The problem of the development of thinking in the early works of J. Piaget. Piaget's theory of intelligence development
Psychoanalytic theories of child development Two discoveries of 3. Freud - the discovery of the unconscious and the discovery of the sexual principle - form the basis of the theoretical concept of psychoanalysis. In the last model of personality 3. Freud identified three main components: “Id”, “I” and “Super-ego”. “It” is the most primitive component, the carrier of instincts, a “seething cauldron of drives”, subject to the principle of pleasure. The “I” instance follows the principle of reality and takes into account the features of the external world. The “super-ego” serves as the bearer of moral standards. Since the demands on the “I” from the “It”, “Super-Ego” and reality are incompatible, it is inevitable that he will remain in a situation of conflict, creating unbearable tension, from which the personality is saved with the help of special “defense mechanisms” - such as repression, projection, regression, sublimation. 3. Freud reduces all stages of mental development to stages of transformation and movement through various erogenous zones of libidinal, or sexual, energy. Oral stage (0-1 year). The main source of pleasure is concentrated in the area of activity associated with feeding. Anal stage (1-3 years). Libido is concentrated around the anus, which becomes the object of attention of the child, accustomed to neatness. The phallic stage (3-5 years) characterizes the highest degree of childhood sexuality. The genital organs become the leading erogenous zone. Sexuality at this stage is objective and directed towards parents. Libidinal attachment to parents of the opposite sex 3. Freud called the Oedipus complex for boys and the Electra complex for girls. Latent stage (5-12 years). Decreased sexual interest. The energy of libido is transferred to the development of universal human experience. Genital stage (12-18 years). According to Z. Freud, a teenager strives for one goal - normal sexual communication, all erogenous zones are united. If normal sexual communication is difficult, then phenomena of fixation or regression to one of the previous stages can be observed. Psychoanalysis was developed in the works of Freud's daughter, Anna Freud. Adhering to the classical structure of personality for psychoanalysis, in its instinctive part she identified the sexual and aggressive components. A. Freud views child development as a process of gradual socialization of the child, subject to the law of transition from the principle of pleasure to the principle of reality.
Question No. 8. The problem of the development of thinking in the early works of J. Piaget. Theoretical and experimental criticism in domestic and foreign psychology.
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) is one of the world's outstanding psychologists. We distinguish two periods of his scientific work - early and late. In his early works (until the mid-1930s), Piaget explains the patterns of development of thinking in terms of two factors - heredity and environment, due to which they can be classified as two-factor theories.
He was interested in the patterns of human knowledge of the world. In order to understand how knowledge of the world occurs, he considered it necessary to turn to the study of how the instrument of such knowledge arises in human thinking. The scientist saw the key to solving the problem in studying the development of a child’s thinking.
L. S. Vygotsky, assessing the contribution of J. Piaget to psychology, wrote that the latter’s works constituted an entire era in the study of children’s thinking. They fundamentally changed the idea of a child’s thinking and development. What is this connected with? Before Piaget, the thinking of a child was considered in comparison with the thinking of an adult. thinking of a “little adult.” Piaget began to consider children’s thinking as thinking characterized by qualitative originality.
Piaget proposed a new method for studying thinking - the method of clinical conversation, aimed at studying the patterns of development and functioning of thinking, representing a variant of the experiment. Piaget's initial postulate of the early period was the position that thinking is directly expressed in speech. This position determined all the difficulties and errors of his early theory. It was this position that became the subject of criticism by L. S. Vygotsky, who defended the thesis of complex interdependent relationships between thinking and speech. It was precisely the position about the direct connection between thinking and speech that Piaget abandoned in his further works.
The conversation, according to the psychologist, made it possible to study the child’s thinking, because the child’s answers to the adult’s questions reveal the living process of thinking to the researcher.
The early concept of J. Piaget is based on three theoretical sources - the theory of the French sociological school about collective ideas; theory 3. Freud and studies of primitive thinking by L. Lévy-Bruhl.
So, the starting point for J. Piaget’s theory was the following three provisions:
1. The development of a child’s thinking is carried out through assimilation
of collective representations (socialized forms of thought
or) during verbal communication.
2. Initially, thinking is aimed at obtaining pleasure
events, then this type of thinking is crowded out by society, and the child
its other forms are imposed, corresponding to the principle of re
ality.
3. The child’s thinking has a qualitative originality.
The development of a child’s thinking, according to J. Piaget, is a change in mental positions, which is characterized by a transition from egocentrism to decentration.
Piaget's greatest discovery is the discovery of the phenomenon of egocentrism in children's thinking. Egocentrism is a special cognitive position occupied by a subject in relation to the world around him, when phenomena and objects are considered only from his own point of view. Egocentrism is the absolutization of one’s own cognitive perspective and the inability to coordinate different points of view on a subject.
The merit of J. Piaget lies in the fact that he not only discovered the phenomenon of egocentrism, but also showed the process of development of a child’s thinking as a transition from egocentrism to decentration. The researcher identified three stages in this process: 1) identification of subject and object, inability to separate oneself and the world around him; 2) egocentrism - knowledge of the world based on one’s own position, inability to coordinate different points of view on a subject; 3) decentration - coordination of one’s own point of view with other possible views of the object.
Thus, the development of a child’s thinking occurs in three interrelated directions. The first is the separation of objective and subjective perception of the world. The second is the development of a mental position - from the absolutization of the mental position of the subject to the coordination of a number of possible positions and, accordingly, to reciprocity. The third direction characterizes the development of thinking as a movement from the perception of individual things to the perception of connections between them.
J. Piaget identified the characteristics of a child’s thinking that constitute his qualitative originality:
* syncretism of thinking - a spontaneous tendency of children to perceive
to take global images without analyzing details, the tendency to associate
call everything with everything, without proper analysis (“lack of communication”);
* juxtaposition - inability to unite and synthesize (“from
life of communication");
* intellectual realism - identification of one’s ideas
ideas about things of the objective world and real objects. Analogous to intellectual moral realism;
■ participation - the law of participation (“nothing is accidental”);
Animism as universal animation;
* artificialism as the idea of an artificial occurrence
circulation of natural phenomena. For example, a child is asked: “Where do rivers come from?” Answer: “People dug canals and
filled them with water";
* insensitivity to contradictions;
* impenetrable to experience;
* transduction - transition from a particular position to another part
nomu, bypassing the general;
* precausality - inability to establish causality
investigative connections. For example, a child is asked to complete
a sentence interrupted by the words “because.” The man suddenly
fell on the street because... The child completes: he was taken to
hospital;
* weakness of children's introspection (self-observation).
J. Piaget “Psychology of intelligence. Genesis of number in a child. Logic and Psychology" Basic provisions of the theory of J. Piaget. In accordance with Jean Piaget's theory of intelligence, human intelligence goes through several main stages in its development: From birth to 2 years it continues period of sensorimotor intelligence; from 2 to 11 years - the period of preparation and organization of specific operations, in which sub-period of pre-operational ideas(from 2 to 7 years) and sub-period of specific transactions(from 7 to 11 years); lasts from age 11 to approximately 15 period of formal operations. The problem of children's thinking was formulated as qualitatively unique, having unique advantages, the activity of the child himself was highlighted, the genesis of “action to thought” was traced, the phenomena of children's thinking were discovered and methods for its research were developed. ^ Definition of Intelligence Intelligence is a global cognitive system consisting of a number of subsystems (perceptual, mnemonic, mental), the purpose of which is to provide information for the interaction of the individual with the external environment. Intelligence is the totality of all cognitive functions of an individual.
Intelligence is thinking, the highest cognitive process.
