I.V. Bagramyan, Moscow

The path of a person growing up is quite thorny. For a child, the first school of life is his family, which represents the whole world. In a family, a child learns to love, endure, rejoice, sympathize and many other important feelings. In the context of a family, an emotional and moral experience unique to it develops: beliefs and ideals, assessments and value orientations, attitudes towards people around them and activities. The priority in raising a child belongs to the family (M.I. Rosenova, 2011, 2015).

Let's declutter

Much has been written about how important it is to be able to let go and complete the old and outdated. Otherwise, they say, the new one will not come (the place is occupied), and there will be no energy. Why do we nod when reading such articles that motivate us to clean, but everything still remains in its place? We find thousands of reasons to put aside what we have put aside and throw it away. Or don’t start clearing out rubble and storage rooms at all. And we already habitually scold ourselves: “I’m completely cluttered, I need to pull myself together.”
Being able to easily and confidently throw away unnecessary things becomes a mandatory program for a “good housewife”. And often - a source of another neurosis for those who for some reason cannot do this. After all, the less we do “right” - and the better we can hear ourselves, the happier we live. And the more correct it is for us. So, let’s figure out whether it’s really necessary for you personally to declutter.

The art of communicating with parents

Parents often love to teach their children, even when they are old enough. They interfere with them personal life, advise, condemn... It comes to the point that children do not want to see their parents because they are tired of their moral teachings.

What to do?

Accepting flaws. Children must understand that it will not be possible to re-educate their parents; they will not change, no matter how much you want them to. Once you accept their shortcomings, it will be easier for you to communicate with them. You will simply stop expecting a different relationship than you had before.

How to prevent cheating

When people start a family, no one, with rare exceptions, even thinks about starting relationships on the side. And yet, according to statistics, families most often break up precisely because of infidelity. Approximately half of men and women cheat on their partners within a legal relationship. In short, the number of faithful and unfaithful people is distributed 50 to 50.

Before we talk about how to protect a marriage from cheating, it is important to understand

Speech. In preschool childhood, the long and complex process of speech acquisition is largely completed. By the age of 7, language becomes a means of communication and thinking of the child, as well as a subject of conscious study, since learning to read and write begins in preparation for school. According to psychologists, the child’s language truly becomes native.

The sound side of speech develops. Younger preschoolers begin to realize the peculiarities of their pronunciation. But they still retain their previous ways of perceiving sounds, thanks to which they recognize incorrectly pronounced children’s words. Later, subtle and differentiated sound images of words and individual sounds are formed, the child ceases to recognize incorrectly spoken words, he both hears and speaks correctly. Towards the end before school age the process of phonemic development is completed.

The vocabulary of speech is growing rapidly. Same as the previous one age stage, there are great individual differences here: some children have a larger vocabulary, others have less, which depends on their living conditions, on how and how much close adults communicate with them. Let us give the average data according to V. Stern: at 1.5 years a child actively uses approximately 100 words, at 3 years – 1000-1100, at 6 years – 2500-3000 words.

The grammatical structure of speech develops. Children learn subtle patterns of morphological order (word structure) and syntactic order (phrase structure). A child of 3–5 years old not only actively masters speech - he creatively masters linguistic reality. He correctly grasps the meanings of “adult” words, although he sometimes uses them in an original way, and feels the connection between changes in the word, its individual parts and changes in its meaning. Words created by the child himself according to the laws of the grammar of his native language are always recognizable, sometimes very successful and certainly original. This children's ability to form words independently is often called word creation. K.I. Chukovsky, in his wonderful book “From Two to Five,” collected many examples of children's word creation; Let's remember some of them.

In general, at preschool age, a child masters all forms of oral speech inherent in adults. He has detailed messages - monologues, stories. In them, he conveys to others not only the new things he has learned, but also his thoughts on this matter, his plans, impressions, and experiences. In communication with peers, dialogical speech develops, including instructions, evaluation, coordination of play actions, etc. Egocentric speech helps the child plan and regulate his actions. In monologues he pronounces to himself, he states the difficulties he has encountered, creates a plan for subsequent actions, and discusses ways to complete the task.

The use of new forms of speech and the transition to detailed statements are determined by the new communication tasks facing the child during this age period. Full communication with other children is achieved precisely at this time; it becomes an important factor in the development of speech. As we know, communication with adults continues to develop, whom children perceive as erudite, capable of explaining anything and telling about everything in the world. Thanks to communication called M.I. Lisina is non-situational and cognitive, vocabulary increases, and correct grammatical structures are learned. But it's not only that. Dialogues become more complex and meaningful, the child learns to ask questions on abstract topics, and at the same time reason - think out loud. Here are a few typical questions for preschoolers that they ask their parents: “Where is the smoke flying?”, “Who shakes the trees?”, “Listen, mom, when I was born, how did you know that I was Yurochka?”, “Is it possible to get a newspaper big enough to wrap a living camel?”, “Does an octopus hatch from eggs, or does it suck?”, “Mom, who gave birth to me? You? I knew it. If Dad, I would be with mustache"

Memory. Preschool childhood is the age most favorable for memory development. As L.S. pointed out. Vygotsky, memory becomes the dominant function and goes a long way in the process of its formation. Neither before nor after this period does the child remember the most varied material with such ease. However, the memory of a preschooler has a number of specific features.

