one - with adults, the other - with peers. Relationships with adults are unequal. Relationships with peers are built as equal partners and are governed by the norms of equality. A teenager begins to spend more time with peers, as this communication brings him more benefits, his actual needs and interests are satisfied. Teenagers unite in groups that become more stable, certain rules apply in these groups. Adolescents in such groups are attracted by the similarity of interests and problems, the opportunity to speak and discuss them and be understood.

In adolescence, two types of relationships appear: at the beginning of this period - friendly, at the end - friendly. In older adolescence, three types of relationships appear: external - episodic "business" contacts that serve to momentarily satisfy interests and needs; friendly, facilitating the exchange of knowledge, skills and abilities; friendly, allowing to resolve issues of an emotional and personal nature.

In the second half of adolescence, communication with peers turns into an independent activity. The teenager is not sitting at home, he is eager to join his comrades, he wants to live a group life. Problems that arise in relationships with peers are experienced very hard. To attract the attention of peers, a teenager can go to any lengths, even violating social norms or open conflict with adults.

Companionable relations are based on the "companion code", which includes respect for the personal dignity of another person, equality, loyalty, honesty, decency, readiness to help. At this age, such qualities as selfishness, greed, violation of this word, betrayal of a comrade, arrogance, unwillingness to reckon with the opinions of others are condemned. Such behavior in a group of adolescent peers is not only not welcomed, but also rejected. A teenager who has demonstrated such qualities may be boycotted, denied admission to the company, and joint participation in any business.

In a teenage group, a leader necessarily appears and leadership relationships are established. Teenagers try to attract the attention of the leader and value friendship with him. A teenager is also interested in friends for whom he can be a leader or act as an equal partner.

An important factor in friendly rapprochement is the similarity of interests and deeds. A teenager who values ​​friendship with a friend may show interest in the business in which he is engaged, as a result of which new cognitive interests arise. Friendship activates the communication of adolescents, they have the opportunity to discuss the events taking place at school, personal relationships, the actions of peers and adults.

By the end of adolescence, the need for a close friend is very great. A teenager dreams that a person will appear in his life who knows how to keep secrets, who is responsive, sensitive, understanding. Mastering moral standards is the most important personal acquisition of adolescence.

Educational activity, although it remains predominant, recedes into the background. Grades are no longer the only value, it becomes important what place a teenager takes in the class. All the most interesting, extra-urgent, urgent things happen and are discussed during breaks.

Adolescents tend to participate in a variety of activities: sports, artistic, socially useful, etc. Thus, they try to take a certain place among people, show their importance, adulthood, feel like a member of society, realize the need for acceptance and independence.

9.6. Neoplasms of adolescence

Neoplasms of this age are: a sense of adulthood; development of self-awareness, the formation of the ideal of personality; tendency to reflection; interest in the opposite sex, puberty; increased excitability, frequent mood swings; special development of volitional qualities; the need for self-affirmation and self-improvement, in activities that have personal meaning; self-determination.

Feeling of adulthood - a teenager’s attitude towards himself as an adult. The teenager wants adults to treat him not as a child, but as an adult (for more details on this, see 10.1).

The development of self-awareness, the formation of the ideal of personality aimed at understanding a person's personal characteristics. This is determined by the special, critical attitude of the teenager to his shortcomings. The desired image of "I" usually consists of the valued qualities and virtues of other people. But since both adults and peers act as an ideal for imitation, the image turns out to be contradictory. It turns out that in this image, a combination of character traits of an adult and a young person is necessary, and this is not always compatible in one person. Perhaps this is the reason for the teenager's inconsistency with his ideal, which is a reason for worry.

Tendency to reflect (self-knowledge). A teenager’s desire to know himself often leads to a loss of mental balance. The main form of self-knowledge is comparing oneself with other people, adults and peers, a critical attitude towards oneself, as a result of which a psychological crisis develops. A teenager has to go through mental anguish, during which his self-esteem is formed and his place in society is determined. His behavior is regulated by self-esteem formed during communication with others. When developing self-esteem, much attention is paid to internal criteria. As a rule, it is contradictory in younger adolescents, so their behavior is characterized by unmotivated actions.

Interest in the opposite sex, puberty. During adolescence, relationships between boys and girls change. Now they show interest in each other as representatives of the opposite sex. Therefore, teenagers begin to pay great attention to their appearance: clothes, hairstyle, figure, demeanor, etc. At first, interest in the opposite sex manifests itself in an unusual way: boys begin to bully girls, who, in turn, complain about boys, fight with them, call them names, speak unflatteringly about them. This behavior brings pleasure to both. Over time, the relationship between them changes: shyness, stiffness, timidity, sometimes feigned indifference, contempt for a member of the opposite sex, etc. may appear. Girls, earlier than boys, begin to worry about the question: “Who likes who?” This is due to the faster physiological development of girls. In late adolescence, romantic relationships arise between boys and girls. They write notes and letters to each other, make dates, walk the streets together, go to the movies. As a result, they have a need to become better, they begin to engage in self-improvement and self-education.

Further physiological development leads to the fact that between boys and girls there may be a sexual attraction, characterized by a certain non-differentiation (illegibility) and increased excitability. This often leads to an internal conflict between the adolescent's desire to learn new forms of behavior for himself, in particular physical contact, and prohibitions on such relationships, both external - from the parents, and internal - their own taboos. However, sexual relations are of great interest to teenagers. And the weaker the internal "brakes" and the less developed the sense of responsibility for oneself and the other, the sooner there is a readiness for sexual contacts with representatives of both one's own and the opposite sex.

A high degree of tension before and after sexual intercourse is the strongest test for the psyche of a teenager. The first sexual contacts can have a great impact on the entire subsequent intimate life of an adult, so it is very important that they be colored by positive memories, be positive.

Increased excitability, frequent mood swings. Physiological changes, a sense of adulthood, changes in relationships with adults, the desire to escape from their care, reflection - all this leads to the fact that the emotional state of a teenager becomes unstable. This is expressed in frequent changes in mood, increased excitability, "explosiveness", tearfulness, aggressiveness, negativism or, conversely, apathy, indifference, indifference.

Development of volitional qualities. In adolescence, children begin to intensively engage in self-education. This is especially typical for boys - the ideal of masculinity becomes one of the main ones for them. At the age of 11-12 years old, boys love to watch adventure films or read related books. They try to imitate heroes who have masculinity, courage, and willpower. In older adolescence, the main focus is on self-development of the necessary volitional qualities. Boys devote a lot of time to sports activities associated with great physical exertion and risk, those that require extraordinary willpower and courage.

There is some consistency in the formation of volitional qualities. First, the basic dynamic physical qualities develop: strength, speed and speed of reaction, then the qualities associated with the ability to withstand large and prolonged loads: endurance, endurance, patience and perseverance. And only then more complex and subtle volitional qualities are formed: concentration of attention, concentration, efficiency. At the beginning, at the age of 10-11 years old, a teenager simply admires the presence of these qualities in others, at 11-12 years old he declares a desire to possess such qualities, and at 12-13 years old he starts self-education of the will. The most active age of education of volitional qualities is the period from 13 to 14 years.

The need for self-affirmation and self-improvement in activities that have personal meaning. Self-determination. Adolescence is also significant because it is at this age that skills, abilities, and business qualities are developed, and the choice of a future profession occurs. At this age, children show an increased interest in various activities, a desire to do something with their own hands, increased curiosity, and the first dreams of a future profession appear. Primary professional interests arise in study and work, which creates favorable conditions for the formation of the necessary business qualities.

Children at this age have increased cognitive and creative activity. They strive to learn something new, to learn something and try to do it well, they begin to improve their knowledge, skills and abilities. Similar processes also take place outside the school, and adolescents act both independently (they design, build, draw, etc.) and with the help of adults or older comrades. The need to do "in an adult way" stimulates adolescents to self-education, self-improvement, self-service. A job well done gets the approval of others, which leads to self-affirmation of adolescents.

Adolescents have a differentiated attitude to learning. This is due to the level of their intellectual development, a fairly broad outlook, the volume and strength of knowledge, professional inclinations and interests. Therefore, in relation to school subjects, selectivity arises: some become loved and needed, while interest in others decreases. The attitude to the subject is also influenced by the personality of the teacher.

There are new motives for learning associated with the expansion of knowledge, the formation of the necessary skills and abilities that allow you to engage in interesting work and independent creative work.

A system of personal values ​​is being formed. In the future, they determine the content of the adolescent's activity, the scope of his communication, the selectivity of his attitude towards people, the assessment of these people and self-esteem. In older adolescents, the process of professional self-determination begins.

In adolescence, organizational skills, efficiency, enterprise, the ability to establish business contacts, negotiate joint affairs, distribute responsibilities, etc. begin to form. These qualities can develop in any field of activity in which a teenager is involved: in learning, work, play.

By the end of adolescence, the process of self-determination is almost completed, and some skills and abilities necessary for further professional development are formed.

Theme 10. YOUTH (FROM 15-16 TO 20 YEARS)

10.1. cognitive changes

In adolescence, a philosophical orientation of thinking is noted, which is due to the development of formal-logical operations and emotional characteristics.

