learning at school, where he will have to listen to an adult, sensitively absorbing everything that the teacher will say.
A significant role in shaping the child's personality is played by the need to communicate with peers, in whose circle he is from the first years of life. There may be many different forms of relationships between children. Therefore, it is very important that the baby from the very beginning of his stay in a preschool institution acquire a positive experience of cooperation, mutual understanding. In the third year of life, relationships between children arise mainly on the basis of their actions with objects, toys. These actions acquire a joint, interdependent character. By the senior preschool age, in joint activities, children are already mastering the following forms of cooperation: alternate and coordinate actions; jointly perform one operation; control the actions of the partner, correct his mistakes; help the partner, do part of his work; accept the partner's comments, correct their mistakes. In the process of joint activities, the children acquire the experience of leading other children, the experience of submission. The desire for leadership in a preschooler is determined by the emotional attitude to the activity itself, and not to the position of the leader. Preschoolers do not yet have a conscious struggle for leadership. At preschool age, ways of communication continue to develop. Genetically, the earliest form of communication is imitation. A.V. Zaporozhets notes that the child's arbitrary imitation is one of the ways of mastering social experience.
During preschool age, the child's character of imitation changes. If at the younger preschool age he imitates certain forms of behavior of adults and peers, then at the middle preschool age the child no longer blindly imitates, but consciously assimilates patterns of behavior. The activities of a preschooler are diverse: playing, drawing, designing, elements of labor and learning, which is the manifestation of the child's activity.
The leading activity of a preschooler is a role-playing game. The essence of the game as a leading activity is that children reflect in the game various aspects of life, the features of the activities and relationships of adults, acquire and refine their knowledge of the surrounding reality, master the position of the subject of activity on which it depends. In a gaming team, they have a need to regulate relationships with peers, moral standards are formed
§ 2. Psychological development in preschool age
behavior, moral feelings are manifested. In the game, children are active, creatively transform what they have perceived earlier, more freely and better control their behavior. They form behavior mediated by the image of another person. As a result of the constant comparison of their behavior with the behavior of another person, the child has the opportunity to better understand himself, his "I". Thus, the role-playing game has a great influence on the formation of his personality. The consciousness of “I”, “I myself”, the appearance of personal actions move the child to new level development and testify to the beginning of the transition period, called the "crisis of three years." This is one of the most difficult moments in his life: the old system of relations is being destroyed, a new system of social relations is being formed, taking into account the "separation" of the child from adults. A change in the position of the child, increased independence and activity require timely restructuring from close adults. If new relationships with the child do not develop, his initiative is not encouraged, independence is constantly limited, then there are actually crisis phenomena in the “child-adult” system (this does not happen with peers). The most typical characteristics of the "crisis of three years" are the following: negativism, stubbornness, obstinacy, protest rebellion, self-will, jealousy (in cases where there are several children in a family). An interesting characteristic of the "crisis of three years" is the depreciation (this feature is inherent in all subsequent transitional periods). What depreciates in a three-year-old baby? What was familiar, interesting, expensive before. The child may even swear (depreciation of the rules of conduct), throw away or break a previously beloved toy if it is offered “at the wrong time” (depreciation of old attachments to things), etc. All these phenomena indicate that the child's attitude to other people and to himself is changing, the ongoing separation from close adults (“I myself!”) Testifies to a kind of emancipation of the baby.
At preschool age, elements of labor appear in the child's activity. In work, his moral qualities, a sense of collectivism, respect for people are formed. At the same time, it is very important that he experiences positive feelings that stimulate the development of interest in work. Through direct participation in it and in the process of observing the work of adults, a preschooler gets acquainted with operations, tools, types of labor,
86 Chapter III. Psychology of early and preschool childhood
restores skills and abilities. At the same time, arbitrariness and purposefulness of actions develop in him, strong-willed efforts grow, curiosity and observation are formed. The involvement of a preschooler in labor activity, constant guidance by an adult is an indispensable condition for the comprehensive development of the child's psyche. Training has a great influence on mental development. By the beginning of preschool age, the mental development of the child reaches a level at which it is possible to form motor, speech, sensory and a number of intellectual skills, it becomes possible to introduce elements of educational activity. An important point that determines the nature of the teaching of a preschooler is his attitude to the requirements of an adult. Throughout the preschool age, the child learns to assimilate these requirements and turn them into his own goals and objectives. The success of a preschooler's learning largely depends on the distribution of functions between the participants in this process and the availability of specific conditions. Special studies have made it possible to determine these functions. The function of an adult lies in the fact that he sets cognitive tasks for the child and offers certain means and methods for their solution. The function of the child is to accept these tasks, means, methods and their active use in their activities. At the same time, as a rule, by the end of preschool age, the child is aware of the educational task, masters some means and methods of performing activities, and can exercise self-control.
In the study of E.E. Kravtsova1 shows that the neoplasm of the preschool period of development is imagination. The author believes that in preschool age, three stages and at the same time three main components of this function can be distinguished: reliance on visibility, the use of past experience and a special internal position. The main property of the imagination - the ability to see the whole before the parts - is provided by a holistic context or semantic field of an object or phenomenon. It turned out that the system used in practice to familiarize children with various standards, which occurs at early age stages and precedes the development of imagination, contradicts the logic of the development of the central neoplasm of preschool age. It is built with the expectation that the child will master the system of meanings, in
1 See: Kravtsova E.E. Psychological neoplasms of preschool age / Questions of psychology. 1996. No. 6.
After infancy, a new stage of human development begins - early childhood (from 1 to 3 years). Infancy armed the child with the ability to look, listen. The child begins to master the body, control the movements of the hands. At an early age, the child is no longer a helpless being, he is extremely active in his actions and in the desire to communicate with adults. In the first year of life, the infant formed the initial forms of mental actions characteristic of a person. background mental development has now given way to its true history. The next two years - the period of early childhood - bring new fundamental achievements to the child.
The qualitative transformations that a child undergoes in the first three years are so significant that some psychologists (R. Zazzo, for example), thinking about where is the middle of the path of a person’s mental development from birth to adulthood, attribute it to three years. Indeed, there is common sense in this statement.
Numerous studies have shown that a three-year-old child psychologically enters the world of permanent things, knows how to use many household items and has a value attitude to the objective world. He is capable of self-service, knows how to enter into relationships with people around him. He communicates with adults and children through speech, follows the elementary rules of behavior.
In relationships with adults, the child shows a pronounced imitation, That is the simplest form identification. The identification relationships of a child with an adult and an adult with a child prepare the baby for emotional involvement to others, to people. Against the background of identification, the child develops the so-called a sense of trust in people (a sense of basic trust, E. Erickson), as well as the so-called readiness to appropriation of material, mental and spiritual culture.
The main achievements of early childhood, which determine the development of the child's psyche, are: mastery of the body, mastery of speech, development of objective activity. These achievements are shown: in bodily activity, coordination of movements and actions, upright walking, in the development of correlative and instrumental actions; in a stormy
the development of speech, in the development of the ability to substitute, symbolic actions and the use of signs; in the development of visual-effective, visual-figurative and sign thinking, in the development of imagination and memory; in feeling oneself as a source of imagination and will, in highlighting one's "I" and in the emergence of the so-called sense of personality.
General sensitivity to development is carried out due to the irresistibility of the ontogenetic potential for development, as well as the psychological entry of the child into the social space of human relations, where development and formation take place. the need for positive emotions and the need to be recognized.
§ 1. Features of communication
At an early age, especially in its first half, the child is just beginning to enter the world of social relations. Through communication with mom, dad and grandmother, he gradually masters normative behavior. But during this period, the motives of his behavior, as a rule, are not realized and are not arranged in a system according to their degree of significance. Only gradually the inner world of the child acquires certainty and stability. And although this world is formed under the influence of adults, the child cannot immediately learn that attitude towards people and things which is expected of him.
Of decisive importance for the development of a child at an early age is the change in the forms of his communication with adults, which occurs in connection with entry into the world of permanent objects, with mastery of subject matter. It is in objective activity through communication with adults that the basis is created for mastering the meanings of words and linking them with images of objects and phenomena of the surrounding world. "Silent" forms of guidance (showing actions, controlling movements, expressing approval through gestures and facial expressions) are no longer sufficient for teaching the child the techniques and rules for using objects. The growing interest of the child in objects, their properties and actions with them prompts him to constantly turn to adults. But he can also apply and receive the necessary help only by mastering verbal communication.
Much here depends on how adults organize communication with the child, what requirements they impose on this communication. If they communicate little with Children, limiting themselves to caring for them, then they lag behind in the development of speech. On the other hand, if adults in communication with the child try to catch every desire of the child, to fulfill everything that he wants, at the first gesture, the child can go without speech for a long time. Another thing is when adults force a child to speak clearly, to express their desires clearly in words, if possible, and only in this case do they fulfill them.
The development of speech. In early childhood, the development of speech follows two lines: the understanding of adult speech is improved and the child's own active speech is formed.
The ability to relate words to designated objects and actions does not come to the child immediately. First, the situation is understood, and not a specific object or action. A child can, according to a word, quite clearly perform certain actions when communicating with one person and not at all react to the same words uttered by another adult. So, a one-year-old baby in communication with his mother points to the head, nose, eyes, legs and some other parts of the body, but he may not respond to the request of other people to show the same parts of the body. The child and mother are in such close intimate contact that not only words, but also gestures, facial expressions, intonation and the situation of communication - all together serve as a signal for action.
In communication with an adult, the child responds correctly to his words if these words are repeated many times in combination with certain gestures. For example, an adult says to a child: "Give me a pen" - and he himself makes the appropriate gesture. The child learns to respond very quickly. At the same time, he reacts not only to words, but to the whole situation as a whole.
Later, the meaning of the situation is overcome, the child begins to understand the words, regardless of who pronounces them and what gestures they are accompanied by. But even then, the connection between words and the objects and actions they designate remains unstable for a long time and still depends on the circumstances in which the adult gives the child verbal instructions.
In the first months of the second year, the words of an adult referring to an object familiar to the child cause the required action only if this object is in front of his eyes. So, if a doll lies in front of a child and an adult says to him: “Give me the doll!”, The child follows the adult’s instructions and reaches for the doll. If the baby does not see the doll, then the words “Give the doll!” cause an orienting response to the adult's voice, but do not lead to the search for a toy. However, even in the case when the required object is in the child's field of vision, his attention is easily distracted by the direct perception of brighter, closer, newer objects. If a fish, a cockerel and a cup lie in front of the child and the adult repeats several times: “Give me a fish!”, Then it is clear that the baby’s gaze begins to slide over objects, stops at the fish, his hand reaches for the named object. But very often it happens that the gaze returns to an object that is more interesting for the child, and instead of a fish, he gives, for example, a cockerel.
After a year and a half, the subordination of the child's actions to the verbal instructions of adults becomes more stable, but can still be violated if a delay in time is introduced between the instruction and execution, or if the instruction conflicts with the habitual, fixed action. In front of the child's eyes, the fish with which he has just played is placed under the inverted cup. Then they tell him: “The fish is under the cup, get the fish!”, But at the same time they hold the child’s hand for 20-30 seconds. After a delay, the child finds it difficult to follow the instructions, being distracted by foreign objects.
In another case, two objects are placed in front of the child - a cup and a spoon - and they say "Give me a cup, give me a cup!" He reaches for the cup. If this is the same indication
repeat several times, and then say: “Give me a spoon!”, then the child continues to habitually reach for the cup, without noticing that he no longer obeys the adult’s verbal instructions. (Based on the materials of A. R. Luria.)
For a child of the second year, a word acquires a starting rather than an inhibitory meaning much earlier: it is much easier for a child, following a verbal instruction, to start any action than to stop something that has already begun. When, for example, the baby is asked to close the door, he may begin to repeatedly open and close it.
Another thing is to stop the action. Although usually by the beginning of early childhood the child begins to understand the meaning of the word “no”, the prohibition does not yet work as magically as adults would like.
It is not until the third year that adults' verbal instructions begin to truly regulate the child's behavior under different conditions, to cause and stop his actions, to have not only an immediate, but also a delayed influence. The understanding of adult speech during this period changes qualitatively. The child not only understands individual words, but becomes able to perform objective actions according to the instructions of an adult. He begins to listen with interest to any conversations of adults, trying to understand what they are talking about. At this time, children actively listen to fairy tales, stories, poems - and not only for children, but also hard-to-reach in meaning.
Listening to and understanding messages that go beyond the immediate situation of communication is an important acquisition for the child. It makes it possible to use speech as the main means of cognition of reality. Given this, the educator should direct the development of the child's ability to listen and understand speech that is not related to specific situation.
The development of active speech of a child up to one and a half years is slow. During this period, he learns from 30-40 to 100 words and uses them very rarely.
After a year and a half, the child becomes proactive. He begins not only to constantly demand the names of objects, but also makes attempts to pronounce the words denoting these objects. At first, he lacks speech capabilities, he stretches, groans. But soon the question "What is this?" becomes a constant demand addressed to an adult. The rate of development of speech immediately increases. By the end of the second year, the child uses up to 300, and by the end of the third year - from 500 to 1500 words.
At first, the speech of a child bears little resemblance to that of an adult. It is called autonomous speech: the child uses words that adults usually do not use. These words have three origins. Firstly, it is the language of mothers and nannies, who believe that the words they invented are more accessible to children. From mouth to mouth, from generation to generation, such words as “am-am” or “yum-yum”, “tprua”, “naka”, “byaka”, “av-avka” are transmitted. Secondly, the child's autonomous speech consists of distorted words produced by him from real words. Not yet fully possessing phonemic hearing and not owning sound articulation, the child involuntarily changes the sound form of the word. So, he pronounces “milk” as “moko”, “head” as “gov”, etc. The extreme members of the sound structure of the word are usually perceived and reproduced better, and the middle is omitted. Thirdly, the child himself comes up with autonomous words. Little Lenochka calls herself "Yaya", Andryusha's brother calls "Duke". Playful little boy invents a new word "eki-kiki".
In communication with adults, with proper speech education, autonomous speech quickly disappears. Usually, when communicating with a baby, adults require him to clearly pronounce words, which affects the development phonemic hearing and articulations. But if the adults around the child support autonomous speech, it can persist for a long time.
In psychology, the fact of the wrong speech development identical twins Yura and Lesha. Due to insufficient communication with adults and other children, these twins communicated with each other almost exclusively with the help of their autonomous speech. They used undifferentiated sounds up to the age of five, when they were separated and directed to teach normal speech.