Intelligence- flexible at the same time stable structural balance of behavior, which are essentially a system of the most vital and active operations. Being the most perfect of mental adaptations, the intellect serves, so to speak, as the most necessary and effective - a tool in the interactions of the subject with the outside world, interactions that are realized in the most complex ways and go far beyond the limits of direct and momentary contacts, in order to achieve pre-established and stable relationships. ^ The main stages of development of a child’s thinking Piaget identified the following stages of development of intelligence. Sensorimotor intelligence (0-2 years) During the period of sensorimotor intelligence, the organization of perceptual and motor interactions with the outside world gradually develops. This development goes from being limited by innate reflexes to the associated organization of sensorimotor actions in relation to the immediate environment. At this stage, only direct manipulations with things are possible, but not actions with symbols and ideas on the internal plane. ^ Preparation and organization of specific operations (2-11 years) Sub-period of pre-operational ideas (2-7 years) At the stage of pre-operational representations, a transition occurs from sensorimotor functions to internal - symbolic ones, that is, to actions with representations, and not with external objects. This stage of intelligence development is characterized by dominance preconceptions And transductive reasoning; egocentrism; centralization on the striking features of the object and neglect in reasoning of its other features; focusing on the states of a thing and not paying attention to it transformations. ^ Sub-period of specific operations (7-11 years) At the stage of concrete operations, actions with representations begin to unite and coordinate with each other, forming systems of integrated actions called operations. The child develops special cognitive structures called factions(For example, classification^ Formal Operations (11-15 years) The main ability that emerges during the formal operations stage (from about 11 to about 15 years of age) is the ability to deal with possible, with the hypothetical, and perceive external reality as a special case of what is possible, what could be. Cognition becomes hypothetico-deductive. The child acquires the ability to think in sentences and establish formal relationships (inclusion, conjunction, disjunction, etc.) between them. A child at this stage is also able to systematically identify all the variables essential to solving a problem and systematically go through all possible combinations these variables. ^ 5. Basic mechanisms of child cognitive development 1) assimilation mechanism: an individual adapts new information (situation, object) to his existing patterns (structures), without changing them in principle, that is, he includes a new object in his existing patterns of actions or structures. 2) the mechanism of accommodation, when an individual adapts his previously formed reactions to new information (situation, object), that is, he is forced to rebuild (modify) old schemes (structures) in order to adapt them to new information (situation, object). According to the operational concept of intelligence, the development and functioning of mental phenomena represents, on the one hand, assimilation, or assimilation of this material by existing behavioral patterns, and on the other, the accommodation of these patterns to a specific situation. Piaget views the adaptation of the organism to the environment as a balancing of subject and object. The concepts of assimilation and accommodation play a major role in Piaget’s proposed explanation of the genesis of mental functions. Essentially, this genesis acts as a sequential change of various stages of balancing assimilation and accommodation . ^ 6. Egocentrism of children's thinking. Experimental studies of the phenomenon of egocentrism Egocentrism of children's thinking - a special cognitive position occupied by the subject in relation to the surrounding world, when objects and phenomena of the surrounding world are considered from their own point of view. Egocentrism of thinking determines such features of children's thinking as syncretism, inability to focus on changes in an object, irreversibility of thinking, transduction (from particular to particular), insensitivity to contradiction, the combined effect of which prevents the formation of logical thinking. An example of this effect is the well-known experiments of Piaget. If, in front of a child’s eyes, you pour equal amounts of water into two identical glasses, the child will confirm that the volumes are equal. But if in his presence you pour water from one glass to another, narrower one, then the child will confidently tell you that there is more water in the narrow glass. - There are many variations of such experiments, but they all demonstrated the same thing - the child’s inability to concentrate on changes in the object. The latter means that the baby records only stable situations well in memory, but at the same time the process of transformation eludes him. In the case of glasses, the child sees only the result - two identical glasses with water at the beginning and two different glasses with the same water at the end, but he is not able to grasp the moment of change. Another effect of egocentrism is the irreversibility of thinking, that is, the child’s inability to mentally return to the starting point of his reasoning. It is the irreversibility of thinking that does not allow our baby to trace the course of his own reasoning and, returning to its beginning, imagine the glasses in their original position. Lack of reversibility is a direct manifestation of the child’s self-centered thinking. ^ 7. The concept of “subject”, “object”, “action” in the concept of J. Piaget Subject is an organism endowed with the functional activity of an adaptation, which is hereditarily fixed and inherent in any living organism. ^ An object- it is just material for manipulation, it is just “food” for action. Scheme actions- this is the most general thing that remains in action when it is repeated many times in different circumstances. An action scheme, in the broad sense of the word, is a structure at a certain level of mental development. ^ 8. The concept of “operation” and its place in the concept of J. Piaget Operation - a cognitive scheme that ensures, at the end of the pre-operational stage of intellectual development, the child’s assimilation of the idea of conservation of quantity. Operations are formed over a period of 2 to 12 years. - At the stage of concrete operations (from 8 to 11 years), various types of mental activity that arose during the previous period finally reach a state of “moving equilibrium,” that is, they acquire the nature of reversibility. During this same period, the basic concepts of conservation are formed, the child is capable of logically specific operations. It can form both relations and classes from concrete objects. ^ 9. Laws of grouping and operational development of intelligence The construction of operational groupings and thought groups requires inversion, but the paths of movement in this area are infinitely more complex. We are talking about the decentration of thought not only in relation to the actual perceptual centering, but also in relation to one’s own action as a whole. Indeed, the thought that is born from action is egocentric at its very starting point, and precisely for the same reason that sensorimotor intelligence is first centered on the actual perceptions or movements from which it develops. The development of thought comes, first of all, to repetition on the basis of a wide system of displacements, that evolution, which in the sensorimotor plane seemed already perfect, until it unfolded with new force in an infinitely wider space and in a sphere infinitely more mobile in time, in order to reach before structuring the operations themselves. ^ 10. The concept of structure in the concept of J. Piaget Structure, according to Piaget's definition, is a mental system or integrity, the principles of activity of which are different from the principles of activity of the parts that make up this structure. Structure- self-regulating system. New mental structures are formed based on action. Throughout ontogenetic development, Piaget believes, the main functions (adaptation, assimilation, accommodation) as dynamic processes are unchanged, hereditarily fixed, and do not depend on content and experience. Unlike functions, structures develop during life, depend on the content of experience and differ qualitatively at different stages of development. This relationship between function and structure ensures continuity, continuity of development and its qualitative . ^ 11. Skills and sensorimotor intelligence ‑ Skill- the primary factor explaining intelligence; from the perspective of the trial and error method, skill is interpreted as automation of movements selected after a blind search, and the search itself is considered as a sign of intelligence; from the point of view of assimilation, intelligence is inferior as a form of balance to the same assimilation activity, the initial forms of which form a skill. ^ Sensorimotor intelligence- a type of thinking that characterizes the pre-speech period of a child’s life. The concept of sensorimotor intelligence is one of the main ones in Jean Piaget’s theory of child intelligence development. Piaget called this type, or level of development of thinking, sensorimotor, since the child’s behavior during this period is based on the coordination of perception and movement. J. Piaget outlined six stages of sensorimotor development of intelligence: 1) exercise of reflexes (from 0 to 1 month); 2) first skills and primary circular reactions (from 1 to 4-6 months); 3) coordination of vision and grasping and secondary circular reactions (from 4-6 to 8-9 months) - the beginning of the emergence of one’s own intelligence; 4) stage of “practical” intelligence (from 8 to 11 months); 5) tertiary circular reactions and the search for new means to achieve a goal, which the child finds through external material tests (from 11-12 to 18 months); 6) the child can find new means of solving a problem through internalized combinations of action patterns that lead to sudden illumination or insight (from 18 to 24 months). ^ 12. Stages of intuitive (visual) thinking. Conservation phenomena Intuitive (visual) thinking- a type of thinking in which we directly perceive the conclusion, that is, we feel its obligatory nature, without even being able to restore all the reasoning and premises by which it is conditioned; its opposite is discursive thinking. Intuitive thinking is characterized by the fact that it lacks clearly defined stages. It is usually based on a compressed perception of the entire problem at once. The person in this case arrives at an answer, which may be right or wrong, with little or no awareness of the process by which he arrived at that answer. As a rule, intuitive thinking is based on familiarity with basic knowledge in a given area and its structure, and this gives it the opportunity to be carried out in the form of leaps, quick transitions, with the skipping of individual links. Therefore, the conclusions of intuitive thinking need to be verified by analytical means. Picture of preservation in the concept of J. Piaget acts as a criterion for the emergence of logical operations. It characterizes the understanding of the principle of conservation of the amount of matter when the shape of an object changes. The idea of conservation develops in a child under the condition that egocentrism of thinking is weakened, which allows him to discover the points of view of other people and find in them what they have in common. As a result, children's ideas, which were previously absolute for him (for example, he always considers large things to be heavy and small things to be light), now become relative (a pebble seems light to a child, but turns out to be heavy for water). ^ 13. The concept of invariance and mental development of a child