How does thought processes develop from childhood to adulthood? According to J. Bruner's concepts(1966), at the first stage, sensorimotor reflection, Our knowledge of the world is primarily of a sensory and motor nature. At the second stage, iconic display, the child retains in memory images of real objects perceived by him, and learns about the world with the help of mental images and ideas. During adolescence and adolescence, this world of images gradually gives way to concepts - symbolic representations of objects. The stimulus for this transition to symbolic representation is mainly speech.
J. Bruner emphasizes that language is the most important tool for the development of cognitive processes. The same point of view, according to which the development of cognitive processes is inseparable from the development of speech, was expressed back in 1934 by the Soviet psychologist L. S. Vygotsky. Language is not only a means of transmitting cultural heritage, but also a regulator of behavior (since a word can cause or suppress a particular action).
According to concepts AND. Piaget(1966), the development of cognitive processes represents result permanent attempts person adapt to environmental changes. External influences force the body either to modify existing activity structures if they no longer meet the requirements of adaptation, or, if necessary, to develop new structures, i.e. adaptation is carried out using two mechanisms: 1) assimilation, in which a person tries to adapt a new situation to existing structures and skills; 2) accommodation, in which old patterns and methods of response are modified in order to adapt them to a new situation.
The theory of J. Piaget considers mental development as a continuous and unchanging sequence of stages, each of which is prepared by the previous one and in turn prepares the next.
J. Piaget identifies three main stages in the development of cognitive processes.
- 1. Sensorimotor stage- formation and development of sensory and motor structures (the first two years of a child’s life); The sensorimotor stage is characterized by the development of perception, active actions, the formation and functioning of visual-effective thinking, and includes six substages:
- a) from the first hours after birth, children are able to distinguish sounds of different intensities, recognize the mother’s voice, and exhibit unconditioned reflexes of sucking and blinking;
- b) in a two-month-old baby, visual perception is still poorly developed, he poorly distinguishes shades of colors and has low visual acuity. But he already recognizes his mother’s face, he forms conditioned reflexes to repeated stimuli;
- c) by four months, the child begins to distinguish blue, red, yellow and green colors, grasps and feels objects with his hand, motor skills are formed (from 1 to 4 months) - conditioned reflexes as a result of the child’s interaction with the environment (grasping a bottle with a pacifier, etc. .P.);
- d) circular reactions are formed (from 4 to 8 months) - the development of coordination between perceptual systems and motor movements (grasping a rope, causing a rattle to shake, in order to make it rattle); by 6 months the child begins to recognize objects and other people’s faces, perceives the depth of space; but up to 7 months, the child will not reach for the toy if the toy is covered with a blanket: if the object has disappeared from sight, it means that it does not exist for the baby;
- e) coordination of means and goals (from 8 to 12 months) - the child’s actions are more and more deliberate, aimed at achieving their goal;
- f) random discovery of new funds (from 12 to 18 months) - (by pulling the tablecloth, you can get objects lying on the table, etc.);
- g) invention of new means (from 18 to 24 months) - search for new solutions to achieve goals, getting desired items, solving 2-3-phase problems.
The sensorimotor stage is characterized by the functioning of visual thinking and the formation of visual-figurative thinking.
- 2. Specific Operations Stage includes:
- A) preoperative level(from 2 to 5 years) - it is characterized by the formation of visual-figurative thinking, figurative symbolic thinking, which allows the child to imagine objects using mental images and designate them with names or symbols. The thinking of a child differs significantly from the thinking of an adult both in form and content. The structure of a child’s thinking is characterized by the main features: egocentrism and syncretism.
Egocentrism thinking is manifested in the fact that the child perceives the world as his continuation, which makes sense only in terms of satisfying his needs, is not able to look at the world from someone else’s point of view and grasp the connection between objects (for example, a child calls his grandmother on the phone and says: “Grandma, look how beautiful my doll is!”).
Syncretism thinking is manifested in the fact that the child isolates individual details from the whole, but cannot connect them with each other and with the whole, “everything is mixed up indiscriminately,” cannot establish connections between different elements of the situation, and therefore, explain his actions, give arguments in the benefit of what it claims confuses cause and effect. According to J. Piaget, the child’s way of thinking is also characterized "children's realism"(for example, he draws not what he sees, but what he knows, hence the “transparency” of children’s drawings), animism(projects his “I” onto things, endowing moving objects with consciousness and life: cars, sun, clouds, rivers, etc.), artificialism(the child is convinced that everything that exists is created by the will of man and is intended to serve him: for example, to the question: “What is the sun?” he answers: “This is to shine for us,” to the question: “Who is mother?” - “This who cooks the food.");
- b) level of concrete actions(from 2 before 11 years): words increasingly begin to mean specific objects, and actions are gradually interiorized. This is how thinking develops. At first it is only subjective in nature: it is focused on what the child sees or knows, and not on reality in itself. Thus, the child’s thinking at this stage is egocentric, but allows him to manipulate objects, compare them, classify them, and carry out specific operations on them;
- V) first level of specific operations(from 5-6 to 7-8 years) - the child acquires the ability to arrange objects to reduce their size and classify them (for example, pictures of birds - to a group of birds, fish - to fish), an idea of preserving material is formed;
- G) second level of specific operations(from 8 to 11 years) - ideas about the conservation of mass and volume, an idea about time and speed, as well as about measurement using a standard are formed. And only by the age of 10 does a child acquire the ability to objectively interpret concrete reality. This ability is finally formed at the third stage - formal operations.
- 3. Formal Operations Stage(from 11 - 12 to 15 years old). Mental operations can be carried out without any specific support, conceptual thinking is formed, functioning with the help of concepts, hypotheses and logical rules of deduction, abstract thinking develops, allowing a teenager to imagine numbers as far from concrete experience as a billion, facts from the distant past, or to assimilate complex classifications in biology, etc.