Along with the expansion of the vocabulary and the clarification of the pronunciation of words in early childhood, the assimilation of the grammatical structure of the native language takes place. At first - up to about one year and ten months - children are limited to sentences consisting of one, later two words that do not change by gender and case. Moreover, each such word-sentence can have several different meanings. When a baby says “mom”, it can mean “mom, take me in your arms”, and “mom, I want to walk”, and much more. Later, the child's speech begins to acquire a coherent character and express the simplest relationships between objects. Mastering in the course of objective activity the methods of using objects, children also begin to catch and use grammatical forms in speech communication, with the help of which these methods can be designated.
So, having mastered the use of the expressions “he hammered a hammer-w”, “took a scoop-and”, the child catches that the ending -ohm has a tool meaning, and begins to apply it (sometimes too widely) to new tool items: "knife", "spoon",“Shovel”, etc. "Under the influence of adults, such illegal transfers disappear. By the age of three, the child masters the use of many case endings.
Focusing on how adults pronounce words and mastering the grammatical forms of the native language develops a child's sense of language. By the end early age Children are pretty good at matching words in a sentence. Often they themselves, while playing, try to select words with a certain shade of meaning.
Little Andryusha caught in the syllable -ka some special meaning. Only, Vovka - words forbidden for him. Fearing reprimand, he provokes his brother: “Tell me, aunt, grandmother, uncle, blouse (jacket), kultka (jacket).” The little brother also feels something “abusive” in these words and objects: “I won’t. Mom doesn't lasles (doesn't allow it)." Then Andryusha himself took up the selection of words ending in -ka:"Uncle, Alenk-ya, Talell-a." In some cases, he thinks, because he feels that the words, although they end in -ka, but do not carry the shade of the meaning he expects. Therefore, Andryusha sometimes declares: “a bed, a talelka - it’s not like that. You need an uncle, Alenka.
Communication with an adult is of decisive importance for the development of speech. At the same time, the development of speech opens up opportunities for the development of communication for the child.
Identification of the relationship between an adult and a child. Already by the end of infancy, the beginning of early childhood, the child develops a pra-linguistic sign system (facial expressions, especially smiles, gestures, exclamations, etc.). Such formations significant for communication are formed on an innate basis through imitation of an adult, which is the first form of identification.
The elementary sign system, which the child masters, turns into a stimulus for the response of the adult, especially the mother. It is the mother, psychologically attuned to identification with the baby, who uses the means of establishing a direct emotional connection mastered by the child and reaches a certain level of identification with him. At the same time, in order to establish identification relationships, the mother unconsciously uses various methods of bodily contact with the baby (strokes, pats, shakes, pulls the arms and legs, kisses, “tuzit”, etc.).
The child himself encourages the mother to communicate and identify with his states - from children's stormy joy to children's grief. It is so important for him to feel a deep emotional interest in him! Of course, his feelings are selfish, but it is through them that he masters the first stages of identifying people's interactions, embarks on the path of developing emotional involvement with the human race.
Of particular importance for the development of the ability to identify is child's language acquisition the ability to use substitutions and various signs. Renouncing his person and entering the world of replaced objects, the baby, identifying them with missing objects, plunges into conditions that require him to master identification as the ability to attribute the properties of the missing object to the substitute object. It can be physical properties, modes of action (functional purpose of the object), feelings, etc. An adult, playing with a child, introduces him to the world of possible transformations of objects and emotions, and the child naturally and happily accepts all the possibilities of identification inherent in the human psyche.
It has been established that in conditions of a pronounced readiness for identification on the part of an adult, the mood and the general activity of the child associated with this increase. It is in this case that they speak of emotional nourishment.
The specificity of communication at an early age. A child aged one and a half to three years acquires speech extremely quickly due to the psychological involvement in communication with adults. He listens attentively to the conversations of adults when, it would seem, they do not turn to him, and he himself is busy playing. This close attention to the speech of adults is seen whenever the child is suddenly included in the context of adult communication, giving his emotional assessments of what he heard, commenting or asking questions. The pleasure that the child receives from listening prompts him every time to approach the communicating adults and alert his hearing. At the same time, a child at this age activates his verbal communication, constantly turning to an adult, primarily to his mother. The child "clings" to an adult, asks him questions, tries to understand the answers.
Communication at an early age consists in the constant appeal of the child for help, and in resisting the proposals from the adult. The child discovers for himself that he is the source of his and begins to test his will in communication with his loved ones, with adults and peers. All these types of social activity occupy the child quite deeply and are significant for him, but we should not forget that he spends most of his time in objective activity, studying the objective world and mastering instrumental and correlative actions.
The child learns at an early age ways to get and keep attention adults. These techniques are generally socially acceptable, as the child knows how to reflect on the reactions of adults and immediately corrects his unfortunate mistakes. The child is able to express feelings affection and sympathy, he also knows how to express a feeling of displeasure and at the same time offer some way out of an unpleasant situation. True, all these opportunities for acceptable communication may not be used when the baby is tired, when he is not understood, when he was ignored and showed inattention. Knowing how to be patient enough for his age and knowing how to wait, the child still cannot endure severe trials by the time of waiting for attention from a significant adult, cannot survive an incorrect attitude towards himself. He can immediately give a regressive reaction, and then we will not see the baby in the areola of his achievements.
A special place in the development of social activity is occupied by the development of the specifics of communication with peers. In young years children begin to take an interest in each other they observe each other, exchange toys, try to demonstrate their achievements to each other and even compete. Competition in achievement(skill
playing a ball, mastering one or another action with an object, riding a bicycle, etc.) provides motivation to achieve(achievement motive, David McLelland), which determines the success of the realization of the desire for recognition. At the same time, child develops reflection on their own achievements and the achievements of others. A three-year-old child has a sufficient degree of mental development to be successful or quite acceptable in social communication situations, he knows how to control his emotions and his will.
§ 2. Mental development
In early childhood, the child begins to highlight the properties of surrounding objects, to capture the simplest connections between them and use these connections in their manipulations. This creates the prerequisites for further mental development, which occurs in connection with the mastery of objective activity (and later - elementary forms of play and drawing) and speech.
The basis of mental development in early childhood is formed by the child's new types of actions of perception and mental actions.
The development of perception and the formation of ideas about the properties of objects. Although already in infancy, in connection with grasping and manipulating, the child masters visual actions that enable him to determine certain properties of objects and regulate practical behavior, perception at the beginning of early childhood is still extremely imperfect. At first glance, this is imperceptible: the child seems to be well oriented in the environment, recognizes familiar people, objects. But recognition can be different, it can be based on the selection of different properties and features in objects. A one-year-old child is not able to consistently, systematically examine an object. As a rule, he snatches out some one conspicuous sign and reacts only to it, he identifies objects by it. Often this is a small section of the outline of an object that the child encounters in the process of manipulation.
Having learned the word “petit” (bird), the child calls all objects that have a protrusion similar to a beak. A bird for him can be, for example, a plastic ball with a sharp protrusion
Related to this is an amazing feature of the perception of children in the second year of life - the recognition of loved ones in photographs and objects in drawings, including contour images that convey only some of the characteristic details of the object (for example, the muzzle of a horse or dog). Such recognition can easily be taken as evidence that the child understands what a drawing or photograph is. One can also see in this the child's ability to fully and accurately perceive the surrounding objects at the slightest hint. However, in reality, exactly the opposite qualities are manifested here. Children of the second year do not perceive drawings or photographs as images of objects and people. For them, the depicted objects are completely independent objects. And if a child names an object and its image in the same way, then it means that he identifies them. Identification becomes possible because both in the object and in the image, any one detail stands out that attracted the attention of the child: everything else, as it were, does not exist, is not taken into account.
This feature of perceiving objects is also manifested in the child's indifference to the spatial position of the perceived or its image.
1,7, 15. Gunther looks at the pictures with great pleasure, lying on his stomach and leafing through the book. At the same time, he easily recognizes the pictures turned upside down: he also calls the upside down horse "brbr", as well as being in the correct position. (From the observations of V. Stern)
Visual actions, with the help of which the child perceives objects, have developed in the process of grasping and manipulating. These actions are primarily aimed at such properties of objects as shape and size. Color during this period has no significance for the recognition of objects at all. The child recognizes painted and unpainted images in exactly the same way, as well as images painted in unusual, unnatural colors, focusing only on the shapes of the objects depicted. This, of course, does not mean that the child does not distinguish colors. We know that discrimination and preference certain colors clearly expressed already in the infant. But color has not yet become a feature that characterizes an object, and is not taken into account in its perception.
In order for the perception of objects to become more complete and comprehensive, the child must develop new actions of perception. Such actions are formed in connection with the mastery objective activity, especially correlative and instrumental actions.
When a child learns to perform a correlative action, he selects and connects objects or their parts in accordance with the shape, size, color, gives them a certain relative position in space. Correlative actions can be performed in different ways, depending on the characteristics of learning. It happens that a child, imitating an adult, remembers the order of performing an action (for example, disassembling and assembling pyramids) and repeats it without taking into account the properties of objects (the size of the rings). But this can lead to success only under completely unchanged conditions. If the pyramid rings are displaced or one of them falls, the child will not be able to get the desired result. Therefore, sooner or later, adults begin to demand from the child that he himself selects and connects parts into right order. Initially, the child can fulfill this requirement only with the help of tests, since the actions of perception available to him do not allow visual comparison of various objects according to their properties.
Putting the bottom half of the matryoshka to the top, the child discovers that it does not fit, takes another, puts it on again until, finally, he finds the right one. Going through the rings of the pyramid and applying one to the other, the child chooses the largest ring - the one whose edge peeks out from under any other, strings it on the rod, then in the same way chooses the largest of the remaining ones, etc. In the same way, picking up two cubes, the child puts them close to each other and finds out whether their color merges or not. All this external orientation actions, allowing the child to achieve the correct practical result.
The mastery of external orienting actions does not take place all at once and depends on what kind of objects the child is working with and to what extent adults help him. A significant part of the toys for children of this age is created in such a way that the need to try on parts to each other is already embedded in their device, and without their correct selection, the result cannot be obtained. Nesting dolls, boxes with cutouts of a certain shape, into which the corresponding figurines are dropped, houses with holes for inserting windows and doors, and many other toys, as it were, teach the child external orienting actions. And if the child at first tries to achieve a result by force (squeezing, hammering in unsuitable parts), then soon he or with a little help from adults proceeds to trying on. Therefore, such toys are called autodidactic, those. self-learning. Other toys to a lesser extent determine the way the child acts. For example, a pyramid can be assembled in any order, regardless of the size of the rings. In these cases, adult assistance should be more significant.
External orienting actions aimed at clarifying the properties of objects are formed in the child when he masters not only correlative, but also instrumental actions. Thus, trying to get a remote object, a stick, and making sure that it is not suitable, the child seeks to replace it with a longer one, thus correlating the remoteness of the object with the length of the tool.
From correlating, comparing the properties of objects with the help of external orienting actions, the child proceeds to their visual correlation. A new type of perception action is being formed. The property of one object turns for the child into a model, a measure by which he measures the properties of other objects. The size of one ring of the pyramid becomes a measure for other rings, the length of the stick becomes a measure for distance, the shape of the holes in the box becomes a measure for the shape of the figures lowered into it.
The mastery of new actions of perception is revealed in the fact that the child, performing objective actions, passes to visual orientation. He selects the necessary objects and their parts by eye and performs the action immediately correctly, without first trying it on.
In this regard, for a child of two and a half to three years old, visual choice becomes available according to the model, when from two objects that differ in shape, size or color, he can, at the request of an adult, choose exactly the same object as the third one, which is given as sample. And first, children begin to make a choice in shape, then in size, then in color. This means that new actions of perception are formed earlier for those properties on which the possibility of performing practical actions with objects depends, and then they are already transferred to other properties. Visual selection by pattern is a much more difficult task than simply recognizing a familiar object. Here the child already understands that there are many objects, having the same properties.
The examination of an object, when compared with another, becomes more detailed, the child is not limited to any individual conspicuous feature. Characteristically, the mastery of a new type of perceptual action is reflected in the fact that children's recognition of objects in pictures and photographs, the basis of which was their identification according to individual features, disappears.
Young children still have poor control over their perception and are not able to correctly make a choice according to the model if they are offered not two, but many different objects, or if objects have a complex shape, consist of many parts, or their color includes several alternating colors.
If a child who has entered the time of early childhood, when comparing objects, uses any of them as a model, then later - in the third year of life - objects well known to him become permanent samples, with which he compares the properties of any other objects. Such models can serve not only real objects, but also ideas about them that have developed in the child and are fixed in his memory.
Defining objects of a triangular shape, the child says: “like a house”, “like a roof”; defining round objects - “like a ball”; oval - “like a cucumber”, “like an egg”. About objects of red color, he says, "like a cherry", green - "like grass."
Perception by the child throughout the early years is closely related to the object actions performed. The child can quite accurately determine the shape, size, color of objects, their position in space in those cases when this is necessary to perform one or another action available to him.
In other cases, perception can be very vague and inaccurate. Moreover, the child may not notice certain properties at all if their consideration is required to perform a new action that is difficult for him.
Thus, having mastered the perception of color under the conditions of selection according to the model, the child does not take color into account at all when he is presented with the simplest constructive task. Just from two cubes - red and very close in color to pink - the child unmistakably handed the adult a cube of the required color. But here, in front of the child’s eyes, an adult put a red cube on a blue one (the difference in colors is much greater!) And asked: “Do the same.” And the kid quite calmly puts the blue cube on the red one.
In the same way, when starting to draw, the child does not at all take into account the color of the objects depicted or the samples offered, but uses pencils, the color of which he likes best.
Getting acquainted with the properties of various objects - various shapes, colors, ratios of magnitudes, spatial relationships - the child accumulates a reserve representations about these properties, which is very important for his further mental development. However, if the objects are in front of the child's eyes, even considered by him, but he does not need to specifically find out their shape, color, ratios in size or other properties, then the formation of any clear ideas does not occur. Ideas about the properties of objects, as we see, are connected with the types of practical activity characteristic of the child, primarily with objective activity. Therefore, the accumulation of ideas about the properties of objects depends on the extent to which the child, in his objective actions, masters visual orientation by performing actions of perception.
Thus, in order to enrich the ideas of a young child about the properties of objects, it is necessary that he gets acquainted with the main varieties of these properties by performing objective actions that require their consideration. It is wrong to limit (as is sometimes done) the material with which the child operates to two or three shapes and three or four colors. Studies show that a child of the third year of life can easily master the ideas of five to six shapes (circle, oval, square, rectangle, triangle, polygon) and eight colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white, black) .
