Psychological characteristics of a student and the activation of his cognitive activity. Psychological foundations of cognitive activity in preschool children Psychological characteristics of cognitive activity

Target: generate knowledge about the influence of psychological cognitive processes for activities.

Keywords: cognitive processes, perception, memory, thinking.

Questions:

1. Activity and cognitive processes.

2. The problem of synthesis of cognitive processes (perception, memory, thinking) as the basis of learning technologies.

1. Cognitive processes (perception, memory, thinking, imagination) are an integral part of any human activity and ensure one or another of its effectiveness. Cognitive processes allow a person to outline in advance goals, plans and the content of upcoming activities, play out in his mind the course of this activity, his actions and behavior, anticipate the results of his actions and manage them as they are performed.

When they talk about a person’s general abilities, they also mean the level of development and characteristic features of his cognitive processes, because the better these processes are developed in a person, the more capable he is, the greater capabilities he has. The ease and effectiveness of his learning depends on the level of development of the student’s cognitive processes.

A person is born with sufficiently developed inclinations to cognitive activity However, the newborn carries out cognitive processes at first unconsciously, instinctively. He has yet to develop his cognitive abilities. learn to manage them. Therefore, the level of development of a person’s cognitive abilities depends not only on the inclinations received at birth (although they play a significant role in the development of cognitive processes), but to a greater extent on the nature of the child’s upbringing in the family, at school, and on his own activities for the self-development of his intellectual abilities.

Cognitive processes are carried out in the form of separate cognitive actions, each of which represents an integral mental act, consisting inseparably of all types of mental processes. But one of them is usually the main one, the leading one, determining the nature of a given cognitive action. Only in this sense can such mental processes as perception, memory, thinking, imagination. Thus, in the processes of memorization and learning, thinking is involved in a more or less complex unity with speech.

Mental processes: sensations, perception, attention, imagination, memory, thinking, speech - act as the most important components of any human activity. In order to satisfy his needs, communicate, play, study and work, a person must somehow perceive the world, paying attention to various moments or components of activity, imagine what he needs to do, remember, think about, express. Consequently, without the participation of mental processes, human activity is impossible. Moreover, it turns out that mental processes do not just participate in activity, they develop in it and themselves represent special types of activity.

Mental processes are processes occurring in the human head and reflected in dynamically changing mental phenomena.

2. Cognitive mental activity begins with sensations. According to the theory of reflection, sensation is the first and inconspicuous source of all our knowledge about the world. Thanks to sensations we know color, shape, size, smell, sound.

All sensations have common laws:

1. Sensitivity - the body’s ability to respond to relatively weak influences. The sensations of each person have a certain range, on both sides this range is limited by the absolute threshold of sensation. Beyond the lower absolute threshold, the sensation does not yet arise, since the stimulus is too weak; beyond the upper threshold, there are no sensations, since the stimulus is too strong. As a result of systematic exercises, a person can increase his sensitivity (sensitization).

2. Adaptation (adjustment) - a change in the threshold of sensitivity under the influence of an active stimulus, for example: a person acutely senses any smell only in the first few minutes, then the sensations become dull, as the person has adapted to them.

3. Contrast - a change in sensitivity under the influence of a previous stimulus, for example, the same figure appears darker on a white background, and lighter on a black background.

Our sensations are closely connected and interact with each other. On the basis of this interaction, perception arises, a process more complex than sensation, which appeared much later during the development of the psyche in the animal world.

Perception is a reflection of objects and phenomena of reality in the totality of their various properties and parts with their direct impact on the senses.

In other words, perception is nothing more than the process of a person receiving and processing various information entering the brain through the senses.

Perception, thus, acts as a meaningful (including decision-making) and meaningful (associated with speech) synthesis of various sensations obtained from integral objects or complex phenomena perceived as a whole. This synthesis appears in the form of an image of a given object or phenomenon, which develops during their active reflection.

Unlike sensations, which reflect only individual properties and qualities of objects, perception is always holistic. The result of perception is the image of the object. Therefore, it is always objective. Perception combines sensations coming from a number of analyzers. Not all analyzers are equally involved in this process. As a rule, one of them is the leader and determines the type of perception.

It is perception that is most closely related to the transformation of information coming directly from the external environment. At the same time, images are formed, with which attention, memory, thinking, and emotions subsequently operate. Depending on the analyzers, the following types of perception are distinguished: vision, touch, hearing, kinesthesia, smell, taste. Thanks to the connections formed between different analyzers, the image reflects such properties of objects or phenomena for which there are no special analyzers, for example, the size of the object, weight, shape, regularity, which indicates the complex organization of this mental process.

Initially, human activity is directed and corrected by the influence of only external objects, but gradually it begins to be regulated by images. We can say that the image represents the subjective form of the object, it is a creation inner world this person. Already in the process of forming this image, it is influenced by the attitudes, interests, needs and motives of the individual, determining its uniqueness and peculiarities of emotional coloring. Since the image simultaneously represents such different properties of an object as its size, color, shape, texture, rhythm, we can say that this is a holistic and generalized representation of the object, the result of the synthesis of many individual sensations, which is already capable of regulating appropriate behavior.

The main characteristics of perception include constancy, objectivity, integrity and generality (or categoricality).

Constancy is the relative independence of an image from the conditions of perception, manifested in its immutability: the shape, color and size of objects are perceived by us as constant, despite the fact that the signals coming from these objects to the senses are continuously changing.

The objectivity of perception is manifested in the fact that the object is perceived by us precisely as a separate physical body isolated in space and time. This property is most clearly manifested in the phenomenon of isolating a figure from the background.

Any image is complete. This means the internal organic relationship between the parts and the whole in the image. When analyzing the integrity of perception, two interrelated aspects can be distinguished: the unification of different elements into a whole and the independence of the formed integrity (within certain boundaries) from the quality of the elements. At the same time, the perception of the whole affects the perception of the parts. Rule of Similarity: The more similar parts of a painting are to each other in some visually perceived quality, the more likely they are to be perceived as being placed together. Similarity in size, shape, and arrangement of parts can act as grouping properties. Elements that together make up a closed circuit, as well as elements with a so-called good shape, that is, possessing symmetry or periodicity, are combined into a single integral structure. The rule of common fate: many elements moving at the same speed and along the same trajectory are perceived holistically - as a single moving object. This rule also applies when objects are stationary, but the observer is moving. Proximity Rule: In any field containing several objects, those that are closest to each other can be visually perceived holistically as one object.

The independence of the whole from the quality of its constituent elements is manifested in the dominance of the integral structure over its components. There are three forms of such dominance. The first is expressed in the fact that the same element, being included in different integral structures, is perceived differently. The second is manifested in the fact that when individual elements are replaced, but the relationship between them is maintained, the overall structure of the image remains unchanged. As you know, you can depict a profile with strokes, dotted lines, and with the help of other elements, while maintaining a portrait resemblance. And finally, the third form finds its expression in good known facts maintaining the perception of the structure as a whole when its individual parts fall out. Thus, for a holistic perception of a human face, only a few elements of its contour are sufficient.

Another important characteristic of an image is its generality. It means that each image belongs to a certain class of objects that has a name. This reflects the influence not only of language, but also of the person’s experience. It should be noted that the generality of perception allows not only to classify and recognize objects and phenomena, but also to predict some properties that are not directly perceived. Since an object is assigned to a given class based on its individual qualities, then with a certain probability we can expect that it also possesses other properties characteristic of this class.

All of the considered properties of perception are not innate and develop during a person’s life.

A person does not need to perceive all the stimuli around him, and he cannot perceive everything at the same time. His perceptions are organized in the process of attention.

Attention is the active focus of a person’s consciousness on certain objects and phenomena of reality or on certain of their properties, qualities, while simultaneously abstracting from everything else. Attention is such an organization of mental activity in which certain images, thoughts or feelings are recognized more clearly than others.

In other words, attention is nothing more than a state of psychological concentration, concentration on some object.

Relevant, personally significant signals are highlighted with attention. The choice is made from the set of all signals available for perception at a given moment. Unlike perception, which is associated with the processing and synthesis of information coming from inputs of different modalities, attention limits only that part of it that will actually be processed.

The conducted studies turned the attention of scientists to factors of central (internal) origin that influence the selectivity of attention: the correspondence of incoming information to a person’s needs, his emotional state, the relevance of this information for him. In addition, actions that are not sufficiently automated, as well as those that are not completed, require attention.

Numerous experiments have found that words that have a special meaning for a person, for example his name, the names of his loved ones, etc., are easier to extract from noise, since the central mechanisms of attention are always tuned to them.

Theories that connect attention with motivation deserve special consideration: what attracts attention is what is related to a person’s interests - this gives the object of perception additional intensity, and with it the clarity and distinctness of perception increases.

A limited amount of attention determines its main characteristics: stability, concentration, distribution, switchability and objectivity.

