The study of the development of elements of labor activity. Uruntaeva G.A., Child psychology Download uruntaeva g preschool psychology

SECONDARY PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION?. ?. ????????? ??????? ?????????? ??????? ??????? ????????????? ??????????? ?????????? ????????? ? ??????? ??????? ??? ????????? ??????????????? ?????????? ??????? ????????????????? ??????????? 6? ???????, ?????????????? ? ??????????? Moscow 2006 1 UDC 3159.9(075.32) LBC 88.8ya723 U73 Reviewer: Doctor of Psychology, Professor AI Podolsky; doctor of psychological sciences, professor OA Karabanova U73 Uruntaeva GA Child psychology: a textbook for students. avg. textbook institutions / G. A. Uruntaeva. - 6th ed., revised. and additional - M.: Publishing Center "Academy", 2006. - 368 p. ISBN 5-7695-2680-7 The textbook (previous editions were published under the title "Preschool Psychology") is written on the basis of the basic methodological and theoretical-psychological provisions adopted in Russian psychology. It gives a complete picture of psychology as a science and its practical application. The presentation of the theory is accompanied by concrete examples. The textbook has a pronounced practical orientation: the author shows how to apply the acquired knowledge in the process of teaching and raising a child. For students of secondary pedagogical educational institutions. It can also be useful for students of pedagogical institutes and kindergarten teachers. UDC 3159.9(075.32) LBC 88.8-723 The original layout of this publication is the property of the Academy Publishing Center, and its reproduction in any way without the consent of the copyright holder is prohibited. ISBN 5-7695-2680-7 2 Uruntaeva G.A., 1996 Uruntaeva G.A. ., with changes, 2006 Educational and publishing center "Academy", 2006 Design. Publishing Center "Academy", 2006 CONTENTS Foreword........................................................... ................................................. ...... 3 SECTION I GENERAL QUESTIONS OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY CHAPTER 1. The subject of child psychology............................ ......................... 5 § 1. From the history of child psychology .................. ......................................... 5 § 2. The main laws of mental development ...................... 16 § 3. Driving forces and conditions of mental development .............................. .............. 18 § 4. Age periodization of mental development .............................. 24 Chapter 2. Principles and methods of child psychology .................................................. 29 § 1. Principles of studying the child's psyche .............................................. ... 29 § 2. Methods of child psychology .. ................................................. ............ 31 § 3. How can an educator study the mental characteristics of a child ........... 39 Chapter 3. General characteristics of the mental development of a child from birth to seven years................................................. .......... 42 § § § § 1. Features of mental development at an early age .................. 42 2. Mental development of a child in the first year of life ......................................... 44 3. Mental development of a child from one to three years of age .............. .. 53 4. Mental development of a child from three to seven years old .............................. 60 SECTION II DEVELOPMENT OF ACTIVITY PRESCHOOL CHAPTER 4. Development of household activities .............................................. ......... 67 § 1. Development of household activities in infancy .................................. 67 § 2. The development of household activities in early childhood .............................. 70 § 3. The development of household activities in preschool age. .................. 72 Ch apter 5. Development of labor activity .............................. ......................... 78 § 1. The development of the prerequisites for work activity in early childhood ..... 78 § 2. The development of work activity in preschool age .................. 80 Chapter 6. Development of play activities .................. .............................................. 90 § 1. The development of play in infancy and early childhood .............. .................... 90 § 2. Characteristics of the role-playing game in preschool age ..... 95 364 § 3. Characteristics of other types of play activities of the preschooler .. ................................................. ................................... 110 § 4. The role of toys in the mental development of the child ..... ......................................... 115 Ch apter 7. Development of productive activities .............................. ............. 120 § 1. The development of visual activity at preschool age .... 120 § 2. The development of constructive activity at preschool age ..... 129 Chapter 8. Development of communication of preschoolers with adults and peers ............................................. .............................. 134 § 1. The development of communication between preschoolers and adults ........... .............. 134 § 2. The attitude of preschoolers to the personality of the educator .............................. 141 § 3. The development of communication between preschoolers and peers .......... 144 SECTION III DEVELOPMENT OF COGNITIVE PROCESSES IN A PRESCHOOL CHILD CHAPTER a 9. Development of attention .......... ................................................... 153 § 1. Functions and types of attention .............................................. .................... 153 § 2. Development of attention in infancy .............................. .............................. 155 § 3. Development of attention in early childhood .............. ................................... 156 § 4. The development of attention in preschool age...... ............................... 157 § 5. Guiding the development of attention .................. ......................................... 159 Chap. 10. Development speech .................................................................. .................................. 162 § 1. The development of speech in infancy .............................. ......................................... 162 § 2. The development of speech in early childhood ................................................. ...... 165 § 3. The development of speech in preschool age.................................. .............................. 169 Ch apter 11. Sensory development .................................. .................................................. 181 § 1. Sensory development in infancy ..... ............................................... 181 § 2. Touch development in early childhood .............................................................. 185 § 3. Sensory development in preschool age.................................................. 187 Chap. a 12. Development of memory .............................................. ......................... 197 § 1. The development of memory in infancy .................. ...................................... 197 § 2. Development of memory in early childhood... ................................................. 199 § 3. Development of memory at preschool age............................................... 200 § 4. Management of the development of memory .................................................. .............. 204 Ch apter 13. Developing the Imagination .......................... .................................. 208 § 1. The development of imagination in early childhood ....... ................................... 208 § 2. The development of imagination in preschool age...... ......................... 211 § 3. Guiding the development of the imagination .................. .............................. 222 Ch apter 14. Development of thinking .......... ................................................. ... 226 § 1. Development of thinking in infancy .............................................. .......... 226 § 2. Development of thinking in early childhood .............................. ............... 229 365 § 3. Development of thinking at preschool age .............................. .... ...... 233 § 4. Guiding the development of thinking .............................. ............... 244 SECTION IV DEVELOPMENT OF THE PERSONALITY OF A PRESCHOOL CHILD CHAPTER 15. Development of self-awareness .............. .................................................. 248 § 1. Development of self-consciousness in infancy .................................................. 248 § 2. Development self-awareness in early childhood .............................................. 252 § 3. Development self-awareness in preschool age............................... 256 § 4. Guidelines for the development of self-awareness .......... ...................................... 263 Ch apter 16. Development of the Will... ................................................. .................................. 268 § 1. Development of volitional action in preschool age.................................. .... 268 § 2. Guiding the development of the will .............................................. ....................................... 279 Ch apter 17. Emotional Development .................................. ....................................... 283 § 1. Emotional development in infancy... ...................................... 283 § 2. Emotional development in early childhood... ................................... 287 § 3. Emotional development in preschool age...... .................................. 292 § 4. Emotional distress of children and its causes .............................. 298 Chap. 18. Moral development .................................................. ................... 302 § 1. Moral development in infancy .............................. .................................. 302 § 2. Moral development in early childhood.................................. .................................. 304 § 3. Moral development in preschool age.................................. .......... 307 Ch apter 19. Development of temperament .................................. .............................. 320 § 1. Features of the properties of temperament in children of the first seven years of life ........ ................................................. ................................................ 320 § 2. Characteristics of children with different types temperament ................ 322 § 3. Accounting for the properties of temperament in educational work with preschoolers .................................. ............................................... 324 H l a b a 20. Development of abilities .......................................... ............... 329 § 1. Development of the abilities of a preschooler .............................. ................... 329 § 2. Conditions for the development of abilities in preschool age .................. 336 Chap. a 21. Psychological readiness for schooling .......... 340 § 1. The social situation of development during the transition from preschool to primary school age ........... ............... 340 § 2. Components of psychological readiness for learning at school ..... 341 Literature .................. ................................................. .............................. 348 Dictionary of psychological terms .................. ................................................. 350 Personalities ........ ................................................. ...................................... 357 366 FOREWORD Preschool childhood is the first period of a child's mental development and therefore the most responsible. At this time, the foundations of all mental properties and qualities of the individual, cognitive processes and activities are laid. It is at this age that the teacher is in the closest relationship with the child, takes the most active part in his development. This means that, along with pedagogy and private methods, the course of child psychology is one of the main courses in the training of preschool teachers. This textbook is intended for students of pedagogical schools, colleges and university students. Its purpose is to reveal the basic laws of mental development, to show the main acquisitions of the child from birth to school entry. The textbook is based on the approach that has developed in domestic child psychology to the problem of mental development as to the assimilation of socio-historical experience. When selecting the material, we relied on the fundamental provisions of Russian psychology developed by L. S. Vygotsky, A. N. Leontiev, A. V. Zaporozhets, D. B. Elkonin, S. L. Rubinshtein, L. A. Venger, L. I. Bozhovich, A. A. Lyublinskaya, M. I. Lisina and others, since the system of preschool education was built and is being built on these provisions. The textbook consists of four sections. Section I discusses the subject of child psychology, the principles and methods of the psychological study of the child. Sections II - IV show transformations in the main areas of the preschooler's psyche: activity, cognitive processes and personality. We did not confine ourselves to considering the mental development of a child only at the age of three to seven years. In each section, an important place is occupied by the periods of infancy and early childhood. This is due to the following circumstances. Firstly, the educator needs to have an idea about the development of the child at earlier age stages in order to understand the logic, patterns of the formation of mental processes, properties and qualities of the individual in the future. Secondly, without taking into account the mental characteristics inherent in the infant and preschooler, the educator 3 will not be able to design their subsequent mental development. Thirdly, the material concerning the formation of the child's psyche in infancy and early age is necessary for those specialist educators who will work in nursery groups of kindergartens and orphanages. Selecting and analyzing the material, we proceeded from its value and significance for pedagogical activity. Therefore, in each area of ​​mental development, we have identified the main indicators that can be used in setting the goals of diagnostics, for monitoring its progress, and in formulating the tasks of education. In order to connect psychological knowledge with pedagogical practice, we examined some principles for managing one or another mental process or function, for example, will, self-awareness, memory, attention, imagination, etc. The presentation of the material in the textbook is accompanied by examples that describe various situations from the life of children . They are selected from our research. The examples not only illustrate theoretical positions, but also make up for the lack of psychological experience of students and students, give them a reason for further reflection and comparison with the facts obtained in their own activities. In addition, examples clarify, reveal and fill scientific concepts with meaning. The textbook introduces readers to the most prominent domestic psychologists, their achievements and the main provisions of the research. 4 SECTION I GENERAL QUESTIONS OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY Chapter 1 SUBJECT OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY § 1. From the history of child psychology Child psychology, along with other sciences (pedagogy, physiology, pediatrics, etc.), studies the child, but has its own special subject, which is the development of the psyche during childhood, that is, the first seven years of life. The specificity of the study of the child in psychology lies in the fact that it is not so much mental processes and qualities that are studied in themselves, but the laws of their emergence and formation. Child psychology shows the mechanisms of transition from one age stage to another, the distinguishing features of each period and their psychological content. Mental development cannot be viewed as a decrease or increase in any indicators, as a simple repetition of what was before. Mental development involves the emergence of new qualities and functions and, at the same time, a change in existing forms of the psyche. That is, mental development acts as a process of not only quantitative, but above all qualitative changes that are interconnected in the sphere of activity, personality and cognition. Mental development implies not only growth, but also transformations, in which quantitative complications turn into qualitative ones. And the new quality, in turn, creates the basis for further quantitative changes. Thus, the continuity of the development of the psyche is interrupted when qualitatively new acquisitions appear in it and it makes a sharp leap. Consequently, the development of the psyche is not a simple repetition of the past, but a very complex, often zigzag process that proceeds along an ascending spiral, like a progressive transition from one step to another, qualitatively different and unique. Psychology, before becoming an independent science, developed within philosophy for a long time. Therefore, psychology, including children's psychology, has close ties with philosophy, because understanding the essence of a person, his consciousness, personality, activity, mental development is based on certain philosophical theories. Child psychology is interconnected with other branches of psychological science. Since the categories of general psychology are used in all branches of psychology, general psychology is their fundamental basis. In general psychology, such phenomena as mental processes, properties and states were singled out, their basic patterns were studied. In turn, child psychology, using the genetic method of research, began to trace their origin. By revealing the laws of development of mental processes and properties, child psychology helps to understand their dynamics, structure, and content. Developmental psychology, or genetic psychology, has a common subject with child psychology. But if the first studies the general patterns of a person's mental development throughout his life - from birth to death, then the children's - only at preschool age. She finds out what foundation is laid in childhood and what significance it has for further development. Personality psychology is interested in such categories as self-awareness, self-esteem, motivation, worldview, etc., and children's psychology is interested in how they develop and manifest themselves throughout preschool childhood. Child psychology, based on the laws of social psychology, traces how the development of a preschooler, his activities, behavior depend on the characteristics of the social groups in which he is included (family, peers, group kindergarten and so on.). For child and educational psychology, the problem of the connection between mental development and upbringing and education is fundamental. The data of child psychology help to substantiate and choose the appropriate methods of raising and educating children. Pedagogical psychology finds out how various forms and methods of education influence the mental development of a preschooler. Psychodiagnostics, relying on indicators of the mental development of children, develops methods for monitoring its progress, identifying and measuring the individual psychological characteristics of the child's personality. Anatomy, physiology, hygiene help to understand the biological essence of a person, the role of the maturation of the cerebral cortex, the development of the nervous system and sensory organs in mental development, the relationship between mental and physical development, especially close at an early and preschool age. Pedagogy and preschool pedagogy, in particular, rely on child psychology. Pedagogy must know the patterns of personality development and children's activities in order to promote their development and change, so all pedagogical problems must receive a psychological justification. Knowledge of the age characteristics of preschool children and the laws of mental development is necessary for the practice of education and training. Understanding the feelings, desires, interests of the child, identifying the problems that arise in his development, deviations or talents in time, the educator establishes close personal contacts with the child, chooses adequate methods of interaction, education and training. The prerequisites for the design of child psychology in an independent branch of science in the middle of the XIX century. requests for pedagogical practice, awareness of the need to build a scientific theory of education, as well as the development of the idea of ​​development in philosophy and biology, the emergence of experimental psychology and related objective research methods were made. All the major teachers of the past (J. A. Comenius, J. Locke, J. J. Rousseau, I. G. Pestalozzi, and others) spoke of the need to build upbringing and education based on knowledge of the age and individual characteristics of the child. They not only showed interest in child psychology, but were experts in it themselves. G. Hegel extended to psychology the principle of development developed by him in philosophy and the dialectical method and showed that mental development is subject to certain laws. The study of this process with the help of the dialectical method required the elucidation of the qualitative differences between the child's psyche and the adult's psyche, as well as the qualitative originality of the child's psyche at different age stages. The evolutionary theory of Ch. Darwin (1859) contributed to the formation of child psychology as a separate field of science, the wide penetration of the genetic principle and objective research methods into it. Ch. Darwin interpreted the adaptability of an organism to nature, relying on the fact of the variability of species established by him, natural selection proceeding in the conditions of the struggle of living beings for existence on the basis of variability and heredity. C. Darwin considered mental phenomena as a tool for adapting the body to the environment. Such a view of the psyche and mental processes involved the study of the facts of the adaptive behavior of animals and humans, accessible to external objective observation. Following the discovery by Charles Darwin of the laws of evolution in the organic world, the task arose to study the driving forces of mental development, the role of heredity and the environment in this process, the features of the child's interaction with the environment, and adaptation to it. Charles Darwin himself was interested in child psychology. He observed the behavior of his son from birth to three years, and then published data on the development of motor skills, sensory, speech, thinking, emotions, moral behavior (1877). Earlier, an attempt at a detailed and consistent description of the mental development of the child was made by the German philosopher T. Tiedemann in 1787. He recorded the manifestations of the child from birth to three years in the motor, sensory and emotional spheres, insisting that education be based on accurate knowledge of development emotional characteristics and the time of their manifestation. We emphasize: for the first time, psychologists saw in the psyche of an infant who does not speak and therefore is not able to talk about his experiences, a special object and made the development of its components the subject of study, choosing an adequate method - objective, external observation. The German physiologist and psychologist W. Preyer and his book The Soul of a Child (1882) had a