Each psychological age is characterized by:
- social situation of development (the unique relationship between the external environment and the child’s inner world).
- age-related neoplasms (results of development and at the same time prerequisites for further development).

New formations that arise during this period change the social situation of development, the child begins to demand a different system of relationships with adults, and looks at the world differently.

He distinguished 2 types of age periods, replacing each other:
1) stable (development occurs within a social situation slowly, evolutionarily);
2) critical (development occurs rapidly and rapidly).

Crises combine destructive and creative tendencies - this is the norm of ontogenesis.

Periodization (according to L.S. Vygotsky) includes the following stages of mental development:
- neonatal crisis;
- infancy (2 months - 1 year);
- crisis 1 year;
- early childhood(1-3 years);
- crisis 3 years;
- preschool age (3-7 years);
- crisis 7 years;
- school age (8-12 years);
- crisis 13 years;
- puberty age (14-17 years);
- crisis of 17 years.

Factors
1. The biological factor includes, first of all, heredity: temperament and the makings of abilities are inherited. The biological factor includes the characteristics of intrauterine development and the birth process itself.
2. Environmental factors influence mental development indirectly. There is a distinction between the natural environment and the social environment.
3. Activity is the third factor of mental development.

V. Stern put forward the principle of convergence of two factors (the intersection of biological and social factors) in development.

L.S. Vygotsky emphasized the unity of hereditary and social aspects in the development process.

In the development of a child, there are “sensitive” periods - periods of greatest sensitivity to certain types of influences. For example, the sensitive period for speech development is from one to 3 years.

L. S. Vygotsky put forward a thesis about the leading role of learning in mental development. For learning to be developmental, it must be based on the child’s zone of proximal development (“the distance” between the level of the child’s actual development and the level of possible development).

L. S. Vygotsky identified four patterns of child development:
1) cyclicality;
2) unevenness;
3) “metamorphoses”;
4) a combination of the processes of evolution and involution.

A.N., A.V. Zaporozhets, P.I. Zinchenko, P.Ya. , L.I. Bozhovich (1930) showed that development is based on the practical activity of the subject. The introduction of the concept of “activity” emphasizes the activity of the subject of development.

D. B. Elkonin pointed out the path of development - the organization of children's activities appropriate to a given age.

A necessary condition for mental development is communication between a child and an adult (M.I. Lisina). Research has shown that communication with an adult at each age stage performs its own specific functions.

Understand patterns age development, the specificity of individual age stages allows the division of the life path into periods.

L. S. Vygotsky distinguished three groups of periodizations:
The first group is the construction of periodization based on an external, but related to the development process itself, criterion. For example, the periodization of R. Zazzo. In it, the stages of childhood coincide with the stages of the education and training system.
The second group - an internal criterion is used, for example, the development of childhood sexuality () or the appearance and change of teeth (P.P. Blonsky).
The third group - periods of age-related development are distinguished on the basis of several significant features of this development (L.S. Vygotsky, D.B. Elkonin).

A detailed periodization of the mental development of a child from birth to 17 years was created by D.B. Elkonin (1904-1984) and presented in the article “On the problem of periodization of mental development in childhood"(1971).

Each psychological age is characterized by indicators that are in complex relationships with each other:
1) social situation of development;
2) leading activity;
3) main neoplasms.

D.B. Elkonin used the concept leading, developed by A.N. Leontiev, as a criterion for identifying psychological ages. Leading activity is the main activity in terms of its significance for mental development:
- other, new types of activities arise within it (in the game - educational elements);
- in leading activities, mental processes are formed or restructured;
- changes in the child’s personality observed during a given period depend on the leading activity.

He put forward the idea of ​​alternating two types of activity in ontogenesis.

Periodization according to D.B. Elkonin
- neonatal crisis;
- infancy (2 months - 1 year) - direct emotional communication with an adult;
- crisis 1 year;
- early age(1-3 years) - object-tool activity;
- crisis 3 years;
- preschool age (3-7) - role-playing game;
- crisis 7 years;
- junior school age (8-12) - ;
- crisis 11-12 years;
- adolescence(11-15) - intimate and personal with peers;
- crisis 15 years;

Depending on the content, crises (3 and 11 years) and worldview crises (1 year and 7 years) are distinguished.

Periodization of personality development according to S. Freud
Personality, according to Z. Freud, goes through several psychosexual stages in its development:
1. Oral stage (from birth to 1 year) During this period, the mouth is the center of sensory stimulation and pleasure for the child.
2. Anal stage (1-1.5 to 3 years). The erogenous zone moves into the intestinal mucosa.
3. The phallic stage (3-5 years) characterizes the highest stage of childhood sexuality. The child's sensual pleasures are concentrated on the genitals (Oedipus-Elecgra complex).
4. Latent stage (up to 12 years) a period of temporary interruption of a child’s sexual development
5. The hepital stage (from 12 years of age) is due to biological maturation during puberty and completes psychosexual development.

If at any of these psychosexual stages of mental development children experience too much frustration or too much satisfaction, a fixation on the needs of that stage may occur. For example, the attachment of libido to the oral zone in an adult makes itself felt by residual oral behavior - smoking, chewing gum, alcoholism, etc.

Periodization of personality development according to E. Erikson
According to Erikson, the characteristics of personality development depend on the economic and cultural level of development of the society in which the child grows up.

At each stage of mental development, a child acquires a certain personal new formation, which is fixed in the personality structure and preserved in subsequent periods of life. Each personal quality contains a deep attitude towards the world and oneself. This attitude can be both positive and negative.

Development of moral consciousness of the individual according to L. Kohlberg
L. Kohlberg conducted an experiment in which he revealed the moral judgments and ethical ideas of children of different ages.
Level 1 - pre-moral. At stage 1, the child is focused on punishment and behaves well in order to avoid it; at stage 2, the child is focused on encouragement.
Level 2 - conventional morality (agreement). Strives to behave based on the need for approval, maintenance good relations. Approval of others is characteristic of stage 3, orientation toward authority is characteristic of stage 4.
Level 3 - autonomous morality. Moral standards become the property of the individual.

All preschoolers and most seven-year-old children are at the premoral level (70%). Premoral consciousness is preserved at 10 years old in 30% of children and at 13-16 years old in 10% of children. Many children solve moral problems at the 2nd level by the age of 13. Only 10% of teenagers rise to the highest level of moral consciousness. Individual differences here are great.

Stages intellectual development according to J. Piaget
The process of development of intelligence represents a change of periods during which the formation of basic intellectual structures occurs.

In order to competently develop and educate your child, you need to know the features of his development in each period of childhood and adolescence. In this article, we will briefly introduce our readers to the main stages that a child goes through in his development from the first days of life to adolescence.