Sustainability is the duration of attention being attracted to the same object or to the same task. It can be determined by peripheral and central factors. Stability, determined by peripheral factors, does not exceed 2-3 seconds, after which attention begins to fluctuate. The stability of central attention can be a much longer interval - up to several minutes. It is clear that fluctuations in peripheral attention are not excluded; it returns all the time to the same object. At the same time, the duration of attracting central attention, according to S. L. Rubinstein, depends on the ability to constantly reveal new content in an object. We can say that the more interesting an object is for us, the more stable our attention will be. Sustainability of attention is closely related to its concentration.

Concentration is determined by the unity of two important factors - an increase in signal intensity with a limited field of perception.

Distribution is understood as a person’s subjectively experienced ability to hold a certain number of heterogeneous objects in the center of attention at the same time. It is this quality that makes it possible to perform several actions at once, keeping them in the field of attention.

Switchability is determined by the speed of transition from one type of activity to another. The important role of this characteristic is easy to demonstrate when analyzing such a well-known and widespread phenomenon as dissipation, which boils down mainly to poor switchability.

The mentioned characteristics of attention (stability, concentration, etc.) are to some extent characteristic not only of humans, but also of animals. But a special property of attention - voluntariness - is truly human. Animals have only involuntary attention.

Voluntary - consciously regulated, focused on an object.

Involuntary - does not arise on purpose, but under the influence of the characteristics of objects and phenomena; such attention allows you to navigate changes in the environment.

Post-voluntary - occurs consciously after the voluntary and does not require effort in order not to be distracted.

In the process of perception, with appropriate attention, a person creates subjective images of objective objects and phenomena that directly affect his sensory organs. Some of these images arise and change during sensations and perceptions. But there are images that remain after the cessation of sensations and perceptions or when these processes switch to other objects. Such images are called representations.

Ideas and their connections (associations) can persist in a person for a long time. Unlike images of perception, ideas are caused by images of memory.

Memory is a reflection of what was previously perceived, experienced, accomplished and comprehended by a person. It is characterized by processes such as capturing, storing, reproducing and processing a variety of information by a person. These memory processes are always in unity, but in each specific case one of them becomes the most active.

There are two types of memory: genetic (hereditary) and lifetime.

Hereditary memory stores information that determines the anatomical and physiological structure of the organism during development and the innate forms of species behavior (instincts). Lifetime memory is a repository of information acquired from birth to death. It depends significantly more on external conditions. There are several types and forms of lifetime memory. One of the types of lifetime memory - imprinting - is intermediate between genetic and lifetime memory.

Imprinting is a form of memory observed only during early development, immediately after birth. Imprinting consists of instantly establishing a very stable specific connection between a person or animal and a specific object in the external environment. This connection can manifest itself in following any moving object first shown to the animal in the first hours of life, in approaching it, touching it, etc. Such reactions persist for a long time, which is considered an example of learning and long-term memorization from a single presentation. Imprinting differs significantly from ordinary memorization in that long-term non-reinforcement does not weaken the response, but it is limited to a short, well-defined period in the life cycle and is irreversible. In normal learning, what is shown last has (other things being equal conditions of significance, probability, etc.) greatest influence on behavior, whereas in imprinting the object shown first has greater significance. The main thing here is not the novelty of the stimulus, but its primacy.

The following types of intravital memory are distinguished: motor, figurative, emotional and symbolic (verbal and logical).

Based on the time it takes to store material, there are four main forms of memory:

Instantaneous (or iconic - image-memory) is associated with retaining an accurate and complete picture of what has just been perceived by the senses, without any processing of the information received. This memory is a direct reflection of information by the senses. Its duration is from 0.1 to 0.5 seconds and it represents the complete residual impression that arises from the direct perception of stimuli;

short-term is a method of storing information for a short period of time. The duration of retention of mnemonic traces here does not exceed several tens of seconds, on average about 20 (without repetition). In short-term memory, not a complete, but only a generalized image of what is perceived, its most essential elements, is stored. This memory works without a preliminary conscious intention to memorize, but with an intention to subsequently reproduce the material;

Random access memory is a memory designed to store information for a certain, predetermined period of time, ranging from several seconds to several days. The storage period of information in this memory is determined by the task faced by a person, and is designed only for solving this problem. After this, information may disappear from RAM;

Long-term memory is capable of storing information for an almost unlimited period. Information that has entered the storage of long-term memory can be reproduced by a person as many times as necessary without loss. Moreover, repeated and systematic reproduction of this information only strengthens its traces in long-term memory.

Features of memorization and recollection act as qualities of memory. These include volume (measured by the number of objects recalled immediately after their single perception), speed (measured by speed, that is, the amount of time spent memorizing and recalling the required material), accuracy (measured by the degree of similarity of what is recalled with what is being recalled). perceived), duration (measured by the amount of time during which, without repeated perceptions, what was remembered can be recalled).

To summarize all of the above, it can be emphasized that memory is a mental process of imprinting and reproducing a person’s experience. Thanks to memory, a person’s past experience does not disappear without a trace, but is preserved in the form of ideas.

Sensations, perceptions and ideas of a person reflect mainly those objects and phenomena or their individual properties that directly affect the analyzers. These mental processes, together with involuntary attention and visual-figurative memory, represent the sensory foundations of human cognition of objective reality.

But sensory foundations do not exhaust all the possibilities of human reflection. This is evidenced by the fact that a person does not feel or perceive a lot, but learns. Despite such limitations, a person still reflects what is inaccessible to his sensory knowledge. This happens through thinking.

Thinking is a generalized reflection of objective reality in its natural, most essential connections and relationships. It is characterized by community and unity with speech.

In other words, thinking is a mental process of cognition associated with the discovery of subjectively new knowledge, with problem solving, with the creative transformation of reality.

Thinking manifests itself when solving any problem that arises before a person, as long as it is relevant, does not have a ready-made solution, and a powerful motive prompts a person to look for a way out. The immediate impetus for the development of the thought process is the emergence of a task, which, in turn, appears as a consequence of the awareness of the discrepancy between known to man principles and methods of performing actions and new conditions that preclude their application. The first stage, immediately following the awareness of the presence of a task, is usually associated with a delay in impulsive reactions. Such a delay creates a pause necessary for orientation in its conditions, analysis of components, highlighting the most significant ones and correlating them with each other. Preliminary orientation in the conditions of the task is a mandatory initial stage of any thinking process.

The next key stage is associated with the selection of one of the alternatives and the formation of a general solution scheme. In the process of such a choice, some possible moves in the decision reveal themselves to be more probable and push aside inadequate alternatives. At the same time, not only common features this and similar situations from a person’s past experience, but also information about the results that were previously obtained with similar motivations and emotional states. There is a continuous scanning of information in memory, and the dominant motivation directs this search. The nature of motivation (its strength and duration) determines the information retrieved from memory. A gradual increase in emotional tension leads to an expansion of the range of hypotheses extracted from memory, but excessive stress can narrow this range, which determines the well-known tendency towards stereotypical decisions in stressful situations. However, even with maximum access to information, a complete search of hypotheses is irrational due to the large investment of time.

To limit the field of hypotheses and control the order of search, a special mechanism is used, which is closely related to the person’s system of attitudes and his emotional mood. Before going through and evaluating possible approaches to solving a problem, you need to understand it, and what does it mean to understand? Understanding is usually determined by the presence of intermediate concepts connecting the conditions of the problem and the required result, and the transposability of the solution. The solution will be transposeable if a general solution principle is identified for a class of problems, that is, an invariant is identified that can be used to solve problems of other classes. Learning to identify such a general principle means obtaining a universal tool for solving problems. This is helped by training in reformulating the problem.

The main elements with which thought operates are concepts (reflection of the general and essential features of any objects and phenomena), judgments (establishing a connection between objects and phenomena; it can be true and false), inferences (conclusion from one or more judgments of a new judgments), as well as images and ideas.

The main operations of thinking include analysis (mental division of a whole into parts and their subsequent comparison), synthesis (combining individual parts into a whole, constructing a whole from analytically given parts), concretization (application of general laws to a specific case, the opposite operation to generalization), abstraction (singling out any side or aspect of a phenomenon that in reality does not exist as an independent one), generalization (mental unification of objects and phenomena that are similar in some respects), as well as comparison and classification.

It is important to note that the main mental operations can be represented as reversible pairs: analysis - synthesis, identifying similarities - identifying differences, abstraction - concretization.

The main types of thinking are theoretical (which, in turn, includes conceptual and figurative), as well as practical (which includes visual-figurative and visual-effective).

The main properties of the mind include:

Curiosity and inquisitiveness (the desire to learn as much and thoroughly as possible);

Depth (the ability to penetrate into the essence of objects and phenomena);

Flexibility (the ability to correctly navigate new circumstances);

Criticality (the ability to question the conclusions made and promptly abandon a wrong decision);

Logicality (the ability to think harmoniously and consistently);

Speed ​​(the ability to make the right decisions in the shortest possible time).

