Vygotsky's definition of development. Vygotsky's periodization: early childhood, adolescence, older people. Characteristics of ages. Development and education of special children

Russian psychology is mainly based on the works of L.S. Vygotsky. He created the cultural-historical concept in psychology - the doctrine of the social and historical nature of the psyche. L.S. Vygotsky proposed an understanding of the source, conditions, forms, specifics and driving forces of a child’s mental development that differs from biologizing and sociologizing theories; identified and formulated the basic laws of child development.

The semantic center of these works is the problem of the genesis of higher mental functions, the problem of mediation. Theory of the socio-historical origin of higher mental functions of man- a theory according to which a special type of mental functions arises in humans - higher mental functions that are completely absent in animals. The starting point of the Cultural-Historical Theory of Development is the idea of ​​the relationship REAL AND IDEAL FORMS.

From the standpoint of the evolutionary approach, the level structure is inherent in mental phenomena and human functions. L.S. Vygotsky distinguished two levels of mental phenomena: 1) “NATURAL” and

2) “CULTURAL” mental processes and functions, believing that the former are determined by biological (genetic) factors, and the latter are formed entirely under the influence of social conditions.

Mental functions, according to L.S. Vygotsky, arise in ontogenesis as “natural”, or lower, having a distinct physiological form (for example, “natural” attention, the development of which is determined by the maturation of the nervous substrate). In contrast to this development of higher mental functions(in particular, voluntary attention) is a socially conditioned process. Social influences determine the ways of forming higher mental functions and thereby their psychological structure. However, like “natural” processes, higher mental functions are associated with the brain substrate responsible for their provision.

Higher mental functions are complex systemic formations - “psychological systems”, which are created, as Vygotsky writes, by “superstructure of new formations” over old ones with the preservation of old formations in the form of subordinate layers within a new whole.

"IDEAL FORM" according to L.S. Vygotsky, as a form of cultural behavior, is a product historical development humanity. Culture contains ready-made forms of behavior, abilities, and personality traits that should arise in a child during his development. Without interaction with cultural (ideal) forms, an individual will never develop specifically human qualities. According to Vygotsky. The world of ideal (highest) forms, the world of culture is the source from which the child draws samples and images. The child compares these ideal images with own actions. This comparison is the source of development.

"REAL FORMS"- these are natural human properties that represent organic basis development of mental properties. Initial (“natural”) mental functions are transformed during development into higher “cultural” mental functions.

Source of development for the child is the ENVIRONMENT, since it is in it that the ideal, highest forms “live”. But the child cannot directly encounter the ideal forms of culture, cannot independently discover the purpose and method of using cultural objects. In order for the ideal forms of culture to reveal their human content, so that it becomes possible to join them, a mediator (or guide) is always needed. For Vygotsky, such an intermediary is SIGN(natural language, artificial sign systems, symbols, ciphers).

Mental development in the cultural and historical tradition- this is a variety of forms of sign-symbolic mediation, “cultivation of nature.” SIGN - is a psychological tool; it is a means of psychological influence on behavior, as well as internal remedy managing your behavior. The adult turns out to be an intermediary between the child and the world of higher, ideal, cultural forms. It sets patterns of action that the child masters (appropriates, makes his own) in the process of his development. The adult, thus, not only helps the child, but also builds a sequence of actions available to him to master the tools.

According to L.S. Vygotsky, VERBAL MEANING is a unit of communication and generalization. Exactly GENERALIZED VALUES or categories form subjective image or picture of the world in the minds of every person. This picture is individual, and at the same time it can be the same for people developing in similar conditions.

The study of the mechanism that changes the child’s psyche, leading to the emergence of higher mental functions specific to a person, was undertaken by L.S. Vygotsky. He considered INTERIORIZATION to be such a mechanism, first of all interiorization of signs- incentives and means artificially created by humanity, designed to control one’s own and others’ behavior. Moreover, the signs, being a product social development, bear the imprint of the culture of the society in which the child grows up. Children learn signs in the process of communication and begin to use them to manage their inner mental life. Thanks to the internalization of signs in children, the sign function of consciousness is formed, the formation of such strictly human mental processes as logical thinking, will, and speech occurs.

In domestic psychology INTERIORIZATION is interpreted as the transformation of the structure of objective activity into the structure of the INNER PLAN OF CONSCIOUSNESS. In other words, the transformation of interpsychological (interpersonal) relationships into intrapsychological (intrapersonal relationships with oneself).

In ontogenesis the following are distinguished: stages of interiorization:

1) An adult influences the child with a word, encouraging him to do something;

2) The child adopts the method of address and begins to influence

in a word to an adult;

3) The child begins to influence himself with words.

(The same stages can be traced when observing children's egocentric speech).

The development of the psyche is considered primarily in terms of appropriating the values ​​of the environment. In this case, not only the socialization of the child occurs, but also the formation of his mental life, in which the leading ones are not biological, but sociocultural needs. Therefore, ENVIRONMENT is not only a factor or condition for development, but also its source, since the elements of the environment with which a person interacts form the basis of his inner world.

Thus, INTERIORIZATION- this is the process of formation of internal structures of the psyche, caused by the assimilation of structures and symbols of external social activity. Interiorization is recognized as the leading mechanism of mental development.

The process of interiorization in Vygotsky’s works is contrasted with the mechanism of exteriorization.

EXTERIORIZATION- this is the process of generating external actions, statements, etc., based on the transformation of a number of internal structures that have developed on the basis of the internalization of external social activity of a person. A kind of “translation” of internal structures into “external language”.

EXTERIORIZATION is a mechanism for the transition of what is internally mental and subjective in nature into external forms of culture.

L.S. Vygotsky opposed the biologizing, ahistorical approach, the idea of ​​evolutionism THE IDEA OF HISTORICISM, THE CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL CONCEPT OF DEVELOPMENT. According to L.S. Vygotsky, each form of cultural development is already a product of the historical development of mankind, and not just organic maturation. In the process of social life, the natural needs of man themselves have undergone profound changes, and new human needs have arisen and developed.

To understand the specifics of human ontogenesis, the key idea is the relationship REAL And IDEAL FORMS OF DEVELOPMENT.

Thus, in the cultural-historical theory the path of development of consciousness has been recreated: from the external environment to the formation of a new formation and back: from new structure consciousness to a new perception of reality. With this view of the development process, it is possible to avoid mechanism and one-dimensionality. It is not just the environment that shapes a person, but something more complex: the environment provokes the formation of psychological new formations, and these, in turn, change the perception of the environment and, in fact, the environment itself. WEDNESDAY by L.S. Vygotsky acts in the development of the child, in the sense of the development of personality and its specifically human properties, as the SOURCE OF DEVELOPMENT, i.e. The environment here plays the role not of a setting, but of a source of development.

SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT, according to L.S. Vygotsky, is not just the external environment, but accumulated universal human experience, materialized in objects of material and spiritual culture; the world of objects and phenomena created by mankind, cultural creations, including the world of human activity.

THE ENVIRONMENT contains IDEAL FORMS, patterns of development, i.e. what a child’s development should strive for. The higher mental functions of an adult are ideal forms (in relation to the speech and actions of a child) that set the direction of ontogenetic development. SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT - is considered as a source of individual mental development, as “SPACE OF EXISTENCE OF IDEAL FORMS”, which are assigned by the individual during ontogenesis and become the real form of his psyche.

Man is a social being in the sense that without interaction with society, he will never develop in himself those qualities that arose as a result of the development of all humanity. Commenting on this fundamental point, D.B. Elkonin later wrote: “The child appropriates society... Everything that should appear in a child already exists in society, including needs, social tasks, motives and even emotions.” Thus, the content of a child’s development and the duration of childhood depend on the level of development of society.

According to L.S. Vygotsky, SOCIAL SITUATION OF DEVELOPMENT: “determines entirely those forms and the path along which the child acquires new personality properties, drawing them from social reality as the main source of development, the path along which the social becomes individual.”

Thus, the development process in ontogenesis goes from the SOCIAL TO THE INDIVIDUAL. The social situation of development, including a system of relationships, various levels of social interaction, various types and forms of activity, is considered by the author as the BASIC CONDITION OF PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT.

The form of mental development of a child is the mastery of social experience, the appropriation of historically developed abilities, ways of acting and thinking.

THE GENERAL MECHANISM OF FORMATION OF HIGHER MENTAL FUNCTIONS (HPF)- Vygotsky L.S. considered the child's Imitation of an adult. According to the scientist, it is adults who should organize the process of transforming the external, social into the internal, mental, in terms of forming the content of the child’s consciousness and developing his personality.

Thus, Vygotsky emphasized the decisive role of the relationship between a child and an adult for his mental development.

DRIVING FORCE (FACTOR) of mental development, according to L.S. Vygotsky, - TRAINING. Thus, the higher mental functions (HMF) of a child are formed during life, as a result of communication with an adult. Vygotsky considered the speech sign to be a tool of communication as a cultural phenomenon. Mastering the method of using special tools - means developed during the historical development of human society - i.e. learning (not maturation) determines the course and direction of mental development (from social to individual).

A necessary condition for the development of a child is the usefulness of all functional systems of the body and a normally functioning brain. It is impossible to deny the enormous variability of “natural features” and to underestimate the importance of factors that favor or complicate organic development.

However TRAINING and EDUCATION their significance exceeds the role of natural features.

In Russian psychology, the point of view formulated by L.S. Vygotsky and shared by an increasing number of researchers. According to this point of view, TRAINING AND EDUCATION play a leading role in the mental development of the child. Thus, according to the author: “Training can have long-term, and not just immediate, consequences in development; learning can go not only after development, not only in step with it, but can go ahead of development, pushing it further and causing in it neoplasms." (If the first part of this statement fixes the connection between mental development and learning, then the second also presupposes an answer to the question of how it leads, what are the psychological mechanisms that ensure this role of learning.) At the same time, L.S. Vygotsky noted that the development of a child “... has an internal character, that it is a single process in which the influences of maturation and learning merge together.”

From the fundamental thesis of L.S. Vygotsky follows that EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT are in unity, and learning, ahead of development, stimulates it, and at the same time it itself relies on CURRENT DEVELOPMENT. Consequently, “EDUCATION should focus not on yesterday, but on tomorrow’s child development.” This provision turns out to be fundamental for the entire organization of training and pedagogy as a whole.

Thus, L.S. Vygotsky formulated the position about TWO LEVELS OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT OF A CHILD:

1) LEVEL OF CURRENT DEVELOPMENT- the current level of preparedness, characterized by the level of intellectual development, determined using tasks that the student can perform independently.

2) Level determining THE ZONE OF ITS PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT.

This second level of mental development is achieved by the child in collaboration with an adult, not by directly imitating his actions, but by solving problems that are within the zone of his intellectual capabilities.

So, according to L.S. Vygotsky: “The greater or lesser possibility of a child’s transition from what he can do independently to what he can do in cooperation is what affects the most sensitive symptom, characterizing the DYNAMICS OF DEVELOPMENT AND SUCCESS OF A CHILD’S MENTAL ACTIVITY. It completely coincides with its zone of proximal development.”

On this basis, the principle of “ADVANCED TRAINING” was formulated, which determines the effective organization of training aimed at activating and developing the student’s mental activity, developing the ability to independently obtain knowledge in collaboration with adults and other students, i.e. develop yourself.

ADVANCED TRAINING means not only a temporary advance in relation to the current level of development of the child, but also a revision of the very nature of learning.

In a broad sense, life itself in human society (SPONTANEOUS LEARNING) is a necessary condition for the specifically human development of a child. Besides, TRAINING AS SPECIALLY ORGANIZED, goal-oriented educational process important for different aspects of mental development. Thus, the full development of a blind or deaf child is possible with a special organization of education and communication with him; and, on the contrary, often the most favorable prerequisites for a physically healthy child may remain unrealized due to a lack of communication with adults, in the absence of adequate forms of organizing children's activities. For example, for the development of oral and written speech, the so-called phonemic awareness; on the one hand, it is determined by the structure of the hearing aid and N.S. of a person, but is formed only in the process of speech acquisition. Thus, under CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT, which influence the variability of development within normal limits, the cultural-historical approach understands the morphophysiological characteristics of the brain and communication.

L.S. Vygotsky formulated the idea ZONES CLOSE DEVELOPMENT and the leading role of education in mental development

Levels of mental development of a child

Considering the condition psychological science, L.S. Vygotsky noted that the central and supreme problem throughout psychology the problem of personality and its development. And further:

Quote

“Only a decisive move beyond the methodological limits of traditional child psychology can lead us to the study of the development of that very highest mental synthesis, which with good reason should be called the child’s personality.”

L. S. Vygotsky introduced the concept zones of proximal development. In order to understand its essence, let us consider how L. S. Vygotsky divides the concepts training And development.

Education

1. Education is an internally necessary moment at a certain point in the development of a child, not only natural, but also cultural and historical characteristics of a person.

Development

2. Development is a process that has a special internal logic; also, completely new qualities arise in him that were not present at the previous stages of the child’s development.

L. S. Vygotsky introduced the concept of the zone of proximal development to explain the connection between learning and development. The child's zone of proximal development is mediated through various tasks that the child solves independently or with the help of an adult. It is known that at certain stages of development a child can solve certain problems only with the help of an adult. It is these tasks that constitute his zone of proximal development, since over time the child will be able to solve them independently.

Further, L. S. Vygotsky shows how learning and development contribute to the formation of levels of mental development. There are two levels of mental development - zone of proximal development And level of current development.

1. Education– socially, this is the external form of mental processes, it forms the basis of the ZPD.
2. Development– this is the internal form of mental processes; it underlies the level of actual development.

The levels of mental development of a child (UAR and ZPD) according to L. S. Vygotsky are reflected in more detail in Figure 1.

