The mental development of a child is a very complex, subtle and lengthy process, which is influenced by many factors. An idea of ​​how this or that stage goes will help you not only better understand your child, but also notice developmental delays in time and take appropriate measures.

The generally accepted periodization of the development of the child’s psyche was developed by the Soviet psychologist Daniil Borisovich Elkonin. Even if you have never come across his works, this system is familiar to you: in the annotations to children's publications it is often indicated that this work is “for school age" or "for younger students."

Elkonin’s system describes the mental development of a child from infancy to 15 years, although in some of his works the age of 17 years is indicated.

According to the scientist, the characteristics of each stage of development are determined by the leading activity of the child at a particular age, within the framework of which certain mental new formations appear.

1. Infancy

This stage covers the period from birth to one year. The leading activity of the baby is communication with significant figures, that is, adults. Mainly mom and dad. He learns to interact with others, express his desires and respond to stimuli in ways accessible to him - intonation, individual sounds, gestures, facial expressions. The main goal of cognitive activity is knowledge of relationships.

The task of parents is to teach the child to “communicate” with the outside world as quickly as possible. Games for the development of large and fine motor skills, formation color range. Among the toys there must be objects of various colors, sizes, shapes, textures. Until one year, the child does not experience any experiences other than natural ones: hunger, pain, cold, thirst, and is not able to learn the rules.

2. Early childhood

It lasts from 1 year to 3 years. The leading activity is manipulative-objective activity. The child discovers many objects around him and strives to explore them as quickly as possible - taste them, break them, etc. He learns their names and makes his first attempts to take part in the conversation of adults.

Mental new formations are speech and visual-effective thinking, that is, in order to learn something, he needs to see how this action is performed by one of the elders. It is noteworthy that at first the child will not play independently, without the participation of mom or dad.

Features of the early childhood stage:

1. comprehension of the names and purposes of objects, mastering the correct manipulation of a specific object;
2. mastering established rules;
3. the beginning of awareness of one’s own “I”;
4. the beginning of the formation of self-esteem;
5. gradual separation of one’s actions from the actions of adults and the need for independence.

Early childhood often ends with the so-called crisis of 3 years, when the child sees pleasure in disobedience, becomes stubborn, literally rebels against established rules, and sharp negative reactions etc.

3. Preschool age

This stage begins at 3 years and ends at 7 years. The leading activity for preschoolers is play, or rather, role-playing game, during which children learn relationships and consequences. The personal sphere of the psyche is actively developing. Age-related neoplasms– this is the need for social significance and activity.

The child can move independently, his speech is understandable to adults, and he often feels like a full participant in communication.

1. He understands that all actions and actions have a specific meaning. When teaching, for example, hygiene rules, explain why this is necessary.
2. Most effective method learning information is a game, so role-playing games need to be played every day. In games, you should not use real objects, but their substitutes - the simpler the better for the development of abstract thinking.
3. The preschooler experiences an urgent need to communicate with peers and learns to interact with them.

Towards the end of the stage, the child gradually gains independence, is able to determine the cause-and-effect relationship, is able to take responsibility for his actions, and obeys the rules if he sees them as reasonable. He learns good habits, rules of politeness, norms of relationships with others, strives to be useful, and willingly makes contact.

4. Junior school age

This stage lasts from 7 to 11 years and is associated with significant changes in the child’s life and behavior. He goes to school and play activity is replaced by educational. The intellectual and cognitive sphere is actively developing. Age-related mental neoplasms: voluntariness, internal plan of action, reflection and self-control.

What does it mean?

• He is able to concentrate for a long time on a specific lesson: sit quietly at his desk during a lesson and listen to the teacher’s explanations.
• Able to plan and perform tasks in a certain sequence, for example, when doing homework.
• He determines the boundaries of his knowledge and identifies the reason why, for example, he cannot solve a problem, what exactly is missing for this.
• The child learns to control his actions, for example, first do his homework, then go for a walk.
• He experiences discomfort from the fact that an adult (teacher) cannot give the amount of attention that he is used to receiving at home.