Invariance- knowledge about an object in relation to one or another subjective “perspective” is provided by the real interaction of the subject and the object, is associated with the action of the subject and is quite unambiguously determined by the object’s own properties. The invariance of knowledge progresses with intellectual development, being directly dependent on the subject’s experience of operating with real objects. In the system of genetic psychology of J. Piaget, mastering the principle of “preservation” (invariance, constancy) is an important stage in the intellectual development of a child. The concept of conservation means that an object or a set of objects is recognized as unchanged in the composition of its elements or in any other physical parameter, despite changes in their shape or external location, but provided that nothing is taken away or added to them. According to Piaget, mastery of the principle of conservation serves as a psychological criterion for the emergence of the main logical characteristic of thought - reversibility, indicating the child’s transition to new, concrete operational thinking. Mastery of this principle is also a necessary condition for the development of scientific concepts in a child. ‑ ^ 14. Concrete operations stage Specific Operations Stage(7-11 years old). At the stage of concrete operations, actions with representations begin to unite and coordinate with each other, forming systems of integrated actions called operations. The child develops special cognitive structures called factions(For example, classification), thanks to which the child acquires the ability to perform operations with classes and establish logical relationships between classes, uniting them in hierarchies, whereas previously his capabilities were limited to transduction and the establishment of associative connections. The limitation of this stage is that operations can only be performed with specific objects, but not with statements. Operations logically structure the external actions performed, but they cannot yet structure verbal reasoning in the same way. ^ 15. Stage of formal logical operations Stage of formal - logical operations (11-15 years). The main ability that appears at the stage of formal operations is the ability to deal with the possible, with the hypothetical, and to perceive external reality as a special case of what is possible, what could be. Cognition becomes hypothetico-deductive. The child acquires the ability to think in sentences and establish formal relationships (inclusion, conjunction, disjunction, etc.) between them. A child at this stage is also able to systematically identify all the variables essential to solving a problem and systematically go through all possible combinations these variables. ^ 16. Social factors of intellectual development Manifestations of intelligence consist in: language (signs) the content of interactions of the subject with objects (intellectual values) rules prescribed for thinking (collective logical or pre-logical norms). On the basis of language acquisition, i.e., with the onset of the symbolic and intuitive periods, new social relationships appear that enrich and transform the individual’s thinking. But there are three different sides to this problem. Already in the sensorimotor period, the baby is the object of numerous social influences: he is given the maximum pleasures available to his little experience - from feeding to the manifestation of certain feelings (he is surrounded by care, they smile at him, he is entertained, he is reassured); He is also taught skills and regulations related to signals and words; adults prohibit him from certain types of behavior and grumble at him. At pre-operational levels, covering the period from the appearance of language to approximately 7-8 years, the structures inherent in developing thinking exclude the possibility of the formation of social relations of cooperation, which alone can lead to the construction of logic. ^ 17. Research methods proposed by J. Piaget Piaget critically analyzed the methods that were used before him and showed their inadequacy for elucidating the mechanisms of mental activity. To identify these mechanisms, hidden but determining everything, Piaget developed a new method of psychological research - the method of clinical conversation, when not symptoms (external signs of a phenomenon) are studied, but the processes leading to their occurrence. This method is extremely difficult. It gives the necessary results only in the hands of an experienced psychologist. ^ Clinical method- this is a carefully carried out statement of facts, an age profile of speech and mental development. The researcher asks a question, listens to the child's reasoning, and then formulates additional questions, each of which depends on the child's previous answer. He expects to find out what determines the child’s position and what is the structure of his cognitive activity. During a clinical conversation, there is always a danger of misinterpreting the child’s reaction, getting confused, not finding the right question at the moment, or, conversely, suggesting the desired answer. Clinical conversation represents a kind of art, “the art of asking.” ^ 18. The relationship between logic and psychology in the study of intellectual development- Logic is an axiomatics of reason, in relation to which the psychology of intelligence is a corresponding experimental science. Axiomatics is an exclusively hypothetical-deductive science, i.e. one that reduces recourse to experience to a minimum (and even strives to eliminate it completely), in order to freely build its subject on the basis of unprovable statements (axioms) and combine them between ourselves in all possible ways and with the utmost rigor. The problem of the relationship between formal logic and the psychology of the intellect receives a solution similar to that which, after centuries of discussion, put an end to the conflict between deductive geometry and real or physical geometry. As in the case of these two disciplines, logic and the psychology of thinking initially coincided without being differentiated. Due to the lingering influence of the original indivisibility, they still continued to consider logic as a science of reality, lying, despite its normative character, on the same plane as psychology, but dealing exclusively with “true thinking,” as opposed to thinking in general, taken in abstraction from no matter what the norm. Hence the illusory perspective of the “psychology of thinking”, according to which thinking as a psychological phenomenon is a reflection of the laws of logic. On the contrary, as soon as we understand that logic is an axiomatics, immediately - as a result of a simple inversion of the original position - the false solution to the problem of the relationship between logic and thinking disappears. Logical schemes, if skillfully constructed, always help the analysis of psychologists; a good example of this is the psychology of thinking
1.According to lecture notes.
Piaget discovered the phenomenon of egocentrism in children's thinking, which ends at the age of 5-7 years (the period of decentration). This phenomenon is due to the principles of perceptual knowledge of the world (for a child, the main channel connecting him with the world around him is perception; mature thinking always has decentration, that is, the ability to “see” events from the outside, from different points of view). Egocentrism is associated with the child’s attachment to the space around him (he perceives the world only at the moment and in a specific situation). From the age of two, the child begins to adapt to space, thanks to which he can relate himself to different points in space (the beginning of decentration). The most effective way to develop decentralization of a child’s thinking is a group game with rules, which allows you to feel the situation from the point of view of different roles (for example, playing hide and seek)
The egocentrism of a child’s thinking is expressed in the fact that the center of the coordinate system for him is his own “I”. Egocentrism is a clear sign of pre-conceptual thinking.
2. According to Piaget.
Egocentrism is a factor of cognition. This is a certain set of pre-critical and, therefore, pre-objective positions in the knowledge of things, other people and oneself. Egocentrism is a type of systematic and unconscious illusion of knowledge, a form of initial concentration of the mind when intellectual relativity and reciprocity are absent. On the one hand, egocentrism means a lack of understanding of the relativity of knowledge of the world and coordination of points of view. On the other hand, it is a position of unconscious attribution of the qualities of one’s own “I”. The initial egocentrism of cognition is not a hypertrophy of awareness of the “I”. This is a direct relationship to objects, where the subject, ignoring the “I,” cannot leave the “I” in order to find his place in the world of relationships, freed from subjective connections.
Piaget conducted many different experiments that show that until a certain age a child cannot take a different point of view. For example, an experiment with a layout of three mountains. The mountains on the model were of different heights and each of them had some distinctive feature - a house, a river going down the slope, a snowy peak. The experimenter gave the subject several photographs in which all three mountains were depicted from different sides. The house, river and snowy peak were clearly visible in the photographs. The subject was asked to choose a photograph where the mountains were depicted as he sees them at the moment, from this angle. Usually the child chose the correct picture. After this, the experimenter showed him a doll with a head in the form of a smooth ball without a face, so that the child could not follow the direction of the doll’s gaze. The toy was placed on the other side of the model. Now, when asked to choose a photo where the mountains were depicted as the doll sees them, the child chose a photo where the mountains were depicted as he sees them himself. If the child and the doll were swapped, then again and again he chose a picture where the mountains were depicted as he perceived them from his place. This is what most preschool age subjects did.
In this experiment, children became victims of a subjective illusion. They did not suspect the existence of other assessments of things and did not correlate them with their own. Egocentrism means that the child, imagining nature and other people, does not take into account his own position as a thinking person. Egocentrism means the confusion of subject and object in the process of the act of cognition. Egocentrism shows that the external world does not act directly on the mind of the subject. Egocentrism is a consequence of external circumstances among which the subject lives. The main thing (in egocentrism) is the spontaneous position of the subject, who directly relates to the object, without considering himself as a thinking being, without realizing his own point of view.
Piaget emphasized that the decrease in egocentrism is explained not by the addition of knowledge, but by the transformation of the initial position, when the subject correlates his point of view with other possible ones. To free oneself from egocentrism means to realize what was perceived subjectively, to find one’s place in the system of possible points of view, to establish a system of general mutual relations between things, personalities and one’s own “I”.
Egocentrism gives way to decentration, a more perfect position. The transition from egocentrism to decentration characterizes cognition at all levels of development. The universality and inevitability of this process allowed Piaget to call it the law of development. Development (according to Piaget) is a change in mental positions. In order to overcome egocentrism, two conditions are necessary: first, to realize one’s own “I” as a subject and separate the subject from the object; the second is to coordinate your own point of view with others, and not consider it as the only possible one.