Young men tend to be more abstract thinking, girls - concrete. Therefore, girls usually solve concrete problems better than abstract ones, their cognitive interests are less definite and differentiated, although they, as a rule, study better than boys. The artistic and humanitarian interests of girls in most cases prevail over the natural sciences.

Many at this age tend to exaggerate their abilities, knowledge, mental capabilities.

In adolescence, the amount of attention increases, as well as the ability to maintain its intensity for a long time and switch from one subject to another. But attention becomes more selective and dependent on the orientation of interests.

Creativity develops. Therefore, at this age, boys and girls not only learn information, but also create something new.

Personal properties of a creatively gifted person can be different. It depends on the field of activity in which talent is manifested. Researchers have found that a creatively gifted person can show normal results in learning activities.

The mental development of a high school student consists both in the accumulation of skills and the change in individual properties of the intellect, and in the formation of an individual style of mental activity.

The individual style of mental activity, according to the definition of the Russian psychologist E.A. Klimov, it is "an individual-peculiar system of psychological means to which a person consciously or spontaneously resorts in order to best balance his (typologically determined) individuality with the objective, external conditions of activity." N. Kogan believed that in cognitive processes the individual style of mental activity acts as a style of thinking, i.e. as a stable set of individual variations in the ways of perception, memorization and thinking, behind which there are various ways of acquiring, accumulating, processing and using information.

The possibility of intellectual advancement at this age comes through the development of learning skills when working with texts, literature, working out formal logical operations, etc.

10.2. Educational and professional activities

In adolescence, personal and professional self-determination takes place. Professional self-determination, according to I.S. Konu is divided into several stages.

1. Children's game. Acting in the game as a representative of various professions, the child "loses" individual elements of the behavior associated with them.

2. Teenage fantasy. A teenager imagines himself in the role of a representative of a profession that is attractive to him.

3. Preliminary choice of profession. Many specialties are considered by a young person first from the point of view of interests (“I love mathematics. I will become a mathematics teacher”), then from the point of view of abilities (“I am good at a foreign language. I will be a translator”), and then from the point of view of his value system ( "I want to work creatively", "I want to earn a lot", etc.).

4. Practical decision making. This is directly the choice of a specialty, which includes two components: the choice of a specific profession and the determination of the level of labor qualification, the volume and duration of training for it.

The choice of specialty is characterized by multistage. By the end of the 9th grade, students will have to decide what to do next: either get a secondary education, i.e. continue their studies at school, or start vocational training, i.e. go to college or lyceum, or go to work and continue their education at night school. Those who prefer vocational training or work should decide on a specialty. It is very difficult for a ninth-grader to do this, and the choice often turns out to be erroneous, because the choice of a profession implies that the student has both information about the world of professions and about himself, his abilities and interests.

The choice of profession depends on social and psychological conditions. Social conditions include the general educational level of parents. If parents have a higher education, then the likelihood that their children will want to study in a higher educational institution increases.

Psychological conditions are determined by three approaches to choosing a profession:

1) it is necessary that the personal and business qualities, on which the success of the activity will depend, have already been formed and are unchanged and constant;

2) directed formation of abilities necessary for activity. There is an opinion that the necessary qualities can be developed in each person;

3) observance of the principle of unity of consciousness and activity, i.e., orientation towards the formation of an individual style of activity.

The process of professional self-determination is very complex and depends on the following factors: the age at which the profession is chosen; level of awareness and level of claims.

For later life, the age at which the choice of profession was made is of great importance. It is believed that the sooner self-determination occurs, the better. But this is not always the case, because, on the one hand, in adolescence, hobbies are sometimes random, situational. On the other hand, a teenager is not yet very familiar with the world of professions, their features, and when making a choice, he sees only the positive aspects of the profession, while the negative ones remain "in the shadows." In addition, at this age there is some categoricalness, which leads to the division of professions into "good" and "bad". The negative side of early professionalization also lies in the fact that the younger a person is, the more influence adults, peers or older acquaintances have on him when choosing a specialty. In the future, this may cause disappointment in the chosen specialty. Therefore, early professional self-determination is not always correct.

An important role in choosing a specialty is played by the level of awareness of young men and women about their future profession and about themselves. As a rule, young people are poorly informed about the labor market, the nature, content and working conditions, business, professional and personal qualities required when working in a particular specialty, which also negatively affects the correct choice.

When choosing a profession, the level of personal claims is of great importance. It includes an assessment of objective capabilities, i.e. what a person can really do (it is difficult for someone who cannot draw to become an artist) and abilities.

Since professional orientation is a part of social self-determination, the choice of a profession will be successful only when a young person combines a social and moral choice with thoughts about the meaning of life and the nature of one's own "I".

10.3. The process of becoming self-conscious

The most important psychological process in adolescence is the formation of self-consciousness and a stable image of the "I".

Psychologists have long been interested in why it is at this age that the development of self-awareness occurs. As a result of many studies, they came to the conclusion that the following factors contribute to this.

1. There is a further development of intelligence. The development of abstract-logical thinking leads to the emergence of an irresistible desire for abstraction and theorizing. Boys and girls are ready to talk and argue for hours on abstract topics, about which, in fact, they know nothing. They like this very much, because an abstract possibility knows no limits other than logical ones.

2. In early youth there is an opening of the inner world. Boys and girls begin to immerse themselves and enjoy their experiences, look at the world differently, discover new feelings, the beauty of nature, the sounds of music, the sensations of their bodies. Youth is sensitive to internal, psychological problems. Therefore, at this age, the young man is already beginning to worry about the psychological content of the story, and not just the external, eventful moment.

3. With age, the image of a perceived person changes. It is considered from the position of outlook, mental abilities, emotions, strong-willed qualities, attitudes towards work and other people. The ability to explain and analyze human behavior, the desire to accurately and convincingly present the material is growing.

4. The opening of the inner world leads to anxiety and dramatic experiences. Along with the realization of one's uniqueness, originality, dissimilarity to others, a feeling of loneliness or fear of loneliness appears. The youthful "I" is still vague, indefinite, unstable, so there may be a feeling of inner emptiness and anxiety, from which, as well as from a feeling of loneliness. need to get rid of. Young people fill this vacuum through communication, which at this age becomes selective. But, despite the need for communication, the need for solitude remains, moreover, it is vital.

5. Adolescence tends to exaggerate its uniqueness. You can hear such statements from young people, for example: “In my opinion, it’s not harder for me ... It goes away with age. The older a person is, the more developed he is, the more differences he finds between himself and his peers. This leads to the emergence of a need in psychological intimacy, which allows you to reveal yourself and be admitted into the inner world of another person, which leads to the realization of one's dissimilarity to others, an understanding of one's inner world and unity with people around.

6. There is a feeling of stability in time. The development of time perspectives is associated with intellectual development and a change in life perspective.

If for a child of all time dimensions the most important is "now" (he does not feel the flow of time, and all important experiences occur in the present, the future and past are vague for him), then in a teenager the perception of time covers not only the present, but also the past, and the future seems to be a continuation of the present. And in adolescence, there is an expansion of the time perspective both in depth, covering the distant past and future, and in breadth, including personal and social perspectives. For boys and girls, the main dimension of time is the future.

Due to such temporary changes, the consciousness is reoriented from external control to internal self-control, the need to achieve goals increases. There is an awareness of the fluidity, irreversibility of time and the finiteness of one's existence. For some, the thought of the inevitability of death causes fear and horror, while for others - the desire for activity, everyday activities. Some adults believe that the less young people think about sad things, the better. But this is erroneous: it is the realization of the inevitability of death that makes a person seriously think about the meaning of life.

The formation of a personality includes the formation of a stable image of the "I", that is, a holistic view of oneself. There is an awareness of one's qualities and a set of self-assessments. Boys and girls begin to reflect on the topics: "Who can I become, what are my opportunities and prospects, what have I done and what else can I do in life?"

Both for boys and girls, appearance is of great importance: height, skin condition; the appearance of acne, blackheads is painfully perceived. Weight becomes an important issue. Sometimes young people, especially girls, begin to resort to various diets, which are categorically contraindicated at this age, as they can cause great harm to the developing organism. Young men tend to build up their muscles (strongly go in for sports), and girls, wanting to have a graceful figure, try to “fit” it to the standard of beauty imposed by advertising and the media (the required size of the chest, waist, hips, etc.).

Since the properties of a person as an individual are formed and realized earlier than personal ones, the ratio of "bodily" and moral and psychological components of the "I" in adolescence is not the same. Young people compare the structure of their body and appearance with the developmental features of their comrades, find shortcomings in themselves and begin to "complex" about their "inferiority". As a rule, the standard of beauty at this age is overestimated and unrealistic, so such experiences are mostly groundless.

Growing up, a person becomes more self-confident, preoccupation with appearance disappears. At the forefront are such qualities as mental abilities, strong-willed and moral qualities, relationships with others.

In adolescence, changes occur in the holistic perception of the image of "I". This is reflected in the following points.

1. With age, the cognitive complexity and differentiation of the elements of the "I" image change. In other words, adults distinguish and recognize in themselves more business and personal qualities than young men; young men - more than teenagers; teenagers are more than children. It has to do with the development of the intellect.

