There are two different points of view on the development of the child as a whole. According to one of them, this process continuousaccording to the other discrete. The first assumes that development goes on without stopping, not accelerating and not slowing down, therefore there are no clear boundaries separating one stage of development from another. According to the second point of view, development proceeds unevenly, now accelerating, now slowing down, and this gives grounds for identifying stages or stages in development that are qualitatively different from each other. Those who hold an opinion on the discreteness of the development process, in addition to what has been said, usually assume that at each stage there is some major, leading factor determining the development process at this stage. Supporters of the last position discussed also believe that all children, regardless of their individual features   without fail pass through each stage of development without missing a single one and running ahead.

Those who hold a discrete point of view on the process of development are more today. Their concepts are developed in more detail and are more often used in the education and upbringing of children than the views of advocates of the idea of ​​continuity of development. Therefore, we will further dwell on the discrete point of view, presenting several different periods of development within its framework.

There are two different approaches to the presentation of periodization of development. One of them is based on an understanding of the development process as an emerging spontaneously, under the influence of many random factors and circumstances in the lives of children, and the other seems regulatory   or as development should ideally have been, with full consideration of all factors affecting it, with proper organization of education and upbringing of children.

That periodization of child development, which has developed on the basis of the existing practice of teaching and upbringing, reflects, in the opinion of D. B. Elkonin, mainly this particular practice, and not the potential abilities of the child. Such a periodization, which can be called empirical   (from the word “empiricist”, denoting a really emerging experience) does not have a proper theoretical substantiation and “is not able to answer a number of significant practical questions, for example, when to start training, what are the features of educational and educational work during the transition to each period, etc. " 1 .

1   Elkonin D. B. To the problem of the periodization of mental development in children // Chrestomathy on age and pedagogical psychology.-M.-, 1981.-P.26.

A much greater psychological and pedagogical interest is of another, theoretically sufficiently substantiated, periodization of child development, but at present it is difficult to build it, because the development possibilities of the child are not fully known, and most importantly, not fully realized. Therefore, in the future we will discuss periodization, which is a cross between empirical, established in real life experience, and theoretical, potentially possible, under ideal conditions for the training and education of children. This is precisely the periodization of development proposed by D. B. Elkonin. 2 . Consider its main provisions.

2   Note that not all psychologists even in our country adhere to this periodization. There are other points of view that can be found in ch. 13 of the first book of this textbook.

Childhood, covering the time period from the birth of a child to graduation, according to the age physical classification is divided into the following seven periods:

1. Infancy: from birth to one year of life.

2. Early childhood: from one year of life to three years.

3. Junior and middle preschool age: from three to four or five years.

4. Senior Preschool Age: from four to five to six to seven years.

5. Younger school age: from six to seven to ten to eleven years.

6. Teen increases   ten to eleven to thirteen to fourteen years old.

7. Early adolescence: from thirteen-fourteen to sixteen-seventeen.

Each of these age periods has its own characteristics and boundaries, which are relatively easy to notice by carefully observing the development of the child, analyzing his psychology and behavior. Each psychological age requires its own style of communication with children, the use of special techniques and methods of training and education.

The whole process of child development as a whole can be divided into three stages: preschool childhood   (from birth to 6-7 years old), primary school age   (from 6-7 to 10-11 years old, from first to fourth through fifth school grades), middle and senior school age   (from 10-11 to 16-17 years old, from the fifth to the eleventh grade of school). Each of them consists of two periods, which are opened by interpersonal communication as a leading type of activity, aimed primarily at the development of the child’s personality and concluding with substantive activities related to intellectual development, with the formation of the child’s knowledge and skills, and the implementation of the child’s operational and technical capabilities.

The transition from one stage of development to another occurs in the conditions of a situation that somehow resembles an age crisis, namely, when there is a discrepancy between the level of personal development achieved and the operational and technical capabilities of the child.

At the stages of predominantly personal development, children’s learning personal characteristics   adults come about through the reproduction, or modeling, of these relationships and the personality traits manifested in them, especially favorable conditions for this are created in the child’s communication with other children in various social groups in the process of organizing and conducting role-playing games. Here, the child is faced with the need to master new objective actions, without which it is difficult to be understood and accepted among peers, to look more adult.

The development process begins at infancy   with communication as a leading activity 3 . The revitalization complex that occurs in the third month of life is actually a complex form of communication between a child and adults. It appears long before the child begins to independently manipulate objects.

3   D. B. Elkonin did not use the concept of “leading form of communication” introduced by us earlier, therefore, in expounding his author's concept, we will use the withdrawal “leading activity” in relation to communication.

On the border of infancy and early age there is a transition to the actual objective actions, to the beginning of the formation of the so-called practical, or sensorimotor, intelligence. At the same time, verbal forms of communication between a child and an adult are intensively developing, which suggests that communication does not cease to be an activity that leads development, but is included in the relevant process along with the objective activity.

However, an analysis of the speech contacts of a child of this age with other people shows that his speech is mainly used as a means of communication for establishing cooperation with people in joint activities with them, but not as a tool for thinking. Yes, and the objective actions themselves during this period of time serve for the child as a method of establishing interpersonal contacts. Communication, in turn, is mediated by the objective actions of the child and is practically not yet separated from them.

AT preschool age   the leading activity is the game in its most perfect, developed form, allowing all aspects of the child’s psyche and behavior — role-playing — to develop. The main value of the game for the mental development of children is that due to the special gaming techniquesIn particular, the child assumes the role of an adult, performs its social and labor functions, symbolic nature of many objective actions, transfers values ​​from one object to another, the child models in the game relationships between people. Role play acts as a type of activity that combines communication and objective activity and ensures their joint influence on the development of the child.

Leading role in mental development children of primary school age   plays a teaching. In the process of learning, the formation of intellectual and cognitive abilities takes place; through the teachings of these years, the whole system of the child’s relations with surrounding adults is mediated.