Carl Jung considered two types of people according to the nature of their thinking: intuitive (characterized by the predominance of emotions over logic and the dominance of the right hemisphere of the brain over the left) and mental (characterized by rationality and the predominance of the left hemisphere of the brain over the right, the primacy of logic over feelings).

In psychology, the problem of thinking is closely related to the problem of speech. Human thinking and speech proceed on the basis common elements- words. Speech arose simultaneously with thinking in the process of socio-historical development of man.

Speech is a system of sound signals, written signs and symbols used by humans to represent, process, store and transmit information.

It is known that there are concepts varying degrees generality and each concept has a corresponding name - a word (symbol). The participation of speech in this aspect of thinking is undeniable. It is much more difficult to imagine images that have gone through several stages of generalization. Development written language allows us to trace the gradual transition from specific images to generalized symbols. At the origins of written language in ancient times, there were pictures that realistically depicted objects, but the relationships between objects were not depicted in them. In modern language, a word has lost any visual resemblance to the object it denotes, and the relationships between objects are represented by the grammatical structure of a sentence. The written word is the result of many stages of generalization of the original concrete visual image.

The impact of speech on other higher mental processes is no less significant and manifests itself in many ways as a factor that organizes the structure of perception, forms memory and determines the selectivity of attention.

Imagination is the mental process of creating new images based on past perceptions. It arose and developed in the process of labor, based on the need to change certain objects, to imagine something that a person did not directly perceive and does not perceive.

In other words, imagination is a special form human psyche, standing separately from other mental processes and at the same time occupying an intermediate position between perception, thinking and memory (characteristic only for humans). Imagination is based on the transformation and creative combination of existing ideas, impressions and knowledge.

Images of the imagination differ from images of ideas. Images of the imagination are images of objects and phenomena that we have not previously perceived (for example, an atomic explosion and its consequences or the state of weightlessness in space, etc.). They can arise only on the basis of existing ideas, thanks to their processing and combination. And this is impossible without thinking. But imagination is closely connected not only with memory, ideas and thinking. It is greatly influenced by a person’s needs, desires, interests, will, and attitude to reality. In turn, under the influence of imagination, certain feelings and desires arise.

Types of imagination

1. Involuntary (or passive), that is, images arise spontaneously, in addition to the will and desire of a person, without a predetermined goal, by themselves (for example, dreams).

2. Voluntary (or active) - using it, a person, of his own free will, by an effort of will, evokes appropriate images in himself, forces his imagination to work in order to solve his problems.

The main forms of voluntary imagination are:

a) recreating - the process of creating images based on personal experience, perception of speech, text, drawing, map, diagram, etc.;

b) creative - a more complex process - this is the independent creation of images of objects that do not yet exist in reality. Thanks to creative imagination, new, original images are born in various areas of life.

3. A dream is a unique type of imagination - it is a representation of the desired future. It can be useful and harmful. A dream, if it is not connected with life, relaxes the will, reduces a person’s activity, and slows down his development. It's empty. Such dreams are called daydreams.

Functions of the imagination

1. Represent reality in images and be able to use them when solving problems. This function of imagination is connected with thinking and is organically included in it.

2. Regulation of emotional states. With the help of his imagination, a person is able, at least partially, to satisfy many needs and relieve the tension generated by them. This vital function is especially emphasized and developed in psychoanalysis.

3. Voluntary regulation of cognitive processes and human states, in particular perception, attention, memory, speech, emotions. With the help of skillfully evoked images, a person can pay attention to the necessary events. Through images, he gains the opportunity to control perceptions, memories, and statements.

4. Formation of an internal plan of action - the ability to carry them out in the mind, manipulating images.

5. Planning and programming activities, drawing up such programs, assessing their correctness, the implementation process.

The importance of imagination is that it allows a person to imagine the results of work before it begins. With the help of imagination, we can control many psychophysiological states of the body and tune it to upcoming activities.

Human cognitive activity is a specific activity. Psychology as an abstract science studies only one of structural levels ev organizations. Therefore, if we leave the psychological meaning behind the concept of thinking, it cannot be identified with the concept of cognition, since thinking will in this case reflect only one of the structural levels of the organization of cognition, its psychological mechanism.

The characterization of the learning process is based on the idea of ​​the activity approach, developed in Soviet psychology. Teaching is a system of cognitive actions of students aimed at solving educational problems. Based on the position of Marxism on the role of labor in the development of man, Soviet psychology argues that objective activity should and does change the type of his behavior. At the same time, a person is characterized by both objective and internal mental activity, carried out with the help of verbal, digital and other signs. This activity leads to the mental development of the individual. A person especially actively masters various signs and material tools during specially organized training. Social relationships of people, manifested, in particular, in learning, lead to the development of their higher mental functions. Now it is customary to briefly convey this thought of L. S. Vygotsky in the form of a formula: “Training comes ahead of development.” The fundamental difference between Soviet educational psychology and many foreign concepts is that it focuses on the active formation of psychological functions, and not on their passive registration and adaptation to the existing level. Hence, the idea of ​​constructing training in such a way that would take into account the zone of proximal development of the individual is of very important methodological importance, i.e. it is necessary to focus not on the current level of development, but on a slightly higher one, which the student can achieve under the guidance and help of a teacher.

Modern educational psychology believes that for each age period there is its own, most characteristic leading type of activity: in preschool - play, in primary school - learning, in middle school - extensive socially useful activity in all its variants (educational, labor, social). organizational, artistic, sports, etc.).

Cognitive mental processes

Feel	Reflection of individual properties of objects that directly affect our senses
Perceptions	Reflection of objects and phenomena that directly affect the senses as a whole, in the totality of the properties and characteristics of these objects
	Reflection of past experience or imprinting, preserving and reproducing something
Imagination	Reflecting the future, creating a new image based on past experience
Thinking	The highest form of reflective activity, which allows us to understand the essence of objects and phenomena, their interrelation, and the pattern of development

Student age is characterized by the highest level of indicators such as muscle strength, reaction speed, motor agility, speed endurance, etc. As they say, this is the age of human physical perfection. Most sports records were set at this age. However, according to data from the World Health Organization, it is students who are characterized by the worst indicators physiological functions in your age group. They lead in the number of patients with hypertension, tachycardia, diabetes, and neuropsychiatric disorders. The reasons for this, as research shows, lie in the fact that during their university studies, students experience severe mental stress, often destructive to their health.

The teacher must take into account that these loads are especially high during periods of control and assessment. But this is where one of the most serious pedagogical mistakes is often made: a negative assessment of the results of learning. curriculum the teacher transfers to assessing the student’s personality as a whole, letting the student know with the help of facial expressions, gestures, and even verbally that he is stupid, lazy, irresponsible, etc. Making the student worry negative emotions, the teacher has a direct influence on physical state and student health.

The characteristics of the cognitive sphere of personality are directly related to all its other substructures and the personality as a whole. Successful educational activity of a student depends not only on the degree of proficiency in techniques intellectual activity; it is also determined by personal parameters educational activities– a stable system of student relationships to the world around him and to himself.

To characterize maturity (psychophysiological and psychological), the concept of optimal functioning is used, which allows one to assess the state of functions based on the results of their implementation: the higher the indicators, the more they are close to the optimal functioning. According to some data, such an optimum for many psychophysiological and psychological functions occurs at teenage years. At this age, according to the conclusions of the famous Soviet psychologist B. G. Ananyev, smallest values latent period of reactions to simple sensory, combined and verbal signals. Early adolescence is characterized by optimum absolute and relative sensitivity of analyzers, the greatest plasticity and switchability of complex psychomotor skills. Compared to other ages, adolescence shows the highest speed of working memory, switching of attention and the maximum speed of solving verbal and logical problems. At the same time, the volume of perception reaches its maximum by the age of 30 (T. M. Maryutina, 2005).

Along with this, intellectual development continues and changes throughout life cycle. This is confirmed by the facts available in domestic and foreign psychology. B. G. Ananyev showed that the intensity of aging of intellectual functions depends on two factors: a person’s talent (internal factor) and education (external factor). The formation of an integral functional basis of a person’s intellectual activity occurs before the age of 35. In the period from 26 to 35 years, the integration of cross-functional systems increases, while in the period between 35 and 46 years, the rigidity of connections between functions begins to increase. This means that along with the growth of intellectual activity and productivity in the usual professional activity, the ability to master new areas of knowledge and skills is difficult. This implies the need for a system of continuous education as a condition high efficiency intellectual functions of a person.

A study of the dynamics of cognitive abilities (verbal and nonverbal) in people from 20 to 80 years old (Gamezo M.V., Gerasimova V.S., Gorelova G.G. et al., 1999) show that mental abilities (such as vocabulary and mastery of abstract concepts) do not decline until age 60 and change only slightly by age 80. Research conducted under the leadership of B. G. Ananyev showed that only 14.2% of people aged 18-35 years experience periods of stagnation in life. psychological development, and their duration does not exceed 2-3 years. For the vast majority, this is an age of intensive development.