1. The period of infancy.

The period of infancy can be divided into two main stages: newborn (from 1 to 4 weeks) and infancy itself (from 1 month to 1 year). Mental development at this time it is determined by the fact that the baby is absolutely helpless biologically and socially, and the satisfaction of his needs is completely dependent on adults. In the first weeks of life, the child sees and hears poorly and moves chaotically. Those. with his complete dependence, he has minimal opportunities for communication and interaction with others. Therefore, the main direction of a child’s development at this stage is mastering the basic ways of interacting with the world. The baby actively develops sensorimotor skills: learns to master body movements (use hands, crawl, sit, and then walk), carries out simple cognitive actions in order to study the physical side of an object. Toys for the first year of life perform three main functions: development of sensory organs (primarily vision, hearing, skin sensitivity); development of the child's gross and fine motor skills; and, closer to the second half of the year, the assimilation of information about the shape, color, size, and spatial arrangement of objects in the surrounding world. Accordingly, you need to make sure that your baby’s toys are bright, contrasting, and made from a variety of (different to the touch) safe materials. This will stimulate the development of the baby's senses.

The development of speech during this period is due to one curious feature. A newborn child is not capable of separating not only himself, but also other people from the fused situation that arises as a result of his instinctive interaction with the world. Subject and object have not yet received their clear distinction in the psyche and thinking of the child. For him there is no object of experience; he experiences states (hunger, pain, satisfaction), and not their cause and real content. Therefore, the pronunciation of the first sounds and words has a connotation of autism. The child names objects, while the meanings of the words have not yet been fixed and are not constant. The role is played only by the function of naming and indicating; the child does not see the meaning of words by themselves, cannot connect its individual meanings in a word. Therefore, the development of speech during this period can only concern the clarity of pronunciation of individual sounds and sound combinations.

2. Early childhood period.

At the age of 1–3 years, the child acquires a certain degree of independence: he already pronounces the first words, begins to walk and run, and develops active exploration of objects. However, the child's range of capabilities is still very limited. The main type of activity that is available to him at this stage: object-tool activity, the main motive of which is to learn to manipulate objects. An adult serves as a model for a child when acting with an object, diagram social interaction is: “child – object – adult”.

Through imitation of adults, the child learns socially developed ways of working with objects. Up to 2 - 2.5 years old, games are very important, in which an adult, in front of the child, does something with an object or toy and asks the child to repeat the action. At this time, it is better to do everything together: build a tower from cubes, glue simple appliqués, insert inserts into a frame, collect cut-out pictures, lace up toy shoes, etc. Helpful aids are those that show different sides of objects and are designed to be explored with the fingers: for example, toys made from different types fabrics and with various fasteners (zippers, snaps, buttons, laces). To learn how to operate with an object, you need to explore its different properties and sides. This is exactly what the child will do with your help.

In such games, the child makes several discoveries that are important for the development of his psyche. Firstly, he understands that an object has a meaning - a purpose, and that it has certain technical features that determine the order of manipulation with it. Secondly, due to the separation of action from the object, comparison occurs
ie your action with the action of an adult. As soon as the child saw himself in another, he was able to see himself - the subject of activity appears. This is how the phenomenon of “external self”, “I myself” is born. Let us remember that “I myself” is the main component of the three-year crisis.

It is at this age that the formation of the “I” and personality occurs. Self-esteem, self-respect, and self-awareness appear and develop. All this is accompanied by significant speech development, which is characterized by an increase in vocabulary, attempts to construct sentences taking into account the consistency of words; the beginning of phonemic analysis; searching for semantic connections. By the age of three, the development of the grammatical composition of speech begins.

3. Junior preschool age (3 - 5 years).

The child emerges from the 3-year-old crisis with the desire to act autonomously and with a self-esteem system. Thanks to developed speech and the ability to move, he can feel proportionate with adults. But he understands that adults do something not on the basis of skills (how to do), but on a semantic basis (why to do), however, his motivational-need sphere is not yet developed. Therefore, the main task of a child at this age is to develop these meanings through participation in human relationships. Because adults protect him from this active participation, the child realizes this desire in games. That is why, at 3–5 years old, the main place in a child’s daily activities is occupied by role-playing games. In them he models the world of adults and the rules of functioning in this world. For a child, this is not just a game process - it is a unique relationship to reality, in which they create imaginary situations or transfer the properties of some objects to others. The development in a child of the ability to transfer the properties of real objects to substitute objects (for example, a TV - a box of chocolates, etc.) is very important; it indicates the development of abstract thinking and sign-symbolic function. By the end of this period role-playing games begin to acquire a “director’s” character. The child no longer just models the situation, but directly participates in it himself - he creates a complete plot that can be played out several times.

In junior preschool age The child also develops such abilities as:

1. voluntariness (the ability to suspend affect to assess the situation and make predictions);
2. the ability to generalize experiences (a persistent attitude towards something begins to appear, i.e. the development of feelings);
3. at the beginning of this period, visual-effective thinking arises, and by its end it changes to visual-figurative;
4. V moral development there is a transition from the acceptance of cultural and moral standards as a given to their conscious acceptance.

Younger preschool age is a fertile time for speech development. It is in the period from 3 to 5 years that significant changes occur in the development of speech. By the age of 4, the baby begins to actively master the syntactic side of speech; the number of common, complex and complex sentences in his speech increases.

The child masters prepositions , complex alliances . By the age of 5, children already well understand a text read aloud, are able to retell a fairy tale or story, construct a story based on a series of pictures, and justify answers to questions. During this period, it is important not to waste time and regularly conduct speech development activities with the baby: conversations based on pictures, exercises to develop diction, theatrical games.

By the age of 5, significant changes occur in the development of children’s logical thinking. They master the technique of comparing and contrasting similar and different objects (in shape, color, size), they are able to generalize features and highlight the essential ones, they successfully group and classify objects.

4. Senior preschool age (5 - 7 years).

The age of 5 – 7 years is the time of preparation for school, the development of independence, independence from adults, the time when the child’s relationships with others become more complicated and when he learns to take responsibility for various areas of his life. To the elder before school age children acquire a certain outlook, a stock of specific knowledge, and they are already able to make serious logical conclusions and scientific and experimental observations. Preschoolers have access to an understanding of the general connections, principles and patterns underlying scientific knowledge.

The main concern of parents during this period is preparing the child for school. It must be remembered that preparation must be comprehensive and include not only the development of speech, memory, logical thinking, learning to read and the basics of mathematics, but also the development of the child’s abilities for successful communication and, no matter how trite it sounds, the education of the so-called “ useful habits." Commitment, punctuality, neatness, ability to take care of oneself (for example, make the bed; when coming home, change into clothes) home clothes; maintain a daily routine without reminders from mom or dad), politeness, ability to behave in public places - having developed these useful habits in your child, you can send your child to classes with peace of mind.

