Kulagina and youth developmental psychology of preschool age. Kulagina I.Yu., Kolyutsky V.N. Developmental psychology: The complete life cycle of human development. Textbook for students of higher educational institutions. Test on developmental psychology
Publications in collections and proceedings 1
Other publications by the author
- Schoolchildren who are lagging behind in their studies: problems of mental development. - M.: Pedagogy, 1986. - 208 p. (Co-authored with Z.I. Kalmykova - ed.)
- Psychological reference book for teachers. - M.: Education, 1991. - 288 p. (Co-authored with L.M. Friedman)
- Psychological reference book for teachers. 2nd edition, expanded and revised. - M.: Perfection, 1998. - 432 p. (Co-authored with L.M. Friedman)
- Developmental psychology (child development from birth to 17 years). Tutorial. 5th edition. - M.: ed. University of RAO, 1999. - 176 p.
- Personality of a schoolchild: from mental retardation to giftedness. - M.: TC Sfera, 1999. - 192 p.
- Age-related psychology. The complete life cycle of human development. Textbook for students of higher educational institutions. - M.: Sphere shopping center, 2001-2007. - 464 s. (Co-authored with V.N. Kolyutsky)
- Pedagogical psychology. Textbook for students of higher educational institutions. - M.: TC Sfera, 2008. - 480 p. (ed.)
- Junior schoolchildren: developmental features. - M.: Eksmo, 2009. - 176 p.
- On the possibilities of developing educational motivation in children with mental retardation // Psychology of children with mental retardation. Reader. - St. Petersburg: Rech, 2003, 2004.
- Psychological problems of professional activity of a teacher // Moscow psychological school: history and modernity / Ed. V.V. Rubtsova. In 4 volumes. Volume 2. - M: ed. PI RAO, MGPPU, 2004.
- Motivation of schoolchildren who are lagging behind in their studies // Journal of practical psychologist. 2005, No. 4.
- Personality development of low-performing children in modern school // Child in modern society. Collection of scientific articles / Ed. L.F. Obukhova, E.G. Yudina. - M.: ed. Moscow State University of Psychology and Education, 2007.
- Problems of dominant motivation in the context of A.N. Leontiev’s theory of activity // Moscow psychological school: history and modernity / Ed. V.V. Rubtsova. In 4 volumes. Volume 4. - M: PI RAO, MGPPU, 2007.
- Junior schoolchild: personality development. - M., MGPPU, 2008.
Biography
In 1975 she graduated from the Faculty of Psychology of Lomonosov Moscow State University.
Since 1975, employee of the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education (junior researcher, senior researcher, scientific secretary of the institute, leading researcher).
Since 2002, leading researcher at the laboratory I.V. Dubrovina.
Since 1993, he has been teaching at universities.
Professor at RAO University. Associate Professor of the Department A.A. Verbitsky at the Moscow State Open Pedagogical University named after M.A. Sholokhov.
Since 2002, Associate Professor of the Department of Educational Psychology at Moscow State University of Psychology and Education.
Now she is a senior researcher, dean of the faculty of advanced training at the Moscow City Psychological and Pedagogical University. Also, Irina Yuryevna Kulagina teaches at the Department of Developmental Psychology of the Faculty of Educational Psychology of the Moscow State University of Psychology and Education.
Scientific activity
Interests:
- Personality development of underachieving schoolchildren and children with delayed psychological development in comparison with the norm.
- Motivation for learning in adolescence, experiences of success and failure in educational activities. Personality orientation.
- General issues in developmental psychology.
UNIVERSITY OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF EDUCATION
I.Yu. Kulagina
Child development from birth to 17 years.
Section I
GENERAL ISSUES IN AGE PSYCHOLOGY.
Chapter 1
PROBLEMS OF AGE DEVELOPMENT.
§ 1. SUBJECT AND METHODS OF AGE PSYCHOLOGY.
Developmental psychology studies the process of development of mental functions and personality throughout a person’s life. We will be interested not in the entire life path, but in its beginning - from birth to 17 years, until the rapidly maturing child graduates from school and enters adulthood. This section of developmental psychology identifies patterns and facts of child development.
The main thing that distinguishes developmental psychology from other areas of psychology is the emphasis on the dynamics of development. Therefore, it is called genetic psychology (from the Greek “genesis” - origin, formation). However, developmental psychology is closely related to other areas of psychology: general psychology, personality psychology, social, educational and differential psychology. As is known, in general psychology mental functions are studied - perception, thinking, speech, memory, attention, imagination. Developmental psychology traces the process of development of each mental function and changes in interfunctional connections at different age stages. Personality psychology examines such personal formations as motivation, self-esteem and level of aspirations, value orientations, worldview, etc., and developmental psychology answers the questions of when these formations appear in a child, what their characteristics are at a certain age. The connection between developmental psychology and social psychology makes it possible to trace the dependence of a child’s development and behavior on the specifics of the groups to which he belongs: the family, kindergarten group, school class, teenage groups. Each age has its own, special influence of the people around the child, adults and peers. The purposeful influence of adults raising and teaching a child is studied within the framework of educational psychology. Developmental and educational psychology seem to look at the process of interaction between a child and an adult from different sides: developmental psychology from the point of view of the child, pedagogical psychology from the point of view of the educator, teacher. In addition to age-related patterns of development, there are also individual differences, which differential psychology deals with: children of the same age may have different levels of intelligence and different personal properties. Developmental psychology studies age-related patterns that are common to all children. But at the same time, possible deviations in one direction or another from the main lines of development are also discussed.