2. The integrative tendency is intensifying, on which the internal consistency, the integrity of the image of the "I" depend. This is expressed in the fact that adolescents and young men are able to characterize themselves, that is, describe their qualities, better than children. But since the level of their claims has not yet been completely determined and the transition from external assessment to self-assessment is still difficult, internal meaningful contradictions of self-consciousness are noted (for example, a young man can say about himself: “I am a genius + insignificance in my mind”), which will serve as a source further development.

3. The stability of the image of "I" changes over time. Adults describe themselves more consistently than boys, teenagers, and children. Self-description of adults depends less on situational, random circumstances. We must also take into account the fact that the personality traits that make up the image of the "I" have varying degrees of stability. They can change, disappear, other traits can develop (for example, a person was shy, but became active, sociable, etc.).

4. There are changes in the concretization, degree of significance and distinctness of the image of "I". The more mature a person becomes, the more clearly he realizes his individuality, uniqueness, difference from others, the more clearly he can explain the peculiarities of his behavior. With a change in the content of the image of the "I", the degree of significance of its individual features, on which the individual focused attention, changes, for example, in adolescence, external manifestations come to the fore, while for adults, internal qualities become priority. There is an awareness of one's experiences, which may be accompanied by increased attention to oneself, concern for oneself and the impression that a young person makes on others. The consequence of these experiences is shyness, which is characteristic of many young men and women.

10.4. Relationships with others

In adolescence, the development of relationships with peers and adults also goes separately. These relationships become more complex, boys and girls begin to play many social roles, the relationships in which they are included, externally and internally, become similar to relations between adults. Their basis is mutual respect and equality.

Relations with peers are divided into comradely and friendly. Among peers, those who possess such qualities as responsiveness, restraint, cheerfulness, good nature, compliance, and a developed sense of humor are respected. Friendship is the most important type of emotional attachment and interpersonal relationships of adolescence. Friendship is measured by the degree of selectivity, stability and intimacy.

If a child does not distinguish between friendship and companionship, then in adolescence friendship is considered an exclusive, individual relationship. In childhood, the child's attachments must be constantly reinforced, otherwise the attachment will be destroyed, and in youth, friendship can be maintained even at a distance, it does not depend on external, situational factors.

With age, interests and preferences stabilize, so friendships become more stable. This is expressed in the growth of tolerance: a quarrel, which in childhood can become a reason for a break, in youth is perceived as a particularity that can be neglected in order to preserve the relationship.

Mutual assistance, fidelity and psychological closeness become the main thing in friendship. If the basis of group relations is joint activity, then friendship is built on emotional attachment. Personal closeness is more important than common subject interests.

The psychological value of friendship lies in the fact that it is at the same time a school of both self-disclosure and understanding of another person.

It is very important for young men and women to communicate with adults: they listen to their words, observe their behavior, and in some cases are prone to idealization. The choice of an older friend is determined by the need for guardianship, guidance, and example. Friendship with adults is necessary and desirable, but friendship with peers is more important and stronger, because here communication takes place on an equal footing: it is easier to communicate with peers, you can tell them everything without fear of ridicule, you can be with them what you are without trying to seem smarter.

According to the French psychologist B. Zazzo, youth is both sincere and most insincere age. In youth, most of all I want to be in harmony with myself, to be uncompromising; there is a need for complete and reckless self-disclosure. But the uncertainty and instability of ideas about one's own "I" gives rise to a desire to test oneself by playing unusual roles, drawing, self-denial. The young man suffers from the fact that he cannot express his inner world, because the image of his "I" is still incomplete and unclear.

Youth is emotional: at this age, there is a stormy passion for new ideas, deeds, people. Such hobbies may be short-lived, but they allow you to experience and learn a lot of new things. A new quality appears - estrangement, the essence of which is that, before accepting something, everything must be carefully and critically checked, to be convinced of the truth and correctness. An excessive manifestation of estrangement can lead to the fact that a person becomes rigid and insensitive, and then not only other people, but also his own feelings and experiences will be criticized and turned into an object of observation. Even in his first love, he will be occupied only with his experiences, with which he will be more passionate than his loved one. This can lead to difficulty both in self-disclosure and in understanding it by another person, as a result of which problems may arise in establishing interpersonal contacts.

The psychology of youthful friendship is closely related to gender and age differences. The need for deep, intimate friendship in girls occurs one and a half to two years earlier than in boys. Girls' friendships are more emotional, they often lack intimacy, are more prone to self-disclosure, and attach more importance to interpersonal relationships. This is due to the fact that girls mature faster, they begin to develop self-awareness earlier, and therefore the need for intimate friendship arises earlier than boys. For high school boys, peers of the same sex remain a significant group, and a friend of the same sex is also the “confidant of all secrets”. Girls dream of a friend of the opposite sex. If one appears, then he, as a rule, is older than his girlfriend. Friendship between a boy and a girl can eventually develop into love.

A common communication problem in adolescence is shyness. It limits the social activity of the individual and in some cases contributes to the development of deviant behavior: alcoholism, unmotivated aggression, psychosexual difficulties. A favorable climate in the team and intimate friendships help to overcome shyness.

In early adolescence, not only friendships arise. A new feeling appears: love. Its occurrence is due to:

1) puberty, ending in early adolescence;

2) the desire to have a close friend with whom you can talk about the most intimate topics;

3) the need for strong emotional attachment, understanding, and spiritual intimacy.

The nature of love feelings and attachments depends on the general communicative qualities. On the one hand, love is the need and thirst for possession (the ancient Greeks called it "eros"), on the other hand, the need for selfless self-giving (in Greek - "agape"). Thus, love can be characterized as a special form of human relationships, involving maximum intimacy and psychological closeness. A person who is not capable of psychological intimacy with another person may experience a need for love, but it will never be satisfied.

Speaking about the strength and duration of love relationships, let us recall the words of A.S. Makarenko: "... a young man will never love his bride and wife if he did not love his parents, comrades, friends. And the wider this non-sexual love, the more noble sexual love will be."

Boys and girls need the help of their elders, as they face many problems in developing these new relationships. These are the features of relationships, and moral and moral problems, and the rituals of courtship, and the very moment of declaration of love. But such help should be unobtrusive, because young people want and have every right to protect their intimate world from intrusion and peeping.

Relationships with adults are changing. They become more even, less conflicted, young people begin to listen more to the opinion of their elders, realizing that they wish them well. Boys and girls in love do not react as emotionally as in adolescence to the comments of their parents regarding their appearance, housework, and teaching. Relationships are moving into a new stage: they are built in the same way as between adults.

Topic 11

In the material presented below, along with children with intellectual disabilities in the traditional sense, gifted children will also be considered, because deviations can be directed both in the direction of decreasing, i.e., delay, underdevelopment, and in the direction of growth.

11.1. Children with developmental disabilities

This category includes children with a temporary delay in mental development, with asthenic, reactive states, conflict experiences. The reasons for the course of these disorders are different, but they are united by the following: these children do not have an organic brain lesion.

To the category of children with a temporary delay in mental development include children with psychophysical or mental infantilism and those in whom infantilism is combined with a delay in the development of cognitive activity, i.e. voluntary attention, logical memorization, spatial representations, perception, thinking, etc. The reasons for the delay may be: toxicosis or violation maternal nutrition during pregnancy; prematurity due to the fact that during pregnancy the mother suffered a viral flu, malaria, hepatitis, typhoid fever; light birth injuries, fetal asphyxia (lack of oxygen supply to the fetus due to torsion of the umbilical cord, etc.). If a child has had dyspepsia or dysentery in the first year of life, he may also experience a developmental delay. Such children later begin to walk, talk, are small in weight and height, they have oddities in the emotional-volitional sphere. At senior school age, they retain the features of younger preschoolers: the leading activity is the game; spontaneity in behavior is traced, self-service skills are not developed.

At preschool age, these children do not particularly stand out from the general mass, since they do not have to face rigidly regulated requirements, but already at school they are forced to draw attention to themselves. They are poorly involved in educational activities, they do not perceive and do not perform school tasks, they behave like in a kindergarten. They do not have school interests, commitment in relation to the implementation of the proposed task, they hardly master the skills of writing and reading, they quickly get tired, suffer from headaches. Children with psychophysical infantilism do not have intellectual insufficiency: they can understand the meaning of the story they read, correctly decompose the proposed series of pictures, and understand the meaning of the plot picture. Such children need an individual approach from the very beginning of education and with the right pedagogical approach, learning difficulties can be overcome.

As mentioned above, the category of children with a temporary delay in development includes children in whom infantilism is combined with some delay in the development of cognitive activity. They have insufficient general development, which, combined with learning difficulties, can be erroneously diagnosed as oligophrenia.

So, sometimes developmental delays can concern only the emotional-volitional sphere, in other cases, a delay in the development of thinking is added to this, but such children are always characterized by the features of younger children and require a special pedagogical approach when learning.

Children with asthenic conditions. Any unfavorable factors, be it somatic infections, minor injuries or very mild focal lesions of the brain, as well as prolonged and severe experiences, overwork primarily affect the central nervous system and can cause functional disorders of mental activity. Depending on the reasons that caused the asthenic state, cerebral and somatogenic asthenia are distinguished.