A child of senior preschool age experiences a great need to communicate with others.

At this time, a shift in emphasis occurs in the development of the child’s speech. If previously the main things were the growth of vocabulary, correct sound pronunciation and mastering the grammatical structure of speech (at the level of constructing simple and complex, interrogative and narrative sentences), now the ability to perceive and understand speech by ear and the ability to conduct a conversation come first. Number of words known to the child, by this time it reaches 5 - 6 thousand. But as a rule, most of these words are associated with specific everyday concepts. In addition, the child does not actively use all of the words he knows in conversation. Now the adult’s task is to teach the child to use not only everyday, but also abstract words and expressions in his speech. At school, the child will have to learn a significant part of very abstract information by ear. Therefore, it is important to develop auditory perception and memory. In addition, you need to prepare him for the question-answer system, teach him to competently compose oral answers, justify, prove, and give examples. The boundaries of some age periods of childhood are age-related crises, knowing about which you can avoid many unpleasant moments and help the child move into a new period of development more smoothly. In all cases, crisis periods occur during dramatic psychological changes and a change in leading activity. Almost all age-related crises are accompanied by the child’s capriciousness, uncontrollability, stubbornness, and general emotional instability. The child resists everything that comes from an adult; he is often tormented by day and night fears, which can even lead to psychosomatic disorders. 7 years is one of these crisis periods. At this time, you need to treat the child with great attention when observing sleep disturbances, daytime behavior, etc. Be sure to contact a child psychologist.

5. Junior school age (7 – 11 years)

Even if the child went to preparatory classes and got used to discipline and regular study already in preschool age, school, as a rule, radically changes his life. What can we say about a child whose parents did not pay special attention preparation for school. School discipline, a standard approach to all children, the need to build your relationships with the team, etc. have a strong impact on the child’s psyche, and at the same time he often cannot receive the emotional support that he received before. The transition to school age means a certain stage of growing up, and in order to raise a “strong personality,” parents are strict and unwavering in everything related to study and discipline. To understand your child and his problems during this period, you should take into account several new features that have appeared in the child’s mental life: Parents cease to be the child’s only unconditional authority. A teacher appears in the system of relations - a “stranger adult”, also endowed with indisputable power. For the first time, the child encounters a system of strict cultural demands imposed by the teacher, and by entering into conflict with whom, the child comes into conflict with “society.” The child becomes the object of evaluation, and it is not the product of his labor that is evaluated, but himself. Relationships with peers move from the sphere of personal preferences to the sphere of partnerships. Realism and objectivity of thinking are overcome, which allows you to see patterns that are not represented by perception. The child’s leading activity during this period is educational. It turns the child towards himself, requires reflection, an assessment of “what I was” and “what I have become.” As a result, theoretical thinking is formed, reflection arises as an awareness of one’s own changes, and, finally, the ability to plan is cultivated. In a child of this age, intelligence begins to play a leading role - it mediates the development of all other functions. Thus, awareness and arbitrariness of actions and processes arises. Thus, memory acquires a pronounced educational character. Firstly, memory is now subordinated to a very specific task - the task of learning, “storing” information material. Secondly, at primary school age there is an intensive formation of memorization techniques. In the area of ​​perception, a transition also occurs from the involuntary perception of a preschooler to targeted voluntary observation of an object, subordinate to a specific task. There is a rapid development of volitional processes.

6. Adolescence (11 – 14 years).

Adolescence can be roughly divided into two main periods. This is actually adolescence (11 - 14 years old) and youth (14 - 18 years old). Due to the specifics of our site, we will not touch upon the topic of high school age here; we will consider only the period up to 14 years, with which we will complete the description of the main periods of a child’s mental development. 11 – 13 years is a critical age, the problems of which many of us remember from our own childhood. On the one hand, the child begins to realize that he is already an “adult”. On the other hand, childhood does not lose its attractiveness for him: after all, a child bears much less responsibility than an adult. It turns out that the teenager wants to part with childhood and, at the same time, is not yet mentally ready for this. This is precisely the reason for frequent clashes with parents, stubbornness, and the desire to contradict. Very often, a teenager commits unconscious and irresponsible actions, violates prohibitions just for the sake of “violating boundaries,” without taking responsibility for the consequences. A teenager’s desire for independence usually collides in the family with the fact that his parents still treat him as a “child.” In this case, the teenager's growing "sense of adulthood" comes into conflict with the views of the parents. It is best in this situation to use this neoplasm for the benefit of the child. At this age, a person begins to build his own worldview and plans for his future life. He no longer just models who he will become in the future, but takes concrete steps in building his future life. Help building a motivational framework during this time can be critical. Whether a teenager will become a purposeful and harmonious person or will be crushed by an endless struggle with others and with himself - this depends not only on him, but also on the interaction policy that his parents choose. Like a child of primary school age, a teenager continues to be in the same conditions as before (family, school, peers), but he develops new value orientations. His attitude towards school changes: it becomes a place of active relationships. Communication with peers is the leading activity at this age. Here the norms of social behavior, morality and laws are mastered. The main new formation of this age is social consciousness transferred internally, i.e. there is self-awareness of oneself as a part of society (in other words, a rethought and reworked experience of social relations). This new component contributes to greater regulation, control and management of behavior, a deeper understanding of other people, and creates conditions for further personal development. Awareness of oneself as a member of society is a necessary step towards self-determination, towards understanding one’s place in the world. The baby is rapidly dilating social conditions being: both in spatial terms and in increasing the range of “testing oneself”, searching for oneself. The teenager tries to specify his position in the world, find his place in society and determine the significance of a particular social position. Moral ideas during this period turn into a developed system of beliefs, which brings qualitative changes in the entire system of needs and aspirations of the adolescent. When using an article or its individual parts, a link to the original source (indicating the author and place of publication) is required!

What tasome leading activities?

The types of activities that a child engages in are varied: he enthusiastically draws, sculpts, designs, learns to read, sing, count, makes something, helps, plays. And each of these species makes its own contribution to its development. Particularly important in this case is the so-called “leading activity”, which dominates at each stage. The special role of this activity is explained by its contribution to the formation of the most important changes in the psyche, to preparation for the next age period, to changes in the child’s personality. Each age has its own leading activity.

The task of parents is to manage it wisely, providing the most favorable conditions and prospects for the further harmonious development of the child.

INFANCY (from 0 to 1 year)

- “Social smile” (i.e. a smile in a social situation) may appear at the beginning of the 2nd month of life

Vocalizations, the child coos, hums, babbles, vocalizes towards an adult, demonstrates motor reactions, animation

Starting from 2 months, one of the most important activities for a baby is communication with a close adult.