According to J. Piaget, this stage reaches full development by 14-16 years. However, many studies have shown that only a portion of people (25-50%) can actually think abstractly.
The works of J. Piaget showed that the development of intelligence consists of a transition from egocentrism through decentration to the objective position of the child in relation to the outside world and himself.
A person’s mental abilities reach their peak by the age of 18-20 and do not decline significantly until the age of 60. Differences between mental potential in old age and youth are revealed if we take into account the speed of mental reaction and the level of memory. With age, the speed of thinking decreases, short-term memory, the speed of learning and receiving information deteriorate, and the process of organizing material during memorization becomes more difficult. A sharp weakening of mental activity is observed in people shortly before death. Disturbances in cognitive processes can occur as a result of somatic and mental illnesses
Changes in a newborn's weight and height are easy to monitor. But it's not so easy to understand what's going on inside its brain as it develops.
The parts of the child’s brain that control body functions are fully formed and will not change. The baby can breathe, eat, etc. But those departments that are responsible for the child’s understanding of himself and the world around him will change and develop.
The newborn's brain is unable to fully use functions such as perception, thinking, remembering, speech and physical coordination. The process by which a child gradually learns to use these skills is called cognitive development.
When does cognitive development begin?
During the last weeks of pregnancy, did you relax by watching your favorite TV show? Don’t you think now that the child calms down at the first sounds of the musical intro for this program? If so, then he is showing you that he could recognize and remember even before he was born.
A few weeks after birth, the baby begins to understand that certain actions lead to certain results. But the ability to determine what action and what result will develop later.
Try tying a ribbon to your child's leg so that when he pulls it, he sets the mobile in motion. The baby will begin to jerk his leg more actively, but after a couple of days he will forget what he needs to do to make the mobile move. At link 721>six months, the baby will most likely remember what to do for a couple of weeks.
A child's ability to make connections between his actions and what follows is called recognition. A more complex skill related to memory is called recall. It represents the ability to think about something out of context. An example would be a situation in which a child thinks about his crib while sitting in a car seat.
The ability to reproduce rarely appears in children before six months. After six months, the child will begin to use actions as... The gesture with which a child shows his desire to be picked up is one of the very first such actions.
At about six months, your baby will likely stop putting toys in his mouth or banging them and begin to show that he understands that they can be handled in different ways: a car needs to be pushed, and a teddy bear can be hugged.
How to promote a child's cognitive development?
Much of a child's cognitive development occurs naturally, but you can help your baby through the process. Over the past 100 years, parents have become more conscious of their children's development. Now they are trying to take into account the physiological characteristics of the child’s brain development and, in accordance with this, help the child learn about the world. As a result, smarter children grow up.
Therefore, it is very important how you communicate with your child.
The child begins to explore the world around him immediately after birth. Your newborn will recognize your smell and voice. He likes to look at your face. He moves in time with your speech and repeats the movements of his lips. If you watch your child carefully, you will understand when he gives you signals that require your response.
Children learn new things through repetition. Therefore, play simple games with your baby<игры. Дайте ему возможность освоить игру и не жалейте времени, чтобы играть с ним вместе.
Toys that are correctly selected according to the child’s age are also useful. However, try not to buy too many toys, otherwise they will distract your child. If distracted, the child will not be able to concentrate on one thing.
When does a child develop comprehension skills?
Each child has his own pace of development. We provide general information about the stages in the development of understanding.
From birth to three months
The baby likes your ringing voice, so he turns towards its sound. If you stick your tongue out at him, he will repeat after you.
The child does not realize that certain actions lead to a certain result. At six weeks, he still does not understand that you exist even when you are not next to him. Seeing you every time, he doesn’t even realize that you are the same person. He is not afraid of strangers and happily goes into everyone's arms.
Three to six months
Now the child understands that he can perform an action and get a result. He knows how to separate himself from the world around him. He realizes that even if two toys touch each other, they are not one.
The child learns to classify. Show your child six pictures of cats and watch how surprised he is when the seventh picture is a dog. Place two or three mirrors and sit with your child in front of them. He'll love looking at a few of your reflections. However, by five months, this may, on the contrary, upset him, since at this age he will already understand that there is only one mother.
By six months, the baby will happily reach for toys, hold them, bang them, etc. He distinguishes toys by shape, material and color. He understands that he has already seen the toy that he is now holding in his hands.
Seven to nine months
The child knows his name. He begins to feel shy about unfamiliar people and places.
The child knows how to make plans. For example, he may decide to crawl to his teddy bear or look under the table. Most likely, he already handles toys correctly: he knocks on the drum and stacks cubes.
You may notice that your child is repeating the actions you did the day before. If he learns something, like throwing a rattle out of his crib, he'll want to try it somewhere else. Please note - he will probably start throwing the spoon while sitting in the high chair. He doesn't know what hide-and-seek is yet, so if you hide the spoon, he probably won't look for it.
Nine to 12 months
The child reaches out to you, wants your affection and... He gets upset about this because he now realizes that you exist even when he can't see you. But if a child sees himself in a mirror, he does not understand that it is his own reflection.
The child makes sounds with meaning, which will then turn into his first words. His behavior seems more conscious and logical. And he is gradually getting better at guessing what will happen next.
12 to 18 months
With the help of words and actions, the child tries to tell you what he wants. It can also imitate someone else's actions, especially yours. He may even imitate the actions of yours that he observed a week ago. The child strives to participate in everything, for example, open the closet and empty the trash can. His mission is to explore the world around him!
When faced with a problem, a child tries to solve it first in one way and then in another. If something is lost or hidden, he is able to search for it methodically.
From 18 to 24 months
Now that the child is almost two years old, he begins to combine words. Sometimes he can think through something and solve a problem without resorting to trial and error. The child looks for things where he left them. He pretends and imitates.
Gentle and loving, your child may also be stubborn and inappropriate in his assessment of his skills. He can throw up in frustration.
In situations where he is scared, he may cling to you.