Figure 1. “Levels of mental development according to L. S. Vygotsky”

Periodization of mental development

L. S. Vygotsky distinguished two main types of age periods, which successively replace each other.

Concept of L. S. Vygotsky

If most concepts consider development as a person’s adaptation to his environment, then L. S. Vygotsky conceptualizes the environment as a source of development of a person’s higher mental functions. Depending on the age of the latter, the role of the environment in development changes, since it is determined by the child’s experiences.

L. S. Vygotsky formulated a number of laws of mental development:

♦ child development has its own rhythm and pace, which changes in different years life (a year of life in infancy is not equal to a year of life in adolescence);

♦ development is a chain of qualitative changes, and the child’s psyche is fundamentally different from the psyche of adults;

♦ the child’s development is uneven: each side in his psyche has its own optimal period of development

The scientist substantiated the law of development of higher mental functions. According to L. S. Vygotsky, they arise initially as a form of collective behavior of the child, cooperation with other people, and only then do they become individual functions and abilities of the child himself. So, at first speech is a means of communication between people, but in the course of development it becomes internal and begins to perform an intellectual function. Distinctive features of higher mental functions are mediation, awareness, arbitrariness, systematicity. They are formed throughout life - in the process of mastering special means developed during the historical development of society; the development of higher mental functions occurs in the learning process, in the process of mastering given patterns.

Child development is subject not to biological, but to socio-historical laws. The development of a child occurs through the assimilation of historically developed forms and methods of activity. Thus, the driving force of human development is learning. But the latter is not identical to development; it creates a zone of proximal development, sets in motion its internal processes, which at first are possible for the child only through interaction with adults and in cooperation with friends. However, then, permeating the entire internal course of development, they become the property of the child himself. The zone of proximal action is the difference between the level of actual development and the child’s possible development thanks to the assistance of adults. “The zone of proximal development determines functions that have not yet matured, but are in the process of maturation; characterizes mental development for tomorrow.” This phenomenon indicates the leading role of education in the mental development of a child.

Human consciousness is not the sum of individual processes, but their system, structure. In early childhood, perception is at the center of consciousness, in preschool age - memory, in school age - thinking. All other mental processes develop under the influence of the dominant function in consciousness. The process of mental development means a restructuring of the system of consciousness, which is caused by a change in its semantic structure, i.e., the level of development of generalizations. Entry into consciousness is possible only through speech, and the transition from one structure of consciousness to another is carried out thanks to the development of the meaning of the word - generalization. By forming the latter, transferring it to a higher level, training is capable of restructuring the entire system of consciousness (“one step in training can mean a hundred steps in development”).

The ideas of L. S. Vygotsky were developed in Russian psychology.

No influence of an adult on the processes of mental development can be carried out without the real activity of the child himself. And the development process depends on how it takes place. The latter is the child’s self-movement due to his activity with objects, and the facts of heredity and environment are only conditions that do not determine the essence of the development process, but only various variations within the norm. This is how the idea of ​​the leading type of activity arose as a criterion for the periodization of a child’s mental development (A. N. Leontyev).

Leading activity is characterized by the fact that in it the basic mental processes are restructured and changes occur in the psychological characteristics of the individual at a given stage of its development. The content and form of leading activity depend on the specific historical conditions in which the child is formed. The change in its types takes a long time to prepare and is associated with the emergence of new motives that encourage the child to change the position he occupies in the system of relationships with other people.

The development of the problem of leading activity in child development is a fundamental contribution of domestic psychologists to child psychology. The studies of A.V. Zaporozhets, A.N. Leontyev, D.B. Elkonin, V.V. Davydov, L.Ya. Galperin showed the dependence of the development of mental processes on the nature and structure of various types of leading activity. First, the motivational side of the activity is mastered (the subject side has no meaning for the child), and then the operational and technical side; in development, one can observe the alternation of these types of activities (D. B. Elkonin). When mastering the ways of acting with objects developed in society, the child is formed as a member of society.

Developing the ideas of L. S. Vygotsky, D. B. Elkonin considers each age, proposing the following criteria:

♦ social development situation;

♦ the system of relations into which the child enters in society;

♦ the main or leading type of activity of the child during this period.

Psychologists also note the existence of major developmental neoplasms. They lead to the inevitability of change in the social situation and lead to a crisis.

Crisis is turning points in child development, separating one age from another. At 3 and 11 years old there are crises of relationships, after which orientation in human relationships is born, while crises at 1 and 7 years old make it possible to navigate the world of things.

trust in the world, people, pessimism, even aggressiveness

The essence and content of education.

The essence of a truly humanistic attitude to raising a child is expressed

in the thesis of his activity as a full-fledged subject, and not an object of the process

education. The child’s own activity is necessary condition

educational process, but this activity itself, the forms of its manifestation and,

most importantly, the level of implementation that determines its effectiveness must

be formed, created in a child on the basis of historically established

samples, but not their blind reproduction, but creative

use.

Therefore, it is important to structure the pedagogical process in such a way that

The teacher supervised the child’s activities, organizing his active

self-education through performing independent and responsible actions.

A teacher-educator can and must help a growing person go through this -

always unique and independent - the path of moral and ethical

social development. Parenting is not adaptation

children, adolescents, youth to existing forms of social existence, not

adjustment to a certain standard. As a result of the appropriation of social

developed forms and methods of activity are further developed -

formation of children's orientation towards certain values, independence in

solving complex moral problems. "The condition for the effectiveness of education is

independent choice or conscious acceptance by children of content and goals

activities".

Education means the purposeful development of each growing

person as a unique human individual, ensuring

growth and improvement of the moral and creative powers of this person,

through the construction of a social practice in which what

the child is in its infancy or is just forming

possibility turns into reality. "Educating means

guide the development of the subjective world of man", on the one hand, acting

in accordance with the moral model, the ideal that embodies

society's demands on a growing person, and on the other hand, pursuing

the goal of maximizing the development of the individual characteristics of each child.

As L.S. pointed out. Vygotsky, "teacher with scientific point vision - only

organizer of the social educational environment, regulator and controller of it

interaction with each student."1

This approach to building the education process - as an active

purposeful personality formation - consistent with our

methodological setting for assessing the role of society and the place of the genotype

a growing person in the development of his personality.

Achievements modern science, including works of domestic

philosophers and psychologists, teachers and physiologists, lawyers and geneticists,

indicate that only in a social environment in the process

purposeful education, effective development of programs occurs

social behavior of a person, a person is formed as a personality. Moreover

social conditioning personality development is specific historical

character.

But the socio-historical formation of personality does not represent

passive reflection public relations. Acting as both a subject and

the result of social relations, personality is formed through its active

social actions, consciously transforming both the environment and the

yourself in the process of purposeful activity. It is in the process

purposefully organized activities are formed in the most important thing for a person,

the need for the good of another that defines him as a developed personality.

It is significant that literature is the reservoir of psychological experience.

through the mouths of its most prominent representatives, it has repeatedly proclaimed this truth.

So, L.N. Tolstoy believed that recognition of the rights of “the other” is not easy to achieve.

participation in the “struggle for existence”, but in an event with oneself and, moreover,

Moreover, the affirmation by one’s own life of the existence of this “other” becomes

the exercise of understanding in interpersonal relationships and, ultimately, the only

criterion of moral progress. "...By allowing only the possibility of replacement

striving for one’s own good by striving for the good of other beings,” he wrote in

treatise "On Life" - a person cannot help but see that this is something

the most gradual, greater and greater renunciation of his personality and transference

the goals of activity from oneself into other beings are all forward movement

humanity"2.

Solidarizing with the great writer in understanding the goals of education,

among which he considered the main one to be the formation of the need to bring good

another, however, may not agree with him in his judgment about possible ways

achieving this goal. L.N. Tolstoy, as is known, assigned the main role

moral education, sharing in this the views of the enlighteners of the 18th century.

This position was later subject to critical rethinking when

the gap between the actual behavior of the individual and the knowledge he discovers

moral norms and imperatives of action became obvious to philosophers and

teachers as a fact.

A special role in education is played by art, which is emotionally

figuratively reflects various types of human activity and

develops the ability to creatively transform the world and oneself.

Enlightenment orientation in pedagogy has given way to a more

realistic, although no one denied the importance of moral education and

knowledge as such in the process of spiritual development of the individual.

However, the moral formation of personality is not equal to the moral

enlightenment. It has been established that a value-oriented internal position

child does not arise as a result of some “pedagogical influences” or

even their systems, and as a result of the organization of social practice, in

which it is included. However, the organization of public education practice

The child’s personality can be oriented in two ways. One type is aimed at

reproduction of an already established social character. This type

organization fits the device pedagogical process under already

the achieved level of mental development of the child. Similar organization

education in no way corresponds to the goals of building a humane

society, since it requires solving the problem of transforming consciousness

person.

In this regard, domestic scientists and practicing teachers proceed from

that education (including training) cannot trail behind

child development", focusing on his yesterday, but should

correspond to "tomorrow's day of child development." This thesis clearly

reflects the principle of approaching the mental development of the individual as

a controlled process that is capable of creating new structures

personal values ​​of growing people.3

Management of the educational process, carried out as a purposeful

construction and development of a system of specified multifaceted activities

child, is implemented by teachers introducing children to the “zone of closest

development." This means that at a certain stage of development the child can

collaboration with smarter “comrades”, and only then completely

on one's own.

Purposeful formation of a person’s personality presupposes its

design, but not on the basis of a template common to all people, but in

in accordance with an individual project for each person, taking into account

its specific physiological and psychological characteristics.

“There can be no hesitation,” wrote A.S. Makarenko, - should we strive for

education of brave, honest, persistent or cowardly, cowardly and

deceitful."4

In this case, taking into account internal driving forces,

human needs, his conscious aspirations. It is on this basis

it becomes possible to correctly assess a person’s personality and build an effective

a system of her upbringing through specially assigned activities. Inclusion

child into adult-organized activities, during which

multifaceted relationships develop, consolidates the forms of social

behavior, creates the need to act in accordance with moral

patterns that act as motives that motivate activity and

regulating relationships between children.

"The art of education", comes to a reasonable conclusion, lies in

the use of such an important psychological mechanism as the creation

the correct combination of “understood motives” and “actually operating” motives,

and at the same time in the ability to timely attach higher importance to successful

result of activity, in order to ensure a transition to a higher

the type of real motives that govern the life of an individual. So, teenage children

age are aware of the important and socially responsible life of an adult

member of society. But only inclusion in socially recognized activities

transforms these “understood” motives into actually effective ones.5

The growth of the range of needs, the law of increasing needs, development

need-motivational sphere determine the nature of the formation

specific personality traits and qualities. To such specific personality traits,

which are formed in the process of education include: responsibility and

sense of inner freedom, self-esteem (self-respect)

and respect for others; honesty and conscientiousness; readiness for social

necessary work and the desire for it; criticality and conviction; Availability

firm ideals that are not subject to revision; kindness and severity;

initiative and discipline; desire and (ability) to understand others

people and demands on oneself and others; ability to think

weigh and will; readiness to act, courage, readiness to go to

certain risk and caution, avoiding unnecessary risk.

It is no coincidence that this series of qualities is grouped in pairs. This

It is emphasized that there are no “absolute” qualities. The best quality must

balance the opposite. Every person usually strives to find

socially acceptable and personally optimal measure of the relationship between these

qualities in your personality. Only under such conditions, having found oneself, having formed

and having formed as an integral personality, he is able to become full-fledged and

useful member of society.

Psychological qualities are interconnected, integrated into a single

personality. The core of personality, which determines all its particular manifestations, is

motivational-need sphere, which is a complex and

an interconnected system of human aspirations and motivations.

2. the presence of morality and ethics

3. worldview

4. language, speech

5. politics

6. ideology

7. ecology

9. physical Upbringing

Principles of education

1. principle of morality

2. principle of taking into account age characteristics

3. the principle of connection between education and the social environment

4. the principle of unity of requirements of the teacher and parents

5. the principle of relying on the positive in the personality of the person being educated

6.the principle of respect for the individual in combination with requirements

7. principle of education in a team

8.principle of systematicity and continuity

9. principle of comprehensive education

From NE
P PV

Literature:

On the study of schoolchildren’s educational work // Family architect. L.S. Vygotsky. Transcript lectures. Leningr. ped. int. January 31, 1933

The problem of consciousness // Psychology of grammar. M.: Moscow State University Publishing House, 1968. pp. 178-196. Speeches by L.S. Vygotsky according to the report. A.R. Luria December 5 and 9, 1933; The same // Collection. cit.: In 6 volumes. M.: Pedagogy, 1982. T. 1. P. 156-167.

On the issue of the development of scientific concepts at school age // Shif Zh.I. Development of scientific concepts in schoolchildren. M.; L.: Uchpedgiz, 1935. P. 3-17.

Bibliographic description: Makarova A.I. Principles of the educational system L.S. Vygotsky in the organization of the educational process [Text] / A. I. Makarova // Young scientist. - 2012. - No. 8. - pp. 347-349.

L.S. Vygotsky builds the organization of the educational process on the principles.

L. S. Vygotsky was primarily a specialist in the field of general psychology, a methodologist of psychology. He saw his scientific vocation in building scientific system psychology, the basis of which was dialectical and historical materialism. Historicism and systematicity are the main principles in his approach to the study of psychological reality, and above all consciousness as its specifically human form. He mastered Marxism and its method in the course of his own theoretical and experimental research, constantly turning to the works of the classics of Marxism-Leninism. This is why Marxism - historical materialism and dialectics are so organic in Vygotsky’s works.

L. S. Vygotsky took only the first, most difficult steps in a new direction, leaving to future scientists the most interesting hypotheses and, most importantly, historicism and systematicity in the study of problems of psychology, on the principle of which almost all of his theoretical and experimental works were built.