AT adolescence   arises and develops labor activity, as well as a special form of communication - intimate-personal. The role of work, which at this time takes the form of joint hobbies of children in any business, is to prepare them for the future professional activity. The task of communication is to clarify and assimilate the elementary norms of partnership, friendship. It also outlines the separation of business and personal relationships, which is fixed to the senior school age. A notable feature of adolescent communication is that in all its forms there is obedience of relations to a peculiar partnership code. This code reproduces in general terms the business and personal relationships that exist between adults.

AT senior school age   the processes that were started in adolescence continue, but intimate-personal communication becomes the driving force in development. Inside it, senior schoolchildren develop views on life, on their position in society, and professional and personal self-determination is carried out.

The concept of D. B. Elkonin was further developed in the works of D. I. Feldstein, who presented a more detailed picture of the periodization of child development. It looks like this.

In the process of child ontogenesis, its different stages are distinguished: stages, periods, stages and phases. The emphasis is on personal development, not cognitive processes. Its formation and development is represented in the form of a gradual rise from step to step. Throughout childhood, there are two phases of development: from birth to 10 years and from 10 years to 17 years. They, accordingly, are divided into three stages: from birth to 3 years, from 3 to 10 years, from 10 to 17 years. In turn, the first phase is divided into four periods: 0-1 year, 1-3 years, 3-6 years, 6-10 years, and the second - into two periods: 10-15 years, 15-17 years.

Within each of the six distinguished periods, there are three stages characterized by a change in leading activities and internal transformations that take place in the individual during this time.

DI Feldstein believes that in the process social development   child as a person manifest certain patterns. One of them is the change in the social position of the individual. Transitions from one level of development to another can occur smoothly and quickly, with significant qualitative changes in the personality. During smooth transitional periods, the child usually does not particularly think about the question of what his position is among other people and how it should be; with drastic changes in the social position of the individual, it is precisely these questions that come to the fore in the child’s self-consciousness.

Within each period, the development process goes through the following three regularly alternating stages:

1. The development of a specific activity.

2. Maximum implementation, the culmination of the development of this type of leading activity.

3. The saturation of this activity and the actualization of its other side (under the different sides of the activity we mean its subject and communicative aspects).

In general, in the development of children, no matter in what periodization we represent it, “there are two fairly pronounced abrupt transitions. The first characterizes the transition from early childhood to preschool, known as the “crisis of three years”, and the second - the transition from primary school age to adolescence, known as the “crisis of adolescence” or “the crisis of puberty”. They always mark the transition of a child from one level of development to another, the success of which depends on how well the crisis will be overcome.

Question number 3

Age periodization of mental development of the child.

Age - qualitatively unique period of physical, psychological or behavioral development, characterized by features inherent only to him.

AT ides ages:

Biological - is determined by the degree of maturation of the organism, the state of the nervous system and GNI.

Social - is determined by the level of social roles, functions of a person (16 years - rights and obligations).

Psychological - features of psychology and behavior, qualitative changes in mental development - the level of psychological development achieved by this time.

Physical - characterizes the child's lifetime in years, months and days elapsed since his birth.

Periodization   - division of the life cycle into separate periods or age stages.

Periodization L.S. Vygotsky

Basic concepts of Vygotsky's theory.   Vygotsky considers development, above all, the emergence of a new one. Development stages are characterized by age-related neoplasmsi.e. qualities or properties that were not previously in finished form. The source of development, according to Vygotsky, is the social environment. The interaction of the child with his social environment, raising and educating him, determines the occurrence of age-related neoplasms.

Vygotsky introduces the concept “Social situation of development”   - specific for each age relationship between the child and the social environment. The environment becomes completely different when the child moves from one age stage to the next.

Dynamics age development.   L.S. Vygotsky identifies stable and crisis stages of development.

For a stable period is characterized by a smooth course of the development process, without sudden changes and changes in the child's personality. Stable periods make up a large part of childhood. They last, as a rule, for several years. And age-related neoplasms, formed so slowly and for a long time, prove to be stable, fixed in the structure of the personality.

In addition to stable, there are crisis periods of development. These are brief but turbulent stages, during which significant shifts in development take place. Crises do not last long, for several months, under unfavorable circumstances, stretching to a year or even two years.

During crisis periods, the main contradictions are exacerbated: on the one hand, between the increased needs of the child and his still limited opportunities, on the other - between the new needs of the child and the previously established relationships with adults.

Periods of child development.   Crisis and stable periods of development alternate. Therefore, the age periodization of LS Vygotsky has the following form:

Newborn crisis;

Infancy (2 months-1 year) - 1 year crisis;

Early childhood (1-3 years) - 3 years crisis;

Preschool age (3-7 years) - crisis of 7 years;

School age (8-12 years) - crisis of 13 years;

Pubertal age (14-17 years) - crisis of 17 years.

Periodization D.B. Elkonin

D.B. Elkonin created periodization based on the ideas of Vygotsky and Leontyev. Based on the change of the leading type of activity. Among the types of leading activity, Elkonin distinguishes two groups.

In the first group   includes activities that focus the child on the norms of relations between people:

directly-emotional communication of the baby,

role-playing game    preschooler

intimate-personal communication teenager.

The activities of the first type are related to the “child-adult” relationship system.

Second groupconstitute leading activities, thanks to which methods of action with objects are assimilated:

object-manipulative activity of a young child,

learning activities junior schoolboy

educational and professional activities of high school students.

The activities of the second type are related to the child-to-object relationship system.

According to Elkonin, every age is characterized by

social development situation;

leading activity;

age-related neoplasms.

Borders of ages are crises - turning points in the development of a child.

Periodization of child development. According to the periodization of Elkonin, the process of child development as a whole can be divided into stages (larger temporary formations), including periods of child development.