The cause of cerebral asthenia is that the circulation of fluid in the brain is disturbed. This can happen either as a result of a concussion or an inflammatory focus in the brain, even a small, narrow localized one. With inflammatory brain processes and cranial injuries, the amount of cerebrospinal fluid may increase and then its circulation is disturbed.

A characteristic feature of cerebral asthenia is a violation of intellectual activity with a primary intact intellect. During work, such children quickly become fatigued, nervous exhaustion occurs, and headaches occur. As a result, working capacity is impaired, memory and attention are weakened, children do not concentrate well during the task or are easily distracted from work. In behavior, this is expressed as follows: some children are overly excited, restless, overly mobile, irritable, tearful, while others, on the contrary, are lethargic, timid, slow, inhibited, and insecure. Such children often refuse to answer in class for fear of saying something wrong.

The causes of somatogenic asthenia are physical weakness, somatic diseases (diseases of internal organs, cardiovascular system), childhood infectious diseases.

Features of asthenia in diseases of the internal organs are most characteristically manifested in children with slowly ongoing tuberculous intoxication. This is expressed in the fact that children quickly get tired, they develop headaches, irritability, a tendency to whims, tearfulness, sleep disturbance, loss of appetite, mood instability, low stamina, motor restlessness. The emotional state of such children is unstable, so they are sensitive to adverse conditions in the classroom and at home. In behavior, this can manifest itself in different ways: some become rude, irritable, aggressive, disobedient, others become shy, whiny, timid, others become withdrawn, gloomy.

A decrease in academic performance, asthenic conditions, and behavioral difficulties may arise in a child as a result of a long separation from school due to infectious diseases, such as measles, whooping cough, chickenpox, scarlet fever, severe viral hepatitis, etc. These children have not only gaps in knowledge and physical weakness, but also behavioral changes. They become irritable, whiny, get tired quickly, and are poorly included in the work of the class. Therefore, it is necessary to properly organize pedagogical and medical support, which will eventually completely overcome the consequences of infectious asthenia.

Under reactive states understand the neuropsychiatric disorders that occur in a child as a result of a situation that traumatizes his psyche. Neuropsychiatric disorders in reactive states in children manifest themselves in different ways. It depends on the severity and severity of the traumatic situation, the duration of its impact, the age of the child, the general state of his health and individual personality traits. The manifestations of reactive states include stuttering, tic twitches in different parts of the body, fears, urinary and sometimes fecal incontinence.

In acute traumatic situations, children experience disorders of consciousness of the twilight type, i.e., such when the child performs a series of actions and deeds that he does not remember in the future. Some children become very fussy, make aimless movements, unmotivated actions, while others, on the contrary, become numb and freeze. At primary school age, a temporary loss of some functions may be observed, for example, temporary deafness, mutism (refusal of speech), etc. Adolescents have violations of the entire emotional-volitional sphere: fear, anxiety, depression, refusal to eat, numbness, etc. d.

One of the traumatic situations that affects the behavior and character of the child is enuresis (urinary incontinence). This disorder mainly occurs in nervous and physically weakened children who have experienced prolonged nervous tension or shock, fear, somatic illness. They have a feeling of inferiority, which also manifests itself in different ways. Some become very timid, shy, fearful, indecisive, others, on the contrary, become embittered, become irritable and aggressive. Those and others sometimes have fears related directly to urinary incontinence. Then other fears appear: the dark, a new business, a new environment, new people.

Experiences are very painful due to physical disabilities (limping, strabismus, myopia, hunchback, etc.) and nervous manifestations (stuttering, nervous twitches, fears, etc.). With the wrong attitude of adults towards them, the child may experience a feeling of inferiority, which in the future will lead to isolation, behavioral disorders, and sometimes to a decrease in academic performance.

Conflict experiences arise in children as a result of an internal conflict, which can also disrupt mental development. They are the result of psychogenic factors that traumatize the child in the family or school. The cause of the internal conflict is a difficult, long-term experience, which at some point becomes unbearable for the child. Prolonged and seemingly unresolvable conflict can lead to changes in behavior and character, as well as slow down the mental development of the child.

School conflicts, with their timely and correct understanding by adults, are resolved faster and more painlessly than family ones. However, when school conflicts remain misunderstood by teachers and parents, when help is not provided to the child in time, his condition may worsen and lead to leaving school or pushing him onto the path of antisocial behavior.

Changes in character and behavioral disorders may be the result of raising a child at preschool age, if he is overly pampered, allowed to do whatever he wants, fulfill all his whims and desires. Irritability, incontinence, nervousness, lack of organization of parents can also be the causes of negative manifestations. As a rule, children copy the behavior of their elders, which affects their behavior at school. Difficulties in the behavior of children may be due to the unfavorable situation at home, when children are witnesses of quarrels, scandals, drunkenness. These children often create a negative attitude towards others, which prevents them from making contact at school and studying well, despite the initially intact intelligence. Similar problems may arise in prosperous families if proper upbringing and appropriate control over the child were not provided in a timely manner.

Overcoming the difficulties in the behavior of these children is a very difficult matter. First of all, it is necessary that the teacher understand the state of the child, know the reasons that caused this state, carry out the correct individual approach to it, establish emotional contact with the child; included him in extracurricular activities; built the educational process, based on its positive qualities.

In the re-education of such children, work with the family plays an important role. Explanatory work should be carried out with parents: talk about the age characteristics of their children and the reasons that caused difficulties in behavior. It is important to remember that moralizing, complaints, edifying measures are ineffective. It is necessary to look for an individual approach to each child.

11.2. Psychology of a mentally retarded child

A mentally retarded child is a child whose cognitive activity is permanently impaired due to an organic brain lesion.

The impression of being mentally retarded can be given by deaf and mute children, if they did not study in a specialized kindergarten, by children who have suffered from bone tuberculosis for several years, by lying in a cast, or by living among a foreign-speaking population. But these are not mentally retarded children. Pedagogically neglected children, even with undeveloped cognitive processes, will also not be considered as such, because mentally retarded children must have a combination of two signs:

1) a disorder of cognitive activity and 2) an organic brain lesion that caused this disorder.

The category of mentally retarded children includes oligophrenics: morons, imbeciles and idiots.

Consider oligophrenic children in more detail. Oligophrenia, which in translation into Russian means "low-mindedness", is not the name of any particular disease. Oligophrenia is a clinically heterogeneous group. This is the name of a condition that occurs after various types of damage to the central nervous system of a child in the period before the development of his speech, that is, up to one or two years of life. The causes of oligophrenia can be hereditary and intrauterine damage to the fetus, birth trauma, fetal asphyxia and other diseases that affect the central nervous system of a child up to about two years of age. The features of oligophrenia are as follows: early damage to the central nervous system and subsequent cessation of the disease. With oligophrenia, the mental development of the child occurs on a defective basis. But since in this case the disease is not of a long-term nature, the child is considered practically healthy.

The psyche of an oligophrenic child is completely different from the psyche of a normal child. The immaturity of higher intellectual processes, combined with excessive inertia of behavior, creates a qualitatively unique picture of mental development.

Oligophrenia varies in severity. It is customary to distinguish three degrees of mental retardation: debility (the easiest), imbecility (deeper), idiocy (the most severe).

Morons as a result of training reach a relatively high level of mental development. They become independent citizens, bear responsibility for their actions, master a profession that requires average qualifications, have the right to be owners of houses, buildings, etc. Mental retardation in the degree of debility cannot be a causal insanity, incapacity for work, incapacity of a person. Morons are not allowed to military service.

Imbeciles are deeply retarded children. They do not learn general concepts, rules of arithmetic, grammar, and hardly master the skills of reading and writing. Imbeciles cannot live independently, as they need guardianship and supervision, although they can be adapted to certain types of industrial labor.

Idiot children do not have developed speech, lack self-service skills, impaired coordination of movement. Such children need special care, therefore they are in social security institutions. They can be trained in elementary skills and abilities at home if a specialist called an oligophrenopedagogue deals with them.

11.3. Psychological characteristics of gifted children

Gifted children are children who stand out sharply from their peers with high mental development, which is the result of both natural inclinations and favorable conditions for education (Yu.Z. Gilbukh).

From early childhood, they differ from their peers: they sleep little, start talking early, they have a rich vocabulary, increased attentiveness, insatiable curiosity, excellent memory, such children can follow several events at the same time at the age of three. At the age of two or three, they can concentrate for a long time on completing a task that interests them, returning to it within a few days. Such behavior is not typical for children of this age. Such early manifestations of giftedness usually indicate outstanding intellectual abilities.

Giftedness is determined by the following parameters:

1) rapid development of cognition;

2) psychological development;

3) physical data.

The advanced development of knowledge is manifested as follows.

1. Gifted children are able to do several things at the same time. One gets the impression that they "absorb" everything around them.

2. They are very curious, ask a lot of questions, actively explore the world around them, do not tolerate any restrictions in the study of a particular process. J. Piaget believed that the function of the intellect is to process information and is similar to the function of the body to process food. For gifted children, learning is as natural as breathing. Scientists give this explanation: gifted children have increased biochemical and electrical activity of the brain, and it can "process" intellectual "food" in larger quantities than the brain of ordinary children.

3. These children at an early age are able to trace causal relationships between phenomena, see unexpected connections between concepts and events, and draw appropriate conclusions. All this leads to the emergence of creativity (creativity) and ingenuity.