So, developmental psychology is a special area of psychological knowledge. Considering the process of child development, she gives characteristics of different age periods and, therefore, operates with such concepts as “age” and “childhood”. Age or age period is a cycle of child development that has its own structure and dynamics. More details on this definition by L.S. We will look at Vygotsky later, in Chapter 3 of Section 1, but now we will note only two points.
First, psychological age may not coincide with an individual child's chronological age as recorded on his birth certificate and subsequently in his passport. The age period with its unique content - features of the development of mental functions and personality of the child, features of his relationships with others and the main activity for him - has certain boundaries. But these chronological boundaries can shift, and one child will enter a new age period earlier, and another later. The boundaries of adolescence, associated with the puberty of children, “float” especially strongly.
Secondly, the initial age periods form childhood - an entire era, which is essentially preparation for adult life and independent work. Childhood is a historical phenomenon: both its content and duration have changed over the centuries. Childhood in primitive society was short, in the Middle Ages it lasted longer; The childhood of a modern child has extended even more in time and is filled with complex activities - children copy in their games the relationships of adults, family and professional, and master the basics of science. The specifics of childhood are determined by the level of socio-economic and cultural development of the society in which the child lives, is raised and is educated. When does childhood end these days? Traditionally, child psychology - as the first part of age - covers the process of child development from birth to 7 years. But modern childhood continues even after entering school; the youngest student remains a child. Moreover, some psychologists also consider adolescence as a “prolonged childhood.” Whatever point of view we adhere to, we have to admit: real adulthood awaits a child only beyond the school threshold, at 15 or 17 years old. Having become acquainted with the subject of developmental psychology (with what this science studies), we will move on to consider the following question: how, by what methods is child development studied?
The organization of psychological research can be different. The cross-sectional method is often used: in sufficiently large groups of children, a certain aspect of development is studied using specific techniques, for example, the level of intellectual development. As a result, data is obtained that is characteristic of this group of children - children of the same age or schoolchildren studying according to the same curriculum. When several sections are taken, a comparative method is used: data for each group is compared with each other and conclusions are drawn about what development trends are observed here and what causes them. In the example of studying intelligence, we can identify age-related trends by comparing the thinking characteristics of preschoolers from a kindergarten group (5 years old), junior schoolchildren from elementary school (9 years old) and adolescents from middle school (13 years old). To obtain such material, we had to, in accordance with our research task, select groups of children differing in age. If the task is different, to determine the dependence of the development of intelligence on the type of training, we select and compare other groups - children of the same age, but studying in different curricula. In this case, we draw a different conclusion: where the best data is obtained, learning is more effective; children studying according to a certain program develop intellectually faster, and we can talk about the developmental effect of this type of training. Of course, when selecting groups based on some characteristic to conduct cross-sections, psychologists try to “equalize” other significant differences between children - they make sure that the groups have the same number of boys and girls, that the children are healthy, without significant deviations in mental development, etc. d. The remaining numerous individual differences are not taken into account. The data that we have thanks to the slice method is average or statistically average.
The longitudinal (or longitudinal) method is often called a “longitudinal study.” Here the development of the same child is traced over a long period of time. This type of research allows us to identify more subtle development trends, small changes occurring in intervals that are not covered by “cross-sections”.
The cross-sectional method and the longitudinal method, as well as some others, make it possible to organize psychological research as a whole.
Having set himself a research problem and outlined the main ways to solve it, the psychologist takes a number of further steps in constructing his work. He chooses one of two methods for obtaining results - observation or experiment.
Observation is an indispensable method when working with young children, although it can be used when studying the development of children of any age. Observations can be continuous, when the psychologist is interested in all the characteristics of the child’s behavior, but more often selective, when only some of them are recorded. Observation is a complex method, its use must meet a number of requirements. This is a clearly defined goal and a developed observation scheme (the observer knows what exactly he can see and how to record it, and in addition, he knows how to quickly describe the observed phenomena); objectivity of observation (the fact itself is described - an action, phrase or emotional reaction of the child, and not its subjective interpretation by a psychologist); systematic observations (in episodic observations one can identify moments that are not characteristic of the child, but random ones, depending on his momentary state, on the situation); observation of the child’s natural behavior (the child should not know that an adult is watching him, otherwise his behavior will change). Usually observation is combined with experiment.
The experiment with children is carried out in an environment as close as possible to their usual conditions. In the ascertaining experiment, the level and characteristics of children’s development that are inherent in them at the present time are determined. This applies to both personal development and the child’s relationships with others, as well as intellectual development. Each direction of experimental research involves its own set of more specific methods. When choosing one method or another, a psychologist proceeds from the task facing him, the age of the children (different methods are designed for different ages) and the experimental conditions that he can provide.
Personality development is studied through interviews with children, written surveys, and indirect methods. The latter include the so-called projective methods. They are based on the principle of projection - transferring one’s own needs, relationships, qualities onto other people. The child, having looked at a picture with figures vaguely depicted on it (a child’s version of the thematic apperception test), talks about them based on his experience, endowing them with his own worries and experiences. For example, a junior schoolchild whose main problem is academic performance often imagines these situations as educational ones; an underachieving student makes up a story about how a lazy boy’s father scolds him for yet another “F”, and a neat, excellent student gives the same character the exact opposite properties and tells about his outstanding successes. The same mechanism manifests itself in the endings of stories that children come up with (story completion technique), in the continuation of phrases (unfinished sentence technique), etc.