Stages of child development.   Childhood, covering the period from the birth of a child to graduation, according to age classification, is divided into the following three stages:

Preschool childhood (from birth to 6-7 years);

The younger school age (from 6-7 to 10-11 years old, from the first to the fourth to fifth grades of the school);

Middle and senior school age (from 10-11 to 16-17 years, from the fifth to the eleventh grade of school).

Periods of child development.   The whole process of child development as a whole can be divided into seven periods:

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

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

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

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

5. The younger school age: from 6-7 to 10-11 years.

6. Adolescence: from 10-11 to 13-14 years.

7. Early adolescence: from 13-14 to 16-17 years.

Each of these age periods has its own characteristics, requires its own style of communication with children, the use of special techniques and methods of training and education.

General approaches to the problem of periodization.

There are two different points of view on the development of the child. According to one of them, this process continuousaccording to the other discrete

According to theory of continuous development   - development goes on without stopping, not accelerating and not slowing down, therefore there are no clear boundaries separating one stage of development from another.

According to discrete development theory   - development is uneven, then accelerating, then slowing down, and this gives grounds for the selection of stages or stages in

Development, qualitatively different from each other. At each stage there is a major, leading factor determining the development process at this stage.

Periodization of child development by external criteria.

Periodizations of this type are based on external,   but related to the development process of the criterion itself. An example would be the periodization created by biogenetic   principle (the Stern periodization), or later periods, based on levels of education and trainingchildren (periodization R.Zazzo, A.V. Petrovsky).

Periodization of V. Stern.

V. Stern - one of the supporters of the theory of recapitulation, transferred to the age psychology biogenetic law Haeckel. According to this position, ontogeny repeats phylogenesis in a short and concise manner. Therefore, Stern presents the process of the individual development of a child as a repetition of the main stages of biological evolution and the stages of the cultural-historical development of mankind.

According to V. Stern, a child in the first months of the infant period with a still meaningful reflex and impulsive behavior is at the stage of a mammal. In the second half of the year, thanks to the development of the setting of objects and imitation, he reaches the stage of the highest mammal, the monkey. Later, having mastered the vertical gait and speech, the child reaches the initial stages of the human state. In the first five years of the game and fairy tales, he stands on the steps of primitive peoples. Starting at school, a child learns about human culture. In the first school years, children's development, according to Stern, corresponds to the human development of the ancient and Old Testament world. Middle school age has features of fanaticism of Christian culture, Stern calls puberty the age of enlightenment, and only in the period of maturity does a person rise to the level of the culture of the New Age.

Periodization R. Zazzo.

Another example is the periodization of René Zazzo. In it, the stages of childhood coincide with the steps education and training systems for children.   After the stage of early childhood (up to 3 years), the stage of pre-school age (3-6 years) begins, the main content of which is education in the family or preschool. This is followed by the initial stage. school education   (6-12 years old), in which the child acquires basic intellectual skills; learning stage in

High school (12-16 years old) when he gets a general education; and later -

Stage of higher or university education.

Since development and upbringing are interrelated, and the structure of education is created on the basis of extensive practical experience, the boundaries of the periods established according to the pedagogical principle almost coincide with the turning points in child development.

Periodization A.V. Petrovsky.

In the periodization of Artur Vladimirovich Petrovsky, as an external criterion determining the process of child development, there are various social groups with which the child interacts as he grows up.

Formation of the child’s personality is determined, according to Petrovsky, by the peculiarities of the child’s relationship with members reference group.The reference group is most significant for the child compared to the others, it takes precisely its values, moral norms and forms of behavior.

At each age stage, the child is included in a new social group, which becomes for him a reference. First it's a family, then a group kindergarten, school class and informal teen groups. For any such group has its own activities and a special style of communication. The activity-mediated relationship of the child with the group, according to Petrovsky, is the factor that participates in the formation of the child's personality.

Periodization of child development by internal criteria.

In this group of periodizations not external is used, but internal criterion.This criterion becomes any one side of developmentfor example, the development of bone tissue in P.P.Blonsky, the development of child sexuality in 3. Freud, the development of moral consciousness in L.Kolberg.

Periodization of P.P. Blonsky.

Pavel Petrovich Blonsky chose an objective, easily accessible observation, connected with the essential features of the constitution of a growing organism, the sign - the emergence and change of teeth.   Childhood is therefore divided into three epochs: toothless childhood (from birth to 8 months), childhood of milk teeth (approximately 6.5 years old) and childhood of permanent teeth (until the appearance of wisdom teeth).

Periodization of Freud.

Sigmund Freud considered the main engine of human behavior is the unconscious, saturated with sexual energy. Sexual development,   according to Freud, determines the development of all aspects of personality and can serve as a criterion age periodization.

Stages of development of child sexuality   determined by Freud, the displacement of erogenous zones - those areas of the body, the stimulation of which causes pleasure.

Oral stage. At the oral stage (up to 1 year), the erogenous zone is

Mouth and lips mucosa. A child gets pleasure when he sucks milk, and in the absence of food - his own finger or some other object. Since absolutely all the desires of the infant cannot be immediately satisfied, the first restrictions appear, and in addition to the unconscious, the instinctive beginning of the personality, called 3. Freud "It", the second instance develops -

  "I". Formed personality traits such as insatiability, greed, demanding

Fidelity, dissatisfaction with all proposed.

Anal stage. In the anal stage (1-3 years), the erogenous zone is displaced into the intestinal mucosa. A child at this time is taught to be tidy, many demands and prohibitions arise, with the result that a third instance begins to form in the child's personality - “Super-I” as a carrier of moral and ethical standards, internal censorship, and conscience. Accuracy, punctuality, stubbornness, aggressiveness, secrecy, hoarding and some other traits develop.

Phallic stage.   Phallic stage (3-5 years) characterizes the highest stage of child sexuality. The leading erogenous zone are the genitals. If, until now, child sexuality was directed towards itself, now children are beginning to experience sexual affection for adults, boys for mother (Oedipus complex), girls for father (Electra complex). This is the time of the most strict prohibitions and intensive formation of the “Super-I”. New personality traits are born - self-observation, prudence, etc.