4. They have a good memory, abstract thinking is developed. They can make full use of existing experience, classify and categorize the available information or experience. This fact is confirmed by the fact that gifted children show a tendency to collect: they like to put the collection in order, systematize it, and reorganize objects. A large vocabulary is accompanied by complex syntactic constructions, the ability to correctly pose a question. They like to read dictionaries, encyclopedias, they prefer games that require the activation of mental abilities.

5. Gifted children easily cope with cognitive uncertainty. This is manifested in the fact that they love difficult tasks and strive to complete them themselves.

6. They are distinguished by an increased concentration of attention, perseverance in achieving a goal that is significant for them in the area that is of interest to them. High dedication to a task can lead to the fact that the child will try to bring it to perfection, and if he does not like the end result, he will tear or break what he worked on. The desire to bring the work started to perfection (perfectionism) is one of the problems most often noted by parents and teachers.

7. These children have formed the main components of the ability to learn: learning skills (fluency in meaningful reading and counting, the habit of accurate, clear design of the products of their mental activity); intellectual training skills (planning of upcoming activities, a thorough analysis of the goal; understanding the requirements of the task, the presence and absence of knowledge to solve it, awareness of the purpose of the activity and the criteria for the quality of the future product, exact adherence to the intended guidelines, control over the performance of work).

The psychological development of gifted children is also different compared to the "average" child.

1. They have a very strong sense of justice, and it appears very early.

2. These children have very broad personal value systems: they acutely perceive social injustice, set high standards for themselves and others, and respond vividly to truth, justice, and harmony.

3. They have a rich imagination. Sometimes they come up with non-existent friends, a desired brother or sister, a bright fantasy life. They enjoy their colorful stories, which causes concern among adults who are afraid that the child lives in his own world, invented, and not real.

5. Gifted children have a well-developed sense of humor. This is due to the fact that their imagination is alive, they are active, they see a lot and therefore discover a lot of funny and awkward things.

6. They try to solve problems that are still difficult for them to cope with. Since these children excel in some areas, parents believe that they will be able to successfully cope with any task. And when a child does not succeed in something, disappointment sets in, which is expressed in a sense of his own imperfection. Such children do not know how to experience failure, because in all their previous endeavors they were on top. Parents should try to protect their children from such experiences from an early age, but within reasonable limits, accustoming them to activities where they do not show the most brilliant results. According to English psychologists, a person needs to know that sometimes failing is normal and even useful. Failure should be taken not as a cause for despair and self-humiliation, but as an opportunity for reassessment and adaptation.

7. Gifted children are characterized by exaggerated fears. Research data shows that these fears have no real basis: children living in cities are most afraid of lions and tigers, not cars. Perhaps these fears are associated with a rich and well-developed imagination.

8. Gifted children have extrasensory abilities (telepathy, clairvoyance). Such properties are common, and they must be treated with understanding.

9. At preschool age, these children, like everyone else, have age-related egocentrism, that is, the projection of their own perception and emotional reaction to the phenomena, minds and hearts of all those present. In other words, a gifted child believes that everyone perceives this or that event in the same way as he does.

10. They have problems with peers, especially at a time when children's self-centeredness is accompanied by sensitivity and irritation due to the inability to do something. The child cannot understand that others perceive the world around them differently than he does. Gifted children suffer from rejection by their peers, which can lead to the development of a negative self-perception. To prevent this from happening, a child from a very early age needs to communicate with the same gifted children.

The physical characteristics of giftedness are as follows: a very high energy potential and a short sleep duration. These properties are manifested from early childhood: in infancy, the duration of sleep is less than 20 hours, and older children quickly refuse daytime sleep.

Fine motor skills are not very developed compared to cognition. Cutting and gluing is much more difficult for a gifted child than doing calculations. You need to know that such psychomotor development for children of preschool and primary school age is normal, it is by no means slowed down, however, such an uneven development leads to the child's irritability.

The following types of giftedness are distinguished: general (mental) and special (artistic, social, sports), one-sided mental giftedness.

Mental abilities are divided according to subject matter: physical and mathematical (simply mathematical), humanitarian, etc. Special (artistic) talent is divided into literary, musical, choreographic, etc.; social - on the ability to legal, pedagogical activities; abilities related to organizational activities in various spheres of society. All these types of giftedness are not isolated from each other; a person can have either one or several abilities. It must be remembered that general and special talents presuppose a certain level of development of mental abilities.

One-sided mental giftedness is characterized by the fact that some mental abilities are well developed, while others are not enough. For example, verbal tests (tasks in which the assessment depends on the level of speech development) the child performs excellently, and non-verbal ones (tasks for spatial thinking and imagination) - poorly. Thus, "one-sidedness means disharmony in abilities, the presence of such abilities that do not reach the norm" (Yu.Z. Gilbukh). In studies, this is expressed as follows: in one or a group of subjects that are interesting to the student, he does well, but in others it is bad.

Topic 12. PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT IN EXTREME SITUATIONS AND SITUATIONS OF DEPRIVATION

Extreme psychology deals with the development of personality in extreme situations and situations of deprivation.

Extreme psychology is a branch of psychological science that studies the general psychological patterns of life and activity in altered (unaccustomed) conditions of existence: during aviation and space flights, scuba diving, staying in hard-to-reach areas of the globe (Arctic, Antarctic, high mountains, desert), in underground, etc. Extreme psychology arose in the XNUMXth century, combining research in the field of aviation, space, marine and polar psychology. Extreme conditions are characterized by altered afferentation (afferentation is a flow of nerve impulses entering the central nervous system from sensory organs that perceive information both from external stimuli (exteroception) and from internal organs (interoreception)), an altered information structure, socio-psychological restrictions and the presence of a risk factor. Thus, extreme situations include not only natural disasters, fire, terrorist attack, space flight, but also altitude, confined space, speaking in front of an audience, an exam, etc.

In extreme situations and situations of deprivation, seven main psychogenic factors act on a person:

1) monotony;

2) changed spatial structure;

3) changed temporary structure;

4) limitation of personally significant information;

5) loneliness;

6) group isolation (information exhaustion of communication partners, constant publicity, etc.);

7) threat to life.

In the process of adaptation to extreme conditions, the following stages are distinguished, characterized by a change in emotional states and the appearance of unusual mental phenomena:

▪ preparatory;

▪ initial mental stress;

▪ acute mental reactions of entry;

▪ mental re-adaptation;

▪ final mental stress;

▪ acute mental exit reactions;

▪ readaptation.

Many scientists note the presence of a stress reaction of the body in extreme situations. Therefore, the psyche, recognizing the situation as extreme, gives the body the command to "prepare for battle." But when there is no fight, the body cannot naturally burn the excess resources. Then there are somatic manifestations: reddening of the skin, loss of speech, blocking of motor function, panic and other reactions.

In the genesis of unusual mental states, the following can be traced: anticipation (anticipation, prediction of events) in a situation of information uncertainty (the stage of starting mental stress and the final stage); breakdown of the functional systems of analyzers formed in the process of ontogenesis or a long stay in extreme conditions, disturbances in the course of mental processes and changes in the system of relations (the stage of acute mental reactions of entry and exit); active activity of the individual in the development of protective (compensatory) reactions in response to the impact of psychogenic factors (the stage of re-adaptation) or the restoration of previous response stereotypes (the stage of readaptation). Disclosure of the genesis of unusual mental states allows us to attribute them to natural reactions that fit within the boundaries of the psychological norm for the changed conditions of existence. With an increase in the time spent in such situations and the harsh impact of psychogenic factors, as well as with an insufficiently high neuropsychic stability and the absence of preventive measures, the stage of re-adaptation is replaced by a stage of deep mental changes characterized by the development of neuropsychic disorders. Between the stages of re-adaptation and deep mental changes, there is an intermediate stage of unstable mental activity, characterized by the appearance of prepathological conditions. These include conditions that have not yet separated into strictly defined forms of neuropsychiatric diseases, which allows them to be considered within the framework of the psychological norm.

So that the impact of a stressful situation is not strong, you need to learn how to behave correctly in such situations. In many instructions on behavior in extreme situations, professionals focus on the fact that one should maintain contact with reality, try to understand the meaning of what is happening. In other words, the situation must be accepted, come to terms with the fact that it has the right to be, and try to understand it.

Topic 13. METHODS OF DEVELOPMENTAL WORK OF A PSYCHOLOGIST

13.1. Content and organization of developmental and corrective work

The developmental work of a psychologist is carried out in groups and individually. Group work includes trainings, psychological games, and individual work includes consultations.

Working with children is different from working with adults. For preschoolers, consultations are meaningless, so work with them is carried out in a playful way. Starting from adolescence, it is already possible to conduct consultations, and when working with adults, this is one of the main activities of a psychologist.

Modern psychology offers the psychologist a variety of methodological and meaningful approaches to corrective and developmental work with people, both with children and with adults. Development requires the intellectual sphere, attention, memory, imagination, behavioral aspects, personal, emotional problems, etc.