He still doesn’t mind other children playing with his toys, but at two years old he already takes them away. The child enjoys being around other children, but does not play with them unless they are older. The child cannot put himself in the place of another.
If he doesn't get hurt when he gets spanked or hit, he will think that others don't get hurt when they get hit. If he hits the chair, he will say that the chair hit him.
If at 18 months you leave a mark of lipstick on your child's forehead and sit with him in front of the mirror, he will begin to wipe it off the mirror. At 21 months, the child will understand that the reflection in the mirror belongs to him, and in a situation with lipstick he will wipe his forehead, not the reflection. A child's memory is also developing, so he will definitely notice if you miss a page from his favorite book.
How to help a child develop?
From the very beginning, you are your baby's favorite toy. Try to make the child laugh and gurgle, and then you will be on the right track. Keep in mind that your child is easily distracted. Too many activities means he won't be able to do any of them well.
There is no need to overload it by taking out all the toys at once. He will love it if you choose one toy that is most appropriate for his age. A child's development is unlikely to be helped by toys designed for older children, since only those that meet current needs are beneficial.
In between active games, offer your child quiet activities. Let your child decide when to stop. If you see that he is losing interest in a game or toy, give him a rest. Sometimes a child needs time and effort to achieve something. Give him the opportunity to try on his own first, without your help, but help him when he's ready to give up.
Trust yourself. Watch your child carefully, and then you will understand what is needed to help him develop. If you're thinking, “my kid would love this,” you're probably right. After all, you are an expert in everything that concerns your child.
What to do if a child is not developing as quickly as he should?
All children are different, so the development process also occurs differently. If a child is premature, he may master certain skills later than his peers.
If the child has had health problems, he may also be developmentally delayed. However, don't worry and rest assured that your child will be able to catch up if given enough time.
On average, a child begins to sit without support at seven months. By nine months, 90% can sit independently. If your baby is not able to sit by 10 months, consult your doctor.
At 13 months, a child will likely be able to produce 10 sounds or words. By 18 months, their number will increase to 50. But this is also individual, since all children are different. Sometimes boys who already understand many words find it difficult to reproduce them. If you think your child doesn't understand many words, ask your doctor to test his hearing.
Try not to stimulate your baby too much. He may withdraw into himself if he feels overloaded. Offer your baby simple games and toys one at a time.
Make yourself comfortable with your child. Look him in the eyes and talk to him. Give him time, encourage him. At the same time, remember that the child needs to try to do something on his own. The best lessons are the ones he learned himself.
How can I make sure my child is learning to develop certain cognitive abilities appropriate for his or her age? How does children's thinking work? And what are the main stages of a child’s cognitive development? Is it normal for my child to make mistakes in speech or thinking processes? Piaget's theory explains in detail the different stages in children's development. This article will help you become familiar with this scientific theory and find out if your child is developing according to age. Let's resolve all your doubts together!
Piaget's theory: stages of development in children
Jean Piaget is one of the most famous psychologists in history. He received recognition in the scientific community primarily for his discoveries in the fields of child psychology and development. Piaget devoted his life to studying the different stages of growth to understand how children's abilities develop in specific patterns of learning, thinking, and cognitive development. This article describes Piaget's theory and offers an explanation of the different stages of child development.
Is your child restless and easily distracted? Check if you are at risk of having attention deficit disorder with or without hyperactivity with help!
Neuropsychological
Piaget's theory: stages of cognitive development in children
From the perspective of Piaget's theory, children go through certain developmental stages that shape their intelligence and ability to perceive mature relationships. These stages of development are observed in a prescribed manner in all children, regardless of their race or country of residence. However, the age of transition from one stage to the next may differ slightly in one child compared to another.
It often happens that very young children do not know how to empathize, like adults do. They have "egocentric thinking"» according to their age and abilities, and it is also normal for them to make mistakes.
Throughout childhood, the child develops process of natural cognitive development. It is at this time that children “learn to think” or rather, interact with the world around them in which they live. This implies a series of evolutionary changes in a child's life. They can be divided into several stages throughout childhood, from birth to pre-adolescence. These stages, during which specific cognitive skills develop, are called "Piaget's stages".
What is Piaget's theory? Jean Piaget (Swiss psychologist and biologist) carried out numerous studies in the field of child development, dividing childhood into stages that he called: developmental stages. Piaget's theory suggests dividing the process of a child's cognitive development into stages, depending on his age.
Stages of development, according to Piaget's theory, are a set of relevant facts in the process of human development that occur close in time. For example, the type of language children use may differ up to a certain age (babble, invented words, pseudo-words, they may speak in the third person, referring to themselves...). And also the type of thinking (egocentric thinking, in which everything revolves around what the child sees or thinks), or physical skills (use reflexes, learn to crawl, then walk, run...). All these manifestations of cognitive development occur continuously and gradually through Piagetian stages, taking into account approximate age.
In Piaget's theory, does each developmental stage or stage occur at a specific time?
No, they don't have to happen at a set time. The point is that there are sensitive periods for all ages, during which it is possible and normal that children can develop certain cognitive skills. It will be easier for a child to learn a certain skill at a certain age. For example, with regard to language acquisition, the baby begins to pronounce the first words already in the first year of life. But language is in a constant process of formation and improvement until about 7 years of age, when vocabulary is still not sufficient, and will increase in subsequent years.
Stages of child cognitive development according to Piaget's theory
Piaget proposed four stages of child development depending on age. These stages were distributed as follows: the first stage is the sensorimotor period (children aged 0 to 2 years), the second stage is the preoperative period (children aged 2 to 7 years), the third stage is the period of specific operations (children aged from 7 to 11 years), the fourth stage is the period of formal operations (children and adolescents, starting from 11 years old, until about 19 years old). Next we will look at these stages in detail.
1st stage of child development:sensorimotor period (children aged 0 to 2 years)
This stage of a child's development is characterized by understanding the world around him through actions by coordinating sensory experiences with physical actions. During this period, significant progress in the development of innate reflexes is observed.