huge impact on the development of child psychology. A supporter of the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin, V. Preyer advocated the dissemination of ideas of development in child psychology, for the introduction of objective research methods, thereby defending the natural-scientific path of its development. In his book, V. Preyer presented long-term observations of the development of sensory, mental, speech, volitional, emotional and self-awareness in infancy and early childhood. V. Preyer saw the task of his research in compiling a complete picture of mental development, determining its conditions, and showing the role of heredity. This picture was supposed to help teachers in organizing the upbringing of a small child. In order to teach not only scientists, but also parents to study and understand children, V. Preyer tried to improve the method of observation by analogy with the methods of the natural sciences. He developed methodological recommendations for the observer to help identify and record the facts of children's behavior, as well as a sample diary and calendar of child development indicators from birth to three years. V. Preyer's book contributed to the growth of interest in childhood problems, the widespread distribution of parental diaries, and the organization of research aimed at the systematic study of child psychology. A new stage in the development of child psychology is associated with the use of the experimental method in the study of children in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It seemed to the researchers that on the basis of an experimental study of the psychology of the child, it was possible to build a scientific pedagogy. For the first time, psychology was included in pedagogical practice, in solving pedagogical problems, when A. Binet received an order from the French Ministry of Education to develop a method that would allow one to determine among the children entering school those who should study at an auxiliary school. From compiling tests that reveal the level of intelligence of children with mental retardation or mental retardation, A. Binet moved on to developing tests for the general diagnosis of the intellectual development of children from three to fifteen years old - the so-called mental giftedness. Intelligence was understood as the ability to solve problems accessible to age. Together with T. Simon, A. Binet developed a "metric scale of intellectual development" (1905). In addition to the idea of ​​the leading role of heredity in mental development, testology was based on the position that development takes place independently of learning and learning should follow development, obeying it. American psychologist St. Hall, seeking to get a holistic picture of mental development, first developed and used numerous questionnaires for children and adults. With their help, children's knowledge, ideas about the world, attitudes towards other people, experiences, moral and religious feelings, joys, fears, fears, manifestations of lies, features of children's games, etc. were clarified. Hall considered an integrated approach that allows using questionnaires and questionnaires to find out the problems of the child - in his understanding and from the position of adults (parents, teachers, educators). Pedology, a science that unites scientists of various specialties - psychologists, teachers, doctors, physiologists, etc. The practical orientation of pedology was that this knowledge was to form the basis of exact pedagogy - to help build education in accordance with the laws of the natural development of children. Extremely valuable in pedology was her desire to understand the child in his development, in general, in the relationship of all parties, to study in a complex and depending on the conditions of the surrounding social environment, in order to help the child solve his problems and overcome difficulties, to ensure full, all-round development. Pedology has become widespread in America and Europe, as well as in Russia. But a holistic science of the child has not been created. Gradually, from the accumulation of facts, scientists moved on to their explanation, to the development of theories of mental development, considering the essence of this process, its conditions and driving forces, the role of biological and social conditions. Depending on what was considered decisive for human development - heredity or environment - theories were divided into two directions. The biogenetic direction considered mental development as a biologically conditioned process, subject to natural laws, and the sociogenetic one - as a process that takes shape under the influence of external, social conditions. The first theory in the field of child psychology was the theory of recaptulation by St. Hall, which was based on the biogenetic law of E. Haeckel. According to this law, ontogenetic development was viewed as a biologically determined process: in the process of individual development, a child goes through the same stages of cultural evolution that humanity has gone through. Thus, Getchinson identified five periods in mental development (the period of wildness and digging, hunting and capturing prey, herding, farming, commercial and industrial), during which the needs and interests of the child change. Many researchers of the first third of the 20th century adhered to the idea of ​​the leading role of heredity in mental development, in particular A. L. Gesell, D. M. Baldwin, K. Buhler, E. Claparede, V. Stern, Z. Freud and others. Understanding of mental development as a manifestation of quantitative changes in the process of adapting the child to the surrounding social world leads the American psychologist A. Gesell to formulate a general law of child development, according to which its pace gradually decreases with age, slows down. This understanding of development was based on the comparative genetic method in the form of a cross-sectional strategy, first applied by A. Gesell to determine the indicators of development of children from three months to six years in the areas of motor skills, speech, adaptive and personal and social behavior. The idea of ​​A. Gesell about the normativity of the mental process, the problem of the norm and pathology of development, turned out to be extremely important for child psychology. An attempt to overcome the one-sidedness of the biogenetic trend in the consideration of mental development was made by the German psychologist W. Stern. According to V. Stern, mental development is determined by the convergence (convergence) of internal data and external conditions of development. Thus, children's inclinations are hereditary, but only as a general tendency towards development, which depends on individual activity and external conditions. In order to become a reality and to be developed, the inclinations must be supplemented from without. Childish inclinations only indicate a future that provides a certain scope within which upbringing and environment operate, determining actual development. With such an understanding of the relationship between heredity and the environment, heredity turned out to be the leading factor, because it was it that determined development, and the environment acted only as conditions that implement hereditarily fixed features. Nevertheless, determining the role of each factor in mental development remained an important problem. At the turn of the XIX and XX centuries. in psychology, profound transformations are taking place associated with the restructuring of the initial ideas about the subject and methods of research, as well as the categorical apparatus. They lead to the emergence of the following scientific directions: psychoanalysis, behaviorism, Gestalt psychology, personalism, genetic psychology, etc. 10 Psychoanalysis, for the first time including the phenomena of everyday life in the circle of consideration, makes the subject of psychology not only conscious, but also mainly unconscious processes. Extremely important in psychoanalysis was the turn of psychology to the problems of the personality, its complex experiences, the mechanisms of behavior and actions, to the motivational sphere. Now psychology was interested not in individual mental processes or elements of mental life, but in its integrity and unity in a real human personality, a specific person and his problems. Z. Freud, an Austrian psychologist, physiologist, neuropathologist, turned to the study of childhood in connection with the need to analyze the memories of an adult. Having made an attempt to understand what significance the unconscious experiences of childhood have for an adult in his life, psychoanalysis thereby emphasized the enormous importance of early childhood, showed that it is there that the personality and its main problems are laid. The personality of an adult, according to Z. Freud, includes three components: “It” (Id), “I” (Ego) and “Super-I” (SuperEgo), which are formed during childhood. "It", containing innate instinctual drives, appears from birth and requires the satisfaction of these drives, guided by the principle of pleasure. The "I" begins to take shape during the first year of life, when it encounters the inability to satisfy its desires. The “I” obeys the principle of reality, that is, focusing on the requirements of the external world, it tries to direct the “It” in accordance with these requirements or slow down the satisfaction of needs. "Super-I" arises in preschool age, when children learn the moral norms and values ​​of adults. Therefore, breaking the rules, the child feels guilty. Mental development in psychoanalysis is understood as the repression by society of innate instincts and the adaptation of the child to an environment that was originally innate and opposed to a particular individual. The relationship between the child and society is antagonistic from birth. Society puts pressure on the child with the help of prohibitions and restrictions, as a result of which the child develops as a person, he manifests such personal structures as "I" and "Super-I". Identifying mental and psychosexual development, Z. Freud believed that the stages of development are associated with the movement of methods of obtaining pleasure in erogenous zones - those areas of the body, the stimulation of which causes this pleasure: for example, in an infant by oral route with the help of sucking. The child goes through the following stages of development: oral (0 - 1 year), anal (1 - 3 years), phallic (3 - 5 years), latent (5 - 12 years), genital (12 - 18 years). 11 Modern psychoanalysis emphasizes the role of interpersonal relationships and socio-cultural factors, including the conditions of education, in the process of personality development. E. Erikson, one of the followers and students of Z. Freud (his first work was published in 1950), created a theory of personality development in a social environment, in one or another social group to which he belongs. The life path of a person from birth to death - epigenesis - consists of eight stages, which, as he matures, he successively goes through. But development is determined not only by maturation, but also by society's expectations of a person, by the tasks that it sets for him at each age stage. A person can justify or not justify these expectations, then he is either included in society or rejected by it. The task of infancy is the formation of basic trust in the world, overcoming feelings of disunity and alienation. The task of an early age is the struggle against a sense of shame and doubt in one's actions for one's own independence and self-sufficiency. The task of the playing age is the development of an active initiative, the experience of guilt and moral responsibility for one's desires. At each stage of development, a person acquires a new quality - a personal neoplasm. The final, integrating property of a person is psychosocial identity as integrity, the identity of a person to himself, the stability and continuity of his "I", despite all the changes that occur with a person in the process of growth and development. Crises are inherent in all stages of development - repeated points, moments of choice between progress and regression. Unlike psychoanalysis, behaviorism takes a different approach to considering mental development, arguing that a person is shaped as he is by the environment. From the point of view of behaviorism, if the inner content of the psyche, consciousness is not accessible to direct objective study, then the subject of psychology should be human behavior, accessible to external observation. Insisting that education should be based on the scientific research of children, and that psychological care of a child is more important than physical care, since the former forms character, J. Watson, an American psychologist, the founder of behaviorism, turned to the study of infant behavior and came to the conclusion that in Basically, mental processes and forms of behavior are formed in vivo. Giving importance to the emotional sphere, J. Watson explores how numerous fears are formed - the fear of mice, frogs, dogs, rabbits, snakes - pursuing adults. He finds only two innate stimuli that cause a fear response in an infant - a sudden loss of support and a loud, sharp sound. Then J. Watson develops in the infant a conditional 12 reaction of fear to the rabbit, combining its appearance in front of the child with a loud, sharp sound. Further, J. Watson makes an attempt to rid the child of the acquired fear, this time combining the display of a rabbit with a meal. All new reactions are formed by conditioning, J. Watson concludes, accepting the concept of conditioned reflexes by I. P. Pavlov as the natural science basis of the theory of behaviorism. J. Watson considered mental development as the acquisition of new forms of behavior, the formation of new connections between stimuli and reactions, the acquisition of any knowledge, skills, skills, thus identifying development with learning. He argued that the child has nothing inside that could be developed. Everything depends, first of all, on living conditions, the social environment, and on the incentives that make up the social sphere. Behaviorism believes in the omnipotence of education, the laws of the formation of skills, that with the help of incentives and reinforcements, any form of behavior can be formed in a child, regardless of the abilities, talents or profession, race of his parents. Thus, the problems of learning and the formation of skills become the main ones in behaviorism, and the observation and description of the body's reactions in the course of learning or their experimental formation become the main research method. In modern behaviorism, the idea of ​​the mechanisms of formation of human behavior based on the concept of social learning has been expanded. The central problem in this theory was the problem of socialization (acquisition by the child of the rules, norms, values ​​of a given society), which allows him to take a certain place in this society. BF Skinner studied operant or instrumental conditioning, in which future repetition of behavior is determined by its consequences, primarily reinforcement and punishment. Reinforcement increases the likelihood of the behavior it will follow in the future. So, if parents praise or reward a child for good deeds, then they begin to repeat themselves. Punishment, on the other hand, reduces the likelihood in the future of the behavior it will follow. By adding something unpleasant or canceling a pleasant event, parents suppress the bad behavior of the child. A. Bandura explored learning through imitation. He believed that a lot of human behavior is formed on the basis of observation of the behavior of another. With the help of observation, children try to understand the world around them, the consequences of people's actions. Through observation, the child's behavior can be directed, giving him the opportunity to imitate authoritative adults. One of the most significant theories of modern foreign psychology is the Geneva School of Genetic Psychology, created by J. Piaget. 13 Piaget turned in 1920 (and continued throughout his life) to the study cognitive development - questions of the origin of the intellect, the peculiarities of children's thinking, children's logic, ideas about the world, about natural phenomena, the mechanisms of cognitive activity. J. Piaget analyzed the methods of studying the child's thinking. He came to the conclusion that the tests do not give an idea of ​​the internal mechanisms of this process, but are reduced to assessing the final results of solving problems by children, therefore, they can only serve for the purposes of selection; observation, however, represents only a preliminary stage of investigation and cannot in itself explain the facts obtained. J. Piaget proposed a special method - a clinical conversation, which makes it possible to study not the symptoms, but the processes leading to their occurrence. Clinical conversation is the art of asking, not limited to simple ascertaining, as it seeks to reveal what lies beyond the surface of phenomena, to understand their essence. An adult asks the child questions and gives the opportunity to express everything that he would like. This method allowed J. Piaget to make the most important discovery in child psychology - he singled out the child's egocentrism as a central feature of children's thinking, a hidden mental position, the result of which is the originality of children's thoughts, speech, logic, ideas about the world. The undoubted merit of J. Piaget is that he showed the qualitative originality of children's thinking and its difference from adult thinking. J. Piaget believed that the basis of mental development is the development of the intellect. The child's body is initially active and strives for knowledge and action. When he encounters the environment, with the world of adults, he discovers requirements, prohibitions, objects to which he must adapt, adapt. Mental development, the development of intellect is this process of adaptation to the surrounding world. Adaptation is carried out with the help of assimilation and accommodation, leading to balance. Assimilation presupposes the inclusion of a new object, a new problem situation in the child's schemes of action. Accommodation consists in changing the action in accordance with the requirements of the new situation. Equilibrium is established when the requirements of the environment and the child's scheme of action come into line. Intellectual development strives for such a stable correspondence, but it is inevitably violated in order to strive again for a stable balance. The experience acquired by the child is formalized into schemes of action that allow him to solve the corresponding cognitive tasks. Intelligence is characterized not only by adaptive, but also by activity nature. In order to get to know the surrounding objects, the child performs actions with them - transforms, unites, connects, moves, removes. A small child produces external actions, which are then internalized, turning into proper intellectual activity. J. Piaget proposed a periodization of child development based on the staged development of the intellect. Each child goes through certain stages in his development, which successively replace each other in a strictly specified order, and the achievements of each previous stage are included in the next one, serve as its basis. At each stage, a relatively stable balance of the organism and the environment is achieved. You can influence the process of mental development, but you cannot change its logic, since learning follows development. At the sensorimotor stage (from birth to two years), the child understands the world through perception and action. At the stage of specific operations (from two to eleven years), the ability to build mental representations and images of surrounding objects and act with them internally is first formed, and then the ability to think logically. For preschoolers, the egocentrism of children's thought is characteristic. At the stage of formal operations (after the age of twelve), adolescents develop the ability for abstract, conceptual thinking, now they can think and reason about abstract concepts. Considering the development of the intellect, J. Piaget did not make it dependent on the development of the personality, motives, needs, feelings and experiences of the child. Based on the ideas of the theory of J. Piaget, L. Kohlberg studied moral consciousness and described the levels of development of moral judgments: preconventional, conventional and autonomous morality. In the 20-30s. 20th century L. S. Vygotsky created a cultural-historical theory of the development of higher mental functions - the concept of the socio-historical conditioning of human behavior and the psyche. Unlike biogenetic and sociogenetic theories, L. S. Vygotsky proposed a different understanding of the source, driving forces, conditions, forms of mental development, developed the concept of the zone of proximal development, formulated the problem of age, proposed a variant of periodization of mental development, introduced a new research method into psychology - experimental genetic. The essence of this method lies in the fact that under specially created and controlled conditions, the very process of the origin and formation of new mental properties and qualities is reproduced. Ideas L.S. Vygotsky were further developed in the works of students of the scientific school he created (L. I. Bozhovich, P. Ya. Galperin, A. V. Zaporozhets, A. N. Leontiev, A. R. Luria, D. B. Elkonin and others. ). 15 § 2. Basic patterns of mental development The development of each mental function, each form of behavior is subject to its own characteristics, but mental development as a whole has general patterns that manifest themselves in all areas of the psyche and persist throughout ontogenesis. Speaking about the laws of mental development, they mean the description and explanation not of random facts, but of the main, essential tendencies that determine the course of this process. First, psychic development is characterized by unevenness and heterochrony. The unevenness is manifested in the formation of various mental formations, when each mental function has a special pace and rhythm of formation. Some of them, as it were, "go" ahead of the rest, preparing the ground for others. Then those functions that "lagged behind" acquire priority in development and create the basis for further complication of mental activity. For example, in the first months of infancy, the sense organs develop most intensively, and later objective actions are formed on their basis. In early childhood, actions with objects turn into a special type of activity - object-manipulative, during which active speech, visual-active thinking and pride in achievements develop. The periods most favorable for the formation of one or another side of the psyche, when its sensitivity to certain kinds of influences is aggravated and certain functions develop most successfully and intensively, are called sensitive. Such for mastering the native language is the age from two to five years, when the baby actively expands his vocabulary, learns the laws of the grammar of the native language, eventually moving to coherent speech. Heterochrony means a mismatch in time of the phases of development of individual organs and functions. Thus, phylogenetically more ancient analyzers are formed first, and then young ones, besides, the function that is more necessary develops first. For example, a child first learns to navigate in space, and later - in time. Secondly, mental development proceeds in stages, having a complex organization in time. Each age stage has its own pace and rhythm, which do not coincide with the pace and rhythm of time and change in different years of life. Thus, a year of life in infancy, in terms of its objective meaning and ongoing transformations, is not equal to a year of life in adolescence. The most rapid mental development occurs in early childhood - from birth to three years. 