Smell, taste, tactile sensitivity, hearing and vision are intensively developed

During the entire first year, the child actively develops fine and gross motor skills: by 6 months, the child can grab objects, reach for toys that are interesting to him, transfer an object from one hand to another, the baby can raise his head, roll over on his side and stomach from a lying position on the back.

From 9 to 12 months, crawling improves, the baby can pull himself up on his arms to stand up, learn to stand with support; by 10 months, the child can walk, holding onto a support with both hands and spreading his legs wide; by 12 months, he learns to cover a short distance without support

Leading activity

Emotional communication with mom, dad (or with an adult who replaces her).

How to develop

It is especially important to satisfy the child’s need for affection, attention, kindness: to love, nurse, fuss, kiss, amuse, stroke, hug, carry in your arms, press to your chest, cherish, rock, cradle.

EARLY CHILDHOOD (from 1 year to 3 years)

Speech is actively developing, vocabulary is expanding, speaks in short sentences, words can have a “bizarre” form (generate new words)

Actively explores the world around him: he wants to touch and turn everything in his hands

Communication with relatives and familiar adults is emotionally charged: shows joy, openness

Shy about a stranger, may not make contact for a long time, jealous of another child

They cannot hold their attention for a long time, are easily distracted, and quickly forget about what is happening

Get tired quickly

Available toys: pyramids, cubes, balls, development games fine motor skills

Leading activity

Object-manipulation. Development of memory, attention, speech, thinking, perception.

How to develop

Encourage participation in household chores, observe nature together, teach how to manipulate objects (use them for other purposes).

PRE-SCHOOL CHILDHOOD (from 3 to 6 years old)

The words “I want”, “I don’t want”, “Why?”, “I myself” appear in the child’s speech (three-year crisis)

Has great curiosity and imagination

The child begins to think in his mind (correlates action and result)

An adult acts as a standard of behavior in various situations

Limited concept of time and space

The leading type of activity is role-playing game (models reality)

Developing design and drawing skills

Available toys/games: dolls, Stuffed Toys, construction sets, plasticine/paints/pencils

Leading activity

Role-playing game, combining communication and subject activity

How to develop

Play with your child, come up with role-playing games and participate in them.

JUNIOR SCHOOL AGE (from 6 to 11 years)

Intensive development of the intellectual and speech spheres

Development of voluntary attention and memory, orientation in the environment

Ability to act according to a model, according to the rules

The desire for self-affirmation and recognition from adults and peers

Actively masters communication skills, the ability to make and maintain friendly contacts

Self-control skills are being formed

Role identification

Available games: educational board games, outdoor games and electronic games

Leading activity

Operational and technical activities, mainly educational

How to develop

Spend time with your child, teaching him something, learning the alphabet, learning to write and count, read, retell. Help your child prepare homework and answer his questions.

ADOLESCENCE (11 to 14 years old)

Desire to communicate with peers (grouping)

- “Nihilism” in relation to adults (desire for leadership, release from the care of relatives, frequent conflicts: provocative, defiant behavior)

Fatigue

Emotional lability

Puberty, increased interest in the opposite sex

Fixation on appearance (body, clothes, etc.)

Emancipation: the desire to imitate adults (experimentation)

Your own system of views and values, self-awareness begins to form

Hobbies: modern youth alternative trends in fashion, art, music, cinema, technology

Leading activity

Intimate, personal, emotional communication with peers

How to develop

Allow the child to communicate with peers, organize holidays, joint trips, participate in performances and productions. Spend time in interest groups.

HIGH SCHOOL AGE (from 14 to 17 years old)

Formation of life plans

Accepting one’s own appearance, awareness of the characteristics of one’s body, creating an image of oneself

Assimilation of a male or female role

The range of social roles and interests is expanding

Focus on the future, building life plans and prospects

Self-control, self-regulation

Desire for discussion

Hobbies: professional and moral definition in the outside world

Leading activity

Educational and professional in the process of which worldview, professional interests, and ideals are formed.

How to develop

Provide space for learning, help in learning, drawing up your own life plans, plans for choosing a professional activity, and look for means of their implementation.

Without accurate knowledge of the psychological characteristics of children of different ages, it is difficult to recreate a complete and fairly complex picture of a child’s development, and to build training and education on its basis.

Infancy

People surrounding the baby help him in everything from birth. They provide care for him, teach him, educate him, contribute to the acquisition of human psychological and behavioral traits, and adaptation to society. Parental support for a child begins at birth and continues for at least a decade and a half until the child becomes an adult and independent. But in order to remain human and develop, an adult also needs support from other people and interaction with them. Without this, he would degrade as a person.

At the same time, a baby already at birth has a considerable supply of ready-to-use instincts that allow him to adapt to the world and progress in development. For example, at birth a baby has many complex movements that develop in the process of maturation of the body; there are elementary forms of perception and memory.

A baby, who is only 1-2 days old from birth, is already able to distinguish substances by taste, the sense of smell, vision, hearing immediately begins to function, and elementary movements are developed.

From the second month of life, the child distinguishes colors and reacts to people, distinguishing them from surrounding objects. At the age of 2-3 months, the baby responds to the mother’s smile with a reciprocal smile. This is a revitalization complex. It has been established that intense emotional communication between adults and a child promotes, while rare and soulless communication hinders the development of the complex and can lead to delayed mental development.

By 3-4 months of age, children show through their behavior that they prefer to see and hear only familiar family members. Fear of strangers progresses from 8 months to a year.

In the first months of life, an interest in speech appears. At the age of about a month, the child begins to pronounce simple sounds, at about 2-4 months - humming, at 4-6 months - humming, repeating simple syllables. In the second half of life, babbling appears, the ability to understand the speech of an adult, then at 9-10 months the first words are pronounced. At 6 months, the child associates an object with his name. About 8 months an indicative-exploratory reaction to the naming of an object appears: turning the head in its direction, examining it, grasping it with the hands.

Children's active actions with objects occur between 7 and 10 months of life. From the age of 7 months, intonations appear in the child’s voice; he strives to communicate with his parents through gestures and facial expressions. Babies know and understand more words than they speak.

Characteristics of child development from 1 year to three years.

What age requires the most attention in terms of the opportunities provided to accelerate mental development, the use or non-use of which can have serious consequences? According to the data that science now has, the key age is early childhood, from 1 to 3 years.

The special significance of this age is associated with such acquisitions of the child as upright walking, verbal communication and object-based activity. Speech allows you to understand and use language in communication with people, which allows the child to receive much more information than through the senses. The child remembers names, names of objects, he likes to listen to fairy tales, poems, he grasps the meaning of what is said by the facial expressions and gestures of the speaking adult.

From about two years old, children study the surrounding objects in detail, the simplest play activities appear, and the first attempts at drawing. In the third year of life, drawings reveal similarities with the depicted object. The motor and intellectual development of children is based on imitation, most often from parents.