3. Experimental facts.
In studies of children's ideas about the world and physical causality, Piaget showed that a child at a certain stage of development views objects as they are directly perceived - he does not see things in their internal relationships. A child thinks, for example, that the moon follows him during his walks, stops when he stops, runs after him when he runs away. Piaget called this phenomenon “realism.” It is precisely this kind of realism that prevents the child from considering things independently of the subject, in their internal interconnection. The child considers his instant perception to be true. This happens because children do not separate their “I” from things. Children up to a certain age do not know how to distinguish between the subjective and external world. There are two types of realism: intellectual and moral. For example, a child is sure that tree branches make the wind. This is intellectual realism. Moral realism is expressed in the fact that the child does not take into account the internal intention in assessing an action and judges the action only by the external effect, by the material result.
In experimental studies, Piaget showed that in the early stages of intellectual development, objects appear to the child as heavy or light according to direct perception. The child always considers big things to be heavy, and small things to be light. For a child, these and many ideas are absolute, as long as direct perception seems to be the only possible one. The emergence of other ideas about things, as, for example, in the experiment with floating bodies: a pebble is light for a child, but heavy for water - means that children's ideas begin to lose their absolute meaning and become relative. The child cannot discover that there are different points of view that need to be taken into account. Piaget asked, for example: Charles “Do you have brothers?” - “Arthur.” “Does he have a brother?” - "No". “How many brothers do you have in your family?” - “Two”. “Do you have a brother?” "One". “Does he have brothers?” - “Not at all.” "Are you his brother?" - "Yes". “Then he has a brother?” - "No".
Ticket 5.1 Hierarchy of levels of movement regulation .
Level A. Trembling (tremor) - lat. “Tremor” - trembling, rhythmic oscillatory movements of the limbs, head, tongue, etc. with damage to the nervous system; may be hereditary.
Level B. An action that takes place in the coordinate system of one’s own body (when the action does not need foreign objects). Objects and time are not important. Free space around the body is important. Actions have a beginning, and the end depends on “I want a continuation?!” or “I don’t want to!” No distant sensations are needed, kinesthetic sensations (muscles) are regulated. Example: pull-ups, facial expressions (funny or sad); oriental dances, belly dance, modern dances. No need for the outside world!
The most ancient in phylogenetic terms - level A, which is called the level of “paleokinetic regulation”, or rubrospinal, after the name of the anatomical “substrates” that are responsible for the construction of movements at this level: the “red nucleus” acts as the “highest” regulatory authority of this level of construction of movements, to which other subcortical structures. The system of these structures ensures the receipt and analysis of proprioceptive information from the muscles, holding a certain posture, some fast rhythmic vibration movements (for example, vibrato in violinists), as well as a number of involuntary movements (shivering from cold, shuddering, chattering teeth from fear). Level A in a person is almost never the leading level of movement construction.
Second - level B- is also called the level of “synergy and stamps”, or the thalamo-pallidal level, since its anatomical substrate is the “visual tubercles” and “globus pallidus”. He is responsible for the so-called synergies, i.e. highly coordinated movements of the whole body, for rhythmic and cyclic movements such as “walking” in infants, “stamps” - for example, stereotypical movements such as bending, squatting. This level provides analysis of information about the location of individual limbs and muscles, regardless of the specific conditions for the implementation of the corresponding movements. Therefore, it is responsible, for example, for running in general (say, running in place) as the variable work of various muscle groups. However, real running takes place on a specific surface with its own unevenness and obstacles, and in order for it to become possible, it is necessary to involve other, higher levels of movement construction. This level is also responsible for the automation of various motor skills, expressive facial expressions and emotionally charged pantomimic movements.
Piaget's theory of intellectual development is the most developed and influential of all known theories of intellectual development, which consistently combines ideas about the internal nature of intelligence and its external manifestations. In order to better evaluate the contribution to psychological science in general and to the development of the psychology of thinking, in particular, let us turn to the statements of two well-known specialists in this field.
“There is a well-known paradox,” writes L. F. Obukhova, according to which the authority of a scientist is best determined by the extent to which he has slowed down the development of science in his field. Modern foreign psychology of childhood is literally blocked by Piaget's ideas. ... No one manages to break out of the system he has developed,” the author emphasizes.
“The irresistible and attractive power of the works and ideas of J. Piaget,” according to N. I. Chuprikova, is primarily in the breadth of reality captured by his analysis, in the facts he described, in... the level of generalization and interpretation. At this level, the action of strict and immutable laws of development visibly shines through the facts and their interpretation.” The “strict and immutable laws of development” discovered by Jean Piaget “slowed down” the development of science about the mechanisms of cognitive development of a child from birth to adolescence inclusive. Let's turn to the theory itself.
Piaget's theory of the development of intelligence is, first of all, a dynamic concept of the development of intelligence, considering the process of its formation in the course of the individual development of the child. This approach is called genetic. J. Piaget’s concept provides answers to the most pressing questions of human cognitive development:
- is the subject capable of distinguishing the internal, subjective world from the external and what are the boundaries of such a distinction;
- what is the substrate of the subject’s ideas (thoughts): are they a product of the external world acting on the mind or are they a product of the subject’s own mental activity;
- what are the relationships between the subject’s thought and the phenomena of the external world;
- what is the essence of the laws to which this interaction is subject, in other words, what is the origin and development of the basic scientific concepts that a thinking person uses.
The central proposition of J. Piaget's concept is the proposition about the interaction between the organism and the environment, or the proposition about equilibrium.
The external environment is constantly changing, says Piaget. Organism, i.e. a subject that exists independently of the external environment (object) strives to establish balance with it. Balance with the environment can be established in two ways: either by the subject adapting the external environment to himself by changing it, or by changes in the subject himself. Both are possible only by the subject performing certain actions. By performing actions, the subject thereby finds ways or patterns of these actions that allow him to restore the disturbed balance. According to Piaget, an action scheme is the sensorimotor equivalent of a concept, a cognitive skill. “It (the action scheme),” comments L. F. Obukhova, “allows the child to economically and adequately act with objects of the same class or with different states of the same object.” If an object of a different class acts on a child, then in order to restore the disturbed balance, he is forced to perform new actions and thereby find new schemes (concepts) adequate to this class of objects. So, action is a “mediator” between the child and the world around him, with the help of which he actively manipulates and experiments with real objects (things, their shape, properties, etc.). Indeed, when a child encounters problems (objects) that are new to him, which violate his already established ideas about the world (disturb his balance), this forces him to look for answers to them. A “knocked out of balance” child tries to balance himself with this changed environment by explaining it, that is, by developing new schemes or concepts. The different and increasingly complex methods of explanation used by the child are the stages of his knowledge. Thus, the need for the subject to restore balance is the driving force of his cognitive (intellectual) development, and balance itself is an internal regulator of the development of intelligence. That is why intelligence, according to Piaget, “is the highest and most perfect form of psychological adaptation, the most effective... instrument in the interactions of a subject with the outside world,” and thought itself is “a compressed form of action.” The development of action patterns, in other words, cognitive development occurs “as the child’s experience of practical action with objects increases and becomes more complex” due to “the internalization of objective actions, i.e., their gradual transformation into mental operations (actions performed on the internal plane)” .
From what has been said, it is clear that the very schemes of action, operations, i.e. the concepts discovered by the subject as a result of the actions he performs are not innate in nature. They are the result of objective actions performed by an active subject when interacting with an object. Therefore, the content of mental concepts is determined by the characteristics of this object. The activity of the subject is innate in nature, fixed in it by the genetic development program. Consequently, the pace of a child’s cognitive development is determined, firstly, by the level of his activity, the degree of maturation of the nervous system, secondly, by the experience of his interaction with the objects of the external environment influencing him and, thirdly, by language and upbringing. Thus, we see nothing innate in the level of intelligence development. The only thing that is innate is that intelligence (cognitive development) is able to function. And the method of this functioning and the level of its achievements will be determined by the action of the listed factors. Therefore, all children go through the stages of cognitive development in the same sequence, but the methods of their passage and intellectual achievements will be different for everyone due to different conditions of their development.
So, we have found out that the cognitive development of the subject is a necessary condition for his adaptation (adaptation). In order to adapt, i.e., solve new problems, the body must either modify its existing patterns of activity (concepts) or develop new ones. Thus, there are only two adaptation mechanisms. The first of them is the assimilation mechanism, when an individual adapts new information (situation, object) to his existing patterns (structures), without changing them in principle, i.e., includes a new object in his existing patterns of actions or structures. For example, if a newborn, a few moments after birth, can grab an adult’s finger placed in his palm, in the same way he can grab a parent’s hair, a cube placed in his hand, etc., i.e., each time he adapts new information to existing action plans. Here is an example illustrating the action of the assimilation mechanism in early childhood. When a child sees a fluffy spaniel, he shouts: “Dog.” He will say the same thing when he sees a fluffy setter or collie. But for the first time when he sees a fur coat, he will say “doggy” again, because... According to his system of concepts, everything furry is a dog. In the future, in addition to the characteristic - fluffy, a whole set of others are built into the concept of “dog”: soft, four-legged, lively, friendly, tail, wet nose, etc. Thus, the concept is improved, which allows us to further differentiate it from the concept of “fur coat”.