U younger preschoolers memory is involuntary. The child does not set a goal to remember or remember something and does not have special methods of memorization. Events, actions, and images that are interesting to him are easily imprinted, and verbal material is also involuntarily remembered if it evokes an emotional response. The child quickly remembers poems, especially those that are perfect in form: sonority, rhythm and adjacent rhymes are important in them. Fairy tales, short stories, and dialogues from films are remembered when the child empathizes with their characters. Throughout preschool age, the efficiency of involuntary memorization increases, and the more meaningful the material the child remembers, the better the memorization. Semantic memory develops along with mechanical memory, so it cannot be assumed that in preschoolers who repeat someone else’s text with great accuracy, mechanical memory predominates.

In middle preschool age (between 4 and 5 years old) the random memory. Conscious, purposeful memorization and recall appear only sporadically. Usually they are included in other types of activities, since they are needed both in play, and when carrying out instructions for adults, and during classes - preparing children for schooling. The child can reproduce the most difficult material to remember while playing. For example, taking on the role of a salesman, he is able to remember and recall at the right time a long list of products and other goods. If you give him a similar list of words outside of a game situation, he will not be able to cope with this task.

The intensive development and inclusion of memory in the process of personality formation determines its position as the dominant function in preschool age. The development of memory is associated with the emergence of stable figurative ideas that take thinking to a new level.

In addition, she herself appears in preschool age the ability to reason (associations, generalizations, etc., regardless of their legitimacy) is also associated with the development of memory. The development of memory determines a new level of development of perception (more on this will be discussed below) and other mental functions.

Perception in preschool age, thanks to the emergence of reliance on past experience, becomes multifaceted. In addition to the purely perceptual component (a holistic image determined by the sum of sensory influences), it includes a wide variety of connections between the perceived object and surrounding objects and phenomena with which the child is familiar from his previous experience. Gradually, apperception begins to develop - the influence on the perception of one’s own experience. With age, the role of apperception constantly increases. In maturity different people depending on your life experience and associated personal characteristics often perceive the same things and phenomena in completely different ways.

In connection with the emergence and development of apperception in preschool age, perception becomes meaningful, purposeful, and analytical. It highlights voluntary actions - observation, examination, search.

The appearance of stable figurative ideas in preschool age leads to the differentiation of perceptual and emotional processes. The child’s emotions become associated mainly with his ideas, as a result of which perception loses its originally affective character.

Speech has a significant impact on the development of perception at this time - the fact that the child begins to actively use the names of qualities, characteristics, states of various objects and the relationships between them. By naming certain properties of objects and phenomena, he thereby identifies these properties for himself; by naming objects, he separates them from others; determining their states, connections or actions with them, sees and understands real relationship between them.

In favorable conditions, when a preschooler solves a problem that is understandable and interesting to him and at the same time observes facts that are understandable to him, he can reason logically correctly.

In preschool age, due to the intensive development of speech, concepts are mastered. Although they remain at the everyday level, the content of the concept begins to more and more correspond to what most adults put into this concept. So, for example, a 5-year-old child already acquires such an abstract concept as “living being.” He easily and quickly classifies a crocodile as “living” (for this he needs only 0.4 s), but has a little difficulty classifying a tree (thinks 1.3 s) or a tulip (almost 2 s) into this category. Children begin to use concepts better and operate with them in their minds. For example, it is much more difficult for a 3-year-old child to imagine the concepts of “day” and “hour” than for a 7-year-old. This is expressed, in particular, in the fact that he cannot estimate how long he will have to wait for his mother if she promised to return in an hour.

By the end of preschool age, a tendency to generalize and establish connections appears. Its occurrence is important for the further development of intelligence, despite the fact that children often make unlawful generalizations, not sufficiently taking into account the characteristics of objects and phenomena, focusing on bright external signs (a small object means light; a large object means heavy; if heavy, then in will drown in water, etc.).

3. Development of emotions, motives and self-awareness in preschool age.

Preschool age, as A.N. wrote. Leontiev, is “the period of the initial actual make-up of the personality.” It is at this time that the formation of basic personal mechanisms and formations occurs. Emotional and motivational spheres, closely related to each other, develop, and self-awareness is formed.

Emotions. Preschool childhood is characterized by generally calm emotionality, the absence of strong affective outbursts and conflicts over minor issues. This new, relatively stable emotional background is determined by the dynamics of the child’s ideas. The dynamics of figurative representations are freer and softer compared to the affectively colored processes of perception in early childhood. Previously, the course of a child’s emotional life was determined by the characteristics of the specific situation in which he was included: he has an attractive object or cannot get it, he works successfully with toys or nothing works out for him, an adult helps him or not, etc. Now the appearance of ideas allows the child to escape from the immediate situation, he has experiences that are not related to it, and momentary difficulties are not perceived so acutely and lose their former significance.