A younger student can more or less accurately assess the changes that have occurred in his personality: what he could do before and what he can do now, learns to build relationships in a new team, and obey school discipline.

The main task of parents during this period is to emotionally support the child, closely monitor his mood and feelings, and help him find new friends among classmates.

5. Adolescence

This is the “transitional age”, which lasts from 11 to 15 years and the onset of which all parents await with horror. The leading activity is communication with peers, the desire to find one’s place in the group, receive its support and at the same time stand out from the crowd. The need-motivational sphere of the psyche develops mainly. Mental neoplasms – self-esteem, desire for “adulthood”.

The teenager is torn between the desire to grow up quickly and to maintain a certain impunity for as long as possible, to relieve himself of responsibility for his actions. He learns about the system of relations between the sexes, tries to build his own, rebels against prohibitions and constantly breaks the rules, fiercely defends his point of view, seeks his place in the world and at the same time amazingly easily falls under the influence of others.

Some guys, on the contrary, immerse themselves in their studies, their transitional age is, as it were, “transferred” to a later time, for example, they may well begin their rebellion even after graduating from university.

Before parents stands not an easy task- find mutual language with a teenager to protect him from rash actions.

6. Adolescence

Some psychologists identify another stage in the development of the psyche - this is adolescence, from 15 to 17 years. Educational and professional activities become the leading ones. Personal and cognitive spheres develop. During this period, the teenager matures sharply, his decisions become more balanced, he begins to think about the future, in particular, about choosing a profession.

Growing up is difficult at any age - at 3 years old, at 7, and at 15 years old. Parents need to understand the features well mental development your child and help him safely overcome all age-related crises, direct the formation of his character and personality in the right direction.

Education of correct speech in children is one of the most important problems of general and special pedagogy.

All mental processes In a child, perception, memory, imagination, thinking develop with the direct participation of speech.Speech develops in close relationship with the formation of thought processes. One of the most important conditions for organizing mental activity is attention, which directs and regulates the processes of perception, memory, and thinking.
Due to a speech defect, children communicate little with others, the range of ideas is therefore significantly limited, and the pace of development of thinking slows down.

In connection with all of the above, it is advisable to set the following correction tasks:
- development of mental processes in schoolchildren: perception, attention, memory, thinking;
- improving the process of voluntary attention and improving its productivity;
- development of children’s ability for relatively long-term and purposeful activities, supported by some significant material or play situation.

Parents are offered games and exercises that help develop their child’s perception, attention, thinking, memory, fine motor skills and spatial orientation.

Games for the development of perception

Perception is the leading cognitive process in children preschool age. Its formation ensures the successful accumulation of new knowledge, rapid mastery of new activities, and adaptation to a new environment. Incompleteness in the development of the perception process leads to a delay in the development of other cognitive processes.

Individual characteristics of the development of visual perception and visual memory largely determine the character correctional work with kids. The most accessible for children's perception are real objects and their images, more complex are schematic images, signs and symbols. Last but not least, materials with a superimposed, “noisy”, under-drawn image are used.

We bring to your attention games for the development of visual perception:

Games for developing attention

Children's attention general underdevelopment speech is characterized by insufficient stability, rapid exhaustion, There are periodic fluctuations, uneven performance, which determines the tendency to reduce the pace of activity during work.
Errors of attention are present throughout the entire work and are not always noticed and corrected by children on their own. It is difficult to concentrate children's attention and hold it during one or another activity. Children actimpulsive, often distracted. Manifestations of inertia may also be observed. In this case, the child has difficulty switching from one task to another.

