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

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PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF EARLY AGES

(from 1 to 3 years)

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

Communication and cooperation between a child and an adult

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

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

• firstly, the adult gives the child the meaning of actions with the object, its social function;
• secondly, he organizes the child’s actions and movements, conveys to him the technical techniques for carrying out the action;
• thirdly, through encouragement and reprimand, he controls the progress of the child’s actions.

Early age is the period of the most intensive assimilation of ways of acting with objects. By the end of this period, thanks to cooperation with an adult, the child basically knows how to use household objects and play with toys.

Object activity and its role in the development of the baby

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

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

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

Of particular importance are the actions that are called correlating . These are actions with two or more objects in which it is necessary to take into account and correlate the properties of different objects - their shape, size, hardness, location, etc. without trying to arrange them in a certain order. Correlating actions require taking into account size, shape, location various items. It is characteristic that most toys intended for young children (pyramids, simple cubes, inserts, nesting dolls) involve correlative actions. When a child tries to carry out such an action, he selects and connects objects or their parts in accordance with their shape or size. So, to fold a pyramid, you need to hit the hole in the rings with a stick and take into account the ratio of the rings in size. When assembling a nesting doll, you need to select halves of the same size and perform actions in a certain order - first assemble the smallest one, and then put it into the larger one.

Initially, the baby can perform these actions only through practical tests, because he does not yet know how to visually compare the size and shape of objects. For example, when placing the lower half of a nesting doll on the upper one, he discovers that it does not fit and begins to try another. Sometimes he tries to achieve a result by force - to squeeze in inappropriate parts, but soon becomes convinced of the inconsistency of these attempts and proceeds to try on and try out different parts until he finds the right part.

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

Throughout early childhood, perception is closely related to objective actions. A child can quite accurately determine the shape, size or color of an object, if this is necessary to perform a necessary and accessible action. In other cases, the perception may be quite vague and inaccurate.

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

Already by the beginning of early childhood, the child has individual actions that can be considered manifestations of thinking. These are the actions in which the child discoversconnection between individual objects or phenomena- for example, he pulls up the string to bring the toy closer to him. But in the process of mastering correlating actions, the child begins to focus not just on individual things, but onconnection between objects, which further contributes to solving practical problems. The transition from using ready-made connections shown to adults to establishing them independently is an important step in the development of thinking.

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

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

Speech acquisition

One of the main events in the development of a young child is speech acquisition.

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

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

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

All these achievements become possible due to the fact that the child mastersgrammatical form of speech, which allows you to connect individual words with each other, regardless of the actual position of the objects they denote.

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

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

Birth of the game

Actions small child with objects is not a game yet. The separation of objective-practical and play activities occurs only at the end of early childhood. At first, the child plays exclusively with realistic toys and reproduces familiar actions with them (combing the doll, putting it to bed, feeding it, rolling it in a stroller, etc.) At about 3 years old, thanks to the development of objective actions and speech, children appear in playgame substitutionswhen a new name for familiar objects determines the way they are used in play (a stick becomes a spoon or a comb or a thermometer, etc.). However, the formation of game substitutions does not occur immediately and not on its own. They require special introduction to the game, which is only possible in joint activities with those who already master the game and can construct an imaginary situation. Such communion gives rise to a new activity - story game , which becomes leading in preschool age.

Symbolic play substitutions that arise at the end of early childhood open up enormous scope for the child’s imagination and naturally free him from the pressure of the current situation. Independent play images invented by the child are the first manifestations of childhood imagination.

The emergence of a need to communicate with peers

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

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

Communication among young children can be calledemotional-practical interaction. The main characteristics of such interaction are: spontaneity, lack of substantive content; looseness, emotional richness, non-standard communication means, mirror reflection of the partner’s actions and movements. Children demonstrate and reproduce emotionally charged play actions in front of each other. They run, squeal, take bizarre poses, make unexpected sound combinations, etc. The commonality of actions and emotional expressions gives them self-confidence and brings vivid emotional experiences. Apparently, such interaction gives the child a feeling of his similarity with another, equal being, which causes intense joy. Receiving feedback and support from a peer in his games and undertakings, the child realizes his originality and uniqueness, which stimulates the most unpredictable initiative of the child.

The development of the need to communicate with a peer goes through a number of stages. At first, children show attention and interest in each other; by the end of the second year of life, there is a desire to attract the attention of a peer and demonstrate to him your success; in the third year of life, children become sensitive to the attitude of their peers. The transition of children to subjective, actually communicative interaction becomes possible in decisive degree thanks to an adult. It is the adult who helps the child identify a peer and see in him the same being as himself. The most effective way to do this is to organizesubject interactionchildren, when an adult attracts children's attention to each other, emphasizes their commonality, their attractiveness, etc. The interest in toys characteristic of children of this age prevents the child from “catching” a peer. The toy seems to cover the human qualities of another child. A child can open them only with the help of an adult.

Crisis of 3 years

Serious successes of a child in objective activities, in speech development, in play and in other areas of his life, achieved during early childhood, qualitatively change his entire behavior. By the end of early childhood, the tendency towards independence, the desire to act independently of adults and without them, is rapidly growing. Towards the end of early childhood this finds expression in the words “I myself”, which are evidence crisis of 3 years.

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

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

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

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

A new vision of the “I” through the prism of one’s achievements lays the foundation for the rapid development of children’s self-awareness. The child’s self, becoming objectified as a result of activity, appears before him as an object that does not coincide with him. This means that the child is already capable of carrying out elementary reflection, which does not unfold on an internal, ideal plane, but has an externally deployed character of assessing his achievement.

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

Psychological characteristics of preschool age (3 – 6-7 years)

Game as a leading activity

Preschool childhood is a fairly large period of a child’s life. During this period, the child discovers the world of human relationships, different types activities and social functions of people. The world of social relations becomes a new social situation of development.

At this age, children, on the one hand, strive to actively participate in adult life (which is not yet available to them), and on the other hand, to be independent. From this contradiction, role-playing play is born - an independent activity of children that models the life of adults. “The inability to act as an adult in real terms, the inability to realize desires in independent social behavior determines the emergence of activity in terms of imagination. This is how the game arises."

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

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

Several elements can be distinguished in the structure of the game:

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

2. Plot. The plot and game script are built in accordance with the theme. Plots include a certain sequence of events played out in the game. The types of plots are varied:

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

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

War games;

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

3. Role – a mandatory set of actions and rules for their implementation. Roles are performed using game actions: the “doctor” gives an injection to the “patient”, the “seller” weighs out “sausage” to the “buyer”, the “teacher” teaches the “students” to “write”, etc.

4. The content of the game is what the child identifies as the main point of the activity or relationship of adults. As the child grows up, the content of the game changes. For younger preschoolers, this is the repeated repetition of an action with an object (“rocking a doll,” “cutting bread,” “treating a bear,” “feeding a dog”; for middle-aged preschoolers, this is modeling the activities of adults and emotionally significant situations in role-playing performance (rocking a doll to put them to bed, they cut bread to put in front of each doll for lunch, etc.); for older people, following the rules in the game (“Come on, they’ll sleep, then they’ll eat and go for a walk”).

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

6. Role and real relationships. The first reflect the attitude towards the plot and role (specific manifestations of the characters). The latter express an attitude towards the quality and correctness of the role (they allow you to agree on the distribution of roles, the choice of game and are implemented in evaluative “remarks” such as “you should do it this way”, “you said it wrong”, etc.)

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

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

The influence of play on the general mental development of a child according to V.S. Mukhina:

Play is a criterion of a child’s normality; by how he plays, you can learn a lot about him. Play is also important for children's emotional development. It helps to cope with fears generated by traumatic situations (nightmares, horror stories, long hospital stays).

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

The game in modern culture is a kind of cult. Until the child is seven years old and goes to school, he is allowed to play. It wasn't always like this. Where a child is included in the work of adults from childhood, there is no play. Children always play with things that are inaccessible to them. Therefore, in a society where a child is involved in the work of adults, games are not needed. There children play "rest".

Other activities in preschool

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

The differentiation of these types of activities occurs gradually; at the very beginning of preschool age they are all quite close to each other. The development of relationships between an adult and a child in all of these types of activities leads by the end of the preschool period to the identification and awareness by the child of the specific functions of an adult and his own specific responsibilities. There is an awareness of the role of the teacher, his social function - to teach children, awareness of his social function - to learn.

Communication of preschoolers

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

General psychological characteristics of communication among preschool children

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

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

If a child lacks love, he loses self-confidence, feels abandoned and lonely - violent alienation occurs in the form of fear (intimidation, refusal of support in an unusual situation - alienated, aggressive position of parents). Fear of the dark, fear of elevators, fear of strangers in kindergarten etc.

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

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

Moreover, since verbal communication becomes not only a means of exchanging information, but also carries an expressive function (emotionally colored), then, imitating parents and close people, the child unconsciously adopts their communication style. A child’s communication style from the point of view of speech culture and emotional manifestations is a model of relationships in the family.