The relationships between children that have developed in a kindergarten group or school class can be determined by the sociometric method. The child is given the opportunity to choose three peers with whom he relates best, say, answering the question: “Who do you want to sit at the same desk with?” The children’s choices, mutual and non-reciprocal, reveal the structure of relationships in the group: the “stars” - the most popular children - receive the most choices; there are preferred children; children, whom few people choose, reciprocity of sympathy is especially important for them; and isolated, rejected - no one chooses them, they are in greatest need of help.
Intellectual development is studied using a variety of methods, but mainly through standardized tests. The first Binet-Simon test in the history of child psychology included a number of tasks presented in verbal (verbal) form and intended for a certain age. On a large number of children involved in Alfred Binet's experiment, norms of mental development were established. Individual indicators of a child’s mental development are compared with the average indicators of his age group; it is determined whether he corresponds intellectually to his age, lags behind or is ahead of the bulk of his peers. Now, when working with children from 2 to 16 years old, an improved version of this test is used - the Stanford-Binet test.
The Wechsler test for children 4-16 years old includes verbal and data in a visual (figurative) form of the task. When using it, two indicators are obtained - verbal and non-verbal, as well as a total “general intellectual indicator”. In general, working with different tests, a psychologist calculates IQ - intellectual quotient:
mental age/chronological age * 100%. If a child solves all tasks for his age, his IQ is 100 points. Children who score over 120 points are considered gifted; children who are significantly behind their age norm are considered mentally retarded.
Along with various types of ascertaining experiments, formative experiments are used in developmental psychology. Thanks to the creation of special conditions, it traces the dynamics of the development of a certain mental function. L.S. Vygotsky observed in this way the process of the formation of concepts in a child (experimental-genetic method). Currently, complex formative experiments are being built, essentially educational ones, during which, over the course of a year or several years, preschoolers develop perception (creation of a system of educational tasks and games), and younger schoolchildren develop theoretical thinking (development of experimental educational programs).
In conclusion, it is worth noting the ethical aspect of the work of a child psychologist. The fate of a child who is not sufficiently developed mentally may depend on it. If, using intellectual tests and without understanding the reasons for the lag, a psychologist recommends transferring such a child from a mass school to an auxiliary school (for mentally retarded children), he thereby deprives him of a full future. A child may be intellectually intact, but pedagogically neglected - there was little communication with him at home, he was not taught enough, and he is not able to solve test problems on his own.
Ethical issues may also arise when using other research methods. Not all data about a child’s development can be communicated to his parents, caregivers and teachers, and other children. You cannot disclose, for example, sociometric data - this will lead to a series of conflicts in the group, damaged relationships among some children, and a worsening of the situation of the “outcasts.” A child psychologist bears a moral responsibility for the children with whom he works. He, just like a physician, must first of all be guided by the principle “do no harm.”
§ 2. FACTORS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CHILD’S PSYCHE.
In the part of developmental psychology that interests us, the process of child development is studied. What is this process? What is it due to? In psychology, many theories have been created that explain in different ways the mental development of a child and its origins. They can be combined into two large directions - biologization and sociologization. In the biologization direction, a child is considered as a biological being, endowed by nature with certain abilities, character traits, and forms of behavior. Heredity determines the entire course of his development - both its pace, fast or slow, and its limit - whether the child will be gifted, achieve a lot or turn out to be mediocre. The environment in which a child is raised becomes just a condition for such initially predetermined development, as if manifesting what was given to the child before his birth.
Within the framework of the biologization direction, the theory of recapitulation arose, the main idea of which was borrowed from embryology. An embryo (human fetus) during its intrauterine existence goes from the simplest two-celled organism to a human being. In a month-old embryo, one can already recognize a representative of the vertebrate type - it has a large head, gills and tail; at 2 months it begins to take on a human appearance, fingers appear on its pasty limbs, and the tail shortens; by the end of 4 months, the embryo appears to have human-type features.
E. Haeckel formulated a law in the 19th century: ontogenesis (individual development) is an abbreviated repetition of phylogeny (historical development).
Transferred to developmental psychology, the biogenetic law made it possible to present the development of the child’s psyche as a repetition of the main stages of biological evolution and stages of the cultural and historical development of mankind. This is how one of the proponents of the theory of recapitulation, V. Stern, describes the development of a child: in the first months of his life, a child is at the stage of a mammal; in the second half of the year it reaches the stage of a higher mammal - a monkey; then - the initial stages of the human condition; development of primitive peoples; Starting from entering school, he assimilates human culture - first in the spirit of the ancient and Old Testament world, later (in adolescence) the fanaticism of Christian culture, and only in maturity rises to the level of modern culture.
The fortunes and activities of a small child become echoes of centuries gone by. A child digs a passage in a pile of sand - he is attracted to the cave just like his distant ancestor. He wakes up in fear at night - which means he felt like he was in a primeval forest full of dangers. He draws, and his drawings are similar to rock paintings preserved in caves and grottoes.
The opposite approach to the development of a child’s psyche is observed in the sociological direction. Its origins lie in the ideas of the 17th century philosopher John Locke. He believed that a child is born with a soul as pure as a white wax board (tabua rasa). On this board, the teacher can write whatever he wants, and the child, not burdened by heredity, will grow up to be the way his close adults want him to be.
Ideas about the unlimited possibilities of shaping a child’s personality have become quite widespread. Sociologizing ideas were consonant with the ideology that dominated our country until the mid-80s, so they can be found in many pedagogical and psychological works of those years.
It is obvious that both approaches - both biologizing and sociologizing - suffer from one-sidedness, downplaying or denying the importance of one of the two development factors. In addition, the development process is deprived of its inherent qualitative changes and contradictions: in one case, hereditary mechanisms are launched and what was contained in the inclinations from the very beginning unfolds, in the other, more and more experience is acquired under the influence of the environment. The development of a child who does not show his own activity resembles rather a process of growth, quantitative increase or accumulation. What is meant by biological and social factors of development at the present time?