16 Stages of mental development in a certain way follow one after another, obeying their own internal logic. Their sequence cannot be rearranged or changed at the request of an adult. Any age stage makes its own unique contribution, and therefore has its own enduring significance for the mental development of the child, has its own value. In this regard, it is important not to accelerate, but to enrich mental development, to expand the child's capabilities in the types of life inherent in this age, that is, to follow the path of amplification of child development, as A. V. Zaporozhets emphasized. After all, only the realization of all the possibilities of a given age ensures the transition to a new stage of development. A child of a certain age occupies a special place in the system of social relations. And the transition from one stage of development to another is, first of all, a transition to a new, qualitatively higher and deeper connection between the child and society, of which he is a part and without which he cannot live (A. V. Zaporozhets). Thirdly, in the course of mental development there is a differentiation and integration of processes, properties and qualities. Differentiation consists in the fact that they are separated from each other, turning into independent forms or activities. Thus, memory is separated from perception and becomes an independent mnemonic activity. Integration ensures the establishment of relationships between individual aspects of the psyche. So, cognitive processes, having gone through a period of differentiation, establish interconnections with each other at a higher, qualitatively new level. In particular, the relationship of memory with speech and thinking ensures its intellectualization. Therefore, these two opposing tendencies are interrelated and do not exist without each other. Cumulation is associated with differentiation and integration, which involves the accumulation of individual indicators that prepare qualitative changes in different areas of the child's psyche. Fourthly, during the course of mental development, there is a change in the determinants-causes that determine it. On the one hand, the relationship between biological and social determinants is changing, on the other hand, the ratio of different social determinants is also changing. At each age stage, conditions are prepared for the child to master certain types of activities, special relationships are formed with adults and peers. In particular, as they grow older, contacts with comrades begin to influence the mental development of a preschooler more and more. Fifth, the psyche is distinguished by plasticity, which makes it possible to change it under the influence of any conditions, to assimilate various experiences. So, a born child can master any language, regardless of his nationality, but in accordance with the speech environment in which he will be brought up. One of the manifestations of plasticity is the compensation of mental or physical functions in the event of their absence or underdevelopment, for example, with deficiencies in vision, hearing, and motor functions. Another manifestation of plasticity is imitation. Recently, it has been considered as a peculiar form of orientation of the child in the world of specifically human activities, ways of communication and personal qualities by assimilation, modeling them in their own activities (L. F. Obukhova, I. V. Shapovalenko). § 3. Driving forces and conditions of mental development The child is a constantly changing being, and the younger he is, the more intense and significant the changes taking place in him, both quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative changes, such as an increase in body height and weight, vocabulary, behaviors and actions, constitute growth processes. But in mental development, first of all, qualitative changes occur: for example, the formation of an understanding by a child of an adult's speech and then a transition to his own active speech. The specificity of the mental development of a child is that it obeys the laws of socio-historical, while the development of the psyche of animals follows the laws of biological evolution. The individual behavior of animals depends on two kinds of experience, which are determined by the mechanisms of behavior of two types. First, the innate, hereditary mechanisms in which the behavior itself, the innate, species experience itself, is fixed. Secondly, the mechanisms of acquired behavior, in which the ability to acquire individual experience is fixed. Moreover, the mechanisms of formation of individual experience provide adaptation of the species behavior of animals to changes in the environment. A person has a special experience that animals do not have - this is a socio-historical experience, which is a product of the development of many generations of people and is fixed in the form of objects and sign systems. His child does not inherit, but acquires in a special way - in the process of appropriation, that is, the reproduction of historically formed human properties, abilities and ways of behavior, objectified in the products of material spiritual culture (A. N. Leontiev). The mental development of a child proceeds according to patterns existing in society, being determined by those forms of activity that are characteristic of a given level of development of society. Childhood has a specific historical character, so children in different historical eras develop differently. Thus, the forms and levels of mental development are set not biologically, but socially. Nevertheless, the biological factor plays a certain role in mental development. Note that it includes hereditary and congenital features. Hereditary features are transmitted in the form of a specific physical and biological organization and unfold in the process of maturation. So, these include the type of the nervous system, the makings of future abilities, the structural features of the analyzers and individual sections of the cerebral cortex. The child acquires congenital features in the course of its intrauterine life. Changes in the functional and even anatomical structure of the fetus can be caused by the nature of the mother's diet, her work and rest regimen, diseases, nervous shocks, etc. Normal functioning of the cerebral cortex and higher nervous activity is necessary for full-fledged mental development. In case of underdevelopment or brain injury, the normal course of mental development is disrupted. And yet, although children are born different in individual characteristics in the structure and functioning of the body and its individual systems, they go through the same stages of mental development, characterized by certain specifics. But a child who has the inclinations for any type of activity can not only master it faster, but also achieve better results. That is, both hereditary and congenital features are only possibilities for the future development of the individual. Mental development largely depends on which system of relationships this or that inherited feature will be included in, how the adults raising him and the child himself will treat it. So, if adults recognize the inclinations of the child in time and create conditions for their development, then the abilities will be formed. This means that the biological factor is only a prerequisite for mental development. It affects the development process not directly, but indirectly, refracting through the peculiarities of the social conditions of life. When development is understood as the appropriation of socio-historical experience, a different understanding of the social environment is also formed. It acts not as an environment, not as a condition for development, but as its source, since it contains in advance everything that the child must master, both positive and negative, for example, some antisocial forms of behavior. Moreover, the social environment does not consist only of the immediate environment of the child. It is a combination of three components. The macroenvironment is society as a certain socio-economic, socio-political and ideological system. Within its framework, the entire life activity of the individual takes place. The mesoenvironment includes the national-cultural and socio-demographic features of the region in which the child lives. The microenvironment is the immediate environment of his life activity (family, neighbors, peer groups, cultural, educational and educational institutions that he visits). Moreover, in different periods of childhood, each of the components of the social environment has an unequal effect on mental development. The conditions for the assimilation of social experience are the active activity of the child and his communication with an adult. Thanks to the activity of the child, the process of influence of the social environment on him turns into a complex two-way interaction. Not only the environment affects the child, but he also transforms the world, showing creativity. In relation to the objects around him, the child must carry out such a practical or cognitive activity which is adequate to the human activity embodied in them (you can write with a pen, sew with a needle, play the piano). The result of such activity is the mastery of these objects, which means the formation of human abilities and functions (writing, sewing, playing music). In the objects themselves, a way of using them is fixed, which the child cannot independently discover. After all, the functions of things are not given directly, like some physical properties: color, shape, etc. An adult owns the purpose of an object, and only he can teach a child how to use it. Child and adult do not oppose each other. The child is initially a social being, since from the first days of birth he enters the social environment. An adult, ensuring his life and activity, uses socially developed objects. He acts as an intermediary between the child and the world of objects, as a carrier of the ways of using them, directing the process of mastering objective activity. At the same time, the child's activity becomes adequate to the purpose of the object. The adult organizes and directs the child's activity into appropriate forms, with the help of which he assimilates sociohistorical experience. In communicating with a child, an adult not only conveys to him patterns and methods of action, but also contributes to the emergence of new motives for activity, the development of personality and self-awareness, and the emotional sphere. Each age is characterized by a leading activity that provides the cardinal lines of mental development precisely in this period (A. N. Leontiev). It most fully represents the typical for a given age relationship between a child and an adult, and through this, his attitude to reality. Leading activity connects children with elements of the surrounding reality, which in a given period are sources of mental development. In this activity, the main personality neoplasms are formed, the restructuring of mental processes and the emergence of new types of activity take place. So, for example, in objective activity at an early age, “pride in achievements”, active speech are formed, the prerequisites for the emergence of playful and productive activities are formed, elements of visual forms of thinking and sign-symbolic functions appear. In addition to the world of objects and ways of using them, the child masters a system of signs, the most significant of which is language. The nature of signs is dual. On the one hand, they are material, have an external form, and on the other hand, they are ideal, have meaning - an idea of ​​the most essential features of objects and phenomena, and therefore can act as their substitutes. Mastering signs leads to changes of a special kind - to the formation of higher mental functions (L. S. Vygotsky). Animals have lower, natural mental functions - sensory, motor, etc., while higher ones - only in humans. They are characterized by awareness, arbitrariness, mediation. Human life, unlike animals, is not limited to adapting to nature, but involves changing it. Therefore, a person's actions are subject to goals, plans drawn up in advance, that is, a person can control himself, master his own behavior. In this control, it is the signs that play the role of psychological tools, help to realize oneself and one's actions. By formulating goals and methods of behavior and activity in speech, the child thereby makes them conscious. The formulation of the goal helps the child to gain relative freedom from the immediate situation and extraneous stimuli, and then his behavior turns into arbitrary, planned. Concepts, methods of activity, social norms and rules become means of controlling not only behavior, but also cognitive processes. Therefore, the child can now behave appropriately in a given situation (not laugh, not talk, but carry out the tasks of the teacher in the classroom), be attentive, solve problems, memorize the required material. Thus, the development of higher mental functions, according to L. S. Vygotsky, constitutes the process of mental development. L. S. Vygotsky formulated the law of their development in the following way: “Each function in the child’s cultural development comes on the scene twice, on two planes, first social, then psychological, first between people, as an interpsychic category, then inside the child, as a category intrapsychic". The development of higher mental functions takes place in the process of internalization, when the flow mastered in the external form is transformed into internal, mental forms. Internalization includes three stages. At the first stage, an adult, prompting the child to do something, influences him with a word, gesture, or other sign means. Then the child himself begins to influence the adult with a word, adopting from him the method of address. And finally, the child proceeds to influence the word on himself. The main mechanism of human mental development is the mechanism of assimilation of social, historically established types and forms of activity. Assimilated in the external form of flow, the processes are transformed into internal, mental ones (L. S. Vygotsky, A. N. Leontiev, P. Ya. Galperin and others). Society specifically organizes the process of transferring socio-historical experience to the child in the form of upbringing and education, controls its course by creating special educational institutions: kindergartens, schools, universities, etc. The transfer of experience in upbringing and education is based on the social interaction of the teacher, educator with the child. Education and training are aimed at the integral development of the personality, although their goals are conventionally differentiated. In training, the priority is the formation of a system of knowledge, skills, methods of cognitive and practical activities. We emphasize that a child begins to learn from the moment of birth, when he enters the social environment and an adult organizes his life and influences the baby with the help of objects created by mankind. Children's activities are different depending on the circumstances, the applied pedagogical influences and age, but in all cases there is learning in the broad sense of the word (A. V. Zaporozhets). If an adult sets a conscious goal to teach a child something, selects methods and techniques for this, then learning becomes organized, systematic and purposeful. With appropriate training, the nature of individual mental processes or functions changes, some contradictions are resolved and new ones are created. Education involves the formation of certain attitudes, a system of moral judgments and assessments, value orientations, and ways of social behavior. As well as education, education begins immediately after the birth of a baby, when an adult, with his attitude towards him, lays the foundations for his personal development. The way of life of the parents, their appearance, habits, and not only specially composed conversations and exercises, educate the child. Therefore, every moment of communication with elders is of great importance, each, even the most insignificant, from the point of view of an adult, element of their interaction. In considering the question of the relationship between learning and mental development, L. S. Vygotsky proceeded from the fact that learning should go ahead of development, lead it along. But training will be able to determine the level of mental development in the event that it creates a "zone of proximal development." When a child masters an action, he first performs it together with an adult, and then independently. The zone of proximal development is the difference between what a child can do on his own and what an adult can do. That is, it consists of such developmental processes that a child can carry out under the direct guidance and with the help of an adult. But these processes indicate the future of the child: after all, what is available to the child today with the help of an adult will become available tomorrow in independent activity. At the same time, although mental development is determined by the conditions of life and upbringing, it, as already noted, has its own internal logic. The child is not mechanically exposed to any external influences, they are assimilated selectively, being refracted through already established forms of thinking, in connection with the interests and needs prevailing at a given age. That is, any external influence always acts through internal mental conditions (S.L. Rubinshtein). The features of mental development determine the conditions for optimal terms of training, the assimilation of certain knowledge, the formation of certain personal qualities. Therefore, the content, forms and methods of training and education should be selected in accordance with the age, individual and personal characteristics of the child. Development, upbringing and training are closely interconnected and act as links in a single process. S. L. Rubinshtein wrote: “The child does not mature at first and then is brought up and trained, that is, under the guidance of adults, mastering the content of culture that mankind has created; the child does not develop and is brought up, but develops, being brought up and being taught, i.e., the very maturation and development of the child in the course of education and upbringing is not only manifested, but also accomplished. What are the driving forces of mental development? The true content of mental development is the struggle of internal contradictions, the struggle between obsolete forms of the psyche and new, emerging ones, between new needs and old ways of satisfying them, which no longer suit the child (L. S. Vygotsky, A. N. Leontiev, S. L. Rubinstein and others). Internal contradictions are the driving forces of mental development. They differ at each age and at the same time proceed within the framework of one, main contradiction: between the child’s need to be an adult, to live a common life with him, to occupy a certain place in society, to show independence and the lack of real opportunities to satisfy it. At the level of the child's consciousness, it appears as a discrepancy between "I want" and "I can". This contradiction leads to the assimilation of new knowledge, the formation of skills, to the development of new ways of activity, which allows expanding the boundaries of independence and increasing the level of opportunities. In turn, the expansion of the boundaries of possibilities leads the child to the "discovery" of more and more new areas of adult life, which are still inaccessible to him, but where he seeks to "enter". Thus, the resolution of some contradictions leads to the emergence of others. As a result, the child establishes more and more diverse and broad connections with the world, the forms of effective and cognitive reflection of reality are transformed. L. S. Vygotsky formulated the basic law of mental development as follows: “The forces that drive the development of a child at a particular age inevitably lead to the denial and destruction of the very basis of the development of the entire age, with internal necessity determining the annulment of the social situation of development, the end of this era development and transition to the next, or higher, age level. § 4. Age periodization of mental development The problem of age periodization of mental development is extremely difficult and important both for science and for pedagogical practice. Its solution, on the one hand, is connected with ideas about the driving forces and conditions of mental development, and on the other hand, it affects the strategy for building the education system of the younger generation. Historically, the first to be proposed - within the framework of the theory of recapitulation - was periodization based on the biogenetic law. But, being built on one external sign of mental development, it could not reveal its essence. Later, a rather successful periodization was proposed, based on the stages of the upbringing and education of children, since, indeed, the processes of child development are closely connected with the upbringing of the child, and it itself relies on vast pedagogical experience. If, however, any one, albeit objective, internal sign or any side of development is chosen as the basis of periodization (for example, psychosexual in the psychoanalysis of Z. Freud), then such periodization affects only this one side of mental development. Thus, the periodizations of the mental development of J. Piaget and E. Erickson, extremely popular in modern psychology, reveal the patterns of formation of one - the intellect, and the other - the personality of the child. In Russian psychology, L. S. Vygotsky was the first to propose scientific periodization based on the essential features of child development. For age as an objective category, in his opinion, the following points are characteristic: the chronological framework of a particular stage of development, the specific social situation of development, and qualitative neoplasms. Under the social situation of development, L. S. Vygotsky understood the peculiar, specific for this age, exclusive, unique and inimitable relationship between the child and the social environment that develops at the beginning of each age stage of development. Throughout the period of age development, the social situation determines the dynamics of mental development and the emerging neoplasms, as well as the forms and path along which they are acquired. As age-related neoplasms are a new type of personality structure and its activities, mental changes that occur at a given age and determine the transformations in the child's mind, his inner and outer life. These are the positive acquisitions that allow you to move on to a new stage of development. Each age is a holistic structure, not a collection of individual features. It has a central neoformation leading to the entire process of development and characterizing the restructuring of the child's personality on a new basis. Around the central neoplasm, all other, private neoplasms related to individual aspects of the child's personality are grouped. The central lines of development are connected with the central neoplasm, and all the rest - with side ones. At the next stage, the central lines of development of the previous age become secondary, and the secondary ones come to the fore. Thus, the significance and proportion of individual lines of development in the structure of age change and are restructured at each stage. In the process of development, there is an alternation of stable and critical periods. In stable periods, quantitative changes gradually, slowly and steadily accumulate in order to show up in critical periods in the form of irreversible neoplasms that appear abruptly. During critical periods, the social situation of development is restructured, associated with a change in the relationship of the child with the social environment and his attitude towards himself. Critical periods are characterized primarily by the fact that the boundaries that define the beginning and end of the crisis are not clear. They begin and end imperceptibly. But although crises are relatively short stages, under unfavorable circumstances they can be extended. Critical periods are quite turbulent, since the changes taking place in development turn out to be very significant. For adults, a child during these periods is difficult to educate. He is in constant conflict with others, and often with himself. Stubbornness, whims, affective outbursts and similar forms of behavior become typical. Pedagogical influences, which adults used successfully in relation to the child, now turn out to be ineffective. Development during a crisis is, as it were, of a negative nature: what was acquired at the previous stage disintegrates and disappears. Crisis periods are characterized by an aggravation of the contradictions between the new needs of the child and the old, obsolete forms of his relationship with adults. Theoretical ideas about the essence of childhood and age periodization of L. S. Vygotsky were further developed in the works of D. B. Elkonin. He believed that one should talk about the system "child in society", and not "child and society", so as not to oppose the child to society. Childhood has a concrete historical character, and all the activities of the child have a social origin. They are social not only in origin, but also in content and form. The child's appropriation of the achievements of human culture has an active, active character. He actively learns the world around him - the world of objects and relationships between people, being included in two systems of relations: "child-thing" and "child-adult". At the same time, a thing contains, in addition to physical properties, socially developed ways of acting with it, i.e., one can speak of it as a social object that a child must learn to act on, and an adult not only has individual characteristics, but also acts as a representative of some then professions, the carrier of some types of social activities, their tasks, motives and norms of relations, that is, as a public adult. The activity of the child within the systems "child - social object" and "child - social adult" is a single process in which the personality of the child is formed, but this single process is split, split into two groups of activities. 