Games to develop attention:

• "Seekers"
• "Find the odd one out"
• "Subsequence"
• "Attention and Logic"

Tasks for the development of fine motor skills and graphic skills

Children with OHP have peculiarities in the development of fine motor skills of their fingers. This manifests itself in insufficient coordination of the fingers (for example, when unbuttoning and fastening buttons, tying and untying shoelaces, ribbons, etc.).
Research from the Laboratory of Higher Nervous Activity of Children at the Institute of Physiology of Children and Adolescents has found that the level of speech development in children is directly dependent on the degree of formation of fine movements of the fingers.
Based on the experiments and surveys carried out large quantity children, such a pattern was established that if the development of finger movements corresponds to age, then speech development is within normal limits; if the development of finger movements lags behind, then speech development is also delayed, i.e. a close connection is established between the functions of the hand and speech.
Therefore, in the system of educational and educational work, as well as correctional work in children’s preschool institutions It is necessary to pay attention to the development of finger movements by training the movements of the fingers.
It is advisable to carry out work on the development of fine motor skills in children with general speech underdevelopment systematically - 3-5 minutes daily.
For this purpose, a variety of games and exercises can be used to help correct movements of both general and fine motor skills.

• "Finger gymnastics"
• “Tasks for the development of graphomotor skills»
• “Preparing your hand for writing » (tasks for children of senior preschool age)
• “Coloring pages - outlines»
• "Games with Counting Sticks"»

Games and exercises to develop orientation in space

With general speech underdevelopment, the formation of spatial representations has its own characteristics associated with the developmental characteristics of children with speech pathology. The lack of spatial concepts in preschoolers with ODD manifests itself in a violation of the perception of their own body diagram - the formation of ideas about the leading hand, and parts of the face and body occurs later than in normally developing peers. Children master many spatial concepts (front, back, above, below) only through special training.
They find it difficult to understand prepositions and adverbs that reflect spatial relationships (under, above, about). Children with general speech underdevelopment do not use prepositions in their speech that denote spatial relationships between objects, people and animals. Their speech often lacks the preposition “above.” In oral speech, preschoolers find it difficult to differentiate the prepositions “to - at”, “in - at” (to the house - at home, in the table - on the table). Often children in this category mix up the prepositions “before” - “after” - “for”, which is a consequence of unformed spatial relationships.
Many of them have a perception of a holistic image of an object: they cannot draw a cut-out picture, they do not carry out construction based on a model from sticks and building material
In the future, children have difficulties in orienting themselves in the layout of a notebook sheet (skipping a certain number of lines or cells, highlighting a red line, keeping the margins, writing in two or three columns, writing letters in mirror images).

Games to develop spatial orientation:

"Navigating in space" games for children 3-4 years old

"Orientation in space" folder with tasks for preschoolers

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. By the end of preschool age, the process of phonemic development is completed.

The vocabulary of speech is growing rapidly. As at the previous 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.

In 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, the very ability to reason (associations, generalizations, etc., regardless of their validity) that appears in preschool age 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. For preschool childhood 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 of the emotional sphere is associated with the formation of a plan of ideas. 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 desires of a young child were equally strong and intense. 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 activities and under 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.”

Description of material: I bring to your attention an article containing a number of psychological and pedagogical exercises for the development and correction of higher mental functions (HMF) in children of preschool and primary school age. This material will be useful to educational psychologists, speech therapists and speech pathologists of preschool educational institutions and state budgetary educational institutions of secondary schools, as well as specialists of early development centers.

Development of higher mental functions in children of preschool and primary school age

Higher mental functions (HMF) are specific mental functions of a person. These include: memory, attention, thinking, perception, imagination and speech. The famous Russian psychologist, Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky, wrote: “The highest mental function appears on the stage twice: once as an external, interpsychic (i.e., a function divided between a child and an adult), and the second - as an internal, intrapsychic (i.e. . function belonging to the child himself).” Small child is not yet able to focus attention for a long time, remember and correctly pronounce the names of certain objects, etc., therefore the role of an adult in this period is to be an intermediary between the baby and the outside world. Thus, an adult acts as the child’s basic mental functions, reminding him of the names of phenomena and objects, concentrating his attention, developing thinking and speech. Then, in the process of growing up, the child gradually inherits social experience and becomes able to use it independently. Thus, from Vygotsky’s point of view, the process of development is a process of transition from the social to the individual.

It should be noted that the process of development of higher mental functions begins long before the child arrives at school, even in infancy. Young children learn constantly: in play, while walking, watching their parents, etc.