The biological factor includes, first of all, heredity. There is no consensus on what exactly in a child’s psyche is genetically determined. Domestic psychologists believe that at least two aspects are inherited - temperament and the makings of abilities. The central nervous system functions differently in different children. A strong and mobile nervous system, with a predominance of excitation processes, gives a choleric, “explosive” temperament; with a balance of excitation and inhibition processes, it gives a sanguine one. A child with a strong, sedentary nervous system and a predominance of inhibition is a phlegmatic person, characterized by slowness and less vivid expression of emotions. A melancholic child with a weak nervous system is especially vulnerable and sensitive. Although sanguine people are the easiest to communicate with and comfortable with others, you cannot “break” the nature-given temperament of other children. Trying to extinguish the affective outbursts of a choleric person or encouraging a phlegmatic person to complete educational tasks a little faster, adults must at the same time constantly take into account their characteristics, not demand too much and appreciate the best that each temperament brings.
Hereditary inclinations give originality to the process of development of abilities, facilitating or complicating it. The development of abilities depends not only on inclinations. If a child with perfect pitch does not regularly play a musical instrument, he will not achieve success in the performing arts and his special abilities will not develop. If a student who catches everything on the fly during a lesson does not study conscientiously at home, he will not become an excellent student, despite his abilities, and his general ability to absorb knowledge will not develop. Abilities develop through activity. In general, a child’s own activity is so important that some psychologists consider activity to be the third factor in mental development.
The biological factor, in addition to heredity, includes the characteristics of the intrauterine period of a child’s life. The mother's illness and the medications she took at this time can cause delayed mental development of the child or other abnormalities. The birth process itself also affects subsequent development, so it is necessary for the child to avoid birth trauma and take his first breath on time.
The second factor is the environment. The natural environment influences the mental development of a child indirectly - through the traditional types of work activity and culture in a given natural area, which determine the system of raising children. In the Far North, wandering with reindeer herders, a child will develop somewhat differently than a resident of an industrial city in the center of Europe. The social environment directly influences development, and therefore the environmental factor is often called social. The next, third paragraph will be devoted to this problem.
What is important is not only the question of what is meant by biological and social factors, but also the question of their relationship. Wilm Stern put forward the principle of the convergence of two factors. In his opinion, both factors are equally significant for the child’s mental development and determine its two lines. These lines of development (one is the maturation of hereditarily given abilities and character traits, the other is development under the influence of the child’s immediate environment) intersect, i.e. convergence occurs. Modern ideas about the relationship between the biological and the social, accepted in Russian psychology, are mainly based on the provisions of L.S. Vygotsky.
L.S. Vygotsky emphasized the unity of hereditary and social aspects in the development process. Heredity is present in the development of all mental functions of a child, but has a different specific weight. Elementary functions (starting with sensations and perception) are more determined by heredity than higher ones (voluntary memory, logical thinking, speech). Higher functions are a product of human cultural and historical development, and hereditary inclinations here play the role of prerequisites, and not moments that determine mental development. The more complex the function, the longer the path of its ontogenetic development, the less the influence of heredity affects it. On the other hand, the environment also always “participates” in development. No sign of child development, including lower mental functions, is ever purely hereditary.
Each characteristic, as it develops, acquires something new that was not in the hereditary inclinations, and thanks to this, the proportion of hereditary influences is sometimes strengthened, sometimes weakened and relegated to the background. The role of each factor in the development of the same trait turns out to be different at different age stages. For example, in the development of speech, the importance of hereditary preconditions decreases early and sharply, and the child’s speech develops under the direct influence of the social environment, and in the development of psychosexuality, the role of hereditary factors increases in adolescence. Thus, the unity of hereditary and social influences is not a constant, once and for all unity, but a differentiated one, changing in the process of development itself. The mental development of a child is not determined by the mechanical addition of two factors. At each stage of development, in relation to each sign of development, it is necessary to establish a specific combination of biological and social aspects and study its dynamics.
§ 3. DEVELOPMENT AND TRAINING
Social environment is a broad concept. This is the society in which the child grows up, its cultural traditions, the prevailing ideology, the level of development of science and art, and the main religious movements. The system adopted in it for raising and educating children depends on the characteristics of the social and cultural development of a society, starting with public and private educational institutions (kindergartens, schools, creative centers, etc.) and ending with the specifics of family education.
The social environment is also the immediate social environment that directly influences the development of the child’s psyche: parents and other family members, later kindergarten teachers and school teachers (sometimes family friends or a priest). It should be noted that with age, the social environment expands: from the end of preschool childhood, peers begin to influence the child’s development, and in adolescence and high school age, some social groups can significantly influence - through the media, organizing rallies, sermons in religious communities, etc. .P. Outside the social environment, a child cannot develop - he cannot become a full-fledged personality. There are known cases when children were found in the forests, lost very young and raised among animals. These “Mowgli” ran on all fours and made the same sounds as their adoptive parents. For example, two Indian girls who lived with wolves howled at night. The human baby, with its unusually plastic psyche, assimilates what is given to it by its immediate environment, and if it is deprived of human society, nothing human appears in it.
When “feral” children came to people, they developed extremely poorly intellectually, despite the hard work of their educators; If a child was over three years old, he could not master human speech and learned to pronounce only a small number of words. At the end of the 19th century, the story of the development of Victor of Aveyron was described: “I thought with bitter sympathy about this unfortunate person, whom tragic fate confronted with the alternative of either being exiled to one of our institutions for the mentally retarded, or, at the cost of untold efforts, acquiring only a small education, which could not give him happiness.”