- As is known, children at this age prefer stimuli of bright colors, with the effects of shine, contrast, movement...
- In addition, children building their behavioral patterns, they try to repeat actions and use their body to do this. For example, making noise by hitting a toy, throwing out an object, pulling a blanket to grab an object that is on it, etc. At this age, children repeat random events, experimenting with their bodies.
- The child's first contact with speech: The very first contacts with speech are observed in the child when he is in the womb. Throughout all months of pregnancy, he “listens” and becomes familiar with the voice of his parents. Research shows that in the first days of life, babies prefer the sound of a human voice to any other sound. It's amazing how quickly a child gets used to speech. Already From the moment of birth, he has a unique ability to distinguish speech sounds. Research psychologists at Casper y Spence also demonstrated that children are particularly attracted to their mothers' speech, which they recognize more quickly than the speech of strangers.
- What means of communication do children aged 0 to 2 years use? When a baby is born, his favorite means of communication is crying, because he cannot yet produce other sounds (he is not physically ready for this). During the first few months, he begins to use pre-linguistic gestures such as smiles and tears, which he will initially use spontaneously. Over time, this will become intentional as he learns to use them as a means of communication. One way or another, depending on whether the baby is crying or smiling, parents can interpret his emotions and state. In this form his first spontaneous communication is realized. At about six months of age, the child begins to form the first syllables of vowels and consonants. For example, during this period we can hear him say: “bababa.” Babies, as a rule, begin to pronounce their first single words at the age of about 12 months.
Stage 2 of child development: preoperative period (children aged 2 to 7 years)
This is the second stage of children's development according to Piaget's theory. Starting from the age of 3, important changes occur in a child’s life. He begins to undergo his first educational programs outside of home, participate in the educational process. And this represents a very important social component.
- The child begins to build social relationships with other people, especially among his peers. This is of particular significance because before this period, his social relationships developed only within the family circle.
- What means of communication do children aged 2 to 7 years use? Despite the fact that between the ages of 3 and 7 years a child’s vocabulary rapidly increases, children during this period, as a rule, are characterized by “egocentric thinking.” This means that the child evaluates everything that happens in accordance with his individual life experience. As a result, his thinking during this period is static, intuitive and often devoid of logic. Therefore, children under the age of 6 years can make mistakes both at the time of interpreting events and at the time of expressing their opinion about what is happening.
- During this period, children tend to talk about themselves in the third person, since they do not yet have a clearly defined concept of “I” that separates them from the rest of the world.
- Children aged 2 to 7 years show strong curiosity and the desire for knowledge. That is why they so often ask their parents questions that begin with the word “why” in relation to a variety of objects and phenomena in the world around them.
- At this stage, children tend to attribute human feelings or thoughts to inanimate objects. This phenomenon is known in science as animism.
How does “egocentric thinking” manifest itself according to Piaget’s theory? Why are children at this stage of development unable to mentally put themselves in other people's shoes? This may be due to the provisions "theories of mind", which explains a person’s ability to penetrate the consciousness of another person, to guess his thoughts, that is, the ability to put himself in the place of another. Children develop this cognitive ability only at the age of 4-5 years. This is why a younger child believes that “other people see what is happening and think in the same way as he does.” This theory helps explain why children under 5 cannot lie or make ironic jokes.
Each of these limitations of the pre-logical stage will be overcome by the child after he moves to the next stage of cognitive development at the age of 6-7 years. This will allow him to combine and systematize all previously accumulated experience. This process will last until about 14-15 years.
Stage 3 of child development: period of specific operations (children aged 7 to 11 years)
In this penultimate period of Piaget's theory, children begin to use logical thinking in certain situations. During this period, they can perform tasks at a more complex level, successfully using logical and mathematical operations. However, although they make a significant breakthrough in relation to the previous period, at this stage of cognitive development, they can still apply logic with certain limitations: here and now, which at this stage seems much easier to them. They still don't use abstract thinking. That is, at this age, children have to work hard to apply existing knowledge in relation to a new, as yet unknown or insufficiently studied topic.
Stage 4 of child development: period of formal operations (children and adolescents from 11 years of age)
- This last period is characterized by the use of logical thinking under any circumstances, including when it is necessary to think abstractly.
- The novelty of this stage in relation to the development of the child’s intelligence, according to Piaget, is that children are already can make assumptions or hypotheses about unfamiliar objects and phenomena.
- Starting from this stage, the child perceives the learning process and the acquired knowledge as a whole, and not in the form of a list of specific topics, as was the case at the previous stage.
Stages of child development according to Piaget's theory
Piaget's theory, in addition to explaining the various stages of development in children in a very complete manner, also describes the magic of children. In terms of their "egocentric thinking", their curiosity about the world that surrounds them and their innocence. And it makes us think and realize that we as adults must learn to understand our children in order to support them, encourage them and make them happy and loved at every stage of their development.
Cognitive development is the development of all types of mental processes such as perception, memory, concept formation, problem solving, imagination and logic. The theory of cognitive development was developed by Swiss philosopher and psychologist Jean Piaget.
Cognitive development is the process of formation and development of the cognitive sphere, in particular – perception, attention, imagination, memory, speech, thinking.
Development of thinking in preschool children
Thinking is a mental process of reflecting reality, the highest form of human creative activity. This is a creative transformation of their subjective images in the human mind, their meaning and meaning to resolve real contradictions in the circumstances of people’s life, to form new goals, discover new means and plans for achieving them, revealing the essence of the objective forces of nature and society.
Thinking is the purposeful use, development and increase of knowledge, possible only if it is aimed at resolving contradictions that are objectively inherent in the real subject of thought. In the genesis of thinking, the most important role is played by people’s understanding of each other, the means and objects of their joint activities.
J. Piaget identified several stages of intelligence development, but we will consider only the stage of interest associated with preschool age - this is the sub-period of pre-operational ideas (2-7 years).