Numerous studies have shown that at different periods of a person’s life there is uneven development of mental functions. Thus, the highest degree of sensitivity to professional and social experience is observed between the ages of 18 and 25 years. With a slight increase in general intelligence in the period from 18 to 46 years, the ratio of attention, memory and thinking undergo significant fluctuations. Thus, studies show that at the age of 18 to 25 years, thinking has higher levels, while attention is relatively low. From 26 to 29 years of age, the lowest indicators are found in thinking, while the highest in attention. From 30 to 33 years old, there is a coincidence in the levels of attention and thinking, and at 34-35 they decline. The decline points in the level of development of attention and thinking coincide. The points of highest rise in attention occur at 22 years, 24 years, 26 years, while the level of thinking decreases in these years. The points of highest rise in thinking are at 20 years, 23 years, 25 years and 32 years. The level of attention in these years, with the exception of 32 years, decreases.

A decrease or increase in functional mnemonic capabilities affects the nature of a person’s mental search. A decrease in mnemonic potential leads to the fact that a person begins to turn to impulsive search or risky decisions. The very first peak in memory development occurs at age 19. Between 20 and 26 years, there is unevenness in the development of memory and thinking; in subsequent years, an increase begins both in the development of memory and in the development of heuristic processes, but the peak of memory falls at 30 years, while the peak of heuristic processes at 32 years. The decline in memory begins at the age of 31, the decline in heuristic processes – at the age of 33.

Highest level in development logical thinking 20-year-olds reach second place, with 25-year-olds in second place. Third and fourth place was shared by 19-year-olds and 32-year-olds. Next come 24-year-olds and 30-year-olds. The volume of short-term memory in the auditory modality in 20-year-olds is on the same level as in 19-year-olds and is slightly higher in 24-year-olds, who showed results below the average school grade in terms of the development of logical thinking. In 25-year-olds, the volume of verbal short-term memory in the auditory modality was at the lowest level. Thus, there is no direct influence of the level of development of short-term memory on hearing and the level of development of logical thinking.

As a rule, it is at student age that not only physical, but also psychological properties and higher mental functions reach their maximum development: perception, attention, memory, thinking, speech, emotions and feelings. This fact allowed B. G. Ananyev to conclude that this period of life is most favorable for education and professional training.

Thus, a study of memory in 18-21 year olds showed that memory and its types at this age develop in different directions. High level mnemonic function is usually combined with more uniform development various processes and types of memory, which does not exclude large individual differences. Memory scale scores for men are to one degree or another higher than memory scores for women.

Research on age-related changes in thinking (18-21 years) shows that there is a complex unity between types of thinking, indicating the connection of figurative, logical and effective components. If for 18-19 year olds verbal-logical thinking is more closely connected with imaginative thinking, then for 20-21 year olds it is more closely connected with practical thinking.

The central properties of the attention of 18-21 year olds are volume and stability, uniting individual properties around themselves. 18-year-olds show high levels of volume, switching, concentration and selectivity of attention, and the indicators of the last two properties are slightly higher than the indicators of the first. At this age, attention stability is most developed. 19-year-olds have slightly lower stability than 18-year-olds. In 20-year-olds, the level of concentration increases (slightly), and the level of switching decreases more significantly. For 21-year-olds, the volume indicator increases slightly. Switching and stability were the least developed. These data indicate a wide range of changes in attention during student age.

The study of qualitative changes in the development of intelligence in modern psychology is associated with the works of J. Piaget and his followers. According to Piaget, the age from 12 to 15 years is the period of birth of hypothetico-deductive thinking, the ability to abstract concepts from reality, formulate and sort out alternative hypotheses and make one’s own thought the subject of analysis. By the end of adolescence, a person is already able to separate logical operations from the objects on which they are performed and classify statements regardless of their content, according to boolean type(“if – then ...”), distinctions of the “either-or” type, inclusion of a particular case in a class of phenomena, judgment of incompatibility, etc.

Along with this, studies by Soviet and foreign psychologists (P. Ya. Galperin, V. V. Davydov, A. Arlin, R. Wason, etc.) show:

1. mastery of certain mental operations cannot be separated from the learning process;

2. there is a wide range of individual differences (some people have hypothetico-deductive thinking already at 10-11 years old, others are not capable of it even in adulthood);

3. many psychologists express the idea that the stage of “solving problems” (according to Piaget’s periodization) is followed by the stage of “finding and posing problems”;

4. formal logical thinking is not a synonym for formal logic.

Piaget himself, in his latest works, emphasized that adolescents and young men use their new mental qualities selectively, in those areas of activity that are most significant and interesting for them, and in other cases they can make do with their previous skills. Therefore, in order to identify the real mental potential of an individual, it is necessary to first identify the sphere of her primary interests in which she reveals her abilities to the maximum, and formulate a task with an emphasis on these abilities. At the same time, the breadth of intellectual interests in early youth is often combined with scatteredness, lack of system and method. The volume of attention, the ability to maintain its intensity for a long time and switchability from one subject to another increase with age. At the same time, attention also becomes selective, depending on the direction of interests.

Studies of the nature of intellectual changes in students during their studies at a university, which were carried out by domestic psychologists in the 70s of the 20th century, showed that over the years of study at the university, the level of intelligence of students increases by 5 conventional units. units – from 116 to 121. For freshmen, the level of intellectual development coincided on average with the category “good norm” (110-119 conventional units), and for graduates this indicator rises to the category “high intelligence” (120-129 conventional units) .).

The development of intelligence is closely related to the development creativity, which involve not just the assimilation of knowledge, but the manifestation of intellectual initiative and the creation of something new. American psychologists M. Parlof, L. Dutta et al. (1968) compared the personal properties of groups of creative people (adults and boys) compared with less creative ones. The results showed that creative people, regardless of age and direction of interests, were distinguished by a developed sense of individuality, the presence of spontaneous reactions, and the desire to rely on own strength, emotional agility, desire to work independently, self-confidence, balance and assertiveness. Differences between creative adults and youth were found in a set of qualities (self-control, need for achievement and a sense of well-being), which the researchers called “disciplined efficiency.” Creative adults scored lower in this group of qualities, while creative young men scored higher. This is explained by the fact that youth is psychologically more mobile and prone to hobbies. To become creatively productive, a young man needs greater intellectual discipline and concentration, which distinguishes him from his impulsive and scatterbrained peers. Whereas an adult involuntarily gravitates towards the familiar, the stable: his creativity manifests itself in him being less constrained by organizational frameworks.

So youth is important stage in the development of human mental abilities: creative thinking, the ability to generalize intensively develop, and the ability for abstract thinking increases. What comes to the fore in youth is the ability to search for original, non-stereotypical solutions, realize one’s worldview, and achieve life goals. If the teacher does not develop precisely these abilities, the student may develop the skill of semi-mechanical memorization of the material being studied, which leads to an increase in ostentatious erudition, but inhibits the development of intelligence. The results of special surveys show that the majority of students have a very low level of development of intellectual operations such as comparison, classification, and definition. A teacher often has to make great efforts to overcome the schoolboy attitude towards learning: a focus only on the result of intellectual activity and indifference to the very process of the movement of thought. Only slightly more than half of students increase their intellectual development indicators from the first to the fifth year, and, as a rule, such an increase is observed in weak and average students, and best students often leave the university with the same level of intellectual abilities with which they came (Dyachenko M.I., Kandybovich L.A., 1978).

The most important ability that a student must acquire at a university is, in fact, the ability to learn, which will radically affect his professional development, since it determines his opportunities in postgraduate education. continuing education. Even more important is the ability to independently acquire knowledge based on creative thinking.

The first year of a child’s life can be divided into two stages - the neonatal period, which lasts from four to six weeks and ends with the appearance of the revitalization complex, and the infancy period, which ends at one year.

The newborn stage is the time of adaptation of the child to new, extra-uterine living conditions, lengthening the period of wakefulness compared to the period of sleep, the formation of the first reactions necessary for mental development - visual and auditory concentration (the ability to focus on an audio or visual signal), the appearance of the first combinations or conditioned reflexes, for example on the feeding position.

At the same time, a pattern begins to appear that is characteristic of the general direction of development of children in the first years of life and significantly distinguishes them from young animals. It lies in the fact that the development of sensory processes (vision, hearing, touch) significantly advances the development of motor skills in human infants, while in animals, on the contrary, movements develop earlier than the senses.

Visual and auditory concentration, which arise at 4-5 and 3 weeks, respectively, actually lay the foundation for the transition from sensations to perception, to the ability to see an object as a whole, in all its properties, and also to follow the movement of an object with your gaze or turn your head behind a moving source of sound. . These reactions develop according to the dominant principle - at the moment of concentration, all other reactions of the child stop, he freezes and concentrates only on the sound or object that attracted his attention. Based on these formed reactions, a revitalization complex is born, which is an indicator of the transition to a new stage of development - infancy. The revitalization complex also represents a kind of dominant, since at this moment all other needs for the child lose their importance. When an adult approaches him, he freezes, and then begins to vigorously move his arms and legs, smile, walk - in a word, do everything to attract attention to himself.