Sometimes one comes across the opinion that Vygotsky was mainly a child psychologist. The opinion is based on the fact that most of the major experimental studies were carried out by him and his collaborators working with children. It is true that almost all studies related to the construction of a theory of the development of higher mental functions were experimentally conducted with children, including one of the main books published immediately after Vygotsky’s death, “Thinking and Speech” (1934). But it does not at all follow from this that in these studies Vygotsky acted as child psychologist. The main subject of his research was the history of the emergence, development and collapse of specifically human higher forms of activity and consciousness (its functions). He was the creator of a method that he himself called experimental-genetic: with this method, new formations are brought to life or experimentally created - mental processes that do not yet exist, thereby creating an experimental model of their emergence and development, revealing the patterns of this process. In this case, children were the most suitable material for creating an experimental model of the development of neoplasms, and not the subject of research. To study the disintegration of these processes, Vygotsky used special studies and observations in neurological and psychiatric clinics. His work on the development of higher mental functions does not belong to the field of child (age) psychology proper, just as the study of decay does not belong to the field of pathopsychology.

It is necessary to emphasize with certainty that it was Vygodsky’s general theoretical research that served as the basis on which his special research in the field of child (age) psychology itself developed.

Vygotsky's path in child psychology was not easy. He approached the problems of child (age) psychology primarily from the needs of practice (before studying psychology, he was a teacher, and questions of educational psychology interested him even before he devoted himself to developing general issues of psychology).

L. S. Vygotsky not only closely followed the changes that occurred during the construction of the Soviet system of education and upbringing, but also, being a member of the GUS1, took an active part in it. There is no doubt that the development of training and development problems has played a role important role in the formation of the author’s general psychological views, was most directly related to the radical restructuring of the education system that followed the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On primary and high school» 1931 and determined the transition from a comprehensive to a subject-based education system in school.

It is impossible to understand Vygotsky’s deep interest in the problems of child (age) psychology if one does not take into account the fact that he was a theorist and, most importantly, a practitioner in the field of abnormal mental development. Over the years, he was the scientific director of a number of studies conducted at the Exp.

1 State Academic Council - methodological center of the People's Communist Party of the RSFSR (1919-1932).

Rimental Defectology Institute (EDI), and systematically participated in consultations with children and played a leadership role there. Hundreds of children with various mental development disorders have passed through his consultations. Vygotsky considered the analysis of each case of a particular anomaly as a specific expression of a general problem. Already in 1928, he published the article “Defect and Overcompensation,” in which he gives a systematic analysis of anomalies of mental development; in 1931 he wrote great job“Diagnostics of development and pedological clinic of difficult childhood” (1983, vol. 5), in which he critically analyzed in detail the state of diagnostics of that time and outlined the ways of its development.

The strategy of his research was structured in such a way that it combined into one whole purely methodological questions of psychology and questions of the historical origin of human consciousness - its structure, ontogenetic development, anomalies in the development process. Vygotsky himself often called such a connection the unity of genetic, structural and functional analysis of consciousness.

L. S. Vygotsky’s works on child (age) psychology included the term “pedology” in their title. In his understanding, this is a special science about the child, of which child psychology was a part. Vygotsky himself began his scientific life and continued it until the very end as a psychologist. It was the methodological issues of psychology as a science that stood at the center of his theoretical and experimental work. His research concerning the child was also of a purely psychological nature, but during the period of his scientific work, problems of the psychological development of the child were classified as pedology. “Pedology,” he wrote, “is the science of the child. The subject of its study is the child, this natural whole, which, in addition to being an extremely important object of theoretical knowledge, like the stellar world and our planet, is at the same time the object of influence on it by training or education, which deals specifically with the child as a whole. That is why pedology is the science of the child as a whole” (Pedology of the Adolescent, 1931, p. 17).

Here Vygotsky, like many pedologists, makes a methodological mistake. Sciences are not divided into separate objects. But this is a scientific issue, and we will not touch upon it.

Vygotsky’s focus was on elucidating the basic patterns of a child’s mental development. In this regard, he did a tremendous amount of critical work to revise the prevailing views on the processes of mental development in foreign child psychology, which were also reflected in the views of Soviet pedologists. This work is similar in scope and significance to that which Vygotsky did on methodological issues in psychology and formalized in his work “The Historical Meaning of the Psychological Crisis” (1982, vol. 1). Unfortunately, Vygotsky himself did not have time to summarize his theoretical research on the problem of mental development in a special work, leaving only its fragments contained in the critical prefaces to the books of K. Bühler, J. Piaget, K. Koffka, A. Gesell, in his previously published published manuscripts and lectures. (Transcripts of some lectures were published in volume 4 of his works; prefaces to the books of Bühler and Koffka, published in volume 1; a critical analysis of Piaget’s concept was included as an integral part in the book “Thinking and Speech,” published in volume 2.)

The solution to the central question for child psychology - the question of the driving forces and conditions of mental development in childhood, the development of the consciousness and personality of the child - Vygotsky intertwined into a single whole with his general methodological research. Already in his early works on the development of higher mental functions, he formulated a hypothesis about their origin and, consequently, about their nature. There are many such formulations. Let us cite one of them: “Every mental function was external because it was social before it became an internal, actually mental function; it was formerly a social relationship between two people.”

Already this hypothesis, dating back to 1930-1931, contains a completely different idea of ​​the role of the social environment in development: the child’s interaction with reality, mainly social, with an adult is not a development factor, not something that acts from the outside on what already exists, but a source of development. This, of course, did not fit in any way with the theory of two factors (which underlay Vygotsky’s contemporary pedology), according to which the development of a child’s body and psyche is determined by two factors - heredity and environment.

The problem of the driving causes of development could not help but stand at the center of Vygotsky’s scientific interests. Considering the various points of view that existed in foreign psychology, he assessed them critically. Vygotsky joins Blonsky’s position when he points out that heredity is not a simple biological phenomenon: we must distinguish the social heredity of living conditions and social status from the chromatin of heredity. Dynasties are formed on the basis of social and class heredity. “Only on the basis of the deepest confusion of biological and social heredity,” Vygotsky continues this thought, “are such scientific misunderstandings possible as the above statements of K. Bühler about the heredity of “prison inclinations”, Peters - about the heredity of good scores at school, and Galton - about heredity of ministerial, judicial positions and scientific professions. Instead of, for example, an analysis of the socio-economic factors that determine crime, this purely social phenomenon - a product of social inequality and exploitation - is presented as a hereditary biological trait, transmitted from ancestors to descendants with the same regularity as a certain eye color.

Modern bourgeois eugenics, a new science regarding the improvement and ennoblement of the human race by attempting to master the laws of heredity and subjugate them to one’s power, stands under the sign of the confusion of social heredity and biological one” (Pedology of the Adolescent, p. 11).

In the preface to A. Gesell’s book “Pedology early age"(1932) Vygotsky provides a more thorough critique of developmental theories that were widely represented in bourgeois child psychology of that time. Vygotsky highly appreciates Gesell’s research because it “contains in its consistent and steady implementation the idea of ​​development as the only key to all problems of child psychology. ...But the most basic, key problem - the problem of development - Gesell solves half-heartedly... The stamp of duality that lies on these studies is the stamp of a methodological crisis experienced by science, which in its actual research has outgrown its methodological basis" (see: A Gesell, 1932, p. 5). (Note that Gesell’s book, entitled “Pedology...”, is considered by Vygotsky as a book on child psychology, i.e., as related to the solution of the question of the child’s mental development.)

Supporting this with an example, Vygotsky continues: “The highest genetic law, Gesell formulates the main idea of ​​his book, is apparently the following: all growth in the present is based on past growth. Development is not a simple function determined by X units of heredity plus Y units of environment; it is a historical complex, reflecting at each given stage the past contained in it. In other words, the artificial dualism of environment and heredity leads us down the wrong path; it obscures from us the fact that development is a continuous, self-determining process, and not a puppet controlled by the tugging of two strings” (ibid.).

“It is worth taking a close look at how Gesell presents comparative sections of development in order to be convinced,” Vygotsky continues, “that this is like a series of frozen photographic photographs in which there is no main thing - no movement, not to mention self-movement, no process of transition from steps to steps and there is no development itself, at least in the understanding that the author himself theoretically put forward as mandatory. How the transition from one level to another takes place, what is the internal connection of one stage with another, how growth in the present is based on previous growth - all this remains unshown” (ibid., p. 6).

We think that all this is a consequence of a purely quantitative understanding of the developmental processes themselves and the method used by Gesell to study them, a method that went down in the history of child psychology under the name of the section method, which, unfortunately, is dominant to this day. The process of child development is considered by Gesell in approximately the same way as the movement of a body, for example a train, on a certain section of the track. The measure of such movement is speed. For Gesell, the main indicator is also the speed of development over certain periods of time, and the law based on this is a gradual slowdown in speed. It is maximum at the initial stages and minimum at the final stages. Gesell, as it were, removes the problem of environment and heredity altogether and replaces it with the problem of speed, or tempo, growth, or development. (Gesell uses the last two concepts as unambiguous.)

However, as Vygotsky shows, such a replacement still hides a certain solution to the problem. It is revealed when Gesell examines the specifics of humanity in childhood development. As Vygotsky notes, Gesell categorically rejects the line of theoretical research coming from Bühler, imbued with trends of zoomorphism, when an entire era in child development is considered from the point of view of analogy with the behavior of chimpanzees.

In a critical essay, Vygotsky, analyzing the primary sociality of the child declared by Gesell, shows that Gesell understands this very sociality, however, as a special biology. Vygotsky writes: “Moreover: the very process of personality formation, which Gesell considers as a result of social development, he essentially reduces to purely biological, to purely organic, and therefore to zoological processes of connection between the child’s body and the organisms of the people around him. Here the biologism of American psychology reaches its apogee, here it celebrates its highest triumph, achieving its final victory: revealing the social as a simple variety of the biological. A paradoxical situation is created in which the highest assessment of the social in the process of child development, the recognition of the initially social nature of this process, the declaration of the social as the seat of the mystery of the human personality - all this somewhat pompous hymn to the glory of sociality is needed only for the greater triumph of the biological principle, which thanks to this acquires the universal, absolute, almost metaphysical meaning, designated as “life cycle”.

And, guided by this principle, Gesell begins, step by step, to take back in favor of the biological what he himself had just given to the social. This backward theoretical movement takes place according to a very simple scheme: the child’s personality is social from the very beginning, but sociality itself lies in nothing more than the biological interaction of organisms. Sociality does not take us beyond biology; it takes us even deeper into the heart of the “life cycle” (ibid., p. 9).

L. S. Vygotsky points out that the elimination of the dualism of heredity and environment in Gesell’s works “is achieved through the biologization of the social, by bringing both hereditary and social aspects in the development of the child to a common biological denominator. Unity this time is openly purchased at the price of complete dissolution of the social into the biological” (ibid., p. I).

Summarizing a critical analysis of Gesell's theory, Vygotsky characterizes it as empirical evolutionism: “It cannot be called anything other than the theory of empirical evolutionism. From the evolutionary theory, from the slightly modified teachings of Darwin, both the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of history are derived. The evolutionary principle is declared universal. This is reflected in two points: firstly, in the above-mentioned expansion of the natural limits of applicability of this principle and the extension of its meaning to the entire area of ​​​​the formation of a child’s personality; secondly, in the very understanding and disclosure of the nature of development. The typically evolutionist understanding of this process forms the core of the anti-dialectical nature of all Gesell's constructions. He seems to be repeating Bühler’s well-known anti-dialectical rule, which he recently proclaimed in application to the psychology of the child: “Nature does not make leaps. Development always happens gradually.” This leads to a misunderstanding of what is fundamental in the development process—the emergence of neoplasms. Development is considered as the implementation and modification of hereditary inclinations” (ibid., p. 12).

“Is it necessary after all that has been said,” Vygotsky continues, “to say that Gesell’s theoretical system is inextricably linked with the entire methodology of that critical era that bourgeois psychology is now experiencing, and thereby opposes, as already indicated, the dialectical-materialistic understanding of the nature of childhood development? Is it necessary to say further that this ultrabiologism, this empirical evolutionism in the doctrine of child development, which subordinates the entire course of child development to the eternal laws of nature and leaves no room for understanding the class nature of child development in a class society, itself has a completely definite class meaning, closely connected with the doctrine of the class neutrality of childhood, with essentially reactionary tendencies towards revealing the “eternally childish” (in the words of another psychologist), with the tendencies of bourgeois pedagogy towards masking the class nature of education? “Children are children everywhere” - this is how Gesell himself expresses this idea of ​​his about the child in general, about the “eternally childish” in the preface to the Russian translation of another of his books. In this universality of the traits of childhood, he says, we see a reflection of the beneficial solidarity of the entire human race that promises so much in the future” (ibid., p. 13).

We dwelled in such detail on Vygotsky’s critical analysis of Gesell’s theory for two reasons: firstly, the analysis of Gesell’s theory is an excellent example of how Vygotsky analyzed theoretical concepts of development, how he was able to reveal the real methodological sources of theoretical misconceptions; secondly, criticism of Gesell’s theoretical views still sounds very modern today in relation to the theories of American child psychology, which contains a lot of words about the social and its role in the development of the child.

We emphasize that Vygotsky did not leave a complete theory of mental development. He simply did not have time, although in the last months of his life he tried to do this.

In the years since Vygotsky's death, much has changed in both world and Soviet child psychology. Many of the facts that Vygotsky refers to are outdated, and others have appeared. The theories that existed in his time were replaced by new concepts that required critical consideration. And yet, a thorough acquaintance with the enormous work that Vygotsky did is of not only historical interest. His works contain a method of approach to the study of mental development and theoretical concepts of development and, so to speak, a “prolegomena” to the future scientific theory of mental development.