26 The first is made up of activities unfolding in the "child - social adult" system. Within them, the orientation of the child in the basic meanings of human activity and the development of tasks, motives and norms of relations between people takes place. The second is made up of activities unfolding in the system “the child is a social subject”. Within them, the child assimilates socially developed methods of acting with objects and standards that single out certain properties in objects. In activities of the first type, the motivational-required sphere mainly develops, and in the activities of the second type, the operational and technical capabilities of the child are formed. D. B. Elkonin formulates the law of alternation, periodicity of different types of activity in mental development: activity of one type is followed by activity of another type, orientation in the system of relations is followed by orientation in the ways of using objects. The periodization of child development according to this law is presented in Table. 1. Thus, there are three epochs in the development of a child: early childhood, childhood and adolescence. Each of their epochs is divided into two Table 1. Periodization of mental development Leading activity Sphere of reality, which is mastered by the child Epoch Age period Early childhood Infant age (0-1 year) Direct-emotional communication Sphere of relations Early childhood (1-3 years) Object-manipulative activity Sphere of methods of actions with objects Preschool age (3-7 years) Role-playing game Sphere of relations Junior school age (7-11 years) Educational activity Sphere of methods of actions with objects Adolescence (11-15 years) Intimate-personal communication Sphere of relations Senior school age (15 -17 years) Educational and professional activity Sphere of methods of action with objects Childhood Adolescence 27 periods, characterized by what the child learns. By each period, the child comes with a certain discrepancy between what he has learned from the system of relations "child - social adult" and what he has learned from the system of relations "child - social object." By age, D. B. Elkonin understood a corresponding relatively closed period in a child’s life, the significance of which is determined primarily by its place in the general course of child development. Each age is characterized by the following indicators: the social situation of development, the leading activity, age-related neoplasms and crises as turning points in development. These are the relationship crises of three and eleven years and the crises associated with orientation in the world of things, one year and seven years. In accordance with these indicators, we will further consider the characteristics of the age periods of infancy, early childhood and preschool age. Review questions and tasks 1. What does child psychology study? How is it related to other sciences? 2. What theories of child development exist in psychology? Expand and compare the main provisions of these theories about the essence of the process of mental development. 3. Expand the main patterns of mental development. 4. What are the main factors of mental development? Expand the influence of each on the development of the child. 5. Describe mental development as a process of appropriation of socio-historical experience. 6. What is the role of activity in mental development? What is a leading activity? 7. What role do training and education play in mental development? 8. What is the role of an adult in the mental development of a child? 9. Expand the approach of D. B. Elkonin to the problem of age periodization. 10. What is psychological age and what are its indicators? Literature Vygotsky L.S. The problem of age. cit.: in 6 volumes - M., 1984. - V. 4. Zaporozhets A. V. The main problems of the ontogenesis of the psyche // Izbr. psychol. Proceedings: in 2 volumes - M., 1986. - T. 1. Leontiev A. N. Problems of the development of the psyche. - M., 1981. Obukhova L.F. Child psychology: theories, facts, problems. - M., 1995. Rubinshtein S. L. Fundamentals of General Psychology: in 2 volumes. - M., 1989. - T. 1. Elkonin D. B. Fav. psychol. works. - M., 1989. 28 Chapter 2 PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY § 1. Principles of studying the child's psyche Any science begins with the collection of facts. Therefore, it must first of all answer the questions: how to collect the necessary facts? what methods are used to fix, register, reveal psychological facts, accumulate them, in order to then subject them to theoretical analysis? Considering the nature of a psychological fact, S. L. Rubinshtein, A. A. Lyublinskaya, A. V. Petrovsky and others emphasized that it has an essential specific feature: constituting the inner essence of human manifestations, such a fact is accessible to study only indirectly. For example, a child feels joy because he has drawn a picture. Outwardly, this is expressed in facial expressions, pantomime, speech utterances. But the psychic phenomenon itself, in this case the experience of joy, remains hidden. To study this experience, and use special methods. The main facts used by the researcher are the social behavior, physical and mental actions of the child and his speech, since they primarily objectify mental processes and states. Social behavior reveals the features of the child's social activity, how he establishes contacts with adults and peers, and which aspects of the surrounding reality he interacts with. Behind the actions of the child, which are diverse in complexity, character, structure, and direction, there are always certain motives, needs, goals, and motives. In speech, the child expresses the goals of his activity, reveals the causes of behavior, explains his understanding of a phenomenon or event. The level of mastery of speech can be an indicator of mental development. Expressive movements are considered as additional psychological facts: facial expressions, gestures, intonations of speech, which express the general emotional state and attitude to what the baby is doing or what he is talking about. The course of further research depends on the objectively collected psychological facts. And the collection of facts, in turn, depends on how the researcher owns the methods of studying the child's psyche. 29 The specificity of the methods of child psychology is determined by the specificity of its object. This is the development of the child's psyche from birth to seven years, which during this period is the most vulnerable and subject to external adverse influences. Rough intervention on the part of adults can slow down or distort the course of a child's mental development. Therefore, the main principle of the study of child psychology is the principle of humanism and pedagogical optimism, which consists in the requirement not to harm. The psychologist should feel a special responsibility and not rush, the main thing is to understand the true causes of the child's behavior, highlight the psychological characteristics and patterns, while showing a tactful, sensitive, caring attitude towards the baby. The principle of objectivity and scientific character implies the study of psychological development, its mechanisms and patterns in terms of child psychology, and not from the point of view of other sciences. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that a child is not a small adult, but a full-fledged person who has his own vision of the world, way of thinking, content and expression of experiences. The inner world of a preschooler develops according to its own laws, which the researcher must comprehend. Therefore, before embarking on the study of this world, it is necessary to master special psychological knowledge, concepts, to assimilate the basic ideas of psychological science. The principle of determinism proceeds from the fact that the formation of mental functions and properties, as well as the features of their manifestation, are associated with both external and internal causes. These reasons are due to the conditions of life, upbringing of the child, the characteristics of his social environment, the nature of the communication of the baby with adults and peers, the specifics of his activities and activity. Initially, there are no “good” or “difficult” children, there is only a variety of reasons that influence the appearance later of one or another trait inherent in this particular child. The task of the researcher is to understand the cause of a psychological fact, and therefore to explain it. The principle of the development of the psyche, consciousness in activity shows that activity acts as a condition for the manifestation and development of the child's psyche. Therefore, to study his mental characteristics, it is necessary to organize appropriate activities, for example, creative imagination can be fixed in drawing or when writing a fairy tale. The principle of the unity of consciousness and activity (developed by S. L. Rubinshtein) means the mutual influence of consciousness and activity. On the one hand, consciousness is formed in activity and, as it were, “leads” it, on the other hand, the complication of activity, the development of new types of activity enriches and changes consciousness. Therefore, consciousness can be studied indirectly, through the study of the child's activity. Thus, the motives of behavior become clear from the analysis of actions. The principle of age, individual and personal approach implies that the general laws of mental development are manifested in each child individually, including regular and special features. Each child masters speech, learns to walk, act with objects, but the path of his development is individual. The principle of complexity, consistency and systematicity suggests that a single study does not give a complete picture of the child's mental development. It is necessary to analyze not disparate facts, but to compare them, to trace all aspects of the development of the child's psyche in the aggregate. § 2. Methods of child psychology Let us recall that the method is the method by which scientific facts are collected. The main methods of child psychology include observation, experiment, conversation and analysis of the products of children's activities. The leading method is observation. Observation involves purposeful perception and fixation of psychological facts. Any observation has a clearly defined goal. Before observation, a diagram is drawn up that will later help to correctly interpret the data. Even before the start of observation, the researcher must assume that? he can see, otherwise many facts may be missed due to ignorance of their existence. We emphasize that there are no insignificant facts, each of them carries certain information about the psychological life of the child. Observation allows you to see the natural manifestations of the child. Not knowing about what? acts as an object of study, the baby behaves freely, uninhibitedly. This allows you to get objective results. In the process of observation, the researcher develops a holistic view of the child's personality. Objectivity of observation is achieved under three conditions. The first condition: the child does not know that he is the object of study. The well-known psychologist M. Ya. Basov proved that the age from three to seven years is the most favorable for observation, because children of this age are still far from fully comprehending their position as subjects and their role in relations with the observer. The second condition is that observation is carried out not on a case-by-case basis, but systematically. After all, in the process of observation, a whole group of facts appears before the researcher, and it can be very difficult31 to separate the characteristic, the essential from the accidental and secondary. EXAMPLE The teacher, observing the behavior of the child during lunch, noticed that the baby refuses to eat, repeating: “I don’t want, I don’t want.” Should we conclude that the baby is capricious? Of course not. After all, the reasons for the described behavior can be, for example: capriciousness as a stable characteristic of the baby's personality; ? overwork or illness of the child; ? experiencing resentment if the child was not given the desired toy; ? dissatisfaction of the child with the style of communication of the educator with him (frequent sharp shouts, unfair remarks, etc.), etc. Thus, the same psychological fact can have a different meaning depending on the reasons that caused it. Repeated observation allows you to reveal the true causes. The third condition that ensures the objectivity of observation is the correct position of the researcher. Often, being under the influence of social stereotypes, the teacher perceives and interprets psychological facts in a distorted way. A negative attitude towards the child leads to the fact that the adult does not notice the positive features or explains them as accidental, highlighting and emphasizing the negative aspects. And vice versa, a positive attitude towards the baby, preference for other children make the teacher pay attention only to the positive aspects, exaggerate the achievements, and not see the negative aspects. To avoid such mistakes, it is necessary to form an objective opinion about the child on the basis of scientific observation. And then turn to the opinion of parents and other adults working with the child. The objectivity of observation largely depends on the ability to correctly record psychological facts in the protocol. Such a “photographic record”, according to the definition of M. Ya. Basov, describes in detail mimic, pantomime expressions of emotions, literally, without changes, conveys the child’s speech in a direct form, notes pauses, intonation, voice power, tempo, indicates to whom the speech is addressed. The record, naming the actions, reflects in detail all the operations that make up these actions. A “photographic record” presents a complete picture of the situation in which the child is included, therefore, the protocol notes the replicas of adults, peers addressed to the child, the actions of others directed at him. EXAMPLE "Photographic record" of observation of Lena Sh. (4 years 3 months). T h e p a t e l : Guys, now let's go to the locker room and let's get dressed for a walk. 32 Lena goes to the locker, opens it, sits on the bench, takes off her socks, puts them in slippers and puts them in the locker, takes tights and pants, sits on the bench, puts on tights, pants on them, takes them out of the locker and puts on a sweater, goes to teacher and asks: “Tuck in my dress, please.” The teacher tucks in the dress. Lena: Thank you... So at least the wind won't get in. He goes to the locker, takes out and puts on a fur coat, then a hat. Educator: Let me tie my hat. Lena: No need. I can do it myself. (He ties his hat, making several attempts. Sits on a bench, puts on first the left, then the right boot. He gets up and goes to the teacher. He asks again.) Button only the top button. The rest I myself. The teacher fastens the top button. The rest the girl fastens herself. The teacher ties Lena's scarf. Lena: No, I'm like this (pulls the scarf tighter). And now the mittens. The teacher puts on her mittens. Lena: Thank you*. Since the observations are recorded in the protocol in a descriptive form, it is quite difficult to process them (especially with the help of mathematical methods). It must be borne in mind that it is impossible to quickly collect large factual material with the help of observation, since only one child can be observed at a time. When observing, an adult cannot intervene in children's activities, cause the necessary mental phenomenon, he takes a wait-and-see attitude. There are several types of observations: full and partial, included and not included. Full involves the study of all mental manifestations, partial - one of them, such as speech or play. Observation depends on the position of the observer, who can be included in a group of children and interact with them while observing, or is outside the child's activity. The experiment involves specially created conditions for studying the child's psyche. These conditions are determined by the methodology of the experiment, which contains the purpose, description of the material, the course of the study, criteria for data processing. All recommendations specified in the methodology are strictly observed, because they are subordinate to the purpose of the study. * Hereinafter, original protocols obtained in studies under the supervision of the author are used. However, although children are born with different individual characteristics in the structure and functioning of the body and its individual systems, they go through the same stages of mental development, characterized by certain specifics. But a child who has the inclinations for any type of activity can not only master it faster, but also achieve better results. That is, both hereditary and congenital features are only possibilities for the future development of the individual. Mental development largely depends on which system of relationships this or that inherited feature will be included in, how the adults raising him and the child himself will treat it. So, if adults recognize the inclinations of the child in time and create conditions for their development, then the abilities will be formed. This means that the biological factor is only a prerequisite for mental development. It affects the development process not directly, but indirectly, refracting through the peculiarities of the social conditions of life. When development is understood as the appropriation of socio-historical experience, a different understanding of the social environment is also formed. It acts not as an environment, not as a condition for development, but as its source, since it contains in advance everything that the child must master, both positive and negative, for example, some antisocial forms of behavior. Moreover, the social environment does not consist only of the immediate environment of the child. It is a combination of three components. The macroenvironment is society as a certain socio-economic, socio-political and ideological system. Within its framework, the entire life activity of the individual takes place. The mesoenvironment includes the national-cultural and socio-demographic features of the region in which the child lives. The microenvironment is the immediate environment of his life activity (family, neighbors, peer groups, cultural, educational and educational institutions that he visits). Moreover, in different periods of childhood, each of the components of the social environment has an unequal effect on mental development. The conditions for the assimilation of social experience are the active activity of the child and his communication with an adult. Thanks to the activity of the child, the process of influence of the social environment on him turns into a complex two-way interaction. Not only the environment affects the child, but he also transforms the world, showing creativity. In relation to the objects around him, the child must carry out such practical or cognitive activity. D. B. Elkonin formulates the law of alternation, the periodicity of different types of activity in mental development: activity of one type is followed by activity of another type, orientation in the system of relations is followed by orientation in the way objects are used. The periodization of child development according to this law is presented in Table. 1. Thus, there are three epochs in the development of a child: early childhood, childhood and adolescence. Each of their epochs is divided into two Table 1. Periodization of mental development Leading activity Sphere of reality, which is mastered by the child Epoch Age period Early childhood Infant age (0-1 year) Direct-emotional communication Sphere of relations Early childhood (1-3 years) Object-manipulative activity Sphere of methods of actions with objects Preschool age (3-7 years) Role-playing game Sphere of relations Junior school age (7-11 years) Educational activity Sphere of methods of actions with objects Adolescence (11-15 years) Intimate-personal communication Sphere of relations Senior school age (15 -17 years) Educational and professional activity Sphere of methods of action with objects Childhood Adolescence 27 periods, characterized by what the child learns. By each period, the child comes with a certain discrepancy between what he has learned from the system of relations "child - social adult" and what he has learned?