So, emotional processes become more balanced. But this does not at all mean a decrease in the richness and intensity of the child’s emotional life. A preschooler's day is so full of emotions that by the evening he can become tired and reach complete exhaustion.

In preschool age, the child’s desires and motivations are combined with his ideas, and thanks to this, the motivations are restructured. There is a transition from desires (motives) aimed at objects of the perceived situation to desires associated with imagined objects located in the “ideal” plane. The child’s actions are no longer directly related to an attractive object, but are built on the basis of ideas about the object, the desired result, and the possibility of achieving it in the near future. Emotions associated with the idea allow one to anticipate the results of the child’s actions and the satisfaction of his desires.

The mechanism of emotional anticipation is described in detail by A.V. Zaporozhets. They show how the functional place of affect in the general structure of behavior changes. Let us compare once again the behavior of a young child and a preschooler. Up to 3 years of age, only the consequences of one’s own actions are experienced, their assessment by an adult – i.e. then whether the child was praised for what he did or punished. There is no worry about whether an action deserves approval or censure, what it will lead to, neither in the process of action itself, nor, especially, beforehand. Affect turns out to be the last link in this chain of unfolding events.

Even before a preschooler begins to act, he has an emotional image that reflects both the future result and its assessment by adults. Emotionally anticipating the consequences of his behavior, the child already knows in advance whether he is going to act well or badly. If he foresees a result that does not meet accepted standards of upbringing, possible disapproval or punishment, he develops anxiety - an emotional state that can inhibit actions that are undesirable for others. Anticipation of the useful result of actions and the resulting high evaluation from close adults is associated with positive emotions, which additionally stimulate behavior. Adults can help the child create the desired emotional image. For example, in a kindergarten, a teacher, instead of demanding that the room be immediately tidied up after a stormy game, can tell the children what joy their cleaning will cause in the younger group, who came after them to a sparkling clean playroom. Wishes focused on the emotional imagination of children, and not on their consciousness, turn out to be much more effective.

Thus, in preschool age there is a shift in affect from the end to the beginning of activity. Affect (emotional image) becomes the first link in the structure of behavior. The mechanism of emotional anticipation of the consequences of an activity underlies the emotional regulation of a child’s actions.

The structure of the emotional processes themselves also changes during this period. In early childhood, they included autonomic and motor reactions: when experiencing an insult, the child cried, threw himself on the sofa, covering his face with his hands, or moved chaotically, shouting incoherent words, his movements were uneven, his pulse was rapid; in anger, he blushed, screamed, clenched his fists, could break something that came to hand, hit, etc. These reactions persist in preschoolers, although the external expression of emotions becomes more restrained in some children. In addition to vegetative and motor components, the structure of emotional processes now also includes complex forms of perception, imaginative thinking, and imagination. The child begins to be happy and sad not only about what he does in this moment, but also about what he still has to do. Experiences become more complex and deeper.

The content of affects changes - the range of emotions inherent in the child expands. It is especially important for preschoolers to develop such emotions as sympathy for others and empathy - without them, joint activities and complex forms of communication between children are impossible.

As already emphasized, the development emotional sphere associated with the formation of a presentation plan. The child’s figurative ideas acquire an emotional character, and all his activities are emotionally intense. Everything a preschooler gets involved in is playing, drawing, modeling, designing, preparing for school, helping mom with household chores, etc. – must have a strong emotional connotation, otherwise the activity will not take place or will quickly collapse. A child, due to his age, is simply not able to do something that is not interesting to him.

Motives. The most important personal mechanism formed during this period is considered to be the subordination of motives. It appears at the beginning of preschool age and then develops consistently. It is with these changes in the child’s motivational sphere that the beginning of the formation of his personality is associated.

All the wishes, baby early age were equally strong and tense. Each of them, becoming a motive, inducing and directing behavior, determined the chain of immediately unfolding actions. If different desires arose simultaneously, the child found himself in a situation of choice that was almost insoluble for him.

The motives of a preschooler acquire different strength and significance. Already in early preschool age, a child can relatively easily make a decision in the situation of choosing one subject from several. Soon he can suppress his immediate impulses, for example, not to respond to an attractive object. This becomes possible thanks to stronger motives that act as “limiters.” Interestingly, the most powerful motive for a preschooler is encouragement and receiving a reward. A weaker one is punishment (in dealing with children this is primarily exclusion from the game), even weaker is the child’s own promise. Demanding promises from children is not only useless, but also harmful, since they are not fulfilled, and a series of unfulfilled assurances and oaths reinforces such personality traits as lack of obligation and carelessness. The weakest is a direct prohibition of some actions of the child, not reinforced by other additional motives, although adults often pin their hopes on the prohibition.