How is the development of perception and the formation of ideas about the properties of objects at an early age connected with the development of the child's speech? Most of the words that children learn before the age of three denote objects and actions. The names of colors and shapes (red, yellow, round) children master with great difficulty, only with persistent training from adults. These difficulties have their psychological causes. The word - the name of the object - expresses, first of all, its function, purpose, which remains unchanged when external properties change. So, a shovel is a tool for digging, whatever its shape, color, size. Learning the names of objects, children learn to recognize and apply these objects, regardless of changes in their external properties. It is quite another thing - words denoting properties. Here it is necessary to digress from the subject, its meaning, and to unite the most diverse objects on the basis of which in most cases it does not matter for their use. There is a contradiction that is very difficult for a small child to overcome.
Although adults constantly use the names of the properties of objects in communication with a child, there is no need to try to remember them and correct use in early childhood. Significantly more favorable conditions for this develop later, in the fourth or fifth year of a child's life.
Along with visual perception, auditory perception also develops intensively in early childhood. Here, too, the basic rule is preserved, which is that the properties of objects and phenomena (in this case, sounds) begin to stand out to the extent that their consideration turns out to be necessary for the child's activity. The main activity of young children associated with the perception of sounds is speech communication. Therefore, during this period, phonemic hearing develops especially intensively. From the perception of words as undivided sound complexes, differing from each other in the features of rhythmic structure and intonation, the child gradually proceeds to the perception of their sound composition. Sounds of different types begin to stand out in the word and are recognized by the child in a certain sequence (first vowels, then consonants).
As a rule, by the end of the second year, children already perceive all the sounds of their native language. However, the refinement of phonemic hearing occurs in subsequent years.
Pitch hearing develops much more slowly in children - the perception of the ratio of sounds in height. But special experiments show that great achievements can be made here too.
Developmental psychology accepts the position of L. S. Vygotsky about perception at an early age as a leading function. “... Perception up to the age of three plays ... a dominant central role. It can be said that the entire consciousness of a child of this age exists only insofar as it is determined by the activity of perception. Anyone who knows children of this age will agree that the child remembers mostly in the form of recognition, i.e. in the form of perception, to which the act of memory is attached. The child perceives a thing as familiar and very rarely remembers what is not before his eyes; he can only be attentive to what is in his field of perception. In the same way, the thinking of a child under three years of age is predominantly spontaneous. The child understands and establishes mental connections between visually perceived elements. It could be shown that all the functions of this age go around perception, through perception, with the help of perception. This puts perception in favorable conditions for development at a given age. Perception seems to be served by all aspects of the child's activity, and therefore no function experiences such a magnificent flowering at an early age as the function of perception.
Perception becomes the leading function, taking a central place in the development of the cognitive sphere of the child.
Development of thinking. We have seen that on the threshold of early childhood, the child for the first time appears actions that can be considered signs of a thought process - the use of a connection between objects to achieve a goal (for example, pulling a pillow on which a watch lies in order to get it). But such actions are possible only in the simplest cases, when the objects are already interconnected (the clock is on the pillow) and it remains only to use this ready-made connection. Throughout early childhood, the child begins to use more and more of this kind of ready-made connections. He pulls the cart towards him by the rope tied to it, carries the cart, pushing the stick attached to it in front of him, and performs other similar actions.
It is much more important that he learns to perform those actions where it is necessary each time to re-connect the disconnected objects with each other - these are correlative and instrumental actions. The assimilation of these actions in itself does not yet require the work of thinking: the child does not have to solve the problem on his own, it is done for him by adults who give models of actions, show how to use tools. But, learning to perform these actions, the child begins to focus on the connection between objects, in particular, on the connection of a tool with an object, and subsequently proceeds to establish such connections in new conditions, when solving new problems.
The transition from using ready-made connections or connections shown by adults to establishing them is an important step in the development of children's thinking. At first, the establishment of new connections occurs through practical trials, and chance often comes to the aid of the child.
Here is a two-year-old baby sitting at a table. On the table is a toy that attracts him. It is far enough away that it is impossible to reach it by hand. Next to the stick. At first, the child reaches out with all his might to the toy with his hand, but soon, convinced of the futility of his attempts, he is distracted from the toy and notices a stick lying within reach. He picks up a stick and starts turning it over in his hands. But then the end of the stick touched the toy. She moved. The child immediately notices this. His attention again rushes to the toy, and now he begins to move it on purpose, following the movement. After a series of tests, those movements that bring the toy closer are highlighted. But this is not the end of the matter. Very often, the child's interest is transferred to the action itself with the tool, to its connection with the movement of the object. And the child continues to explore this connection, deliberately moving the toy away and again bringing it closer with a stick.
In the above case, the problem was solved with the help of external orienting actions. These actions, however, differ significantly from those that serve as the basis for the formation of perception actions: they are aimed not at identifying and taking into account the external properties of objects, but at finding connections between objects and actions. allowing you to get a certain result.
The child's thinking, carried out with the help of external orienting actions, is called visual and effective. Children use visual-action thinking to explore the wide variety of connections found in the world around them.
I, 5, 27. Children play with water. They scoop up water in a trough and carry it to the sandbox. Andryusha has a mug in his hands, Kirilka has a leaky jar. Andryusha carries and pours out a lot of water. Kirilka manages to convey a few drops. Kirilka is perplexed - he has a surprised physiognomy. I'm waiting: suddenly he will come to the terrace for a whole dish. But no. Kirill scoops up water, goes to the sandbox and brings drops. The next time, he accidentally took hold of the jar in such a way that he clamped the hole. The water stopped flowing, and the boy noticed it. Has stopped. Looks at the bank. He took the pen from the can. Water flowed. He grabbed the jar, as before, - the flow stopped. He took the pen - the water flowed. He grabbed a jar ... And so he acted until all the water flowed out. He scooped up the water again. Did the same steps. Hurrying through the water, Andryusha drew attention to the concentrated operations of Kirill. Stopped looking. When the jar in Kirilkin's hands "exhausted its water capabilities", Kirill continued to perform the same actions for some time - he grabbed the jar and took his hand away. Andrei looked and looked, then turned around and continued on his way to the water. Cyril followed. Andrey got some water and trotted to the sandbox. Cyril dialed the same and moved after his brother. He wrapped his hands around the jar so that all the holes were clamped. This time Kirilka brought a lot of water, and a lot of water poured out of his jar onto the sand. Joyful, the boy hurried to the water... (From the diary of V. S. Mukhina.)
External orienting actions, as we know, serve as a starting point for the formation of internal, psychic actions. Already within the limits of early childhood, the child has mental actions performed in the mind, without external trials. So, having become acquainted with the use of a stick to reach a separate object, the child guesses to use it also in order to pull out a ball that has rolled under the sofa. At the heart of such a guess is a test done in the mind. In the process, her child acted not with real objects, but with images, ideas objects and how they are used. The child's thinking, in which the solution of a problem occurs as a result of internal actions with images, is called visual-figurative. In early childhood, a child acquires the ability to solve in a visual-figurative way only a limited range of the simplest problems. More complex tasks are either not solved by him at all, or they are solved in a visually effective plan.
A large place in the development of thinking in young children is occupied by the formation generalizations - mental association of objects or actions that have common features. The basis for generalizations is created by the assimilation of speech, since the meanings of words, the understanding and use of which the child is taught by adults, always contain generalizations. For example, the word “clock” of a child is taught to refer to a small wrist watch, and to an alarm clock, and to a large wall clock, and the word “button” to a black plastic button on his father’s jacket, and to a white linen button, and to an artistically executed polygonal wooden button on mother's suit. But children do not immediately master the generally accepted meaning of words. The use of the first simple assimilated words indicates that their meaning is extremely vague and changeable. The child often names completely different objects with the same word, transferring it from one object to another on the basis of similarity in terms of random signs, and these signs can change all the time.
The kid calls the cat the word "kh". He then proceeds to apply the same word to a fur boa (since it is fluffy), to various small shiny objects (apparently due to their resemblance to cat eyes), to a fork (after becoming acquainted with cat claws) and even .. . to portraits of grandparents (here, apparently, the presence of eyes also played a role). But such a transfer of words does not meet with support from adults, and the child, under their influence, assimilates a more definite connection between the word and the object. At the same time, the name of the object often turns into its own name: the child calls the word “mya” (ball) only his own red-blue ball, other balls do not receive this name.
Instructions from adults, examples of their use of words - the names of objects - constantly push the child to the fact that a common name unites objects that have the same function, the same purpose. It turns out, however, that objects with the same function are too different in external properties, it is too difficult to distinguish what they have in common. This, apparently, would not be at all accessible to the child if the assimilation of objective actions, the mastery of the use of objects in accordance with their purpose, did not come to the rescue.
The generalization of objects according to their function initially arises in action, and then is fixed in the word. The objects-tools become the first bearers of generalization. Having mastered the method of action with the help of a particular tool (stick, spoon, scoop, pencil), the child tries to use this tool in a variety of situations, highlights its generalized meaning for solving a certain kind of problem. At the same time, those features that are important for its use stand out in the tool, the rest recede into the background. Having learned to move objects toward itself with the help of a stick, the child then uses any elongated object (ruler, umbrella, spoon) for the same purpose. All this changes the meaning of the words assimilated by the child. They begin to more and more generally display the function of the object. The significance of generalization achieved in action for the emergence of generalization in a word will be clearly revealed if we compare situations when words-names of objects are given to children accompanied by a simple display of these objects and actions with them.
Young children were given toys (scoop, bucket) and taught to name them. After the children memorized the names, they were given exactly the same toys, but painted in a different color. If the children themselves did not transfer the learned names to new toys, then they were specially tried to teach this, changing the color gradually and teaching them not to pay attention to it.
In another case, the same toys were given during a specially organized game, and the children learned the names by acting with the toys (pouring sand with a scoop, getting water from the well with a bucket). After learning the name of the toys, as in the first case, they replaced them with new ones, exactly the same, but painted in a different color.
It was found that in the second case, the assimilation of the generalized meaning of words occurs much easier and faster than in the first: children recognize toys and correctly name them, despite the change in color, immediately after they perform appropriate actions with them. (According to N. Kh. Shvachkip.)
In young children, the name of an object is sometimes very strongly associated with its function. Therefore, when faced with a new object that adults call a familiar word, the child may try to use this object in an appropriate way in any case.
A two-year-old boy approached his mother, holding a tiny toy chair in his hand. To the question of the child: "What is this?" - the mother answered: "Chair, Sashenka." To her great surprise, the boy immediately put the chair on the floor, turned his back on it and began to sit down, clearly intending to use the object for its intended purpose. (Based on the materials of L. A. Wenger.)
Generalizations that develop in children have the form of images and are used in the process of visual-figurative problem solving.
In early childhood, the child not only notices the existing connections between objects, but begins to independently establish new connections and relationships, take them into account in his actions.
1, 8, 9. Jacqueline approaches closed door holding a blade of grass in each hand. She stretches out her right hand to the pen door lock, but then she sees that in order to open the door, she will have to let go of the grass. She places the herb on the floor, opens the door, picks up the herb again, and enters the room. But when she wanted to leave the room, the situation became more complicated. She puts down the grass and takes the handle. But then she notices that, opening the door towards herself, she will sweep away the grass that she put between the door and the threshold. Then she picks it up and places it outside the movement area of the door. (From the observations of J. Piaget.)
The emergence of a sign function. At an early age, the child actively begins to use not only objects, but also their substitutes, and on this basis gradually grasp the connection between the designation and what it designates. So, in the game, the child acts with a stick, as with a spoon or with a pencil (“stirs food”, “eats” from it or drives it along the surface of the table, allegedly “drawing”). Through these actions, he begins to give this stick the meaning of a spoon or a pencil.
The sign function, of course, is assimilated by the child through communication with an adult 3 , however, it is also subjectively revealed to them through their own activity and involvement in the action of substitution 4 . Assimilation of a sign function occurs only if it is prepared by the development of the child's own activity.
The sign function is organically included in the knowledge of the surrounding world: the child begins to feel like a source that creates a world of substitute objects, images, signs and images. He himself distinguishes and connects real and symbolic objects at his own discretion.
In the third year, an important shift takes place in the mental development of the child, which is of great importance for the subsequent mastery of more complex forms of thinking and new types of activity - the sign (or symbolic) function of consciousness. The sign function is the ability to use one object as a proxy for another. In this case, instead of actions with objects, actions with their substitutes are performed, the result refers to the objects themselves.
The most important and comprehensive sign system is language. In developed forms of thinking, verbal reasoning gives a person the opportunity to solve various problems, replacing actions with real objects by actions with their images. Young children do not yet possess such forms of thinking. When they begin to solve a problem (for example, a task that requires the use of a tool), they cannot formulate verbally what they will do. To the question: “What will you do?” - the child either does not answer at all, or answers: "I'll do it - you'll see." In the course of solving a problem, verbal utterances may express the child's emotions ("Well, what is this! What a disgrace!") or be completely irrelevant, but they never contain reasoning concerning the process of solution itself. The fact is that the word for a two-year-old child has not yet become a sign, a substitute for an object or action. The word acts as one of the properties inherent in an object (or a group of similar objects) and inseparable from it.
The sign function develops initially in connection with practical activity and only then is transferred to the use of words, giving the child the opportunity to think in words. A prerequisite for the emergence of a sign function is the mastery of objective actions and the subsequent separation of the action from the object. When an action begins to be performed without an object or with an object that does not correspond to it, it loses its practical significance and turns into an image, a designation of a real action. If a child drinks from a cube, then this is no longer a drink, but designation drink.
Following the designation of an action, the designation of an object appears, the substitution of one object for another. The cube is used as a cup. But, as we have seen, at first the child is not aware of the substitution, does not give the substitute object the name of the object being replaced. Awareness is not a prerequisite, but the result of mastering actions with substitute objects. Its emergence testifies to the origin of the sign function of consciousness.
The sign function is not discovered, but is assimilated by the child. Both samples of substitutions and samples of game renaming of objects are given by an adult. But assimilation occurs only if it is prepared by the development of the child's own activity (which, of course, is also directed by adults).
Learning that one object can be used as a substitute for another is an important turning point in the child's awareness of the world around him. It is found not only in the game, but also in other activities.
The sign function gives impetus to the transformation of karakul into a pictorial activity; it is thanks to her that the child begins to see images of objects in the applied scribbles. At the same time, drawing and playing are closely related: the child often supplements the images with play actions that give them one meaning or another.
In the period of the emergence of the sign function, children are inclined, using the slightest hint, to see images, more precisely, the designations of familiar objects in literally everything.
2, 8, 14. Andrey eats waffles. He put the whole waffle on the table edge-on. “Mom, we could, what a house I have! And now there will be a car. (Bit off a corner.) - And now something will happen again. (bites from another angle.) - This person has turned out."
