Periodization of child development

Question number 3

Age periodization of mental development of the child.

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

AT ides ages:

Biological - is determined by the degree of maturation of the body, 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

The basic concepts of the theory of Vygotsky.   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 tumors.

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 of 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 abrupt 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 last for a few 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 capabilities, on the other - between the new needs of the child and the earlier 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) - the 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,

preschooler role play

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 of the younger student

educational and professional activities of high school students.

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

According to Elkonin, each age is characterized by

social development situation;

leading activity;

age-related neoplasms.

The boundaries 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 birth of a child to graduation, according to age classification, is divided into the following three stages:

Pre-school 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. The 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.

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. Proponents of the last of the positions discussed also believe that all children, regardless of their individual characteristics, must pass through each stage of development without fail, without missing a single one and without 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 the way 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. This 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 essential practical questions, for example, when to start training, what are the features of educational and educational work during the transition to each new 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, since 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 teaching and educating 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 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 to three years.

3. Junior and middle preschool age: from three to four to 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 to fourteen to sixteen to 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 the first to the fourth to fifth grades of the school), 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 culminating in 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 assimilation of relationships and personal characteristics of adults takes place through the reproduction, or modeling, of these relations 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 plot-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”, which we introduced earlier; therefore, in presenting 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, the verbal forms of communication between the child and the 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 actual actions in this period of time serve as a method for the child to establish 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, unfolded form, allowing all aspects of the child’s mind and behavior — role-playing — to develop. The main importance of the game for the mental development of children lies in the fact that, due to special playing techniques, in particular, the child’s assuming the role of an adult, fulfilling its social and labor functions, the symbolic nature of many objective actions, transferring values ​​from one subject to another, the child models the game is the relationship 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 doctrine. 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 future professional activities. 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 remarkable 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 initiated 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 of social development of the child as an individual, certain patterns appear. 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; in the case of abrupt 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, regardless of the period in which 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 successfully the crisis is overcome.

1630 (33 per week) / 1/20/17 09:00

With the help of age periodization, an attempt is made to single out the general laws of a person’s life cycle. Due to the breakdown into periods of the life path, patterns of personality development are more easily seen due to the specificity of different age stages.
  At the International Symposium of 1965 on age physiology, they agreed to allocate 7 periods of development in childhood:

1. Newborn  - the first decade after birth (10 days).
2. Chest age  - from 11 days on reaching the year.
3. Early childhood  - 1-3 years.
4. The first children's period  - 3-8 years.
5. Second children's period  - 8-11 and 8-12 years old (in girls and boys, respectively).
6. Teenage years  - 12-15 years and 13-16 years (in girls and boys, respectively);
7. Youth period  - 16-20 years old and 17-21 years old (in girls and in boys, respectively).

Depending on the criterion of psychological periodization, different life periods of a person are noted. But regardless of the chosen grounds for periodization, most theories converge around the same age stages.

Erikson Development Stages

Psychologist from the USA E. Erikson identified several psychosocial stages in the development of his personality, affecting life from early childhood to adolescence.

Infancy - from birth to one year

Thanks to the care of the mother at this moment the foundations of the personality are laid, such as confidence, a sense of trust, inner certainty. The baby trusts the society, which for him is limited to the personality of the mother. But if the mother is untenable, unreliable, rejects the child, then suspicion, a feeling of mistrust is laid.

Early childhood - 1-3 years

During this period, the baby learns to act independently - to crawl, stand, walk, eat, dress, wash, etc. At this stage, his identity can be expressed by the formula "I myself".  Reasonable permissibility contributes to the formation of independence of the child. If there is excessive care or, on the contrary, the parents expect too much from the child, what is beyond its capabilities, then in these cases he experiences insecurity, doubt, shame, weakness and humiliation.