Such a reaction to an adult proves that close people are not just for the baby. a necessary condition development, but its source. This is also a significant difference between human infants and young animals - the environment, communication with adults, the surrounding culture, language not only accelerate or slow down the pace of development, favoring or, conversely, preventing the formation and development of certain qualities, but also direct this development and enrich it new content that can significantly change the self-development of children. It is important to remember this for all adults surrounding children from the first days of their lives.

The reaction to an adult represents not only the child’s first psychological reaction, but also his first social reaction. L. S. Vygotsky, speaking about the development of infants, wrote that this is the most social creature, and this is partly true, since the child is completely dependent on an adult who satisfies all his needs. The child himself could never have survived; It is the adult, surrounding him with attention, care and care, who helps him to develop normally. Dependence on adult care is also associated with the fact that in human infants, sensory development dominates in the first months of life, while in young animals, motor development dominates. The development of perception throughout the first years of life, in fact throughout preschool age, is one of the most important mental processes. As will be shown later, other cognitive processes, primarily thinking, largely depend on the development of perception at this age.

However, the role of an adult is not limited to caring for the child and creating favorable conditions for the development of perception. Studies by many psychologists (M.I. Lisina, L.I. Bozhovich, E. Erikson, A. Adler, A. Freud, J. Bowlby, etc.) have shown that in the first months of life, emotional contact and attachment are extremely important for a child and protection that comes from a close adult. Proving that the leading activity in infancy is emotional and personal communication with adults, M.I. Lisina conducted a series of experiments in which she showed that cognitive development(and not just the development of emotions and speech) is largely determined by communication with adults. Ethnopsychological studies have also demonstrated that children who have constant tactile contact with their mother (for example, tied behind her back, as in many African tribes) develop faster.

By the end of infancy, almost all the properties of children's perception are formed - constancy, correctness, objectivity, consistency. The appearance of these properties is associated with the development of children's locomotion, movement in space, thanks to which they learn to see an object from different angles of view, recognize it in different combinations, from different distances and from different angles of view. The first sensory standards appear - permanent images of surrounding objects. Children relate new objects perceived in the world around them to these standards. Since the first standards are not yet generalized and reflect the properties of specific objects, they are called subject standards.

The basic patterns and standards of mental development of infants were established in the first decades of the 20th century. thanks to the research of N. M. Shchelovanov and A. Gesell.

A systematic study of the genesis of the development of the child’s psyche was started by N. M. Shchelovanov back in 1922 with the opening of the laboratory of genetic reflexology. The method used in the laboratory consisted of continuous, systematic observation of the child, recording all his reactions arising under the influence of external and internal stimuli. The method of reflexological experiment was also used, i.e. the formation of artificial combination reflexes in infants (for example, a reflex to milk in a cone of a certain shape and color).

N.M. Shchelovanov and his employees N.L. Figurina and P.M. Denisova established the most important patterns of child development during the neonatal and infancy periods. They recorded the dynamics of the transition from sleep to wakefulness, described the development of sensory analyzers, and showed the possibility of the formation of the first conditioned reflexes in the second or third month of life. They discovered and described visual and auditory concentration, established standards for the development of memory and perception in infants, and identified the stages of development of motor skills and sensorimotor coordination in the first year of life. Revival (the term was introduced into psychology by these scientists) and the crisis of one year were discovered. Based on the data obtained, criteria for diagnosing the mental development of infants were developed, which, with some modifications, are used in modern practical psychology.

The American psychologist A.L. Gesell also made a great contribution to the study of the mental development of infants. Gesell is the founder of the Yale Clinic of Normal Childhood, which studied the mental development of young children - from birth to 3 years. The periods of infancy and early childhood were the focus of Gesell's scientific interests, since he believed that during the first 3 years of life a child goes through most their mental development, since the pace of this development is maximum in the first 3 years, and then gradually slows down over time.

Research on the rate of mental development of children led another famous psychologist, V. Stern, to the idea that the individual rate of mental development, which manifests itself primarily in the speed of learning, is one of the most important individual properties of a child. Based on this, Stern, who was one of the founders of differential psychology, argued that there is not only a normativity common to all children of a certain age, but also an individual normativity that characterizes a particular child. Therefore, a violation of the individual pace of development can lead to serious deviations, including neuroses.

Gesell's research, in contrast to Shchelovanov's work, was aimed not at analyzing the patterns of mental development in the first 3 years of life, but at establishing the normativity of this development. At the Gesell Clinic, special equipment was developed for objective diagnosis of the dynamics of mental development of young children, including filming and photography, and the “Gesell mirror” (semi-permeable glass used for objective observation of children’s behavior). He also introduced new research methods into psychology - longitudinal (a method of studying the same children over a certain period of time, most often from birth to adolescence) and twin (a comparative analysis of the mental development of monozygotic twins). Based on these studies, a test system was developed for children from 3 months to 6 years according to the following parameters: motor skills, speech, adaptive behavior, personal and social behavior. In a modified form, these tests also form the basis of modern diagnostics of infant mental development.

During the first year of life, not only perception and movement, but also memory actively develop. It is at this time that all genetic types of memory are formed - emotional, motor, figurative, verbal. According to some data, the fetus already has emotional memory. In an infant, this type of memory is the main one in the first weeks of life; it helps him orient himself in reality, fixing his attention and directing his senses to the most emotionally important objects. At 7-9 weeks, motor memory also appears, the child can remember and repeat some movement, familiar gestures begin to form - the beginning of future operations. At 4 months, children develop figurative memory (first in the form of recognition of familiar objects), and at 8-9 months, they begin to reproduce what the child has seen before. Just as the emergence of motor memory contributes to the organization of movements and locomotion of children, the emergence of figurative memory significantly affects its communication and formation motivational sphere. With the development of recognition, the child begins to differentiate the adults around him, to recognize pleasant and unpleasant people. His reaction to them is also differentiated - animation and a smile at pleasant ones are replaced by crying at the sight of unpleasant faces. The development of reproduction stimulates the emergence of the first motives, or, as L. I. Bookovich calls them, motivating ideas of the child, which contribute to the formation of his personality, the development of independence from environment. If earlier an adult could regulate the child’s behavior by changing the situation, removing, for example, unpleasant objects and offering the child pleasant ones, now, with the advent of reproduction, the child is less dependent on environmental conditions, since he develops stable desires associated with objects or situations, which were preserved in his memory. This is how constant impulses or motives arise that direct the child’s activities.

Babies' thinking also develops. By the end of the first year of life, children develop manual intelligence, or visual-effective thinking, which is built on the basis of trial and error and is associated with the “development of the child’s first independent movements, locomotions.” The development of orientation is also of great importance - reactions to new objects, the desire to examine them . No wonder A.V. Zaporozhets, who studied cognitive development in the first years of life, emphasized that various mental processes are, in fact, different types orientation in the surrounding world. Thus, perception, in his opinion, is an orientation in the properties and qualities of objects, thinking - in the relationships and connections between them, and emotions - in their personal meaning. Therefore, the time during which a child examines a new object, as well as the number of analyzers that participate in this process, is an important indicator of the infant’s intellectual development. The longer a child looks at a new toy, the more different qualities he discovers in it, the higher his intellectual level.

In the first year of life, speech begins to develop, primarily passive - the child listens and distinguishes sounds. Substantial, autonomous speech of children also appears (remember that at this age the development of external speech proceeds from word to sentence, and internal speech from sentence to word).

The data obtained in the works of E. Erikson are of great importance for understanding the mental development of children in the first year of life. From his point of view, each stage of identity formation not only forms something new, necessary for social life quality, but also prepares the child for the next period of life. All stages contribute to the formation of opposing qualities and character traits that a person recognizes in himself and with which he begins to identify. Highlighting the period of the year as the first stage of mental development, Erikson believed that at this time the psyche is determined mainly by close people, parents, who form in the child a sense of basic trust or mistrust, that is, openness to the world or wariness, closedness. Basic trust subsequently allows children to treat others kindly and communicate with new people without fear or internal barriers. strangers. To some extent, Erikson's work shows that the motivation for communication is laid down during this period. In this, Erikson’s concept is very close to M.I. Lisina’s data on the importance of emotional communication with adults for an infant.

The English psychologist and psychiatrist J. Bowlby wrote about this, arguing that a close emotional connection between mother and child is established during infancy. Violation of this connection, as mentioned above, leads to serious deviations in the mental development of the child. Bowlby's work contributed in the 50s in England, and later in other countries, to changing the conditions of hospitalization for young children, who are now not separated from their mother.