Cyril sits, propping his cheeks with his hands, examining Dyukino's work: “Look, this is the head, and this is ... the back. Plavda, Duke?
2, 10, 25. The guys have lunch. Kirilka accidentally dripped milk on the table. Surprised, he examines a white drop of milk on the red surface of the table: “Look, mother, chicken!”
Sprinkles milk on purpose. A new drop appeared on the surface of the table, scattering in needle rays in all directions from the center. Kiryusha: “Look, now a hedgehog! - Finger connects both drops. Look, snake. (From the diary of V. S. Mukhina.)
The sign function, even in its simplest forms, begins to influence the child's thinking. Together with ideas about real actions with real things, he begins to use in visual-figurative thinking and images denoting these actions and things, highlighting in them exactly those aspects that are important for solving a specific problem. Of course, these actions are only outlined and are a prerequisite for the generalization of thinking.
Thus, a feature of the development of thinking in early childhood is that its different sides - the development of visual-effective and visual-figurative thinking, the formation of generalizations, on the one hand, and the assimilation of the sign function of consciousness - on the other, are still separated, are not connected between yourself. Only later, at preschool age, these aspects will merge, creating the basis for mastering more complex forms of thinking.
Development of imagination and memory. The birth of a sign function is at the same time the birth of the child's imagination, as well as a new condition for the development of memory.
The rise of the imagination. Having begun to establish a connection between the substitute and the designated object, the child for the first time acquires the opportunity to imagine what the adult is telling him about, or what is shown in the picture.
Imagination at an early age works primarily to recreate what is offered in a verbal description or in a drawing. Imagination during this period works more like a mechanism than an active activity: it usually arises involuntarily, without special intention, under the influence of interest and emotions. In his games, the child usually reproduces actions and situations borrowed from adults, without building his own plan. A typical manifestation of a child in activity: drawing or constructing, he proceeds from previously learned actions, and only the result obtained “requires” an appropriate image from him. So, looking at the scribbles printed on paper, the child asks himself: “Are these the ones?” Then, concentrating on the configuration of the scribbles, he suddenly “learns”: “These are the birds that ran here.”
Listening to fairy tales, the child tries to imagine their characters, events, situations. However, due to the fact that the stock of his life impressions is limited, he does not know how to process them in accordance with the description. A young child tends to establish a "direct circuit" between what he hears from an adult and the images of real objects formed in personal experience. Listening to a fairy tale about a grandfather and a woman, he immediately remembers his own grandfather and grandmother, and when listening to a wolf, he imagines a specific image in the picture.
By the end of an early age, a child often strives to “compose” his own fairy tales and stories. This, however, is nothing more than a mosaic variation of one's own experience.
2, 11, 25. Kirill loves to compose different stories. He asks: "Shall I caress you a teddy bear?" - "Tell". Cyril: “My bear ran away from home. I got on the bus without a lazle. I ran, I ran. Caught up only in a broom. The electric train broke off his legs there. I brought him home. And he called the doctor. Now my bear is sick. Sestla comes and gives him injections.
To caress a bunny? Bunny lives in the forest. I brought him home. He feels bad at home with us - he loves in the snow. Wolves in the forest. They can eat bunny. I throw wolves in the trash. Uncle will take the trash away far, far away. Into a deep hole. Balma-lei will eat them there.” (From the diary of V. S. Mukhina)
The emergence of imagination, for all its initial limitations, is of undeniable importance for mental development. At the same time, the very possibility of “composing”, “imagining” at one’s own will, at one’s own will, creates a special situation of identifying oneself as a source of imagination and raises in the child a delightful sense of his own self, his own will. The arbitrariness of the decision to begin imagination as an activity in which a special new reality is created raises feelings in the child that also influence his development as a person.
memory features. At an early age, the child's memory develops extremely intensively. During the first three years, the child masters actions that orient him in his own bodily activity in relation to himself and to the world around him. During the same time, the child goes from a speechless newborn to a speaking, communicative person: it is enough to recall the so-called sensitive period of speech 5 (from 1 year 6 months to 3 years), when children master their native language.
In the assimilation of the initial experience, motor, emotional and figurative memory take part. Motor and emotional memory predominate during this period. The child better remembers his own movements, actions, experiences.
1, 10, 2. Yaroslav walks holding his grandmother's hand. Suddenly, cyclists jump out from around the corner with noise and screams. Yaroslav shuddered in fright, burst into tears, and reached for his arms. Of course, his grandmother reassured him and distracted him from the incident.
1.11.4. Yaroslav walks, holding his grandmother's hand, in the same place where a month ago he was unexpectedly frightened. Spontaneously, he reached for his arms and wept. Grandmother consoled him.
2. 9, 1 5. Yaroslav walks with his grandmother along the part of the road where about a year ago he was suddenly frightened. He stretches out his hands and asks for handles. Does not cry and does not remember last year's event.
All summer it is at this place that it asks to be handled. (Based on materials by V. S. Mukhina.)
Memory at an early age becomes the leading function, it takes part in the development of all types of cognition. Ideas about actions, properties of objects, their purpose, etc., arising as a result of the child's practical activity, his perception, thinking and imagination, are fixed in memory and only therefore can serve as a means of further knowledge.
Memory at an early age is completely involuntary: the child does not perform any special actions to remember or recall anything. Children of early age, to whom they read a lot, often amaze adults by memorizing long poems and fairy tales. If, when telling a fairy tale, the order of presentation is changed, then the child indignantly corrects the inaccuracy. Such memorization, however, says nothing about the general mental development of the child, nor about the individual characteristics of his memory. This is the result of the general plasticity of the nervous system, the brain, which is characteristic of all young children.
For memorization, the frequency of repetition of actions matters. Only repeated actions, words, ways of communication, implemented in the social environment in which the child is immersed, form and maintain the impressions that form the basis of the child's long-term memory. Social life transforms cognition 6 through the influence of such significant mediators as language (signs), the content of the subject's interactions with objects (intellectual values) and the rules prescribed for thinking and moral norms that provide a system of relations.
All the wealth of transformations taking place in the natural, objective and social environment determines the development of memory. On the basis of mastering human actions and mastering language and through social relations, foundations appear that enrich and humanize memory. It is at an early age that the child enters the path of development of human memory itself.
Long-term memory as a reflection of previous experience, preserved not in a mirror, but in a modified form due to the emerging personal position and emotional assessment of what happened, develops precisely at the time when the child begins to build images of the imagination and feel like a source of imagination.
Until the age of three, memories of oneself and the environment usually do not remain, since until then the child cannot consider the sequence of events in the context of the moving time of life, in the unity and identity of the "I". Only when a child "forms the first outline of a child's worldview" 7 does the accumulation of the law of amnesia of early age take place.
§3. Prerequisites for the formation of personality
In the course of the mental development of the child, not only the assimilation of various actions and the formation of the mental processes and qualities necessary for their implementation take place. The child gradually masters the forms of behavior characteristic of a person in society and, most importantly, those internal features that distinguish a person as a member of society and determine his actions.
An adult is guided in his behavior mainly by conscious motives: he is aware of why in this case he wants or he should act in this way and not otherwise. The motives of an adult's behavior represent a certain system, depending on what is more and what is less significant for him. He may, for example, refuse an attractive financial transaction if he foresees a sufficient degree of risk, and he is not ready to act adventurously, or he may force himself to work, although he is tired and, it would seem, deserved the right to rest.
The child will have to master the ability to reflect on all the surrounding circumstances and their goals. The motives of his behavior, as a rule, are not realized and are not arranged in a system according to the degree of significance. The inner world of the child is only beginning to acquire certainty and stability. And although the education of this inner world occurs under the decisive influence of adults, they cannot put into the child their attitude to people, to things, to convey to him their ways of behavior.
The kid not only learns to live. He already lives, and any external influences, including the educational influences of adults, acquire different meanings depending on how the child accepts them, to what extent they correspond to the needs and interests that have previously developed in him. Moreover, in many cases, the educational influences, the demands that adults place on the child, inevitably turn out to be contradictory for him. So, for example, the baby is in every way interested in toys, actions with them. This leads to the fact that toys acquire a greater attractive force for the child. And at the same time, they demand from him that, taking into account other children, he should give up the toy, recognize the rights of his peer. A lot of time must pass before the child develops psychological traits that make it possible to link heterogeneous motives with each other, to subordinate one of them to others, more significant.
Features of behavior. A distinctive feature of the behavior of a young child is that he acts without thinking, under the influence of feelings and desires that arise at the moment. These feelings and desires are caused primarily by the immediate environment of the child, by what catches his eye. Therefore, his behavior depends on external circumstances. The baby is very easy to attract to something, but just as easy to distract. If, for example, a child cries out of chagrin, then it is not difficult to console him - to give in exchange for a toy that he has lost, another one, or in general to occupy him with something. But already at the beginning of early childhood, in connection with the formation of stable ideas about objects, feelings and desires begin to arise associated with objects that the child remembers, although he does not see them in front of him at the moment.
1, 3, 0. Misha, playing in the garden, took possession of the ball of another child and did not want to part with it. Soon he was to go home to supper. At some point, when the child's attention was distracted, the ball was removed, and the child was carried into the house. During dinner, Misha suddenly became very agitated, began to refuse food, act up, tried to get out of the armchair, tore off his napkin, etc. When they let him on the floor, he immediately calmed down and shouted “me ... me!” went first to the garden, and then to the house of the child to whom the ball belonged. (From the observations of L.I. Bozhovich.)
Establishing a connection between feelings and desires with ideas makes the child's behavior more purposeful, less dependent on a specific situation, creates the basis for the development of speech regulation of behavior, i.e. performance of actions aimed at verbally designated goals.
Since the behavior of children is determined by the nature of their feelings and desires, it is of great importance to develop in them such feelings that encourage them to take into account the interests of other people, to act in accordance with the requirements of adults.
1, 11, 25. Andryusha was punished, put in a corner with his nose. Offended Andryusha cries loudly. Kirilka comes up to him, pats him on the head, and persuades him: "Don't pay, Duka, don't pay." Andryusha cries even louder. He leaned into his brother's shoulder. Kirilka himself is about to cry: "Don't, don't pay, Duke!" (From the diary of V. S. Mukhina.)
The child is easily infected by the feelings of other people. So, in a group, when one or two children begin to cry, this cry is picked up by others, and it often spreads to all babies.
external image. At an early age, the child discovers himself as a separate person. He begins to voluntarily take control of his body, making purposeful movements and actions: he crawls, walks, runs, takes various poses characteristic of adults, and makes transformations with his body that are characteristic only of the plasticity of a young child. He hangs on a chair upside down, looks at the world through his legs, bent in half, joyfully feeling the flexibility of his body and the inversion of the world produced by him. The child closely observes all the static changes in his body and sensually experiences the muscular feelings that arise with every new movement or fading. Listening to his inner self, the child studies his outer self. He plays with his shadow; observes “how they are naughty” and how his arms and legs act; he examines himself in the mirror, looking intently into his eyes and cheerfully observing his grimaces and movements.
Face. At an early age, the child's face develops intensively constitutionally and mimicry. The face noticeably changes its proportions - the round shape of the face begins to gradually turn into an oval, which is associated with a change in the facial skull, with the transformation of the jaws, when two rows of small teeth appear, with which the child gnaws hard and crunchy food with pleasure. During the first two years, the height of the face from the root of the nose to the lower edge of the chin increases from 39 to 81 mm.
As the child develops, the expressiveness of his facial expressions becomes more diverse and more definite. At an early age, new trends in the development of facial expressions are outlined. A wide variety of expressive mines appears, which the child can already quite successfully manage, while reflecting on the reactions of close adults. The child quite successfully uses touching physiognomies and related postures when interacting with adults. Begging glances and sly half-smiles, looking up into the eyes from under the bowed head and other mines that affect adults indicate that the child of early childhood! rasta begins to reflect on their mimic and pantomimic-! sky opportunities and quite successfully use it for the best! moments of communication. At the same time, the vast majority of facial expressions escape attention, are not controlled by the child, and therefore his feelings are well read by adults.
Mastery of the body. The body is primarily the human body in its external physical forms and manifestations. The physical development of the child is linked with his mental development 8 . The “I” of a person, in addition to the spiritual, is also bodily, in particular, it is a projection of some surface: the image of the “I” includes the features of everything appearance. The child's bodily experiences occupy one of the main places in the process of development. Despite the presence of differentiated kinesthesia already in infancy, it is at an early age that a child begins to master his bodily, physical “I”. At this time, the child will deeply feel the presence of body parts involved in his actions and activities. The child's sense of self (his "image of himself", M. I. Lisina) arises as early as infancy. But this primary image is still syncretic and unstable. Only at an early age does the experience of movements and actions, the experience of bodily and practical communication with other people, advance the child in self-knowledge and in the formation of an attitude towards his body.
It occupies a special place in bodily development bodily differentiation. In the process of motor development in a child, a differentiation of the functions of the left and right hands, significant for bodily and mental development, occurs. One of the hands begins to perform predominantly the main actions in different types activities. At this time, the predominant use of the right or left hand gives reason to classify the child as right- or left-handed. Usually in this case one-sided dominance is developed, and this is connected not only with the leading hand, but also with all symmetrical parts of the body (leg, eye, ear). At an early age, the differentiation of the right and left hands only begins to reveal itself. However, it is important to promote the child in this regard, as there are indications that in children advanced in bodily development, right- or left-handedness is more quickly determined and they acquire a general harmony in movements and actions.
Along with the differentiation of manual actions in a young child, the development of general bodily coordination takes place. Upright posture is of particular importance for mental development.
Upright walking. AT At the end of infancy, the child begins to take the first steps. Moving in an upright position is difficult. Small feet step with great tension. The control of walking movements has not yet developed, and therefore the child constantly loses balance. The slightest obstacle in the form of a chair that needs to be bypassed, or a small object that has fallen under the foot, makes it difficult for the child, and after one or two steps he falls on the hands of adults or on the floor. What makes him overcome the fear of falling and again and again make efforts to take the first steps? At first, this is the participation and approval of adults.
The child experiences pleasure from the very process of mastering his own body and seeks, as it were, to increase this power over himself, overcoming obstacles. Walking, displacing crawling, becomes the main means of moving, approaching the desired objects.
Constant voluntary exercise in walking quickly leads to greater bodily stability and gives the child real joy from the feeling of mastering his body. The feeling of mastery gives the baby confidence when moving towards the goal, which positively affects his mood, but objectively, the movements themselves remain insufficiently coordinated for a long time.