J. Piaget writes that with the development of operational thinking, a large number of activities develop, which are divided into two poles: causality and chance. From about 3 years old, a child asks himself and others around him a number of questions, the most frequently asked of which is “why.” By the way the question is formulated, we know in what form and form the child wants to receive the answer. These questions show us that the child is looking for the meaning of certain phenomena that cause the need for explanation. Animism also appears at this stage: for the child, everything that moves is alive and conscious.
The child’s thought is constantly guided by the need for justification, at all costs and precisely. In this prelogical law we see the absence of the idea of chance in children's thinking. J. Piaget saw these facts in his observations in an experiment with proverbs: the most unexpected conclusions were always justified by the child.
The ability to justify is a consequence of syncretism. Syncretism forces each new perception or each new idea to seek, at all costs, a connection with what immediately precedes it. It is the connection that makes the new combine with the old, such a connection is immediate, and we see cases of justification, come what may.
“Syncretism is a product of childhood egocentrism, for it is the habit of thinking egocentrically that makes one avoid analysis and be satisfied with individual and arbitrary schemes of the whole. In this regard, it is clear why children’s justifications arising from syncretism have the character of subjective interpretations and are even similar to pathological interpretations, representing a return to primitive ways of thinking.”
Children at this age are characterized by concentration (concentration) on one, the most noticeable feature of an object, and neglect in reasoning of its other features. The child usually focuses on the states of a thing and does not pay attention to the transformations (or, if he does, it is very difficult for him to understand them) that transfer it from one state to another.
J. Piaget also writes about the irreversibility of a child’s thinking, which explains to us the nature of their transductive thinking. Transduction is reasoning that goes from special to special, without generalizations and without logical obligatoryness. Children's reasoning does not proceed from the general to the individual and not from the individual to the general, but from the individual to the individual and from the special to the special. Each item has a special explanation.
The stage up to 7-8 years old is called by J. Piaget “the stage of pure transduction.”
Piaget's research showed that children in the preoperational stage do not have an understanding of the conservation of volume, mass, quantity, and number, as well as other physical properties of objects; this is partly explained by irreversibility and centralization.
For cognitive development from a social perspective, the child’s participation in games and other activities, directed by older children or adults, is very important.
E.A. Sokoroumova also notes that the thinking of a preschooler develops from visual-actional, and then visual-figurative to verbal-logical, which begins to form towards the end of preschool age. Verbal-logical thinking presupposes the ability to operate with words and understand the logic of reasoning.
So, the pre-operational thinking of babies is different from the thinking of other children and adults; its characteristic manifestations are animism, materialization and egocentrism. Among the limitations of pre-operational thinking are concreteness, irreversibility, centralization, and immature concepts of time, space, and cause-and-effect relationships.
Despite the peculiar childish logic, preschoolers can reason correctly and solve quite complex problems. Correct answers can be obtained from them under certain conditions. First of all, the child needs to have time to remember the task itself. In addition, he must imagine the conditions of the task, and for this he must understand them. Therefore, it is important to formulate the task in such a way that it is understandable to children. The best way to achieve the right decision is to organize the child’s actions so that he draws appropriate conclusions based on his own experience.
In favorable conditions, when a preschooler solves a problem that is understandable and interesting to him and at the same time observes facts that are understandable to him, he can reason logically correctly.
In preschool age, due to the intensive development of speech, concepts are mastered. Although they remain at the everyday level, the content of the concept begins to more and more correspond to what most adults put into this concept. Children begin to use concepts better and operate with them in their minds.
By the end of preschool age, a tendency to generalize and establish connections appears. Its occurrence is important for the further development of intelligence, despite the fact that children often make unlawful generalizations, insufficiently taking into account the characteristics of objects and phenomena, focusing on bright external signs.
Memory development in preschool children
Memory is the remembering, preservation and subsequent reproduction by an individual of his experience. The physiological basis of P. is the formation, preservation and updating of temporary connections in the brain. Temporary connections and their systems are formed when the action of stimuli on the sense organs is adjacent in time and when the individual has orientation, attention, and interest in these stimuli.
Z.M. Istomina writes that in older preschool age (5 and 6 years old), a transition occurs from involuntary memory to the initial stages of voluntary memorization and recall. At the same time, there is a differentiation of a special kind of actions that correspond to the goals of remembering and recalling that are set for children. The child's active identification and awareness of mnemonic goals occurs in the presence of appropriate motives.
E.A. Sorokoumova points out that if visual-emotional memory dominates in children of early preschool age (musically gifted children also have well-developed auditory memory), then in older preschoolers the first signs of semantic memorization appear.
According to studies described by I.M. Istomina, this is due to the fact that the memorization process is formed by the end of preschool age, i.e. at the age of 6-7 years. It is characterized by attempts to form mental logical connections between memorized words. The existence of such connections is, first of all, indicated by the very nature of reproduction. During reproduction, the child changes the order of the objects named to him and combines them according to their purpose. Initially, the methods of memorization, as well as the methods of recall, are very primitive and not yet specialized enough. The child takes them from those actions that he already owns. These are methods such as, for example, repeating an order after an adult or returning a child in the process of remembering to the links he has already reproduced.
The child’s search for ways and techniques of memorization and recollection opens up a new, very important opportunity for the education of his voluntary memory: teaching him how to memorize and recall. Begins to truly accept directions on what to do and follows those directions.
Preschool childhood is the age most favorable for memory development. As L.S. pointed out. Vygotsky, memory becomes the dominant function and goes a long way in the process of its formation. Neither before nor after this period does the child remember the most varied material with such ease. However, the memory of a preschooler has a number of specific features.
In younger preschoolers, memory is involuntary, but by middle school age voluntary memory begins to form. The main path of development of voluntary memory occurs at the following age stages.
In preschool age, memory is included in the process of personality formation. The intensive development and inclusion of memory in the process of personality formation determines its position as the dominant function in preschool age. The development of memory is associated with the emergence of stable figurative ideas that take thinking to a new level.