The development of perception, thinking, the formation of emotional contacts with others, as well as the emergence of one’s own motives for behavior change the social situation of the development of the infant, who moves to a new level. This is associated with the emergence of a critical period, including such negative components as stubbornness, aggression, negativism, and resentment. As a rule, these manifestations are unstable and disappear with the end of the crisis, but if the child’s aspirations and activity are completely ignored, they can become the basis for the formation of stable negative qualities personality.

The main new development of the newborn period is a unique mental life. During the first weeks of life, the child learns to find a nipple, suck a fist, a leg, fixate with his gaze and trace the movement of a moving object (at a distance of 30 cm - colored toys), smile at the sight of a human face, and also hold his head in a lying position. The neonatal period ends at the end of the first month of life. Psychological sign The end of this period is the appearance of a smile at the sound of a human voice.

After the end of the newborn period, the main mental new formation is a certain community, a special connection between the baby and the mother. This contact serves as the starting point for realizing one’s own personality. This is confirmed by 2 factors:

• 1. The baby cannot separate and understand his own body (legs, arms, foreign objects) from the surrounding world. The mental life of an infant is devoid of its center of consciousness, therefore, it has no self-awareness, but there are vaguely felt and experienced impressions.
• 2. It has been experimentally established that for an infant, social relations and attitudes towards objects are at the beginning directly fused. His interest in objects depends on the possibility of a jointly experienced situation with another person.

By the end of the fourth month of life, babies smile not only at the sight of a person. They can already put on a smile on their face in a situation that is far from unpleasant and begin to make sounds. Smiles are very often not alike. Scientists count about 70 smiles of various nature. Communication between a child and an adult in the first year of life is the leading type of activity of the child

The first motor reactions of a newborn are based on motor reflexes. A particularly important role is played by mastering active movement in space (crawling and then walking), grasping objects and manipulating them. Crawling is the first type of independent movement of a child.

Towards the end of infancy, children exhibit greater imitation, repeating many actions after adults. Intentional actions and imitation indicate a rapidly developing intelligence. Thus, the child learns thinking through action, imitating his own and others’ movements.

By the end of infancy, speech acquisition acquires an active character and becomes one of the important means of expanding the child’s communication capabilities with adults. The beginning and end of autonomous speech mark the beginning and end of the crisis of the first year of life.

So, in the process of development, a unique individual identity of the personality is formed. They appear in functional features nervous system, in mental, emotional, moral, volitional qualities, in the needs, interests, abilities and character traits of children and adults. In the process of development, a unique individual identity of the personality is formed.

The mental development of a person goes through a series of periods that successively replace each other. Their consistent change is irreversible and predictable. Each period is a segment life path a person and at the same time a certain degree of his development as a person. Within the boundaries of each age period, not only quantitative, but also qualitative changes in the psyche occur, which give grounds to distinguish certain stages in it, which successively replace each other in the process of mental development and its results, there are typological and individual differences. They manifest themselves in the functional characteristics of the nervous system, in mental, emotional, moral, volitional qualities, in the needs, interests, abilities and characterological traits of children and adults.

Materials are presented on the age-related characteristics of younger schoolchildren: psychological developments of age, personality development and cognitive processes (perception, attention, memory, imagination, thinking, speech).

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FEATURES OF COGNITIVE AND LEARNING ACTIVITIES

JUNIOR SCHOOL CHILDREN

Strategic development goal school education currently lies in updating its content and achieving a new quality of its results. From the recognition of “knowledge, abilities and skills” as the main results of education, there has been a shift to an understanding of learning as a process of preparing students for real life, readiness to take an active position, to successfully solve life problems. real problems, be able to collaborate and work in a group, be ready to quickly retrain in response to updated knowledge and labor market requirements.In essence, there is a transition from learning as the presentation of a system of knowledge, from mastering individual educational subjects- to multidisciplinary (interdisciplinary) study of complex situations real life, to cooperation between teacher and students, to the active participation of students in the choice of content and teaching methods.

Theoretical and methodological basis for initial general education as part of the creation State standards general education is becoming a cultural-historical activity approach, developed in the works of domestic psychologists L.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontyeva, P.Ya. Galperina, D.B. Elkonin and others, revealing the basic psychological conditions and mechanisms of the process of acquiring knowledge, forming a picture of the world, and the general structure of educational activities.

The activity paradigm of education is based on the position that a person’s psychological abilities are the result of the transformation of external objective activity into internal mental activity through successive transformations. Thus, the personal, social, and cognitive development of students is determined by the nature of the organization of their activities, primarily educational ones.

Practice has shown that consistent implementation of the activity approach increases the effectiveness of education. This is evidenced by a more flexible and durable assimilation of knowledge by students, the possibility of their independent movement in the area under study, a significant increase in motivation and interest in learning, the ability to differentiate learning without compromising the assimilation of a unified structure of theoretical knowledge, training time is significantly reduced, and an increase in the general cultural and personal potential of students is observed.

Start schooling practically coincides with the period of the second physiological crisis, occurring at the age of 7 years. This means that a fundamental change in the system social relations and the child’s activity coincides with the period of restructuring of all systems and functions of the body, which requires great tension and mobilization of its reserves.

The beginning of schooling leads to a radical change in the social situation of the child’s development. He becomes a “public” subject and now has socially significant responsibilities, the fulfillment of which receives public assessment. The child’s entire system of life relationships is rebuilt and is largely determined by how successfully he copes with new demands.

Psychological neoplasms

at primary school age

The development of the psyche of younger schoolchildren occurs mainly on the basis of the leading activity of learning for them. By getting involved in educational work, children gradually obey its requirements, and the fulfillment of these requirements presupposes the emergence of new mental qualities that are absent in preschoolers. New qualities arise and develop in younger schoolchildren as learning activities develop.

Organizing front-to-back lessons in the classroom is only possible if all children listen to the teacher at the same time and follow his instructions. Managing your behavior based on given patterns contributes to the development of children arbitrariness as a special quality of mental processes. It manifests itself in the ability to consciously set goals for action and deliberately seek and find means of achieving them, overcoming difficulties and obstacles.

When performing certain tasks, children usually look for the best ways to solve them, select and compare options for actions, plan their order and means of implementation. The more “steps” of his actions a child can foresee and the more carefully he can compare their different options, the more successfully he will control the actual solution of the problem. The need for control and self-control in educational activities creates favorable conditions for the formation ofplanning abilitiesand performing actions silently, internally.

One of the important requirements of educational activities is that children must thoroughly justify the fairness of their statements and actions, which presupposes the formation of the ability to, as it were, examine and evaluate their own thoughts and actions from the outside. This skill lies at the core reflections as an important quality that allows you to intelligently and objectively analyze your judgments and actions from the point of view of their compliance with the plan and conditions of activity.

Voluntariness, internal plan of action and reflection are the main new formations of a young child school age. Thanks to them, the psyche of a junior schoolchild reaches the level of development necessary for further education in high school. The unpreparedness of some junior schoolchildren for secondary school is most often associated with the lack of formation of these general qualities and abilities of the individual, which determine the level of mental processes and the educational activity itself.

Primary school age is sensitive(sensitive to learning) For:

1. formation of learning motives, development of sustainable cognitive needs and interests;
2. development of productive techniques and skills academic work, “ability to learn”;
3. disclosures individual characteristics and abilities;
4. development of self-control, self-organization and self-regulation skills;
5. formation of adequate self-esteem, development of criticality towards oneself and others;
6. mastering social norms, moral development;
7. developing communication skills with peers, establishing strong friendships.

Full-fledged living of this age, its positive acquisitions are the necessary foundation on which to build further development the child as an active subject of cognition and activity. The main task of adults in working with children of primary school age is to create optimal conditions for the development and realization of children's capabilities, taking into account the individuality of each child.

Development of cognitive processes in younger schoolchildren

Development of perception.The development of individual mental processes occurs throughout primary school age.

Perception - a complex system processes of receiving and converting information, providing the body with a reflection of objective reality and orientation in the surrounding world.

Although children come to school with fairly developed perception processes (they have high visual and hearing acuity, they are well oriented towards various shapes and colors), but their perception in educational activities is reduced only to recognizing and naming shapes and colors.First, the child is attracted to the object itself, and first of allits external bright signs. Children are still unable to concentrate and carefully consider all the features of an object and highlight the main, essential things in it. While learning mathematics, students cannot analyze and correctly perceive the numbers 6 and 9, in the Russian alphabet the letters E and 3, etc. The teacher’s work should be constantly aimed at teaching the student to analyze, compare the properties of objects, highlight the essential and express it in words. It is necessary to learn to focus your attention on the subjects of educational activity, regardless of their external attractiveness. All this leads to the development of arbitrariness, meaningfulness, and at the same time to a different selectivity of perception: selectivity in content, and not in external attractiveness. By the end of the first grade, the student is able to perceive objects in accordance with the needs and interests that arise during the learning process and his past experience. The teacher continues to teach him the technique of perception, shows him methods of inspection or listening, and the procedure for identifying properties. All this stimulates further development of perception, appears observation as a special activity,observation skills developas a character trait.