The other is the mechanism of accommodation, when an individual adapts his previously formed reactions to new information (situation, object), i.e. he is forced to rebuild (modify) old schemes (structures) in order to adapt them to new information (situation, object). For example, if a child continues to suck on a spoon in order to satisfy hunger, i.e. try to adapt a new situation to the existing sucking scheme (assimilation mechanism), then he will soon be convinced that such behavior is ineffective (he cannot satisfy the feeling of hunger and thereby adapt to the situation) and he needs to change his old scheme (sucking), i.e. Modify the movements of the lips and tongue to take food from the spoon (accommodation mechanism). Thus, a new scheme of action (a new concept) appears. It is obvious that the functions of these two mechanisms are opposite. Thanks to assimilation, there is a clarification and improvement of existing schemes (concepts) and thus balance with the environment is achieved by adapting the environment to the subject, and thanks to accommodation - restructuring, modification of existing schemes and the emergence of new, learned concepts. The nature of the relationship between them determines the qualitative content of human mental activity. Logical thinking itself, as the highest form of cognitive development, is the result of a harmonious synthesis between them. In the early stages of development, any mental operation represents a compromise between assimilation and accommodation. The development of intelligence is the process of maturation of operational structures (concepts), gradually growing out of the child’s objective everyday experience against the background of the manifestation of these two main mechanisms.
According to Piaget, the process of development of intelligence consists of three large periods, within which the emergence and formation of three main structures (types of intelligence) occur. The first of these is sensorimotor intelligence, which lasts from birth to 2 years.
During this period, the newborn perceives the world without knowing himself as a subject, without understanding his own actions. What is real for him is only what is given to him through his sensations. He looks, listens, touches, smells, tastes, screams, hits, kneads, bends, throws, pushes, pulls, pours, and performs other sensory and motor actions. At this stage of development, the leading role belongs to the child’s immediate sensations and perceptions. His knowledge of the world around him is based on them. Therefore, this stage is characterized by the formation and development of sensory and motor structures - sensory and motor abilities. One of the main questions is that of the initial or primary patterns of action that allow the newborn to establish balance in the first hours and days of his life.
These, according to Piaget, are the reflexes of a newborn, with which he is born, and which allow him to act expediently in a limited number of situations. But since there are few of them, he is forced to change them and form new, more complex schemes based on them. For example, by combining innate sucking and grasping reflexes, a newborn learns, firstly, to drag objects into the mouth. Secondly, this new scheme, combined with innate visual control, allows the child to operate the pacifier himself and, thirdly, to switch to a new type of feeding - from a spoon. Within sensorimotor intelligence there are 6 stages.
1. Stage of reflex exercise (0-1 month) An example was already given above with a newborn who grabbed the parent’s finger placed in his hand, as well as any other object. If you touch his lips with your finger, he will begin to suck on it, just like any other object. The behavior of a newborn is subordinated to “mastering” all objects in contact with him with the help of innate reflexes (action patterns) of sucking and grasping (assimilation). He does not distinguish objects from each other and therefore treats everyone the same. Piaget believed that at this stage children “practice” the skills they currently possess, and because they have few of them, they repeat them over and over again.
2. Stage of primary circular reactions (1-4 months) The baby already distinguishes between sucking a blanket and a pacifier. Therefore, when he is hungry, he pushes away the blanket, preferring his mother's breast. He becomes “aware” of the existence of his fingers by bringing them to his mouth. He sucks his thumb little by little. He turns his head in the direction of the sounds made by his mother and follows her movements around the room.
Obviously, all these are new patterns of action with the help of which the baby adapts to his environment. He demands breasts, because... “realized” that some objects that he sucks give milk, while others do not. He deliberately brings his thumb up and points it into his mouth. Finally, he follows his mother, indicating visual-auditory coordination. All this is the result of accommodation. However, if the mother leaves the room or a favorite toy disappears from sight, the baby does not react to this in any way, as if they never existed.
3. Stage of secondary circular reactions (coordination of vision and grasping) (4-8 months).
Accidentally touching the sound tumbler with his hand, the baby heard its melodic sound, which attracted his attention. He touched the toy again, and the pleasant sounds were repeated again. By repeating this movement many times, the baby “understands” that there is some kind of connection between pushing the “tumbler” and the music that it makes. Thus, at this stage the child performs purposeful and, moreover, coordinated actions. Already known schemes are coordinated by the child in order to obtain the desired result. The behavior is still random (accidentally hitting the tumbler). But if the baby likes the result (music), then the action is repeated until the need is satisfied (balance is established).
Another aspect of development at this stage. An 8-month-old baby can find his favorite toy hidden in front of his eyes. If you cover it with something, he will find it in this place. At this stage, the child can “guess” the location of moving objects. For example, if a moving toy is hidden behind some object, then the child reaches his hand to the place where it should appear, “anticipating” its appearance. Thus, the fundamental difference between behavior at this stage and the previous one is that if before it arose only in response to direct contact of objects with the child’s body, now it is provoked by objects located in space and not directly in contact with the child’s body. In addition, the child begins to develop the idea of the permanence of objects, i.e., the awareness that objects exist even if they cannot be seen. In other words, these are the first steps towards the objectification of the world and the subjectivization of one’s own “I”. The most important acquisition at this stage is the development of the anticipation reaction.
4. Stage of coordination of secondary circuits (beginning) (8-12 months).
Piaget gives the following example with his 8-month-old daughter. “Jacqueline tries to grab the pack of cigarettes I showed her. Then I place the pack between the intersecting rods that secure the toys to the top rail of the crib. She wants to get a pack, but, having failed, she immediately looks at the bars, between which the object of her dreams sticks out. The girl looks ahead, grabs the bars, shakes them (the means). The pack falls and the baby grabs it (target). When the experiment is repeated, the girl has the same reaction, but without trying to grab the pack directly with her hands.”
As you can see, the girl has invented means (pulls out rods from a wicker crib) to achieve a specific goal (get a pack). She already had two schemes in mind - aimlessly pulling at the bars and trying to grab a pack of cigarettes. Coordinating them among themselves, she formed a new scheme (behavior).
Thus, at the 4th stage of development, further improvement of purposeful and voluntary actions occurs.
5. Stage of tertiary circular reactions (appearance of new drugs) (1 year - 1.5 years).
The child's behavior becomes inquisitive: he carefully studies each new object before accepting or rejecting it. Experimentation is, in essence, the emergence of new mental patterns, the beginning of mental activity itself. If before this stage the child’s behavior was predominantly reflexive in nature, then thanks to the ability to find new ways of interacting with unknown objects, the child easily adjusts to unfamiliar situations. At this stage, the child develops the ability to adapt to a new situation, most often through trial and error.
6. Stage of invention of new means (the beginning of the symbolic) (1.5-2 years).
At this stage, children's thinking and behavior are completely dependent on new information they receive both through their senses and through motor activity. Symbolic thinking allows the child to repeatedly reproduce imprinted images-symbols of objects. For example, many parents remember how their one-and-a-half-year-old child repeatedly repeated the same scene he loved: imagining a cookie in his hands, which in reality was not there, he repeatedly put it in your mouth, and in response to this you told him Thank you. At this stage, the baby performs mental operations not so much with specific objects, but with their images. Constant experiments using the trial and error method, characteristic of the 5th stage, give way to the ability to solve simple problems in the mind, relying on images of objects. However, the transition from concrete sensory thinking to figurative thinking is a long process, developing for about 2 years.
So, the course of intellectual development during the first two years of life goes from conditional, their training and development of skills, the establishment of coordinated relationships between them, which gives the child the opportunity to experiment, i.e. perform trial-and-error actions, and the emerging ability to anticipate developments in a new situation, coupled with the existing intellectual potential, creates the basis for symbolic or pre-conceptual intelligence.
Developmental psychology is closely related to such branches of psychological knowledge as general, social, educational and differential psychology. In addition to the sciences of the psychological cycle, developmental psychology is associated with various branches of pedagogy, with biology, medicine, philosophy and other sciences.