This need to communicate with peers develops in games, activities, self-care, etc. In the context of public education (kindergarten), the child acquires skills of behavior in a team, learns mutual understanding, cooperation, mutual assistance, and the ability to take the position of another person. Interpersonal reflection develops.

Development of mental functions of a preschooler

Personality development of a preschooler

“Preschool age is the period of the initial actual personality structure” (A.N. Leontyev). It is at this time that the formation of basic personal mechanisms and formations occurs. The emotional and motivational spheres develop, self-awareness is formed.

New motives also appear - achieving success, competition, rivalry, motives associated with moral standards being acquired at this time.

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

The assimilation of moral norms occurs, which, together with emotional regulation, contributes to the development of voluntary behavior of the preschooler.

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

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

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

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

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

Psychological characteristics of primary school age

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

The leading activity is study.The world at this age appears to be a system of scientific knowledge and concepts that must be mastered. In his activities, the student is guided by general cultural patterns of action, which he adopts in dialogue with adults. The teacher is a very significant person, since he is a “socially established” authority. The difference in the positions of parents and teachers for a primary school student lies precisely in the fact that the teacher is a “representative of society,” a “bearer of general knowledge,” who, by definition, cannot know less than the parents or make mistakes. Such an unambiguous attitude towards the personality of the teacher on the part of the child also determines the position of the parents towards the teacher. Wise everyday advice to parents of a future first-grader is the advice to “choose not a school, but a teacher.”

A focus on “correctness,” the desire to conform to certain patterns (behavior, feelings, thoughts), makes children at this age receptive to any technology. Quickly and skillfully adopted models – external behavior, physical exercise, operational skills in managing equipment - from a bicycle to a computer. This tendency in its positive direction allows the development of hard work. But it also carries the danger of excessive “obsession” with external rules and patterns. Striving to meet all the requirements, the child begins to treat everyone else with increased demands, often falling into “pharisaism.” They demand strict compliance with certain instructions both from their peers and from adults. Sometimes adults themselves break the rules they taught the child, and in this situation conflicts and misunderstandings arise. And sometimes it turns out that a child, trying to follow all the rules prescribed by adults, at some point weakens under this unbearable load. Then he can begin to live his “secret” life.

One of the areas of development at this age is the establishment of various social connections. The inner life that has matured by the end of preschool age allows the child to realize his “opacity” to others. This allows him to build his own psychological space and “try himself” in different roles. “Children at this age can invent their own biography, especially when they meet new people, and this acquaintance cannot develop into a long-term one.” The structuring of one’s psychological space is also manifested in handling material world– the child labels and “decorates” his personal items as best he can. This is the age of creating “hides” and “secrets”, building “headquarters”, and beginning to develop attics and basements. Books are signed, a bicycle, a bed are decorated, pictures are pasted in the most incredible places - by “marking” his item, the child seems to transfer part of his personal properties to it. This way you can feel the “boundaries of your Self.” Therefore, sometimes even an accidental violation of these established boundaries - a sticker erased by parents, a picture taken, etc. - is perceived as very tragic.

Educational activities

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

1) educational activity is not productive in the sense that it has no external product; its goal and result is a change in the subject of activity;

2) this is a theoretical activity, i.e. aimed at understanding the way of carrying out an activity, and not at achieving an external result, therefore educational activity is a reflective activity. For V.V. Davydov's theoretical activity is an activity based on conceptual thinking;

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

Where do learning activities come from? Does it “grow out” of the game or has other “roots”? V.V. Davydov denies the existence of a connection between play and educational activities, opposing them to each other. G.A. Tsukerman solves the question of the continuity of leading types of activity and the problem of age-related neoplasms in the context of studying the system of relations between a child and an adult, when for each leading activity the leading (genetically original) form of cooperation and, accordingly, new formations of two types are identified.

At primary school age, educational activities correspond to the educational form of cooperation. The central new formation of educational activity is reflection as the ability to separate the known from the unknown, which the author associates with the child’s mastery of a system of concepts and theoretical thinking. The central new formation of the educational form of cooperation is the “ability to learn,” i.e. the ability to teach oneself, to be a subject of learning. The main goal of the ability to learn is seen by the author as the ability to go beyond the limits of the current situation, when every task appears as a task with missing conditions. G.A. Tsukerman speaks of a junior schoolchild as a subject of educational activity if the child participates in the search and construction of new ways of action in the situation of a learning task.

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

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

According to the scientist, a preschooler is characterized by situationality in communicating with adults and peers, his behavior is determined by the current situation, he is impulsive and spontaneous. While the younger student acquires the ability to manage himself, he becomes supra-situational in his behavior and pays attention to the method of solving the problem, and not to directly achieving the goal. A preschooler thinks by acting and manipulating, a junior schoolchild first thinks and then acts, i.e. They are distinguished by their theoretical approach to the problem. G.G. Kravtsov connects the emergence of a theoretical attitude to a task with the emergence of voluntary actions in the child and a change in position in communication. A child, acting voluntarily, realizes the purpose of his action and correlates it with the means of activity.

An indicator of the formation of a theoretical attitude to a task is the child’s ability to consistently focus on the method, which presupposes the ability to separate himself from his activity and verbalize its operational composition. The central place in understanding and comprehending the progress of problem solving and the directed organization of one’s actions belongs to reflection. To diagnose this ability, the author, in a situation where a child communicated with an adult and a peer, “evoked” the position of “teacher” in the subject. This position is optimal for realizing, rethinking and transforming any skill memorized by imitation into a reflexive plan of action. It seems that this methodological technique can be used as a diagnostic principle in developmental psychology in order to study the position of subjectivity in any type of activity.

Experimentally, G.G. Kravtsov identified stages in the formation of a theoretical attitude to a task in a primary school student in connection with a change in the child’s position in joint activities with an adult:

1. The child is inside the task, cannot approach it as if from the outside, does not comply with the adult’s requirements. He is guided by his own subjective meanings and does not pay attention to the adult, his demands, or the way to solve the problem.

2. The child begins to actively search for the basis of actions, “speaks” for two – for the one who sets the task, and for himself. His activity is internally two-subjective. Children change their attitude towards the adult and accept his hint, realizing the difficulty that has arisen in solving the problem.

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

4. Solves a problem on his own without the help of an adult, understands and masters the instructions, and conforms to the position of the adult who sets the task.

Thus, at first the child is in the “teaching” position and begins to become aware of the method he is using. Then he voluntarily and consciously takes the position of a student and actively seeks the help of an adult. As a result, the child becomes able to demonstrate a method of action to another child or adult, to cooperate with them “as equals”; learns to convey the method to another, not acting in a practical way, but only recreating the sequence of actions from memory; finally, children form a “conditional dynamic position”, which presupposes an established theoretical attitude to the task.

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

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

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

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

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

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

If we look at it this way genetic connections games and educational activities, then the question arises: is it possible to introduce educational activities from the first days of a child’s stay at school? What if he is not psychologically ready to learn? How to move from playful to educational activities? Modern scientists are also trying to give a scientifically based answer to these questions. In an experimental study by E.L. Gorlova proved that at primary school age (at the beginning of education) there should be special activity which “amplifies” age: playful in form and educational in content. This type of activity allows you to implement individual approach to the child, i.e. take into account the level of his psychological development at the time of entering school.

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

Collecting as a new activity

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

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

For a preschooler, a collection is a “heap” in which particularly valuable items are highlighted. Gathering is not structured and occurs according to the principle “the more, the better.” Emotional attachment to a particular specimen is determined only by subjective factors - the history of acquisition, the personality of the person who gave it. With the help of an adult, a child can systematize a collection, becoming its subject.

At primary school age, a child is able to set the systematic nature of his collection. This happens due to the fact that he acquires the ability to take a supra-situational position in relation to his collection and enter into substantive communication with other people about it. The real collection of a schoolchild has as its limit a certain ideal, completely compiled, impeccably systematized collection.

Thus, we see that the first sign of any scientific concept - systematicity, hierarchy - is directly reproduced in this cultural children's activity. The second feature - fundamental revision, rethinking, introduction to a new system - is also determined by the development of collecting activities. Collecting implies a constant focus of the collector’s consciousness on the hierarchical structure of the collection, on its improvement. This is a reflexive level of collecting, which becomes the basis of professional collecting.

Reflection as a central new formation of primary school age

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

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

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

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

An example of the second approach to the study of reflection is the research of E.E. Kravtsova, G.G. Kravtsova, E.L. Berezhkovskaya, E.L. Gorlova, where it is considered in the plane of the ontogenesis of communication. The prerequisites for educational activity, according to these scientists, are formed on the basis of the child passing through pre-situational, situational and supra-situational stages in the development of communication in preschool childhood. These stages allow the child to master his own communication and acquire a reflexive position in it, i.e. use different internal positions in building your communication. Thus, reflection has its source in the development of the child’s communication, his mastery of various social positions.