Both during his life and after his death, Vygotsky was sometimes reproached for being greatly influenced by the research of foreign psychologists. Vygotsky himself would probably answer these reproaches like this: “We don’t want to be Ivans who don’t remember kinship; we do not suffer from delusions of grandeur, thinking that history begins with us; we do not want to receive a clean and flat name from history; we want a name on which the dust of centuries has settled. In this we see our historical right, an indication of our historical role, a claim to the implementation of psychology as a science. We must consider ourselves in connection and relation with the former; even denying it, we rely on it” (1982, vol. 1, p. 428).

In Vygotsky’s study of the problems of child (age) psychology itself, two periods can be distinguished: the first (1926-1931), when there was an intensive development of the problem of mediation of mental processes, which, as is well known, represented for Vygotsky the central link in the development of higher mental processes; the second (1931 -1934), when the experimental development of the problem of the development of higher mental processes was completed and Vygotsky developed the problems of the semantic structure of consciousness and the general theory of child development.

In 1928, Vygotsky published a training course entitled “Pedology of School Age.” Experimental studies of higher mental functions had just begun and therefore are presented in the course in the form of a general scheme for the study of mediated mental processes, mainly memory. There are references to natural and cultural arithmetic and a description of the first experiments in counting using signs. All these data are presented only as first attempts.

At the same time, Pedology of School Age already contains some outlines of the historical origin of the periods of childhood. And this is of undoubted interest. Considering the process of transition to the teenage period of development, Vygotsky wrote: “It can be assumed that the era of puberty once completed the process of child development, it coincided with the end of childhood in general and with the onset of general organic maturity. The connection between general organic and sexual maturity is biologically completely understandable. Such a function as reproduction and procreation, bearing a baby and feeding him, can only fall on an already mature, formed organism that has completed its own development. In that era, puberty had a completely different meaning than it does now.

Now the period of puberty is characterized by the fact that the final points of puberty, general maturation and the formation of human personality do not coincide. Humanity has conquered a long childhood: it has extended the line of development far beyond the period of puberty; it separated from the mature state by the era of youth, or the era of the final formation of personality.

Depending on this, the three points of maturation of the human personality - sexual, general organic and socio-cultural - do not coincide. This discrepancy is the root cause of all the difficulties and contradictions of the transition period. Puberty occurs in a person before the end of the general organic growth of the organism. The sexual instinct matures before the body is finally prepared for the function of reproduction and procreation. Puberty also precedes socio-cultural maturation and the final formation of human personality” (1928, pp. 6-7).

The development of these provisions, especially the statement about the discrepancy between the three points of maturation during adolescence, continued in Vygotsky’s book “Pedology of the Adolescent”. There is more to come about it. Now we would like to note that, although some of the provisions expressed by Vygotsky and Blonsky are currently controversial, and perhaps simply incorrect, it is significant that back in the late 1920s. In Soviet psychology, the question was raised about the historical origin of periods of childhood, about the history of childhood in general, about the connection between the history of childhood and the history of society. The history of childhood has not yet been sufficiently researched and written, but the very formulation of the question is important. Important because some

The key questions of the theory of the child’s mental development can be, if not finally resolved, then at least clarified in the light of the history of childhood. These include one of the most important questions - about the factors of mental development, and with it the question about the role of maturation of the organism in mental development.

Such questions also include the question of the specific features of the mental development of a child, in contrast to the development of the young of even the species of apes closest to humans. Finally, it is essential that such a historical approach puts an end to the search for the “eternally childish,” typical of various biologizing concepts of mental development, and puts in their place the study of the “historically childish.” (We do not set out to find out who has priority in posing the question of the historicity of childhood. Apparently, the corresponding thoughts were first expressed here by Blonsky. It is important for us that Vygotsky did not pass by and in research on child psychology, deepened the subject of adolescence this is understanding.)

We have already said that not everything was resolved correctly when the question was posed this way. It is doubtful, for example, that during the historical emergence of individual periods of childhood they were simply built on top of each other. There is reason to assume a much more complex process of the emergence of individual periods. It is also doubtful to compare the level of development of children of distant eras with modern children. It is hardly legitimate to say that a 3-year-old child of the distant past was younger than a modern 3-year-old child. They're just completely different kids; for example, in terms of the level of independence, our children at the age of 3 are much lower than their Polynesian peers, described by N. N. Miklouho-Maclay.

The enormous ethnographic material accumulated since Vygotsky’s publications makes us think that the very discrepancy between puberty, general maturation and personality formation, which Vygotsky speaks about, should be considered from a more general point of view, from the point of view of the historical change in the child’s place in society - as part of this society - and changes in connection with this in the entire system of relationships between children and adults. Without touching on this issue in detail, we will only emphasize that the historical point of view on the processes of a child’s mental development was adopted in Soviet child psychology, although it was clearly not yet sufficiently developed.

In 1929-1931 Vygotsky’s manual “Pedology of the Adolescent” was published in separate editions. This book was designed as a textbook for distance learning. The question naturally arises:

Was the book just teaching aid or was it a monograph that reflected the author’s theoretical ideas that arose in the course of theoretical and experimental work? Vygotsky himself viewed this book as research. He begins the final chapter of the book with the words: “We are approaching the end of our research” (1931, p. 481). Why the author chose this form of presentation for his research, we do not know for sure. There were probably both purely external reasons and deep internal reasons both for writing such a book and for the book to be specifically about adolescence.

At the time of writing this manual, Vygotsky had completed the basic experimental studies on the development of higher mental processes. The research was compiled into a large article “Tool and Sign in the Development of the Child” (1984, vol. 6) and a monograph “History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions” (1983, vol. 3). Both works were not published during the author's lifetime. Most likely, this happened because it was at that time that the theory developed by Vygotsky was subject to serious criticism.

There was one more, as it seems to us, important circumstance. In experimental genetic studies, summarized in these manuscripts, the functions of perception, attention, memory and practical intelligence were analyzed. In relation to all these processes, their indirect nature is shown. There was only no study of one of the most important processes - the process of concept formation and the transition to thinking in concepts. In this regard, the entire theory of higher mental processes as mediated and one of the most important provisions of the theory about the systemic relationships between mental processes and the changes in these relationships during development remained, as it were, unfinished. For the theory to be relatively complete, it lacked, firstly, research on the emergence and development of the process of concept formation and, secondly, ontogenetic (age-related) research into the process of emergence and change in systemic relationships of mental processes.

The study of concept formation was undertaken under the leadership of Vygotsky by his closest student L. S. Sakharov, and after the latter’s early death it was completed by Yu. V. Kotelova and E. I. Pashkovskaya. This study showed, firstly, that the formation of concepts is a process mediated by words, and secondly (and no less important), that the meanings of words (generalizations) develop. The results of the study were first published in the book “Pedology of the Adolescent”, and subsequently included in Vygotsky’s monograph “Thinking and Speech” (1982, vol. 2, chapter 5). This work filled the missing link in research into higher mental functions. At the same time, it opened up the opportunity to consider the question of what changes in the relationships between individual processes are introduced by the formation of concepts in adolescence.

L. S. Vygotsky posed the question even more broadly, including it in the more general problem of the development and decay of the system of mental functions. This is what Chapter 11, “Development of Higher Mental Functions in adolescence"("Pedology of a teenager"). In it, drawing on both his own experimental materials and materials from other researchers, he systematically examines the development of all basic mental functions - perception, attention, memory, practical intelligence - throughout ontogenesis, paying attention to Special attention on changes in systemic relationships between mental functions in the periods preceding adolescence, and especially at this age. Thus, the first part of “Pedology of the Adolescent” provides a concise, concise consideration of one of the central issues that interested Vygotsky.

Even in early experimental studies devoted to the problem of mediation, he put forward as a hypothetical assumption that, taken in isolation, a mental function has no history and that the development of each individual function is determined by the development of their entire system and the place occupied by an individual function in this system. Experimental genetic studies could not give a clear answer to the question that interested Vygotsky. The answer to this was obtained when considering development in ontogenesis. However, the evidence that was obtained during an ontogenetic examination of the development of the systemic organization of mental processes seemed insufficient to Vygotsky, and he attracted materials from various fields of neurology and psychiatry to consider the processes of disintegration of systemic relationships between mental functions.

For this comparative study, Vygotsky selects three diseases - hysteria, aphasia and schizophrenia, analyzes in detail the processes of decay in these diseases and finds the necessary evidence.

In analyzing these two, as we see it, central chapters of the monograph on the adolescent, we wanted to show the methodology of Vygotsky’s study of the processes of mental development. It can be defined very briefly as historicism and systematicity, as the unity of functional-genetic, ontogenetic and structural approaches to the processes of mental development. In this regard, the studies analyzed remain unsurpassed examples. There is no doubt that empirical data on the characteristics of a teenager’s thinking and their attachment to chronological boundaries must be reconsidered. It must be remembered that the research was carried out when a complex system of education dominated in the primary grades, thanks to which a complex system of word meanings was also characteristic of primary school age. It is quite natural that the formation of concepts has shifted downwards, as

This is shown, for example, by studies by V.V. Davydov and his colleagues. It must be remembered that Vygotsky himself considered mental characteristics not “eternally childish,” but “historically childish.”

Chapter 16 “Dynamics and structure of the personality of a teenager” is very interesting and has not lost its significance to this day. It opens with a summary of research on the development of higher mental functions. Vygotsky makes an attempt to establish the basic laws of their development and considers adolescence as the period in which the process of development of higher mental functions is completed. He pays great attention to the development of self-awareness in adolescents and ends his consideration of their development with two important provisions: 1) during this period “a new thing enters the drama of development actor, a new, qualitatively unique factor is the personality of the teenager himself. We have before us a very complex construction of this personality” (1984, vol. 4, p. 238); 2) “self-consciousness is social consciousness transferred internally” (ibid., p. 239). With these provisions, Vygotsky seems to sum up the research of higher mental processes, for the development of which there is a single pattern: “they are mental relations transferred into the personality, which were once relations between people” (ibid.).

It is not our task to present Vygotsky’s views on the adolescent period of development. The reader can become acquainted with them directly from the psychological part of the book “Pedology of the Adolescent” (1984, vol. 4).

It is important to determine what place this research occupied in the entire creative path of the author. It seems to us that this book was a kind of transitional stage in Vygotsky’s work. On the one hand, Vygotsky summed up the results of his own research and the research of his collaborators on the problem of the development of higher mental functions and the systemic structure of consciousness, checking the obtained generalizations and hypotheses with the vast material of other scientists, showing how the factual data accumulated in child psychology can be illuminated from a new perspective. points of view. This book ends an important period of Vygotsky’s work, a period in which the author acts primarily as a general, genetic psychologist, using ontogenetic research and at the same time implementing his general psychological theory in it. On the other hand, “Pedology of the Adolescent” is a transition to a new stage of creativity, a new cycle of research related to the data of an experimental study on concept formation published for the first time in this book. These works marked the beginning of the study of the semantic structure of consciousness. The question of the relationship between the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness came up on the agenda. Thus, the further development of Vygotsky’s views is, firstly, aimed at deepening the study of the semantic structure of consciousness, which was expressed in the monograph “Thinking and Speech”, and, secondly, at clarifying the connections between the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness in the course of individual development.

It must be pointed out that research on concept formation had two sides. On the one hand, they argued that the formation of concepts arises on the basis of the word - the main means of their formation; on the other hand, they revealed the ontogenetic path of development of concepts. And the other side - the establishment of stages of development of generalizations - had the character of a factual description, without going beyond the limits of statement. Attempts to explain the transitions from one stage of development of word meanings to another, apparently, did not satisfy the author himself. The explanation boiled down to the presence of contradictions between the objective attribution of words, on the basis of which understanding is possible between an adult and a child, and their meaning, which is different for an adult and a child. The idea that the meanings of words develop on the basis of verbal communication between a child and adults can hardly be considered sufficient. It lacks the main thing - the child’s real practical connection with reality, with the world of human objects. The absence of any acceptable explanations for the transitions of the semantic and systemic structure of consciousness from one stage to another led Vygotsky to the need to solve this most important problem. Its solution constituted the content of the research for the next stage of creativity.

The last period of Vygotsky's work covers 1931 - 1934. At this time, as, indeed, always, he works extremely hard and fruitfully.

The center of his interests is the problems of mental development in childhood. It was at this time that he wrote critical prefaces to translations of books by foreign psychologists, representatives of the main directions of child psychology. The articles served as the basis for the development of a general theory of mental development in childhood, being a kind of preparatory work for the “meaning of crisis” in child psychology. Similar work was done in connection with the problem of the crisis in general psychology. A common thread running through all the articles is Vygotsky’s struggle with the biologistic tendencies that dominated foreign child psychology, and the development of the foundations of a historical approach to the problems of mental development in childhood. Unfortunately, Vygotsky himself did not have time to generalize these works and did not leave any complete theory of mental development in the course of ontogenesis. In one of his lectures, Vygotsky, considering specific features mental development and comparing it with other types of development (embryonic, geological, historical, etc.), said: “Can you imagine... that when the most primitive man just appears on Earth, simultaneously with this initial form there was a higher final form - “the man of the future” and that that ideal form somehow directly influenced the first steps that primitive man took? It's impossible to imagine. ... In none of the types of development known to us does it ever happen in such a way that at the moment when the initial form takes shape ... the highest, ideal form, which appears at the end of development, already takes place and that it directly interacts with the first steps that it takes the child along the path of development of this initial, or primary, form. This is the greatest uniqueness of child development, in contrast to other types of development, among which we can never and do not find such a state of affairs... This, therefore, means, continues Vygotsky, that the environment plays a role in the development of the child, in the sense the development of personality and its specific human properties, as a source of development, that is, the environment here plays the role not of a situation, but of a source of development” (Fundamentals of Pedology. Lecture transcripts, 1934, pp. 112-113).