Latent stage.   The latent stage (5-12 years) as if temporarily interrupts the sexual development of the child. Attractions emanating from “It” are well controlled. Child sexual experiences are supplanted, and the interests of the child are sent to communicate with friends, school, etc.

Genitalsnaya stage. The genital stage (12-18 years) corresponds to the actual sexual development of the child. All erogenous zones are combined, the desire for normal sexual intercourse appears. Biological start

  - “It” - enhances its activity, and the personality of a teenager has to contend with his aggressive impulses, using psychological defense mechanisms.

Periodization L. Kohlberg.

An example of private periodization, reflecting individual aspects of child development, is Lawrence Kolberg's ideas about the formation of a child's moral consciousness.

Sequential progressive process, highlighting in it 6 stages of development,

Combining in three levels.

The first - domoral levels.   The norms of morality for the child are something external, he follows the rules established by adults for purely selfish reasons. Initially, he focuses on punishment and behaves "well" to avoid it (stage 1). Then he begins to focus on the promotion, expecting to receive praise or some other reward for his correct actions (stage 2).

Second level - conventional morality   (convention - agreement, agreement).The source of moral prescriptions for the child remains external. But he is already striving to behave in a certain way because of the need for approval, in maintaining good relations with people who are significant to him. Orientation in their behavior towards meeting expectations and approval of others is characteristic for stage 3, and for authority - for 4. This determines the instability of the child’s behavior, dependence on external influences.

Third level - autonomous moralitys   Moral norms and principles become the personal property of the individual, i.e. internal. Actions are determined not by external pressure or authority, but by my conscience: “I stand on it and I cannot do otherwise.” First, there is an orientation towards the principles of social well-being, democratic laws, assumed obligations to society (5th stage), then - to universal ethical principles (6th stage).

All preschoolers and the majority of seven-year-old children (approximately 70%) are at the domestic level of development. This lower level of development of moral consciousness is retained in some children and later - in 30% at 10 years and 10% in

Many children by the age of 13 solve moral problems at the second level, they have conventional morality. The development of the highest level of moral consciousness is associated with the development of the intellect: conscious moral principles cannot appear before adolescence, when logical thinking is formed.

Periodizations based on one feature are subjective: one of many aspects of development is arbitrarily chosen by the authors. In addition, they do not take into account the change in the role of the selected feature in overall development   child throughout childhood, and the value of any trait changes with the transition from age to age.

Periodization of child development

on the basis of internal criteria.

In the third group of periods, an attempt was made to single out periods of the child’s mental development based on essential features   of this development.This is the periodization of Eric Erickson, L.S. Vygotsky, and D. B. Elkonin. They use three criteria - social situation of development, leading activities and the central age-related neoplasm.

Periodization of E. Erickson.

Eric Erickson is a follower of 3. Freud, who expanded the psychoanalytic theory. He was able to go beyond it due to the fact that he began to consider the development of the child in the wider system of social relations.

Basic concepts of the theory of Erickson.One of the central concepts of Erickson’s theory is identity personalityand. The personality develops due to its inclusion in various social communities (nation, social class, professional group, etc.). Identity (social identity) defines the system of personal values, ideals, life plans, needs, social roles with appropriate forms of behavior.

Identity is formed in adolescence, it is a characteristic

Enough mature personality. Until that time, the child must go through a series of identifications - identifying oneself with the parents; boys or girls (gender identity), etc. This process is determined by the upbringing of the child, since from his very birth the parents, and then the wider social environment, acquaint him with their social community, group, and transfer to the child their peculiar world outlook.

Another important position of the theory of Erickson - crisis developmenti . Crises are inherent in all age stages, these are “turning points”, moments of choice between progress and regress. At each age, personal neoplasms acquired by a child can be positive, associated with the progressive development of the personality, and negative, causing negative changes in development, its regression.

Stages of personal development.   Erickson identified several stages of personal development.

1- i stage.   In the first stage of development, corresponding infancy   arises trust or distrust of the world.   With the progressive development of the personality, the child “chooses” a trusting attitude. It manifests itself in light feeding, deep sleep, lack of tension internal organsnormal intestinal function. A child with confidence in the world, without much anxiety and anger, endures disappearing from his mother’s sight:

She receives not only milk and the care he needs from her mother, but

  “Food” by the world of forms, colors, sounds, caresses, smiles.

At this time, the child, as it were, “absorbs” the image of the mother (the mechanism of introjection arises). This is the first stage of identity formation.

Developing personality.

2- i am a stage.   The second stage corresponds to early age.   The abilities of the child increase dramatically, he begins to walk and defend his independence, the sense of independence.

Parents limit the child’s desire to demand

Assign, destroy, when he tests his strength. Parental requirements and limitations create a basis for negative feelings. shame and

doubt. The child feels the “eyes of the world,” watching him with judgment, and seeks to make the world not look at him or wants to become invisible himself. But

This is impossible, and the child has “inner eyes of the world” - shame for their mistakes. If adults make too harsh demands, they often blame and punish the child, he will have constant alertness,

Stiffness, uncommunicability. If the child’s desire for independence is not suppressed, a correlation is established between the ability to cooperate with other people and insist on one’s own, between freedom of expression and its

Reasonable limitation.

3- i stage.   In the third stage, which coincides with preschool agethe child actively learns the world around him, models adult relationships in the game, quickly learns everything, acquires new responsibilities. To independence is added initiative.   When a child’s behavior becomes aggressive, the initiative is limited, feelings of guilt and anxiety appear; thus, new internal institutions are laid - conscience and moral responsibility for their actions, thoughts and desires. Adults should not overload the conscience of the child. Excessive disapproval, punishment for minor offenses and mistakes cause a constant feeling guilt   fear of punishment for secret thoughts, vindictiveness. Brakes initiative, develops passivity.