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

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

Exercising mental functions

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

Symbolism is clearly manifested in the development of memory - the central mental function of consciousness of a child of primary school age. This is a new position of domestic developmental psychologists, based on a more thorough experimental study of age-related development. L.S. Vygotsky placed memory at the center of the preschooler’s consciousness. However, research by A.V. The Zaporozhets were forced to doubt this. Therefore, today, such a mental function as emotions is “fixed” as a central one for the preschool age, and memory for the primary school age. The famous “parallelogram of memory” clearly demonstrates that only at primary school age does the intentional use of memorization tools allow a child to increase the amount of memorization, in comparison with preschool age, where the amount of voluntary and involuntary memorization is approximately the same.

Spiritual development in educational activities

The paradox of educational activity is that while acquiring knowledge, the child does not change anything about it. He himself becomes the subject of change. For the first time, a child performs an activity that turns him on himself, requires reflection, an assessment of “what I was” and “what I have become.” An important indicator of the learning process is the change in a person’s spiritual experience. The Orthodox meaning of such a change is determined by the word “repentance.” In the book “Orthodox Pedagogy”, Rev. Evgeny Shestun defines learning as special case repentance. In such an attitude towards learning, there will be no room for the development of vanity and self-satisfaction for a believing child, no matter how much success he achieves. Comprehension of knowledge as the mystery of God's Creation is associated with reverence and will certainly have a positive impact on the spiritual life of the student. And the educational process proceeds completely differently in a situation fueled by the development of self-expression and self-affirmation of the student. In this case, there may be good knowledge of the subjects, but such motivation to study has a detrimental effect on the spiritual development of a growing person. “It is very difficult to deal in the scientific community with former child prodigies who then turned out to be infertile.” research assistants"- wrote professor and archpriest Gleb Kaleda. In his opinion, real study is like prayer and has nothing to do with satisfying one’s own vanity. “Wandering through the forest, rafting in a boat through the taiga, being on dazzling mountain peaks, you want to sing “Praise the name of the Lord.” The beauty of existence in all its manifestations – from the Cosmos when contemplating the night sky to the smallest creatures when examining the shells of radiolarians and diatoms in an optical or electron microscope – appears before us when studying nature.”

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

Speaking about educational activities at this age, it is necessary to note the most important directions in overcoming the difficulties that a child encounters in the learning process. The first serious factor isattitude of an adult to a child. Not only should it not be mediated by school grades, itmust be generally positivein relation to the child. Psychologists note a common mistake in the interaction between an adult and a child - the child is praised for individual manifestations of his personality - he completed the assignment well, did his homework correctly, drew beautifully, but often the whole personality of the child is blamed - “what a bum you are!”, “Why are you like that?” inattentive?”, “you always get everything mixed up,” etc. A necessary condition for a child to understand and affirm his “I” is positive assessment his personality. At the same time, condemnation of negative behavior and bad deeds, of course, should take place in the educational process, but it relates to one of the manifestations of the child, and not to his entire personality.

Second important point In the difficulties of school studies, a focus on mistakes becomes. All the child’s activities are assessed by adults in the context of the mistakes he has made. “The child strives with all his might to avoid a mistake, but the fear of it causes such excessive control that the latter limits the child, restrains his initiative and creativity.” An adult's consideration of a mistake from the point of view of its cognitive significance and transitory nature will allow the child not to make it a measure of action, but a starting point for working on himself.

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

Experts call the fourth point the child’s shortened life prospects. “It manifests itself in the fact that the child develops situational interests, he easily succumbs to the influence of others, as if he does not know how, and does not strive to perceive his actions as relatively independent of others. Such children have little initiative, cannot independently organize their own behavior, wait for prompts from an adult in everything and are guided by their peers. Developing the independence of such children is quite a labor-intensive task. It requires parents to be able to dose and then gradually reduce assistance to the child to a minimum.”

Communication with peers and subculture

Communication with peers also undergoes significant changes for a primary school student. Now they are learning new knowledge together. Numerous experiments on the assimilation of educational material have led to the conclusion that knowledge is acquired more effectively in the interaction of a child with peers than with a teacher. In a relationship with an adult, a division of functions is inevitable for a child - the adult gives the task, controls and evaluates the child. A paradox arises - the child cannot fully master the action, since some components of this action remain with the adult. Cooperation with peers allows you to internalize knowledge differently (make it your own). In a peer group, relationships are equal and symmetrical, but in communication with the teacher there is a hierarchy. “J.. Piaget argued that qualities such as criticality, tolerance, and the ability to take another’s point of view develop only when children communicate with each other. Only through sharing the points of view of the child’s peers—first other children, and later, as the child grows up, and adults—can true logic and morality replace egocentrism, logical and moral realism.”

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

At this age, the child discovers an interlocutor within himself, his consciousness becomes dialogical, inner speech appears, which contributes to the need for solitude and finding secluded places. A child learns the underbelly of the adult world through visiting attics, basements, and garbage dumps. Here he finds himself in a situation of lack of structure, things without owners, which increases the degree of freedom of his behavior and actions. New territories, new paths and spaces are being developed.

Physical development

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

The development of motor skills continues - strength, speed, coordination and control of one's movement, both in gross and fine motor skills. Children, both boys and girls, improve, for example, in jumping and throwing, the ability to stand on one leg for a long time, ride a bicycle “without hands,” as well as the ability to write in different handwritings and weave with beads. Sometimes the demonstration of mastery of one’s own body is so captivating that the child forgets - many adults can remember from their own childhood competitions “for the furthest spit” or “who can beat whom?” Perfect control of one's body gives the child a feeling of mental comfort and promotes recognition from peers. Clumsy, poorly coordinated children at this age often suffer.

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

Adolescence. Psychological characteristics

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

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

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

Features of the “teenage complex”:

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

The essence of the “adolescent complex” consists of its own behavioral patterns, characteristic of this age and certain psychological characteristics, and specific adolescent behavioral reactions to environmental influences.

The cause of psychological difficulties is related topuberty, this is uneven development in various directions. This age is characterized by emotional instability and sharp mood swings (from exaltation to depression). The most affective, violent reactions occur when someone around him tries to hurt a teenager’s self-esteem.

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

Teenagers are characterized by polarity of the psyche:

• Purposefulness, persistence and impulsiveness,
• Instability can be replaced by apathy, lack of aspirations and desires to do anything,
• Increased self-confidence and categorical judgment are quickly replaced by vulnerability and self-doubt;
• The need for communication is replaced by a desire to be alone;
• Cheerfulness in behavior is sometimes combined with shyness;
• Romantic moods often border on cynicism and prudence;
• Tenderness and affection occur against the backdrop of childish cruelty.

A characteristic feature of this age is curiosity, an inquisitive mind, a desire for knowledge and information; a teenager strives to master as much knowledge as possible, but sometimes without paying attention to the fact that knowledge needs to be systematized.

Stanley Hall called adolescence a period of “Sturm und Drang.” Since during this period, directly opposite needs and traits coexist in the personality of a teenager. Today, a teenage girl sits modestly with her relatives and talks about virtue. And tomorrow, having painted war paint on his face and pierced his ear with a dozen earrings, he will go to a night disco, declaring that “you have to experience everything in life.” But nothing special happened (from the child’s point of view): she simply changed her mind.

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

One of the neoplasms of adolescence isfeeling of adulthood.

When they say that a child is growing up, they mean the formation of his readiness for life in the society of adults, and as an equal participant in this life. From the outside, nothing changes for the teenager: he studies in the same school (unless, of course, his parents suddenly transferred him to another), lives in the same family. The family still treats the child as “little.” He doesn’t do much on his own, and much is not allowed by his parents, whom he still has to obey. Parents feed, water, dress their child, and for good (from their point of view) behavior they can even “reward” (again, according to their own understanding - pocket money, a trip to the sea, a trip to the cinema, a new thing). adulthood is far away - physically, psychologically, and socially, but he wants it so much! He objectively cannot join adult life, but strives for it and claims equal rights with adults. They cannot change anything yet, but outwardly they imitate adults. Hence and the attributes of “pseudo-adulthood” appear: smoking cigarettes, hanging out at the entrance, traveling out of town (the external manifestation of “I also have my own personal life.”) They copy any relationship.

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

A teenager's appearance is another source of conflict.The gait, manners, and appearance change. Until recently, a boy who moved freely and easily begins to waddle, putting his hands deep in his pockets and spitting over his shoulder. He has new expressions. The girl begins to jealously compare her clothes and hairstyle with the examples she sees on the street and on magazine covers, splashing out her emotions about the existing discrepancies on her mother.

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

Most often, they are friends with a teenager of the same gender, social status, and the same abilities (however, sometimes friends are selected by contrast, as if to complement their missing traits). Friendship is selective; betrayal is not forgiven. And coupled with teenage maximalism, friendships have a peculiar character: on the one hand, there is the need for a single, devoted friend, on the other, a frequent change of friends.

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

Psychological characteristics of adolescence

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

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

Tasks that determine general characteristics age are as follows. By the end of adolescence, the processes of physical maturation of a person are completed. The psychological content of this stage is associated with the development of self-awareness, solving problems of professional self-determination and entry into adulthood. In early adolescence, cognitive and professional interests, the need for work, the ability to make life plans, and social activity are formed. In adolescence, the dependence on adults inherent in the previous stages of ontogenesis is finally overcome, and the independence of the individual is affirmed. In relationships with peers, along with maintaining the great role of collective-group forms of communication, the importance of individual contacts and attachments is growing. Youth is an intense period of the formation of moral consciousness, the development of value orientations and ideals, a stable worldview, and civic qualities of the individual.