These considerations are of central importance for the concept of mental development developed by Vygotsky. They were implicitly contained already in the study of the development of higher mental functions, but acquired a completely different meaning and evidence after the research he conducted, directly related to the problem of learning and development. Vygotsky’s problem, central to understanding the processes of mental development, was led to the formulation and solution of this problem, on the one hand, by the logic of his own research, and on the other, by the questions that arose before the school precisely during this period.

It was in those years, after the 1931 resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On Primary and Secondary Schools,” that the most important restructuring of the entire system of public education took place - the transition from a comprehensive system of education in the primary grades to a subject-based education system, in which mastering the system is central scientific knowledge, scientific concepts already in elementary school. The restructuring of education was in clear contradiction with the peculiarities of thinking of children of primary school age established by Vygotsky and other researchers, thinking that is based on a complex system of generalizations, the complex meaning of words. The problem was this: if children of primary school age are truly characterized by thinking based on complex generalizations, then it is the complex education system that most corresponds to these characteristics of children. But this idea contradicted Vygotsky’s position on the environment, and, consequently, on learning as a source of development. There was a need to overcome the prevailing points of view on the relationship between learning and mental development in general, and mental development in particular.

As always, experimental work is combined in Vygotsky

With criticism of the views on this problem of leading foreign psychologists. The views of E. Thorne-dyke, J. Piaget, and K. Koffka were subjected to critical analysis. At the same time, Vygotsky shows the connection between the general psychological theory of development developed by these authors and their views on the connection between learning and development.

L. S. Vygotsky contrasts his point of view with all these theories, showing the dependence of the development process on the nature and content of the learning process itself, both theoretically and experimentally asserting the thesis about the leading role of learning in the mental development of children. At the same time, it is quite possible that such training does not have any effect on development processes or even has an inhibitory effect on it. Based on theoretical and experimental research, Vygotsky shows that learning is good if it runs ahead of development, focusing not on already completed development cycles, but on those that are still emerging. Learning, according to Vygotsky, has a progenerative significance for the development process.

In the period 1931 -1934. Vygotsky undertook a series of experimental studies, the task of which was to reveal the complex relationships between learning and development when teaching children in specific areas of school work. These studies were summarized by him in the book “Thinking and Speech” (1982, vol. 2, chapter 6).

At the very beginning of the 1930s. There was no other way to test Vygotsky’s hypothesis about the leading role of learning in mental development other than the method he chose. This position was fully confirmed only in connection with experimental studies begun in the late 1950s. and continuing to this day, when special experimental schools have appeared, in which it is possible to build the content of education on new principles and compare the development of children studying in experimental programs with the development of children of the same age studying in regular school programs1.

The research conducted by Vygotsky at the very beginning of the 1930s is important not only for its specific results, but also for its general methodological approach to the problem. In his research, as well as in those currently being carried out, the question of those psychological mechanisms of assimilation that lead to the emergence of new mental processes or to significant changes in previously established ones has not been sufficiently clarified. This is one of the most difficult questions. It seems to us that Vygotsky’s approach to solving this problem is most clearly expressed in studies devoted to the child’s mastery of written speech and grammar. Although Vygotsky himself

Nowhere does he directly formulate the principles of his approach; they seem transparently clear to us. According to Vygotsky’s thought, in any historically emerged acquisition of human culture, human abilities (mental processes of a certain level of organization) that historically emerged in this process were deposited and materialized.

Without a historical and logical-psychological analysis of the structure of human abilities deposited in one or another acquisition of human culture, the ways of its use by modern man, it is impossible to imagine the process of mastering by an individual, a child, this cultural achievement as a process of development in him of the same abilities. Thus, learning can be developmental only if it embodies the logic of the historical development of a particular system of abilities. It must be emphasized that we're talking about about the internal psychological logic of this story.

Thus, modern sound-letter writing arose in the course of a complex process from pictographic writing, in which the written word directly reflected the designated object in a schematic form. The external sound form of the word was perceived as a single undivided sound complex, the internal structure of which the speaker and writer could not notice. Subsequently, through a series of steps, the letter began to depict the very sound form of the word - first its articulatory-pronunciation syllabic composition, and then its purely sound (phonemic). A phonemic letter arose, in which each individual phoneme is indicated by a special icon - a letter or a combination of them. The modern writing of most languages ​​of the world is based on a completely new, historically emerged mental function - phonemic discrimination and generalization. The developmental role of initial literacy training (reading and writing) can only be realized if training is oriented towards the formation of this historically emerged function. Special experimental studies have shown that with this orientation, these mental processes develop optimally, and at the same time, the practical effectiveness of language teaching significantly increases.

During the same period, Vygotsky also gave an analysis of children’s play from the angle of the influence that it has on the processes of mental development in preschool childhood. He compares the role of play for mental development in preschool age with the role of learning for mental development in primary school age. In the transcript of the lecture “The Role of Play in the Mental Development of the Child” (1933), Vygotsky for the first time speaks about play as the leading type of activity in preschool age and reveals its significance for the development of the main neoplasms of the period under consideration. In a report at the All-Russian conference on preschool education“The Problem of Learning and Mental Development at School Age” (1934) he deals in detail with the issues of the relationship between learning and development in preschool age, showing how during this period the prerequisites for the transition to school education, built according to the logic of those sciences that begin to be taught in school.

Vygotsky’s works concerning learning and development in preschool age have not lost their significance to this day1. They pose a number of problems that only in recent years have begun to be developed in Soviet child psychology.

We have already indicated that the study of mental development in adolescence had special significance for Vygotsky. Thus, it was the first to describe the semantic structure of consciousness, the nature and content of those generalizations on the basis of which a teenager’s picture of the world is built. Thanks to this work, it became possible to consider the development of the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness in their unity. At the same time, the study contained a description of the point in the development of consciousness that is reached by the end of adolescence - the formation of a developed semantic and systemic structure of consciousness and the emergence of individual self-awareness. From the results of his research on adolescent psychology, Vygotsky quite naturally faced the task of tracing the entire course of a child’s individual mental development and, most importantly, finding out the basic patterns of transitions from one stage of development to another. This was one of the main tasks that Vygotsky solved in the last years of his life.

Judging by the remaining materials, he was going to create a book on child (age) psychology. It should have included everything he did while developing a new theory of mental development based on critically overcoming the various theories that existed at that time. Fragments of this theory are scattered throughout his critical essays. There is reason to believe that the book could also include some of his lectures on the basics of pedology, which he read at the 2nd Moscow Medical Institute and which were published after his death. These materials were supposed to form an introduction to the consideration of issues of mental development in different periods of childhood.

1 Most of these works were included in the collection of articles by L. S. Vygotsky (1935) - we list them. Background to writing; Dynamics of mental development of a schoolchild in connection with learning; Learning and development in preschool age; Problems of learning and mental development at school age.

The second part of the planned book was to open with a chapter devoted to general issues of periodization of childhood and elucidation of the principles for analyzing the processes of mental development in individual periods and transitions from one period of development to the next. Then there should have been chapters devoted to the description and analysis of developmental processes in certain periods of childhood. Probably, when considering mental development in preschool childhood, materials on play and the problem of learning and development during this period would be used, and when considering mental development at school age, materials on the development of scientific concepts and on learning and development at this age. This, based on the available materials, is the proposed structure of the book, which Vygotsky never had time to finish.

But he still wrote separate chapters for this book - “The Problem of Age” and “Infancy” (1984, vol. 4). Also associated with it are transcripts of lectures he gave on child psychology. There are a few things to keep in mind when reviewing these materials.

Firstly, at that time, in the system of Soviet psychology, child psychology as an independent field of psychological knowledge had not yet emerged and acquired citizenship rights. Its foundations were just being laid. There were still very few specific psychological studies, and they were conducted from a variety of positions. Issues of child psychology were intensively developed by the remarkable and profound psychologist M. Ya. Basov and his colleagues, mainly in terms of the organization of individual mental processes (M. Ya. Basov, 1932). Basov did not touch upon the issues of developmental child psychology itself. Much more attention was paid to the problems of age stages of development and their characteristics famous psychologist and teacher P.P. Blonsky, who built his books on an age principle. Thus, he wrote: “We will agree to call the set of age-related, i.e., changes related to the time of life, an age-related symptom complex. These changes may occur abruptly, critically, or they may occur gradually, lytically” (1930, p. 7). Thus, among Soviet child psychologists, Blonsky was the first to draw attention to the need to distinguish eras of child development, delimited by critical periods. From a reflexological point of view, important facts concerning the development of children in the 1st year of life were obtained by N. M. Shchelovanov and his collaborators - M. P. Denisova and N. L. Figurin (Questions of genetic reflexology..., 1929).

Secondly, many years have passed since that time. Naturally, the provisions expressed by Vygotsky, which often had the nature of hypotheses, must be compared with new facts - clarified and supplemented, and perhaps even refuted if there are sufficient grounds for this.

Finally, thirdly, the surviving fragments and hypotheses, although connected by a single idea, are sometimes insufficiently developed. And they must be treated as such, selecting what has become the property of history and what is relevant for the modern development of science.

The chapter “The Problem of Age” was written by Vygotsky as a preliminary to consideration of the dynamics of development in certain age periods. In the 1st paragraph, he criticizes the attempts at periodization that existed in his time, and at the same time the theories of development that underlie them. The criticism came in two directions.

On the one hand, in the direction of analyzing the criteria that should form the basis of periodization. Arguing against monosymptomatic criteria and Blonsky’s attempt to characterize periods by symptom complex, Vygotsky puts forward as a criterion new formations that arise in a particular period of development, that is, something new that appears in the structure of consciousness in a certain period. This point of view logically continues Vygotsky’s ideas about changes in the development of the content and nature of generalizations (the semantic side of consciousness) and related changes in functional relationships (the systemic structure of consciousness).

On the other hand, Vygotsky specifically considers the problem of continuity and discontinuity of development processes. Criticizing theories of continuity as coming from purely quantitative ideas about mental development and from the ideas of “empirical evolutionism,” he views the process of mental development as a discontinuous process, fraught with crises and transition periods. That is why he paid special attention to transitional, or critical, periods. For Vygotsky, they were indicators of the discontinuity of the process of mental development. He wrote: “If critical ages had not been discovered purely empirically, the concept of them should have been introduced into the development scheme on the basis of theoretical analysis. Now it remains for theory to recognize and comprehend what has already been established by empirical research” (1984, vol. 4, p. 252).

Over the past years, a number of attempts have appeared to periodize mental development. Let us point out the periodizations of A. Wallon, J. Piaget, Freudians, etc. All of them require critical analysis, and the criteria that Vygotsky used to evaluate them can turn out to be very useful. In Soviet child psychology, attempts were also made to deepen and develop the concept of periodization proposed by Vygotsky (L. I. Bozhovich, 1968; D. B. Elkonin, 1971). The problem of periodization, fundamentally posed by Vygotsky, is still relevant.

As we have already indicated, Vygotsky was interested in transitions from one period of development to another. He believed that the study of transitions makes it possible to reveal the internal contradictions of development. His general views on this issue, a scheme for considering from this angle the internal structure of the processes of mental development at a particular age, are given by him in the 2nd paragraph of the title chapter - “Structure and dynamics of age.” For Vygotsky, the central point when considering the dynamics of mental development in a given period of a child’s life was the analysis of the social situation of development (1984, vol. 4, p. 258).

The collapse of the old and the emergence of the foundations of a new social situation of development, according to Vygotsky, constitutes the main content of critical ages.

The last, 3rd paragraph of the chapter “The problem of age and the dynamics of development” is devoted to problems of practice. Vygotsky considered the problem of age not only the central issue of child psychology, but also the key to all problems of practice. This problem is in direct and close connection with the diagnosis of a child’s age-related development. Vygotsky criticizes traditional approaches to diagnosis and puts forward the problem of diagnosing the “zone of proximal development,” which makes it possible for prognosis and scientifically based practical prescriptions. These considerations sound quite modern and should be taken into account when developing diagnostic systems and methods.

Central to this chapter is the scheme developed by Vygotsky for the analysis of mental development in a separate age period. According to this scheme, the analysis should a) find out the critical period that opens the age stage, its main neoplasm; b) then there should be an analysis of the emergence and formation of a new social situation, its internal contradictions; c) after this, the genesis of the main neoplasm should be considered; d) finally, the new formation itself and the prerequisites it contains for the disintegration of the social situation characteristic of the age stage are considered.

The development of such a scheme was in itself a significant step forward. Even now, the description of development at one stage or another often represents a simple list of unrelated features of individual mental processes (perception, memory, etc.). Vygotsky failed to implement the analysis of all age stages of development according to his proposed scheme.

The chapter “Infancy” is an attempt to implement the scheme he outlined in certain age periods. The chapter opens with a paragraph devoted to the neonatal period, which the author considered as critical - transitional from intrauterine to extrauterine individual existence, to individual life. Much attention is paid to proving the transitional nature of the period. Analyzing the social situation during this period of development and the external forms of manifestation of the life of a newborn, Vygotsky suggests that the main new formation of the period is the emergence of individual mental life, which consists in isolating from the general amorphous background of the entire situation a more or less delimited phenomenon that appears as a figure against this background .

L. S. Vygotsky points out that such an isolated figure against a general undifferentiated background is an adult. The assumption naturally arises, complementing Vygotsky’s basic idea, that the most initial, still completely undifferentiated forms of a child’s mental life are social in origin. Numerous studies of the development of children in the first 2 months of life, especially those conducted by M. I. Lisina and her colleagues (M. I. Lisina, 1974 a, b), although they were not directly aimed at clarifying the question posed by Vygotsky, contain materials confirming it hypothesis.