Developmental psychology is based on the following general scientific principles: principle of determinism, principle of unity of psyche (consciousness) and activity, principle of objectivity, principle of consistency, principle of development
Developmental psychology actively uses methods that come from general, differential and social psychology, adapting them to its own tasks. The main empirical methods - observation and experiment - are widespread in developmental psychology. Necessary conditions for scientific observation: goal setting; developing a plan; selection of object and observation situation; maintaining natural living conditions; non-interference in the activities of the subject (with hidden observation); objectivity and systematicity of observations; recording the results. In developmental psychology, all types of observation are used: included, hidden, continuous, selective. The value of the observation method is that there are no age restrictions for subjects; but it is quite labor-intensive and time-inefficient. In this sense, an experiment (and its stages: ascertaining, actually formative, control) is more effective.
The results of any experiment must be subject to qualitative and quantitative processing(they belong to the group of data processing methods). In a qualitative description of the data, detailed verbal characteristics of the results obtained are given. For example, when studying a child’s oral speech, the nature of the vocabulary, the variety of different parts of speech used by the child, the correct use of grammatical forms, coherence, logic, pace, etc. are described. children's speech. Quantitative data processing involves counting (quantitative expression) the characteristics under study (signs, properties, actions, phenomena, objects, etc.) and their percentage expression. This method shows the “weight” (representation) of the parameters under study under the conditions of the experiment. A special way to analyze the obtained experimental results is provided by methods of statistical data processing.
In addition to the main methods of empirical research, a number of additional methods can be identified. These include conversation, questioning, testing, analysis of products, activities, sociometry, etc.
Conversation- an empirical method of obtaining information about a person in communication with him, as a result of answers to targeted questions. Requirements for conducting a scientific conversation: conduct the conversation in a natural setting; prepare questions in advance; record answers, if possible without attracting the attention of the speaker; maintain tact and calm. A conversation with a child has its own characteristics, the main of which is the child’s disposition towards the adult interlocutor and the adult’s goodwill in communication. Of particular importance is the form in which the child is asked questions. It is necessary to avoid overly straightforward formulations (do you like your teacher?), unethical questions (do you love dad?). Formulations that may have template answers (do you want to go to school?), or very long formulations with complex sentences and obscure words, are undesirable.
Questionnaire- a method of obtaining information about a person based on answers to specially prepared questions that make up a questionnaire (can be written, oral, individual and group). Conducting a written survey among children is possible only from the age when the child learns to write. To study children, you can use both open and closed questionnaires, but it should be taken into account that the younger the child, the worse his command of written language, therefore, the more difficult it is for him to express his thoughts in open form. Open questions are those whose answers are given in free form (what games do you like to play most?) Closed questions are questions that require choosing an answer from the data (do you play sports? a) yes, all the time; b) no; c) sometimes).
Analysis of activity products- a method of studying a person through analysis (interpretation) of the products of his activity (drawings, music, essays, notebooks, diaries). Sometimes, to correctly interpret a drawing, it is necessary to observe the process of its creation. In addition, the same external signs in the works of subjects of different psychological ages can be assessed differently.
Testing- diagnosis of various personality traits using standardized methods for assessing results. In developmental psychology, projective tests and achievement tests are used. Projective techniques are aimed at studying deep-seated personality characteristics (anxiety, phobias), as well as identifying emotional, motivational and interpersonal characteristics of the individual and some intellectual characteristics: general intellectual level, originality and style of solving problem situations. Achievement tests are aimed at measuring the level of knowledge, skills and abilities of children and adults. We can say that achievement tests serve to measure their learning in a particular area. It is important to remember that testing is only a statement of reality, and in order to change and develop various personality traits, it is necessary to use other methods.
Sociometric method provides additional information about the nature of the relationships that develop between group members - in kindergarten, school class, and work team. Data about the child’s status in the group, reciprocity of elections, group cohesion, used in compiling a sociogram, present a “picture” of relationships, but do not reveal the reasons for the current situation.
Cognitive development theories. The main provisions of the concept of J. Piaget. Concepts of assimilation and accommodation. The problem of children's egocentrism of thinking.
Cognitive development(from the English Cognitivedevelopment) - the development of all types of mental processes, such as perception, memory, concept formation, problem solving, imagination and logic. The theory of cognitive development was developed by the Swiss philosopher and psychologist Jean Piaget.
Jean Piaget's theory is that intelligence is active. If new information fits existing structures, it is assimilated. This is a process of assimilation. If it does not correspond, but the intellect is ready for change, accommodation occurs, that is, a change in intellectual structures in order to connect the new with previous knowledge. This may be a new way of looking at it, new concepts, or a new theory that explains old and new facts. As in biology: the assimilation of food is assimilation, but it requires both chewing movements and the release of enzymes - this is accommodation. And in life, adaptation to the environment is expressed in the unity of these two processes.
Jean Piaget studied the mechanisms of child cognitive activity. He came to the conclusion that mental development is the development of intelligence, and the stages of mental development are stages of development of intelligence. The essence of development according to Piaget is adaptation to the surrounding reality in order to achieve balance with it. Piaget's balancing mechanisms are accommodation and assimilation. According to Piaget, intelligence is a means of adaptation to the living environment. Piaget identified the most important feature of children's thinking - egocentrism, which is expressed through such phenomena as: animism, artificialism, realism, transduction, syncretism. He believed that egocentric thinking is an intermediate form in the development of children's thinking and ensures the transition from autonomous (little conscious) to socialized, conscious, rational thinking.
J. Piaget identified four stages of children's intellectual development: sensorimotor stage (from birth to 1.5 - 2 years), pre-operational stage (from 2 to 7 years), stage of specific operations (from 7 to 12 years), stage of formal operations (after 12 years) (See Appendix 3).
Piaget recognized the essential role of education for mental development, however, he underestimated the influence of education on the mental development of the child. However, Piaget’s contribution to child psychology is enormous: he was one of the first to pose the problem of children’s thinking as qualitatively unique, having unique advantages, traced the genesis of thinking, discovered the phenomena of children’s thinking (“Piaget’s phenomena”), and developed methods for its research (“Piaget’s problems”).
Egocentrism of children's thinking- a special cognitive position occupied by the subject in relation to the surrounding world, when objects and phenomena of the surrounding world are considered from their own point of view. Egocentrism of thinking determines such features of children's thinking as syncretism, inability to focus on changes in an object, irreversibility of thinking, transduction (from particular to particular), insensitivity to contradiction, the combined effect of which prevents the formation of logical thinking. An example of this effect is the well-known experiments of Piaget. If, in front of a child’s eyes, you pour equal amounts of water into two identical glasses, the child will confirm that the volumes are equal. But if in his presence you pour water from one glass to another, narrower one, then the child will confidently tell you that there is more water in the narrow glass.
There are many variations of such experiments, but they all demonstrated the same thing - the child’s inability to concentrate on changes in the object. The latter means that the baby records only stable situations well in memory, but at the same time the process of transformation eludes him. In the case of glasses, the child sees only the result - two identical glasses with water at the beginning and two different glasses with the same water at the end, but he is not able to grasp the moment of change.
Another effect of egocentrism is the irreversibility of thinking, that is, the child’s inability to mentally return to the starting point of his reasoning. It is the irreversibility of thinking that does not allow our baby to trace the course of his own reasoning and, returning to its beginning, imagine the glasses in their original position. Lack of reversibility is a direct manifestation of the child’s self-centered thinking.
At an early stage of his scientific work, Piaget analyzed children's repeated errors in solving intellectual tests, as well as children's speech. Firstly, Piaget considered the position that a child is stupider than an adult to be incorrect, arguing that a child’s thinking is simply qualitatively different.
Secondly, having analyzed the results of a study conducted in a kindergarten, during which all statements and accompanying actions of children during free activity were recorded, Piaget divided children's statements into 2 groups, highlighting the so-called. “socialized” and “egocentric” speech. Socialized speech - implies an interest in the response of the communication partner, its function is to influence the interlocutor (forms - information, criticism, order, request, threat, question, answer). Egocentric speech– speech “for oneself” does not imply a response from the interlocutor. The function of egocentric speech, according to Piaget, is expression - accompaniment of actions, their rhythm, “the pleasure of talking.” Forms of egocentric speech - repetition (echolalia), monologue, collective monologue.
The phenomena of children's thinking, also discovered by Piaget, include: egocentrism of thinking, realism, animism, artificialism.
Egocentrism of thinking- this is a child’s judgment about the world from his own immediate point of view, “fragmentary and personal,” associated with the child’s inability to take into account someone else’s point of view. Egocentric thinking is an active cognitive position, the initial cognitive centering of the mind. Egocentrism, according to Piaget, is the basis of all other features of children's thinking; it manifests itself in realism, animism, and artificialism of children's thinking.