Development of attention.Children coming to school do not yet have focused attention. They pay their attention mainly to what is directly interesting to them, what stands out as bright and unusual (involuntary attention). Conditions school work from the first days they require the child to follow such objects and assimilate such information that at the moment does not interest him at all. Gradually, the child learns to direct and steadily maintain attention on the necessary, and not just externally attractive objects. In grades 2-3, many students already have voluntary attention, concentrating it on any material explained by the teacher or available in the book.Voluntary attention, the ability to deliberately direct it to a particular task is an important acquisition of primary school age.

As experience shows, great importance in the formation of voluntary attention has a clearexternal organizationactions of the child, providing him with such models, indicating such external means, using which he can guide his own consciousness. For example, when phonetic analysis The use of cardboard chips plays a big role. The exact sequence of their laying out organizes children's attention, helps them concentrate on working with complex, subtle and “volatile” sound material.

The child’s self-organization is a consequence of the organization initially created and directed by adults and the teacher. The general direction of development of attention is that from achieving the goal set by the teacher, the child moves on to the controlled solution of problems set by him.

In first-graders, voluntary attention is unstable, since they do not yet have internal means of self-regulation. Therefore, the teacher resorts to various types of educational work that replace each other during the lesson and do not tire the children (oral calculation in different ways, solving problems and checking results, etc.). Students in grades 1-2 have more stable attention when performing external, than actual mental actions. It is important to use this feature in lessons, alternating mental exercises with drawing up graphic diagrams, drawings, layouts, and creating applications. When performing simple but monotonous activities, younger schoolchildren are distracted more often than when solving more complex tasks that require the use of different ways and work methods.

The development of attention is also associated withexpansion of attention spanand the ability to distribute it between different types of actions. Therefore, it is advisable to set educational tasks in such a way that the child, while performing his actions, can and should monitor the work of his comrades. For example, while reading a given text, a student is required to monitor the work of other students. Some children are “absent-minded” in the classroom precisely because they do not know how to distribute their attention: while doing one thing, they lose sight of others. The teacher needs to organize different types of educational work in such a way that children become accustomed to simultaneous control of several actions (at first, of course, relatively simple ones), preparing for the general frontal work of the class.

Memory development.A seven-year-old child easily remembers apparently vivid and emotionally impressive events, descriptions, and stories. But school life is such that from the very beginning it requires children to voluntarily memorize material.

Initially, children use the most simple ways- repeated repetition of material when dividing it into parts, which, as a rule, do not coincide with semantic units. Self-monitoring of memorization results occurs only at the level of recognition. Thus, a first grader looks at a text and believes that he has learned it because he experiences a feeling of “familiarity.” Only a few children can independently move on to more rational methods of voluntary memorization. Most require special and lengthy training for this. One direction of such work is related todeveloping meaningful memorization techniques in children(division of material into semantic units, semantic grouping, semantic comparison, etc.), other - withformation of reproduction techniques, distributed over time, methods of self-monitoring of memorization results.

The technique of dividing material into semantic units is based on compiling plan. This should be taught at that stage school activities when children only verbally convey a description of a picture or the content of a story they heard. Moreover, the highlighted semantic units in one case can be large, in others – small (expanded and collapsed plan) - depending on the purpose of the retelling. Based first on a written plan and then on an idea of ​​it, schoolchildren can correctly reproduce the content of various texts.

Special work is necessary to develop in younger schoolchildrenplayback techniques. First of all, the teacher shows the opportunity to reproduce individual semantic units of the material out loud or mentally before it is assimilated in its entirety. Reproduction of individual parts of a large or complex text can be distributed over time (repetition of the text immediately after working with it or at certain intervals). In the process of this work, the teacher demonstrates to the children the appropriateness of using the plan.

The semantic grouping of material, the comparison of its individual parts, and the drawing up of a plan are initially formed in younger schoolchildren as methods of voluntary memorization. But when children master them well, they become the basis of involuntary memory. The following pattern has been established in psychology: what is best remembered is what serves as the subject and goal of mental work.

Both forms of memory - voluntary and involuntary - undergo such qualitative changes at primary school age, thanks to which their close relationship and mutual transitions are established. It is important that each of the forms of memory is used by children under appropriate conditions (for example, when learning a text by heart, predominantly voluntary memory is used). One should not think that only voluntary memorization leads to complete assimilation. educational material. Such assimilation can also occur with the help ofinvoluntary memory, if it is based on the means of logical comprehension of this material.

From 1st to 3rd grade, the effectiveness of students’ memorization of verbally expressed information increases faster than the effectiveness of memorizing visual data, which is explained by the intensive development of meaningful memorization techniques in children. These techniques are associated with the analysis of significant relationships, recorded mainly with the help of verbal constructions. At the same time, retaining visual images in memory is important for learning processes. Therefore, methods of voluntary and involuntary memorization need to be developed in relation to both types of educational material - verbal and visual.

Imagination. In the process of educational activity, the student receives a lot of descriptive information, and this requires him to constantly recreate images, without which it is impossible to understand the educational material and assimilate it, i.e. From the very beginning of education, the recreating imagination of a primary school student is included in purposeful activities that contribute to his mental development.

For the development of the imagination of younger schoolchildren, their ideas are of great importance. That's why work is importantto accumulate a system of thematic ideaschildren. As a result of the constant efforts of the teacher in this direction, changes occur in the development of the imagination of the primary school student:

1. At first, children’s imaginations are vague, but then they become more precise and definite;
2. at first, only a few features are displayed in the image, and among them the unimportant ones predominate, and by the 3rd-4th grade the number of displayed features increases significantly, and among them the essential ones predominate;
3. the processing of images of accumulated ideas is insignificant at first, and by the 3rd grade, when the student acquires much more knowledge, the images become more generalized and brighter; children can already change storyline story, quite meaningfully introduce convention;
4. at the beginning of learning, a specific object is required for the appearance of an image (for example, reliance on a picture), and then reliance on a word develops, since it is this that allows the child to mentally create a new image (writing an essay).

All of the above features create the basis for the development of the process of creative imagination, in which the special knowledge of students plays an important role. This knowledge forms the basis for the development of creative imagination and the creative process in subsequent age periods.

Thinking. Thinking in children primary school develops from emotional-figurative to abstract-logical.“A child thinks in forms, colors, sounds, sensations in general”, - reminded teachers K.D. Ushinsky , calling for reliance on these features of children's thinking in the early stages of school work. The task of the first stage school is to raise the child’s thinking to a qualitatively new stage, to develop intelligence to the level of understanding cause-and-effect relationships. At school age, pointed out L.S. Vygotsky, the child enters with a relatively weak intellectual function. At school, intelligence usually develops in a way that it does not at any other time.

So, When solving mental problems, children rely on real objects or their images. Conclusions and generalizations are made based on certain facts.All this manifests itself when mastering educational material. The learning process stimulates the rapid development of abstract thinking, especially in mathematics lessons, where the student moves from acting with specific objects toto mental operationswith a number. The same thing happens in Russian language lessons when learning a word, which at first is not separated from the designated object, but gradually becomes the subject of special study.

The current level of development of society and the information itself, gleaned by a child from various sources of information, create a need even among younger schoolchildren to reveal the causes and essence of connections, relationships between objects (phenomena), to explain them, i.e. think abstractly. Scientists studied the question of the mental capabilities of a primary school student. As a result of a number of studies, it was revealed that the child’s mental capabilities are wider than previously thought, and with special methodological organization training, junior schoolboy can assimilate abstract theoretical material. So, based on the research of V.V. Davydov in RO introduced the assimilation of algebra elements to establish relationships between quantities. They establish the same complex dependencies, requiring abstraction, when mastering grammatical material, if the teacher uses effective methods mental development.

New programs place great emphasis onformation of scientific concepts. Subject concepts develop from identifying functional features (revealing the purpose of an object) to listing a number of essential and non-essential properties and, finally, to identifying essential properties of a group of objects. In the process of mastering concepts, all mental operations develop: analysis - from the practically effective, sensory to mental, from elementary to in-depth; synthesis - from the practically effective to the sensual, from the elementary to the broad and complex.

Comparison also has its own characteristics. At first, when making comparisons, students easily identify differences and find it more difficult to identify similarities. Next, the similarities are gradually highlighted and compared, with bright, catchy features at first. For first-graders, comparison is sometimes replaced by juxtaposition. First they list all the features of one object, then another. The comparison process requires systematic and long-term training of students.

At primary school age, children become aware of their own mental operations, which helps them exercise self-control in the process of cognition. During the learning process, the qualities of the mind also develop: independence, flexibility, criticality, etc.

Speech performs two main functions: communicative and significative, i.e. is a means of communication and a form of existence of thought. With the help of language and speech, the child’s thinking is formed and the structure of his consciousness is determined. The very formulation of thoughts in verbal form provides a better understanding of the object of knowledge.