Abilities, psychological skills, mental neoplasms do not appear by themselves. They arise, develop, form only if a special environment is created, a special system of relations between people, and this environment and system of relations form desire, need, intellectual readiness. These qualities and processes acquire value only in systems of relations with the world, other people, and oneself. Accordingly, problems in learning, communication, psychological development arise in a person when conditions were not created for him in which he could develop certain qualities, or if in the future these qualities turned out to be unclaimed. Such "inferiority" of conditions may consist both in their low motivating potential, and in emotional unattractiveness or inconsistency with the intellectual capabilities of a person at a particular moment of development.

Speaking about the correctional work of a psychologist with a schoolchild, a psychologist, according to G.A. Zuckerman, "... forms not individual abilities, but those interpsychic spaces, passing through which the child becomes capable of new actions." (Cited in: Bityanova M.R., 2000). In other words, the psychologist creates or recreates the conditions in which new opportunities, the desired psychological skills or processes can be formed and become necessary for the child, significant in terms of building adequate relationships with the world and other people.

The conditions of corrective and developmental work cannot be reduced to training, "training" of certain components of the human mental world. They should include all the necessary elements of a full-fledged formative environment: emotional, reflective, motivational, meaning-forming, etc.

The conditions created in psycho-correctional and developmental work are the conditions for the formation of a need for new knowledge, the possibility of acquiring and implementing it in activity and communication.

There are two areas of development work:

1) actually developmental, aimed at all schoolchildren;

2) psychocorrectional, focused on eliminating learning and personal development problems identified in specific students.

The development of questions of the content and organization of developmental and psycho-correctional work with schoolchildren is carried out within the framework of three working principles.

1. The content of developmental and psycho-correctional work, first of all, should correspond to those components of the psychological and pedagogical status of schoolchildren, the formation and full development of which at this age stage is most relevant.

2. The content of correctional work must first of all correspond to those components of the psychological and pedagogical status of the student, the level of development and content of which is not consistent with the psychological, pedagogical and age requirements.

3. Developmental and psycho-corrective work is organized primarily on the basis of the results of psychodiagnostic minimums.

The implementation of the first principle, which allows the psychologist to identify priority areas of work with schoolchildren in various parallels, is based, on the one hand, on knowledge of the psychological patterns of the development of the psyche at a given age stage, and on the other hand, on the content of the student's psychological and pedagogical map. So, at the stage of adaptation in the initial stage, it is advisable to carry out developmental work, mainly of a cognitive content, as well as classes that contribute to the development of arbitrary regulation of the emotional and behavioral spheres. In the transition from the primary to the secondary level, cognitive development retains its significance, but the work on the formation of a new social and personal position of the student in terms of learning, relationships with peers and adults becomes leading. In adolescence, socio-psychological developmental activities, mastering the skills of effective communication become relevant. At this stage, it is important to work with the emotional-volitional sphere of the student: the formation of emotional and behavioral self-regulation skills, increasing self-confidence, developing the need for self-education. In work with high school students, work in a personality-oriented direction becomes the most significant.

When organizing work in the chosen direction, the psychologist should use the system of psychological and pedagogical requirements and decide on the content of the work. For example, first-graders must first of all form the ability to work according to the model and rule of an adult, focus on the entire system of proposed conditions, develop intellectual skills of generalization, comparison, finding the main feature, etc. In the course of exercises and tasks that require the student to concentrate and behavior control, regulatory skills are formed.

This working principle can greatly facilitate the process of preparing a psychologist for various forms of developmental work and make it more meaningful. Each exercise, taken from any development, can be evaluated in terms of its importance and expediency, depending on the system of psychological and pedagogical requirements. Further, the principles of the content of developmental work at school are proposed, the implementation of which requires the following sequence:

1) highlighting important parameters of psychological and pedagogical status;

2) analysis of the requirements for the content of these parameters at a given level of schooling;

3) development and selection of methodological techniques that can be used in developing work and a description of the requirements for them;

4) selection of specific exercises that meet the described requirements.

Below is an example of the content of developmental work in elementary school. In table. 9 shows the parameters of the first grader's psychological and pedagogical card, which are most important in developmental work, as well as the corresponding psychological and pedagogical requirements and requirements for the content of developing techniques and exercises.

The above also applies to psychological correctional and developmental work. The only difference is that in this case, the psychologist, based on the second working principle, composes the content of classes with the child, based on those status parameters in which problems such as the lack of formation of certain processes and skills, inadequate assimilation of the forms and methods of educational activity are found. or communication, ineffective use of the individual characteristics of this child.

Table 9

Psychological requirements for the content of developmental and psycho-correctional work in elementary school

Following this principle does not mean that the work should go only in one direction and only a certain parameter is subject to adjustment: it is holistic in nature and focuses on the development of the individual and his mental world as a whole. Corrective work with schoolchildren is very difficult to algorithmize, that is, to offer ready-made programs for solving certain problems. All psychologically disadvantaged development options are very different, so it is impossible to develop a correctional program suitable for everyone (unlike a general developmental program). In each individual case, the psychologist needs to solve an independent analytical problem: what type of problems associated with the psychological and pedagogical status do schoolchildren of this parallel have; with whom you can work in large groups, and with whom - in small, two or three people, or only individually; what content to fill the work with them, taking into account the peculiarities of their status, etc.

To facilitate this task, an algorithm for constructing correctional work is given below.

First stage. Determining the essence of the problem in terms of the status parameters affected and the nature of the difficulties themselves (lack of formation, mastering inadequate methods and techniques, failure to use individual characteristics).

Second phase. Development of ideas about the expected results of corrective work (tasks of the work).

Third stage. Techniques and methods of work that correspond to the tasks. Specific types of corrective work (exercises, techniques, tasks).

The third working principle is organizational in nature. It will be described in detail below (see 11.2), and now we note that the models of correctional and developmental programs are associated with diagnostic work both in terms of organization and timing. Corrective work is carried out immediately after the first and second stages of diagnosis, simultaneously with consultations with teachers and parents, which increases the effectiveness of this activity.

Earlier it was noted that correctional work can be carried out in two forms: individual and group. In this system, preference is given to group work, since in terms of corrective and developmental results, it has great potential and technical advantages.

Group work with both adults and children can be carried out both in the traditional form (classes of a psychologist with children) and in non-traditional (developing and corrective content is included in various types of intra-school interaction). Let's consider them in more detail.

13.2. Traditional forms of group correctional and developmental work (trainings)

Their main content is made up of games and psychotechnical exercises aimed at the holistic psychological development of the child and the solution of specific problems. An important element of the classes should be psychotechnics aimed at developing group structures and processes, maintaining a favorable climate, uniting and organizational development of the team. Group-oriented work is essential.

The psychologist must follow the process of the formation of the group as a psychological community, understand what norms and values ​​underlie it, be aware of the features of interpersonal interaction. It is in his interests to help form a mature group with an extensive system of relationships and a favorable emotional climate. To do this, throughout the entire period of existence of the group, it is necessary to pay attention to the development and maintenance of group dynamics. For this purpose, greeting and farewell rituals, warm-up exercises, games that require interaction, cooperation and joint search for participants, competitive exercises, etc. are used. But we must remember that the long existence of a stable group (both for children and adults) can lead to the development of such intra-group processes and relations that, being very important and significant for its members, will begin to conflict with the goals and objectives of the psychologist and hinder the realization of the main goal.

One of the problems of the content of developmental work is the question of the number of games and exercises used in the course of classes. It is noted that the greatest developmental effect is achieved when the potential possibilities of each exercise included in the lesson are used to the fullest extent, and not by increasing the number of exercises. This means that, on the one hand, the work should include complex, multifunctional exercises that allow solving several problems, and on the other hand, each exercise must be done several times, complicating it and transferring the functions of the leading participant. If the exercise is fully worked out, but children (adults) like it, you can continue to perform it until interest in it is lost.

Overloading classes with novelty and variety reduces the effectiveness and significance of the work being done. To prevent this from happening, it is necessary to develop a general structure of developmental classes (trainings): the ritual of the beginning of the lesson, warm-up, reflection of the last lesson, the main content of the lesson, the ritual of the end.

Starting and ending ritual. This is a very important moment of group work, contributing to the rallying of participants, creating an atmosphere of group trust and acceptance, which is very important for fruitful work. Rituals can be thought up by the group in the process of discussion or suggested by the psychologist. They must be performed regularly, starting from the first lesson. It is desirable that during the meetings the function of control over the implementation of the ritual passed to the participants of the classes.

The warm-up is a means of influencing the emotional state of the participants, their level of activity, and sets them up for productive group activities. It can be carried out both at the beginning of the lesson, and between individual exercises. The warm-up exercise should be chosen taking into account the relevance for this group and the upcoming work, because some exercises allow you to cheer up and set the person up for work, while others, on the contrary, are designed to relieve emotional stress.

The main content of the lesson is a set of psychotechnical exercises and techniques aimed at solving a specific problem. As mentioned above, preference is given to multifunctional exercises in which many points can be worked out, for example, the development of attention, social skills, personal comprehension, etc. The order in which the exercises are presented is also important, i.e. their sequence, and their number. The sequence of exercises involves a change in the psychophysical state of the participants: from a mobile to a calm one, from an intellectual game to a relaxation technique, etc. The exercises should be arranged in order of complexity, from simple to complex. It is desirable that their number was no more than three.