1, 0, 0 - 1, 1, 0. Kirill walks with his arms wide apart, holding his torso at an angle forward. The face is joyful. Sometimes the joy is so strong that Kirill, standing, begins to frantically wave his arms and, of course, flops. However, such incidents do not affect his desire to walk and his good mood.
Andrew is completely different. With his eyes, he measures the distance to some nearby object and runs towards it. Then he looks for a new target and rushes to it. Often, however, the baby is seized by shyness, and he goes only when there is insurance nearby - furniture, walls, for which, in which case, you can hold on, or the hand of an adult. On the "rough" terrain, the boy moves on all fours for fidelity and speed. (From the diary of V. S. Mukhina.)
Day after day, the child performs motor exercises with willingness and perseverance. Soon he begins to move much more freely. Movements are already made without that huge tension that was before. At this time, when moving, children are clearly looking for additional difficulties - they go where there are slides, steps, all kinds of irregularities. At a year and a half, children live with exercises in motion. Just running and just walking no longer suits them. Children themselves deliberately complicate their walking: they walk on all sorts of small objects, walk backwards, spin around, run through thickets, although there may be a free passage nearby, move with their eyes closed. (According to the materials of N. N. Ladygina-Kote, V. S. Mukhina.)
Thus, at the first stages, mastering walking is a special task for the child, associated with strong feelings and a period of intensive formation of the body image. Gradually, automation of movement is achieved and it ceases to be of independent interest to the child.
Mastery of the body and the ability to move in a human way bring the child to the point that he enters a period of more free and independent communication with the outside world. Mastering walking develops the possibility of orientation in space. Muscular feeling becomes a measure of distance and spatial location of an object. Approaching the object he is looking at, the child practically masters its direction and distance relative to the starting place.
Having mastered the movement, the child slightly expands the circle of things that have become objects of his understanding. He gets the opportunity to act with a wide variety of objects that previously the parents did not consider it necessary to offer the baby.
The child learns from personal experience that before that tree from the porch, one must go past a bush that pricks sharp needles that there is a deep hole on the way, into which it is better not to fall, that the bench has a rough surface and it can reward with painful splinters, that the chickens are very soft, but the chicken has a very strong beak, which tricycle you can roll while holding the steering wheel, but a large wheelbarrow cannot be moved, etc. Increasing the independence of the child, walking at the same time expands his ability to familiarize himself with objects and their properties.
bodily pleasures. General mastery of the body, upright posture, fairly differentiated manual actions - achievements in physical and mental development, which are accompanied by a sense of pleasure and self-satisfaction, deliver bodily pleasures to the child. The child acts to the point of exhaustion, enjoying the sensations, gaining bodily and mental experience, at the same time realizing thereby the ontogenetic potential for development and entering the world of human conditions of mental development.
At the same time, while bodily communicating with a close adult (touching him, receiving bodily affection from him in the form of kisses, stroking, friendly slaps and pushes), the child begins to realize the value and significance of bodily contact for himself. He already consciously wants these touches and caresses, he is looking for ways to get them. He asks: "Watch how I do it", "Watch how I jump." Demands or gently begs: "Hug me", "Let's fight."
Bodily contact, especially with a significant adult, in addition to pleasure, gives the baby self-confidence and an invariable sense of the joy of being. The child's bodily support, subjectively for him, acts as a recognition of his value, and at an early age the child already begins to strive for recognition.
Claim for recognition. Starting from the age of one and a half, the assessment of the child's behavior by adults becomes one of the important sources of his feelings. Praise, approval of others cause in children feelingpride, and they try to earn a positive assessment by demonstrating their achievements to adults.
Somewhat later than the feeling of pride, the child begins to experience sense of shame in cases where his actions do not meet the expectations of adults, they are condemned by them. Most often, the child becomes ashamed if he pronounces the words incorrectly, makes a mistake when reciting a rhyme, etc. But gradually, he begins to be ashamed of actions that are not approved by adults, when they are specifically pointed out to him, they shame him. In some cases, the feeling of shame can be so strong that it outweighs other motives and causes the child to refuse an attractive toy or perform some other difficult act for him.
2, 6, 12. Cyrilka proudly shows: “I have some butterflies.” Five-year-old Tolya said enviously, pointing to two of them: “I never had such.” I suggest Kiryusha give Tolya one beauty (a black butterfly with red and white spots on the wings). Kirill protests. No persuasion and promises help Kirill, he resists and does not want to part with the beauty, although he offers Tolya lemongrass and especially actively gives him the only peeled cabbage. So we went home.
At home I tell Kirilka that he is greedy. Kirill is excited, shouting with tears: "I'm not a greedy!"
I propose to go and give Tolya a butterfly. Kirill "No!" - "Well then, you greedy Tolya gave you a toy chicken to play." - "I'll give Tolya a chicken." - He grabs a chicken, runs to the door. I must say that Kiryusha plays with this chicken all summer and always puts him to sleep with him. - "This won't help you. You'll still be greedy." Kirill takes one beauty and, saying. "I'm not greedy", goes into the garden to Tolya, holds out a butterfly to him: "Na, I'm not greedy." As soon as Tolya took the butterfly "Kiryusha burst into tears, stretched out his hand to the butterfly, pulled it back again. Through the roar he said:" Beauty ... I'm not a greedy ... "Sobbed for a long, long time. He remembered the beauty all day. (From the diary of V. S. Mukhina.)
Of course, the development of self-esteem, a sense of pride and shame does not mean at all that a child under their influence systematically controls his actions. He is not yet capable of such control.
The ability to consciously control their behavior in a young child is extremely limited. It is very difficult for him to resist the immediate satisfaction of the desire that has arisen, and it is even more difficult for him to perform an unattractive action at the suggestion of an adult.
Carrying out even the simplest, but uninteresting for them, tasks of adults, children either modify them, turning them into a game, or quickly get distracted and do not finish the job. So, collecting scattered cubes in a box, the child simultaneously builds turrets, benches from them, or simply, throwing a few cubes into the box, leaves, leaving the rest uncollected. It takes a lot of adult perseverance, repeated reminders, so that the child eventually fulfills the requirement.
The social development of the child goes in two directions: through the assimilation of the rules of the relationship of people with each other and through the interaction of the child with the object in the world of permanent things. This process is carried out through an intermediary (senior) and an accomplice in the assimilation of social norms (a peer). Thus, social development acts as a situation of mastering relations with an intermediary (senior), with an accomplice in the assimilation of norms (a peer), with the world of permanent things. Thus, three types of dependencies are distinguished, each of which, on the one hand, has its own specifics, and on the other hand, is mediated by the others.
Relations with the elder arise in the child almost immediately - in infancy. A little later, a relationship with a peer is established. With age, both forms of behavior merge into a single one, which is fixed as a dependence on the object of communication.
The child is directly dependent on the elder. Already from infancy, he persistently achieves positive emotional reactions. Against the background of this direct dependence of the child on the elder, in conditions of predominantly positive relations, the assimilation of primary norms of behavior takes place.
At the same time developing a claim to recognition from an adult. While the child is small, this need is expressed openly. The child directly appeals to the adult: “Look how I eat! Watch how I do!” At the same time, the baby expects admiration for how he eats and how he does something.
1, 7, 0. Kolya stands with his hands up and shouts: “Mom, motli (look!) Mom, mot-li!” Mom comes up and says: “Well done! How well you learned to raise your hands! Just like a big one!" The child smiles happily and starts bouncing: “Motley, mom! Motley, Mom! A minute later, he is already seeking the approval of his mother, trying to jump over a newspaper thrown on the floor, etc. (From the observations of R. X. Shakurov.)
An adult, as a rule, does not deceive the expectations of a child. Education is based on the formation of his claim to recognition: “You are done! You're doing well!" So in everyday life, adults make certain demands on the child, and in order to be recognized by adults, the child seeks to fulfill these requirements. The claim to recognition becomes the child's need, which determines the success of his development.
The name and its meaning at an early age. At an early age, a child learns his name well. The name of a person simultaneously represents his individuality to others and bestows it on the child himself. The name reflects the nationality of the child, acts as a measure of his social security, is a decisive factor in the acquisition of individuality. It distinguishes a child from others and at the same time indicates his gender (usually children do not like names that can belong to both boys and girls). The child recognizes his first name before his last name, and uses the first name in communication with others. The name individualizes the child and at the same time identifies him with a particular culture.
"What is your name?"- one of the first questions to a child when an adult or peer enters into communication with him.
The child is identified very early with his name and does not imagine himself outside of it. We can say that the name of a person forms the basis of his personality. The child defends the right to his own name and protests if he is called by another name.
2, 6, 10. Andryusha is in a mischievous mood. He teases his little brother, declaring that he is not Andryusha, but Kiryusha. Andryusha: I am Kika!
Kirill (protests): I am Kika! You are Duke. Andryusha: I am Kika, and you are Dyuka. Cyril roars with indignation. (From the diary of V. S. Mukhina.)
Identification with one's own name is expressed in a special interest in people who have the same name, in the heroes of literary works. In this case, the child is more acutely experiencing the events that occur with the namesake, more interested in his fate. Everything that is related to the name of the child acquires a special, personal meaning for him.
The importance of a name in shaping a child's personality cannot be overestimated. An appeal to him, encouragement begins with the name of the child (“Petya good boy!”) or censuring him for unlawful actions. With the name of his own, a young child begins his communication with others, when he masters speech so much that he can express their wish and evaluate his person.
Self-knowledge. The claim to recognition and identification with the name are closely related to other parameters of self-knowledge. The most important feature development of self-knowledge is the knowledge of oneself as the subject of action. A young child will certainly go through a period when he performs the same action many times, while strictly controlling this action in its stereotypical performance and in small variations (a classic example: opening and closing a door, a drawer in a closet, or pushing an object from the edge table so that it falls, etc.). It is in these actions that the child begins to feel his will, himself as a source of change in objects, and thereby distinguishes himself from the world around him.
At an early age, the child experiences a qualitative transformation of himself as a subject, finally realizing himself in the unity and identity of his "I".
Gradually entering the objective world and the world of people, the child tries to master these worlds, assimilating the names of objects and words that reveal the functions of these objects, as well as human roles and identification. It is during this period of the sensitive development of speech and, consequently, the assimilation of meanings and meanings that construct social factors of development, that the child begins to correlate his name with himself with interest. The correlation of the name and one's "I" has a sufficient temporal duration.
Already in a year, the twins Kiryusha and Andryusha each reacted to their own name:
when the name "Kiryusha" was called, Kiryusha smiled happily and squatted when the name "Andryusha" was called, Andryusha gave exactly the same reaction.
Later, the children began to relate themselves to their reflection in the mirror, "having made a new discovery."
1, 9, 2. Andryusha made a discovery. He looks in the mirror and joyfully says: “Here I am!” Then he points at himself with a finger: “Here I am!” Points at me: “Mom here!” Pulls me along. Leads to the mirror: "Here's mom!" - indicates the reflection in the mirror. "Here's Mom!" - points to me. And again points to the reflection: “Here is mom!” And so many times.
I, 9, 7. For a week now, the children have been playing with enthusiasm with a mirror. "Here I am!" - point to the image in the mirror. "Here I am!" - poke yourself in the chest. Yielding to the desire of the children, all the adults visited the mirror. Toys were also not forgotten. Children with a meaningful look alternately point their finger at the object, then at its reflection. (From the diary of V. S. Mukhina.)
Awareness of oneself as a separate subject, as a unique "I" occurs through bodily feelings, the "image" of the body, the visual image of one's reflection in the mirror, through the experience of one's will and one's ability to single out oneself as a source of one's will, emotions and imagination.
The emergence of a desire for independence. Communication between an adult and a child gives him the opportunity to begin to realize himself as a separate person. This happens between two and a half and three years. Of course, this does not happen “at one fine moment”, but gradually.
Allocation of one's "I" can be observed at an early age. Thanks to the peculiarities of communication with adults, the baby learns to talk about himself in the third person: “Give it to Petya!”; "Petya wants!" However, very soon he discovers that "I" can refer to himself. Here comes that moment in self-awareness, which determines the beginning of the formation of self-consciousness: “I” begins to be used to designate oneself among others. Awareness of oneself as "I" may occur sooner or later. A lot depends on how relatives communicate with the child.
A child of an early age borrows attitudes towards himself from adults. Therefore, he often talks to himself as to an outsider:
exhorts, scolds, thanks. The fusion with other people that a child experiences can be observed precisely at an early age. However, emotionally experienced rejection from others, isolation, sometimes expressed in aggression, can also be observed at an early age, when the unique “I” begins to “sprout” through the syncretic perception of the world of objects and human relations.
By the end of the third year, and under the influence of increasing practical independence, there is an awareness of oneself as a source of various desires and actions, separated from other people. Outwardly, this understanding is expressed in the fact that the child begins to talk about himself not in the third, but in the first person: “I want”, “Give me”, “Take me with you”. In dealing with adults, he learns to separate himself from other people.
It is in dealing with other people the child begins to realize that he has a will, which can be used. He feels shocked source of will. He develops a desire for the expression of will: he strives for independence, for opposing his desires to the desires of adults. He feels that he is able to change the world of objects and human relations, he feels himself able to control his actions and his imagination.
A crisis three years. The separation of oneself from other people, the awareness of one's own capabilities through the feeling of mastery of the body, the feeling of oneself as a source of will lead to the emergence of a new type of relationship between the child and the adult. He begins to compare himself with adults and wants to enjoy the same rights as adults: to perform the same actions, to be just as independent and independent. Three-year-old Andryusha declares: “When I grow up (grow up) big, I will brush my teeth myself. I will bring (bring) toyt (cake) to you. I will put Kiyusha on the closet. I will write and read big books.” The child talks about the future. But in reality, this does not mean at all that he is going to wait until he grows up.
The desire to be independent is expressed not only in the forms offered by adults (“Do it yourself. You are already big and can do it”), but also in a stubborn desire to do this and not otherwise, feeling the charm and exciting anxiety from the expression of will. These feelings are so exciting that the child openly opposes his desires to the expectations of adults.
Towards the end of his early age, Yaroslav suddenly discovered the sweetness of confronting close adults. Without saying anything, without objecting, suddenly in the most unexpected places he began to stop in his tracks. If they took him by the hand and asked him to go on, or tried to pick him up, he began to resist uncontrollably and sob loudly. If he was left alone, he calmly looked around, watched what was happening around. He could even have a snack if he was offered, and he was hungry. But he didn't move. The adult could leave. Yaroslav remained standing. Once this confrontation lasted 1 hour and 40 minutes. Large drops of an impending downpour this time made it possible to become an argument that it was time to leave. (Based on materialsB. C. Mukhina.)