The same description noted that the greatest successes were achieved in terms of the boy’s emotional development. His teacher, Madame Guerin. her maternal attitude evoked reciprocal feelings, and only on this basis the child, who sometimes resembled a “tender son,” could to some extent master the language and try to understand the world around him. Why were children deprived of a social environment at the beginning of their lives then unable to develop quickly and effectively in favorable conditions? In psychology there is the concept of “sensitive periods of development” - periods of greatest sensitivity to a certain kind of influence. For example, the sensitive period of speech development is from one to 3 years, and if this stage is missed, it is almost impossible to compensate for losses in the future, as we have seen.
The example given with speech is extreme. From his immediate social environment, any child receives at least the minimum necessary knowledge, skills, activities, and communication. But adults should take into account that it is easiest for him to learn something at a specific age: ethical ideas and norms - in preschool, the basics of science - in primary school, etc. It is important not to miss the sensitive period, to give the child what he needs for his development at this time.
According to L.S. Vygotsky, during this period, certain influences affect the entire development process, causing profound changes in it. At other times the same conditions may turn out to be neutral; their reverse influence on the course of development may even appear. The sensitive period therefore coincides with the optimal timing of training.
In the process of learning, socio-historical experience is passed on to the child. The problem of teaching children (or, more broadly, upbringing) is not only pedagogical. The question of whether learning affects a child’s development and, if so, how, is one of the main ones in developmental psychology. Biologizers do not attach much importance to training. For them, the process of mental development is a spontaneous process, proceeding according to its own special internal laws, and external influences cannot radically change this course.
For psychologists who recognize the social factor of development, learning becomes a fundamentally important point. Sociologizers equate development and learning. L.S. Vygotsky put forward the position of the leading role of learning in mental development. Based on the idea of K. Marx and F. Engels about the social essence of man, he considers truly human, higher mental functions to be a product of cultural and historical development. The development of man (unlike animals) occurs thanks to his mastery of various means - tools that transform nature, and signs that rebuild his psyche. A child can master signs (mainly words, but also numbers, etc.) and, therefore, the experience of previous generations only through the learning process. Therefore, the development of the psyche cannot be considered outside the social environment in which sign means are assimilated, and cannot be understood outside of education. Higher mental functions are first formed in joint activity, cooperation, communication with other people and gradually move to the internal plane, becoming internal mental processes of the child. As L.S. writes Vygotsky, “every function in the cultural development of a child appears on stage twice, on two levels, first social, then psychological, first between people... then inside the child.” A child's speech, for example, is initially only a means of communication with others, and only after going through a long path of development does it become a means of thinking, inner speech - speech for oneself.
When a higher mental function is formed in the process of learning, joint activity of a child with an adult, it is in the “zone of proximal development.” This concept is introduced by L.S. Vygotsky to designate the area of \u200b\u200bnot yet matured, but only maturing mental processes. When these processes are formed and turn out to be “yesterday of development,” they can be diagnosed using test tasks. By recording how successfully a child copes with these tasks independently, we determine the current level of development. The potential capabilities of the child, i.e. the zone of his proximal development can be determined in joint activity - helping him complete a task that he cannot yet cope with on his own (by asking leading questions; explaining the principle of the solution; starting to solve a problem and offering to continue, etc.). Children with the same current level of development may have different potential capabilities. One child easily accepts help and then solves all similar problems independently. Another finds it difficult to complete the task even with the help of an adult. Therefore, when assessing the development of a particular child, it is important to take into account not only his current level (test results), but also “tomorrow” - the zone of proximal development.
Training should focus on the zone of proximal development. Training, according to L.S. Vygotsky, leads development. But it should not, at the same time, be divorced from the child’s development. A significant gap, artificially running ahead without taking into account the child’s capabilities will, at best, lead to coaching, but will not have a developmental effect. S.L. Rubinstein, clarifying the position of L.S. Vygotsky, suggests talking about the unity of development and learning.
Education must correspond to the capabilities of the child at a certain level of his development. The implementation of these opportunities during training gives rise to new opportunities at the next, higher level. “The child does not develop and be brought up, but develops by being brought up and learning,” writes S.L. Rubinstein. This provision coincides with the provision on the development of the child in the process of his activity.
Section II
CHILD DEVELOPMENT AT DIFFERENT AGE STAGES
Chapter 1
PERIOD OF INFANCY (FIRST YEAR OF LIFE)
§ 1. NEWBORN
A child is born and with its first cry notifies this world of its appearance. Let's remember King Lear: When we are born into the world, we cry - It is sad for us to start a stupid comedy. Without unduly dramatizing this event, we note that the process of birth is a difficult, turning point in the life of a child. It’s not for nothing that psychologists talk about the neonatal crisis.
At birth, the child is physically separated from the mother. He finds himself in completely different conditions: cold, bright light, an air environment that requires a different type of breathing, the need to change the type of food. Hereditarily fixed mechanisms - unconditioned reflexes - help the child adapt to these new, alien conditions. What unconditioned reflexes does a newborn have?
This is, first of all, a system of food reflexes. When you touch the corners of the lips or tongue, sucking movements appear, and all other movements are inhibited. Because the baby is completely focused on sucking, this response has been called "feeding focus." A number of other unconditioned reflexes are given in table. 2.1.