SECONDARY VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

G. A. Uruntaeva

PSYCHOLOGY

Approved by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation

as a textbook for students of educational institutions of secondary vocational education

6th edition, revised and enlarged

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doctor of psychological sciences, professor A. I. Podolsky; doctor of psychological sciences, professor O.A. Karabanova

Uruntaeva G.A.

U73 Child psychology: a textbook for students. avg. textbook institutions / G.A.Uruntaeva. - 6th ed., revised. and additional - M.: Publishing Center "Academy", 2006. - 368 p.

ISBN 5-7695-2680-7

The textbook (previous editions were published under the title "Preschool Psychology") is written on the basis of the basic methodological and theoretical-psychological provisions adopted in domestic psychology. It gives a complete picture of psychology as a science and its practical application. The presentation of the theory is accompanied by concrete examples. The textbook has a pronounced practical orientation: the author shows how to apply the acquired knowledge in the process of teaching and raising a child.

For students of secondary pedagogical educational institutions. It can also be useful for students of pedagogical institutes and kindergarten teachers.

ÓÄÊ 3159.9(075.32) ÁÁÊ 88.8ÿ723

The original layout of this publication is the property of the Academy Publishing Center, and its reproduction in any way without the consent of the copyright holder is prohibited.

R À Z Ä Å Ë III

DEVELOPMENT OF COGNITIVE PROCESSES IN A PRESCHOOL CHILD

FOREWORD

Preschool childhood is the first period of a child's mental development and therefore the most responsible. At this time, the foundations of all mental properties and qualities of the individual, cognitive processes and activities are laid. It is at this age that the teacher is in the closest relationship with the child, takes the most active part in his development. This means that, along with pedagogy and private methods, the course of child psychology is one of the main courses in the training of preschool teachers.

This textbook is intended for students of pedagogical schools, colleges and university students. Its purpose is to reveal the basic laws of mental development, to show the main acquisitions of the child from birth to school entry.

The textbook is based on the approach that has developed in domestic child psychology to the problem of mental development as to the assimilation of socio-historical experience. When selecting the material, we relied on the fundamental principles of Russian psychology developed by L.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontiev, A.V. Zaporozhets, D.B. Elkonin, S.L. Rubinshtein, L.A. I. Bozhovich, A. A. Lyublinskaya, M. I. Lisina and others, since the system of preschool education was built and is being built on these provisions.

The textbook consists of four sections. Section I deals with the subject of child psychology, the principles and methods of the psychological study of the child. Sections II-IV show transformations in the main areas of the preschooler's psyche: activity, cognitive processes and personality.

We did not limit ourselves to considering the mental development of a child only at the age of three to seven years. In each section, an important place is occupied by the periods of infancy and early childhood. This is due to the following circumstances. Firstly, the educator needs to have an idea about the development of the child at earlier age stages in order to understand the logic, patterns of the formation of mental processes, properties and qualities of the individual in the future. Secondly, without taking into account the mental characteristics inherent in the infant and preschooler, the educator

will not be able to design their subsequent mental development. Thirdly, the material concerning the formation of the child's psyche in infancy and early age is necessary for those specialist educators who will work in nursery groups of kindergartens and orphanages.

Selecting and analyzing the material, we proceeded from its value and significance for pedagogical activity. Therefore, in each area of ​​mental development, we have identified the main indicators that can be used in setting the goals of diagnostics, for monitoring its progress, and in formulating the tasks of education.

In order to connect psychological knowledge with pedagogical practice, we have considered some principles of guidance of one or another mental process or function, for example, will, self-awareness, memory, attention, imagination, etc.

The presentation of the material in the textbook is accompanied by examples that describe a variety of situations in the life of children. They are selected from our research. The examples not only illustrate theoretical positions, but also make up for the lack of psychological experience of students and students, give them a reason for further reflection and comparison with the facts obtained in their own activities. In addition, examples clarify, reveal and fill scientific concepts with meaning.

The textbook introduces readers to the most prominent domestic psychologists, their achievements and the main provisions of the research.

R À Z Ä Å Ë I

GENERAL QUESTIONS OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY

Chapter 1

SUBJECT OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY

§ 1. From the history of child psychology

Child psychology, along with other sciences (pedagogy, physiology, pediatrics, etc.), studies the child, but has its own special subject, which is the development of the psyche

throughout childhood, i.e. the first seven years of life. The specificity of the study of the child in psychology is that

not so much mental processes and qualities in themselves are studied, as the laws of their emergence and formation. Child psychology shows the mechanisms of transition from one age stage to another, the distinguishing features of each period and their psychological content.

Mental development cannot be viewed as a decrease or increase in any indicators, as a simple repetition of what was before. Mental development involves the emergence of new qualities and functions and, at the same time, a change in existing forms of the psyche. That is, mental development acts as a process of not only quantitative, but above all qualitative changes that are interconnected in the sphere of activity, personality and cognition.

Mental development implies not only growth, but also transformations, in which quantitative complications turn into qualitative ones. And the new quality, in turn, creates the basis for further quantitative changes. Thus, the continuity of the development of the psyche is interrupted when qualitatively new acquisitions appear in it and it makes a sharp leap.

Consequently, the development of the psyche is not a simple repetition of the past, but a very complex, often zigzag process that proceeds along an ascending spiral, like a progressive transition from one step to another, qualitatively different and unique.

Psychology, before becoming an independent science, developed within philosophy for a long time. By-

Therefore, psychology, including children's psychology, has close ties with philosophy, because certain philosophical theories underlie the understanding of the essence of a person, his consciousness, personality, activity, mental development.

Child psychology is interconnected with other branches of psychological science. Since the categories of general psychology are used in all branches of psychology, general psychology is their fundamental basis. In general psychology, such phenomena as mental processes, properties and states were singled out, their basic patterns were studied. In turn, child psychology, using the genetic method of research, began to trace their origin. By revealing the laws of development of mental processes and properties, child psychology helps to understand their dynamics, structure, and content.

Developmental psychology, or genetic psychology, has a common subject with child psychology. But if the first studies the general patterns of a person's mental development throughout his life - from birth to death, then the children's - only at preschool age. She finds out what foundation is laid in childhood and what significance it has for further development. Personality psychology is interested in such categories as self-awareness, self-esteem, motivation, worldview, etc., and children's psychology is interested in how they develop and manifest themselves throughout preschool childhood. Child psychology, based on the laws of social psychology, traces how the development of a preschooler, his activities, behavior depend on the characteristics of the social groups in which he is included (family, peers, kindergarten group, etc.). For child and educational psychology, the fundamental problem is the connection between mental development and upbringing and education. The data of child psychology help to substantiate and choose the appropriate methods of raising and educating children. Pedagogical psychology finds out how various forms and methods of education influence the mental development of a preschooler. Psychodiagnostics, relying on indicators of the mental development of children, develops methods for monitoring its progress, identifying and measuring the individual psychological characteristics of the child's personality.

Anatomy, physiology, hygiene help to understand the biological essence of a person, the role of the maturation of the cerebral cortex, the development of the nervous system and sensory organs in mental development, the relationship between mental and physical development, especially close at an early and preschool age. Pedagogy and preschool pedagogy, in particular, rely on child psychology. Pedagogy must know the patterns of personality development and children's activities in order to contribute to their development and change, so all pedagogical problems should be

chit psychological justification. Knowledge of the age characteristics of preschool children and the laws of mental development is necessary for the practice of education and training. Understanding the feelings, desires, interests of the child, identifying the problems that arise in his development, deviations or talents in time, the educator establishes close personal contacts with the child, chooses adequate methods of interaction, education and training.