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

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

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

1.formation of worldview;

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

3. discovery of one’s own “I”, experienced as an active, active principle; 4.need for work and ability to work;

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

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

7.need for communication and mastery of methods of its construction;

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

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

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

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

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

Particular attention should be paid to the communication of boys and girls with adults. These relationships are not as tense as in adolescence, but remain complex, and the reason for the complexity is the autonomy of the young man, determined by the social situation of his development. But when it comes to deeper problems - political views, worldview, choice of profession - the authority of parents turns out to be much more significant, outweighing, as a rule, the influence of friends - peers. Topics of communication with adults are various aspects of life self-determination, provided that communication with adults is in a confidential form. Adults’ trust in the development of a student’s personality, faith in his potential “I” is the best condition for trust in communicating with him.

Psychological characteristics of the period of maturity

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

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

1) development stops and is replaced by a simple change in individual psychological characteristics;

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

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

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

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

Social development situationin maturity is the realization of oneself, the full disclosure of one’s potential in professional activity And family relationships. Awareness of personal responsibility for one’s life and the lives of loved ones, and the willingness to accept this responsibility is a key experience in the social situation of the development of maturity.

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

Psychophysiological and cognitive development during adulthood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other main problemsmidlife crisis is considereddecrease in physical strength, sexuality, deterioration of health, rigidity.

Rice. A person's physical abilities reach their peak in their development during adolescence or early adulthood; in middle age, their development reaches a plateau, and the first physical decline appears.

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

Unresolved crisis experiences, refusal of renewal activity returns the crisiswith renewed vigor by the age of 50. Ignoring the changes happening to him, a person plunges into work, clings to his administrative position, to his official position in hopeless attempts to strengthen his authority.

Personality development in late adulthood

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

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

A person who develops consistently reaches a creative climax in the mid-fifties. The most characteristic personality traits of a person mature age are realistic aspirations, increased attention to the progress of one’s self-realization in work, family and personal life, increased attention to the state of one’s health, emotional flexibility, and a craving for stability in everyday life. The values ​​that a person finds in the crisis of adulthood are the values ​​of meaningful existence, which he realizes in his personal existence.

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

Psychological characteristics of the old age period

Late adulthoodold age as psychological age– this is the final period of life, which includes a change in a person’s position in society and plays its own special role in the life cycle system. Determining the chronological boundaries of the onset of old age is difficult, since the range of individual differences in the appearance of signs of aging is enormous.

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

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

There have long been ideas about old age as a difficult, inert, “sunset” time of life. Common stereotypes and social expectations regarding old age are reflected in many proverbs and sayings of the Russian people:“It’s time to write it off for the archives”, “It’s time to go to hell”, “I had a horse, but it was ridden”, “The sand is falling.”

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

The negative nature of the “cultural standards” of old age existing in society and the uncertainty of social expectations regarding an elderly person in the family do not allow us to considersocial situation of lifean elderly person as a full-fledgeddevelopment situation. When retiring, a person is faced with the need for an important, difficult and absolutely independent choice in deciding the question: “How to be old?” The active creative approach of the person himself to his own aging comes to the fore.

Transforming the social situation of life into a developmental situation becomes an individual personal task for each elderly person.

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

Solution to the universal human problem of “living/experiencing old age”,choosing an aging strategyIt is not viewed narrowly as a one-time action; it is a process extended, perhaps over years, associated with overcoming several personal crises.

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

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

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

An alternative model is to maintain and develop multiple connections with society. In this caseleading activitiesin old age it may becomestructuring and transferring life experience. Options for types of socially significant activities may include continuing professional activities, writing memoirs, teaching and mentoring, raising grandchildren, students, and social activities. Preserving oneself as an individual presupposes the ability to work hard, have diverse interests, try to be needed by loved ones, and feel “involved in life.”

For example, a very elderly, sick, bedridden woman is happy that she can benefit loved ones: “After all, you’re at work all day, the apartment is unattended, but here, even though I’m at home, I’ll look after it.”

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

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

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

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

Fixation on memory impairments is typical for old people themselves.

The general conclusion of numerous studies in recent years regarding the effects of aging on memory is that memory does decline, but it is not a uniform or unidirectional process. Different types of memory - sensory, short-term, long-term - are affected to varying degrees. The “core” amount of long-term memory is retained. Short-term or operational memory is sharply weakened. In the period after 70 years it mainly suffersrote,and it works bestlogical memory.

Another feature of memory in older people is its pronounced professional orientation and selectivity. What is remembered best is what is especially important and significant for professional activity.

Intelligence. When characterizing cognitive changes in old age, “crystallized intelligence” and “fluid intelligence” are distinguished.Crystallized Intelligencedetermined by the amount of knowledge acquired during life, the ability to solve problems based on available information (give definitions of concepts, explain why stealing is bad).Fluid Intelligenceimplies the ability to solve new problems for which there are no traditional methods. The assessment of general intelligence (Q-factor) consists of a combination of assessments of both crystallized and fluid intelligence.

It has been shown that a significant decrease in intellectual indicators can be stated only after 65 years. Crystallized intelligence is more resistant to agingcompared with mobility, the decline of which, as a rule, is expressed more sharply and at an earlier time. Although the assessment of intelligence, determined by the number of correct answers on a test, decreases in old age, the intellectual quotient (IQ) remains almost unchanged with age. Compared to other members of his age group, a person maintains approximately the same level of intelligence throughout his life. A person who exhibited an average IQ in early adulthood is most likely to have an average IQ in old age.

Although most mental skills are not affected by aging, from the point of view of providing counseling and practical assistance to older people, it is important to consider the following characteristic psychophysiological changes during normal aging:

1. Slowdown of reactions with greater and faster fatigue.

2. Deterioration of the ability to perceive.

3. Narrowing the field of attention.

4. Reduced attention span.

5. Difficulties in distributing and switching attention.

6. Decreased ability to concentrate and focus.

7. Increased sensitivity to outside interference.

8. Some reduction in memory capabilities.

9. Weakening the tendency towards “automatic” organization of what is memorized.

10. Difficulties in reproduction.

To address cognitive problems of aging in older adultscan apply the principle « defect compensation» . In one of his interviews, the famous literary critic D.S. Likhachev, when asked how he manages, despite his advanced age, to lead an active scientific and social life, answered that a measured lifestyle, a clear routine, the absence of long breaks in work and a selective approach to the choice of topics help. He explained: “My main specialty is ancient Russian literature, but I write about Pasternak, sometimes about Mandelstam, and even address issues of music and architecture. The fact is that there are areas of science that are already difficult for me due to my age. Let's say textual criticism - the study of texts: for this you need very good memory, but for me it’s not the same as when I was young.”(“Novaya Gazeta”. 1997. No. 46 (466)).

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

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

Age-related developmental tasks during old age can be summarized as follows:

· adaptation to age-related changes (physical, psychophysiological);

· adequate perception of old age (opposition to negative stereotypes);

· reasonable allocation of time and targeted use of the remaining years of life;

· role reorientation, abandonment of old ones and search for new role positions;

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

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

· the desire for internal integrity and comprehension of the life lived.

Stage of mental development of a child from 1 year to 3 years.

It is characterized by qualitative changes in the development of the functions of the cerebral cortex. In this time interval, the following events of individual development occur:

Movements in space are formed, in particular walking, fine motor skills, due to which the possibilities of understanding the surrounding world are significantly expanded;

Situational business communication with adults and communication with peers develops;

Cognitive processes are formed;

Passive and active speech is mastered;

The affective and volitional spheres become more defined, and self-awareness is formed.

The psyche of a child of this age is characterized by: high dependence on the visual situation; mental reflection functions inextricably linked with practical actions; pronounced affective nature of focus on external world. The leading activity at this age is object-manipulative activity, within which culturally fixed ways of using objects are mastered. At the same time, the formation of a child’s objective actions is inseparable from his communication with an adult, which is situational and businesslike. During this period, a particularly intensive development of the child’s speech occurs: in the second year, the child already understands the names of some objects with which he interacts, and in the third year, understanding extends to objects that are outside the child’s direct experience.

Psychological Dictionary. THEM. Kondakov. 2000.

EARLY AGE

stage of a child’s mental development, covering in domestic periodization from 1 year to 3 years. Microperiodization of R. v.: 1) stage of pre-speech development (1-1.5 years); 2) stage of speech development (1.5-3 years). Syn. preschool age, early childhood. (An equivalent term has not been found in the English-language psychological literature. - Prim.edit.)

At this time, great changes occur in the physical and neuropsychic development of children. In the 2nd year, the child monthly gains 200-250 g in weight and 1 cm in height; during the 3rd year of life, the child’s weight increases by 2-2.8 kg, height - by 7-8 cm. Activity improves sense organs and body systems: bone, muscle, c. n. With. Qualitative changes occur in the development of the functions of the cerebral cortex (see. ). The working capacity limit increases. With. Ability is being formed imitation, walking, various hand movements develop, rules are learned communication.