Among the unconditioned reflexes, protective and indicative ones stand out. Some reflexes are atavistic - they are inherited from animal ancestors, but are useless for the child and soon disappear. For example, the reflex, sometimes called the “monkey” reflex, disappears already in the second month of life. The newborn grasps the sticks or fingers placed in his palms as tenaciously as a baby monkey holding on to its mother's fur when moving. This “clinging” is so strong that the child can be lifted and hangs for some time, supporting the weight of his own body. In the future, when the child learns to grasp objects, he will no longer be deprived of such tenacity of hands.
Table 2.1
UNCONDITIONED REFLEXES OF A NEWBORN
IrritantsReflexes Action of bright light Eyes close Slap on the bridge of the nose Eyes close Clap hands near the child's head Eyes close Turn the child's head to the right The chin rises, the right hand extends, the left one bends Moving the elbows to the sides Hands quickly bend Pressing with a finger on the child's palm The child's fingers clench and unclench Pressing the child's sole with a finger Toes are compressed Using a scratching motion finger along the sole from toes to heel The big toe rises, the rest are extended Pin prick of the sole The knee and foot bend We lift the lying child stomach down The child tries to raise his head, stretches his legs
By the end of the first month of life, the first conditioned reflexes appear. In particular, the baby begins to respond to the feeding position: as soon as he finds himself in a certain position on the mother's lap, he begins to suck. But in particular, the child begins to respond to the pose.
Conditioned reflexes appear when an initially insignificant conditioned stimulus is combined with an unconditioned stimulus (causing an unconditioned reflex). For example, a child, seeing a bus passing by through the window, suddenly hears a clap of thunder, gets scared and starts crying. The next time he sees the bus, he again experiences a feeling of fear. In general, the formation of conditioned reflexes is characteristic of a later time.
How can you describe the mental life of a newborn? The brain of a small child continues to develop, it is not fully formed, therefore mental life is connected mainly with the subcortical centers, as well as with an insufficiently mature cortex. The sensations of a newborn are undifferentiated and inextricably fused with emotions, which made it possible for L.S. Vygotsky speaks of “sensory emotional states or emotionally emphasized states of sensations.”
Important events in the mental life of a child are the emergence of auditory and visual concentration. Auditory concentration appears at 2-3 weeks. A sharp sound, say, of a door slamming, causes a cessation of movements, the child freezes and becomes silent. Later, at 3-4 weeks, the same reaction occurs to a person’s voice. At this time, the child not only focuses on the sound, but also turns his head towards its source. Visual concentration, which appears at 3-5 weeks, is externally manifested in the same way: the child freezes and holds his gaze (of course, not for long) on a bright object.
The newborn spends time sleeping or dozing. Gradually, individual moments, short periods of wakefulness begin to emerge from this drowsy state. Auditory and visual concentration give wakefulness an active character.
A child comes into this world weak and completely helpless. Although, upon being born, he was physically separated from his mother, he was still biologically connected to her. He cannot satisfy any of his needs on his own: he is fed, bathed, dressed in dry and clean clothes, moved in space, and his health is monitored. And finally, they communicate with him. Such helplessness and complete dependence on an adult constitute the specificity of the social situation of an infant’s development.
A newborn, having acquired the ability to respond to the voice of the mother caring for him, to see her face, establishes new subtle emotional connections with her. At about 1 month, the child sees his mother / or another loved one who is caring for him. Here we are looking at a standard, “normal” situation where the baby is cared for primarily by the mother, eyes on her face, throws up her arms, moves her legs quickly, makes loud noises and starts smiling. This violent emotional reaction has been called the "revival complex." The revitalization complex, which includes a truly human feature - a smile - marks the emergence of the first social need - the need for communication. And the development of a child’s need for communication means that he is moving into a new period in his mental development. The transitional stage of newbornhood ends. Infancy proper begins.
§ 2. INFANCY.
The baby is growing rapidly. During the first year of life, the growth of a healthy child increases approximately 1.5 times, and the weight increases almost 2 times. But for us, another aspect of physical development is of greater interest. The child begins to move more and more intensively and successfully and, therefore, acquires greater opportunities to understand the world around him. The main milestones in the physical development of the baby and the approximate (average) dates of their appearance are reflected in the table. 2.2. As for the cognitive development of the child, here we need to consider first of all the development of perception and fine manual movements.
Perception. Visual concentration, which appeared at the newborn stage, is improved. After the second month, concentration becomes quite long; by 3 months, its duration reaches 7-8 minutes. It becomes possible to track moving objects. At 4 months, the child not only sees, but already looks: actively reacts to what he sees, moves and squeals.
A child in infancy perceives the shape of objects, identifies their outline and other elements. When a baby is shown a picture with a wide black stripe on a white background, his gaze does not wander across the entire field of the picture, but quickly stops at the border of white and black space. If you show him two pictures at the same time - one solid color and one with vertical black lines, he will look longer at the second image. The baby shows more attention to curved elements than to straight ones; to figures of concentric shape, to kinks - transitions of a straight line into a curved one.
We can say that in infancy, children are already able to navigate many parameters of objects. They are attracted by contrasts, the movement of observed objects and their other properties. By 2-3 months, infants usually show interest in objects that are somewhat different from those they have previously observed. But the reaction to novelty appears only within a relatively narrow range of changes. Not only familiar objects, but also completely new objects do not attract the child’s attention for long. Moreover, new objects that are significantly different from previously seen objects can cause anxiety, fear or crying.
Table 2. 2
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE INFANT
Time of appearance of movements Development of motor skills 1 month Raises the chin 2 months Raises the chest 3 months Reaches for an object, but, as a rule, misses 4 months Sits with support 5-6 months Grabs objects with the hand 7 months Sits without support 8 months Sits without assistance 9 months Stands with support; crawls on stomach 10 months; crawls on hands and knees; walks with two hands 11 months standing without support 12 months walks with one hand
The child distinguishes visually perceived objects by shape, complexity and color. He can react to color as early as 3-4 months: if he is fed only from a red bottle, he will unmistakably choose it among bottles of other colors. This reaction is developed according to the type of conditioned reflex connections. Active interest in color appears later, from 6 months.