Let us pay attention to some aspects of the analysis methodology. Firstly, when analyzing the social situation, Vygotsky identifies the main internal contradiction, the development of which determines the genesis of the main new formation. “With the entire organization of his life, he (the baby - D. E.), writes Vygotsky, is forced to maximum communication with adults. But this communication is wordless, often silent, communication of a very special kind. This contradiction between the maximum sociality of the infant (the situation in which the infant is located) and the minimum possibilities of communication lies the basis for the entire development of the child in infancy” (1984, vol. 4, p. 282).

L. S. Vygotsky, most likely, due to the lack of relevant factual materials at that time, did not pay sufficient attention to the development of pre-verbal forms of communication between an infant and adults. In other works he has indications, for example, of how a pointing gesture emerges from grasping, becoming a means of pre-verbal communication. The initial contradiction, according to Vygotsky, grows due to the enrichment of the sphere of communication between a child and an adult and its increasing discrepancy with pre-verbal means of communication.

Further, based on the materials at his disposal, Vygotsky established that, “firstly, the center of any objective situation for an infant is another person who changes its meaning and meaning. And secondly, that the attitude towards an object and the attitude towards a person are not yet separated in the infant” (1984, vol. 4, p. 308). These provisions were central for the researcher in identifying and characterizing the main new formation of the period - the consciousness of the infant. “In the psyche of an infant, from the first moment of his conscious life, it is revealed that it is included in a common existence with other people... The child is not so much in contact with the world of lifeless external stimuli, but through and through it in a much more internal, albeit primitive , community with surrounding people” (ibid., p. 309). Vygotsky, borrowing a term from German literature, designates this consciousness of an infant as the consciousness of “prime-we.” Thus, in the analyzed chapter, contrary to various biologization concepts, in

The atmosphere in which Vygotsky lived, he convincingly shows: both the emergence of individual mental life at the end of the neonatal period, and the form of consciousness that arises towards the end of infancy, are social in origin; they arise from the child’s communication with surrounding adults, and this communication is their source, although his very hypothesis about the nature of the structure of consciousness that arises at the end of infancy is currently disputed. In studies conducted over the past 20 years, the entire system of relations between a child and an adult has been thoroughly studied in the works of M. I. Lisina and her colleagues (M. I. Lisina, 1974 a, b). The material in the written chapters clearly presents Vygotsky's methodology. They show a method for analyzing the age-related (ontogenetic) development of a child’s consciousness and personality. It can be assumed that the remaining chapters of the book were constructed using the same method of analysis.

In 1933-1934. Vygotsky gave a course of lectures on child psychology (1984, vol. 4). The main problem discussed in the lecture dedicated to the crisis of the first year of life was the problem of the emergence of speech and its features, which clearly manifest themselves in the period of transition from infancy to early childhood. This resulted from the internal contradiction contained in the social situation of the infant’s development. The contradiction, according to Vygotsky, consists in the maximum dependence of the child on the adult with the simultaneous absence of adequate means of communication and is resolved in the appearance of speech, which during this period has the character of so-called autonomous speech. Vygotsky believed that the mutual misunderstanding of adults and children arising from the characteristics of this speech leads to hypobulic reactions, which are also one of the important symptoms of the crisis of the first year of life. Unfortunately, Vygotsky pays very little attention to hypobulic reactions. They have not been studied enough to date. At the same time, their study could shed light on the emergence of the first, still poorly differentiated form of consciousness (manifesting itself during the collapse of the social situation of development), a system of new relations between the child and adults that developed during infancy.

Vygotsky’s special attention to autonomous speech is also due to the fact that its example very easily demonstrates the transitional nature of development in critical periods. In addition, Vygotsky paid a lot of attention to the development of word meanings, and it was very important for him to find out what these meanings look like at the initial stage of speech development. It is with regret that we have to state that, despite the appearance in Soviet psychology large number In studies devoted to communication between infants and adults, the problems of the uniqueness of means of communication, especially speech, have not been sufficiently developed.

In his lecture on early childhood, Vygotsky makes an attempt to analyze the developmental processes at this stage and find out the genesis of the main neoplasm of the period, thereby once again checking the scheme for considering developmental processes developed by him. Although the analysis carried out by Vygotsky cannot be considered complete (many questions remained outside the scope of consideration), the transcript clearly shows the author’s train of thought, the difficulties he encountered in his first attempt to scientifically describe and analyze the development process in one of the most important periods of childhood. For the author, early childhood is important primarily because it is in this age period that the primary differentiation of mental functions occurs, a special function of perception arises and, on its basis, a systemic semantic structure of consciousness.

Thinking aloud (and Vygotsky’s lectures always had the character of such reflections), he first gives an external picture of the child’s behavior in this period, then explains the characteristics of behavior by sensorimotor unity, or the unity of affective perception and action; then a hypothesis is proposed about the emergence of the child’s primary differentiation of his “I”. Only after this does Vygotsky say: “Let us now dwell on the main types of child activity at this stage. This is one of the most difficult questions and, it seems to me, the least developed theoretically” (1984, vol. 4, p. 347).

Regardless of how Vygotsky resolved this question, its very formulation is of great interest. There is every reason to believe that he felt the absence of some link that would lead from contradictions to the social situation, to the emergence of basic new formations. Vygotsky took only the first step towards identifying such activity. He gave it a negative definition, comparing it with the expanded form of play of a child of the next period and establishing that it is not a game. To denote this type of activity, he used the term “serious game”, borrowed from German authors. Positive characteristics Vygotsky did not give this type of activity. He made no attempt to connect the development of this activity with the main new formations of the period. To explain mental development, Vygotsky draws on the development of speech. Analyzing the development of speech during this period, he puts forward two theses that have not lost their significance to this day. Firstly, the position that the development of speech, especially during this period, cannot be considered outside the context, outside the child’s communication with adults and interaction with “ideal” forms of speech communication, i.e. outside the language of adults, into which the speech of the child himself is woven child; secondly, that “if the sounding side of a child’s speech develops in direct dependence on the semantic side of a child’s speech, that is, it is subordinate to it” (ibid., p. 356). Of course, one cannot consider the development of mental processes outside the development of speech, but at the same time

It is hardly correct to explain the development of perception only by the child’s achievements in the sphere of language, leaving aside the child’s real practical mastery of human objects. And Vygotsky undoubtedly attempted such an explanation. There probably could not have been any other attempts at that time.

Several decades have passed since the lectures were given. Child psychology has accumulated a lot of new materials on the development of speech, objective actions, forms of communication with adults and among themselves, but all these materials lie side by side. Transcripts of Vygotsky’s lectures show an example of how disparate knowledge about the development of various aspects of the child’s psyche can be linked into a single picture at a certain stage of age development. Soviet psychologists will have to solve this problem on the basis of new materials and show the dynamics of development in early childhood. And here similar transcripts can be useful, in which a special approach to mental development is expressed.

When summarizing all the materials accumulated after Vygotsky’s death, it is necessary, if possible, to check and maintain the main hypotheses that were expressed by him: firstly, the idea that in early childhood the function of perception is first differentiated and systemic and semantic consciousness arises, and, secondly, secondly, about the emergence by the end of this period of a special form of personal consciousness, the external “I myself,” i.e., the primary separation of the child from the adult, which leads to the collapse of the previously established social situation of development.

The transcript of the lecture on the 3-year crisis is a summary of research, mainly foreign, as well as the author’s own observations in a consultation that worked under his leadership at the Experimental Defectology Institute. The transcript contains a reference to observations of the critical period by S. Bühler; mention of the first “age of obstinacy” by O. Cro. It is not so important who first identified this period as special; what is important is that Vygotsky drew attention to this period and analyzed its nature very deeply. He thoroughly analyzed the symptoms of this period. It is especially necessary to emphasize how behind the same symptom of disobedience or disobedience to adults, Vygotsky saw grounds that were completely different in mental nature. It is a detailed analysis of the mental nature various manifestations, characterizing the child’s behavior during this period, gave rise to Vygotsky’s important assumption that the crisis proceeds along the axis of perestroika social relations the child and the people around him. It seems to us essential that Vygotsky’s analysis allows us to assume: in this crisis two interrelated trends are intertwined - the tendency towards emancipation, towards separation from the adult and the tendency not towards affective, but towards strong-willed form behavior.

Many authors considered critical periods as periods associated with the authoritarian nature of upbringing and its cruelty. This is true, but only partially. Apparently, only obstinacy is such a general reaction to the education system. It is also true that with a harsh education system, the symptoms of the crisis manifest themselves more sharply, but this does not mean at all that with the softest education system there will be no critical period and its difficulties. Some facts indicate that with a relatively soft system of relations, the critical period is more muted. But even in these cases, children themselves sometimes actively seek opportunities to contrast themselves with adults; such opposition is internally necessary for them.

The materials of Vygotsky’s analysis of the nature of the three-year crisis also pose a number of important problems. We will point out only one of them. Isn’t the tendency towards independence, towards emancipation from an adult a necessary prerequisite and reverse side of the construction new system relationships between children and adults; Isn’t any emancipation of a child from adults at the same time a form of a deeper connection between the child and society, with adults?

The following transcript is dedicated to the crisis of seven years. It, like the previous one, is a generalization by Vygotsky of materials known to him from literature and advisory practice about the prerequisites for the transition from preschool to primary school age. Vygotsky’s thoughts are of great interest today, in connection with the discussion of the issue of the start time of schooling. The central idea of ​​the lecture is that behind the external manifestations - antics, mannerisms, whims that are observed at this age, there lies a loss of spontaneity by the child.

L. S. Vygotsky puts forward the assumption that such a loss of spontaneity is a consequence of the beginning differentiation of external and internal life. Differentiation becomes possible only when a generalization of his experiences occurs. A preschooler also has experiences, and the child experiences every reaction of an adult as a good or bad assessment, as a good or bad attitude towards himself from adults or peers. However, these experiences are momentary, they exist as separate moments of life and are relatively fleeting. At the age of 7, a generalization of a single experience of communication appears, associated with the attitude primarily from adults. On the basis of such a generalization, self-esteem arises in the child for the first time, the child enters a new period of life, in which authorities begin to form self-awareness.

The entire second part of the transcript has more general meaning and relates to the question of how a psychologist should study a child. It is directed against the study of the environment as a constant or very slowly changing developmental environment, habitat. Here Vygotsky raises the question of a unit that would contain

It should be noted that the problem of transitional, or critical, periods still requires its own research, which, unfortunately, clearly lags behind the study of other periods of childhood. It can be assumed that the study of critical periods requires a radical change in research strategy and methods. Here, apparently, long-term individual studies of individual children are necessary, in which only detailed symptoms of development during critical periods and the mental restructuring that the child undergoes during these periods can be revealed. The strategy of cutting followed by mathematical processing used in conventional research, in which the features of the transition from one period to another are lost, can hardly be suitable for studying this problem.

We think that not a single psychologist working in the field of child (age) psychology will ignore the materials discussed above, and perhaps will follow Vygotsky’s hypotheses, follow methodological principles analysis of age-related development put forward by him, or will turn his attention to critical periods. The latter is especially important, since when studying development during these periods, the focus will necessarily be on the individual child, and not on an abstract statistical average.

Persogenetic approach

The content of the persogenetic approach is most clearly presented in the works of A. Maslow and K. Rogers. They reject the determinism of internal or environmental programming. In their opinion, mental development is the result of a person’s own choice. The development process itself is spontaneous, since its driving force is the desire for self-actualization (according to A. Maslow) or the desire for actualization (according to K. Rogers). These aspirations are innate. The meaning of self-actualization or actualization is the development by a person of his own potential, his abilities, which leads to the development of a “fully functioning person.”

However, there are certain differences in the views of these authors. So, if A. Maslow believed that human behavior and his experience are regulated by a hierarchy of needs, then according to K. Rogers, “personality and behavior are to a greater extent a function of a person’s unique perception of the environment.” However, despite these differences, they both believed that "people always strive forward and, given the right conditions, realize their potential, demonstrating true mental health."

Credit to L.S. Vygotsky is that he was the first to introduce historical principle in the field of child psychology. Each form of cultural development, cultural behavior, he believed, is, in a certain sense, already a product of the historical development of mankind. The transformation of natural material into a historical form is always a process of complex change in the type of development itself, and by no means simple organic maturation.

All modern L.S. Vygotsky's theories of child development interpreted this process from a biologizing point of view. The largest scientific concepts answer questions about such parameters of child development as its course, conditions, source, form, specificity, driving forces.

From the point of view of L.S. Vygotsky, all contemporary theories described the course of child development as a process of transition from social to individual. Therefore, it is not surprising that the central problem of all foreign psychology without exception still remains the problem of socialization, the problem of the transition from biological existence to life as a socialized individual.

The conditions for development, from the point of view of most representatives of Western psychology, are heredity and environment. They look for the source of development within the individual, in his nature. However, the main feature of all concepts is the understanding of development as a person’s adaptation to his environment. This is their biologizing essence. In modern concepts, child development is also based on, if not hereditary, but biological processes of adaptation.

According to L.S. Vygotsky, higher mental functions arise initially as a form of collective behavior of the child, as a form of cooperation with other people, and only subsequently do they become individual functions of the child himself. So, for example, at first speech is a means of communication between people, but in the course of development it becomes internal and begins to perform an intellectual function.

L.S. Vygotsky emphasized that the attitude towards the environment changes with age, and, consequently, the role of the environment in development also changes. He emphasized that the environment should be considered not absolutely, but relatively, since the influence of the environment is determined by the child’s experiences. L.S. Vygotsky introduced the concept of key experience. As L.I. rightly pointed out later. Bozhovich, “the concept of experience introduced by L.S. Vygotsky, identified and designated the most important psychological reality, with the study of which it is necessary to begin the analysis of the role of the environment in the development of the child; experience is like a knot in which the diverse influences of various external and internal circumstances are tied.”