The prerequisites for the design of child psychology in an independent branch of science in the middle of the XIX century. requests for pedagogical practice, awareness of the need to build a scientific theory of education, as well as the development of the idea of ​​development in philosophy and biology, the emergence of experimental psychology and related objective research methods were made. All the major teachers of the past (J.A. Komensky, J. Locke, J. J. Rousseau, I. G. Pestalozzi and others) talked about the need to build upbringing and education based on knowledge of the age and individual characteristics of the child. They not only showed interest in child psychology, but were experts in it themselves. G. Hegel extended to psychology the principle of development developed by him in philosophy and the dialectical method and showed that mental development is subject to certain laws. The study of this process with the help of the dialectical method required the elucidation of the qualitative differences between the child's psyche and the adult's psyche, as well as the qualitative originality of the child's psyche at different age stages.

The evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin (1859) contributed to the formation of child psychology as a separate field of science, the wide penetration of the genetic principle and objective methods of research into it. Ch.Darwin interpreted the adaptability of an organism to nature, based on the fact of the variability of species, established by him, natural selection, proceeding in the conditions of the struggle of living beings for existence on the basis of variability and heredity. Ch.Darwin considered mental phenomena as a tool for adapting the body to the environment. Such a view of the psyche and mental processes involved the study of the facts of the adaptive behavior of animals and humans, accessible to external objective observation. Following the discovery by Charles Darwin of the laws of evolution in the organic world, the task arose to study the driving forces of mental development, the role of heredity and the environment in this process, the features of the child's interaction with the environment, and adaptation to it.

Charles Darwin himself was interested in child psychology. He observed the behavior of his son from birth to three years, and then published data on the development of motor skills, sensory, speech, thinking, emotions, moral behavior (1877). Previously, an attempt at a detailed and consistent description of mental development

Basov M.Ya. Methods of psychological observations of children // Selected. psychological works. - M. 1975. -S. 27-189.

WengerL. Psychological characteristics of the child // Preschool education. - 1977. - No. 5. - S. 40-46.

Uruntaeva G.A. Afonkina Yu.A.. - M. 1995. - P.4.

Elkonin D. B. Some issues of diagnosing the mental development of children // Izbr. psychological works. - M., 1989. - S. 301-305.

CHAPTER 3. General characteristics of the mental development of a child from birth to 7 years

§ 1. Features of mental development at an early age

Early childhood - age from birth to 3 years special period for development. Consider the features of this period (N.M. Aksarina).

In early childhood, development proceeds as quickly as possible, as at no other age. The most intensive formation and development of all the features characteristic of a person takes place: the basic movements and actions with objects are mastered, the foundations for mental processes and personality are laid.

The spasmodic and uneven mental development in this period is more pronounced than at other ages. The slow accumulation of certain features is rapidly replaced by the most rapid transformations in the psyche. Moreover, the pace and significance of different lines of mental development at different age stages of a child's life are not the same. For example, at the age of 2.5-3 months. the leading line in the development of the psyche is the formation of visual and auditory orienting reactions. From 3 to 5-6 months. on the basis of the development of visual concentration, hand movements are improved, grasping is formed, the child begins to manipulate objects. Visual, auditory, tactile and motor relationships are established.

A child, unlike the cubs of an animal, is born with a minimum number of innate reflexes, but with a rich potential for life development. Almost the entire variety of forms of behavior, both positive and negative, is formed in the process of interaction with the social environment. And even the very time of occurrence of certain mental reactions can be accelerated by the appropriate influence of an adult. For example, if he shows kind attention and care to the child, speaks affectionately, then the smile of the baby appears earlier.

Diagnostics Features of the moral and emotional development of children of senior preschool age

"Features of the moral and emotional development of childrensenior preschool age.

Children of older preschool age develop moral judgments and assessments, an understanding of the social meaning of a moral norm. There is a personal and moral self-regulation. Moral norms of behavior acquire stability. Most children develop a certain moral position, which they adhere to more or less consistently. Children are able to explain their actions using moral categories. They learn social forms of expressing feelings, begin to understand the experiences of others, show care, responsiveness, mutual assistance, sympathy, and also adequately respond to the successes and failures of others. Feelings and emotions become conscious, generalized, reasonable, arbitrary.

Diagnostics of moral and emotional development.

To track the effectiveness of work on moral And emotional development of children, we propose to use methods that allow us to fix the level of development of moral consciousness, moral feelings, moral behavior, emotional balance at the beginning and in end work.

Methodology "Finish the story" (G.A. Uruntaeva, Yu.A., Afonkina)

Target. The study of children's awareness of such moral qualities as kindness-anger, generosity-greed, industriousness-laziness, truthfulness-deceit.

Holding. The study is carried out individually. The child is told the following: "I I'll tell stories and you finish them."

1. The girl spilled toys from the basket onto the road. A boy was standing next to him. He walked up to the girl and said. What did he say? Why did he say so? How did he do? Why do you think so?

2. Mom gave Katya a beautiful doll for her birthday. Katya started to play. Came up to her younger sister Vera said: “I also want to play with this doll.” Katya answered.

3. Children built the city. Olya did not want to take part in the game, she stood nearby and watched others play. The teacher approached the children: “It's time for dinner. The cubes must be placed in a box. Ask Olya to help you." Olga answered.

4. Petya and Vova were playing together and broke a beautiful expensive toy. Dad came and asked: “Who broke the toy?”. Petya answered.

1 point - the child cannot evaluate the actions of children.

2 points - the child can evaluate the behavior of children as positive or negative (correct or incorrect, good or bad), but does not motivate the assessment and does not formulate a moral standard.

3 points - the child names the moral norm, correctly assesses the behavior of children, but does not motivate his assessment.

4 points - the child names the norm, correctly assesses the behavior of children and motivates his assessment.

Methodology - "Subject pictures"

Target. Studying emotional attitude to the same moral qualities as indicated in the previous method.

Material. Pictures depicting situations that are subject to moral assessment (for example, a scene on a bus: a boy is sitting and reading a book, and a girl has given way to an elderly woman).

Holding. The study is carried out individually. The child is shown pictures: “Lay out the pictures so that on one side there are those on which good deeds are drawn, and on the other side bad deeds. Explain why you arranged the pictures the way you did.

1 score - the child incorrectly lays out the pictures (in one pile there are pictures depicting both positive and negative actions), emotional reactions are inadequate to moral standards.

2 points- the child correctly lays out the pictures, but cannot justify his actions.

3 points- correctly lays out the pictures, justifies his actions, naming the moral norm.

Methodology - "Color the picture" (GL. Uruntaeva, YL. Afonkina)

Target. The study of the nature of help (sympathy) to another person. Material. Three sheets of black and white drawings, colored pencils.

Holding. The child is offered:

1) paint over the drawing yourself;

2) help a child who cannot color;

3) finish the drawing of a child who is doing well. Child in need of assistance is not in the room: adult

explains that he went for pencils. If the child decides to help, then he can color his own picture.

Processing of results. The decision to help another can be interpreted both as an indicator of sympathy and as a desire for joint activity.

Mapping the observation of emotional and moral development children at various regime moments is carried out for one to two weeks (see table).

Uruntaeva G.A. Books online

Author of more than 100 works in the field of child and educational psychology, the history of psychology, including an educational and methodological set, including a textbook Preschool psychology, a reader Psychology of a preschooler, a workshop on Diagnostics of the psychological characteristics of a preschooler.

The textbook is written on the basis of the basic methodological and theoretical-psychological provisions adopted in domestic psychology.

It gives a complete picture of child psychology as a science and its practical application. The presentation of the theory is accompanied by concrete examples. The textbook has a pronounced practical orientation: the author shows how to apply the acquired knowledge in the process of teaching and raising a child.

The textbook is written on the basis of the basic methodological and theoretical and psychological provisions adopted in domestic psychology.

Workshop on Child Psychology

The manual was developed in accordance with the program on child psychology, consists of three sections: Personality, Activity and communication, Cognitive processes.

It presents methods aimed at studying the main activities of a preschooler (play, design, drawing, work, teaching), the most important areas of personality (self-awareness, motives of behavior, will, emotions, feelings), communication of a child with adults and peers, cognitive processes ( attention, speech, perception, memory, imagination, thinking).

Reader-workshop is the first textbook that considers the problem of childhood from a unified position of scientific psychological and literary analysis.

For each literary passage, questions and tasks are offered that focus on the psychological characteristics of the child and reflect the relationship of linguistic means and subtle psychological observations.

Diagnosis of visual activity of preschoolers

C e l: reveal the role of diagnostics in the preschool educational institution, highlight the goals, objectives and principles of organizing the diagnostics of the visual activity of children.

Guidelines. Covering the topic of this work, it is necessary to reveal the diagnostic direction of the activity of the preschool educational institution, to highlight the features of the construction of diagnostic work in the visual activity of the child, to analyze the well-known diagnostic programs for the identification and development of children's artistic creativity.

First, the student substantiates the organization of the educational process in a preschool educational institution on a diagnostic basis as one of the necessary conditions for the implementation of a student-centered approach.

Then he reveals the goals, objectives and principles of organizing diagnostic activities in the field of fine art of preschoolers.

In the conclusions, it should be noted the importance of diagnosing a child's artistic activity in the success of the educational process.

1. Bogdanova, T.G. Diagnosis of the cognitive sphere of the child /T.G. Bogdanov. - M., 1994.

2. Wenger, A.L. Scheme of individual examination of children of younger preschool age / A.L. Wenger, N.K. Zuckerman // ed. P.G. Gentle. - Tomsk. 1993.

3. Dorovsky, A.I. One hundred tips for the development of giftedness in children / A.I. Dorovsky. - M., 1997.

4. Denisova T.G. Diagnosis of visual activity of preschool children /T.G. Denisov. - Togliatti, 2001.

5. Diagnostics as a factor in the development of the educational system / ed. V.N.

Maksimov. - St. Petersburg, 1995.

6. Diagnostic work in kindergarten or how to better understand a child / L.A. Balandina and others; ed. E.A. Nichiporyuk, G.D. Posevina. - Rostov n / a, 2005.

Sensorimotor development of preschoolers in the classroom for fine arts. - M., 2001.

7. Stepanov, S.S. Diagnosis of intelligence by the method of drawing test / S.S. Stepanov. - M., 1996.

8. Uruntaeva, G.A. Diagnosis of psychological characteristics of a preschooler / G.A. Uruntaeva. - M., 1996.

9. Uruntaeva, G.A. Workshop on child psychology / G.A. Uruntaeva, Yu.A. Afonkin //ed. G.A. Uruntaeva. - M., 1995.

Features of the development of visual activity in children of early preschool age (1-3 years)

Target: to reveal the essence of the visual activity of the child, its originality at an early age, the patterns of its development.

Guidelines. In the topic, it is necessary to highlight the prerequisites for the visual activity of the baby; features of this activity from one to three years; the originality of the development of drawing, modeling, application, design at this age.

First, it is necessary to study and analyze the initial foundations of the child's visual activity: definition and structural analysis.

He notes the originality and factors that determine the development of the visual activity of a small child. Monitors the process of independent activity (in drawing or other form of visual activity) of one child. In the protocol of observation, briefly note the time of the beginning and end of the image process, fix the child's actions, their sequence, speech manifestations, emotional reactions, etc.

In the conclusions, it should be noted the importance of visual activity for children of early preschool age.

1. Avanesova, V.N. Teaching the smallest in kindergarten / V.N. Avanesov. - M., 1968.

2. Grigorieva, G.G. Visual activity of preschoolers /G.G. Grigoriev. - M., 1999.

3. Zenkovsky, V.V. Psychology of childhood / V.V. Zenkovsky. - Ekaterinburg. 1995.

4. Ignatiev, E.I. Psychology of visual activity of children / E.I. Ignatiev. - M., 1971.

5. Kazakova, T.G. Children's fine art /T.G. Kazakov. - M., 2006.

6. Kazakova, T.G. Visual activity and artistic development of preschoolers /T.G. Kazakov. - M., 1971.

7. Komarova, T.S. Children's artistic creativity /T.S. Komarov. - M., 2005.

8. Komarova, T.S. Visual activity in kindergarten /T.S. Komarov. - M., 1990.

9. Lupan, S. Believe in your child / trans. from French /S. Lupan. - M., 1993.

10. Mukhina, V.S. Visual activity as a form of assimilation of social experience /V.S. Mukhin. - M., 1981.

11. Obukhova, P.F. Developmental psychology /P.F Obukhova. - M., 1996.

12. Poluyanov Yu.A. Children draw / Yu.A. Poluyanov. - M., 1988.

13. Sakulina, N.P. Drawing in preschool childhood / N.P. Sakulin. - M., 1965.

14. Yanushko E.A. Drawing with young children (1-3 years old) / E.A. Yanushko. - M., 2005.

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Uruntaeva G. A. Preschool psychology: Proc. allowance for students. avg. ped. textbook establishments. - 5th ed.

The subject of child psychology

The development of the child's psyche during the first seven years of life is the subject of preschool psychology. Child psychology as part of developmental psychology.

The place and connection of child psychology with other sciences that study a person and a child.

Methodological foundations of child psychology. Methodological principles of studying the child's psyche: determinism, the unity of consciousness and activity, the development of the psyche in activity, humanism and pedagogical optimism, historicism, complexity, consistency, systematicity and consistency, scientific character and objectivity, individual and personal approach.

Tasks of child psychology.

Basic patterns of mental development

Mental development in the light of the laws of dialectics as a process of assimilation, appropriation of socio-historical experience.

The main patterns of mental development: unevenness, spasmodicity, stadiality and the presence of sensitive periods; differentiation and integration; cumulative mental characteristics; plasticity and the possibility of compensation; the unity of the general and the individual in mental development.

Prerequisites and conditions of mental development.

Hereditary features and innate properties of the body as prerequisites for mental development. Inclinations and abilities.

Influence of social conditions of life on mental development. Social environment: macro-, micro-, meso-environment as a source of mental development. The role of the family, communication with adults and peers in mental development.

Uruntaeva Galina Anatolyevna - Doctor of Psychology, Professor, Honored Worker of the Higher School of the Russian Federation.

Author of more than 100 works in the field of child and educational psychology, the history of psychology, including an educational and methodological kit, including the textbook "Preschool Psychology", the reader "Psychology of a preschooler", the workshop "Diagnostics of the psychological characteristics of a preschooler."

Preschool psychology. Tutorial

It gives a complete picture of psychology as a science and its practical application. The presentation of the theory is accompanied by concrete examples. The manual has a pronounced practical orientation: the author shows how to apply the acquired knowledge in the process of teaching and raising a child.

Workshop on Child Psychology

The manual was developed in accordance with the program on child psychology, consists of three sections: "Personality", "Activity and Communication", "Cognitive Processes".

It presents methods aimed at studying the main activities of a preschooler (play, design, drawing, work, teaching), the most important areas of personality (self-awareness, behavioral motives, will, emotions, feelings), the child's communication with adults and peers, cognitive processes ( attention, speech, perception, memory, imagination, thinking).

Psychology of childhood in fiction XIX — XX

The works included in it reveal the diversity of the psychological characteristics of the child, his personality; gaming activity, his communication with adults and peers, the manifestation and development of emotions and feelings, abilities and character traits are considered.