However, there are certain phases in a child's development when he or she is especially receptive to cognition and creativity. Such periods in a baby’s life are called sensitive (literally “sensitive”). Traditionally, these periods include the process of child development from 0 to 7 years. In Russian psychology and pedagogy, this period is considered the most productive in terms of the child’s assimilation of social experience and the acquisition of new knowledge. At this stage, the foundation is laid not only for the behavioral and emotional-volitional, but also for the cognitive sphere of a person’s personality.

So, let's now talk about the basic exercises and technologies used by teachers in the development of higher mental functions in children of preschool and primary school age. Let's give short examples from daily practice.

Thinking.

Mental operations include the processes of generalization, analysis, synthesis and abstraction. Accordingly, different techniques are used to develop each of the operations.

Generalization.

Goal: teach the child to find common features of an object.

A series of cards are laid out in front of the child, which depict objects united by one common characteristic (for example, the series: “apple, banana, pear, plum”). The child is asked to name all these objects in one word (in in this case this is “fruit”) and explain your answer.

Analysis and synthesis.

Goal: to teach the child to eliminate unnecessary things and combine objects according to their characteristics.

Option 1. The student is asked to find an image of an extra item among the proposed cards and explain his choice (for example, the series: “skirt, boots, trousers, coat”; the extra one is “boots”, because these are shoes, and everything else is cloth).

It should be emphasized that the child’s answer must be complete and detailed. The child should not guess, but meaningfully make his choice and be able to justify it.

Option 2. The student is presented with a form with images of different animals. The child is explained that if the animal is wearing boots, then it is 1, if it is not wearing boots, then it is 0 (for example, a cat in boots = 1, and a cat without boots = 0, etc.). Next, the teacher points to each picture in turn and asks the child to name only the number (1 or 0).

Abstraction.

Goal: teach your child to find indirect signs.

The child is presented with a form with images of animals: “cow, elephant, fox, bear, tiger.” Then the baby is asked to combine them with other animals whose names begin with the same letter: “rat, dog, lion, mouse, seal” (the correct answer in this case would be: “cow-rat, elephant-dog, fox-lion, bear-mouse, tiger-seal"). The student is required to give reasons for his choice, because... children often ignore the instructions and connect pictures according to some other criteria (for example, according to the principle of big-small, good-evil, wild animal-domestic animal, etc.). If the child does not understand the instructions, they should be repeated again and an example given.

Memory.

Memory is divided into short-term and long-term. To train short-term memory, for example, a student is presented orally with a series of words (usually 10 words), which he must remember and reproduce immediately after presentation in random order.

To train long-term memory, you can, for example, read a number of words several times (so that the child remembers them properly) and ask him to reproduce all the words after 15-40 minutes. The task can be complicated by asking the child to reproduce all the words in order.

Standards for junior school student reproduction of 10 words is considered. For a preschooler - 7-8 words.

Reading literature has been and remains an excellent exercise for developing memory. After reading, you need to discuss the plot of the fairy tale or story with your child, ask them to evaluate the characters, ask questions on the test, etc. You can also ask your child to draw a favorite episode from a book, sculpt the main characters from plasticine, etc.

Attention.

A large printed text (not very long) is presented in front of the child. Then the child is asked to circle all the letters “A” in the text with a red pencil, all the letters “B” with a blue pencil in a square, and all the letters “B” with a green pencil in a triangle. You can also present a form with letters printed in random order and ask to cross out certain of them (you need to time it - 3 minutes).

You can also ask your child to continue the pattern in a checkered notebook (or draw exactly the same pattern next to it). After the pattern is completed, you can ask the child to color each cell in the drawing with a different color, etc.

Speech.

Unfortunately, today more and more children come to school with serious speech and writing disorders.

First of all, you should understand that for the harmonious development of speech you need to communicate with your child. When talking with a child, try to use the full names of phenomena and objects: do not abbreviate them, do not use “slang” in your own speech, do not distort sounds (for example, not “fotik”, but “photo camera”; not “shop”, but “ store”, etc.). By pronouncing words clearly and completely, you enrich your child’s vocabulary and correctly form sound pronunciation.