Basic distinctive features mental processes in R. v.: their dependence on the visual situation; functioning in close connection with practical actions; the affective nature of the focus on understanding the surrounding world.

in R. v. - object-manipulative, in the process of which children master object actions with culturally fixed ways of using objects. The child learns their constant meaning, functions and how they should be used. The formation of objective actions occurs when assimilation children's patterns of using things for utilitarian purposes (spoon, cup, comb, etc.), in game with didactic toys (constructors, mosaics, pyramids, etc.) and in procedural play with story toys. The formation of objective actions is inseparable from communication child with an adult who acts at this stage of development as situational business communication.

R.v. - a period of stormy speech development child. First of all, the understanding of speech develops intensively: in the 2nd year, the child begins to understand the names of objects immediately surrounding him, the content of speech aimed at him performing practical actions. Initially, speech understanding is carried out within a familiar, often directly perceived by the child, situation of communication with an adult. In the 3rd year, the child’s understanding of adult speech extends to objects inaccessible to his direct experience. Against the background of a developing understanding of speech, mastery of the dictionary occurs: in 1 year children know 10-12 words, in 1.5 years - 30-40 (up to 100), in 2 years - 200-300, in 3 years - 1200 -1500 words. Starting from the end of the 2nd year and throughout the 3rd year, the grammatical structure of speech is mastered. In the 3rd year, the child’s speech activity sharply increases during games and independent activities (see. , ), as well as in the process of communicating with adults.

Under the influence of the development of objective, play activity and speech, qualitative changes occur in the formation of perception, thinking, memory, attention, and imagination.

The main directions of mental development of children in R. century: 1) development of walking, locomotion, fine motor skills, expanding the possibilities of knowledge of the world around them; 2) development of situational business communication with adults; 3) development of cognitive processes: increased stability of attention, increased memory capacity and its gradual release from reliance on perception; assimilation sensory standards(such as geometric shapes, spectrum colors); improvement of visual-effective and the emergence of visual-figurative thinking; mastering passive and active speech; 4) formation of goal-setting activities; the formation of a procedural game; 5) development of the affective and volitional sphere: increased persistence in activity, the desire to achieve results in it; 6) development of communication with peers; 7) formation self-awareness: the emergence of knowledge about one’s capabilities and abilities, specific self-esteem, pride in achievements in subject activities; formation gender identity.

Mastery of objective activities, speech, communication with adults and peers lays the foundations for visual-figurative thinking, the ability to act internally, imagination(fantasies), mastering social skills, the emergence of new cognitive and communicative needs, contributes to the formation of deeper knowledge about oneself. Cm. , , , . (L.N. Galiguzova.)

Large psychological dictionary. - M.: Prime-EVROZNAK. Ed. B.G. Meshcheryakova, acad. V.P. Zinchenko. 2003 .

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The emergence of new activities in early childhood. At this age, the lines of mental development of boys and girls separate. They are inherent different types leading activities. In boys, on the basis of objective activity, object-tool. In girls, based on speech activity - communicative. Object-tool activity includes manipulation with human objects, the rudiments of design, as a result of which abstract, abstract thinking is better developed in men. Communicative activity involves mastering the logic of human relationships. Most women have more developed social thinking than men, the sphere of manifestation of which is communication between people. Women have finer intuition, tact, and are more prone to empathy. Gender differences in the behavior of children are due not so much to biological and physiological reasons as to the nature of their social communication. The orientation of boys and girls to different types of activities is socially determined, due to cultural patterns. In fact, there are more similarities than differences between male and female babies. The differences appear later. Basically, boys and girls develop in parallel and go through the same stages.

Thus, by the age of three, children of both sexes develop the following new age developments: the beginnings of self-awareness, development of self-concept, self-esteem. The child does 90% of the work of acquiring language. In three years, a person goes through half the path of his mental development.

Cognitive Features

Speech. The child’s autonomous speech transforms and disappears quite quickly (usually within six months). By mastering their native speech, children master both its phonetic and semantic aspects. The pronunciation of words becomes more correct, the child gradually stops using distorted word fragments. By the age of 3, all the basic sounds of the language are acquired. The most important change in a child’s speech is that the word acquires an objective meaning for him. The first generalizations are associated with the appearance of the objective meanings of words. At an early age, the passive vocabulary - the number of understood words - grows rapidly. By the age of 2, the child understands the adult’s explanations (instructions) regarding joint actions. Later, at 2-3 years, understanding of speech-story appears. Active speech is also developing intensively: an active vocabulary is growing, the first phrases appear, the first questions addressed to adults. By the age of 3, the active vocabulary reaches 1500 words. Sentences at 1.5 years old consist of 2-3 words. These are most often the subject and his actions (“Mom is coming”), actions and the object of the action (“I want candy”), the action and the place of action (“the book is there”). By the age of 3, basic grammatical forms and syntactic constructions native language. Speech activity usually increases sharply between 2 and 3 years, and the circle of communication expands.

Perception. Early childhood is interesting because among all mental functions perception dominates. The dominance of perception means a certain dependence on it of other mental processes. Young children are maximally connected by the present situation - by what they directly perceive. All their behavior is field, impulsive; nothing that lies outside this visual situation attracts them.

Imagination. At an early age, elementary forms of imagination, such as anticipation, are observed, but there is no creative imagination yet. A small child is not capable of inventing something or lying. Only towards the end of early childhood does he have the opportunity to say something that is not what he really is.

Memory. Memory is included in this process of active perception. Basically, this is recognition, although the child can already involuntarily reproduce what he saw and heard before - he remembers something. Since memory becomes, as it were, a continuation and development of perception, it is still impossible to talk about relying on past experience. Early childhood is forgotten in the same way as infancy (“childhood amnesia”). An important characteristic of perception at this age is its affective coloring. Observed objects really “attract” the child, causing a strong emotional reaction. The affective nature of perception also leads to sensorimotor unity. The child sees a thing, it attracts him and thanks to this, impulsive behavior begins to unfold.

Actions and thinking. Thinking at this age is usually called visually effective. At this time, in joint activities with adults, the child learns ways of operating with a variety of objects. Actions with objects depend on their functional characteristics and the conditions of their use. Thinking initially manifests itself in the very process of practical activity. This is especially clearly seen when a child is faced with a task that adults have not taught him how to solve. It is not only thinking that develops thanks to external activity. The objective actions themselves are also improved. In addition, they acquire a generalized character, being separated from the subjects in which they were originally learned. The mastered actions are transferred to other conditions. Following this, the child acquires the ability to correlate his actions with the actions of adults, to perceive the actions of an adult as models. Collaborative activities begin to disintegrate. The adult gives the child examples of actions and evaluates their implementation.

In addition to actual objective activities, such activities as drawing and playing are also important for a child’s development. Drawing a child under 2 years old - doodles, at the 3rd year forms similar to the depicted object appear, at 2.5 years a completely clear drawing of a person appears. Leading activity– subject-manipulative. At the end of early childhood, it already appears in its original forms. a game with the plot. This is the so-called director's game, in which the objects used by the child are endowed with playful meaning. At the next age stage, it will become one of the sources of role-playing games. For the development of the game, it is important to demonstrate symbolic or substitute actions (the doll is placed on a wooden block instead of a bed).

Features of the self-concept. First ideas about yourself occur in a child by the age of one year. These are ideas about parts of his body, but the baby cannot yet generalize them. With special training by adults, by the age of one and a half years, a child can recognize himself in the mirror, master the identity of the reflection and his appearance. By 3 years - new stage self-identification: with the help of a mirror, the child gets the opportunity to form his idea of ​​himself in the present. The child is interested in all the ways of confirming his Self, spiritualizing individual parts of the body; in play he learns the will over himself. A three-year-old child is interested in everything connected with him, for example, a shadow. Begins to use the pronoun “I”, learns his name and gender. Identification with one's own name is expressed by a special interest in people who share the same name. Gender identification. By the age of 3, a child already knows whether he is a boy or a girl. Children gain such knowledge from observing the behavior of their parents and older brothers and sisters. This allows the child to understand what forms of behavior in accordance with his gender are expected from him by others. A child’s understanding of a particular gender occurs for the first time 2-3 years of life, and the presence of a father is extremely important. For boys, the loss of a father after 4 years of age has little effect on the acquisition of social roles. The consequences of fatherlessness for girls begin to be felt during adolescence, when many of them have difficulty adjusting to female role when communicating with representatives of the other sex. The emergence of self-awareness. By the age of three, a child shows the beginnings of self-awareness and develops a desire for recognition from adults. By positively assessing certain actions, adults make them attractive in the eyes of children and awaken in children the desire to earn praise and recognition.