At this age stage occurs gender identification,   and the child develops a certain form of behavior, male or female.

4- i am a stage. Junior school age -   pre-pubertal, i.e. preceding puberty of the child. At this time, the fourth stage is unfolding, related to the upbringing of hard work in children, the need to master new knowledge and skills. Comprehending the basics of work and social experience gives the child the opportunity to gain recognition from others and gain a sense of competence. If the achievements are small, he is acutely experiencing his ineptitude, inability, disadvantage among

peers and feels condemned to be mediocrity. Instead

Feelings of competence inferiority.

The period of primary schooling is also the beginning professional identification   feeling your connection with representatives of certain professions.

5- i stage. Older adolescence   and early adolescence constitute the fifth stage of personal development, the period of the deepest crisis. Childhood comes to an end, the completion of this stage of the life path leads to the formation of identity. All previous child identifications are combined; new ones are added to them, as the matured child joins new social groups and acquires other ideas about himself. The holistic identity of the individual, confidence in the world, independence, initiative and competence allow the young man to solve the problem of self-determination, the choice of a life path.

When one cannot realize oneself and one’s place in the world, one can observe identity diffusion.   It is associated with an infantile desire not to enter into adulthood as long as possible, with anxiety, a sense of isolation and emptiness.

Periodization L.S. Vygotsky

Basic concepts of Vygotsky's theory.For Lev Semenovich Vygotsky development   - this is primarily the emergence of a new one. Development stages are characterized by age relatedataniamand, those. qualities or

Properties that were not previously available. The source of development, according to Vygotsky, is the social environment. The interaction of the child with his social environment, raising and educating him, determines the occurrence of age-related neoplasms.

Vygotsky introduces the concept « social situationsvitia "- the age-specific relationship between the child and the social environment. The environment becomes completely different when the child moves from one age stage to the next.

The social situation of development is changing at the very beginning of the age period. By the end of the period, new growths appear, among which a special place is occupied central new patternatthe most important for development in the next stage.

The laws of child development.L.S. Vygotsky established four basic laws of child development.

1- th law. The first one is cyclical development.   Rise periods

Intensive development are replaced by periods of slowing down, fading. Such cycles

development characteristic of individual mental functions (memory, speech,

Intellect, etc.) and for the development of the psyche of the child as a whole.

2- thsbutton The second law is unevenness   development. Different aspects of the personality, including mental functions, develop unevenly. Differentiation of functions begins in early childhood. First, the main functions are distinguished and developed, first of all, perception, then more complex ones. At an early age, perception dominates, in preschool - memory, in elementary school - thinking.

3- th law. The third feature is "Metamorphosis" in child development. Development does not boil down to quantitative changes, it is a chain of changes in the qualitative, transformations of one form into another. The child does not look like a small adult who knows little and knows how and gradually gains the necessary experience. The psyche of a child is unique at each age level, it is qualitatively different from what it was before and what will happen next.

4- th law. The fourth feature is a combination of evolutionary processes and involutions   in child development. The processes of "reverse development" are interwoven as it were in the course of evolution. What developed at the previous stage, dies or transformed. For example, a child who has learned to speak stops babbling. The younger schoolchild disappears preschool interests, some features of thinking that are inherent to him before. If the involutionary processes are late, infantilism is observed: the child, moving into a new age, retains the old children's traits.

Dynamics of age development.Defining general patterns   development of the psyche of the child, LS Vygotsky also considers the dynamics of transitions from one age to another. At different stages, changes in the child's psyche can occur slowly and gradually, and can - quickly and sharply. Accordingly, stable and crisis stages of development are distinguished.

For stable period   characterized by a smooth course of development, without abrupt changes and changes in the child's personality. Minor changes that occur over a long time, usually invisible to others. But they accumulate and at the end of the period they give a qualitative leap in development: age-related neoplasms appear. Only by comparing the beginning and the end of a stable period, one can imagine the enormous path that the child went through in his development.

Stable periods make up a large part of childhood. They last, as a rule, for several years. And age-related neoplasms, formed so slowly and for a long time, prove to be stable, fixed in the structure of the personality.

In addition to stable, there are creesisnye periods   development. In age psychology there is no consensus about crises, their place and role in

mental development of the child. Some psychologists believe that child development

It should be harmonious, crisis-free. Crises are abnormal

"Painful" phenomenon, the result of improper education. Another part of psychologists argues that the presence of development crises is natural. Moreover, according to some ideas, a child who has not survived the real crisis will not fully develop further.

Vygotsky attached great importance to crises and considered the alternation of stable and crisis periods as the law of child development.

Crises, unlike stable periods, do not last long, for several months, under an unfavorable set of circumstances, stretching for up to a year or even two years. These are brief but turbulent stages, during which significant shifts in development take place.

During crisis periods, the main contradictions are exacerbated: on the one hand, between the increased needs of the child and his still limited opportunities, on the other - between the new needs of the child and the previously established relationships with adults. Now these and some other contradictions are often viewed as the driving forces of mental development.

Periods of child development.   Crisis and stable periods of development alternate. Therefore, the age periodization of LS Vygotsky has the following form: a crisis of childbirth - infancy (2 months-1 year) - a crisis

1 year - early childhood (1-3 years) - crisis 3 years - preschool age (3-7

Years) - crisis of 7 years - school age (8-12 years) - crisis of 13 years -

Pubertal age (14-17 years) - crisis of 17 years.

Periodization of Elkonin

Daniel Borisovich Elkonin developed the ideas of L.S. Vygotsky on child development.

Types of leading activities.Elkonin views a child as a person actively learning about the world around him - the world of objects and human relations. These relationship systems are developed by the child in different types of activities. Among the types of leading activity, Elkonin distinguishes two groups.

AT the first the group   includes activities that orient the child to norms of relations between people. This is the directly-emotional communication of the infant, the role-playing game of the preschooler and the intimate-personal communication of the teenager. They differ significantly from each other in content, but are activities of the same type, dealing with the “child

Adult".