The presence of an adult or other children helps to restrain the child's immediate impulses. At first, the child needs someone to be nearby to control his behavior, and when left alone, he behaves more freely and impulsively. Then, as the conceptual plane develops, he begins to restrain himself under imaginary control: the image of another person helps him regulate his behavior. Thanks to the development of the mechanism of subordination of motives, older preschoolers can more easily limit their immediate desires than younger ones, but this task remains quite difficult throughout the entire period. The most favorable conditions for subordinating the child’s impulses to the rules of behavior, as is already known, are created in role-playing play.

Using the example of achievement motivation, the change in motivation throughout preschool age is clearly visible. The motivation and effectiveness of the actions performed by the child are influenced by the individual successes and failures that he encounters. Younger preschoolers are not particularly sensitive to this factor. Middle preschoolers are already experiencing success and failure. But if success has a positive effect on the child’s work, then failure is always negative: it does not stimulate continued activity and perseverance. Let's say a child is trying to make an applique out of colored paper. He managed to cut out something vaguely reminiscent of a flower, and, pleased with the result, he enthusiastically begins gluing it to the cardboard. If he fails here - the glue sometimes doesn’t drip at all, sometimes it gushes like a fountain, and the whole paper is covered with a sticky puddle - the child throws everything away, not wanting to either correct or redo the work. For older preschoolers, success remains a strong incentive, but many of them are also driven to activity by failure. After a failure, they try to overcome the difficulties that have arisen, achieve the desired result and are not going to “give up.”

During this period, the child’s individual motivational system begins to take shape. The various motives inherent in it acquire relative stability. Among these relatively stable motives, which have varying strength and significance for the child, the dominant motives stand out - those prevailing in the emerging motivational hierarchy. By observing the Bringing of an older preschooler for a long time, you can determine which motives are most characteristic for him. One child constantly competes with his peers, trying to lead and be the first in everything; prestige ("egoistic") motivation dominates in him. Another, on the contrary, tries to help everyone; the interests of the kindergarten group, common games, joys and concerns are the main thing for him. This is a collection tivist with altruistic motivation. For the third, every “serious” lesson in kindergarten, every requirement, remark of the educator acting as a teacher is important - he has already developed broad social motives, the motive for achieving success turned out to be strong. What is important here is not so much what to do, but how to do it: diligently, under the guidance of an adult, receiving instructions and assessments. Several children are passionate about the activity, but in a completely different way: some are immersed in the process of drawing, others cannot be torn away from the constructors. Their predominant interest is in the content of the activity.

However, the last two options are rare. In addition, some preschoolers, even by the age of 7, do not have a clear dominance of motives. And in children with an emerging hierarchical system, dominance is not yet completely stable; it can manifest itself differently in different types of activity and in different conditions. The main achievement of preschool childhood is the subordination of motives, and the construction of a stable motivational system, which began at this time, will be completed in primary school and adolescence.

The preschooler begins to assimilate the ethical standards accepted in society. He learns to evaluate actions from the point of view of moral norms, to subordinate his behavior to these norms, and he develops ethical experiences.

Initially, the child evaluates only the actions of others - other children or literary heroes, without being able to evaluate his own. Perceiving, for example, a fairy tale, a younger preschooler does not realize the reasons for his attitude towards different characters and globally evaluates them as good or bad. This is also facilitated by the construction of the simplest children's fairy tales: the hare is always a positive hero, and the wolf is always a negative one. The child transfers his general emotional attitude towards the character to his specific actions, and it turns out that all the actions of the hare are approved because he is good, and the wolf acts badly because he himself is bad.

In the second half of preschool childhood, the child acquires the ability to evaluate his own behavior and tries to act in accordance with the moral standards that he learns. A primary sense of duty arises, manifesting itself in the simplest situations. It grows out of the feeling of satisfaction that a child experiences after performing a commendable act, and the feeling of awkwardness after actions that are disapproved of by an adult. Elementary ethical standards in relations with children begin to be observed, albeit selectively. A child can selflessly help peers whom he sympathizes with and show generosity towards someone who has aroused his sympathy.

The assimilation of moral norms, as well as the emotional regulation of actions, contributes to the development of voluntary behavior in a preschooler.

Self-awareness. At an early age, one could observe only the origins of the child's self-awareness. Self-awareness is formed by the end of preschool age due to intensive intellectual and personal development; it is usually considered the central new formation of preschool childhood.

Self-esteem appears in the second half of the period on the basis of an initial purely emotional self-esteem (“I am good”) and a rational assessment of other people’s behavior. The child first acquires the ability to evaluate the actions of other children, and then his own actions, moral qualities and skills.

The child judges moral qualities mainly by his behavior, which either agrees with the norms accepted in the family and peer group, or does not fit into the system of these relations. His self-esteem therefore almost always coincides with external assessment, primarily with the assessment of close adults.

When assessing practical skills, a 5-year-old child exaggerates his achievements. By the age of 6, high self-esteem remains, but at this time children no longer praise themselves in such an open form as before. At least half of their judgments about their success contain some kind of justification. By the age of 7, most self-esteem of skills becomes more adequate.