Reflection is an assessment of the lesson, which is given at an emotional level (liked, disliked), semantic (why did we do it, what did it give us). Reflection of the last lesson makes it possible to remember what was interesting and informative at the previous meeting.

To obtain positive results and greater efficiency, classes should be carried out 1-2 times a week for 4-5 weeks. The volume of classes depends on the request and the goals of the group (training) work, but preferably at least 10 hours.

13.3. Non-traditional forms of group developmental work

Non-traditional forms of group developmental work with schoolchildren differ from training and correctional developmental work in organization and content. These forms include educational psychodiagnostics and school-wide psychological programs.

Educational psychodiagnostics is group testing, psychological education and group consultation. These activities can be held both in class hours and outside of school hours. It should be noted that requests for these events come from both teachers and high school students.

The diagnostic material used can be varied in content: these are methods for studying personal characteristics and interpersonal relationships, and career guidance methods, etc. The data obtained in the course of educational psychodiagnostics are very informative and can be used in the preparation of correctional and developmental programs ( trainings), during consultations.

School-wide psychological programs are psychological olympiads, competitions, competitions and school-wide games of psychological content, a psychological club for children, various promotions and other events that a psychologist can develop himself, depending on the request.

The purpose of the psychological Olympiad is to involve the maximum number of schoolchildren in the formulation and solution of psychological problems. The Olympics is held in several rounds. Initially, this is not a competitive, but a developmental event, so the questions of the first round are posted a few days before the competition. It is desirable that the content of the questions be fascinating: decipher the meaning of gestures and postures, come up with different types of people according to the proposed criterion, etc. In the second round, psychological observation, imagination, etc. are tested.

Psychological competitions and competitions orient schoolchildren to demonstrate their psychological capabilities, cognitive functions (memory, attention, imagination, etc.), self-control and self-regulation, interpersonal interaction skills, etc. A multi-stage selection of participants is desirable: first within the class, then within the parallel and , finally, between parallels.

Psychological games involve the inclusion of the entire school in a certain psychological activity for a more or less long period of time. An example of such a game is the one-two-day game "Rainbow". Its content is related to the use of color diagnostics. In the morning, at the entrance to the school, all students and teachers were asked to determine their mood with the help of color and drop the square of the corresponding color into the common urn. There are two urns: one for students, the other for teachers. It is proposed to choose from several fixed colors (you can take four or five primary colors: red, green, yellow, black, gray). During the school day, after data processing, the results are posted in the form of a diagram. At the end of classes, the same procedure is carried out, and the next morning the evening results are posted and everyone compares the morning and evening data.

13.4. Individual work of a psychologist

Individual work includes psychological counseling and psychotherapy.

Psychological counseling is a special area of ​​practical psychology aimed at providing direct psychological assistance by a consultant psychologist in the form of advice and recommendations. Such assistance is based on a personal conversation between a psychologist and his ward and a preliminary study of the problem. The advice and recommendations offered by a counseling psychologist are designed to ensure that a person in need of help can independently use them.

The goals of psychological counseling are listed below.

1. Providing a person with prompt assistance in solving his problems. Sometimes people have situations that require urgent help from a psychologist. Such problems are called operational.

2. Assistance to a person in solving those issues with which he could well cope on his own, but nevertheless needs community advice based on common sense.

3. Providing temporary assistance to a person who needs a long-term and permanent impact, but for one reason or another cannot afford it. Help in this case will be prompt.

4. Assistance to a person who has an idea of ​​how to behave in a difficult situation, but doubts the correctness of the decision. In this case, he receives professional and moral support, with the help of a psychologist, his faith in his own strength is strengthened.

5. Providing assistance to a person when he has no other opportunity to get advice.

The tasks of psychological counseling are as follows:

▪ clarification (clarification) of the problem faced by the client;

▪ informing the client about the essence of the problem he has encountered, the real degree of its seriousness (problematic information);

▪ study by a psychologist-consultant of the client’s personality in order to find out whether he can independently cope with the problem that has arisen;

▪ clearly formulating advice and recommendations to the client on how to best solve his problem;

▪ providing ongoing assistance to the client in the form of additional practical advice offered at a time when he has already begun to solve his problem;

▪ teaching the client how best to prevent the occurrence of similar problems in the future (psychoprophylactic program);

▪ transferring to the client basic, vital psychological knowledge and skills, the development and correct use of which is possible by the client himself without special psychological training.

Most often, people who make up the middle class of the population turn to a psychologist. Usually they are not very well adapted to life, they have certain emotional deviations, which are the result of repeated life disappointments and frustrations. A person goes to see a psychologist when he does not know what to do in this or that situation, or is in a state of mental disorder, or it seems to him that something terrible is happening to him and his loved ones.

The reasons why a person turns to a counseling psychologist are as follows:

▪ he knows how to solve the problem, but is looking for emotional support;

▪ he knows what to do, but he needs professional advice;

▪ he does not know which method to choose to solve the problem;

▪ he just needs to talk to someone (most often these are lonely people).

Types of psychological counseling:

1) intimate-personal counseling - these are consultations during which a person solves personal problems (dissatisfaction with himself, problems of intimate relationships, etc.);

2) family counseling - this is counseling on issues related to family relations (optimal building and regulation of relationships in the family, prevention and resolution of conflicts in intra-family relations, etc.);

3) psychological and pedagogical counseling - aimed at solving the problems of raising and educating children;

4) business consulting, during which business problems are solved (choosing a profession, organizing work, conducting business negotiations, etc.).

Psychological counseling differs from other types of practical psychological assistance in that during consultations, the psychologist mainly gives advice, and their practical implementation is up to the client; the main psychocorrectional work is carried out by the client independently, without the help of a psychologist; psychodiagnostics is reduced to a minimum, mainly there is an observation of the behavior of the client; the psychologist-consultant is not responsible for the final result, but is only responsible for the correctness of his conclusions about the essence of the client's problem and for the potential effectiveness of the proposed practical recommendations.

Psychotherapy can be either individual or group. The psychologist plays an active role in ridding the client of problems, since it is he who takes the necessary actions, while the role of the client is passive. Direct personal communication between the client and the psychologist is necessary.

The psychologist is directly responsible for the final result of his work, since he himself is engaged in the correction of the psychology and behavior of the client, he implements his own conclusions and recommendations.

A psychotherapist engaged in practical correction is obliged to professionally master psychotherapeutic methods, since the main part of his work lies in their application.

Topic 14. PSYCHOLOGY OF THE ADULTS

14.1. Early adulthood (20-40 years old)

During this period, cognitive mental processes develop unevenly. The intellectual development of a person who has reached early adulthood takes place in interaction with the formation or transformation of his personality. And although the development of the psychophysical function stops at the turn of 25, intellectual development continues for many more years.

An adult can independently control the course of his intellectual development and achieve great results associated with work or creativity. The success of a person depends on the degree of his talent, level of education and the right type of activity. This fact indicates that the development of the human cognitive sphere has an individually determined character.

The main problems in the emotional sphere that require mandatory resolution in the period of early adulthood are the achievement of identity and intimacy.

Emotional intimacy in human relationships acts as the basis of love. The feeling of love has a deeply intimate character and is accompanied by situationally arising and changing emotions of tenderness, delight, jealousy, which is often expressed in the form of anger, sadness, anger, resentment, disappointment and other emotions. Love covers a fairly wide range of emotional phenomena, differing in depth, strength and other characteristics: from relatively weakly expressed relationships (sympathy) to experiences that completely capture a person, reaching the power of passion.

In early adulthood, a complex of emotions develops, such as the emotion of parental relationships, including the joy of communicating with the child, a sense of affection and trust, a special sensitivity to the needs of the child, a sense of interest in the child, admiration and pride in him.

Basically, the emotional sphere of a person at this age is already formed and stable.

The role of the motivational sphere is very great, because during this life period a person enters adulthood and he has to solve many problems, including creating a family, having children, choosing a profession.

The creation of a family is a very important step in the life of any person, which is determined by the following motives: love, spiritual intimacy, material calculation, psychological conformity and moral considerations. From what values ​​a person is guided by when creating a family, his future will depend.

Another important step by which a person determines his future is the choice of a profession. A person, making this choice, is guided by practical considerations, parental attitudes, the desire to realize his abilities, interest in the profession and orientation to the established value system, which can change with age.

It has been noticed that closer to the age of 30, romantically colored values ​​are replaced by more practical ones. The main external factors of labor motivation are becoming: wages and material incentives. A person already realistically assesses his capabilities, adjusts life values ​​and the level of claims.

Self-consciousness, self-esteem, "I-concept" are influenced by the following factors: self-determination of the individual as a sexual partner, spouse, parent, professional and citizen.

In accordance with the awareness of one's physical characteristics, awareness of psychological age, professional orientation and basic personal and social attitudes, new formations are included in the holistic "I-concept" that reflect the maturity of the individual.

In this period, there is a normative crisis of 30-33 years. It is caused by a mismatch between life plans and the real possibilities of a person. At this age, there is a revision of life values ​​and minor values ​​are eliminated.

The period of early adulthood is characterized by the development of professional activities, self-improvement, the creation of a family, the upbringing of children, the peculiarities of the organization of free time (leisure), which makes it possible to realize the unrealized potential of the individual.