The second the group constitute leading activities through which they are digested methods of action with objects: subject-manipulative activities of a young child, educational activities of a primary school child and educational and professional activities of a high school student. The activities of the second type deal with the “child-object” relationship system.

The mechanism of age development.In the activities of the first type, the child’s motivational and needy sphere develops; in the activities of the second type, the operational and technical capabilities of the child are formed, intellectual cognitive sphere. These two lines form a single process of personal development, but at each age stage one of them gets the primary development. In infancy, the development of the motivational sphere is ahead of the development of the intellectual sphere, at the next, early age, the motivational sphere is lagging behind, and the intellect is developing at a faster rate, etc.

According to Elkonin, each age is characterized by its own social situation   development; leading activitiesin which the motivational-needy or intellectual sphere of the personality develops predominantly; age-related neoplasmsformed at the end of the period, among them stands out the central, the most significant for subsequent development. Crises - turning points in the development of a child - serve as borders of ages.

Periodization of child development.Periodization D.B. Elkonin - the most common in the domestic psychology. According to the periodization of Elkonin, the process of child development as a whole can be divided into stages (larger temporary formations), including periods of child development.

Stages of child developmenti. Childhood, covering the period from the birth of a child to graduation, according to age classification, is divided into the following three stages:

preschool childhood   (from birth to 6-7 years);

primary school age   (from 6-7 to 10-11 years old, from first to fourth

Fifth grade school);

middle and senior school age   (from 10-11 to 16-17 years old, from the fifth to the eleventh grade of school).

Periods of child developmenti.   The whole process of child development as a whole can be divided into seven periods:

1. Infancy:   from birth to one year of life.

2. Early childhood:   from one year of life to three years.

3. Junior and middle preschool age:   from three to four or five years.

4. Senior preschool age:   from four to five to six to seven years.

6. Adolescence:from ten to eleven to thirteen

Fourteen years.

7. Early adolescence:   from thirteen-fourteen to sixteen

Seventeen years.

Each of these age periods has its own characteristics, requires its own style of communication with children, the use of special techniques and methods of training and education.

INTELLIGENT DEVELOPMENT OF A CHILD

Periodization intellectual development   by piaget

The studies of Jean Piaget and the Geneva Psychological School created by him showed the qualitative originality of children's thinking, and traced how the child's thinking gradually changes its character throughout childhood.

Piaget studied the development of visual-active and visual-figurative thinking in children.

Factors of development of intelligence.   The three main factors affecting the development of the child’s intelligence are, according to Piaget, maturation, experience and the action of the social environment, in particular, training and education.

Up to 7-8 years old child’s interaction with the world of things and people obeys

The laws biological devices.The biological factors at a certain level of development are joined by social ones, thanks to which the child develops norms of thinking and behavior. This is a fairly high and late level: only after a turning point (about 7-8 years) does social life begin to play a progressive role in the development of intelligence. The child is socialized gradually.

Periods of intellectual development by Piaget.The child’s intellectual development goes through a number of periods, the order of which always remains unchanged. J.Piaget singled out four periods of the intellectual development of children:

Sensomotor period, from childbirth to 18-24 months.

Preoperative period, from 18-24 months to 7 years.

The period of specific operations, from 7 years to 12 years.

The period of formal operations, after 12 years.

Sensory motor period.   Sensomotor period covers the first two years of a child's life. At this time, speech is not developed and there are no representations, and the behavior is based on the coordination of perception and movement (hence

name "sensorimotor"). The sensor-motor period, in turn, includes

Several stages:

Stage of strengthening reflexes,

Stage of primary circular reactions,

Stage of secondary circular reactions,

The stage of practical intelligence, the stage of tertiary circular reactions, the stage of introducing the schemes of action.

Having been born, the child has inborn reflexes. Some of them, such as the sucking reflex, are subject to change. After some exercise, the child sucks better than the first day, then begins to suck not only during the meal, but also in between - his fingers, any objects that touch his mouth. This is the stage exercise reflexes. As a result of the exercise of reflexes, the first skills.

In the second stage, the child turns his head toward the noise, traces the movement of the object with his gaze, tries to grab the toy. The basis of the skill lie primary circular reactions -   repetitive actions. The child repeats the same action again and again (say, pulling the cord) for the sake of the process itself. Such actions are supported by the child’s own activity, which gives him pleasure.

Secondary circular reactions   appear at the third stage, when the child is no longer focused on his own activity, but on the changes caused by his actions. The action is repeated in order to prolong interesting impressions. The child shakes the rattle for a long time in order to prolong the sound that interests him, carries it along the bars of the crib with all the objects that were in the hands, etc.

The fourth stage - the beginning practical intelligence.   Schemes of action, formed at the previous stage, are combined into a single whole and are used to achieve the goal. When an accidental change of action gives an unexpected effect — a new impression — the child repeats it and reinforces the new pattern of action.

At the fifth stage appear tertiary circular reactions:   the child is already specifically changing the actions to see what results it will lead to. He is actively experimenting.

In the sixth stage begins introriorizatsii schemes of action.   If a earlier baby   made various external actions to achieve the goal, tried and was mistaken, now he can already combine schemes of actions in the mind and suddenly come to the right decision. For example, a girl, holding objects in both hands, cannot open the door and, reaching for the door handle,

it stops. She puts the items on the floor, but noticing that the opening

The door will touch them, shift them to another place.

By the end of the sensorimotor stage of development, the child becomes a subject,

Capable of elementary symbolic actions.

Preoperative period.   For about 2 years, an internal action plan has been developed. This ends the sensorimotor period, and the child enters a new period - pre-operational.

The main characteristic of the preoperative stage is the beginning of the use of symbols, including words. At this stage it is still very difficult for a child to imagine how others perceive what he observes and sees.