The textbook is written on the basis of the basic methodological and theoretical and psychological provisions adopted in domestic psychology. It gives a complete picture of child psychology as a science and its practical application.

The presentation of the theory is accompanied by concrete examples. The manual has a pronounced practical orientation: the author shows how to apply the acquired knowledge in the process of teaching and raising a child.

The book may also be useful to students of pedagogical institutes and kindergarten teachers.

CHAPTER 1. The subject of child psychology

Child psychology, along with other sciences (pedagogy, physiology, pediatrics, etc.), studies the child, but has its own special subject, which is the development of the psyche during childhood. Childhood, according to the periodization adopted in Russian psychology (D.

B. Elkonii), covers three large eras: early childhood - the age from birth to 3 years, childhood - from 3 to 10 years and adolescence. Preschool psychology, being an integral part of child psychology, studies the mental development of a child during the first 7 years of life.

The specificity of the study of the child in psychology lies in the fact that it is not so much mental processes and qualities that are studied in themselves, but the laws of their emergence and formation. Child psychology shows the mechanisms of transition from one age stage to another, the distinguishing features of each period and their psychological content.

Mental development cannot be viewed as a decrease or increase in any indicators, as a simple repetition of what was before. Mental development involves the emergence of new qualities and functions and, at the same time, a change in existing forms of the psyche.

That is, mental development acts as a process of quantitative and qualitative changes that are interconnected in the sphere of activity, personality and cognition. The continuity of the development of the psyche is interrupted when qualitatively new acquisitions appear in it and it makes a sharp leap.

Uruntaeva G. A. Child psychology

Preschool childhood is the first period of a child's mental development and therefore the most responsible. At this time, the foundations of all mental properties and qualities of the individual, cognitive processes and activities are laid.

It is at this age that the teacher is in the closest relationship with the child, takes the most active part in his development. This means that, along with pedagogy and private methods, the course of child psychology is one of the main courses in the training of preschool teachers.

This textbook is intended for students of pedagogical schools, colleges and university students. Its purpose is to reveal the basic laws of mental development, to show the main acquisitions of the child from birth to school entry.

The textbook is based on the approach that has developed in domestic child psychology to the problem of mental development as to the assimilation of socio-historical experience. When selecting the material, we relied on the fundamental provisions of Russian psychology developed by L. S. Vygotsky, A. N. Leontiev, A. V. Zaporozhets, D. B. Elkonin, S. L. Rubinshtein, L. A. Venger, L. I. Bozhovich, A. A. Lyublinskaya, M. I. Lisina and others, since the system of preschool education was built and is being built on these provisions.

The textbook consists of four sections. Section I deals with the subject of child psychology, the principles and methods of the psychological study of the child. Sections II-IV show transformations in the main areas of the preschooler's psyche: activity, cognitive processes and personality.

We did not confine ourselves to considering the mental development of a child only at the age of three to seven years. In each section, an important place is occupied by the periods of infancy and early childhood. This is due to the following circumstances.

Firstly, the educator needs to have an idea about the development of the child at earlier age stages in order to understand the logic, patterns of the formation of mental processes, properties and qualities of the individual in the future. Secondly, without taking into account the mental characteristics inherent in the infant and preschooler, the educator

will not be able to design their subsequent mental development. Thirdly, the material concerning the formation of the child's psyche in infancy and early age is necessary for those specialist educators who will work in nursery groups of kindergartens and orphanages.

Selecting and analyzing the material, we proceeded from its value and significance for pedagogical activity. Therefore, in each area of ​​mental development, we have identified the main indicators that can be used in setting the goals of diagnostics, for monitoring its progress, and in formulating the tasks of education.

In order to connect psychological knowledge with pedagogical practice, we have considered some principles of guidance of one or another mental process or function, for example, will, self-awareness, memory, attention, imagination, etc.

The presentation of the material in the textbook is accompanied by examples that describe a variety of situations in the life of children. They are selected from our research.

The examples not only illustrate theoretical positions, but also make up for the lack of psychological experience of students and students, give them a reason for further reflection and comparison with the facts obtained in their own activities. In addition, examples clarify, reveal and fill scientific concepts with meaning.

The textbook introduces readers to the most prominent domestic psychologists, their achievements and the main provisions of the research.

GENERAL QUESTIONS OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY

SUBJECT OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY

§ 1. From the history of child psychology

Child psychology, along with other sciences (pedagogy, physiology, pediatrics, etc.), studies the child, but has its own special subject, which is the development of the psyche

throughout childhood, i.e. the first seven years of life. The specificity of the study of the child in psychology is that

not so much mental processes and qualities in themselves are studied, as the laws of their emergence and formation. Child psychology shows the mechanisms of transition from one age stage to another, the distinguishing features of each period and their psychological content.

Mental development cannot be viewed as a decrease or increase in any indicators, as a simple repetition of what was before. Mental development involves the emergence of new qualities and functions and, at the same time, a change in existing forms of the psyche. That is, mental development acts as a process of not only quantitative, but above all qualitative changes that are interconnected in the sphere of activity, personality and cognition.

Mental development implies not only growth, but also transformations, in which quantitative complications turn into qualitative ones. And the new quality, in turn, creates the basis for further quantitative changes. Thus, the continuity of the development of the psyche is interrupted when qualitatively new acquisitions appear in it and it makes a sharp leap.

Consequently, the development of the psyche is not a simple repetition of the past, but a very complex, often zigzag process that proceeds along an ascending spiral, like a progressive transition from one step to another, qualitatively different and unique.

Psychology, before becoming an independent science, developed within philosophy for a long time. By-

Therefore, psychology, including children's psychology, has close ties with philosophy, because certain philosophical theories underlie the understanding of the essence of a person, his consciousness, personality, activity, mental development.

Child psychology is interconnected with other branches of psychological science. Since the categories of general psychology are used in all branches of psychology, general psychology is their fundamental basis.

In general psychology, such phenomena as mental processes, properties and states were singled out, their basic patterns were studied. In turn, child psychology, using the genetic method of research, began to trace their origin. By revealing the laws of development of mental processes and properties, child psychology helps to understand their dynamics, structure, and content.

Developmental psychology, or genetic psychology, has a common subject with child psychology. But if the first studies the general patterns of a person's mental development throughout his life - from birth to death, then the children's - only at preschool age.

She finds out what foundation is laid in childhood and what significance it has for further development. Personality psychology is interested in such categories as self-awareness, self-esteem, motivation, worldview, etc., and children's psychology is interested in how they develop and manifest themselves throughout preschool childhood.

Child psychology, based on the laws of social psychology, traces how the development of a preschooler, his activities, behavior depend on the characteristics of the social groups in which he is included (family, peers, kindergarten group, etc.). For child and educational psychology, the fundamental problem is the connection between mental development and upbringing and education. The data of child psychology help to substantiate and choose the appropriate methods of raising and educating children.

Pedagogical psychology finds out how various forms and methods of education influence the mental development of a preschooler. Psychodiagnostics, relying on indicators of the mental development of children, develops methods for monitoring its progress, identifying and measuring the individual psychological characteristics of the child's personality.

Anatomy, physiology, hygiene help to understand the biological essence of a person, the role of the maturation of the cerebral cortex, the development of the nervous system and sensory organs in mental development, the relationship between mental and physical development, especially close at an early and preschool age. Pedagogy and preschool pedagogy, in particular, rely on child psychology. Pedagogy must know the patterns of personality development and children's activities in order to contribute to their development and change, so all pedagogical problems should be

chit psychological justification. Knowledge of the age characteristics of preschool children and the laws of mental development is necessary for the practice of education and training. Understanding the feelings, desires, interests of the child, identifying the problems that arise in his development, deviations or talents in time, the educator establishes close personal contacts with the child, chooses adequate methods of interaction, education and training.

The prerequisites for the design of child psychology in an independent branch of science in the middle of the XIX century. requests for pedagogical practice, awareness of the need to build a scientific theory of education, as well as the development of the idea of ​​development in philosophy and biology, the emergence of experimental psychology and related objective research methods were made. All the major teachers of the past (Y.

A. Comenius, J. Locke, J. J. Rousseau, I. G. Pestalozzi and others) talked about the need to build upbringing and education based on knowledge of the age and individual characteristics of the child. They not only showed interest in child psychology, but were experts in it themselves.

G. Hegel extended to psychology the principle of development developed by him in philosophy and the dialectical method and showed that mental development is subject to certain laws. The study of this process with the help of the dialectical method required the elucidation of the qualitative differences between the child's psyche and the adult's psyche, as well as the qualitative originality of the child's psyche at different age stages.

The evolutionary theory of Ch. Darwin (1859) contributed to the formation of child psychology as a separate field of science, the wide penetration of the genetic principle and objective methods of research into it. Ch. Darwin interpreted the adaptability of an organism to nature, relying on the fact of the variability of species established by him, natural selection proceeding in the conditions of the struggle of living beings for existence on the basis of variability and heredity. C. Darwin considered mental phenomena as a tool for adapting the body to the environment.

Such a view of the psyche and mental processes involved the study of the facts of the adaptive behavior of animals and humans, accessible to external objective observation. Following the discovery by Charles Darwin of the laws of evolution in the organic world, the task arose to study the driving forces of mental development, the role of heredity and the environment in this process, the features of the child's interaction with the environment, and adaptation to it.

Charles Darwin himself was interested in child psychology. He observed the behavior of his son from birth to three years, and then published data on the development of motor skills, sensory, speech, thinking, emotions, moral behavior (1877). Previously, an attempt at a detailed and consistent description of mental development

Neighbor files in an item

_Uruntaeva G. A., Preschool psychology

Lisina M. I., Silvestru A. I. Psychology of self-knowledge in preschoolers. - Chisinau, 1983.

Panko E. Educator and his influence on the formation of independence of a preschooler / Preschool education. - 1986.-№2.-S.

Repina T., Bashlakova L. Educators and children, their communication // Preschool education. - 1989. - No. 10. - P.63-65.

Umanets L. I. The role of self-esteem in the game relations of pre-school children//Questions 61-67.

CHAPTER 16

Will is understood as a person's conscious regulation of his behavior and activities, expressed in the ability to overcome difficulties in achieving the goal.

The essential components of volitional action are the emergence of motivation, awareness and struggle of motives, decision-making and execution. Volitional action is generally characterized by purposefulness, as a conscious orientation of a person to a certain result of activity.

The first stage of volitional action is associated with initiative, expressed in setting one's own goals, and independence, manifested in the ability to resist the influence of other people. Decisiveness characterizes the stage of the struggle of motives and decision making. Overcoming obstacles in achieving goals at the stage of execution is reflected in a conscious volitional effort, which involves the mobilization of one's forces.

The most important acquisition of preschool age is the transformation of the child's behavior from "field" to "strong-willed" (A. N. Leontiev). The main characteristics of the "field" behavior of the pre-preschooler are impulsiveness and situationality.

The child acts without thinking, under the influence of spontaneously arisen experiences. And the goals and content of his activity are determined by external objects, components of the situation in which the baby is located. So, having seen the doll, the child starts feeding it.

If a book came into his field of vision, then he immediately throws the doll and begins to enthusiastically examine the pictures.

At about 3 years of age, in connection with the development of personal action and self-awareness, the pre-preschooler has personal desires that cause his activity, which are expressed in the form: “I want” or “I don’t want.” Their appearance marks the beginning of the formation of the will, when situational dependence in behavior and activity is overcome.

Now the child receives relative freedom from the situation, the ability to “rise” above it. Behavior and activity at preschool age change not only in content, but also in structure, when a more complex organization is formed.

§ 1. Development of volitional action in preschool age

In preschool age, the formation of volitional action occurs. The child masters goal-setting, planning, control.

Volitional action begins with setting a goal. A preschooler masters goal-setting - the ability to set a goal for an activity. Elementary purposefulness is already observed in an infant (A.

V. Zaporozhets, N. M. Shchelovanov). He reaches for the toy that interests him, looking for it if it goes beyond his field of vision. But such goals are set from the outside (by the subject).

In connection with the development of independence, the baby already in early childhood (at the age of about 2 years) has a desire for a goal, but it is achieved only with the help of an adult. The emergence of personal desires leads to the emergence of "internal" purposefulness, due to the aspirations and needs of the baby himself.

But in a pre-preschooler, purposefulness is manifested more in setting than in achieving a goal. Under the influence of external circumstances and situations, the baby easily abandons the goal and replaces it with another.

In a preschooler, goal setting develops along the line of independent, proactive goal setting, which also change in content with age. Younger preschoolers set goals related to their personal interests and momentary desires.

And elders can set goals that are important not only for them, but also for those around them. As L. S. Vygotsky emphasized, the most characteristic of volitional action is the free choice of a goal, one’s own behavior, determined not by external circumstances, but motivated by the child himself. The motive, encouraging children to activity, explains why this or that goal is chosen.

From about the age of 3, the child's behavior is increasingly driven by motives that, replacing each other, are reinforced or come into conflict.

At preschool age, the correlation of motives with each other is formed - their subordination. A leading motive is singled out, which determines the behavior of a preschooler, subordinating other motives to itself.

We emphasize that the system of motives is easily violated under the influence of a bright emotional impulse, which leads to a violation of well-known rules. For example, a kid, in a hurry to see what gift his grandmother brought, forgets to say hello to her, although in other situations he always says hello to adults and peers.

Based on the subordination of motives, the baby has the opportunity to consciously subordinate his actions to a distant motive (A. N. Leontiev). For example, make a drawing to please your mother at the upcoming holiday. That is, the child's behavior begins to be mediated by the ideal model being presented ("How happy mom will be when she receives a drawing as a gift"). The connection of motives with the idea of ​​an object or situation makes it possible to attribute the action to the future.

The subordination of motives occurs on the basis of their struggle. In early childhood, the struggle of motives and, consequently, their subordination is absent. The preschooler simply obeys a stronger motive.

An attractive target immediately causes him to act. The preschooler, on the other hand, is aware of the struggle of motives as an internal conflict, experiences it, understanding the need to choose.

A nanny sometimes comes to Dasha N. (5 years 3 months). The girl treats her well, always greets her joyfully and does not forget to say goodbye. Once, when the nanny was leaving, Dasha did not come out to see her off, she hid, looked out into the corridor and ran away again.

When the nanny left, mom asked Dasha why she didn't say goodbye to the nanny. The girl explained: “I pushed Rosa Vasilievna. I was ashamed to approach her.

And now I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed that I didn't say goodbye to her."

The subordination of motives in a preschooler, as shown by the studies of A. N. Leontiev, initially occurs in a direct social situation of communication with

adults. The ratio of motives is set by the requirement of the elder and is controlled by the adult. And only later subordination of motives appears when it is required by objective circumstances.