By the age of 2, children can play basic logical and thematic games, are able to draw up an action plan for a short period of time, and have sufficiently developed working memory - they do not forget a goal set a few minutes ago.

There is a transition from a visually effective way of thinking to a visually figurative one. Now the child can not only solve problems by observing an object, but images of objects associated with their names already appear in his imagination.

Basic processes and achievements of preschool age.

The main activity of a preschooler is play. From 3 to 6 years of age, games change from object-manipulative to role-playing, which have rules. And also such types of activities as work and study appear. Preschool age is conventionally divided into 3 periods: junior preschool age (3-4), middle preschool age (4-5), senior preschool age (5-6).

Younger preschoolers play more often alone. In their object and construction games, they improve perception, memory, imagination, thinking and motor abilities. Role-playing games reproduce the observed actions of adults.

By the middle period, games become joint and the main thing in them becomes the imitation of certain relationships between people, in particular role-playing ones. Children identify roles and rules, try to follow them, and monitor their observance.

In older preschool age, design play turns into work activity. Children acquire basic labor skills, learn the physical properties of objects, and develop practical thinking.

Drawing occupies an important place among creative activities. By what and how a child portrays, one can judge his perception of reality, the characteristics of memory, imagination, and thinking.

Children are also attracted to music. They enjoy singing, listening to music, and repeating sounds on musical instruments.

The preschool period is characterized by a variety of forms of interpersonal cooperation: communication with peers, adults, games, joint work. Long-term and mechanical memory develops, stability of attention develops, thinking changes (the ability to mentally separate and connect parts of an object without performing actions), imagination is formed, the ability to understand the logic of reasoning, vocabulary expands, and “doodles”—prerequisites for writing—appear.

Junior schoolchildren.

When a child enters school, under the influence of learning, a restructuring of all his cognitive processes begins, and they begin to acquire qualities characteristic of adults. This is due to the fact that children are involved in new activities and interpersonal relationships that require them to have new psychological qualities. The common characteristics of all cognitive processes should be their arbitrariness, productivity, and stability.

It has been proven that ordinary children in the lower grades are quite capable, if only they are taught correctly, of mastering more complex material than what is given to them according to the program.

Self-regulation of behavior is a particular difficulty for children aged 6-7 years. The child must sit still during class, not talk, not walk around the classroom, and not run around the school during breaks. A child often gets tired at the beginning of school, often not from intense mental work, but from an inability to exercise physical self-regulation.

When entering school, increased demands are placed on the child, and responsibilities around the house appear. All together this creates problems that need to be solved with the help of their parents.

Development in adolescence and adolescence.

In high school, the development of children's cognitive processes reaches such a level that they are ready to perform all types of mental work of an adult, including the most complex. The cognitive processes of schoolchildren acquire qualities that make them perfect and flexible, and the development of the means of cognition is somewhat ahead of the personal development of children.

With transition from junior classes In the middle years, and then in the older years, the position of children in the system of business and personal relationships with others changes. More and more time is taken up by serious matters, and less and less time is left for rest. Teachers and parents are beginning to switch to a new style communicating with teenagers, appealing more to their reason and logic than to their feelings, counting on a similar response.

In adolescence and adolescence, the process of cognitive development is actively underway, memory, speech, and thinking are improved. Teenagers can already think logically, engage in theoretical reasoning and self-analysis.

During these years, the growth of consciousness and self-awareness of children, the expansion of the sphere of awareness and the deepening of knowledge about themselves, people and the world becomes especially noticeable.