An excellent exercise for speech development would be reading together (especially old folk tales), telling poems, sayings, tongue twisters.

Perception and imagination.

The best exercise for developing these mental functions is reading. fiction and creative and aesthetic activities. Attending children's performances, exhibitions, concerts, home handicrafts, modeling, crafts, drawing - all this perfectly develops the child's perception and imagination.

Topic 7 “Mental development of a preschool child.”

Plan:

1. Social situation of development. The main neoplasms of a preschool child.

2. Game is the leading type of activity for preschool children.

3. Development of the personality of a preschooler.

5. Development of mental functions of a preschool child.

6. The child’s psychological readiness for school.

I. Social situation of development. The main neoplasms of a preschool child.Preschool age is the age from 3 to 6-7 years. A preschooler has a circle of elementary responsibilities: on the one hand, under the guidance of an adult who creates conditions and teaches, and on the other hand, under the influence of the “children’s society.” Preschoolers communicate with each other, act together, and in the process of this activity their public opinion. Cooperative activity is replaced by independent compliance with the instructions of an adult. The adult is very authoritative during this period.

The preschooler’s own internal position in relation to other people is characterized by: awareness of his own “I”, awareness of his behavior and interest in the adult world. The social situation of development is expressed in communication, in all types of activities, and above all, in role-playing games.

The main neoplasms of this age are:

1. establishment of a hierarchy of motives for activity, subordination of motives;

2. the emergence of a need for socially significant activities;

3. development of visual-figurative thinking.

II. Game is the leading type of activity for preschool children. The leading activity of a preschooler is play. The importance of play in the mental development of a child is as follows:

1. in the game, individual mental processes are formed and developed (creative imagination, voluntary memory, thinking, etc.);

2. the child’s position in relation to the world around him changes;

3. in the game the motivational-need sphere of the child develops: new motives for activity and goals associated with them arise;

4. the child’s use of a role makes it possible to focus on peers and coordinate actions with them;

5. the presence of a pattern of behavior develops arbitrariness of mental functions;

6. the ability to empathize develops, and collectivistic qualities are formed;

7. the need for recognition (status role) and the implementation of self-knowledge and reflection is satisfied;

8. play is school social relations, in which forms of behavior are modeled.

Components role-playing game: a plot that can be: public and everyday; content; game time; rules of the game; roles: emotionally attractive (mother, doctor, captain); significant for play, but unattractive for the child (school director); game actions; game material; Children's relationships in the game: real and role-playing.

III. Personality development of a preschooler. Preschool childhood is the period of the initial actual development of personality, the period of development of personal mechanisms of behavior that are associated with the formation of the child’s motivational sphere. The main motives of a preschooler are:

1. game motive;

2. motive of interest in the life of an adult;

3. motive is a claim to recognition from an adult;

4. motive of claiming recognition from a peer;

5. competitive motive, in which the child tries to achieve better success than his friends;

6. the motive of pride, in which the child strives to be like everyone else, and a little better;

7. cognitive motive, which actively develops by the age of 6;

8. motive of fear.

In preschool age, the subordination of motives develops - this is the most important new formation of preschool age. Subordination of motives is the ability to subordinate personal motives to social requirements. The appearance of subordination of motives is the first sign of the development of will. The child begins to control his behavior, restrain desires, he becomes more attentive, and his actions become more purposeful.

In preschool age emotional sphere undergoes significant changes:

1. increasing the depth and stability of feelings: attachment, friendship appears, the child begins to appreciate the other person for his constant qualities;

2. higher feelings develop: intellectual, aesthetic, moral:

3. children's fears develop, which appear first for themselves (afraid of the dark), then for other people;

4. the child learns the norms for the manifestation of emotions and feelings, learns to manage his behavior, and loses his “childish spontaneity.”

Self-awareness– this is the ability to evaluate oneself as a separate, unique, inimitable person. Even at the age of 2-3 years, a child separates himself from other people and realizes his own capabilities. This manifests itself especially clearly towards the end of senior preschool age, when the discovery of one’s inner life occurs and self-awareness develops.