In general, a preschooler’s self-esteem is very high, which helps him master new activities and, without doubt or fear, engage in educational activities in preparation for school. At the same time, more differentiated ideas about oneself may be more or less true. An adequate image of “I” is formed in a child through a harmonious combination of knowledge gleaned from his own experience (what can I do, how did I act) and from communication with adults and peers.

M.I. Lisina traced the development of self-awareness of preschoolers depending on the characteristics of family upbringing. Children with accurate ideas about themselves are raised in families where parents devote a lot of time to them, positively evaluate their physical and mental abilities, but do not consider their level of development higher than that of most peers; predict good performance at school. These children are often rewarded, but not with gifts; They are punished mainly by refusal to communicate. Children with low self-image grow up in families where they are not taught but demand obedience; they are judged low, often reproached, punished, sometimes in front of strangers; they are not expected to succeed in school or achieve significant achievements in later life. Children with inflated self-images in families are considered more developed than their peers, are often encouraged, including with gifts, praised in front of other children and adults, and are rarely punished. Parents are sure of this. that they will be excellent students at school.

Thus, the preschooler sees himself through the eyes of close adults raising him. If the assessments and expectations in the family do not correspond to the age and individual characteristics of the child, his ideas about himself will be distorted.

Another line of development of self-awareness is awareness of one’s experiences. Not only at an early age, but also in the first half of preschool childhood, the child, having a variety of experiences, is not aware of them. His emotions and feelings could be conveyed like this: “I’m happy,” “I’m sad.” At the end of preschool age, he orients himself in his emotional states and can express them with words: “I’m happy,” “I’m upset,” “I’m angry.”

This period is characterized by gender identification: the child recognizes himself as a boy or a girl. Children acquire ideas about appropriate styles of behavior. Most boys try to be strong, brave, courageous, and not cry from pain or resentment; many girls are neat, efficient in everyday life and soft or flirtatiously capricious in communication. By the end of preschool age, boys and girls do not play all games together; they develop specific games - only for boys and only for girls.

Awareness of oneself in time begins. At 6–7 years old, a child remembers himself in the past, is aware of himself in the present and imagines himself in the future: “when I was little,” “when I grow up big.”

Development of mental functions in young children. Attention and memory. Part 4

At an early age, all the child’s mental functions—attention, memory, and cognitive sphere—are formed.

The relationship between mental functions is formed in the process of activity, as well as as a result of communication and the guiding role of an adult.

It is well known that children learn from the moment they are born. Already at the beginning of the first year of life, they learn to take a toy from the hands of an adult, understand the names of individual objects and actions, and imitate sound combinations and words. All these skills are formed on the basis of attention, which causes the concentration necessary to perform certain actions. However, it is not always possible to obtain the necessary responses from children. And, despite the fact that, as L.S. wrote. Vygotsky, a child at an early age is “sensitive in everything”; he often does not realize his potential. In addition, studies by psychologists note that voluntary attention is formed only in preschool age. Then how does a baby achieve extraordinary success in his development in three years? Naturally, there are many reasons for this. But it cannot be denied that this requires attention, even if it is involuntary. However, in the practice of raising and teaching young children, the use of special techniques that evoke involuntary attention, and even more so the establishment of connections between it and voluntary attention, is often not taken into account.

It is known that there is currently a large number of children of preschool and school age with attention deficit, therefore it is so important not to miss the unique opportunities characteristic of young children, timely shaping the development of their mental functions.

Development of attention

So, attention is the direction and concentration of mental activity on a specific object, while being distracted from others. The physiological basis of attention is the orienting reflex “what is it?” as a biological defense reaction of the body to exposure environment(strong sound, bright light). Already in the first three months, based on attention, the child develops visual and auditory concentration, tracking a moving object, and finding the source of a sound. By 5-6 months. As a result of communication with an adult, visual and auditory differentiations are formed. The baby recognizes loved ones, first of all the mother, the voice, and then the tone of address. Based on the development of involuntary attention, orienting activity is formed.

So, attention can be involuntary, which predominates in young children (Fig. 13). To practice raising children, you need to know and master techniques that cause involuntary attention. Naturally, one of the leading motivations that contribute to the emergence of attention to an object is interest, which is based on an indicative reaction. It is especially important not to miss the period of the 2nd year of a child’s life, when sensory development occupies a dominant role and is characterized by special sensitivity to speech perception and speech learning. At the same time, this is the period of mastering walking and being “in the power of visual perceptions” (according to L.S. Vygotsky). Drawing a child's attention to the desired object can be very difficult. Therefore, taking into account the interests of the baby and following him in this regard, taking advantage of his involuntary attention to certain objects, it is necessary to direct them for his development. However, you should master techniques that cause involuntary attention to educational games, activities, and speech training.

So, what teacher techniques, objects, educational toys, and images of objects help attract the baby’s involuntary attention?