A person goes through a complex developmental path from birth to adulthood.
A child, being completely helpless at birth, gradually turns into an active member of society, creatively changing the world around him.
The mental development of a child lies in the fact that, under the influence of living conditions and upbringing, the formation of mental processes themselves, the assimilation of knowledge and skills, the formation of new needs and interests occurs.
Comparing children of two different ages (for example, a preschooler and a schoolchild), we notice that between them there is not only a difference in the amount of knowledge. They think and feel differently.
Thus, the thinking of a preschooler, although inextricably linked with his speech activity, still has an extremely visual, figurative character. In order for a preschooler to understand a verbal explanation, it must be based either on the direct perception of the child around him, or on specific ideas that he had previously formed.
Unlike a preschool child, a schoolchild is already capable of abstract thinking. He can understand something communicated to him in a generalized form even when there is no corresponding visual material. Similar qualitative changes occur in the development of the will and feelings of children. What explains the transition of a child from one stage of mental development to another?
The physiological basis for changes in a child’s psyche is the development of his nervous system, the development of higher nervous activity. With age, the mass of the brain increases and its anatomical structure improves. If a newborn’s brain weighs, on average, 380 g, then at the age of seven it reaches 1350 g. Along with an increase in brain mass and an improvement in its structure, higher nervous activity develops.
The supply of unconditioned reflexes with which a child is born is very limited, which makes the newborn a helpless creature, incapable of any independent activity. A human child must learn everything - learn to sit, stand, walk, use his hands, speak, etc. In the child’s nervous activity, the work of the cerebral hemispheres, which consists in the formation of temporary, conditioned reflex connections, plays a very early role. The first conditioned reflexes begin to appear in the child in the middle of the first month of life. Gradually, as the child develops, under the influence of upbringing, the child’s conditioned reflex activity becomes more complex. Conditioned reflexes begin to arise not only in direct connection with unconditioned ones, but also on the basis of previously formed conditioned reflexes.
Imitation plays a significant role in the development of children. New temporary connections are formed not only as a result of the child’s personal practical experience, but also by imitating the words and actions of the people around him.
With age, the influence of the cerebral hemispheres on the lower parts of the nervous system increases. If at the early stages of development the child’s actions, under the direct influence of the work of the subcortical centers, are unrestrained, impulsive, then later, in older children, they become more organized, subject to the control of the cerebral hemispheres.
Mastering the vocabulary and grammatical structure of the native language is of utmost importance in the development of a child. Under the influence of the speech of surrounding people, a second signaling system is formed in the child, which leads to a change in all higher nervous activity. With age, the role of words in the cognitive and volitional processes of children increases. If an infant acquires knowledge and skills mainly under the influence of direct perception of surrounding objects and actions performed with them, then a preschooler can already be taught a lot, a lot can be forced to do under the influence of a verbal description, under the influence of verbal instructions.
At the same time, the child, learning to denote with words not only individual objects, but also complex events that happen to him, moves on to more generalized forms of thinking, is distracted from the secondary properties of things, and identifies more important, essential ones in them. Thus, with the formation of the second signaling system, new, more complex mental processes appear in the child.
The formation of conditioned reflexes depends on the reinforcement of some reactions of the child and the non-reinforcement of others. Reinforcement leads to consolidation, fixation of a temporary connection, while non-reinforcement leads to its inhibition, extinction. The reinforcements that promote the formation of temporary connections change as the child develops. If in the first months of life the most important role in the formation of conditioned reflexes is played by food and protective (during cooling, bright light, pain) reinforcement, then in the future indicative reinforcement becomes increasingly important (all kinds of new stimuli cause an indicative reaction of the child: careful examination, feeling new object, listening to new sounds, etc.).
At the same time, already in the third month of life, the formation of new temporary connections begins to be reinforced by emotional reactions caused by the child’s communication with people around him. By the end of the first year, this communication acquires a verbal character. As the child masters his native language, verbal reinforcement plays an increasingly important role in the formation of temporary connections. The demands of surrounding people, their approval and censure, expressed in speech, reinforce some of the child’s reactions and inhibit and extinguish others. Thus, under the influence of environmental conditions, higher nervous activity changes, and the child’s psyche develops.
The mental development of a child is determined by living conditions and upbringing. Living conditions should be understood as the entire set of circumstances in which a child lives, and, above all, the social conditions in which he develops.
In capitalist countries, where the children of workers are deprived of their childhood, subjected to cruel exploitation from an early age, their mental development proceeds significantly differently than in a socialist country, where the rights of the child are protected in every possible way, creating the necessary conditions for his comprehensive development. When talking about the conditions for a child’s development, it is necessary to take into account not only the general features of the existing social system. Those around the child - his parents, teachers and peers, and the relationships that develop between them - are important.
Characteristic features of the life of Soviet society: a socialist attitude to work, fraternal mutual assistance between Soviet people, boundless devotion to the interests of their country - are manifested to one degree or another in the life of people close to the child, in the life of his family, kindergarten, school team, which has a profound impact on the development of the child’s psyche. The reflection of environmental conditions in the child’s brain occurs in the process of his active adaptation to these conditions, in the process of his activity. The child is not a passive contemplator of the surrounding life, but plays an active role in it and takes part in it as much as possible. An active, active attitude of children towards their surroundings helps them to understand it more clearly and to experience it more deeply. The positive influence of favorable external conditions on mental development occurs only with the appropriate organization of the child’s life and activities.
It happens that in good conditions, among parents who devote a lot of time and care to their children, the child exhibits poor academic progress, is rude to elders, and suffers from sloppiness and laziness. At first glance, such cases seem strange. However, a closer examination of them shows that, in the presence of many favorable conditions, the child’s life is organized incorrectly: he is pampered, relieved of any duties, is not taught to take into account the people around him, and as a result, the child develops into a negative type of egoist and lazy person.
The living conditions of a child and the nature of his activities do not develop by themselves, not spontaneously; they are organized and created through training and upbringing. Education plays a leading role in the mental development of a child. Parents and educators, passing on certain knowledge to the child, organizing his life and activities, develop his psyche and shape his abilities.
In the process of education, it is necessary to take into account some innate properties of the child’s body, especially the type of nervous system, the individual characteristics of the child’s higher nervous activity. As for abilities, they are not innate.
In order to develop abilities for certain activities, favorable living conditions and appropriate education are necessary. The decisive role of living conditions and upbringing in the development of abilities is especially clearly revealed in cases where people with known organic deficiencies, through systematic exercise and hard work on themselves, achieved outstanding success in one or another area of ​​human activity.
Thus, people who were tongue-tied from birth became great orators, frail and weak people became famous athletes, and those deprived of absolute hearing became famous musicians.
The views of bourgeois pseudo-scientists - pedologists, who claim that a person’s hereditary inclinations allegedly strictly, fatally predetermine the course of his mental development are deeply incorrect.
In an effort to justify the crimes of the bourgeoisie, which mercilessly exploits the children of working people in capitalist countries, depriving them of the necessary material conditions of life and education, pseudo-scientists - pedologists slanderously attribute to these children a low level of hereditary inclinations, which supposedly does not allow them to reach that high level of mental development to which representatives of exploitative groups rise. classes.
The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, in its historical resolution of July 4, 1936, severely condemned pedology, exposed the pseudoscience of pedological theories and the harmful, anti-national nature of pedological practice.
The unprecedented flowering of talents, the extraordinary development of abilities in our country, where people are liberated from capitalist slavery, where the party and government tirelessly take care of the material well-being and cultural needs of the people, where the younger generation is being brought up in the spirit of communism, clearly show us the decisive role of living conditions and education in mental development of a person.
Experience in educational work and special research have made it possible to identify the following qualitatively different periods or stages in the course of the mental development of children: infancy (from birth to 1 year), pre-preschool childhood (from 1 year to 3 years), preschool childhood (from 3 to 7 years). years), primary school childhood (from 7 to 10 years), middle school childhood, or adolescence (from 11 to 14 years), senior school age, or early adolescence (from 14 to 17 years).
Studying the mental characteristics of children of different ages is important for the educator. An in-depth study of the mental characteristics of children of different ages enables the teacher to successfully implement a program of educational work.
Let's move on to the psychological characteristics of children at different stages of development.