Spatial perception also develops, in particular depth perception. American psychologists conducted a beautiful experiment with a “cliff”: a baby was placed on a glass table, under which there were two large boards attached at different levels. The difference in the levels of these boards, covered with bright, large-checked material, created the illusion of a cliff. A small child, tactilely feeling the smooth surface of the glass, crawls towards its mother, not noticing the depth. After 8 months, most children avoid the “cliff” and begin to cry.
It is believed that the baby has a holistic picture of the world, and not a mosaic set of color spots, lines and disparate elements. Perceiving not individual properties of objects, but objects as a whole, he creates generalized images of objects.
A child's cognitive development is facilitated by the variety of impressions he receives. Adults caring for a child must satisfy his need for new experiences, trying to ensure that the environment around him is not monotonous and uninteresting. The cognitive development (primarily the development of perception) of infants living in a monotonous environment turns out to be somewhat slower than the development of those who live in a varied environment and receive more new experiences.
Movement and actions. We have already considered the development of general motor skills (Table 11.2). Let us add to this one curious fact, showing that the baby’s movements are very complex and are associated with a holistic perception that combines sensations from different modalities. This is a relatively recently discovered synchronization of the movements of the child and mother. To the sounds of speech or when looking at a picture together, both mother and child move synchronously, without realizing it. These smooth, unnoticeable movements are so harmonious that the psychologists who record them evoke associations with a waltz.
Now, since we are talking about cognitive development, the most important thing for us will be the development of hand movements. Movements of the baby's hands directed toward an object and feeling an object appear around the fourth month of life. At 5-6 months, the child can already grasp an object, which requires complex hand-eye coordination. The significance of this moment for further development is great: grasping is the child’s first purposeful action, it is a prerequisite, the basis for mastering manipulations with objects.
In the second half of the year, hand movements and corresponding actions develop intensively. The child waves the objects he has grabbed, knocks, throws them and picks them up again, bites them, moves them from hand to hand, etc. Chains of identical, repeating actions unfold, which Jean Piaget called circular reactions. After 7 months, “correlating” actions occur: the child puts small objects into large ones, opens and closes the lids of boxes. After 10 months, the first functional actions appear, allowing relatively correct use of objects, imitating the actions of adults. The child rolls the car, beats the drum, and brings a cup of juice to his mouth.
It is interesting that these functional actions do not yet become objective: they are associated with those individual objects with which the adult acted, showing the child how to rock a doll, how to feed it from a spoon, etc. The transfer of actions to other objects does not yet occur during this period. The child does not seem to see in a specific thing an object in which socially developed ways of acting with it are recorded. Therefore, he will initially rock exactly the doll with which he and his mother played, and will not be able to act in the same way with other, similar toys, for example, a teddy bear.
However, by the end of the year, the child begins to explore the world of human objects and master the rules of action with them. Various actions lead him to discover more and more new properties of the objects around him. Orienting himself in the surrounding reality, he is interested not only in “what it is,” but also in “what can be done with it.”
Perception and action are the basis that allows us to judge the initial forms of visual-effective thinking in infancy. Over the course of the year, the cognitive tasks that the child is able to solve become more complex, first only in terms of perception, then using motor activity (Table 11.3). Achieving success, the child acts by trial and error. For example, when looking for a toy hidden under a pillow, he first turns over all the pillows that catch his eye.
By the end of 1 year, the child is involved in fairly complex action-games. This made it possible for some psychologists to talk, albeit conditionally, about the acquisition in infancy of certain ideas, in particular, the idea of preserving an object. Here's an example of T. Bauer's observation: “One of my daughters spent the best part of one night placing cute little objects in my palm, closing it so that they were not visible, then moving my hand to a new position and opening my palm again to check. whether the required items are still in it. She was enthusiastically doing this until about four o'clock in the morning." Let us emphasize once again that the child begins to understand the world at this age stage in a visual and effective way; the internal plan will be formed much later.
Table 2.3
SOLVING THE SIMPLE COGNITIVE PROBLEMS IN INFANTRY
Age in months Successes Failures 0-2 When an object is hidden in front of the child’s eyes, no specific actions are observed 1-4 The child follows with his gaze a moving object that moves behind the screen. Can learn to follow an object from one place to another. The child continues to follow a moving object after it stops. Looks for an object in the same place when he sees it moving to a new place. 4-6 The child no longer makes mistakes characteristic of 2-4 months. He finds an object that is partially covered with a scarf. The child cannot find an object that is completely covered with a scarf. 6-12 The child can find an object that is completely covered with a scarf The child looks for the object where he found it before, ignoring the place where this object was hidden in front of his eyes
Memory. The cognitive development of an infant involves the inclusion of memory mechanisms, of course, its simplest types. Recognition comes first. Already in early infancy, children are able to correlate new impressions with existing images. If a child, having received a new doll, looks at it for some time, he may recognize it the next day. At 3-4 months, he recognizes the toy that an adult showed him, preferring it to others in his field of vision; a 4-month-old child distinguishes a familiar face from an unfamiliar one.
If a brightly colored toy is hidden under one of two identical scarves, few 8-month-old babies are able to remember after 1 second where it is. By 1 year of age, all children find a toy 1-3 seconds after it is hidden. Most of them remember which scarf she is under, even after 7 seconds. Thus, after 8 months, reproduction appears - the restoration of an image in memory when there is no similar object in front of the child.