In addition, the very ability to reason (associations, generalizations, etc., regardless of their validity) that appears in preschool age is also associated with the development of memory. The development of memory determines a new level of development of perception (more on this will be discussed below) and other mental functions.
Changes in memory with age include, first of all, an increase in the speed of learning and an increase in memory capacity. But the most significant changes as the child develops occur in the qualitative features of his memory.
Essential for the characteristics of memory in childhood is the development of its meaningfulness. In the process of memorization, children of senior preschool and primary school age rely not on abstract-logical relationships between concepts, which serve as an essential support for memorization in adults, but on visually perceived connections between phenomena and objects.
Development of attention in preschool children
Attention is the process and state of tuning a subject to perceive priority information and perform assigned tasks. Theoretically and operationally, attention is characterized by level (intensity, concentration), volume, selectivity, speed of switching (movement), duration and stability.
At this age, preschoolers' attention also improves. In the youngest preschooler, involuntary attention predominates, caused by externally attracted objects, events and people, while in the older preschooler, the ability to voluntarily concentrate attention is manifested, especially if it is regulated by speech.
S.L. Rubenstein notes that after the age of 3, a child’s level of attention stability increases sharply and shows a relatively high level by the age of 6, which is one of the indicators of a child’s readiness for school. The distractibility of a 2-4 year old child is 2-3 times greater than the distractibility of a 4-6 year old.
Development of imagination in preschool children
Imagination is a universal human ability to construct new holistic images of reality by processing the content of existing practical, sensory, intellectual and emotional-semantic experience. Imagination is a way for a person to master the sphere of a possible future, giving his activity a goal-setting and design character, thanks to which he stood out from the “kingdom” of animals. Being the psychological basis of creativity, culture ensures both the historical creation of cultural forms and their development in ontogenesis.
In psychology, imagination is considered as a separate mental process along with perception, memory, attention, etc. Recently, the understanding of imagination as a universal property of consciousness has become increasingly widespread. At the same time, its key function in generating and structuring the image of the world is emphasized. V. determines the course of specific cognitive, emotional, and other processes, constituting their creative nature associated with the transformation of objects (in figurative and semantic terms), anticipation of the results of corresponding actions, and the construction of general schemes of the latter. This finds its manifestation in the phenomena of “emotional anticipation” (A.V. Zaporozhets), “productive perception” (V.P. Zinchenko), in the genesis of certain forms of motor activity (N.A. Bernstein), etc.
Imagination is the figurative construction of the content of the concept of an object even before this concept itself is formed. The content of a future thought is fixed by the imagination in the form of some significant, general tendency in the development of an integral object. A person can comprehend this tendency as a genetic pattern only through thinking.
In preschool age, there is a rapid development of imagination from reproductive - at the beginning, to creative and transformative at the end of this period. Imagination develops in play and at first is inseparable from the perception of objects and playful actions with them. Formed in play, the imagination moves into other types of activity of the preschooler: drawing, modeling, writing fairy tales and poems.
L.S. Vygotsky directly points to the emergence of imagination from the very essence of the game, and not as a consequence of the manifestation of the child’s behavioral characteristics in it.
O.M. Dyachenko, having analyzed the individual characteristics of children’s imagination, divided them into two types: “cognitive” and “emotional.”
“The main task of the “cognitive” imagination is a specific reflection of the laws of the objective world, overcoming the contradictions that have arisen in ideas about reality, completing and clarifying a holistic picture of the world.” (With its help, a child can either creatively master the patterns and meaning of human actions (objective, communication) or, starting from individual impressions of reality, build a holistic image of an event or phenomenon). A child’s “emotional” imagination arises in situations of contradiction between his image of “I” and reality; in such cases, it becomes one of the mechanisms for constructing the image of “I”. At the same time, on the one hand, imagination can perform a regulatory function in the process of assimilating the norms and meaning of social behavior. On the other hand, it can be considered as a protective mechanism of the individual, functioning in two main ways: 1) through multiple variable representation of traumatic influences, in the process of which there may be ways to resolve conflict situations;
2) through the creation of an imaginary situation that relieves tension from frustration.
Development of perception in preschool children
Perception – This:
1. A subjective image of an object, phenomenon or process that directly affects the analyzer or system of analyzers.
2. The complex psychophysiological process of perceptual image formation. Sometimes the term V. denotes a system of actions aimed at becoming familiar with an object that affects the senses, that is, sensory-research activity of observation.
Over the course of a person’s life, perception goes through a complex path of development. The development of perception occurs especially intensively in the first years of a child’s life. Changes in perception in preschool children occur in connection with the development of various types of children’s activities (play, visual, constructive, and elements of labor and education). (dictionary)
At preschool age, thanks to the emergence of reliance on past experience, it becomes multifaceted. In addition to the purely perceptual component, it includes a wide variety of connections between the perceived object and surrounding objects and phenomena with which the child is familiar from his previous experience. Gradually, apperception begins to develop - the influence on the perception of one’s own experience. With age, the role of apperception constantly increases. In adulthood, different people, depending on their life experience and associated personal characteristics, often perceive the same things and phenomena in completely different ways.
In connection with the emergence and development of apperception in preschool age, perception becomes meaningful, purposeful, and analytical. It highlights voluntary actions - observation, examination, search.
The appearance of stable figurative ideas in preschool age leads to the differentiation of perceptual and emotional processes. The child’s emotions become associated mainly with his ideas, as a result of which perception loses its originally affective character.
Speech has a significant impact on the development of perception at this time - the fact that the child begins to actively use the names of qualities, characteristics, states of various objects and the relationships between them. By naming certain properties of objects and phenomena, he thereby identifies these properties for himself; by naming objects, he separates them from others; determining their states, connections or actions with them, sees and understands the real relationships between them.