Affective sphere. Children 1 to 3 years old have a larger range fears, than in infants. This is explained by the fact that with the development of their perception abilities, as well as mental abilities, the scope of life experience expands, from which more and more new information is drawn. Noticing that some objects may disappear from their field of vision, children are afraid that they themselves may disappear. They may be wary of the water pipes in the bathroom and toilet, thinking that the water might carry them away. Masks, wigs, new glasses, a doll without an arm, a slowly deflating balloon - all this can cause fear. Some children may have a fear of animals or moving cars, and many are afraid to sleep alone. Usually, fears disappear over time as the child masters more subtle ways of thinking. Excessive irritability, intolerance, and anger of parents can only aggravate children's fears and contribute to the child's feeling of rejection. Excessive parental care also does not relieve the child of fear. More effective way is to gradually accustom them to communicate with objects that cause fear, as well as a clear example.

From the age of 2 years, the child begins to develop and moral feelings those. emotions begin to be caused not only by what is simply pleasant or unpleasant, but also by what is good or bad, what corresponds to or contradicts the requirements of the people around us. Developing a sense of humor. At the end of the 3rd year of life, children’s understanding of the comic can also be noted - during this period they develop a sense of humor. This happens as a result of the occurrence of an unusual combination of objects and phenomena familiar to the child.

At the end of early childhood, the child may exhibit empathic experiences in relation not only to close people. With the accumulation of life experience, the child's empathic experiences become more stable.

Crisis 3 years - The border between early and preschool childhood is one of the most difficult moments in a child’s life. L.S. Vygotsky describes the characteristics of a 3-year crisis. 1) negativism. The child gives a negative reaction not to the action itself, which he refuses to perform, but to the adult’s demand or request. He does not do something just because a certain adult suggested it to him; the child ignores the demands of one family member or one teacher, but is quite obedient with others. The main motive for action is to do the opposite, that is, exactly the opposite of what he is told. But this is not disobedience. 2) stubbornness. This is the reaction of a child who insists on something not because he really wants it, but because he himself told adults about it and demands that his opinion be taken into account. Stubbornness is not the persistence with which a child achieves what he wants. A stubborn child continues to insist on what he doesn’t want very much, or doesn’t want at all, or has long stopped wanting. 3) depreciation. What was familiar, interesting, and expensive before is devalued. A 3-year-old child may begin to swear (old rules of behavior are devalued), throw away or even break a favorite toy offered at the wrong time (old attachments to things are devalued), etc. 4 ) obstinacy close to negativism and stubbornness, but directed not against a specific adult, but against the norms of behavior (orders) accepted in the family; 5) self-will - i.e. the child wants to do everything himself; but this is not a crisis of the 1st year, where the child strives for physical independence, but strives for independence of intention and plan. 6) protest riot, which manifests itself in frequent quarrels with parents; according to L.S. Vygotsky “the child is at war with others, in constant conflict with them” 7) despotism - dictates his behavior (if there is 1 child in the family), shows despotic power in relation to everything around him. The crisis proceeds as a crisis of social relations and is associated with the formation of the child’s self-awareness. The position “I myself” appears. The child learns the difference between “should” and “want”. If the crisis proceeds sluggishly, this indicates a delay in the development of the affective and volitional sides of the personality. Children begin to develop a will, which E. Erikson called autonomy (independence, independence).

PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF EARLY AGE FROM 1-3 YEARS

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Information grid on the use of diagnostic methods in working with young children from 1-3 years.

Literature on early age diagnostics

1. Shvantsara J. Diagnosis of mental development // Prague, 1978

The section “Early Ages” is devoted to the psychology of children from birth to 3 years. This age is the most sensitive for the formation of fundamental psychological formations. In the first three years of life, the foundations of self-awareness, personality, activity, and the child are formed. It is during this period that the child’s attitude towards the world, towards other people and towards himself is formed; basic forms of communication with adults and peers.

This age is divided into two periods:

first year of life (infancy); early age - from one to 3 years.

The psychology of infancy has been developing most intensively since the second half of the 20th century. This direction is being developed within the framework of the psychoanalytic concept (A. Freud, J. Dunn, Spitz, R. Sears), attachment theory (J. Bowlby, M. Ainsworth), social learning (Lewis, Lipsitt, Bijou, Baer), cognitive psychology ( J. Bruner, T. Bauer, R. Fanz, J. Piaget). In all of these directions, the baby is predominantly viewed as a natural, natural being who is socialized over time. In contrast, in Russian psychology, which is built on the basis of a cultural-historical concept, the infant is considered as a maximally social being living in a unique social developmental situation.

The bond and relationship of a child with his mother is the main subject of infancy psychology. In Russian psychology, the most famous researchers of infancy are.

At an early age, active mastery of active speech (its grammatical, lexical and other aspects) occurs, which becomes the most important means of communication. Within the framework of objective activity, which is leading at a given age, all basic mental processes and new types of activity develop: procedural play, purposefulness, independence, Creative skills etc. The mental development of young children has been most successfully studied in the works of, etc.

Head of the "Early Age" section:
- Professor, Doctor of Psychology, Head of the Laboratory of Mental Development of Preschool Children of the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education, Head. Early childhood laboratory of Moscow State University of Psychology and Education.

Contacts: Tel.: (4
E-mail: *****@***ru

PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF EARLY AGES

(from 1 to 3 years)

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

Communication and cooperation between a child and an adult

At an early age, the content of the joint activity of a child and an adult becomes mastering cultural ways of using objects . An adult becomes for a child not only a source of attention and goodwill, not only a “supplier” of the objects themselves, but also a model of human actions with objects. Such cooperation is no longer limited to direct assistance or demonstration of objects. Now the participation of an adult is necessary, simultaneous practical activity with him, doing the same thing. In the course of such cooperation, the child simultaneously receives the attention of an adult, his participation in the child’s actions and, most importantly, new, adequate ways of acting with objects. The adult now not only gives objects to the child, but also gives them along with the object. mode of action with him. In joint activities with a child, an adult performs several functions at once:

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

Early age is the period of the most intensive assimilation of ways of acting with objects. By the end of this period, thanks to cooperation with an adult, the child basically knows how to use household objects and play with toys.

Object activity and its role in the development of the baby

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

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

Since actions with objects are aimed mainly at their properties such as shape and size , these are the signs that are most important for a child. Color is not particularly important for object recognition early in early childhood. The baby recognizes colored and uncolored images in exactly the same way, as well as images painted in the most unusual colors (for example, a green cat remains a cat). He focuses primarily on the form, on the general outline of the images. This does not mean that the child does not distinguish colors. However, color has not yet become a feature that characterizes an object and does not determine its recognition.

Of particular importance are the actions that are called correlative. These are actions with two or more objects in which it is necessary to take into account and correlate the properties of different objects - their shape, size, hardness, location, etc. without trying to arrange them in a certain order. Correlating actions require taking into account the size, shape, and location of various objects. It is characteristic that most toys intended for young children (pyramids, simple cubes, inserts, nesting dolls) involve correlative actions. When a child tries to carry out such an action, he selects and connects objects or their parts in accordance with their shape or size. So, to fold a pyramid, you need to hit the hole in the rings with a stick and take into account the ratio of the rings in size. When assembling a nesting doll, you need to select halves of the same size and perform actions in a certain order - first assemble the smallest one, and then put it into the larger one.

Initially, the baby can perform these actions only through practical tests, because he does not yet know how to visually compare the size and shape of objects. For example, when placing the lower half of a nesting doll on the upper one, he discovers that it does not fit and begins to try another. Sometimes he tries to achieve a result by force - to squeeze in inappropriate parts, but soon becomes convinced of the inconsistency of these attempts and proceeds to try on and try out different parts until he finds the right part.

From external indicative actions the baby moves to visual correlation properties of objects. This ability is manifested in the fact that the child selects the necessary details by eye and performs the correct action immediately, without preliminary practical tests. He can, for example, select rings or cups of the same or different sizes.

Throughout early childhood, perception is closely related to objective actions. A child can quite accurately determine the shape, size or color of an object, if this is necessary to perform a necessary and accessible action. In other cases, the perception may be quite vague and inaccurate.

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

Already by the beginning of early childhood, the child has individual actions that can be considered manifestations of thinking. These are the actions in which the child discovers connection between individual objects or phenomena - for example, he pulls up the string to bring the toy closer to him. But in the process of mastering correlating actions, the child begins to focus not just on individual things, but on connection between objects , which further contributes to solving practical problems. The transition from using ready-made connections shown to adults to establishing them independently is an important step in the development of thinking.

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

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

Speech acquisition

One of the main events in the development of a young child is speech acquisition .

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

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

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

All these achievements become possible due to the fact that the child masters grammatical form of speech , which allows you to connect individual words with each other, regardless of the actual position of the objects they denote.

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

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

Birth of the game

The actions of a small child with objects are not yet a game. The separation of objective-practical and play activities occurs only at the end of early childhood. At first, the child plays exclusively with realistic toys and reproduces familiar actions with them (combing the doll, putting it to bed, feeding it, rolling it in a stroller, etc.) At about 3 years old, thanks to the development of objective actions and speech, children appear in play game substitutions, when a new name for familiar objects determines the way they are used in games (a stick becomes a spoon or a comb or a thermometer, etc.). However, the formation of game substitutions does not occur immediately and not on its own. They require special introduction to the game, which is only possible in joint activities with those who already master the game and can construct an imaginary situation. Such communion gives rise to a new activity - story game , which becomes the leader in preschool age.