Self-awareness is expressed in self-esteem. The self-esteem of a preschooler is formed: on the one hand, under the influence of the adult’s praise, his assessment of the child’s achievements, and on the other hand, under the influence of the sense of independence and success that the child experiences in various activities. Self-esteem criteria depend on the adult, the adopted system educational work. The child is earlier aware of those qualities and behavioral characteristics that are most often assessed by an adult, regardless of how the adult does it: in a word, with a gesture, with facial expressions, with a smile.

IV. Directions of speech development in preschool children. The main directions in speech development are:

1. increase vocabulary , it becomes three times larger; By the age of 7, a child learns approximately 4-4.5 thousand words. This increase is carried out at the expense of all parts of speech. At the same time, children often use words whose meaning they do not understand (for example, I will ignore the hat in the closet). Children begin to explain the etymology of words; use suffixes. In preschool age, a “linguistic sense” develops, in which the child begins to invent new words, explain the meaning of old words, and change the sound of known ones (for example, a jellyfish is a jar of honey). In preschoolers a sense of rhythm appears. They often double declension occurs, in which children begin to change the word depending on how it was pronounced in its original form, this feature disappears with age (for example, a large crocodile walked around the city).

2. development of grammatical structure of speech. Preschoolers begin to acquire elements of literacy: learn the vocabulary of a sentence, the sound composition of a word, and the fact that a word consists of individual syllables.

3. development of speech functions:

a) communicative function, which serves as a means of communication: - situational, contextual speech, explanatory;

b) intellectual function, which shows the connection between thinking and speech: planning function, sign function, generalizing function.

V. Development of mental functions of a preschool child.

1. Memory: The main type of memory of a preschooler is involuntary memory. By the age of 6, the child develops long-term memory, but predominates short term memory; visual, motor memory is developed, edeic memory is bright, imaginative.

2. Perception becomes multifaceted, apperception begins to develop; perception becomes meaningful, purposeful, and analytical.

3. Thinking. The leading type of thinking is visual-figurative, abstract thinking arises; thinking is concrete, merged with the situation; children begin to establish cause-and-effect relationships; the stock of knowledge increases, ideas expand; mental operations develop: analysis, synthesis, generalization, comparison; children begin to experiment, on the basis of which creative, independent thinking develops; experimentation is an indicator of an inquisitive mind.

4. Attention. The main type of attention is involuntary; by the age of 7, selectivity of attention is well developed; concentration is preferable; attention switching is developed, attention distribution is absent; attention span by the end of preschool age is 30 minutes; attention span is one subject.

5. Imagination. The latest cognitive process, it is poorer than that of an adult; the main type of imagination is the recreating imagination.

VI. Psychological readiness of the child for school. The main symptoms of the crisis of seven years. A child’s readiness to study at school is one of the most important results of mental development during preschool childhood and the key to successful learning at school. Psychologists distinguish the following types of readiness for school:

1. physical readiness: the child must be morphologically and physiologically ready for school; the child must be physically healthy; development of analyzer systems; development of small muscle groups; development of basic movements: running, jumping;

2. special readiness: the child must have the required level of development of mental phenomena; ability to read; ability to count; writing ability;

3. psychological readiness:

Intellectual readiness, which includes: readiness to acquire a certain outlook, a stock of specific knowledge; in understanding the general patterns underlying scientific knowledge; in the development of all cognitive processes and speech.

Personal and socio-psychological readiness includes the formation in a child of readiness to accept a new social position as a schoolchild, who has a range of important responsibilities and rights, and a new position in society. This readiness is expressed in the child’s attitude towards the teacher, towards classmates, towards himself.

Emotional-volitional readiness: a child’s emotional readiness for school presupposes: joyful anticipation of the start of school; fairly finely developed higher feelings; formed emotional properties of the individual: the ability to empathize, sympathize. Volitional readiness lies in the child’s ability to work hard, to do what his studies and the school routine require of him. The child must be able to control his behavior and mental activity.