L.S. Vygotsky formulated a number of laws of child mental development:

* Child development has a complex organization in time: its own rhythm, which does not coincide with the rhythm of time, and its own rhythm, which changes in different years of life. Thus, a year of life in infancy is not equal to a year of life in adolescence.

* The law of metamorphosis in child development: development is a chain of qualitative changes. A child is not just a small adult who knows less or can do less, but a being with a qualitatively different psyche.

* The law of uneven child development: each side in the child’s psyche has its own optimal period of development. This law is associated with the hypothesis of L.S. Vygotsky about the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness.

* Law of development of higher mental functions. Higher mental functions arise initially as a form of collective behavior, as a form of cooperation with other people, and only subsequently do they become internal individual functions of the child himself. Distinctive features of higher mental functions: indirectness, awareness, arbitrariness, systematicity. They are formed during life, formed as a result of mastering special tools, means developed during the historical development of society; the development of external mental functions is associated with learning in the broad sense of the word; it cannot occur otherwise than in the form of assimilation of given patterns, therefore this development goes through a number of stages.

The specificity of child development is that it is not subject to the action of biological laws, as in animals, but to the action of socio-historical laws. The biological type of development occurs in the process of adaptation to nature by inheriting the properties of the species and through individual experience. A person does not have innate forms of behavior in the environment. Its development occurs through the appropriation of historically developed forms and methods of activity.

The development conditions were later described in more detail by A.N. Leontyev. These are morphophysiological features of the brain and communication. These conditions must be set in motion by the activity of the subject. An activity occurs in response to a need. Needs are also not innate, they are formed, and the first need is the need to communicate with an adult. On its basis, the baby enters into practical communication with people, which is later carried out through objects and through speech.

According to L.S. Vygotsky, the driving force of mental development is learning. It is important to note that development and training are different processes. According to L.S. Vygotsky, the development process has internal laws of self-expression. “Development,” he writes, “is the process of formation of a person or personality, accomplished through the emergence at each stage of new qualities specific to a person, prepared by the entire previous course of development, but not contained in a ready-made form at earlier stages.”

Training, according to L.S. Vygotsky, there is an internally necessary and universal moment in the process of development in a child of not natural, but historical characteristics. Learning is not the same as development. It creates a zone of proximal development, that is, it brings to life in the child, awakens and sets in motion internal processes of development, which at first are possible for the child only in the sphere of relationships with others and cooperation with friends, but then, permeating the entire internal course of development, they become an asset the child himself.

L.S. Vygotsky carried out experimental studies of the relationship between learning and development. This is the study of everyday and scientific concepts, the study of the acquisition of native and foreign languages, oral and written speech, and the zone of proximal development. The latter is a genuine discovery by L.S. Vygotsky, which is now known to psychologists all over the world.

The zone of proximal development is the distance between the level of the child’s actual development and the level of possible development, determined using tasks solved under the guidance of adults. As L.S. writes Vygotsky, “the zone of proximal development determines functions that have not yet matured, but are in the process of maturation; functions that can be called not the fruits of development, but the buds of development, the flowers of development.” “The level of actual development characterizes the successes of development, the results of development as of yesterday, and the zone of proximal development characterizes mental development for tomorrow.”

The concept of the zone of proximal development has important theoretical significance and is associated with such fundamental problems of child and educational psychology as the emergence and development of higher mental functions, the relationship between learning and mental development, the driving forces and mechanisms of the child’s mental development.

The zone of proximal development is a logical consequence of the law of formation of higher mental functions, which are formed first in joint activity, in collaboration with other people, and gradually become internal mental processes of the subject. When a mental process is formed in joint activity, it is in the zone of proximal development; after formation, it becomes a form of actual development of the subject. The phenomenon of the zone of proximal development indicates the leading role of learning in the mental development of children. “Training is only good then,” wrote L.S. Vygotsky, “when it goes ahead of development.” Then it awakens and brings to life many other functions that lie in the zone of proximal development. In relation to school, this means that teaching should focus not so much on already matured functions and completed development cycles, but rather on maturing functions. Learning opportunities are largely determined by the zone of proximal development. Training, of course, can be guided by development cycles that have already been completed - this is lowest threshold learning - but it can focus on functions that have not yet matured, on the zone of proximal development, which characterizes the highest threshold of learning. Between these thresholds lies the optimal learning period. Learning with a focus on the zone of proximal development can lead development forward, because what lies in the zone of proximal development is transformed at one age, improved and moves to the level of actual development at the next age, at a new age stage. A child at school carries out activities that constantly give him the opportunity to grow. This activity helps him rise, as it were, above himself.

Like any valuable idea, the concept of the zone of proximal development is of great practical importance for resolving the issue of optimal learning periods, and this is especially important both for the mass of children and for each individual child. The zone of proximal development is a symptom, a criterion in diagnosing a child’s mental development. Reflecting the area of ​​processes that have not yet matured, but are already maturing, the zone of proximal development gives an idea of internal state, potential development opportunities and on this basis allows us to make a scientifically based forecast and practical recommendations. The definition of both levels of development - actual and potential, as well as at the same time the zone of proximal development - together constitutes what L.S. Vygotsky called normative age diagnosis in contrast to symptomatic diagnosis, which is based only on external signs of development. An important consequence of this idea is that the zone of proximal development can be used as an indicator of individual differences in children.

One of the proofs of the influence of training on a child’s mental development is the hypothesis of L.S. Vygotsky about the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness and its development in ontogenesis. Putting forward this idea, L.S. Vygotsky strongly opposed the functionalism of contemporary psychology. He believed that human consciousness is not the sum of individual processes, but a system, their structure. No function develops in isolation. The development of each function depends on what structure it is included in and what place it occupies in it. Thus, at an early age, perception is at the center of consciousness; in preschool age - memory; in school - thinking. All other mental processes develop at each age under the influence of the dominant function in consciousness. According to L.S. Vygotsky, the process of mental development consists of a restructuring of the systemic structure of consciousness, which is caused by a change in its semantic structure, that is, the level of development of generalizations. Entry into consciousness is possible only through speech and the transition from one structure of consciousness to another is carried out thanks to the development of the meaning of the word, in other words, generalization. If the systemic development of learning consciousness does not have a direct impact, then the development of generalization and, consequently, changes in the semantic structure of consciousness can be directly controlled. By forming a generalization and transferring it to a higher level, learning rebuilds the entire system of consciousness. Therefore, according to L.S. Vygotsky, “one step in learning can mean a hundred steps in development,” or “we teach for a penny, but we get development for a ruble.”

Research by domestic psychologists has discovered the role of a child’s activity in his mental development. The development process is the self-movement of the subject due to his activity with objects, and the facts of heredity and environment are only conditions that do not determine the essence of the development process, but only various variations within the norm.

Next step is associated with the answer to the question of whether this activity remains the same throughout child development or not. It was made by A.N. Leontyev, who deepened the development of the idea of ​​L.S. Vygotsky about the leading type of activity.

Thanks to the works of A.N. Leontiev’s leading activity is considered as a criterion for the periodization of mental development, as an indicator of the child’s psychological age. Leading activity is characterized by the fact that other types of activity arise and differentiate in it, basic mental processes are restructured, and changes occur in the psychological characteristics of the individual at a given stage of its development. The content and form of leading activity depends on the specific historical conditions in which the child’s development takes place. In modern socio-historical conditions, when in many countries children are covered unified system public education, leading in the development of the child become following view s activities: emotional-direct communication of a baby with adults, instrumental-object activity of a young child, role-playing play of a preschooler, educational activities in primary school age, intimate-personal communication of adolescents, vocational educational activities in early adolescence. The change in leading types of activity takes a long time to prepare and is associated with the emergence of new motives that are formed within the leading activity that precedes a given stage of development, and which encourage the child to change the position he occupies in the system of relationships with other people. The development of the problem of leading activity in child development is the fundamental contribution of Soviet scientists to child psychology.

In numerous studies by A.V. Zaporozhets, A.N. Leontyeva, D.B. Elkonin and their colleagues showed the dependence of mental processes on the nature and structure of external, objective activity. Monographs devoted to the analysis of the main types of leading activity in ontogenesis (especially books by V.V. Davydov, D.B. Elkonin) have become the property of world science.

The study of the processes of formation and change of motives, the formation and loss of personal meaning in activities was begun under the leadership of A.N. Leontiev and continued in the studies of L.I. Bozovic and her staff. The question of the substantive, operational content of activity was developed in the studies of L.Ya. Galperin and his staff. They especially considered the role of organizing orienting activities for the formation of physical, perceptual and mental actions. The most productive direction in domestic child psychology was the study of the specific features of the transition of external activity to internal activity, the patterns of the process of internalization in ontogenesis.

The next step in the development of the ideas of L.S. Vygotsky was prepared by the works of L.Ya. Galperin and A.V. Zaporozhets, devoted to the analysis of the structure and formation of an objective action, identifying the indicative and executive parts in it. Thus began an extremely productive study of the functional development of the child’s psyche, predicted by L.S. Vygotsky. The question of the relationship between the functional and age-related genesis of mental processes has become relevant.

Ideas L.S. Vygotsky and A.N. Leontiev served as support for D.B. Elkonin, who managed to create a scientifically productive concept of periodization of mental development of the individual, generally accepted in Russian psychology. When constructing periodization, D. B. Elkonin is based on the following:

Age development is overall change personality, the formation of a new plan of reflection, changes in activity and life position, the establishment of special relationships with others, the formation of new motives of behavior and value systems;

On the dialectical idea of ​​the development process (determined by internal contradictions, purposeful, uneven with critical and lytic periods);

On a specific historical understanding of the nature of childhood (each historical era has its own periodization of childhood);

Periodization should be based on the natural development of activity and a growing person.

Hence, the entire mental life of a child is considered as a process of continuous change of activities, and at each age stage a “leading activity” is identified, with the assimilation of the structures of which the most important psychological new formations of a given age are associated. You develop all activities within the framework of the “child in society” system, the subsystems of which are “child - thing or social object” and “child - adult”. Within the system of leading activity, D. B. Elkonin discovers a hidden dialectical contradiction between two aspects of leading activity - operational and technical, related to the development of the “child - thing” subsystem, and emotional and motivational, related to the development of the “child - adult” subsystem. In the general sequence of leading activities, activities with preferential development of one side or the other alternate alternately.

Each era of childhood consists of two periods that are naturally interconnected. It opens with a period in which primarily the assimilation of tasks, motives, norms of human activity and the development of the motivational-need sphere take place. Here the transition to the second period is being prepared, in which the primary assimilation of methods of action with objects and the formation of operational and technical capabilities occurs. The transition from one era to the next occurs when a discrepancy arises between the operational and technical capabilities of the child and the tasks and motives of activity on the basis of which they were formed.

Age periodization (according to D. B. Elkonin)

era	Period	Leading activity	Main neoplasms
I	Infancy (up to 1 year)	Direct emotional communication	Formation of the need for communication, emotional attitude
I	Early childhood	Object-manipulative activity	Development of speech and visual-effective thinking
II	Preschool age	Role-playing game	Desire for socially significant activities (readiness for school)
II	Junior schoolboy	Educational activities	Arbitrariness of mental phenomena, internal plan of action
III	Teenager	Intimate and personal communication	Self-esteem, critical attitude towards people, desire for adulthood and independence, submission to collective norms
III	Senior school age	Educational and professional activities	Formation of worldview, professional interests, self-awareness. Dreams and ideals

I would like to note that the most difficult thing for D.B. Elkonin dealt with the identification of leading activity in adolescence (3rd era). Theoretically, deductively postulating that this era should be divided into two periods, he was never able to meaningfully interpret the leading activities that distinguish the first period from the second. D.I. Feldshtein proposes to consider socially useful activity as leading in the second period of adolescence, which follows the activity of communication with comrades proposed by Elkonin.

The absence of specific time boundaries in this classification suggests that the author placed the main emphasis not on the metric, but on the topological characteristics of age development, especially since, according to Elkonin, age boundaries are relative and associated with the historical era (which we see at the moment , when ideas about the age capabilities of children are revised).

One can say following L.S. Vygotsky: hypothesis of D.B. Elkonina, taking into account the law of periodicity in child development, explains in a new way the content of developmental crises. So, 3 years and 11 years are crises of relationships, followed by orientation in human relationships; 1 year, 7 years - crises of worldview that open up orientation in the world of things.

Hypothesis D.B. Elkonina creatively develops the teachings of L.S. Vygotsky, it overcomes the intellectualism of his teaching about the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness. It explains the emergence and development of the child’s motivational-need sphere of personality. Previously, the theory of A.N. Leontyeva showed the activity mechanism of the formation of generalizations, removing some of the ideas of L.S. Vygotsky about the role of verbal communication, expressed by him in his historical time.

Development of child psychology L.S. Vygotsky and his school are inextricably linked with the introduction to Scientific research strategies for the formation of mental processes. As emphasized by L.S. Vygotsky, experiment in psychology - a model for the implementation of a theoretical concept. To study how a child assimilates the tools and means of culture during development, an experimental genetic method was developed to reveal the origin of the mental process.

Questions and tasks for independent work

1. Describe key issues understanding of age-related development in the works of classics of psychology.

2. Describe the possibilities of applying the theoretical provisions of this chapter for practical and research work with children.