First of all, he is attracted by the novelty of the subject. If a child is asked to choose, according to an adult’s word, from, for example, two pictures, one of which is shown for the first time, he may give an inadequate reaction and point not to the one the adult is talking about, but to the one he saw again. Therefore, before getting the desired reaction, you need to remove the novelty and allow the baby to first become familiar with the new picture. The same thing happens when objects or their images differ in brightness: the child will choose the brighter ones from those offered. IN in this case competition occurs between visual and speech-auditory stimuli. The child's attention is more attracted by visual perception than by the word of an adult. It is also necessary to take into account the child’s emotional attitude towards a given object or image. So, for example, if a one and a half year old boy is asked to find an image from two pictures, one of which shows a car and the other a chicken, he, regardless of the adult’s question, will show what attracts him more - the car. So, in games aimed at developing understanding and active speech, the correct selection of objects and their images is very important.

The child's attention is attracted by techniques that an adult uses in speech games and classes - this is sudden appearance and disappearance of objects. Great importance also has the role of a motor analyzer, when a child, getting acquainted with an object, not only considers it, but also acts with it. It should be noted that attention The child is attracted to moving objects and their dynamism. We often see that while still sitting in the crib, the child throws out toys and carefully watches how they fall to the floor.

Unfortunately, quite often one has to observe how boring and uninteresting speech classes with children are. An object is shown, its parts (eyes, nose, etc.) are examined slowly and methodically. Children are naturally distracted. The child is attracted by the dynamism of the object, its actions are expressive, emotional, and suddenly changing. All of the above techniques attract and hold the child’s attention. At the same time, his attention is drawn and is recorded by the adult’s words “Who’s there? Where is so-and-so? Do this" those. elements of voluntary attention are interspersed. It manifests itself in the child’s activity and is associated with his interest: he runs up the hill in a group to see the transport passing outside the window. But already in the 3rd year of children’s lives, elements of voluntary attention appear not only in games organized by adults (“What’s missing?”, “What’s in the bag?”), or guessing by touch. Gradually, attention begins to be purposeful and sustainable (Fig. 14).

Volume of perceived objects largely depends on the interest, capabilities of the child, as well as on how much perceived objects fall into his field of vision. So, in the 1st year of life there are 1-2 objects, in the 2nd year - 2-3, in the 3rd year - 4-6. These are toys and pictures for perception, naming, self-development didactic toys.

Sustainability of attention- the child’s ability to engage in one type of activity for a certain time.

Fig. 14. Properties of attention

These important properties of attention, which underlie the duration of certain types and activities, are determined by the child’s age-related capabilities, namely: what younger child, the shorter the duration of his activity; the child’s emotional attitude to a particular activity, as well as the complexity of the task, which is determined by the type of activity. The most difficult tasks are related to the child’s ability to listen to stories and fairy tales that are not supported by a visual situation.

The participation of various analyzers also determines duration of games and activities, That's why the longest There may be musical and physical education classes associated with physical activity and a change in activities. Less long lasting games are related to the work of hands - productive activities (modeling, drawing), didactic and construction games. Even shorter speech classes (showing pictures), and the shortest - telling without showing.

Concentration of attention- the degree of concentration of the child on a specific object.

On the one hand, switching attention can be voluntary or involuntary. How smaller child, the shorter his productive activity, the more often he is distracted and switches to other activities. On the other hand, there are situations when the child needs to be switched to another activity, distracting him from the previous one. So, for example, a baby sits at the table for a long time and does something. It is obvious that he is tired and it would be good to switch him to another type of activity, but we need to make sure that he understands why he was distracted from his previous work and what he will do next. Often adults do not take into account the baby’s capabilities and demand that they do something quickly, for example, quickly go wash their hands and eat. The child should be given the opportunity to calmly finish one activity and be given a pleasant, interesting setting for another.. Indicators of inattention in children in games and activities are low productive activity and frequent distractions. It is imperative to analyze what prevents the child from concentrating, distracts his attention, and create it yourself. the necessary conditions that contribute to the development of his attention.

The most difficult the property of attention is its distribution- the child’s ability to maintain attention on a certain number of objects (actions) simultaneously. This property develops gradually throughout preschool and school age. For young children, it is very difficult to simultaneously perform several types of activities, for example, in dance, to work simultaneously with arms and legs. Difficulties in speech classes represent for a young child to hear a question from an adult, look at an image, and answer the questions posed. The baby receives similar tasks as early as 1 year 9 months, when he is asked to choose the one he needs from two images. But if an adult acts using the method outlined above, he receives an adequate reaction from the child in response. In this case, the simultaneous action of stimuli is separated different types- visual and auditory. And if a child is shown two pictures and asked the question “Where is something?”, he does not hear the adult’s question and points to the image that most attracts his attention. Therefore, the effect of visual stimuli is removed first. Adults are silently shown one, then another picture, then both are hidden, and the question “Where is this?” is asked, preceding visual perception, and only after that both pictures are shown. In this case, the influence of different stimuli is differentiated, and the child responds with an adequate response and correctly copes with the proposed task.