It is believed that the manifestation of perseverance is stubbornness and negativism, directed mainly against close adults. A truly negative form of behavior is rarely directed towards other adults and does not concern peers. The child unconsciously counts on the fact that the manifestation of perseverance and the testing of loved ones will not bring him serious harm.
The test of one's own will and open negativism and stubbornness have different nuances in behavior. In the first case, the child can be helped to test himself by offering him possible options. difficult situations which he must determine for himself. Feel like a source of your will - important point in the development of self-awareness.
Negativism and stubbornness develop within the relationship between adults and the child. When the child begins to feel able to act independently successfully enough, he tends to do "himself". Attempts to treat the child within the framework of a previously established relationship can lead to the maintenance of negativity and stubbornness. It is the adult, as a more socialized person, who must in every separate case find a way out of children's confrontation, leading to a feeling of deep experience by the child of his isolation from others. Indeed, by insisting on his own, the child not only realizes his independence, but also for the first time experiences rejection from others, which he provokes himself, by his own will or bad behavior.
The crisis of three years arises as a result of certain achievements in the personal development of the child and his inability to act according to the previously mastered ways of communicating with other people. But it is precisely the experiences of the crisis that sharpen the child's sensitivity to the feelings of other people, teach not only the skills of positive communication, but also the skills of acceptable forms of isolation of oneself from others. They teach reflection on themselves and other people, the ability to compare themselves with other people in a situation of communication in a social space controlled by the rights and obligations accepted in society, expressed for children's consciousness in such significant words as "can" and "it is forbidden".
New formations that arise in the process of development and are felt in a special way in the conditions of a crisis (a developing and conscious own will; the ability to isolate; reflexive abilities, etc.) prepare the child to become a person.
§ 4. Subject and other activities
Development of subject activity. Already during infancy, the child performs rather complex manipulations with objects - he can learn some actions shown to him by adults, transfer the learned action to a new object, he can even master some of his own successful actions. But manipulations are aimed only at using the external properties and relations of objects - he acts with a spoon in the same way as with a stick, pencil or scoop.
The transition from infancy to early childhood is associated with the development of a new relationship to the world of objects - they begin to act for the child not just as objects convenient for manipulation, but as things that have a specific purpose and a specific way of using, i.e. in the function assigned to them in social experience. The main interests of the child are transferred to the area of mastering more and more new actions with objects, and the adult takes on the role of a mentor, collaborator and assistant. Throughout the entire period of early childhood, a transition to objective activity takes place. The specificity of objective activity lies in the fact that here the functions of objects are revealed to the child for the first time: the purpose of things is their hidden properties. The functions of objects cannot be revealed by simple manipulation. So, a child can open and close the closet door an infinite number of times, knock the floor with a spoon as much as he likes - this way he will not advance a single step in the knowledge of the functions of objects. Only an adult is able in one way or another to reveal to a child what this or that object serves, what its functional purpose is.
Assimilation of the purpose of objects by a child is specifically human, it differs fundamentally from those forms of imitation that are observed, for example, in monkeys.
A monkey can learn to drink from a mug, but the mug does not acquire for him the permanent meaning of the object from which they drink. If an animal is thirsty and sees water in a mug, it drinks from it. But with the same success it will drink from a bucket or from the floor, if the water at that moment is there. In the same way, the mug itself at another time, in the absence of thirst, the monkey will use for a wide variety of manipulations - throwing it, knocking it, etc.
Thanks to an adult, a child immediately enters the world of permanent objects. He assimilates the permanent purpose of objects, assigned to them by society and, on the whole, does not change depending on the given moment. This, of course, does not mean at all that, having mastered this or that objective action, the child always uses the object only for its intended purpose. So, having learned to draw with a pencil on paper, he can at the same time roll pencils or build a well out of them. But the important thing is that child wherein knows the true purpose of the object. When a two-year-old naughty, for example, puts his shoe on his head, he laughs, as he understands the discrepancy between the action being performed and the purpose of the shoe.
At the first stages of the development of objective activity, the action and the object are very rigidly interconnected: the child is able to perform the learned action only with the object that is intended for this. If he is offered, for example, to comb his hair with a stick or drink from a cube, he is simply unable to fulfill the request - the action falls apart. Only gradually does the separation of the action from the object take place, as a result of which young children acquire the opportunity to perform the action with objects that do not correspond to it or to use the object for other than its intended purpose.
Thus, the connection of an action with an object passes through three phases of development. On the first one, any actions known to the child can be performed with the object. In the second phase, the item is used only for its intended purpose. Finally, in the third phase, there occurs, as it were, a return to the old, free use of the object, but on a completely different level: the child knows the main function of the object.
It is important that, while learning the actions of using household items, the child also learns the rules of behavior in society associated with these items. So, angry with an adult, a child can throw a cup on the floor. But immediately fear and remorse will be expressed on his face: he already understands that he has violated the rules for handling the object, which are mandatory for everyone.
In connection with the mastery of objective activity, the nature of the orientation of the child in new situations for him, when he encounters new objects, changes. If during the period of manipulation, the child, having received an unfamiliar object, acts with it in all ways known to him, then later his orientation is aimed at finding out what for what this item serves how it can be used. Orientation like "what is it?" is replaced by an orientation like “what can be done about it?”.
Not all actions acquired by the child during this period are of the same type, and not all of them have same value for mental development. The features of actions depend primarily on the features of the objects themselves. Some items have a very specific, unambiguous way of using them. These are clothes, dishes, furniture. Violation of the way they are used can also be considered as a violation of the rules of conduct. Other items can be handled much more freely. These include toys. But there is also a very big difference between them. Some toys are created specifically to perform certain actions, in their very structure they carry a method of use (pyramids, nesting dolls), and there are also toys that can be used in different ways (cubes, balls). The most important thing for mental development is the mastery of actions with those objects, the method of using which is quite unambiguous.
In addition to objects with a fixed functional purpose and modes of action fixed historically in culture, there are also so-called multifunctional items. In the play of the child and the practical life of adults, these objects can replace other objects. The child discovers the possibilities of using multifunctional objects most often with the help of an adult.
There are different ways to use different items. In some cases, to use an item, it is enough to perform an elementary action (for example, pull the handle to open the cabinet door), in others, a complex one that requires taking into account the properties of the item and its connection with other objects (for example, dig a hole in the sand with a scoop). Actions that make great demands on the psyche are more conducive to mental development.
Of the actions that a child masters in early childhood, correlative and instrumental actions are especially significant for his mental development. Correlative are actions whose purpose is to bring two or more objects (or their parts) into certain spatial relationships. This, for example, folding pyramids from rings, using all sorts of collapsible toys, closing boxes with lids.
Already in infancy, children begin to perform actions with two objects - stringing, folding, covering, etc. But these manipulative actions differ in that the child, while performing them, does not take into account the properties of objects - he does not select objects in accordance with their shape and size, he does not place them in any order. Correlative actions that begin to be assimilated in early childhood, on the contrary, require such consideration. So, in order to correctly fold the pyramid, you need to take into account the ratio of the rings in size: first put on the largest one, and then successively move on to smaller ones. When assembling a matryoshka, you need to select halves of the same size, collect the smallest one first, then put it into a larger one, etc. In the same way, when working with other collapsible toys, it is necessary to take into account the properties of objects, select identical or corresponding elements, and arrange them in some order.
These actions should be regulated by the result that needs to be obtained (finished pyramid, matryoshka), but the child is not able to independently achieve it, and at first does not strive for it. In the case of folding the pyramid, he is quite satisfied with the fact that he strings the rings on the rod in any sequence and covers them with a cap from above. An adult comes to the rescue. He gives the child a model of action, draws his attention to mistakes, teaches him to achieve the right result. Ultimately, the child masters the action. But it can be done in different ways. In some cases, the child, dismantling the pyramid, simply remembers where he put each ring, and tries to string them again in the same way. In others, he follows the path of trials, noticing the mistakes made and correcting them, in the third, he selects the necessary rings by eye and puts them on the rod in order.
The ways of performing correlative actions that are formed in a child depend on the characteristics of learning. If adults give only a model of action, repeatedly disassembling and folding the pyramid in front of the child, he is likely to remember the place that each ring falls on during parsing. If adults fix the child's attention on mistakes and their correction, it is most likely that he will begin to act through trials. Finally, by teaching how to try on rings beforehand, to choose the largest of them, one can develop the ability to pick them up by eye. Only the last method corresponds to the purpose of the action, allows you to perform the action in a wide variety of conditions (children trained in the first two methods cannot assemble a pyramid if, for example, instead of the usual five rings they receive ten to twelve).
Gun actions - these are actions in which one object - a tool - is used when acting on other objects. The use of even the simplest hand tools, not to mention machines, not only increases the natural strength of a person, but also enables him to perform various actions that are generally inaccessible to the naked hand. Tools are, as it were, artificial organs of man, which he puts between himself and nature. Let us recall at least an ax, a spoon, a saw, a hammer, tongs, a planer ...
Of course, the child gets acquainted with the use of only a few of the most elementary tools - spoons, cups, scoops, spatulas, pencils. But this, too, is of great importance for his mental development, because even these tools contain traits inherent in any tool. The method developed by society for the use of tools is imprinted, fixed in their very device.
The tool acts as an intermediary between the child's hand and the objects that need to be acted upon, and how this effect occurs depends on the design of the tool. You need to dig sand with a scoop or pick up porridge with a spoon in a completely different way than with your hand. Therefore, the mastery of instrumental actions requires a complete restructuring of the movements of the child's hand, their subordination to the structure of the instrument. Let's take a look at the example of using a spoon. Her device requires that after the food is scooped up, the child holds the spoon so that the food does not fall out of it. But food captured by the hand is not carried at all like that - the hand goes from the plate straight into the mouth. Consequently, the movement of the hand armed with a spoon must be rebuilt. But the restructuring of the movement of the hand can only take place on the condition that the child learns to take into account the connection between the tool and the objects on which the action is directed: between a spoon and food, a scoop and sand, a pencil and paper. This is a very difficult task. The entire experience of manipulative actions teaches the child to associate the result of actions with the impact on objects with the help of his own hand, and not with the help of another object.
The child masters instrumental actions in the course of learning with the systematic guidance of an adult who shows the action, directs the child's hand, draws his attention to the result. But even under this condition, the assimilation of instrumental actions does not occur immediately. It goes through several steps. At the first stage, the tool actually serves for the child only as an extension of his own hand, and he tries to use it as a hand. Children grab the same spoon into the fist as close as possible to the recess, even climbing into it with their fingers, and, having scooped up food with the help of an adult, they carry it obliquely to their mouths, just as they would carry a fist. All attention is focused not on the spoon, but on the food. Naturally, most of the food spills or falls out, an almost empty spoon gets into the mouth. At this stage, although the child is holding a tool, its action is not yet tool-like, but manual. The next step is that the child begins to focus on the connection of the tool with the object to which the action is directed (a spoon with food), but performs it successfully only from time to time, trying to repeat the movements that lead to success. And only in the end does a sufficient adaptation of the hand to the properties of the tool occur - there is a tool action.
The instrumental actions that a young child masters are very imperfect. They continue to be developed further. But it is not important how the child has worked out the appropriate movements, but the fact that he learns the very principle of using tools, being one from basic principles of human activity. Assimilation of the principle of tool action gives the child the opportunity in some situations to move on to the independent use of objects as the simplest tools (for example, use a stick to reach a distant object).
Starting to follow the rules for using objects, the child psychologically enters the world of permanent things: objects appear to him as things that have a specific purpose and a specific way of using them. The kid is taught that an object in everyday life has a permanent meaning assigned to it by society. A small person is not yet given to understand that the meaning of an object in an extreme situation can change.
Psychologically, the child is already turned into objective activity, but his social development is determined by the assimilation of the elementary norm of behavior in the world of constant things and certain forms of relationships with people about these things. The norms that are presented to a young child are unambiguous and defined. The rules are proposed in such a way that the baby always acts unambiguously: he lathers his hands with soap, drinks from a cup, wipes his nose with a handkerchief, etc.
The so-called experimental conversation was conducted with the children. The adult verbally asked problem situation, which the child had to solve also verbally.
The experimenter successively showed the child different objects and asked: “What can be done with this object?”; “Is there anything else we can do? What exactly?"; “Can this item be used like this? (And the experimenter named another action that was unusual for this subject.) Why is it possible? Why not?" The child mentally plays the proposed actions, correlates them with objective actions, with specific objects, and expresses his judgment about the possibility or impossibility of the proposed use of the object. So, a handkerchief was shown to a child and the following questions were asked: “Here is a handkerchief. What are they doing?"; “Can I wipe my hands with a handkerchief? Why is it possible? Why not?"; “Is it possible to wipe the table with a handkerchief? Why is it possible? Why not?"; “Can you wipe your shoes with a handkerchief? Why is it possible? Why not?"
Young children most often cannot justify their answer, but in the overwhelming majority of cases they strive to keep its function behind the scarf. An adult asks: “Can I wipe my shoes with a handkerchief?” Children answer: "It is impossible, because ..."; “You can only wipe your nose and nothing else.”
The behavior of the child with objects that have an unambiguous fixed function, and objects used in various ways and for different purposes, was studied. by the method of multiple substitution of the functions of the object. This method involves the use of the same items in game and real situations. In the experiment, the child is placed in a situation double, conflicting motivation, when he has to decide how to act with the object: either in accordance with its direct, functional purpose, or in accordance with the proposed renaming.
In the experiment, objects were used that, on the one hand, have the possibility of multifunctional use, and on the other hand, limitations, going beyond which was a gross violation of the rules governing the use of these objects.
For a young child, it becomes important to use the object for its functional purpose. The results of the study, obtained in real situations, showed that young children firmly master the social ways of using things and clearly do not want to violate the rules for using the object.
The social development of a child depends on his place in the system of social relations, on the objective conditions that determine the nature of his behavior and the development of his personality. At an early age, the child psychologically enters the world of permanent things with the continuous emotional support of an adult. The attitude of an adult to a child and the nature of the leading activity create a clearly manifested positive self-esteem “I am good”, a claim to recognition from an adult, a tendency to maximalism in judgments regarding the rules of behavior and a steady desire to use objects according to their purpose 10; from ignorance, he passes into the world of permanent things and into the world of relations agreed upon in his cultural environment.
At the same time, the use of a polyfunctional object gives positive new formations in the mental development of the child.
Polyfunctional objects act for a young child as a means of mastering substitutions. Substitution actions free the child from conservative attachment to the functional purpose of an object in the world of permanent objects - he begins to gain freedom of action with objects.
The emergence of new activities. By the end of early childhood (in the third year of life), new types of activity begin to take shape, which reach developed forms beyond this age and begin to determine mental development. This is a game and productive activities(drawing, modeling, designing).