Infancy and preschool age

During the first three years of life, the child makes tremendous progress in his physical and mental development. From birth, he already has a number of unconditioned reflexes, among which it is necessary to primarily note food and grasping. On this unconditional reflex basis, in the middle of the first month, temporary conditioned reflex connections begin to form. All kinds of external stimuli that in one way or another are associated with the act of feeding (various smells, colors, sounds, touches, etc.) also begin to cause a positive food reaction.
For example, if you usually pick up a baby before feeding, then later it is enough to make this movement so that the hungry, crying baby calms down, opens his mouth and begins to search for his mother’s breast with his lips. Thus, already in the first months of life, the baby begins to adapt to environmental conditions and at the same time analyze external and internal stimuli. He develops a sense of the surrounding reality.
Gradually, among the diverse phenomena of the surrounding world, the child begins to single out one thing that is extremely important for him. In his life, the appearance of all positive influences and the elimination of negative ones are in one way or another connected with the actions of the person caring for him - usually his mother.
Therefore, very early, approximately in the third month of life, the sight and voice of a person begins to evoke a conditioned positive reaction in the child, which previously appeared only with the direct satisfaction of some organic need (for food, for warmth, for changing an uncomfortable position, etc. ). This positive reaction is expressed in a smile, in quiet “joyful” sounds, in the flapping of hands. It is usually called the “revival” reaction.
The appearance of this “revival” reaction is of great importance for the entire subsequent mental development of the child. He establishes emotional contact with the people around him, pays attention to their voices and actions, which expands childhood experience, creates the prerequisites for speech development.
Orienting-exploratory reflexes play an important role in the formation of new temporary connections in an infant. Changes in the environment, the emergence of new unusual items attracts the child's attention, catches his gaze, causes palpating movements, etc. For example, if you hang a shiny rattle over a baby's crib, he begins to look at it carefully and reach out to it with his hands. Sometimes he accidentally bumps into it with his fingers or palm. In this case, due to the unconditional grasping reflex that is present from birth, the baby’s palm slams shut and the object is grasped. Here new opportunities open up for the further development of his actions and knowledge of the world around him.
Thanks to the joint work of the eye and hand in the act of grasping, the child begins to form complex temporary connections between visual, tactile and motor stimuli, and the perception of the location, size, and shape of surrounding objects develops.
A baby’s acquaintance with the people and things around him is inextricably linked with mastering the first words of his native language.
The adult accompanies the appearance of certain people or things by naming them, and the child gradually forms a connection between the word and the object or person it denotes. By the end of the first year, the child recognizes people close to him, knows a number of surrounding objects and understands some of the words denoting them. At the same time, he masters a number of movements, grasps and manipulates things well, stands on his own feet and makes his first attempts to walk.
In the subsequent pre-preschool period (from one to three years), further development of the child’s psyche occurs. Having learned to walk and operate objects, a preschooler extremely expands the field of his activity.
Continuing to get acquainted with the environment under the guidance of an adult, the child gradually learns not only some of the physical properties of things, but also how to use them. A bed is for sleeping, a chair is for sitting, a spoon is for eating.
In this way, children develop not only many useful skills in handling household items, but also some understanding of their meaning. On this basis, the first imitative games arise, which are still very primitive compared to the games of a preschooler, but already reproduce the reality surrounding the child.
Thus, a two-year-old child, while playing, “feeds” a doll and a bear with a spoon, puts them to bed, puts a dress on them, etc. New temporary connections arise in a preschooler not only as a result of his own practical experience, but also in the process of communicating with others, and also by imitating their actions.
The expansion of a child’s subject experience is inextricably linked with the development of children’s speech. During preschool age, a child's vocabulary rapidly increases. By the end of the second year, the first attempts to compose a sentence of several words appear, in accordance with the grammatical structure of the native language.
Along with the development of speech comes the formation of children's thinking. By naming similar objects with the same word (for example, a chair or a cup), the child generalizes these objects and forms the first concepts.
At first, such attempts at generalization are often very imperfect. Thus, one one-and-a-half-year-old child called the word “apple” not only an apple, but all round objects - balls, a ball of thread, etc. Another child called the word “money” not only metal coins, but also all other small metallic and shiny things.
However, no matter how imperfect these first children's generalizations are, they are the first step in the development of a child's thinking.