Memory development

Memory is a mental process formed as a result of a person’s individual experience. The physiological basis of memory is the formation of a conditioned reflex. The first conditioned reflex to the “position under the breast” is formed on the 9-15th day of the baby’s life. If before this the position under the breast was reinforced by feeding, then on the 9-15th day the newborn begins to have sucking movements until he receives food.

Exist different kinds memories formed in early childhood: motor, visual, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, speech-auditory. Memory has a different nature - short-term (a person’s current concentration on memorization), long-term (designed for a long period of “storage”), operational, intermediate (retained for a certain period). Memory has different phases: imprinting, associated with attention; storage is a continuous process associated with human life; recall - appears in two forms: recognition, reproduction. Memory in the form of recognition is formed in the first months of a child’s life. This is recognition of feeding situations, sleep, familiar faces, objects, images, actions. Playback- the most important form of memory that develops at an early age and acts as an indicator of learning. This is the memory on the basis of which learning of movements, actions, and words occurs as a result of imitation.

The baby's memory, as well as attention, is involuntary. Memorization of young children is based on two points.

1.Repetition which occurs in a child’s life and is the basis for the formation of skills and the development of certain functions. It is important to consider that the younger the child, the more repetitions in training are required. Thus, in the 1st year of life, the formation of some skills requires repetitions several times a day (taking a toy from the hands of an adult, the ability to crawl, etc.). In the 2nd year of life, repetitions for the development of skills should be at least 3-4 times a week, and in the 3rd year - 3-4 times a month. Based on this, a plan for educational games and activities is drawn up. preschool institution. It should be especially noted that children love repetitions. After all, it is on them that the plots of Russians are built folk tales and, listening to them, children will not let the adult miss any repetition.

2.The memory of young children is associated with emotional experiences both positive and negative. Children remember the Christmas tree celebration for a long time and look into the room where it happened; visits to the zoo, circus, moments of participation in games and activities during which they received positive emotions remain in their memory for a long time. In the same way, children remember negative emotions, unpleasant procedures in the clinic, taking bitter medicines, various grievances, and fears for a long time.

The most difficult, but at the same time important, is to develop a child’s verbal and auditory memory by memorizing quatrains, the content of fairy tales, stories, and various images.

The development of attention and memory underlies the formation of a child’s cognitive activity, so adults need to pay attention to creating optimal conditions for their development.

The child's psyche, as a relatively labile system, is heterogeneous. It intertwines natural features inherent in living organisms, as well as traits acquired in the process of historical and cultural development, which subsequently form higher mental functions in children.

The role of society in the psychological development of a child is extremely widely revealed in the works of E. Durkheim, L. Lévy-Bruhl, as well as our compatriot L.S. Vygotsky. In accordance with their ideas, mental functions can be divided into lower and higher categories. The first includes qualities given to a person as a result of phylogenesis, for example, involuntary attention and memory - everything that he does not have the ability to control, occurring outside of his consciousness. To the second - obtained in ontogenesis, fastened social connections, properties: thinking, attention, perception, etc., are tools that the individual controls consciously and controlled.

The most important tools that influence the development of mental functions in children are signs - psychological substances that can change the consciousness of the subject. One of these are words and gestures, in particular, parental ones. At the same time, PFs change in the direction from collective to individual. Initially, the child learns to interact with the outside world and understand patterns of behavior, and then turns the experience gained onto himself. In the process of improvement, he will have to successively go through the stages of natural, pre-speech, speech, entrapsychic, and then spontaneous and voluntary intrapsychic functions.

Varieties of higher mental functions

Interaction of biological and cultural aspects human life nurtures:

• Perception is the ability to receive information from the environment, while simultaneously selecting significant and useful data from the total volume;
• Attention – the ability to concentrate on a specific object of collecting information;
• Thinking – generalization of signals received from outside, drawing up patterns and forming connections.
• Consciousness is an improved degree of thinking with deeper cause-and-effect dependencies.
• Memory is the process of storing traces of interactions with the outside world with the accumulation and subsequent reproduction of data.
• Emotions are a reflection of the child’s attitude towards himself and society. The measure of their manifestation characterizes satisfaction or dissatisfaction with expectations.
• Motivation is a measure of interest in performing any activity, divided into biological, social and spiritual.

Periodization and crises

Improving mental skills inevitably encounters contradictions that arise at the intersection of a changed self-awareness and a stable surrounding world.