Symbolic play substitutions that arise at the end of early childhood open up enormous scope for the child’s imagination and naturally free him from the pressure of the current situation. Independent play images invented by the child are the first manifestations of childhood imagination.

The emergence of a need to communicate with peers

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

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

Communication among young children can be called emotional-practical interaction . The main characteristics of such interaction are: spontaneity, lack of substantive content; looseness, emotional richness, non-standard communication means, mirror reflection of the partner’s actions and movements. Children demonstrate and reproduce emotionally charged play actions in front of each other. They run, squeal, take bizarre poses, make unexpected sound combinations, etc. The commonality of actions and emotional expressions gives them self-confidence and brings vivid emotional experiences. Apparently, such interaction gives the child a feeling of his similarity with another, equal being, which causes intense joy. Receiving feedback and support from a peer in his games and undertakings, the child realizes his originality and uniqueness , which stimulates the most unpredictable initiative of the baby.

The development of the need to communicate with a peer goes through a number of stages. At first, children show attention and interest in each other; by the end of the second year of life, there is a desire to attract the attention of a peer and demonstrate to him your success; in the third year of life, children become sensitive to the attitude of their peers. The transition of children to subjective, actually communicative interaction becomes possible to a decisive extent thanks to an adult. It is the adult who helps the child identify a peer and see in him the same being as himself. The most effective way to do this is to organize subject interaction children, when an adult attracts children's attention to each other, emphasizes their commonality, their attractiveness, etc. The interest in toys characteristic of children of this age prevents the child from “catching” a peer. The toy seems to cover the human qualities of another child. A child can open them only with the help of an adult.

Crisis of 3 years

Serious successes of a child in objective activities, in speech development, in play and in other areas of his life, achieved during early childhood, qualitatively change his entire behavior. By the end of early childhood, the tendency towards independence, the desire to act independently of adults and without them, is rapidly growing. Towards the end of early childhood this finds expression in the words “I myself”, which are evidence crisis of 3 years.

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

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

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

The new vision of oneself consists in the fact that the child for the first time discovers the material embodiment of his Self, and his own specific capabilities and achievements can serve as its measure. The objective world becomes for the child not only the world of practical action and cognition, but the sphere where he tests his capabilities, realizes and asserts himself. Therefore, each result of activity also becomes a statement of one’s Self, which should be assessed not in general, but through its specific, material embodiment, that is, through its achievements in objective activity. The main source of such assessment is the adult. Therefore, the baby begins to perceive the adult’s attitude with particular predilection.

A new vision of the “I” through the prism of one’s achievements lays the foundation for the rapid development of children’s self-awareness. The child’s self, becoming objectified as a result of activity, appears before him as an object that does not coincide with him. This means that the child is already capable of carrying out elementary reflection, which does not unfold on an internal, ideal plane, but has an externally deployed character of assessing his achievement.

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

Information grid on the use of diagnostic methods in working with primary preschool age 3-4 years.

Literature:

This manual is devoted to the extremely important, but little-studied problem of a child’s interpersonal relationships with other children.

Relationships with other people form the basic fabric of human life. According to the words, a person’s heart is all woven from his relationships with other people; the main content of the mental, inner life person. It is these relationships that give rise to the most strong feelings and actions. The attitude towards another is the center of the spiritual and moral development of the individual and largely determines the moral value of a person.

Relationships with other people begin and develop most intensively in childhood. The experience of these first relationships is the foundation for the further development of the child’s personality and largely determines the characteristics of a person’s self-awareness, his attitude to the world, his behavior and well-being among people.

The topic of the origin and formation of interpersonal relationships is extremely relevant, since many negative and destructive phenomena among young people observed recently (cruelty, increased aggressiveness, alienation, etc.) have their origins in early and preschool childhood. This prompts us to consider the development of children’s relationships with each other in the early stages of ontogenesis in order to understand their age-related patterns and the psychological nature of the deformations that arise along this path.

The purpose of this manual is to provide theoretical and practical guidelines for teachers and psychologists for working with preschoolers in this complex area, which is largely associated with the ambiguity of interpretations of the concept of “interpersonal relationships.”

Without pretending to comprehensively cover these interpretations, we will try to consider the main approaches associated with the study of children's relationships in preschool age.

DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO UNDERSTANDING INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

The most common approach to understanding the interpersonal relationships of preschoolers is sociometric. Interpersonal relationships are considered as selective preferences of children in a peer group. Numerous studies (B. S. Mukhina et al.) have shown that during preschool age (from 3 to 7 years), the structure of the children's group rapidly increases - some children become increasingly preferred by the majority in the group, others increasingly occupy the position of outcasts. The content and rationale for the choices children make vary from external qualities to personal characteristics. It was also found that the emotional well-being of children and their general attitude towards kindergarten largely depend on the nature of the child’s relationships with peers.

The main focus of these studies was the group of children, not the individual child. Interpersonal relationships were considered and assessed mainly quantitatively (by the number of choices, their stability and validity). The peer acted as a subject of emotional, conscious or business evaluation (). The subjective image of another person, the child’s ideas about a peer, and the qualitative characteristics of other people remained outside the scope of these studies.

This gap was partially filled in sociocognitive research, where interpersonal relationships were interpreted as understanding the qualities of other people and the ability to interpret and resolve conflict situations. In studies carried out on preschool children (V.M. Senchenko et al.), age-related characteristics of preschoolers’ perception of other people, understanding of a person’s emotional state, ways of solving problem situations, etc. were clarified. The main subject of these studies was perception, understanding and the child’s knowledge of other people and the relationships between them, which is reflected in the terms “social intelligence” or “social cognition.” The attitude towards the other acquired a clear cognitivist orientation: the other person was considered as an object of knowledge. It is characteristic that these studies were conducted in laboratory conditions outside the real context of children's communication and relationships. What was analyzed was primarily the child’s perception of images of other people or conflict situations, rather than a real, practical attitude towards them.

A significant number of experimental studies have been devoted to real contacts between children and their influence on the development of children's relationships. Among these studies, two main theoretical approaches can be distinguished:

The concept of activity-based mediation of interpersonal relationships ();

The concept of the genesis of communication, where the relationships of children were considered as a product of communication activity ().

In the theory of activity mediation, the main subject of consideration is the group, the collective. Joint activity is a system-forming feature of the team. The group realizes its goal through a specific object of activity and thereby changes itself, its structure and the system of interpersonal relations. The nature and direction of these changes depend on the content of the activity and the values ​​adopted by the group. From the point of view of this approach, joint activity determines interpersonal relationships, since it gives rise to them, influences their content and mediates the child’s entry into the community. It is in joint activity and communication that interpersonal relationships are realized and transformed.

It should be emphasized here that the study of children’s interpersonal relationships in most studies (especially foreign ones) comes down to studying the characteristics of their communication and interaction. The concepts of “communication” and “relationship”, as a rule, are not separated, and the terms themselves are used synonymously. It seems to us that these concepts should be distinguished.

COMMUNICATION AND ATTITUDE

In the concept, communication acts as a special communicative activity aimed at forming relationships. Other authors understand the relationship between these concepts in a similar way (-Slavskaya, YaL. Kolominsky). At the same time, relationships are not only the result of communication, but also its initial prerequisite, a stimulus that causes one or another type of interaction. Relationships are not only formed, but also realized and manifested in the interaction of people. At the same time, the attitude towards another, unlike communication, does not always have external manifestations. Attitude can also manifest itself in the absence of communicative acts; it can also be felt towards an absent or even fictitious, ideal character; it can also exist at the level of consciousness or inner mental life (in the form of experiences, ideas, images, etc.). If communication is carried out in one form or another of interaction with the help of some external means, then attitude is an aspect of internal, mental life, it is a characteristic of consciousness that does not imply fixed means of expression. But in real life, the attitude towards another person is manifested primarily in actions aimed at him, including in communication. Thus, relationships can be considered as the internal psychological basis of communication and interaction between people.

Research carried out under the leadership of M.I. Lisina showed that by about 4 years a peer becomes a more preferred communication partner than an adult. Communication with a peer is distinguished by a number of specific features, including the richness and variety of communicative actions, extreme emotional intensity, non-standard and unregulated communicative acts. At the same time, there is insensitivity to peer influences and a predominance of proactive actions over reactive ones.

The development of communication with peers in preschool age goes through a number of stages. In the first of them (2-4 years), a peer is a partner in emotional and practical interaction, which is based on imitation and emotional infection of the child. The main communicative need is the need for peer participation, which is expressed in parallel (simultaneous and identical) actions of children. At the second stage (4-6 years) there is a need for situational business cooperation with a peer. Cooperation, in contrast to complicity, involves the distribution of game roles and functions, and therefore taking into account the actions and influences of the partner. The content of communication becomes joint (mainly play) activity. At this same stage, another and largely opposite need for respect and recognition from a peer arises. At the third stage (at 6-7 years old), communication with a peer acquires the features of a non-situational nature - the content of communication is distracted from the visual situation, stable selective preferences between children begin to develop.