3. Analyze the dynamic structure of personality and its formation in ontogenesis from the perspective of psychoanalysis.

4. List the approaches to the periodization of mental development in developmental psychology.

DEVIATIONS IN MENTAL DEVELOPMENT

3.1. Mental retardation

Features of the psyche of the mentally retarded have been studied quite fully (L.V. Zankov, V.G. Petrova, B.I. Pinsky, S.Ya. Rubinshtein, I.M. Solovyov, Zh.I. Shif, etc.) and reflected in specialized literature. Research shows that mental retardation is a qualitative change in the psyche, the personality as a whole, resulting from organic damage to the central nervous system. This is a developmental atypia in which not only the intellect suffers, but also emotion, will, behavior, and physical development. Such a diffuse character pathological development mentally retarded children follows from the characteristics of their higher nervous activity.

Mentally retarded children are characterized by underdevelopment of cognitive interests, which is expressed in the fact that they have less need for cognition than their normal peers.

It is known that with mental underdevelopment, already the first stage of cognition – perception – suffers. Often the perception of mentally retarded people suffers due to their decreased hearing, vision, and underdevelopment of speech. But even in cases where the analyzers are intact, the perception of these children differs in a number of features. The main disadvantage is a violation of the generality of perception; its slow pace is noted in comparison with normal children. Mentally retarded people need much more time to perceive the material offered to them (picture, text, etc.). The slowness of perception is further aggravated by the fact that, due to mental underdevelopment, they have difficulty identifying the main thing, do not understand the internal connections between parts, characters, etc., therefore their perception is less differentiated. These features during learning manifest themselves in a slow pace of recognition, as well as in the fact that students confuse graphically similar letters, numbers, objects, etc. a narrow scope of perception is also noted. Such children snatch out individual parts in an observed object or in a listened text, sometimes without seeing or hearing the material that is important for understanding. In addition, a violation of the selectivity of perception is characteristic.

Perception is inextricably linked with thinking. If a student has perceived only the external aspects of the educational material and has not grasped the main thing, the internal dependencies, then understanding, mastering and completing the task will be difficult. A distinctive feature of the thinking of mentally retarded people is uncriticality, the inability to critically evaluate their work. They often do not notice their mistakes. All mentally retarded children are characterized by reduced activity of thought processes and a weak regulatory role of thinking. Mentally retarded people usually start doing work. Without listening to instructions, without understanding the purpose of the task, without an internal plan of action, with weak self-control.

The characteristics of children’s perception and comprehension of educational material are inextricably linked with the characteristics of their memory. The main processes of memory are memorization. Preservation and reproduction in mentally retarded people have specific features, because are formed in conditions abnormal development. They remember external ones better. Sometimes visually perceived signs are accidental. It is more difficult for them to recognize and remember internal logical connections. It is also necessary to point out such a feature of memory as episodic forgetfulness. It is associated with overwork of the nervous system due to its general weakness.

Also, the mentally retarded have difficulties in reproducing images of perception - ideas, undifferentiation, fragmentation. Similarity of images and other disturbances of ideas negatively affect the development of cognitive activity of mentally retarded people.

In mentally retarded people, all aspects of speech development also suffer: phonetic, lexical, grammatical. As a result, there are various types of writing disorders, difficulties in mastering reading techniques, and a reduced need for verbal communication.

Mental retardation manifests itself not only in the immaturity of cognitive activity, but also in the disturbance of emotional volitional sphere, which has a number of features. There is underdevelopment of emotions, there are no shades of experiences. A characteristic feature is the instability of emotions. A state of joy can unexpectedly give way to sadness, laughter to tears, etc. their experiences are shallow and superficial. It is also necessary to take into account the state of the volitional sphere of the mentally retarded. The weakness of their own intentions, motives, and great suggestibility are the distinctive qualities of their volitional processes.

All these features of the mental processes of mentally retarded children influence the nature of their activities and are persistent in nature, since they are the result of organic lesions at different stages of development (genetic, intrauterine, during childbirth, postnatal).

Although mental retardation is considered an irreversible phenomenon, this does not mean that it cannot be corrected. Some researchers note positive dynamics in the development of mentally retarded children with properly organized medical, pedagogical and psychological influence in special (correctional) institutions.

3.2. Children with mental retardation

Mental retardation (MDD) is a violation of the normal pace of mental development, as a result of which a child who has reached school age continues to remain in the circle of preschool and play interests. With mental retardation, children cannot engage in school activities, perceive school assignments and complete them; they behave in the classroom in the same way as in a group game setting kindergarten or in the family.

The term “mental retardation” means a deviation that has psychological, pedagogical and medical aspects. At its core, this concept is psychological and pedagogical, although it is based more or less pronounced violations neuropsychic or somatic health or developmental characteristics of the child that do not allow him to cope with the demands of the social environment, and, above all, in the situation of learning and adaptation to the conditions of a kindergarten or school. Therefore, ZPR is distinguished according to a psychological and pedagogical criterion: the discrepancy between the level of development of mental functions and the level that is accepted as normative for children of the same age.

A child with mental retardation seems to correspond in his emotional and mental development to a younger age, but this correspondence is only external. A thorough psychological study of the cognitive activity of such a child shows his specific characteristics, caused, first of all, by a decrease in the level of perception, attention, thinking, memory, emotional-volitional regulation, mild deficiencies in speech development and motor coordination, low performance, and weak self-control.

Children with mental retardation, despite significant variability, are characterized by a number of signs that make it possible to distinguish this condition from pedagogical neglect and mental retardation; they do not have disorders of individual analyzers, they do not have intellectual disability, but at the same time they persistently do not succeed in public school due to immaturity of complex forms of behavior, purposeful activity against the background of rapid exhaustion, fatigue, and impairment of performance. The pathogenetic basis of these symptoms is a previous organic disease of the central nervous system.

3.3. Pedagogical neglect

Among children with behavioral deviations, one can distinguish pedagogically neglected children, who are characterized by deviations in moral development, the presence of fixed negative forms of behavior, and indiscipline. The range of actions of such children, adolescents and high school students is very large: from persistent manifestations of individual negative qualities and traits (stubbornness, indiscipline, rudeness) to the presence of clearly asocial forms of behavior such as delinquency and even crime.

The causes of deviations may be unfavorable conditions of the social environment, which have a traumatic effect on the mental development of the child, the characteristics of his behavior (dysfunctional families, drinking parents, low financial status, the influence of antisocial peer groups, etc.).

3.4. Personal characteristics of children and adolescents with developmental disabilities

Personality is one of the most complex psychological formations in terms of structure, genesis and functioning. Personality characterizes a person in terms of his social connections and relationships with other people. Otherwise, a person is a person who freely and responsibly determines his place among other members of society.

As the problems of labor adaptation and social integration of people with disabilities are realized, the issue of personality formation with various deviations in mental development is becoming increasingly relevant. Researchers hold several points of view. The first is to deny any negative impact of a nuclear disorder on the process of developing the personality of a special child. Representatives of this point of view refer to the social nature of the determination of this, denying the role of the biological factor.

Proponents of the second approach defend the idea of ​​differentiated influence of the main pathogenic factor. They assume that some aspects of a developing personality are subject to negative impact primary pathology to a greater extent than others. It is emphasized that there are certain structural components of personality that are characterized by special tolerance in this regard.

Representatives of the third direction believe that the development of the individual as a whole must inevitably experience the negative influence of the main disorder.

At the moment, the opinion about the negative impact of the initial violation on the process of formation of the personality of a special child can hardly be doubted, because the process itself constitutes only one aspect of the ontogenesis of the psyche as a whole. The systemic nature of the structure of human consciousness suggests that a violation of one of its components at a certain stage must inevitably affect the others. The main content of the problem is to reveal the mechanism of influence of the initial disorder on the formation of personality, the role and significance of numerous mediating factors that act differently each time depending on the nature of the disorder, its severity and duration.

The pathogenic impact of disorders on the formation of personality can be traced by revealing the mechanism of occurrence of certain characterological features. Among these features are a narrowing of the sphere of interests and needs, a decrease in the level of general activity, weakening of the motivational sphere with the dominance of the motive of avoiding failure and a reduced motive of achievement, which is expressed by refusal to fight. In addition, it is indicated on high performance introversion, apathy, lack of initiative, egocentric attitudes, autism, anxiety, distrust, suggestibility, a tendency to imitate, poor content of self-awareness, inappropriately high or low unstable self-esteem, a significant discrepancy between the image of the real and ideal “I” and much more.

All these qualities characterize the personality as a whole from the point of view of its immaturity. It must be emphasized that the above list of negative personal characteristics may be characteristic not only of persons with various forms of developmental disorders, but also without them. Differences may only relate to the degree of severity, persistence and likelihood of occurrence.

Personal changes do not arise directly under the influence of a violation of a specific function, they are just a tool, a means of achieving specific human goals. Personality is formed in the process of inclusion in the system of social relations. This or that pathology makes it difficult to integrate into this system and changes the nature of the relationships themselves as selective connections of a person with the world, primarily with the world of culture. Only deficiencies of an individual function mediated in this way can influence the process of personality formation.

3.5. Children's giftedness: signs, types,

personality traits of a gifted child

Giftedness is a systemic quality of the psyche that develops throughout life, which determines a person’s ability to achieve higher, extraordinary results in one or more types of activity compared to other people.

A gifted child is a child who stands out for his bright, obvious, sometimes outstanding achievements (or has internal prerequisites for such achievements) in one or another type of activity.

Today, most psychologists recognize that the level, qualitative uniqueness and nature of the development of giftedness are always the result of a complex interaction of heredity (natural inclinations) and the sociocultural environment, mediated by the child’s activities (play, study, work). In this case, the child’s own activity, as well as the psychological mechanisms of personal self-development that underlie the formation and implementation of individual talent, are of particular importance.

Signs of giftedness are manifested in the child’s real activities and can be identified at the level of observation of the nature of his actions. Signs of obvious giftedness are fixed in its definition and are associated with a high level of performance. At the same time, a child’s giftedness should be judged in the unity of the categories “I can” and “I want,” therefore, signs of giftedness cover two aspects of a gifted child’s behavior: instrumental and motivational. Instrumental characterizes the methods of his activity, and motivational characterizes the child’s attitude to one or another aspect of reality, as well as to his activity.

The instrumental aspect of behavior can be characterized by the following features: rapid mastery of an activity and high success in its implementation; using and inventing new ways of activity while searching for a solution in a given situation; the formation of a qualitatively unique individual style of activity, expressed in the desire to do everything “your own way” and associated with the self-sufficient system of self-regulation inherent in a gifted child; high structure, the ability to see the subject being studied in a system of various connections, which provides amazing ease of transition from a single fact or image to their generalization and a detailed form of interpretation. As well as a unique type of learning ability, which can manifest itself both in high speed and ease of learning, and in a slow pace of learning with subsequent abrupt change knowledge structures.

The motivational aspect of behavior can be described by the following features: increased selective sensitivity to certain aspects of objective activity (signs, sounds, colors, technical devices, plants, etc.) or certain forms of one’s own activity (physical, cognitive, artistic expression, etc. .); increased cognitive need, which manifests itself in curiosity and initiative; pronounced interest in certain activities or areas of activity; rejection of standard, typical tasks and ready-made answers; high demands on the results of one’s own work, a tendency to set extremely difficult goals and perseverance in achieving them, the desire for perfection.

Behavioral signs Giftedness is variable and often contradictory in its manifestations, since it depends on the subject content of the activity and the social context. However, even the presence of one of the signs should attract the attention of a specialist and direct him to a thorough and time-consuming analysis of each specific individual case.

The systematization of types of giftedness is determined by the criterion that forms the basis of the classification. Giftedness can be divided into both qualitative and quantitative aspects. Qualitative characteristics of giftedness express the specifics of a person’s mental capabilities and the characteristics of their manifestation in certain types of activity. Quantitative characteristics of giftedness make it possible to describe the degree of their expression. Among the criteria for identifying types of giftedness, the following can be mentioned: the type of activity and the spheres of the psyche that support it; degree of formation; form of manifestations; breadth of manifestations in various types of activities; features of age development.

According to the first criterion (type of activity), talent is distinguished: in practical activities - craft, sports and organizational; in cognitive activity - intellectual talent; in artistic and aesthetic activities - choreographic, stage, literary and poetic, visual and musical; in communicative activities - leadership and attractive talent; in spiritual-value activities - talent, which is manifested in the creation of new spiritual values ​​and serving people.

Based on the criterion “form of behavior,” a distinction is made between actual giftedness and potential giftedness. Current talent is psychological characteristics child with already achieved indicators of mental development, which manifest themselves in more high level performing activities. Potential giftedness is a psychological characteristic of a child who has certain mental capabilities (potential) for high achievements.

According to the criterion “form of manifestation”, we can talk about obvious talent and hidden talent. Obvious giftedness reveals itself in the child’s activities quite clearly and clearly, including in unfavorable conditions. Hidden talent manifests itself in an atypical, disguised form; it is not noticed by others.

According to the criterion of “breadth of manifestations” in various types of activities, one can distinguish general giftedness and special giftedness. General talent manifests itself in relation to various types of activities and acts as the basis of their productivity.

Special talent reveals itself in specific types of activities and is usually defined in relation to individual areas.

According to the criterion of “features of age-related development,” it is possible to differentiate between early giftedness and late giftedness. The decisive indicators here are the rate of mental development of the child, as well as those age stages at which giftedness appears explicitly.

So, any individual case of childhood giftedness can be assessed from the point of view of all of the listed criteria for classifications of types of giftedness.

Questions and tasks for independent work

1. Define the concepts of “giftedness” and “gifted child.”

2. Name the criteria for determining giftedness.

3. What is the relationship between biological and social factors in the process of personality formation in normal and pathological conditions?

4. What should be understood by mental retardation?

5. How does mental retardation differ from mental retardation?

CHAPTER IV

MENTAL DEVELOPMENT AND FORMATION OF PERSONALITY IN ONTOGENESIS: NEWBORN, INFANT