Now the preschooler may strive to achieve an unattractive goal for the sake of something else that is meaningful to him. Or he may give up something pleasant in order to achieve something more important or avoid something undesirable. As a result, individual actions of the child acquire a complex, as it were, reflected meaning.

Pasha N. (5 years 7 months), running past, pushed Maxim D. (6 years) . Maxim caught up with Pasha and pushed him too. In another situation, Maxim D. saw that Serezha D. (6 years 7 months old) was beating the baby. He approached the offender, began to push, repeating: “Do not touch the little ones!”

Thus, the child's behavior turns into extra-situational personal, loses its immediacy. It is directed by the idea of ​​the object, and not by the object itself, that is, an ideal motivation appears, for example, a moral norm becomes a motive.

The preschooler's motives are impulsive and unconscious. They are mainly associated with objective activities and communication with adults.

The expansion of the boundaries of a preschooler's life activity leads to the development of motives that affect the spheres of attitude to the world around him, other people and himself.

The motives of a preschooler become not only more diverse, they are recognized by children and acquire different motive power.

Children aged 3-7 have a pronounced interest in the content and process of new activities: drawing, labor, design, and especially play. Game motives retain a significant motivating force throughout the entire preschool age.

They suggest the child's desire to "enter" an imaginary situation and act according to its laws. Therefore, in didactic game knowledge is acquired most successfully, and the creation of an imaginary situation facilitates the fulfillment of the requirements of an adult.

In preschool childhood, children develop an interest in new, more important, more "adult" activities (reading and counting) and the desire to perform them, which is caused by the formation of the prerequisites for educational activities.

At the age of years, cognitive motives develop intensively. According to N. M. Matyushina and A. N. Golubeva, at the age of 3-4 years, children often replace cognitive tasks with play ones. And in children 4-7 years old, persistence is also observed in solving mental problems, which gradually increases.

In older preschoolers, cognitive motives are increasingly separated from play ones.

At older preschool age, cognitive motives come to the fore in the didactic game. Children get satisfaction from solving not only a game, but also a mental task, from the intellectual efforts with which these tasks were solved.

In the sphere of attitude towards oneself, the preschooler sharply increases the desire for self-affirmation and recognition, which is due to the need to realize one's own

personal significance, value, uniqueness. And the older the child, the more important for him is the recognition of not only adults, but also other children.

Maxim D. (5 years 11 months old) was sledding down a hill. Having rolled down once again, he stopped near two boys of 7-8 years old. When they saw Maxim, they smiled, and one of them said: “Look, what a roll has come to us.”

Maxim immediately jumped up, ran to his mother and began to hurriedly say: “Let's get out of here. I don't want to ride anymore!" “Why do you want to leave?” Mom asked. “They called me a bun,” the boy replied with resentment in his voice.

The motives associated with the child's claim to recognition are expressed (at the age of 4-7 years) in competitiveness, rivalry. Preschoolers want to be better than other children, always achieve good results in their activities.

For example, children draw. The teacher takes Olya’s drawing (5 years 4 months) and says: “Look how beautiful Olya’s drawing is!” “Beautiful,” confirms Ksyusha O. (5 years and six months old) and continues: “Only she copied my Christmas tree.”

By the age of 6-7, the child begins to relate more adequately to his achievements and to see the successes of other children.

If the motives associated with the child's claim to recognition among adults and children are not satisfied, if the child is constantly scolded or not noticed, given offensive nicknames, not taken into the game, etc., he may exhibit antisocial forms of behavior that lead to a violation rules. The child seeks to attract the attention of other people with the help of negative actions.

Let's show an example.

Seryozha P. (5 years old) has recently been going to kindergarten and still doesn't know how to do much. He especially fails at drawing. The boy beautifully selects a combination of colors, but he lacks technical skills.

For five lessons, the educator, analyzing children's work, emphasized Seryozha's failures and constantly praised the drawings of Lena, who was sitting next to him. Once, after another positive assessment of Lenin's drawing, Seryozha said: “So what, I can do that too!” and jerked the drawing towards him sharply. The drawing is torn.

Older preschoolers strive to maintain positive relationships with peers and perform common activities. Moreover, the motives for communication with comrades in children 5-7 years old are so strong that the child often gives up his personal interests in order to maintain contacts, for example, he agrees to an unattractive role, refuses a toy.

Maxim D. (5 years 4 months) became friends with Oleg V. (6 years) . The children played together all the time. Once Oleg's brother Vanya (8 years old) joined them. He sought to attract the attention of the younger ones, showed them various toys and, in the end, began to pour water on Maxim. Maxim, after several attempts to evade the jet of water, sprayed Vanya himself. Vanya's mother saw this, made a remark to Maxim and took the brothers to

another play area. His mother approached Maxim. “Maxim, did you quarrel?” she asked. The boy replied: “Vanya was the first to pour himself.

But I'm going to apologize anyway." "But it's not your fault!" “So what if it’s not your fault. I'm sorry anyway. I want to be allowed to play with Olezhka.

The preschooler's interest in the world of adults is expanding, more clearly than in early childhood, the desire to join it, to act like an adult, is manifested. These unconditionally positive motives can lead to a violation of the rules of behavior by a child, to actions that are condemned by elders.

For example, the father of five-year-old Gosha A. painted the window. Without finishing the work, he went to another room to talk on the phone, and when he returned, he saw that Gosha had “painted” not only the window sill, the battery, the wall next to the window (“To be beautiful”), but also himself.

Given the high motivating force of motives associated with the desire to be like an adult, it is necessary to show the baby where and how to show his "adulthood", entrust him with some harmless, but serious and important business, "which without him no one can do well." And when evaluating his act, at first glance obviously negative, it is necessary first of all to find out the motive that caused it.

Throughout the preschool age, the motives of encouragement and punishment, which are associated with the desire to maintain positive relationships with adults "to be good," make pedagogical assessment effective. For children 3-4 years old, these motives are most effective. Older preschoolers successfully overcome their own personal aspirations not only for the sake of receiving encouragement or avoiding punishment, but also for moral purposes.

The most important acquisition in the motivational sphere of preschoolers, along with the subordination of motives, is the development of moral motives. At 3-4 years of age, moral motives are either absent or only slightly affect the outcome of the struggle of motives.

At 4-5 years old, they are already characteristic of a significant part of children. And at the age of 5-7 years, moral motives become especially effective. By the age of 7, moral motives become decisive in their motivating force.

That is, social demands turn into the needs of the child himself. But throughout the entire preschool age, the following features of the struggle of motives persist. As before, the child performs many impulsive actions under the influence of strong emotions.

For an older preschooler, affect suppression is possible, although with difficulty. It is difficult to overcome the motives associated with organic needs, the conflict arises most clearly between public and personal motives, the choice between them is acutely experienced by the child.

A preschooler is able to make an effort of will to achieve a goal. Purposefulness develops as a strong-willed quality and an important character trait.

Retention and achievement of the goal depends on a number of conditions. First, from the difficulty of the task and the duration of its implementation. If the task is difficult, then additional reinforcements are needed in the form of instructions, questions, adult advice or visual support.

Secondly, from successes and failures in activity. After all, the result is a visual reinforcement of volitional action. In 3-4 years, successes and failures do not affect the child's volitional action. Middle preschoolers experience success or failure in their

activities. Failures affect her negatively and do not stimulate perseverance. And success is always positive.

A more complex ratio is typical for children 5-7 years old. Success encourages overcoming difficulties. But in some children, failure has the same effect.

There is an interest in overcoming difficulties. And not finishing the case to the end is assessed negatively by older preschoolers (N. M. Matyushina, A. N. Golubeva).

Thirdly, from the attitude of an adult, which implies an assessment of the actions of the child. An objective, benevolent assessment of an adult helps the baby to mobilize his strength and achieve results.

Fourthly, from the ability to imagine in advance the future attitude to the result of one's activity (N. I. Nepomnyashchaya). (Thus, making paper rugs was more successful when an adult or other children made demands on these gifts on behalf of the persons to whom the gifts were intended.)

Fifth, from the motivation of the goal, from the ratio of motives and goals. The preschooler achieves the goal more successfully with game motivation, and also when the closest goal is set. (I.

Z. Neverovich, studying the influence of different motives on the activities of preschoolers, showed that she was more active when the children made a flag for the kids, and a napkin for the mother. If the situation changed (the napkin was intended for the kids, and the flag for the mother), the guys very often did not finish the job, they were constantly distracted.

They did not understand why the mother needed a flag, and the kids needed a napkin.) Gradually, the preschooler moves on to internal regulation of actions that become arbitrary. The development of arbitrariness involves the formation of a child's focus on their own external or internal actions, as a result of which the ability to control oneself is born (A. N. Leontiev, E. O. Smirnova). The development of arbitrariness occurs in different areas of the psyche, in different types preschool activities.

After 3 years, arbitrariness in the sphere of movements is intensively formed (A. V. Zaporozhets). The assimilation of motor skills in a pre-preschooler is a by-product of objective activity. In a preschooler, for the first time, mastery of movements becomes the goal of activity.

Gradually, they turn into manageable, controlled by the child on the basis of a sensorimotor image. The child consciously tries to reproduce the characteristic movements of a certain character, to convey to him special mannerisms.

The self-control mechanism is built according to the type of control of external objective actions and movements. The task of maintaining a fixed posture for children 3-4 years old is not available. At 4-5 years old, the control of one's behavior is carried out under the control of vision.

Therefore, the child is easily distracted by external factors. At 5-6 years old, preschoolers use some tricks to avoid distractions. They manage their behavior under the control of motor sensations.

Self-management acquires the features of an automatically flowing process. At 6-7 years old, children maintain a fixed posture for a long time, and this no longer requires continuous effort from them (Z. V. Manuylenko).

At the senior preschool age, the features of arbitrariness begin to acquire mental processes occurring in the internal mental plane: memory, thinking, imagination, perception and speech (Z. M. Istomina, N. G. Agenosova, A. V. Zaporozhets, etc.).

By the age of 6-7 years, arbitrariness develops in the field of communication with an adult (E. E. Kravtsova).

5th ed. Publisher: Academy. Series: Pedagogical education. Year: 2001. Number of pages:
336. ISBN: 5-7695-0034-4.
The textbook is written on the basis of the basic methodological and theoretical and psychological provisions adopted in domestic psychology. It gives a complete picture of psychology as a science and its practical application. The presentation of the theory is accompanied by concrete examples. The manual has a pronounced practical orientation: the author shows how to apply the acquired knowledge in the process of teaching and raising a child. The book may also be useful to students of pedagogical institutes and kindergarten teachers.

Content:
Section one. General questions of child psychology.
1. The subject of child psychology.
- Basic patterns of mental development.
- Mental development as the assimilation of socio-historical experience.
2. Principles and methods of child psychology.
- Principles of studying the child's psyche.
- Methods of child psychology.
- As a teacher to study the mental characteristics of the child.
3. General characteristics of the child's mental development from birth to 7 years.
- Features of mental development at an early age.
- Mental development of the child in the first year of life.
- Mental development of a child from 1 year to 3 years.
- Mental development of a child from 3 to 7 years.

Section two. The development of the activity of a preschooler.
4. Development of household activities in preschool age.
- Development of household activities in infancy.
- Development of household activities in early childhood.
- Development of household activities in preschool age.
5. The development of labor activity in preschool age.
- Development of prerequisites for work activity in early childhood.
- The development of labor activity in preschool age.
6. The development of gaming activities in preschool age.
- Development of play in infancy and early childhood.
- Characteristics of the role-playing game in preschool age.
- Characteristics of other types of play activities of a preschooler.
- The role of toys in the mental development of the child.
7. Development of productive activities in preschool age.
- The development of visual activity in preschool age.
- Development of constructive activity in preschool age.
8. Development of communication of preschoolers with adults and peers.
- Development of communication between preschoolers and adults.
- The attitude of preschoolers to the personality of the educator.
- Development of communication between preschoolers and peers.

Section three. The development of cognitive processes of preschoolers.
9. Development of attention in preschool age.
- Functions and types of attention.
- Development of attention in infancy.
- Development of attention in early childhood.
- Development of attention in preschool age.
- Management of the development of attention.
10. Development of speech in preschool age.
- Speech development in infancy.
- Speech development in early childhood.
- The development of speech in preschool age.
11. Sensory development in preschool age.
- Sensory development in infancy.
- Sensory development in early childhood.
- Sensory development in preschool age.
12. Development of memory in preschool age.
- Development of memory in infancy.
- Development of memory in early childhood.
- Development of memory in preschool age.
- Management of the development of memory.
13. Development of imagination in preschool age.
- Imagination development in early childhood.
- The development of imagination in preschool age.
- Guiding the development of the imagination.
14. Development of thinking in preschool age.
- Development of thinking in infancy.
- The development of thinking in early childhood.
- The development of thinking in preschool age.
- Guiding the development of thinking.

Section four. The development of the personality of a preschooler.
15. Development of self-awareness in preschool age.
- The development of self-awareness in infancy.
- The development of self-awareness in early childhood.
- The development of self-awareness in preschool age.
- Guiding the development of self-awareness.
16. Development of will at preschool age.
- Development of volitional action in preschool age.
- Guiding the development of the will.
17. "Emotional development in preschool age.
- Emotional development in infancy.
- Emotional development in early childhood.
- Emotional development in preschool age.
- Emotional distress in children and its causes.
18. Moral development in preschool age.
- Moral development in infancy.
- Moral development in early childhood.
- Moral development in preschool age.
19. Development of temperament in preschool age.
- Features of the properties of temperament in children of the first seven years of life.
- Characteristics of children with different types of temperament.
- Accounting for the properties of temperament in educational work with preschoolers.
20. Development of abilities in preschool age.
- Development of abilities of a preschooler.
- Conditions for the development of abilities in preschool age.
21. Psychological readiness for schooling.
- The social situation of development during the transition from preschool to primary school age.
- Components of psychological readiness for learning at school.

Applications. The program for the course "preschool psychology" for students of pedagogical schools and colleges.
General questions of child psychology.
- The subject of child psychology.
- Methods of child psychology.
- The main directions of mental development in early childhood.
The development of the activity of a preschooler.
- Household activities.
- Labor activity.
- Game activity.
- Visual activity.
- Constructive activity.
- Communication of the child with adults.
- Development of communication with peers.
The development of cognitive processes of preschoolers.
- Development of attention.
- The development of speech.
- Sensory development.
- Development of memory.
- Development of the imagination.
- Development of thinking.
The development of the personality of a preschooler.
- Development of self-awareness.
- Development of the will.
Emotional development.

Program for the course of preschool psychology.
- Moral development.
- Development of temperament.
- Development of abilities.
- Psychological readiness to study at school psychological characteristics of children of 6 years of age.
- Psychological readiness for systematic training.

Applications. Dictionary of basic psychological concepts.