Realism of thinking– the child’s tendency (at a certain stage of development) to consider objects as their direct perception gives (for example, the moon follows a child while walking). Realism can be intellectual And moral. Intellectual realism manifests itself in explaining what. Moral realism is manifested in the fact that the child does not take into account the internal intention when understanding an act and judges it by the visible result.
Animism of thinking- This is a tendency towards universal animation. The child endows things (especially those that can move - objectively (car, train, steamship, etc.) or in subjective perception (moon, sun, river, etc.)) with consciousness, life, feelings.
Artificialism of thinking manifests itself in the fact that everything that exists is considered by the child as created by man, by his will or for man.
In the list of features of children's logic, Piaget also included: syncretism(global sketchiness and subjectivity of children’s ideas, the tendency to connect everything with everything), transduction(transition from particular to particular, bypassing the general), inability to synthesize and juxtapose(there is no logical connection between judgments), insensitivity to contradiction, inability to introspect, difficulty understanding,impenetrability to experience.
In general, all these manifestations form a complex characteristic of children's thinking; the basis of this complex is the egocentrism of speech and thinking.
Another experiment by Jean Piaget was that a child with brothers and sisters was asked two questions in succession: - first - how many brothers and sisters do you have? - second - how many sisters and brothers does your brother or sister have? If, for example, the child answered the first question that he had one brother, then in the second answer he answered: “No brother.” The second answer is interpreted as the fact that the child himself does not consider himself a “brother or sister”, that is, he does not realize that he may not be a “central” object... In addition to the “centering of perception” (as Jean Piaget wrote: “the child always judges everything from his own, individual point of view; it is very difficult for him to take the position of others"), it was found that the following phenomena are characteristic of the thinking of young children: - syncretism (non-dividedness of children's thinking); - transduction (transition from particular to particular, bypassing the general); - artificialism (artificiality, “inventedness” of the world); - animism (attributing properties of people to inanimate objects); - insensitivity to logical contradictions.
Piaget called assimilation, accommodation and balance the main mechanisms through which a child moves from one stage of development to another. Assimilation- this is an action with new objects based on already established skills and abilities. Accommodation– the desire to change one’s skills and abilities as a result of changing conditions and in accordance with them. Accommodation, restoring the damaged equilibrium in the psyche and behavior, eliminates the discrepancy between existing skills, abilities and conditions for performing actions.
Piaget believed that we must strive to ensure that assimilation and accommodation are always in balance, because when assimilation dominates accommodation, thinking becomes rigid and behavior becomes inflexible. And if accommodation prevails over assimilation, children’s behavior becomes inconsistent and disorganized, there is a delay in the formation of stable and economical adaptive mental actions and operations, i.e., learning problems arise. The balance between assimilation and accommodation ensures reasonable behavior. Achieving balance is a difficult task. The success of its solution will depend on the intellectual level of the subject, on the new problems that he will encounter. Balance must be strived for, and it is important that it be present at all levels of intellectual development.
Through assimilation, accommodation, and balance, cognitive development occurs that continues throughout a person's life.
According to the Swiss psychologist, children go through four main stages of cognitive development, each of which involves a significant change in their understanding of the world. Piaget believed that children - like “little scientists” - are actively trying to study and comprehend the world around them.
The stages are determined by the biological laws of maturation of the nervous system.
According to Piaget, there are four such stages: sensorimotor, pre-operational, stage of concrete operations, stage of formal operations.
Sensorimotor The duration of the stage lasts from birth to 18–24 months. During this period, the child becomes capable of elementary symbolic actions. There is a psychological separation of oneself from the outside world, knowledge of oneself as a subject of action, volitional control of one’s behavior begins, an understanding of the stability and constancy of external objects appears, the awareness that objects continue to exist and be in their places even when they are not perceived through the senses .
Preoperative The stage covers a period from 18–24 months to 7 years. Children of this age begin to use symbols and speech, can imagine objects and images in words, and describe them. Basically, the child uses these objects and images in play, in the process of imitation. It is difficult for him to imagine how others perceive what he himself observes and sees. This expresses egocentrism of thinking, i.e. it is difficult for a child to take the position of another person, to see phenomena and things through his eyes. At this age, children can classify objects according to individual characteristics and cope with solving specific problems related to real relationships between people - the only difficulty is that it is difficult for them to express all this in verbal form.
Stage specific operations runs from 7 to 12 years. This age is called so because the child, using concepts, associates them with specific objects.
This stage is characterized by the fact that children can perform flexible and reversible operations performed in accordance with logical rules, logically explain the actions performed, consider different points of view, they become more objective in their assessments, and come to an intuitive understanding of the following logical principles: if A= IN And IN= WITH, That A= C; A+ IN= IN+ A. At the age of 6, the concepts of conservation of number are acquired, at the age of 7 – mass, and around 9 years – the weight of objects. Children begin to classify objects according to individual essential characteristics and distinguish subclasses from them.
Let us consider a child’s mastery of seriation using the following example. Children are asked to arrange the sticks by size, starting from the shortest to the longest. In children, this operation is formed gradually, going through a number of stages. At the initial stage, children claim that all sticks are the same. They then divide them into two categories - large and small, without further ordering. Then the children note that among the sticks there are large, small and medium ones. Then the child, using trial and error, tries to arrange the sticks based on his experience, but again it is incorrect. And only at the last stage does he resort to the seriation method: first he selects the largest stick and places it on the table, then he looks for the largest of the remaining ones, etc., correctly building the series.
At this age, children can organize objects according to various criteria (height or weight), imagine in their minds and name a series of actions being performed, completed, or those that still need to be performed. A seven-year-old child can remember a complex path, but is only able to reproduce it graphically at age 8.
Stage formal transactions begins after 12 years of age and continues throughout a person’s life. At this stage, thinking becomes more flexible, the reversibility of mental operations and reasoning is realized, and the ability to reason using abstract concepts appears; The ability to systematically search for ways to solve problems develops, viewing many solution options and assessing the effectiveness of each of them.
Piaget believed that the development of a child’s intelligence is influenced by maturation, experience and the actual social environment (training, upbringing). He believed that the biological maturation of the organism plays a certain role in intellectual development, and the effect of maturation itself is the opening of new possibilities for development of the organism.
Piaget also believed that the success of learning depends on the level of intellectual development already achieved by the child.
The development of intelligence, according to J. Piaget, goes through four stages.
I. Sensorimotor intelligence (from 0 to 2 years) is manifested in actions: patterns of looking, grasping, circular reactions are learned when the baby repeats the action, expecting that its effect will be repeated (throws a toy and waits for a sound).
P. Preoperative stage (2-7 years). Children learn speech, but they use words to combine both the essential and external characteristics of objects. Therefore, their analogies and judgments seem unexpected and illogical: the wind blows because the trees sway; a boat floats because it is small and light, and a ship floats because it is large and strong.
III. Stage of concrete operations (7-11 years). Children begin to think logically, can classify concepts and give definitions, but all this is based on specific concepts and visual examples.
IV. Stage of formal operations (from 12 years). Children operate with abstract concepts, categories “what will happen if...”, understand metaphors, and can take into account the thoughts of other people, their roles and ideals. This is the intelligence of an adult.
4. Theory of L.S. Vygotsky on the cultural and historical development of higher mental functions. Laws of child mental development.
L.S. Vygotsky played an outstanding role in the formation of the Russian psychological school, in the development of children's, pedagogical and special psychology. His works formed the basis of the cultural-historical concept of mental development. Its main ideas are as follows:
In the process of social life, human natural needs change, and new, specifically human needs develop.
There are elementary mental functions and higher mental functions. The main difference between them is the level of arbitrariness, i.e. elementary mental processes are not regulated by humans; Higher mental functions (HMF) include those that a person can consciously control.
During the historical period of existence, people have created two types of tools. With the help of some they influence nature (tools of labor), with the help of others they influence themselves (sign systems). A sign is any conventional symbol that has a specific meaning. The universal sign is the word. The use of sign systems marks a person’s transition from direct to mediated mental processes, where these tools and signs act as a means of control. As a result, all human mental activity is restructured, rising to a higher level compared to animals.
Child psychology is the result of the interaction of two processes: biological maturation and learning. Both processes begin immediately after the baby is born and are merged into a single developmental line.
Training is the transfer of experience in using tools and signs so that the child learns to manage his own behavior (activity). At first, they act as means external to the child himself (introduced by adults), then they turn into conscious and necessary means for the child. This happens in the process of internalization.
The child’s higher mental functions arise initially as a form of collective behavior, cooperation with other people, and only subsequently, through internalization, do they become his individual functions. As Vygotsky wrote: every function in a child’s development appears on the scene twice: first as an interpsychic category, then as an intrapsychic category.