Preschool age

In preschool age, under the influence of upbringing, further development of the child’s psyche occurs.
If the experience of preschool children is still very limited, then the preschool child’s stock of temporary connections increases significantly. Under the pedagogical influence of others, they become richer and more diverse in content. At the same time, the influence of previous experience on the child’s subsequent behavior increases, as well as on the formation of new temporary connections.
The actions of a preschooler acquire a more meaningful character than those of a pre-preschooler. They are produced taking into account previously acquired knowledge about the environment.
Positive conditioned reflexes are formed in preschoolers very easily and quickly, often as a result of two or three reinforcements. In this case, the formation of secondary and tertiary conditioned reflexes is possible, which are formed on the basis of temporary connections formed earlier.
As for conditioned inhibition, its development in preschoolers presents certain difficulties. However, significant progress is observed in the development of conditioned inhibition throughout preschool age. Children learn to refrain from actions that are prohibited by adults or do not meet the requirements of the children's group. In preschool age, the role of the cerebral cortex in the regulation of subcortical centers increases, which makes the child’s behavior more organized and his emotions more complex and varied.
In preschool age, the role of the word, the second signaling system, in the knowledge of the surrounding reality and in the child’s behavior increases significantly.
The preschooler gradually learns to perform rather complex actions following verbal instructions. At the same time, he begins to assimilate new knowledge not only through direct perception of the environment, but also with the help of verbal explanations and descriptions. The child’s second signaling system develops in close interaction with the first. In order for the explanations addressed to the child to be understood by him, the words spoken by an adult must be supported by the direct perception of relevant objects and phenomena, or be based on fairly clear visual representations formed in the child as a result of previous observations.
The experience accumulated in the pre-preschool period of development creates the prerequisites for the preschool child’s transition to more complex types of activities, to the acquisition of more complex and varied knowledge and skills.
Play is of utmost importance in the mental development of a preschooler.
The game gives the child the opportunity to get acquainted with a wide range of phenomena of the surrounding reality in a lively, exciting way, and actively reproduce them in his actions. Displaying in their games the lives of the people around them, their various actions and different kinds their work activities, children get the opportunity to more deeply understand and feel their surroundings more deeply. Correct understanding of the events depicted, correct execution appropriate actions receive constant, systematic reinforcement in the game thanks to the approval of the children's team, the achievement of the appropriate game result, and the positive assessment of the teacher. All this creates favorable conditions for the formation and strengthening of new temporary connections in children.
By directing children's games, enriching their content, organizing children at play, the teacher expands the child's experience and develops new mental qualities in him.
Promoting knowledge of the environment, developing children's imagination, the game is at the same time a kind of school of children's will. The richer the content of children's games, the more complex their design, the more children participate in it, the more the child is forced to act not under the influence of fleeting desires, but guided by the general goal and rules of the game.
The game develops the child’s mind and feelings, as well as intentionality and arbitrariness of actions. The ability to act together and take into account the requirements of the team is developed. This is the importance of play activity in the mental development of a preschooler.
However, no matter how important the role played by play in the life of a preschooler, it is not his only activity. The game itself develops under the influence of children’s familiarity with their surroundings. Its content is enriched by the experience acquired by the child in everyday life, when performing work tasks, as well as in the process of classes.
Under the influence of education, preschool children gradually develop interests in acquiring new knowledge and develop simple skills in academic work. Teaching children in the classroom expands children's knowledge about the environment, allows them to successfully master the language, simple counting operations, skills visual arts etc.
Training sessions influence the development of observation, semantic memorization, and the simplest forms of consistent, logically correct thinking. At the same time, they accustom the child to a certain discipline, develop the ability to act and focus their attention in accordance with the requirements of the teacher, thus forming the volitional qualities of the preschooler.
A significant role in the development of the psyche of a preschooler is played by work, feasible participation in the working life of the family, as well as the work activities of the kindergarten staff.
By performing simple work tasks together with other children under the guidance of parents and educators, the child enriches his knowledge about the environment, acquires useful practical skills, and learns to act together, in accordance with the interests of the team. In this way, valuable moral qualities are formed - hardworking, comradely mutual assistance, the desire to work for the common benefit, which is very important for the entire subsequent development of the child, for his further education at school, as well as for his future work activity.
During preschool age, the nature of activity and mental characteristics of preschoolers change significantly. Younger preschoolers are still in many ways similar to children of pre-preschool age. Their games are initially poor in content and often boil down to repeated repetition of the same actions. Younger preschoolers have not yet developed enough the ability to play and act together. Completing adult tasks expressed in verbal form presents significant difficulties for children.
The vocabulary of a younger preschooler is still limited. His statements often have the character of fragmentary sentences concerning individual aspects of observed phenomena. Kids do not yet know how to construct a coherent story about any object or phenomenon. Sometimes there is incorrect pronunciation of some speech sounds (for example, a child pronounces “Shula” instead of “Shura”, “Sasa” instead of “Sasha”, etc.).
Being very impressionable, younger preschoolers do not yet know how to systematically observe their surroundings. Often they notice only some bright, eye-catching detail in an object, omitting its less noticeable features. With great strength and imagery of memory, they remember mainly what directly interested them, what caused them emotional experience. Thinking is also very concrete, figurative in nature. Children easily perceive external similarities between objects and phenomena, but are not yet able to detect their hidden essential features. The imagination is still poorly developed. The actions of children in most cases are unintentional and involuntary. Feelings, despite their great vividness, are not stable and shallow in content.
These psychological characteristics younger preschoolers are not something immutable. Teacher introducing children junior group kindergarten with others, organizing their games and activities, forming a friendly children's team, teaching each child to obey certain requirements, certain rules of behavior in their actions, imparting new knowledge and skills to them, developing new mental qualities in them.
Children's activities become more organized and meaningful. Collective story games are developing. Children gradually get used to playing and studying together, without quarreling, and coordinating their actions with each other. Speech communication becomes more developed and diverse. Little by little, children learn to listen carefully to the teacher and carry out the tasks and instructions given to them.
In middle preschool age, the child’s circle of knowledge about the environment expands. Children's activities are becoming more serious and varied. Creative games, drawing and construction are developed. The work responsibilities performed by the child become more complex, and educational activities become more important.
In connection with the expansion of experience and the complication of activities, further development of the preschooler’s psyche occurs. He learns to gain a deeper understanding of the surrounding reality and to identify the simplest causal connections between phenomena. Its generalizations become wider and cover more characteristic, more significant features of objects.
Significant changes are taking place in the field of will development. The child gradually learns to fulfill his small responsibilities, subordinate his interests to the interests of adults and the children's team, set simple goals for himself and act in accordance with these goals. In older preschool age, a further expansion of experience and a complication of children's activities occurs.
Along with the development of creative play, other types of non-play-type activities become increasingly important in a child’s life. Getting more complicated work activity. Classes are increasingly taking on the character of organized educational activities.
The child’s vocabulary is enriched, and the ability to express one’s thoughts coherently and grammatically correctly in oral speech is acquired. The child’s knowledge of the environment deepens. The ability to generalize develops. He develops the ability to compare not only individual objects with each other, but also concepts about entire groups of objects. The simplest forms of consistent, logically correct reasoning arise.
At the same time, further progress is being made in the development of will in children. In many cases, an older preschooler already demonstrates the ability to control his actions and subordinate them to more distant goals. The development of the mind and will is closely related to the complication of children's feelings and interests. Unlike the younger preschooler, the older preschooler is more restrained in his experiences, but his feelings are deeper and more meaningful. He develops higher moral, cognitive and aesthetic feelings. The feeling of friendship and camaraderie is more clearly expressed in children. Love for one's homeland and the leaders of the Soviet people is growing stronger and developing.
All these profound changes in the psyche of a preschool child do not occur on their own, but under the certain influence of upbringing and training. Parents and educators, introducing the child to the environment, imparting new knowledge and skills to him, organizing and directing his activities, enriching the child’s experience, at the same time develop his psyche, shape his personality, and develop certain psychological traits.
By comprehensively educating a preschooler, expanding the child’s stock of ideas about the simplest phenomena of nature and social life, developing in him the ability to independently think about the simplest patterns of the surrounding reality, teaching him to act in accordance with the simplest requirements and rules, forming in him a love of knowledge and seriousness, socially useful activities - the teacher creates the necessary prerequisites for the child’s transition to school education, for his full participation in the life of the school.

School age

Entering school is the most important event in a child’s life and in the development of the psyche.
Children study even before school. An infant is learning, and a preschooler is learning. However, at younger ages, learning does not yet become an independent activity. Satisfying his needs, communicating with people around him, and acting with objects, the child acquires, under the guidance of an adult, certain knowledge, certain skills. The learning process of a preschooler becomes more complex. Here, along with the assimilation of new material in the process of play and practical activities, the child begins to be given educational tasks, as is the case in didactic games, in classes.
However, even here, learning has not yet become the main responsibility of the child, the main content of his life. The situation changes during the transition to school age, where learning becomes the main activity of the child.
A student’s fulfillment of his duties and successful mastery of academic subjects is not only his personal matter, but also a matter of social importance, which is monitored by the whole country. They talk about it, write about it in newspapers, report on the radio. At the same time, the knowledge that a schoolchild must master is much more complex and extensive than that acquired by a preschool child. If a preschooler acquires mainly concrete ideas about surrounding objects and phenomena, then the schoolchild must study the basics of science and master a certain system of scientific concepts.
Academic work, the new demands that the school places on the child, lead to further changes in his higher nervous activity, to the development of his psyche.
In the formation of new temporary connections in a schoolchild, a much larger role than in preschool age is played by the word - the second signaling system.
Unlike a preschooler, a schoolchild draws his knowledge primarily from the teacher’s verbal explanations and by reading textbooks and other literature. Visual aids and illustrations play an important but auxiliary role at this stage of development. In progress schooling the child’s thinking develops; it acquires a more abstract and at the same time generalized character.
Perception becomes more organized and focused. Intentional, logical memorization develops. Further development of the will also occurs. If in a preschooler we can observe only individual volitional actions, then here all activity is subject to a certain plan and acquires a deliberate character. The student studies in class, does homework, prepares for exams, aware of his responsibility to the school, teacher, family, and class team for conscientiously completing educational assignments and for successfully preparing for future work.
Systematic educational work, the diverse relationships that a child enters into with members of the school community, and participation in public life influence not only the development of individual mental processes, but also the formation of the student’s personality as a whole.
Gradually, he develops a correct materialistic worldview, a system of views on the basic phenomena of nature and social life. Character is formed, the moral character of the individual is formed, and the ability to be guided in one’s activities by the high principles of communist morality.
The range of children's interests is expanding, covering various fields of science, production, literature and art. Emotional experiences become more complex and varied...

A.V. Zaporozhets. "Psychology", M., Uchpedgiz, 1953

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