He successfully solves problems in a concrete situation, but cannot cope with them in the case when the solution needs to be expressed in an abstract, verbal form. The difficulties that the child faces in this case

Due to insufficient development of his speech.

Representative Intelligencepeculiar to children at the preoperative stage -   this is thinking through submissions. A strong figurative beginning with insufficient development of verbal thinking leads to a kind of childish logic. At the stage preoperative views   the child is not capable of proof, reasoning. A striking example of this are the so-called Piaget phenomena.

Preschool children were shown two clay balls and, having made sure that the children considered them to be the same, they changed the shape of one ball before their eyes -

Roll it into the "sausage". Answering the question whether the amount of clay was the same in a ball and sausage, the children said that it was not the same: it was more in the sausage because it was longer. In a similar problem with the amount of liquid children

Evaluated water poured into two glasses, as the same. But when with them the water was poured from one glass to another, narrower and higher, and the water level in this vessel rose, they believed that there was more water in it. The child has

There is no principle of conservation of the amount of substance. He is not arguing

Focuses on the external, "conspicuous" signs of objects.

The stage of pre-operational ideas is completed with the appearance of an understanding of the conservation of a quantity of a substance, the fact that during transformations, some properties of objects remain unchanged, while others change. The phenomena of Piaget disappear, and children of 7-8 years old, solving the problems of Piaget, give the correct answers.

Period specific operationsth.   At the stage of specific operations, children can already give logical explanations of the actions performed, are able to move from one point of view to another, become more objective in their assessments. Having passed a difficult path in space, a child of seven years old is able to remember it, indicate and learn, moreover - go back and

repeat if necessary. But to depict it graphically on paper is how

The rule can not yet. An eight-year-old child is already able to do that.

The stage of concrete operations is called this level of intellectual development because a child can use concepts here only by linking and relating them to specific objects, and not as concepts in the abstract logical sense of the word. Logical operations need to be based on clarity, they cannot be done in a hypothetical way (therefore, they are called concrete).

The child discovers the ability to perform flexible and reversible operations performed in accordance with logical rules. Operation -the central concept of the theory of J. Piaget. Operation is a reversible action. Such reversible operations are most paired math operations. The essence of the child's intellectual development is mastering operations. Children come to an intuitive understanding of the two most important logical principles that are expressed by the relationship:

If a A = B and B = C, then A = C; A + B = B + A

Children cope with conservation tasks easily (Piaget phenomena). The experiment is to dissolve the sugar in a glass of water. The child is asked about the preservation of the solute, its weight and volume. Children up to 7-8 years old dissolved sugar is usually considered destroyed, and even the taste of it, according to the child, disappears. At about 7–8 years old, sugar is already considered as preserving its substance in the form of very small particles, but it has neither weight nor volume (a naive, pre-experimental discovery of atomism). At the age of about 9-10 years old children claim ,   that each grain of sugar retains its weight, and the total weight of all elementary sugar particles is equivalent to the weight of sugar before it dissolves. At the age of 11-12 years, the same applies to the volume: the child predicts that after the sugar melts, the water level in the glass will be above its original height.

Another important characteristic of this stage of intellectual development is the ability to rank objects according to some measurable trait, for example, by weight or size. In theory, J. Piaget, this ability is called serialization. Let us follow for example the process of age development of a child according to such an intellectual operation as serialization. At the initial stage, the smallest children, conducting serialization, claim that all the objects offered to them (for example, sticks) are the same. At the older stage, children divide objects into two categories: large and small, without further ordering. At the next stage of their development, children are already talking about large, medium and small objects. At the next stage, the child builds a classification empirically, through trial and error, but is unable to immediately build it without error. Finally, at the last stage, he discovers the method of serialization: he chooses the largest of the sticks first, puts it

on the table. Then looking for the largest of the remaining. And so on. In this,

At the last stage, he without hesitation correctly builds the series, and the construction created by him assumes reversible relations, that is, he understands that the element

  “A” in the series is at the same time smaller than all previous elements and more than all subsequent ones.

Thus, at the stage of specific operations, between the ages of 7 and 12 years, children are able to organize objects according to different characteristics, for example, height or weight. The child also already understands that many terms expressing relations: less, shorter, easier, higher, etc., characterize not absolute, but relative properties of objects, i.e., their qualities, which are manifested in these objects only in relation to other objects.

Children of this age are capable of combining subjects into classes, to distinguish subclasses from them, denoting words as distinguished classes and subclasses. However

Children under the age of 12 cannot yet reason, using abstract concepts, rely in their reasoning on assumptions or imaginary events.

The period of formal transactionsth. The last, the highest period of intellectual development - the period formal operations.The teenager is freed from concrete attachment to objects given in the field of perception, and he gains the ability to think in the same way as an adult.

At the stage of formal operations, which, starting from 12 years, continues throughout a person’s life, the individual learns the concepts. Characteristic feature

The concern of this stage is the ability to think logically, using abstract concepts, the ability to perform direct and inverse operations in the mind (reasoning), the ability to formulate and test assumptions.

The hypothetical nature. The teenager considers judgments as hypotheses from which one can derive all sorts of consequences; his thinking becomes hypothetical-deductive.

Some contemporary critics of Piaget believe that he underestimated the level of intellectual development of a preschooler child. Critics of Piaget asserted that the stages identified by J. Piaget testify to the stages of speech, rather than intellectual development. Baby may know ,   to understand, but not to be able to explain his understanding in the way that is typical of an adult. It turned out, for example, that if one does not rely on the child’s speech statements when assessing his intellect, children as young as 4–5 years of age can demonstrate an understanding of the principle of conservation of matter when changing the shape and location of objects.

J. Bruner changed the course of one of the experiments of J. Piaget. Children were offered a task with glasses of water. At first they compared the amount of water

in two vessels and established that it is "the same." Then the vessels were closed with a screen and the children were asked if the amount of water would change if it was poured from one glass to another, wider one. Most children 4-5 years old said that the water will remain the same. At the third stage of the experiment, behind a screen, water was poured from one glass and the screen was removed. Now the children saw that in the new wide glass the water level was lower than in the first one, and most of the children already believed that there was less liquid in it.