The game as a special form of children's activity has its own history of development associated with a change in the position of the child in society. It is impossible to connect the play of a child with the so-called play of young animals, which is an exercise in instinctive, inherited forms of behavior. We know that human behavior does not have an instinctive nature, and children take the content of their games from the surrounding life of adults.
At the earliest stages of the development of society, the main way of obtaining food was gathering with the use of primitive tools (sticks) for digging up edible roots. From the first years of life, children were included in the activities of adults, practically assimilating the methods of obtaining food and using primitive tools. There was no game separate from labor.
With the transition to hunting, cattle breeding and hoe farming, such tools of labor and such methods of production arise that are inaccessible to children and require special training. There is a public need for the training of the future hunter, cattle breeder, etc. Adults make smaller tools for children (knives, bows, slings, fishing rods, lassoes), which are exact copies of adult tools. These unique toys grow with children, gradually acquiring all the properties and sizes of adult tools.
Society is extremely interested in preparing children for participation in the most important areas of work, and adults contribute in every possible way exercise games children. In such a society there is still no school as a special institution. Children in the process of exercises under the guidance of adults master the methods of using tools. The public review of the achievements of children in mastering the tools of labor are competition games.
There is a further complication of the tools of labor and the relations of production connected with them. Children are beginning to be squeezed out of complex and inaccessible areas of production activity. The complication of labor tools leads to the fact that children are not able to master their use in exercise games with reduced models. The tools of labor, when they are reduced, lose their main functions, retaining only an external resemblance. So, if you can shoot an arrow from a reduced bow and hit an object with it, then a reduced gun is only an image of a gun: you cannot shoot from it, but you can only depict shooting. This is how a figurative toy appears. At the same time, children are also being squeezed out of the social relations of adult members of society.
At this stage in the development of society, a new kind of game arises. - role-playing game. In it, children satisfy their basic social need - the desire for a life together with adults. It is no longer enough for them to participate in the work of adults. Children, left to their own devices, unite in children's communities and organize a special play life in them, reproducing in the main features the social relations and labor activity of adults, while taking on their roles. So from the special place of the child in society, associated with the complication of production and production relations, role play arises as a special form of joint life of the child with adults.
In a role-playing game, the reproduction of objective actions fades into the background, and the reproduction of social relations and labor functions comes to the fore. This satisfies the basic need of the child as a social being to communicate and live together with adults.
The prerequisites for role-playing play arise during early childhood within objective activity. They consist in mastering actions with objects of a special kind - toys. Already at the very beginning of early childhood, children, in joint activities with adults, learn some actions with toys and then reproduce them independently. Such actions are usually called a game, but such a name can only be applied conditionally in this situation.
The content of the initial games is limited to two or three actions, for example, feeding a doll or animals, putting them to bed. In fact, children of this age do not yet display the moments of their own lives (as happens later), but manipulate the object in the way that an adult showed them. They do not yet feed the doll, do not lull it to sleep - they do not portray anything, but only, imitating adults, bring a cup to the doll's mouth or put the doll and pat it. Characteristic of these specific games is that the child performs certain actions only with those toys that the adult used in joint activities with him.
Very soon, however, the child begins to transfer the adult's mode of action to other objects. For the first time, games appear that represent the reproduction under new conditions of actions observed by the child in everyday life.
1,3,0. Irina, watching how porridge is boiled in a pot, takes an enameled mug, puts it on a chair and starts stirring with a teaspoon in an empty mug, or rather, taps the bottom of the mug with a spoon, raising and lowering it, then taps the spoon on the edge of the mug just like this makes an adult to shake off the remnants of porridge. (From the observations of F.I. Fradkina.)
The transfer of an action observed in life to toys significantly enriches the content of children's activities. Many new games appear: children wash the doll, pour it over it, pretend to jump it from the sofa to the floor, roll the doll down the hill, go for a walk with it. At the same time, the child can imitate various actions himself, without actually performing them. He eats from an empty cup, writes with a stick on the table, cooks porridge, reads.
1, 3, 0. When Irina finds a book (any - a notebook, a children's thick book, a trade union card, in a word, any semblance of a book with pages), sits on the floor, opens it, begins to turn the pages and utter a lot of inarticulate sounds. AT last days it came to be denoted by the word "read". She uses this word to express her desire to receive a book. Today she also sat down and began to turn over the pages, and then I heard the word "vice" (book), and then sounds that are difficult to reproduce "reading." (From the observations of F.I. Fradkina.)
At this time, advice can cause the child to play a game that is new in content, if he knows the corresponding action. The transfer of an action from one object to another and the weakening of its rigid connection with the object indicate a significant progress in the child's mastery of actions. But there is still no game transformation of objects, the use of some objects instead of others. Such a transformation occurs later and represents the first step towards the transformation of objective action into proper play.
In addition to story toys, children are beginning to make extensive use of all kinds of objects as substitutes for missing items. So, a cube, a bar, a coil, a stone are used by a child as soap when washing a doll; stone, bone ring, cylinder of building material he can feed the doll; with a stick, spoon, pencil, he measures the temperature of the doll; with a hairpin, skittles, a stick cuts claws or hair, etc. Substituting one object for another, the child at first does not yet give the substitute object game name. He continues to refer to substitute items by their common name, regardless of the game's usage.
2, 1.0. Lida is sitting on the carpet, holding a wheel from a horse and a nail in her hands. The teacher hands her a doll and says: “Feed the doll.” Lida brings the nail to the doll's mouth, i.e. uses it like a spoon. To the question: "What is it?" - Lida answers: "Axis" (nail). Then he runs, finds a pot on the floor, stirs a nail in it, saying “Ka” (porridge), again runs to the doll and feeds her with a nail from the pot. The nail continues to be called a nail, even in the game it is not yet a spoon for a child, although it is used as a spoon, however, only in addition to plot toys (From the observations of F.I. Fradkina.)
At the next stage, children not only use some objects as substitutes for others, but already independently give these objects game names.
Young children first act with the object, and then they realize the purpose of the object in the game. At the same time, the child needs to be able to act with the substitute object in the same way as with the real object. Similarities in color, shape, size, material are not yet required.
Although there are no detailed roles in the games of young children, one can observe the gradual formation of the prerequisites for role-playing. Simultaneously with the appearance of substitute objects in games, children begin to depict the actions of specific adults (mother, teacher, nanny, doctor, hairdresser).
1. 4, 0. Tanya puts the doll to bed, carefully covers it, tucks the blanket under the doll in the way the teacher usually does, and says, referring to the doll: “Here, you need a bed.” At the same age, she pours from a bucket into a cup and says: "Do not touch the jelly." Brings a doll, sits it down and says. "You sit, I'll give you jelly," he again pours from vessel to vessel and says. “Eat! No, no, you won’t get the second one” (This is what the teacher says to the children if they don’t eat the first one)
2. 6, 0 Borya puts a plush hare on a newspaper, covers his chest with another piece of newspaper, like a napkin, and picks up a twig from a panicle. To the question of the teacher: “What are you doing?” - Borya replies: "Boya piikmaher (hairdresser)" and drives a twig over the head and ears of a hare - she cuts it. (From the observations of F. I. Fradkipa.)
As a rule, calling oneself by the name of an adult, until the very end of early childhood, follows the action. The child first plays, and then calls himself - in his action he recognizes the action of an adult.
The prerequisites for a role-playing game - renaming objects, identifying the child's actions with the actions of an adult, calling himself the name of another person, the formation of actions that reproduce the actions of other people - are assimilated by the child under the guidance of elders.
In connection with the development of objective activity in early childhood, prerequisites arise for mastering drawing, which at preschool age turns into a special type of activity - visual activity. In early childhood, the child learns to draw strokes on paper with a pencil, create the so-called scribbles and learns pictorial drawing function - begins to understand that the drawing can depict certain objects. The beginning of drawing karakul is associated with the manipulation of pencil and paper, which are given to the child by adults. Imitating adults and drawing a pencil across the paper, children begin to notice traces remaining on it. The scribbles that appear from under the pencil are intermittent, slightly rounded lines with the same slight pressure.
Soon the child learns the function of the pencil as a tool for drawing lines. The movements of the child become more precise and varied. The doodles applied to paper are also becoming more diverse. The child focuses on them. He begins to prefer some scribbles over others and repeats some of them over and over again. Having received the result that interested him, the child examines it, stopping all motor activity, then repeats the movement and receives other scribbles similar in appearance to the first, which he also considers.
Most often, the child prefers to reproduce clearly defined scribbles. This includes straight short lines (horizontal or vertical), dots, ticks, spiral lines. At this stage, the lines drawn by the child - figurative lines - still do not represent anything, therefore they are called pre-figurative. The transition of the child from the pre-pictorial stage to the image includes two phases: first, recognition of the object in a random combination of lines occurs, then - an intentional image.
Of course, adults try to guide the child's drawing, show him how to draw a ball, a sun, when he draws on paper, ask what he has drawn. But until a certain moment the child does not accept such instructions and questions. He draws scribbles and is pleased with it. A turning point occurs when the child begins to associate some of the doodles with one or another object, calls them a stick, an uncle, etc. The possibility of the appearance of an image of an object in scribbles is so attractive that the child begins to tensely wait for this moment, vigorously applying strokes. He recognizes an object in such combinations of lines that have only a distant resemblance to it, and is so carried away that he often sees two or more objects in one scrawl (“Window ... no, this is a chest of drawers” or: “Uncle, no - a drum. .. Uncle plays the drum”).
The intentional image of the object does not appear, however, immediately. Gradually, the child moves from naming the already drawn scribble to the verbal formulation of what he is going to portray. The verbal formulation of intention is the beginning of the child's visual activity.
When a young child expresses an intention to depict something (“I will draw an uncle ... a sun ... a bunny”), he means a familiar graphic image- a combination of lines, which in his past experience was designated as one or another object. A closed rounded line becomes a graphic image of many objects. So, for example, the circle-like curves with which a two-year-old girl covered the paper in abundance, denoting them "aunt", "uncle", "ball", etc., essentially did not differ from one another. However, the child comes to understand that the mere designation of an object without resemblance to it cannot satisfy the people around. This ceases to satisfy the artist himself, as he quickly forgets what he depicted. The child begins to use the graphic images available to him only to depict those objects that have some resemblance to these graphic images. At the same time, he is trying to look for new graphic images. Objects for which the child has no graphic images (i.e., no idea how they can be depicted), he not only does not draw himself, but also refuses to draw at the request of adults. So, one boy categorically refused to draw a house, a little man and a bird, but he himself willingly offered: “Let me draw better, as they say. Do you want me to draw a ladder?
During this period, the range of depicted objects is sharply limited. The child begins to draw one or more objects, so that the drawing itself becomes for him the activity of depicting these objects and, accordingly, sometimes even acquires a special name, for example, "to make a little man."
The origin of the graphic images used by the child may be different. Some of them he finds himself in the process of scribbling, others are the result of imitation, copying of drawings offered as samples by adults, but greatly simplified. The latter include a typical for children image of a little man in the form of a "cephalopod" - a circle with dots and dashes inside, depicting the head, and lines extending from it, depicting the legs. While the child's stock of graphic images is very small, in his drawing there is a combination of an intentional image of an object for which such an image already exists (for example, a person in the form of a "cephalopod"), and recognition of familiar objects in randomly applied strokes, graphic images of which are still absent.
2, 11.4. Cyril became interested in playing with paints. He smears the paper and looks at the result expectantly: “Oh! Ashes (grass). Now Kila will follow it.” Draws a "cephalopod". He puts colorful dots around the entire field of a sheet of paper: “These will be birds! Now something else will work!” (From the diary of V. S. Mukhina.)
The realization of any complex graphic image is associated with considerable effort for the child. Determining a goal, its implementation, control over one's own actions is a difficult task for a child. He gets tired and refuses to continue the image he started: “I'm tired. I don't want any more." But the child's desire to depict objects and phenomena of the external world is so great that all difficulties are gradually overcome. True, there are cases when, for one reason or another, graphic images do not add up in normal, healthy children. Such children, despite their sufficiently developed perception and thinking, are not capable of intentionally constructing an image. So, one boy, every time he started drawing, said: “Now let's see what happens” - and he began to put various lines on paper, carefully examining them. At some point, the resulting combination of lines evoked a certain image in him, and he gave the drawing a name, and then supplemented this drawing. In some of his scribbles, the child could not see the image and stated with chagrin: "Nothing happened." (Such drawing continued until the age of five, until the boy went to kindergarten.)
The described case is no exception. In the absence of guidance from adults, many children linger for a long time at the stage of recognition of karakul, bringing this stage to a kind of perfection. They learn to create very complex combinations of lines, and each new piece of paper is covered with an original combination, as the child diligently avoids repetition in search of an image.
For the formation of visual activity itself, it is not enough just to work out the “technique” for drawing lines and enriching perception and ideas. It is necessary to form graphic images, which is possible with the systematic influence of an adult.
Early age is a period when a child, psychologically immersed in object and visual activity, masters various types of substitutions: in his actions, any object can take on the function of another object, while acquiring the meaning of an image or a sign of an absent object. It is the substitution exercises that form the basis for the development of the sign function of consciousness and for the development of a special mental reality that helps a person rise above the world of permanent natural and man-made objects. This reality is imagination. Of course, at an early age, all these amazing forms of mental life inherent in man are presented as a forerunner of what may develop in subsequent age periods.
So the long-awaited peanut appeared in your house, so small and defenseless. You intuitively understand that now he needs your care, guardianship, tenderness and love. But time passes, the baby grows, actively getting acquainted with the outside world, the first character traits appear. And suddenly the moment comes when the child becomes capricious, uncontrollable, many parents do not know how to react to such a situation and make a gross mistake using "educational" methods. Why does a child suddenly begin to act up and how to respond to it correctly?
To answer this question, you need to understand how it develops from birth. Here we can distinguish two, the most important stages of the child - this is infancy (from birth to a year) and the period of early development (from 1 to 3 years). It is during this period that character is formed, behavioral reactions to surrounding objects and people are laid.
Infancy.
This period is characterized by strong attachment and complete dependence of the child on the mother, the baby needs close physical and emotional contact with the mother to feel secure. The baby gradually gets acquainted with the world around him and reacts with crying to a sharp change in the usual environment or sensations. The most important thing at this time is for parents to be patient, because psychology of young children very fragile and sensitive during infancy. For a child under one year of age, whimpering or crying is a form of communication, but often parents react to such behavior with irritability and sometimes uncontrollable anger. Hug your baby more often, smile, sing funny songs and tell rhymes, because the positive emotions of parents give the child a sense of security, peace and happiness.