Age of games - 3-6 years

At the preschool stage there is a conflict between guilt and initiative. Children are beginning to be interested in different professions, they willingly contact with peers, try new things, easily go in for upbringing and education, seeing before them a specific goal.   The main sense of identity at this age is “I am what I will be”.By encouraging the fantasies, autonomy and beginnings of the child, the development of initiative and creative abilities is strengthened, thus expanding the boundaries of his independence. If, however, limit the activities of the child and "strangle" his control, then he will develop a sense of guilt. Children with guilt feelings are shackled, passive, they will not be able to work productively in the future.

The development of the child’s psyche is a complex, long, continuous process that occurs due to the influence of various kinds of factors. This is fa ...

School age - 6-12 years

At this age, the child seriously goes beyond the family circle, the process of systematic learning begins. Schoolchildren are absorbed in the process of cognition: what, how and from what it turns out. Now the identity of the child can be characterized by the words "I am what I could learn." In the process of schooling, children learn the rules of active participation and conscious discipline. This period is dangerous in that there may be a feeling of incompetence, inferiority, doubt in status among peers or in their abilities.

Youth - 12-19 or 13-20 years of age

This is the most important of the periods of psychosocial human development. Growing out of a child, but not yet an adult, a teenager at this time is faced with unfamiliar social roles and specific requirements. Teenagers strive to appreciate the world, to build their attitude towards it, spontaneously looking for answers to important questions for themselves: “who am I?”, “Who do I want to become?”. They are overwhelmed with a shrill sense of their own uselessness, aimlessness, and spiritual discord, which sometimes throws them toward negative self-identification and deviating behavior. Role confusion, identity crisis makes it difficult to choose between continuing education and finding a career. Sometimes there are doubts about their gender identity. Successful emergence from the crisis of a young period can be expressed in the appearance of a positive quality - loyalty, when a teenager, having made a choice, finding his way in life, remains faithful to the obligations placed on himself, he accepts the foundations of society and then adheres to them.

Patterns of child development and its periodization by Vygotsky

Soviet psychologist L. S. Vygotsky identified 4 main features or patterns of child development.
  Cyclicity. The developmental process has a rather complicated structure over time, the content and speed of development throughout childhood are constantly changing. So, the growth and intensive development at some point change to damping and slowing down.  The value of a month in infant development is much greater than the value of a month in a teenager, since in the first case the developmental cycle is more intensive.
  The uneven development of different aspects of the personality, for example, mental functions. In some periods, the mental function dominates, develops most intensively, while the development of other functions recedes into the shadow and depends only on the dominant function. In each age period, the restructuring of cross-functional relations begins, a new function comes to the fore, and new dependencies are established between the other functions.
  According to Vygotsky, there are two alternating types of age periods: stable and critical. Here is the periodization built by him:

1. The crisis of the newborn.
2. Infancy - 2-12 months.
3. The crisis of the first year.
4. Early childhood - 1-3 years.
5. The crisis of three years.
6. Preschool age - 3-7 years.
7. The crisis of seven years.
8. School age - 8-12 years.
9. The crisis of 13 years.
10. The puberty age is 14-17 years.
11. The crisis of 17 years.

Periodization and leading activity on Elkonin

The Soviet psychologist D. B. Elkonin believed that each age has its own system of types of activity, however, a leading place occupies a special place in it. In this case, the leading is not necessarily the activities that the child takes more time, and that which is the main in its importance for the development of the psyche. In accordance with the leading activities, Elkonin identifies periods of child development:

When parents decide to make repairs in the nursery, they will have to approach this very carefully, because if the child is more than four years old, then he is ...

1. Infancywhen a child’s communication with an adult is immediate, emotional.
2. Early age (1-3 years)  with a predominance of subject activity.
3. Preschool age (3-7 years)with a predominance of role-playing games.
4. Junior school age (8-12 years)  with the dominance of learning activities.
5. Adolescence (11-15 years old)  with personal-intimate communication with peers.
6. Youth.