Thus, each sphere of human activity is characterized by a specific nature of activity and communication: work is socially useful activity, family is the concentration and variety of interpersonal relationships, leisure is the realization of personal potential.

The leading factor of development in this period is labor activity, and the main tasks of early adulthood are self-determination and the creation of a family.

14.2. Average adulthood (from 40 to 60 years)

At the age of 40-60, a person finds himself in conditions that are psychologically different from the previous ones. By this time, he acquires rich life and professional experience; children become adults and relationships with them change, begin to take on a different character; parents are getting older and need help.

In the human body, physiological changes that are natural for a given age begin to occur, to which he has to adapt. These changes are as follows: general well-being, vision worsens, reactions slow down, sexual potency in men weakens, women go through a period of menopause, and some endure it very hard both physically and psychologically.

There is a decrease in the characteristics of psychophysical functions, but this does not affect the functioning of the human cognitive sphere. Efficiency remains at the same level and allows you to maintain labor and creative activity. At this age, the development of abilities related to professional and daily activities continues.

In middle age, the intensity of the involution of a person's intellectual functions depends on giftedness and education, which resist aging, inhibiting the involutionary process. The main achievement of this age is the acquisition of a state of wisdom: a person is able to evaluate events and information in a broader context than before, is able to cope with uncertainty, etc.

The emotional sphere at this time develops unevenly. Middle age is the heyday of family life, career and creative abilities. Labor occupies the main position and becomes the most important source of human feelings. The success of work activity begins to influence the emotional state.

At this age, people are more prone to stress than in their youth, often suffer from depression, and experience a feeling of loneliness. In addition, a person begins to think about the fact that he is mortal and his time is running out.

The structure of motivation is changing, as a person has a desire to act without delay and immediately get a result, that is, he seeks to immediately satisfy his needs. The main needs are the realization of one's creative potential, the need to pass on one's experience to another generation, adjustment of activities, concern for maintaining close relationships with family and friends, preparation for a calm and prosperous life in old age. As a result of this, there is a comprehension and reassessment of life as a whole, an adjustment of the existing system of values ​​in three areas: personal, family and professional.

The "I-concept" is enriched with new "I-images" taking into account constantly changing situational relations and variations in self-esteem. The essence of the "I-concept" is self-actualization within the limits of moral rules and personal self-assessments. Self-assessment is characterized by a tendency to strengthen the cognitive (cognitive) component. A conscious, balanced, realistic attitude towards oneself leads to the fact that knowledge about oneself begins to regulate and lead emotions that address one's own "I". Self-assessments acquire a generalized character.

The "I-image" of a developing personality turns into a "I-image" associated with the development of other people (children, students, colleagues).

The leading type of activity is labor, successful professional activity, which ensures self-actualization of the individual. The problems of helping children come to the fore, relations in the family, with a spouse, are stabilizing.

Since middle adulthood is a period of active labor, a person basically spends all his free time on work.

During this period, there is a so-called "mid-life crisis" (40-45 years). A person overestimates his achievements and critically evaluates himself. Many people have the feeling that "life has passed meaninglessly, and time has already been lost." As a result, depression may develop.

Many believe that the best years of life are the period up to forty years, and the period after forty is a giant "black hole" in which one has to spend the rest of one's life, that moral growth and development of a person stop at this age, that a person is "over forty" you will have to say goodbye to youthful dreams and plans for a professional career, family life, personal happiness. The American psychologist R. Kessler considers this opinion to be erroneous: “Everything suggests that middle age is the best time of life. You are not yet worried about the illnesses and ailments of old age, and you are no longer tormented by the anxieties of young people: will someone love me "Will I ever be successful in my job?"

Researchers support Kessler's point of view and consider the midlife crisis the exception rather than the rule. For many people, the transition to middle age is uneventful, they consider it a period of redefining goals. This reorientation involves comparing oneself with other people who set similar goals in the same professional activity. The American scientist K. Riff said: "The better your mental health, the less often you compare yourself with people who make you feel inferior."

However, this age becomes a crisis for many because there is a growing contradiction between the integrity of the worldview and the unilinear development, as a result of which a person may lose the meaning of life. If a crisis arises, then the only way out of the situation is to acquire a new meaning: in universal values, the development of interest in the future, in new generations.

If a person will "go in cycles" in himself, then over time he will be overcome by diseases and a new crisis will develop. It has been noticed that people who tend to avoid introspection, do not notice changes in life and body, and use the mechanism of denial are subject to a mid-life crisis. American scientists noted that the crisis of middle age among wealthy people is observed more often than among the poor and representatives of the working class.

14.3. Late adulthood (60 years and older)

Many scientists call the period older than 60 years gerontogenesis, or the period of aging. The science of gerontology is engaged in the study of this age. Gerontology is a field of knowledge that studies the process of human aging.

Old age is the final stage of human life. People who have reached this age are divided into three groups:

1) elderly people;

2) elderly people;

3) long-lived.

Old age is considered a transitional state from maturity to old age. Its main feature is the aging process, which is genetically programmed. At this age, a person is no longer as physically strong as before, the total energy supply decreases, the activity of the vascular and immune systems deteriorates, i.e., general aging of the body occurs.

Most sensory functions deteriorate, so there are changes in the development of the cognitive system. Intellectual functions suffer the most. The dynamics of these processes depends on subjective factors, personality traits, and areas of professional activity.

Memory is based on logical connections, which is closely related to thinking, so the thinking of an elderly person is highly developed.

In the emotional sphere, an uncontrolled increase in affective reactions appears (strong nervous excitement) with a tendency to unreasonable sadness and tearfulness. A person becomes self-centered, less sensitive, immersed in himself; reduced ability to cope with difficult situations. It is noted that men become more passive, and women - aggressive, practical, domineering.

In the affective sphere, attachment to the past and the presence of memories can be traced.

Older people often think about death, but are not afraid of the onset of this day.

Retirement changes the position and role of a person in society, which affects his motivational sphere. The motivation of a 60-year-old person is the need for self-realization, creation and transmission of spiritual heritage. After 70 years, another problem becomes relevant: maintaining health at the proper level. There is an interest in collecting, music, painting, etc.

The main thing for an elderly person is family relationships, which give him a sense of security, stability and strength, determining his joys and sorrows.

"I-concept" in old age also undergoes changes. A person tries to integrate his past, present and future, to understand the connections between the events of his own life. This process will be effective if the individual successfully resolves normative crises and conflicts, is capable of developing adaptive personality traits, is able to draw useful lessons from past failures, and is able to accumulate the energy potential of all the stages passed. In a person with a positive and active "I-concept" and in later years, personal development continues and an optimistic approach to life is noted, which allows you to slow down the aging process.

The safety of working capacity in the elderly and senile age depends on the duration of a person's labor activity. Physical health, abilities, formed ways of activity, level of education - all this also affects the safety of working capacity. Many well-known writers, artists, musicians, scientists were engaged in fruitful activities until old age (V. Hugo, I. Kant, L.N. Tolstoy, etc.)

The factors that determine the behavior of an elderly person are: a decrease in psychophysical capabilities, gender, personality type, gradual withdrawal from an active social life, material well-being, loss of loved ones and loneliness, consciousness of the approaching end of life. There is a narrowing of the physical world and a sharp increase in interest in religion.

The leading factors of development in old age are the self-actualization of the "I" and the orientation towards creative activity. A person is able to preserve and realize his creative potential until old age with a happy combination of the natural characteristics of the body, abilities, creative activity and efficiency, and a high level of education.

References

1. Bityanova M.R. Organization of psychological work at school. M., 2000.
2. Vygotsky L.S. Pedagogical psychology / Ed. V.V. Davydov. M., 1991.
3. Gilbukh Yu.Z. Attention: gifted children. M., 1991.
4. Dubrovina I.V. Workbook of a school psychologist. M., 1991.
5. Kon I.S. Psychology of a high school student, M., 1980.
6. Mironenko V.V. Reader in psychology / Ed. A.V. Petrovsky. M., 1977.
7. Mute R.S. Psychological counseling. M., 2000.
8. Nemov R.S. Psychology. M., 2002.
9. Obukhova L.F. Age-related psychology. M., 2005.
10. Gifted children / Per. from English. YES. Linnik, A.G. Mkervali; Ed. G.V. Burmenskaya, V.M. Slutsky. M., 1991.
11. Psychology: Dictionary. M., 1990.
12. Solodilova O.P. Age-related psychology. M., 2004.
13. Fridman L.M., Kulagina I.Yu. Psychological handbook of the teacher. M., 1991.
14. Elkonin D.B. Introduction to developmental psychology. M., 1995.
15. Elkonin D.B. Selected psychological works. M., 1989.

Notes

1. R. B. Cattell (1905-1997) Anglo-American psychologist, known for his work in the field of experimental psychology of thinking and personality using mathematical methods of analysis, including factor analysis. Creator of the first experimentally validated personality test (the sixteen-factor Cattell test).
2. D. Wexler (1896-1981) - American psychologist, creator of well-known intelligence tests for children and adults.
3. Sublimation is one of the mechanisms by which forbidden sexual energy is transferred to activities acceptable to the individual and the society in which he lives.

Authors: Marina Khilko, Maria Tkacheva

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