Language learning at school is a controlled process, and the teacher has enormous opportunities to significantly speed up speech development students through special organization of educational activities.Since speech is an activity, it is necessary to teach speech as an activity.One of the significant differences between educational speech activity and speech activity in natural conditions is that the goals, motives, and content of educational speech do not follow directly from the desires, motives and activities of the individual, but are set artificially. Therefore, correctly setting the topic, getting people interested in it, arousing a desire to take part in its discussion, and intensifying the work of schoolchildren is one of the main problems in improving the system of speech development.

Let us formulate the general tasks of the teacher in the development of students’ speech:

1. provide a good language environment (perception of adult speech, reading books, etc.);
2. create communication situations in the classroom, speech situations motivating children’s own speech;
3. carry out constant work on the development of speech at various levels: pronunciation, vocabulary, morphological, syntactic, at the level of coherent speech;
4. ensure correct assimilation by students of grammatical forms, syntactic structures, logical connections, and intensify the use of new words;
5. develop not only speech-speaking, but also listening;
6. to form a culture of speech.

It's important to consider the differencesoral and written speech.Written - fundamentally the new kind speech that a child acquires during the learning process. Mastering written speech with its properties (expansiveness and coherence, structural complexity) forms the ability to deliberately express one’s thoughts, i.e. promotes the voluntary and conscious implementation of oral speech. Written speech fundamentally complicates the structure of communication, as it opens up the opportunity to address an absent interlocutor. Speech development requires long, painstaking, systematic work by primary schoolchildren and teachers.

Personality development of junior schoolchildren

In terms of personal development, it is significant that primary school age is a sensitive period for learning moral standards . This is the only moment in a person’s life when he is psychologically ready to understand the meaning of norms and rules and to implement them on a daily basis.

Experiments have shown that in cases where it is possible to form an emotional positive attitude to fulfill the requirements, the habit is formed within one month; in cases where punishment is applied, neither the necessary habit nor the right attitude is formed. Thus, the formation of stable correct behavior in children and the formation of personality traits on its basis proceeds successfully only if exercise in certain forms of behavior is carried outagainst the backdrop of a positive motive, and not by coercion.

Relationships of younger schoolchildren

In the process of joint learning activities, children establish new relationships. After a few weeks spent at school, most first-graders lose their shyness and embarrassment from a host of new experiences. They begin to carefully look at the behavior of their desk neighbor and establish contacts with classmates. In the first stages of adaptation to a new team, some children exhibit character traits that are generally unusual for them (for some, excessive shyness, for others, swagger). But as relationships with other children are established, each student discovers his own true individual characteristics.

The motives for establishing and maintaining positive relationships with other children are of great importance for the development of the personality of a primary school student. Therefore, the child’s desire to earn the approval and sympathy of other children is one of the main motives for his behavior.A characteristic feature of the relationships between younger schoolchildren is that their friendship is based, as a rule, on common external life circumstances and random interests (they sit at the same desk, live in the same house, are interested in animals, etc.).

"I'm good" - the child’s internal position in relation to himself. This position offers great opportunities for education. Thanks to the claim to recognition, he fulfills the standards of behavior - he tries to behave correctly, because his good behavior and knowledge become the subject of constant interest from adults.

The desire to “be like everyone else” arises in the context of educational activities due to the following reasons. Firstly, children learn to master the educational skills and special knowledge required for this activity. The teacher controls the whole class and encourages everyone to follow the proposed model. Secondly, children learn about the rules of behavior in the classroom and school, which are presented to everyone together and to each individual. Thirdly, in many situations a child cannot independently choose a line of behavior, and in this case he is guided by the behavior of other children.

Conformal behavior and following peers are typical for children of primary school age. This manifests itself in school during lessons (children, for example, often raise their hands after others, and it happens that they are not internally prepared to answer), in joint games and in everyday relationships.

The desire to “be better than everyone else” in primary school age is manifested in the readiness to complete a task faster and better, solve a problem correctly, write a text, and read expressively. The child strives to establish himself among his peers.

But if a child is unable or finds it difficult to do what is expected of him, this can become the reason for his uncontrollable whims. Children, as a rule, are capricious:

1. unsuccessful at school;
2. overly spoiled;
3. children who receive little attention;
4. weakened, uninitiative children.

In all cases, these children cannot satisfy the desire for self-affirmation in other ways and choose the infantile, unpromising way of attracting attention to themselves, which can later manifest itself in adolescence in antisocial behavior.

Emotions of younger schoolchildren and their development

Like other mental processes, it changes under the conditions of educational activity. general character children's emotions. This activity is associated with a system of strict requirements for joint actions, discipline, voluntary attention and memory. All this affects children's emotions. During primary school age, there is an increase in restraint and awareness in the manifestations of emotions, an increase in the stability of emotional states. Younger schoolchildren already know how to control their moods, and sometimes even disguise them (this reveals characteristic age - the formation of arbitrariness of mental processes). Younger schoolchildren are more balanced than preschoolers and teenagers. They are characterized by long-lasting, stable joyful and cheerful moods. At the same time, some children experience negative affective states. Their main reason is the discrepancy between the level of aspirations and the possibilities of satisfying them. If this discrepancy is long-lasting and the child does not find ways to overcome or mitigate it, then negative experiences result in angry and angry statements and actions.

G.A. Tsukerman established the emotional and personal characteristics of a child that define him as a subject of educational activity. This:

a) the appearance in the child, along with cognitive orientation, of the first signs of an orientation toward self-change, the ability to set goals for self-change;

b) reflexive, slightly low self-esteem, which sets the following formula for child behavior: I don’t know if I can do it, but I’ll risk trying!;

c) reflection not only in the intellectual, but also in the emotional sphere (understanding the emotional consequences of an action), as well as in communication and cooperation (development of reverse action, taking into account the other position of the partner).

Thus, the beginning of schooling leads to a radical change in the social situation of the child’s development. He becomes a “public” subject and now has socially significant responsibilities, the fulfillment of which receives public assessment.

The leader at primary school age iseducational activities. G.A. Zuckerman identifies four groups of students involved in educational activities in different ways:

1). Breakthrough group - active subjects of educational activity, these are children who reveal themselves most clearly in those lessons (regardless of the subject of study and the personality of the teacher) where a new educational task is posed, and who lead in the search for a solution. They enthusiastically exchange opinions, propose and test all sorts of guesses and are in a state of happy excitement until they find a solution. In terms of initial indicators of intellectual development, children in this group are significantly superior to other classmates from the very beginning. Low intellectual development can be a serious obstacle to quickly getting into the breakthrough group; high intellectual development is a factor that not only ensures, but facilitates getting into the breakthrough group.

2). A group calledbreakthrough group reserve, in many ways resembles the first category, but differs from it in one important way. These children show all the signs of involvement and enthusiasm for solving educational problems in only one of the academic subjects.

3). A group of hardworking studentsshows the highest activity and diligence not at the stage of production educational task and searching for a method of action, and at the development stage, exercising in the already found method.

4). A group of those who have not proven themselvesextremely heterogeneous, it is unstable and contradictory.

Conclusion

As part of educational activities, there arepsychological new formations (voluntariness, internal plan of action and reflection), characterizing the most significant achievements in development and being the foundation that ensures development at the next age stage.

According to L.S. Vygotsky, with the beginning of schooling, thinking moves to the center of the child’s conscious activity. The development of verbal-logical, reasoning thinking, which occurs during the assimilation of scientific knowledge, rebuilds all other cognitive processes:“memory at this age becomes thinking, and perception becomes thinking.”

Arbitrariness of attention, the ability to deliberately direct him to a particular task is an important acquisition of primary school age. The development of attention is also associated with expanding the scope of attention and the ability to distribute it between different types of actions.

Memory , like all other mental processes, also undergoes significant changes. Their essence is that the child’s memory gradually acquires the features of arbitrariness, becoming consciously regulated and indirect. Primary school age is sensitive for the development of higher formsvoluntary memorizationTherefore, targeted developmental work on mastering mnemonic activity is the most effective during this period.

Another important neoplasm isarbitrary behavior. It is based on moral motives that are formed at this age. The child absorbs moral values ​​and tries to follow certain rules and norms.

The development of the personality of a primary school student depends on school performance, assessments of the child by adults.A child at this age is very susceptible to external influences. It is thanks to this that he absorbs knowledge, both intellectual and moral. Plays a significant role in establishing moral standards and developing children’s interests. teacher , although the degree of their success in this will depend on the type of relationship he has with the student.

It is at this age that the child experiences his uniqueness, he realizes himself as an individual, and strives for perfection. This is reflected in all areas of a child’s life, including relationships with peers. At primary school age, the child develops an orientation toward other people, which is expressed in prosocial behavior.

Thus, primary school age is the most critical stage of school childhood. Full-fledged living of this age, its positive acquisitions are the necessary foundation on which the further development of the child as an active subject of knowledge and activity is built. The main task of adults in working with children of primary school age iscreating optimal conditions for the development and realization of children’s potential, taking into account the individuality of each child.

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