Within the activity itself, psychological neoplasms differ. When one leading activity is replaced by another (for example, instead of the play activity of a preschooler, the learning activity of a younger student arises), then a crisis occurs. In terms of content, one can distinguish relationship crises characteristic of 3 and 11 years and worldview crises, which fall on 1 year, 7 and 15 years.

Stages of Piaget's cognitive development

Franco-Swiss psychologist J. Piaget put in the forefront of the stage of cognitive development, in other words, the level of development of intelligence.

Sensomotor Intelligence

It manifests itself from birth to a half to two years.   A baby in this period develops motor structures and feelings:sight, hearing, smell, tactile perception, manipulation, all this is done out of curiosity towards the environment. For the baby, the connections between his actions and the result are revealed - pull the diaper over and get to the cherished toy lying on it. He also begins to understand that other objects exist independently of him, and constantly learns to distinguish himself from the rest of the world.

Representative (Specific Operational) Intelligence

It corresponds to the age of specific actions (2-11 years). Mental development of the child reaches a higher level. Here, symbolic thinking develops, interiorization of actions begins, semiotic functions (mental image, language) are formed. There are visual figurative representations of objects, which the baby designates not by direct actions, but by names.
  At the beginning, thinking is illogical, subjective, but after 7 years, sprouts of logical thinking are formed. The developmental stages can be changed faster or slower thanks to the cultural and social environment, at least by how fully they provide the child with suitable tasks and materials for the class.
The transfer of ready-made knowledge, for example, the decapitation of correct answers, is ineffective, since development requires the manifestation of one’s own activity in the design and regulation of cognitive processes. It is important for the development of thinking also the exchange of ideas, debate and discussion with peers. In the transition to concrete operational thinking, all mental processes, the ability to cooperate, moral judgments are restructured. But these logical operations remain specific and apply only to real objects and their manipulations, since the reality of the child is represented by specific content.

Formal operational intelligence

The period of formal operations, characteristic of formal-operational intelligence, falls on the age of 11-15 years, during which abstract thinking is formed. Formal-operational structures can be observed when a child begins to speculate hypothetically, not having a specific support, and regardless of the content of the subject area.
  The basis of the logic of adults is the formal thinking processes, it is based on them the simplest scientific thinking, which manipulates hypotheses and uses deduction. With the help of abstract thinking, a person succeeds in building conclusions by using the rules of combinatorics and formal logic. Thanks to this, a teenager can understand the theory, build his own, touch an adult worldview, temporarily leaving his own experience. With the help of hypothetical reasoning, a teenager falls into the realm of the potential, although his idealized ideas can not always be checked, so they remain contrary to the actual state of affairs.

The process of development of children's motility develops over time and is closely connected with another process - the maturation of the cerebral cortex. Under motor skills on ...

Naive idealism

The cognitive egocentrism of adolescents Piaget designated the “naive idealism” of the adolescent, who ascribes unlimited power to thinking, seeking in this way to make a more perfect world. But when a teenager assumes adult social roles, then he encounters obstacles, he has to take into account external circumstances. So in the new sphere, the final intellectual decentration takes place.

Pedagogical periodization

The pedagogical periodization is associated with the division of educational institutions into pre-school (kindergarten and nursery) and school (all school stages). There are 6 periods:

1. Infancy - from birth to one year.
2. Early childhood - 1-3 years.
3. Pre-school period - 3-6 years.
4. The youngest school period is 6-10 years.
5. The average school period is 10-15 years.
6. Senior school period - 15-18 years.

Knowledge of the most important stages of the individual development of children and the problems arising at these stages is the most important condition for effective educational and educational work that generates life skills that help to strengthen and maintain health.
Since there is no generally accepted definition of adolescence and adolescence, the United Nations began to consider people as 10–19 years old as adolescents and 15–24 years old as young people, which is used for statistics so as not to confuse the wording of the UN member states. Teenagers and young people are collectively designated by the phrase "young people" with an age range of 10-24 years. In the Convention on the Rights of the Child, all persons are considered children up to the age of 18.

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