J. Bruner showed that, not having a clear picture, in purely theoretical terms, preschoolers know that the amount of water does not change from the transfusion. But each property of a thing for a child of this age is represented in a visual plan, and the level of fluid that they see becomes an indicator of its total quantity.

Periodization of the age development of children

There are all sorts of points of view on the process of age development of children. Some scientists believe that the process of children's age development is continuous, others consider it discrete.

Adherents of the continuous developmental age of children argue that this is a developmental process that has no boundaries separating one stage from another. According to supporters of discrete development, the development process has stages and stages that are qualitatively distinguished from each other. Since this process goes irregularly, it slows down, then accelerates, but at the same time it develops. In discrete development, children overcome all stages of development sequentially, in stages.

To date, the choice of teachers and psychologists falls on the discrete position of children's development, as a result, we analyze it in more detail. There are spontaneous and regulatory approaches to the periodization of the age development of children. Proponents of the first approach believe that the process of child development is shaped by the mass of random circumstances and factors. With the proper organization of the upbringing and education of children, taking into account all the influencing factors, the ideal development process is considered normative.

The basis of modern preschool education is the concept psychological age   as a stage, the stage of child development, which is characterized by its structure and dynamics. However, it is necessary to clearly realize that the separation of these stages is arbitrary, and the development of a child largely depends on the ways, forms and content of his communication with adults and peers.

V.V. Davydov believed that the communication of children with adults and the types of children's activities inherent in each age stage are very important for solving educational problems at preschool age. Young children carry out different types of free activity: they play, sculpt, draw, construct, experiment, help adults, listen to fairy tales, poems, stories, etc. And this is the value of early childhood.

It is advisable to consider such a periodization of the development of children, which takes into account the entire set of children's anatomical and physiological characteristics and living conditions, upbringing and education of children.

The boundaries of the periods of periodization of the age development of children are very conditional, they depend on social, climatic, ethnic and other factors. When studying the possibilities of each child, differences in the rate of maturation of the body and the conditions of development of children are of great importance, resulting from the fact that the physiological age of a person and the passport (calendar) often do not match, and each child has an individual developmental option. Therefore, a set of individual and age-based approaches to the study of the characteristics of the functioning of children can lead educational psychologists to develop adequate hygienic and psychological-pedagogical measures that will assist in the healthy and progressive development of the body and personality of each child.

The age periodization at different times was investigated according to various criteria. Periodization of the mental development of children L.S. Vygodskiy reflects the internal patterns of the development process itself. The real basis of classification by L.S. To Vygodsky there are only internal (psychological) changes in development itself, for only internal changes, and not external ones, which allow us to objectively determine the periods of a child’s development. To date, the LS scheme. The benefit of periodization of child development is quite modern for child psychology (Table 1). According to L.S. Benefit, the emergence of psychological neoplasms in the life of children associated with a particular developmental situation, is the main criterion for the periodization of development.

Table 1

Periodization of child development by L. G. Vygotsky

L.S. Beneficial throughout the periodization of the age development of children is divided into three groups.

The first group consists of periodizations, built on the basis of an external criterion of the development process. For example, the periodization of the development of P.P. Blonsky on tooth change: toothless childhood, milky tooth, period of permanent teeth.

The second group includes periodizations created on one arbitrarily selected internal criterion. Here, for example, J. Piaget singled out four stages of his periodization, based on mental development:

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

2) the preoperative stage (from 1.5 - 2 to 7 years);

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

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

The third group includes the periods of development based on essential criteria, signs. For example, periodization L.S. Slobodchikova:

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

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

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

4 level - individualization (from 17 to 42 years

At present, the periodization of the age development of children D. B. is generally accepted in age psychology. Elkonin, which is based on the ideas of L.S. Vygotsky and A.N. Leontiev (table 2).

The basis of the age periodization of children D. B. Elkonin are the patterns of development of the activity of a growing person. All mental activity of children is a continuous change of activity.

table 2

Age periodization according to D. B. Elkonin

Maria Montessori highlights fourdevelopmental stages of children:

1) from 0 to 3 years - “spiritual embryos”. This is the period when there is an active knowledge of the surrounding world. Children of this age absorb emotional relationship   your environment to yourself, to other people and events.

2) from 3 to 6 years - "the builders of himself." In this period, there is an active development of the senses. Children need to create a beneficial developmental environment to maintain their activating abilities at this stage of age periodization.

3) from 6 to 9 years old - "researchers". During this period, children are real researchers who are trying to know what is not superficial (how the machine works, why it rains, where the sun is hiding, etc.).

4) from 9 to 12 years old - scientists. During this period, children are interested in the results of the activities of previous people and ready-made encyclopedic knowledge and facts.

In the process of development, children go through sensitive (sensitive) periods of development. During such periods, children are especially susceptible to certain excitations from the environment.

M. Montessori identifies six sensitive periods of child development:

1) the period of development of speech (0-6 years);

2) the period of perception of the order (0-3 years);

3) the period of sensory development (0-5.5 years);

4) the period of perception of small objects (1.5-6.5 years);

5) the period of development of movements and actions (1-4 years);

6) the period of development of social skills (2.5-6 years)

Analyzing the issues of age periodization, it should be borne in mind that the boundaries of the stages of development of children are very conditional. The periodization of the development of children depends on social, climatic, ethnic and other factors.

Bibliography

1. Mental development   preschoolers / ed. Dyachenko OM, Lavrentyeva G. V. - M .: Pedagogy; 2Russian pedagogical encyclopedia. In 2 tons - M .: Publishing house "Great Russian Encyclopedia";

3. Rubinstein, S.L. Fundamentals of general psychology: studies. benefit for students of higher educational institutions, learning in the direction of the specialties of psychology.