As the works of RA Smirnova and those carried out in line with this direction have shown, children’s selective attachments and preferences arise on the basis of communication. Children prefer those peers who adequately satisfy their communication needs. Moreover, the main one remains the need for friendly attention and respect from a peer.

Thus, in modern psychology there are various approaches to understanding interpersonal relationships, each of which has its own subject of study:

Sociometric (children's selective preferences);

Sociocognitive (cognition and assessment of others and solving social problems);

Activity (relationships as a result of communication and joint activities of children).

The variety of interpretations does not allow us to more or less clearly define the subject of education for interpersonal relationships. This definition is important not only for clarity scientific analysis, but also for the practice of raising children. In order to identify the peculiarities of the development of children's relationships and try to build a strategy for their upbringing, it is necessary to understand how they are expressed and what psychological reality is behind them. Without this, it remains unclear what exactly needs to be identified and educated: the child’s social status in the group; ability to analyze social characteristics; desire and ability to collaborate; need to communicate with a peer? Undoubtedly, all these points are important and require special attention from both researchers and educators. At the same time, the practice of education requires the identification of some central formation, which is of unconditional value and determines the specificity of interpersonal relationships in contrast to other forms of mental life (activity, cognition, emotional preferences, etc.) From our point of view, the qualitative uniqueness of this reality lies in the inextricable connection of a person’s relationship with others and with himself.

CONNECTION OF INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS AND SELF-AWARENESS

In a person’s relationship to other people, his “I” always manifests itself and declares itself. It cannot only be cognitive; it always reflects the personality characteristics of the person himself. In relation to another, the main motives and life meanings of a person, his expectations and ideas, his perception of himself and his attitude towards himself are always expressed. That is why interpersonal relationships (especially with close people) are almost always emotionally intense and bring the most vivid experiences (both positive and negative).

and her students outlined a new approach to analyzing self-image. According to this approach, human self-awareness includes two levels - the core and the periphery, or the subjective and object components. The central nuclear formation contains the direct experience of oneself as a subject, as a person; the personal component of self-consciousness originates in it, which provides a person with the experience of constancy, identity of oneself, a holistic sense of oneself as the source of one’s will, one’s activity. In contrast, the periphery includes the subject’s private, specific ideas about himself, his abilities, capabilities and characteristics. The periphery of the self-image consists of a set of specific and finite qualities that belong to a person and form the object (or subject) component of self-awareness.

The same subject-object content also has a relationship with another person. On the one hand, you can treat another as a unique subject who has absolute value and cannot be reduced to his specific actions and qualities, and on the other hand, you can perceive and evaluate his external behavioral characteristics (the presence of objects in his activities, his words and actions etc.).

Thus, human relationships are based on two contradictory principles - objective (subject) and subjective (personal). In the first type of relationship, the other person is perceived as a circumstance in a person's life; he is the subject of comparison with himself or use to his advantage. In the personal type of relationship, the other is fundamentally irreducible to any finite, definite characteristics; his Self is unique, incomparable (has no similarity) and priceless (has absolute value); he can only be a subject of communication and circulation. A personal relationship generates an internal connection with others and various forms of involvement (empathy, sympathy, assistance). The objective principle sets the boundaries of one’s own self and emphasizes its difference from others and isolation, which gives rise to competition, competitiveness, and defense of one’s advantages.

In real human relationships, these two principles cannot exist in their pure form and constantly “flow” into one another. It is obvious that a person cannot live without comparing himself with others and using others, but at the same time, human relationships cannot be reduced only to competition and mutual use. The main problem human relations is constituted by this duality of a person’s position among other people, in which a person is merged with others and internally attached to them and at the same time constantly evaluates them, compares them with himself and uses them in his own interests. The development of interpersonal relationships in preschool age is a complex interweaving of these two principles in the child’s relationship to himself and to others.

In addition to age-related characteristics, already in preschool age there are very significant individual variations in attitudes towards peers. This is exactly the area where the child’s personality manifests itself most clearly. Relationships with others are not always easy and harmonious. Already in the group kindergarten There are many conflicts between children that are the result of a distorted way of developing interpersonal relationships. We believe that the psychological basis individual options relationship to a peer is different expression and different content of the objective and personal principles. As a rule, problems and conflicts between children that give rise to difficult and acute experiences (resentment, hostility, envy, anger, fear) arise in cases where the objective, objective principle dominates, i.e. when the other child is perceived exclusively as a competitor , which must be surpassed as a condition of personal well-being or as a source of proper treatment. These expectations are never met, which gives rise to difficult, destructive feelings for the individual. Such childhood experiences can become a source of serious interpersonal and intrapersonal problems for an adult. Recognizing these dangerous tendencies in a timely manner and helping the child overcome them is the most important task of the educator, teacher and psychologist. We hope that this book will help you in solving this complex and important problem.

The manual consists of three parts. The first part presents a variety of techniques that can be used to identify the characteristics of children’s attitudes towards their peers. The purpose of such diagnostics is the timely detection of problematic, conflict forms in relation to other children.

The second part of the manual is specifically devoted to the psychological description of children with problems in relationships with peers. It presents psychological portraits of aggressive, touchy, shy, demonstrative children, as well as children raised without parents. We believe that these portraits will help to correctly recognize and qualify a child’s difficulties and understand the psychological nature of his problems.

The third part contains the author’s system of specific games and activities for preschoolers, aimed at correcting interpersonal relationships in the kindergarten group. This correctional program has been repeatedly tested in Moscow kindergartens and has shown its effectiveness.

Introduction

PART 1. Diagnosis of interpersonal relationships in preschool children

Methods that reveal an objective picture of interpersonal relationships

Sociometry

Observation method

Method of problem situations

Methods that identify subjective aspects of attitudes towards others

The child’s orientation in social reality and his social intelligence

Peculiarities of peer perception and child self-awareness

Questions and tasks

PART 2. Problematic forms of interpersonal relationships in preschoolers

Aggressive children

Manifestation of aggressiveness in a group of preschoolers

Individual options for children's aggressiveness

Touchy children

The phenomenon of children's resentment and criteria for identifying touchy children

Personality characteristics of touchy children

Shy children

Criteria for identifying shy children

Personality characteristics of shy children

Demonstrative children

Peculiarities of behavior of demonstrative children

Personal characteristics and the nature of the attitude towards peers of demonstrative children

Children without family

Psychological characteristics of children raised without parents

Peculiarities of behavior of children from an orphanage

Features of children with problematic forms of relationships with peers

Questions and tasks

PART 3. A system of games aimed at developing a friendly attitude among preschoolers

Psychological and pedagogical principles of education of interpersonal relationships
(stages of the development program)

1st stage. Communication without words

2nd stage. Attention to others

3rd stage. Consistency of action

4th stage. General experiences

5th stage. Mutual assistance in the game

6th stage. Kind words and wishes

7th stage. Help in joint activities

Questions and tasks

The manual is devoted to the psychological and pedagogical aspects of interpersonal relationships among preschool children. It is divided into the following sections: an introduction and 3 chapters; after each of the 3 parts, questions and assignments are written so that the reader can see if he understood everything; at the end of the manual there is an appendix and a list of recommended literature.

The introduction talks about different approaches to an understanding of interpersonal relationships, what communication and attitude are, the connection between interpersonal relationships and self-awareness is revealed.

The first part of the manual, called “Diagnostics of Interpersonal Relationships in Preschool Children,” presents various techniques that can be used to identify the characteristics of children’s relationships with their peers. This chapter covers methods that reveal an objective picture of interpersonal relationships: sociometry (this paragraph describes such techniques as “ship captain”, “two houses”, “verbal election method”), observation method, method of problem situations; And methods that reveal subjective aspects of attitudes towards others: the child’s orientation in social reality and his social intelligence (which describes the projective “Pictures” technique, the “Comprehension” subtest from the Wechsler test, the Rene Gilles technique, the Rosenzweig test, the children's apperception test - SAT). This chapter also provides techniques for studying Peculiarities of peer perception and child self-awareness: “ladder”, “evaluate your qualities”, drawing “Me and my friend in kindergarten”, “story about a friend” technique. The first part of the manual ends with methodological recommendations for diagnosing interpersonal relationships.

The second part of the manual is called “Problematic forms of interpersonal relationships in preschoolers.” It talks about the 3 stages of development of children's interpersonal relationships in preschool age. The authors specifically devoted this chapter to a psychological description of children with problems in relationships with peers. Here are psychological portraits of aggressive, touchy, shy, demonstrative children, as well as children raised without parents. These portraits will help to correctly recognize and qualify a child’s difficulties and understand the psychological nature of his problems.

The third part is called “A system of games aimed at developing a friendly attitude among preschoolers.” It contains the author's system of specific games and activities for preschoolers, aimed at correcting interpersonal relationships in the kindergarten group. This correctional program has been repeatedly tested in Moscow kindergartens and has shown its effectiveness.

The appendix provides material for some of the techniques that were described in this book.

In general, this manual is intended for practical psychologists, but it may also be of interest to kindergarten teachers, methodologists, parents and all adults dealing with preschool children.

PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AGE PERIOD 4-5 YEARS