Specially organized perception contributes to a better understanding of phenomena. For example, a child adequately understands the content of a picture if adults provide appropriate explanations, help examine the details in a certain sequence, or select a picture with a special composition that makes it easier to perceive. At the same time, the figurative principle, which is very strong in this age period, often prevents the child from drawing correct conclusions regarding what he observes. In general, in preschoolers, perception and thinking are so closely connected that they speak of visual-figurative thinking, which is most characteristic of this age.
Speech development in preschool children
Speech is a historically established form of communication between people through language. Speech communication is carried out according to the laws of a given language, which is a system of phonetic, lexical, grammatical and stylistic means and rules of communication. Speech and language constitute a complex dialectical unity. Speech is carried out according to the rules of the language, and at the same time, under the influence of a number of factors (the requirements of social practice, the development of science, the mutual influence of languages, etc.) it changes and improves the language.
In preschool childhood, the long and complex process of speech acquisition is largely completed. By the age of 7, language becomes a means of communication and thinking of the child, as well as a subject of conscious study, since learning to read and write begins in preparation for school. According to psychologists, the child’s language truly becomes native.
The sound side of speech develops. Younger preschoolers begin to realize the peculiarities of their pronunciation. But they still retain their previous ways of perceiving sounds, thanks to which they recognize incorrectly pronounced children’s words. Later, subtle and differentiated sound images of words and individual sounds are formed, the child ceases to recognize incorrectly spoken words, he both hears and speaks correctly. By the end of preschool age, the process of phonemic development is completed.
The vocabulary of speech is growing rapidly. As at the previous age stage, there are great individual differences here: some children have a larger vocabulary, others have less, which depends on their living conditions, on how and how much close adults communicate with them. Let's give the average data according to V. Stern: at 1.5 years old a child actively uses about 100 words, at 3 years old - 1000-1100, at 6 years old - 2500-3000 words.
The grammatical structure of speech develops. Children learn subtle patterns of morphological order (word structure) and syntactic order (phrase structure). A 3-5 year old child not only actively masters speech - he creatively masters linguistic reality. He correctly grasps the meanings of “adult” words, although he sometimes uses them in an original way, and feels the connection between changes in the word, its individual parts and changes in its meaning. Words created by the child himself according to the laws of the grammar of his native language are always recognizable, sometimes very successful and certainly original. This children's ability to form words independently is often called word creation.
The fact that the child masters the grammatical forms of the language and acquires a large active vocabulary allows him to move on to contextual speech at the end of preschool age. He can retell a story or fairy tale he has read, describe a picture, and clearly convey his impressions of what he saw to others. This does not mean that his situational speech completely disappears. It persists, but mainly in conversations on everyday topics and stories about events that have a strong emotional overtones for the child.
At preschool age, a child masters all forms of oral speech characteristic of adults. He has detailed messages - monologues, stories. In them, he conveys to others not only the new things he has learned, but also his thoughts on this matter, his plans, impressions, and experiences. In communication with peers, dialogical speech develops, including instructions, evaluation, coordination of play actions, etc. Egocentric speech helps the child plan and regulate his actions. In monologues he pronounces to himself, he states the difficulties he has encountered, creates a plan for subsequent actions, and discusses ways to complete the task.
The use of new forms of speech and the transition to detailed statements are determined by the new communication tasks facing the child during this age period. Full communication with other children is achieved precisely at this time; it becomes an important factor in the development of speech. As we know, communication with adults continues to develop, whom children perceive as erudite, capable of explaining anything and telling about everything in the world. Thanks to communication called M.I. Lisina is non-situational and cognitive, vocabulary increases, and correct grammatical structures are learned. But it's not only that. Dialogues become more complex and meaningful, the child learns to ask questions on abstract topics, and at the same time reason - think out loud.
This work examines the age of 6–7 years—the period during which the end of kindergarten and, in some cases, the beginning of schooling occur. This age seems interesting in terms of the structural features and functions of the brain.
Stages of development of intelligence (J. Piaget)
According to Jean Piaget's theory of intelligence, human intelligence goes through several main stages in its development. From birth to 2 years continues period of sensorimotor intelligence; from 2 to 11 years - the period of preparation and organization of specific operations, in which sub-period of pre-operational ideas(from 2 to 7 years) and sub-period of specific transactions(from 7 to 11 years); lasts from age 11 to approximately 15 period of formal operations.
Period of sensorimotor intelligence (0-2 years)
From birth to two years, the organization of perceptual and motor interactions with the outside world gradually develops. This development goes from being limited by innate reflexes to the associated organization of sensorimotor actions in relation to the immediate environment. At this stage, only direct manipulations with things are possible, but not actions with symbols and representations on the internal plane.
The period of sensorimotor intelligence is divided into six stages.
1. First stage (0-1 month)At this age, the child’s capabilities are practically limited by innate reflexes.
2. Second stage (1-4 months)Under the influence of experience, reflexes begin to transform and coordinate with each other. The first simple skills appear ( primary circular reactions). “For example, when a child constantly sucks his finger, no longer as a result of accidental contact with it, but due to the coordination of hand and mouth, this can be called acquired accommodation.”
3. Third stage (4-8 months)The child’s actions acquire a more pronounced focus on objects and events that exist outside and independently of him. Through repetition, movements are reinforced, initially random, leading to changes in the external environment that are interesting to the child ( secondary circular reactions). “Motor recognition” of familiar objects appears, which is expressed in the fact that “the child, faced with objects or scenes that usually activate his secondary circular reactions, is limited to giving only the outline of normal movements, but not actually performing them.”
4. Fourth stage (8-12 months)The ability to coordinate secondary circular reactions arises, combining them into new formations in which one action (for example, removing an obstacle) serves as a means that makes it possible to carry out another - target - action, which means the emergence of undoubtedly intentional actions.
5. Fifth stage (12-18 months)The child no longer only uses actions known to him as means of achieving goals, but is also able to search and find new ones, varying the action already known to him and noting the difference in the result; Piaget calls this “the discovery of new means of achieving an end through active experimentation.” That is, here not only new coordinations of actions-means and actions-goals known to the child arise, but also new actions-means.