It is quite natural that at such moments a violation of higher mental functions develops in children. Thus, the following periods require the most careful attention:

1. From 0 - 2 months - a newborn crisis, during which a decisive restructuring occurs familiar image intrauterine existence, acquaintance with new objects and subjects.
2. 1 year - the child masters speech and free movement, which opens up horizons with new, but for now redundant, information.
3. 3 years - at this time the first attempts to understand oneself as a person begin, the experience gained is rethought for the first time, and character traits are formed. The crisis manifests itself in the form of obstinacy, stubbornness, self-will, etc.
4. 7 years - the child’s existence becomes unthinkable without a team. The assessment of the actions of other children changes with a simultaneous increase in independence. In this case, a violation of mental balance is possible.
5. 13 years - precedes a hormonal surge, and sometimes captures it. Physiological instability is accompanied by a change in role from follower to leader. Manifests itself in decreased productivity and interest.
6. 17 years is the age when a child is on the threshold of a new life. Fear of the unknown and responsibility for the chosen strategy for future life lead to exacerbation of diseases, manifestation of neurotic reactions, etc.

Define exact time and the causes of violations of higher mental functions in children is impossible. Because each child overcomes the challenges posed by their environment in their own way: some experience them calmly, imperceptibly, while others accompany them with a strong emotional reaction, including an internal one.

Constant observation and comparison of behavioral patterns of a particular child, and not his peer, at the beginning and end of the inter-crisis period, will help to distinguish between crises. However, it is worth understanding that a fracture is part of the development process, and not a violation of it. It is during this time period that the function of an adult as a mentor, who has already gone through similar shocks, is enhanced. Then the high risk of harm will be minimized.

Egorova Tatyana Anatolevna
Development of mental functions of 6-year-old children.

Mental functions are formed in children 6 years in the learning process, joint activities child with an adult.

Education and activity are inseparable; they become a source child mental development. How older child, the more types of activities he masters. Different types activities have different impacts on development.

Changes in the formation that occur at each age stage are determined by leading activities.

IN preschool childhood The long and complex process of speech acquisition ends. The child’s language truly becomes native. Developing the sound side of speech, the child stops recognizing the incorrectly spoken word, he hears and speaks correctly. By the end of preschool age, the process of phonemic development.

The vocabulary of speech is growing. However, some children the reserve turns out to be greater, others have less, which depends on their living conditions and how much close adults communicate with them.

Developing grammatical structure of speech. Children learn the structure of words and the construction of phrases. The child truly grasps the meaning "adult words", although he applies them in a peculiar way. Words created by the child himself are always recognizable and sometimes original. Children's ability to form words independently is called word creativity.

A child’s mastery of grammatical forms of language, acquisition vocabulary, allows him to move on to contextual speech. The child can already retell a story or fairy tale, describe a picture, convey his impressions of what he saw.

The use of new forms of speech, the transition to expanded statements are determined by new communication tasks. Full communication with other children occurs precisely at this time; it becomes an important factor. speech development. Continues develop communication with adults. Dialogues become more complex, the child learns to ask questions on abstract topics and think out loud.

Perception in preschool age loses its original effective character, emotional processes are differentiated. Perception becomes meaningful, purposeful, and analytical. It highlights voluntary action - observation, consideration, search. significant impact on development perception is influenced by the fact that the child begins to use the names of qualities and characteristics. By naming certain properties of objects and phenomena, he identifies these properties for himself; naming objects, he separates them from others, determining their state, connections or actions with them - he sees and understands the real relationships between them.

In preschoolers, perception and thinking are closely related, which indicates visual-figurative thinking, which is most characteristic of this age

Main line development thinking - the transition from visually effective to visually figurative and at the end of the period - to verbal thinking.

A preschooler thinks figuratively; he has not yet acquired adult logic of reasoning.

In preschool age, in favorable conditions, when a child solves an understandable, interesting problem, and at the same time observes facts accessible to his understanding, he can reason logically correctly.

Preschool childhood is the age most favorable for memory development.

Younger preschoolers have involuntary memory. In middle age, voluntary memory begins to form. At six years old, children are capable of voluntary memorization, they are able to accept and independently set a task and monitor its implementation when memorizing both visual and verbal material. It is much easier to remember visual images than verbal reasoning.

In preschool age, memory is included in the process of personality formation.

As you can see, the source mental development A 6 year old child is learning and doing activities. Leading activity is due to changes in the formation mental functions and personality of the child, occurring at each age stage.

Publications on the topic:

Comprehensive examination of speech and non-speech mental functions Comprehensive examination of speech and non-speech mental functions I. Study of sound pronunciation. Determine the nature of the sound disturbance.

Consultation for parents “Development of mental processes of future schoolchildren” Many questions concern parents about the intellectual preparation of children, the development of mental operations, memory, attention, and thinking.

The work of a teacher in a senior correctional group with children with disabilities on the formation of higher mental functions. The work of a teacher in a senior correctional group with children with disabilities on the formation of higher mental functions. Some analyzer is defective.

Development and correction of mental processes (memory) based on the fairy tale “Kolobok” (preparatory group) Development and correction of mental health. processes (memory) based on the fairy tale “Kolobok” preparatory group Objectives: correction of perception, memory, attention.

Development of non-speech mental functions as a factor in the prevention of written and oral speech disorders Unfortunately, among students primary classes violations of oral and written speech are becoming increasingly widespread. Slow absorption.