During infancy, along with cognitive development, emotional development is observed. This line of development also directly depends on communication with close adults. In the first 3-4 months, children exhibit a variety of emotional states: surprise in response to the unexpected (inhibition of movements, decreased heart rate), anxiety in response to physical discomfort (increased movements, increased heart rate, squinting of the eyes, crying), relaxation when a need is satisfied.
After the child has learned to recognize and greatly rejoice at his mother (this, in fact, is where infancy as an age period begins), he reacts kindly to any person. After 3-4 months, he smiles at acquaintances, but is somewhat lost at the sight of an unfamiliar adult. However, if he demonstrates his kind attitude, talks to the child and smiles at him, wary attention is replaced by joy. At 7-8 months, anxiety when strangers appear increases sharply. Children are especially afraid of being left alone with a stranger. In such situations, some crawl away, turn away, try not to pay attention to the new person, others cry loudly.
Around the same time, between 7 and 2 months, the so-called “fear of separation” appears - sadness or acute fear when the mother disappears (when she is gone for a long time or she just left for a while).
When communicating with a mother or another close person, by the end of 1 year the baby strives not only for purely emotional contacts, but also for joint actions. With his mother’s help, he tries to get some object that attracts him, reach a cabinet or shelf, get a vase or pan, look at a picture, etc. Gestures that the child actively uses make communication easier, showing what he wants to get, where he needs to climb, etc.
Speech development also begins in infancy. In the first half of the year, speech hearing is formed, and the child himself, with joyful animation, makes sounds, usually called humming. In the second half of the year, babbling appears, in which one can distinguish
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SECTION II. DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE
Chapter 1. Infancy (up to 1 year)
§ 1. Newborn
A child is born and with its first cry notifies this world of its appearance. Let's remember King Lear:
When we are born, we cry -
It’s sad for us to start a stupid comedy.
Without unduly dramatizing this event, we note that the process of birth is a difficult, turning point in the life of a child. It’s not for nothing that psychologists talk about the neonatal crisis.
At birth, the child is physically separated from the mother. He finds himself in completely different conditions: cold, bright light, an air environment that requires a different type of breathing, the need to change the type of food. Hereditarily fixed mechanisms - unconditioned reflexes - help the child adapt to these new, alien conditions. What unconditioned reflexes does a newborn have?
This is primarily a system of food reflexes. When you touch the corners of the lips or tongue, sucking movements appear, and all other movements are inhibited. Because the baby is completely focused on sucking, this response has been called "feeding focus." A number of other unconditioned reflexes are given in table. II. 1.
Among the unconditioned reflexes, protective and indicative ones stand out. Some reflexes are atavistic - they are inherited from animal ancestors, but are useless for the child and soon disappear. For example, the reflex, sometimes called the “monkey” reflex, disappears already in the second month of life. The newborn grasps the sticks or fingers placed in his palms as tenaciously as a baby monkey holding on to its mother's fur when moving. This “clinging” is so strong that the child can be lifted and hangs for some time, supporting the weight of his own body. In the future, when the child learns to grasp objects, he will no longer be deprived of such tenacity of hands.
Table 11. 1
Unconditioned reflexes of the newborn
Stimuli Reflexes
Effect of bright light
Slap on the bridge of the nose
Clap your hands near the child's head
Turning the baby's head to the right
Elbow extension to the sides
Pressing a finger on a child's palm
Pressing a finger on a child's sole
Using a scratching motion, we run our finger along the sole from the toes to the heel
Pin prick of the sole
We lift the child lying on his stomach down. The eyes close.
Eyes close
Eyes close
The chin rises, the right arm extends, the left bends
Arms bend quickly
The child's fingers clench and unclench
Toes curl
The big toe rises, the rest are extended
Knee and foot bend
The child tries to raise his head, stretches his legs
By the end of the first month of life, the first conditioned reflexes* appear. In particular, the baby begins to respond to the feeding position: as soon as he finds himself in a certain position on the mother's lap, he begins to suck. But in general, the formation of conditioned reflexes is characteristic of a later time.
* Conditioned reflexes appear when an initially insignificant conditioned stimulus is combined with an unconditioned stimulus (causing an unconditioned reflex). For example, a child, seeing a bus passing by through the window, suddenly hears a clap of thunder, gets scared and starts crying. The next time he sees the bus, he again experiences a feeling of fear.
How can you describe the mental life of a newborn? The brain of a small child continues to develop, it is not fully formed, therefore mental life is connected mainly with the subcortical centers, as well as with an insufficiently mature cortex. The sensations of a newborn are undifferentiated and inextricably fused with emotions, which made it possible for L.S. Vygotsky speaks of “sensory emotional states or emotionally emphasized states of sensations.”
The textbook for the course on developmental psychology (developmental psychology) reflects the full life cycle that a person goes through. Age-related patterns of development in infancy, early and preschool childhood, primary school and adolescence, adolescence, youth, maturity and late adulthood are considered.
Variants of personality development are traced depending on its orientation. Theoretical and factual material is presented in the traditions of the psychological school of L.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontiev, D.B. Elkonin.
The manual is addressed to students of psychological faculties of pedagogical institutes and universities, but may also be useful to a wider circle of readers - school teachers, parents, young people interested in psychology.
Name: Age-related psychology. The complete life cycle of human development
Kulagina I.Yu. Kolyutsky V.N.
Genre: Psychology
Year of issue: 2001
Pages: 237
Language: Russian
Format: doc, pdf
Size: 15 Mb
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