6. Sixth stage (after 18 months)Unlike the previous stage, here the child is already able to discover new actions and means not through experimentation, but through internal, mental coordination - internal experimentation.
Period of preparation and organization of specific operations (2-11 years)
Sub-period of pre-operational ideas (2-7 years)
For children at this age it is typical centralization(focusing) on one, the most noticeable feature of an object, and neglecting its other features in reasoning.
The child usually focuses on the states of things and does not pay attention to transformation(or, if he does convert, it is very difficult for him to understand them), which transfer her from one state to another.
Sub-period of specific operations (7-11 years)
Even at the stage of pre-operational ideas, the child acquires the ability to perform certain actions with ideas. But only during the period of specific operations do these actions begin to be combined and coordinated with each other, forming systems of integrated actions (as opposed to associative links). Such actions are called operations. Operations are “actions internalized and organized into the structures of the whole”; An operation is “any act of representation that is an integral part of an organized network of acts related to each other.” Every performed (actualized) operation is an element of an integral system of possible (potential) operations in a given situation.
The child develops special cognitive structures called factions. Grouping is a form of moving equilibrium of operations, “a system of balancing exchanges and transformations that endlessly compensate each other.” One of the simplest groupings is the grouping classifications, or hierarchical inclusion of classes. Thanks to this and other groupings, the child acquires the ability to perform operations with classes and establish logical relationships between classes, uniting them in hierarchies, whereas previously his capabilities were limited to transduction and the establishment of associative connections.
The limitation of this stage is that operations can only be performed on specific objects, but not on statements. Starting from 7-8 years old, “one can observe the formation of systems of logical operations on the objects themselves, their classes and relationships, which do not yet concern propositions as such and are formed only in relation to real or imaginary manipulation with these objects.” Operations logically structure the external actions performed, but they cannot yet structure verbal reasoning in the same way.
Period of formal operations (11-15 years)
The main ability that appears at the stage of formal operations is the ability to deal with possible, with the hypothetical, and perceive external reality as a special case of what could possibly be. Reality and the child’s own beliefs no longer necessarily determine the course of reasoning. The child now looks at the problem not only from the point of view of what is immediately given in it, but first of all asks the question about all the possible relationships in which elements of the immediately given can consist or be included.
Cognition becomes hypothetico-deductive. The child can now think in hypotheses (which are essentially descriptions of various possibilities), which can be tested in order to choose the one that corresponds to the actual state of affairs.
The child acquires the ability to think in sentences and establish formal relationships (inclusion, conjunction, disjunction, etc.) between them. At the stage of specific operations, such relationships could be established only within one sentence, that is, between individual objects or events, which constitute specific operations. Now logical relationships are established between sentences, that is, between the results of specific operations. Therefore Piaget calls these operations second stage operations, or formal operations, while operations within a sentence are specific operations.
A child at this stage is also able to systematically identify all the variables essential to solving a problem and systematically go through all possible combinations these variables.
A classic experiment demonstrates the abilities that appear in a child at the stage of formal operations. The child is given a bottle of liquid and shown how adding a few drops of this liquid to a glass with another liquid unknown to the child causes it to turn yellow. After this, the child receives four flasks with different, but colorless and odorless liquids, and he is asked to reproduce the yellow color, using these four flasks at his discretion. This result is achieved by combining liquids from flasks 1 and 3; You can come to this decision by sequentially sorting out, first one after another, all the liquids from the four flasks, and then all possible paired combinations of liquids. The experiment showed that such a systematic search of paired combinations is available only to a child at the stage of formal operations. Younger children are limited to a few combinations of liquids, which do not exhaust all possible combinations.
Studies of the period of formal operations after Piaget
There are also more recent studies of the formal operations stage, complementing and clarifying the results of Jean Piaget.
Elements of formal operational thinking were discovered in intellectually gifted young children. On the contrary, some adolescents and adults do not achieve true formal operational thinking due to limited abilities or cultural characteristics. Thus, in one of the studies of solving verbal problems requiring logical reasoning, it was revealed linear an increase in the number of schoolchildren solving problems in accordance with the criteria of the stage of formal operations, from the 4th to the 12th grade (from approximately 10-15% to 80%, respectively).
The transition to formal operations is not completely abrupt and universal, but is more specific in relation to areas of knowledge in which the teenager is especially competent.
The age at which a child reaches the stage of formal operations depends on what social class he belongs to.
Even teenagers and adults with high intelligence do not always solve problems at the level of formal operational thinking accessible to them. This can happen if the task seems too far from reality to the person, if the person is tired, bored, overly emotionally excited, frustrated.
see also
Notes
Literature
- Piaget J. Selected psychological works. M., 1994.
- Piaget J. Speech and thinking of a child. M., 1994.
- Flavell J.H. Genetic psychology of Jean Piaget. M., 1967.
- Piaget J. Piaget's theory. Sec. III: Theory of stages // History of foreign psychology. 30s - 60s of the XX century. Texts / Ed. P. Ya. Galperina, A. N. Zhdan. M.: Publishing house Mosk. Univ., 1992. pp. 232-292.
- Piaget J. Comments on the critical comments of L. S. Vygotsky on the books “Speech and Thinking of a Child” and “Judgment and Reasoning of a Child” // Reader on General Psychology. Psychology of thinking / Ed. Yu. B. Gippenreiter, V. V. Petukhova. M., 1981.
- Piaget J.(1954). The construction of reality in the child. New York: Basic Books.
- Inhelder B., Piaget J. The growth of logical thinking from childhood to adolescence. New York, 1958.
- Piaget J.(1995). Sociological Studies. London: Routledge.
- Piaget J.(2001). Studies in Reflecting Abstraction. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
- Cole M. et al.(2005). The Development of Children. New York: Worth Publishers.
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