L.S. Vygotsky considered the leading signs of higher mental functions to be: indirect, arbitrary, systematic; lifetime formation; and their development through the internalization of samples.
L.S. Vygotsky formulated the basic laws of child development: unevenness, cyclicity, “metamorphosis”, plasticity and the possibility of compensation, a combination of the processes of evolution and involution.
The driving force behind the mental development of L.S. Vygotsky believed in learning, which he understood broadly: it begins to manifest itself with the birth of a child, and schooling is only its most systematized form. In connection with the problem of learning and development, Vygotsky introduced the concept of the zone of proximal development. The scientist believed that the process of development in ontogenesis passes from the social to the individual. The conditions for the development of a child are both biological usefulness (of the brain, nervous system, sensory organs) and the child’s interaction with other people through communication.
L.S. Vygotsky introduced into science the basic concepts that characterize the essence of each age period: the social situation of development, age-related neoplasms, crisis of mental development
The periodization built by Vygotsky includes the following periods:
Newborn crisis;
Infancy (2 months - 1 year);
Crisis of one year;
Early childhood (1-3 years);
Crisis of three years;
Preschool age (3-7 years);
Seven Years Crisis;
School age (8-12 years);
Crisis 13 years;
Puberty (14-17 years);
Crisis 17 years.
The contribution of L.S. Vygotsky to the development of domestic and world science can hardly be overestimated. He developed the doctrine of age as a unit of analysis of child development, proposed a different understanding of the course, conditions, source and driving forces of the child’s mental development; described the stages of child development, as well as transitions between them during ontogenesis; identified and formulated the basic laws of child mental development.
Followers of L.S. Vygotsky: A.N. Leontyev, S.L. Rubinstein, A.V. Zaporozhets, P.Ya. Galperin supplemented his teaching, introducing the idea that the mental development of a child is carried out thanks to his activities, and the facts heredity and environment are conditions that determine not the essence of the development process, but its various variants within the normal range.
Leading activity is of particular importance for the mental development of a person (introduced by A.N. Leontyev). Later, D.B. Elkonin supplemented this characteristic with the concept of the social situation of development, linking it with the development of the child. According to Elkonin, all children's ages can be divided into two types:
At the ages of the first type (infancy, preschool childhood, adolescence), the child develops predominantly the social-motivational side of activity; the child’s orientation in the system of relationships, motives, and meanings of human actions develops;
At the ages of the second type following the first (early childhood, primary school age, early adolescence), the child develops the operational side of this activity.
· A change in leading types of activity is associated with the emergence of new motives that are formed within the leading activity at the previous stage of development. This means that first the motivational side of the activity is mastered and the subject’s personal qualities are formed, and then the operational and technical side, with the priority formation of the intellectual and cognitive sphere (See Appendix 5). The driving forces of development are associated with the contradiction that develops in the process of a child mastering the motivational and objective aspects of activity.
In recent research, psychologists continue to study the process of personality development. IN AND. Slobodchikov put forward the idea that the new periodization should be based on the concept of human community, within which various human abilities are formed, allowing him to join culture and individualize. V.I. Slobodchikov identifies five stages of personality development: revitalization, animation, personalization, individualization, universalization (See Appendix 6).
· A.V. Petrovsky, considering the development process from the perspective of a person’s integration into various social groups, identifies three stages of personal development: adaptation - when a person is maximally focused on assimilating the group’s norms and characteristics (becoming like others, being in the “general mass”); individualization – when the need to demonstrate one’s individuality (to be oneself) is activated; integration - when contradictions arise between the desires to be like everyone else and to preserve individuality, the integration of the individual into the community occurs.
DI. Feldstein in his works introduces the idea of the alternating development of two personal positions of the child: “I am in society” and “I am and society.” The first is characterized by the predominance of the socialization process; the second acts as a process of individualization - awareness of oneself as a subject of social relations. The key nodes of this development are reflected in three stages: up to three years, when the baby becomes aware of the presence of other people; from the age of three, when the child becomes aware of his “I”, masters the norms of human relationships, trying to focus on the assessment of adults; from the age of ten, when a teenager strives to establish his “I” in the system of social relations.
· The changing social situation of development leaves an imprint on the mental manifestations of the emerging personality, reflecting the current stage of development. Time will tell how firmly and universally these features will take root in the process of personality formation. As the famous Russian psychologist L.F. Obukhova notes, the stages of human childhood are a product of history and they are just as subject to change as they were thousands of years ago.
Mental development of a child during infancy. General characteristics of the newborn period. The concept of the revitalization complex. The social situation of development, the leading type of activity, the development of substantive activity and the emergence of new types of activity. Development of the cognitive sphere, personality development. Year 1 crisis.
The first year of a child’s life can be divided into two periods: neonatality and infancy. The newborn period is a period of transition from intrauterine to extrauterine lifestyle, when from a vegetative-physiological existence in a relatively constant and gentle environment it abruptly moves into completely new conditions of the outside world. Therefore, the neonatal period is a crisis period. This period is characterized by the following features: little distinction between sleep and wakefulness, a predominance of inhibition over excitation, spontaneous long-term activity, the only emotion is a reaction of displeasure caused by pain, hunger or some kind of internal discomfort.
The psyche of a newborn child has a certain set of unconditioned reflexes, some of which provide physiological adaptation to the outside world and are preserved in the future, others are atavistic in nature, received by the child from animal ancestors and fading away in the first year of life. The child is much less equipped with innate forms of behavior than young animals, but this is not a weakness, but a strength of the child. His biological helplessness has unlimited possibilities for acquiring new forms of behavior (learning experience) and provides flexibility for adaptation. The decisive condition for the survival of a newborn is the departure of an adult, during which the first conditioned reflexes begin to be developed. L.S. Vygotsky called the newborn a “maximum social being”, i.e. vitally in need of social interaction with adults. Therefore, the main contradiction of the newborn crisis is the maximum need for an adult and the minimum means of interaction with him.
The newborn has rich sensory capabilities, which are expressed in discrimination and preference for certain visual and auditory influences. The newborn's sensory systems are tuned to perceive those stimuli that are associated with the image of a person.
Starting from the second month, the child masters the means of communication with an adult and reacts violently to his treatment. A special emotional-motor reaction addressed to an adult is called the “revitalization complex.” The appearance of a revitalization complex in a child marks the emergence of not only the first social need - the need for communication, but also the means of communication. This indicates that a social developmental situation specific to infancy - the situation of the inextricable emotional unity of the child and the adult (the “we” situation) - has taken shape.
The revitalization complex marks the end of the newborn period and the beginning of the infancy stage (2 months–1 year). The leading activity of the infancy period is direct emotional communication with a close adult (according to D.B. Elkonin). The period of infancy can be divided into two sub-periods: before 6 months and after 6 months.
· In the first half of the year, situational-personal communication or “communication for the sake of communication” is observed between an adult and a child. During this period, the infant’s cognitive activity manifests itself in auditory and visual concentration on perceived objects and emotional reactions to sensory stimuli.
The entire first year of a child’s life is a preparatory (preverbal) period for active speech. Preparation for the appearance of speech goes in two directions:
1. The development of understanding the speech of adults (passive speech) is associated with the development of phonemic hearing. At 6 months, the child associates the image of an object with its name; after 8 months, he understands the verbal instructions of an adult.
2. the development of the child’s pre-speech vocalizations (active speech) is associated with the development of speech articulations. Pre-speech vocalizations are observed already in the first half of the year: at 2-3 months short sounds are heard - humming, from 4 months the child makes long vowel sounds - humming, at 5-6 months babbling appears.
At the end of the first half of the year, due to the fact that the adult attracts the child’s attention to surrounding objects, the act of grasping occurs. This movement is initially organized by an adult and is born as a joint activity of an adult and a child. With the advent of the act of grasping, an image of an object and object perception begin to form.
· In the 2nd half of the year, the adult begins to attract the baby with his ability to act with objects. M.I. Lisina called such communication situational - businesslike.
A gradual change in the subject of communication requires new ways of influencing an adult: this is how a child’s pointing gesture arises (forms). Regarding this gesture, L.S. Vygotsky wrote that at first the pointing gesture is simply an unsuccessful grasping movement aimed at an object. Mastery of grasping objects lays the foundation for manipulative (non-specific) actions. At 9-10 months, the baby begins to be attracted not only to action, but also to the properties of objects. First, the child performs the action in the same way shown to him and on the same objects. Carrying out this kind of movement, the baby copies (imitates) the specific actions of loved ones and through these actions becomes familiar with them. A child’s imitation of an adult at this stage is not yet an objective action, because The child has not yet mastered the meaning of the action being performed.
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