Early development period.
Psychology of development of children of early age in the period from 1 to 3 years, it is characterized by the fact that the child becomes more independent, knowledge about the world around them becomes wider, and at the same time the need for communication and attention from parents grows. This period is complicated by frequent crises in the development of children, which manifest themselves in capriciousness, denial, negativism, affective reactions of the child. The whims of a child are not a character trait, but simply the next stage of development. At such moments, it is very important to gently and calmly communicate with the baby, take care of any emotional manifestations.
It is at an early age that the self-esteem of the baby is formed, which is laid by the parents. Therefore, do not reproach the child if something does not work out for him, encourage him to be independent. Be patient, attentive and be sure to discuss and explain your actions, because only in this way the baby will understand what is good and what is bad.
Help the child to develop comprehensively, accustom to the regime, since the constancy of the world around him is very important for him. And remember that there is never a lot of love, do not be afraid to praise and rejoice in the time that you spend together, because it will fly by so quickly!
From the first days of life, the baby has a system of unconditioned reflexes: food, protective and indicative. Recall that one of the most favorable periods in the life of a child's body is intrauterine, when mother and child are united. The birth process is a difficult, turning point in a baby's life. It is no coincidence that experts speak of a newborn crisis, or a birth crisis. At birth, the child is physically separated from the mother. He falls into completely different conditions (as opposed to intrauterine): temperature (cold), light (bright light). The air environment requires a different type of breathing. There is a need to change the nature of nutrition (feeding with mother's milk or artificial nutrition). To adapt to these new, alien conditions for the baby, hereditary fixed mechanisms help - unconditioned reflexes (food, protective, orienting, etc.). However, they are not enough to ensure the active interaction of the child with the environment. Without adult care, a newborn is not able to satisfy any of his needs. The basis of its development is direct contact with other people, during which the first conditioned reflexes begin to develop. One of the first forms a conditioned reflex to the position during feeding.
The active functioning of the visual and auditory analyzers is an important moment in the mental development of the child. Based on them, the development of an orienting reflex takes place. What is it? According to A.M. Fonarev, already after 5-6 days of life, a newborn is able to follow the gaze of an object moving in the immediate vicinity, provided that it moves slowly. By the beginning of the second month of life, the ability to focus on visual and auditory stimuli appears with their fixation for 1-2 minutes. On the basis of visual and auditory concentration, the child's motor activity is streamlined, which in the first weeks of his life has a chaotic character.
Observations of newborns have shown that the first manifestations of emotions are expressed by a cry, accompanied by wrinkling, redness, and uncoordinated movements. In the second month, he freezes and focuses on the face of the person who leaned over him, smiles, throws up his arms, moves his legs, voice reactions appear. This reaction is called the recovery complex. The child's reaction to an adult indicates a need for communication that has arisen in him, an attempt to establish contact with an adult. The kid communicates with the adult by means available to him. The appearance of the revitalization complex means the child's transition to the next stage of development - infancy (until the end of the first year).
At three months, the baby already singles out a person close to him, and at six months he distinguishes his own from strangers. Further, communication between the child and the adult begins to be increasingly carried out in the process of joint actions. An adult shows him how to act with objects, helps in their implementation. In this regard, the nature of emotional communication also changes. Under the influence of communication, the general vitality of the baby increases, its activity increases, which largely creates conditions for speech, motor and sensory development.
After six months, the child is already able to establish a connection between the word denoting an object and the object itself. He develops an orienting reaction to the objects called to him. The first words appear in the baby's vocabulary. In the restructuring and improvement of the motor sphere special place occupies the development of hand movements. At first, the child reaches for the object, not being able to hold it, then acquires a number of grasping skills, and by five months - the elements of grasping objects. In the second half of the year, purposeful actions with objects begin to form in him. From the seventh to the tenth month, he actively manipulates one object, and from the eleventh month - two. Manipulating objects enables the baby to get acquainted with all their properties and helps to establish the stability of these properties, as well as plan their actions.
According to K.N. Polivanova in its development during the first year, the child goes through several stages:
1) the child has steadily attractive objects and situations;
2) a new way of movement for a short time falls into the center of attention of the child, becomes special mediating subject of need;
3) the prohibition (or delay) of the satisfaction of desire leads to a hypobulic reaction (in behavior) and to the appearance aspirations (as a characteristic of mental life);
4) word means retained affect.
The normal resolution of the crisis of the first year of life leads to the dismemberment of the objective and social environment to the subjectivation of desire, i.e. for us - to the emergence of desire, aspiration for the child himself; to the destruction of the original community with an adult, the formation of a certain first form of I (I-willing) as the basis for the development of object manipulation, as a result of which the I-acting I will arise in the future.
A great achievement in the development of a child of the second year of life is walking. This makes it more independent and creates conditions for further development of space. By the end of the second year of life, children's coordination of movements improves, they master more and more complex sets of actions. A child of this age knows how to wash, climb onto a chair to get a toy, loves to climb, jump, and overcome obstacles. He feels the rhythm of the movements well. Communication between children and adults at an early age is an indispensable condition for the development of objective activity, the leading activity of children of this age.
Of essential importance in the development of a child of this age is familiarity with a variety of objects and mastery of specific ways of using them. Some objects (for example, a hare toy) can be handled freely, taken by the ears, paw, tail, while others are assigned other and unambiguous methods of action. Rigid attachment of actions to objects-tools, methods of action with them are established by the child under the influence of an adult and are transferred to other objects.
A child of the second year of life actively learns actions with such tool objects as a cup, spoon, scoop, etc. At the first stage of mastering the instrumental action, he uses the tools as an extension of the hand, and therefore this action was called manual (for example, a baby uses a spatula to get a ball that has rolled under a cabinet). At the next stage, the child learns to correlate tools with the object to which the action is directed (sand, snow, earth are collected with a spatula, water with a bucket). Thus, it adapts to the properties of the tool. The mastery of object-tools leads to the assimilation by the child of the social way of using things and has a decisive influence on the development of the initial forms of thinking.
The development of a child's thinking at an early age occurs in the process of his objective activity and is of a visual and effective nature. He learns to single out an object as an object of activity, to move it in space, to act with several objects in relation to each other. All this creates conditions for getting to know the hidden properties of objective activity and allows you to act with objects not only directly, but also with the help of other objects or actions (for example, knock, rotate).
The practical objective activity of children is an important stage in the transition from practical mediation to mental mediation; it creates conditions for the subsequent development of conceptual, verbal thinking. In the process of performing actions with objects and designating actions with words, the child's thought processes are formed. Highest value among them at an early age has a generalization. But since his experience is small and he still does not know how to single out an essential feature in a group of objects, generalizations are often incorrect. For example, the word ball baby refers to all objects that have a round shape. Children of this age can make generalizations on a functional basis: a cap (hat) is a hat, scarf, cap, etc. Improving objective activity contributes to the intensive development of the child's speech. Since his activity is carried out jointly with an adult, the baby’s speech is situational, contains questions and answers to an adult, and has the character of a dialogue. The child is increasing vocabulary. He begins to show great activity in the pronunciation of words. The words that the baby uses in his speech become the designation of similar objects.
By the end of the second year, the child begins to use two-word sentences in his speech. The fact of intensive assimilation of speech by him is explained by the fact that babies like to pronounce the same word repeatedly. They kind of play with it. As a result, the child learns to correctly understand and pronounce words, as well as build sentences. This is the period of his increased susceptibility to the speech of others. Therefore, this period is called sensitive (favorable for the development of the child's speech). The formation of speech at this age is the basis of all mental development. If for some reason (illness, lack of communication) the baby’s speech capabilities are not used sufficiently, then his further general development starts to linger. At the end of the first and beginning of the second year of life, some rudiments are observed gaming activity. Children perform with objects the actions of adults they observe (imitate adults). At this age, they prefer a real object to a toy: a bowl, a cup, a spoon, etc., since it is still difficult for them to use substitute objects due to insufficient development of their imagination.
The child of the second year is very emotional. But throughout early childhood, children's emotions are unstable. Laughter is replaced by bitter weeping. After tears comes joyful revival. However, the baby is easily distracted from an unpleasant feeling by showing him an attractive object. At an early age, the beginnings of moral feelings begin to form. This happens if adults teach the baby to reckon with other people. Don't make noise, dad is tired, he is sleeping, Give grandfather shoes, etc. In the second year of life, the child has positive feelings for the comrades with whom he plays. Forms of expression of sympathy are becoming more diverse. This is a smile, and an affectionate word, and sympathy, and a manifestation of attention to other people, and, finally, the desire to share joy with another person. If in the first year the feeling of sympathy is still involuntary, unconscious, unstable, then in the second year it becomes more conscious. In the process of communicating with adults in the second year of life, a child develops an emotional reaction to praise (R.Kh. Shakurov). Generating an emotional response to praise creates internal conditions for the development of self-esteem, pride, for the formation of a stable positive-emotional attitude of the baby to himself and to his qualities.
Psychological characteristics of young children
At the stage of early age (from 1 year to 3 years), the situation of the inseparable unity of the child and the adult begins to collapse - the situation of "we" and psychological separation from the mother sets in, which is due to the fact that not only new physical opportunities arise, but also psychological functions, and at the end of the period, the initial foundations (rudiments) of self-consciousness appear.
Speech. The child’s autonomous speech transforms and disappears quite quickly (usually within six months), words are similar to adult speech, but the transition of speech development to a new level is possible only under favorable conditions - with full communication between the child and adults. The most important change in speech is that the word acquires an objective meaning. The child denotes in one word objects that are different in their external properties, but similar in some way or feature to them. With the advent of the objective meaning of words are associated, so the first generalizations. In early childhood, passive vocabulary grows - the number of words understood. Later, at the age of 2-3 years, an understanding of the speech-story arises. Active speech also develops intensively, but the number of spoken words is always less than the number of understood ones. A child's speech activity usually increases dramatically between 2 and 3 years of age. The circle of contacts is expanding - he can already communicate not only with close people, but with other adults, with children. Basically, the practical actions of the child are spoken out, that visual situation in which and about which communication arises.
Perception . At an early age, mental functions develop - perception, thinking, memory, attention, but perception dominates, i.e. the rest depend on it. The child's behavior is maximally connected with the current situation, it is field, impulsive, actions are determined by what he sees. An important characteristic of perception is affective coloration, i.e. observed objects attract the child, causing him a vivid emotional reaction. The affective nature of perception also leads to sensory unity, the child sees a thing, it attracts him, and thanks to this, impulsive behavior begins to unfold - to get it, to do something with it.
Memory . Memory is included in the process of active perception, mainly recognition, although the child can already involuntarily reproduce what he has seen and heard before - he remembers something. Since memory becomes, as it were, a continuation and development of perception, it is still impossible to speak of reliance on past experience. Actions and thinking. Thinking during this period is visual and effective, it is based on the perception and actions carried out by the child. Throughout early childhood, an important basis and source intellectual development objective activity remains, at this time, in joint activity with an adult, the child learns methods of action with a variety of objects, an adult teaches how to hold a spoon or cup, pencil, scoop, drive a car, rock a doll, etc. Thinking initially appears in the very process of practical activity, and objective actions themselves are improved. The child can already transfer his actions learned with one object to actions in other conditions. The child has the opportunity to correlate his actions with the actions of an adult and perceive them as models. Joint activity, in which the actions of an adult and a child were originally merged and intertwined, begins to disintegrate. The child has a new attitude to his actions as his own, he isolates them, which is reflected in the speech ("I'm going for a walk", "Vova gives me food"). Actions become personal, which is one of the prerequisites for self-reliance. This predetermines a new transitional moment - the crisis of 3 years.
In addition to substantive actions, it is also importantdrawing and play. The drawing of a 2-year-old child looks like a scribble, but in the 3rd year, forms appear that resemble the depicted object. At 2.5 years old, children are able to draw a person. Leading activity -object-manipulative. The child does not play, but manipulates objects, focusing on his actions with them. But at the end of an early age, the game in its original forms nevertheless appears - the director's game, in which the objects used by the child are endowed with a playful meaning. The cube, carried with a growl on the table, turns into a car. For the development of the game, the appearance of symbolic or substitutive actions is important. For example: the doll is placed on wooden block instead of a bed, it is a substitution.
emotional developmentis inseparable from the development of mental functions - since perception is affectively colored, the child emotionally reacts only to what he directly perceives, he rejoices or is upset situationally. The desires of the child are unstable, quickly transient, he cannot restrain them, all desires have the same strength: in early childhood there is no subordination of motives. The development of the emotional-need sphere depends on the nature of the child's communication with adults and peers. In communication with adults, motives for cooperation prevail, in addition to unconditional love, the child expects emotional warmth from an adult participation in all his affairs. Bright colors are characteristic of early childhood. emotional reactions associated with the immediate desires of the child, affective reactions to difficulties, when something does not work out and there is no one to help him, an emotional outburst is likely.
The development of the emotional sphere is closely connected with the self-consciousness that is emerging at this time. Around the age of 2, the child begins to recognize himself in the mirror. Self-recognition is the simplest, primary form of self-awareness. A new stage in the development of self-awareness begins when the child calls himself - first by name, then by the age of 3, “I” appears. Moreover, the child also has a primary self-esteem - the awareness that "I am good." The awareness of “I”, “I am good”, “I myself” and the emergence of personal actions move the child to a new level of development - the crisis of 3 years.
Crisis 3 years - this is the destruction, the revision of the old system of social relations, the allocation of one's "I". A change in the position of the child, an increase in his independence and activity, and if independence is limited, the child experiences crisis phenomena.
Characteristics of the crisis 3 years:
1) negativism - the child gives a negative reaction not to the action itself, which he refuses to perform, but to the demand or request of an adult. The main thing is to do exactly the opposite of what he was told, even if he wants something and he is allowed to do it, he immediately expresses his unwillingness.
2) stubbornness - this is the reaction of a child who insists on something not because he really wants it, but because he himself told adults about it and demands that they reckon with him.
3) obstinacy - it is directed not against a specific adult, but against the entire system of relations that developed in early childhood, against the norms accepted in the family.
4) willfulness - hypertrophied tendency to independence;
5) protest riot - regular conflicts of the child with parents, a state of war.
6) despotism - more often in a family with 1 child, who rigidly shows his power over others, dictating what he will eat and what will not, whether the mother can leave or not, etc .; jealousy - more often in a family with several children;
7) depreciation - depreciates what was familiar, interesting, expensive before, a child can break his favorite toy, start swearing, etc. All these phenomena indicate that the child's attitude towards other people and towards himself is changing. He is psychologically separated from the adult.
