"Psychological characteristics of preschool age"

Early age

There are several well-founded theories and schools of psychology that determine the behavior of a child in infancy.

Infancy is the age of a growing child from 2 months to 1 year .

It is believed that after this period, he is formed as a person capable of independently performing actions for some conscious purpose. During infancy, the following positive processes :

• general and fine motor skills are formed;
• conscious coordination of movements is normalized;
• a controlled mechanism of muscle system tone appears;
• finally, vision and hearing finally develop, almost to an adult state.

It is towards the end of the infancy period that children begin to develop speech and the ability to walk.

The mechanism of these processes is explained differently by different psychological theories :

1. Cultural-historical theory . According to Vygotsky’s theory, the child is initially a social being. Without the help of his parents, he is not able to navigate the world around him; he requires educational communication. At the same time, such communication is not one-sided - the child himself influences the behavior of the parents, especially the mother. Another adherent of this theory, Elkonin, even believed that a baby cannot be considered separately from the surrounding society; he is part of a single social system with which he develops.
2. Theory of psychoanalysis. One of the most popular and controversial theories of psychology in the world. Its founder, Freud, suggested that the qualities of a baby are instinctive, that is, they are inherent in him from birth. Instincts and childhood impressions, according to the scientist, then determine a person’s behavior throughout his life.
3. Psychogenetics . According to this theory (its founder is Piaget), the main role in shaping the infant’s worldview belongs to his hereditary intelligence. This is partly true, but representatives of this school needlessly do not take into account the child’s personal experience, his feelings and reaction to what is happening around him.
4. Behaviorism .
   The founder of this movement, Watson, on the contrary, believed that the development of an infant is influenced more by the environment than by innate skills. He believed that in infancy, increased attention should be paid to the mental education of children, even to the detriment of physical improvement.
5. Gestalt psychology . According to the followers of this school, the psyche in infancy is formed through the formation of certain images - gestalts. At first they are blurry and contoured. In the first months of life, the child even perceives his mother vaguely. But as it develops, this image becomes clear, and an understanding of the connections between objects and phenomena is formed, which will then become the basis for understanding the world in adulthood.

Psychological characteristics of senior preschool age (5-6 years)

Age 5-6 years is senior preschool age. It is a very important age in the development of the child’s cognitive sphere, intellectual and personal. It can be called the basic age, when many personal aspects are formed in the child, all moments of the formation of the “I” position are worked out.

The leading need at this age is the need for communication.

This period is called sensitive (a particularly sensitive period, the period of highest opportunities) for the development of all cognitive processes: attention, perception, thinking, memory, imagination. To develop all these aspects, the game material becomes more complex, it becomes logical, intellectual, when the child has to think and reason.

At 5-6 years old, a child absorbs all cognitive information like a sponge. It has been scientifically proven that a child at this age remembers as much material as he will never remember later in his life. At this age, the child is interested in everything related to the world around him and expanding his horizons. So what is important for you, as his parents, to know?

The age of 5-6 years is the last of the preschool ages, when fundamentally new formations appear in the child’s psyche, namely:

• the arbitrariness of mental processes of perception, memory, attention, thinking, etc. is formed - and the resulting ability to control one’s behavior
• changes in self-image;
• relationships with peers move to a fundamentally new level.

The arbitrariness of mental processes is a psychological mechanism of volitional regulation, the ability to force oneself to remember what is not remembered on its own, and to be attentive to what is not at all interesting, since such a task is set before the child.

Changes in the image of the “I” Up to 5 years of age, in the image of the child’s “I” there are only those qualities that, in the child’s opinion, he has (“I-real” - gender, eye color, hair, what he can do, what he loves). Then after 5 years, ideas appear about who and what he would like to be - “Ideal Self.” The child compares himself with other children and significant adults (father, mother, older brother, etc.), heroes or characters, real or fantastic, whom he would like to be like. Therefore, the influence of the immediate environment is important, what cartoons and TV shows a child watches is important, because only through the world around him does he learn and evaluate himself.

Peer relationships

Progress in mental development creates favorable conditions for the emergence of a new type of relationships with peers:

1) speech development reaches a high level - does not interfere with mutual understanding; 2) accumulation of various knowledge about the world around us, which the child seeks to share; 3) the development of arbitrariness contributes to the independent establishment of joint play; 4) the child’s interest in himself and his qualities extends to his peers and creates favorable conditions for the emergence of a new type of relationship and communication with peers.

Significant changes occur at this age in children's play, namely in play interaction, in which joint discussion of the rules of the game begins to occupy a significant place. Children often try to control each other's actions - they indicate how this or that character should behave, referring to the rules. Starting from this age, a peer gradually acquires truly serious significance for the child. Children begin to show interest in each other, they learn to be friends and real friendships begin between them. But of course, the main thing in the development of children of senior preschool age is their cognitive development and broadening their horizons. At this age, the leading activity is still play. By the age of 5-6, the game gradually becomes more complicated and changes; among all others, role-playing games predominate. The game has a very important function: the child learns by playing. Therefore, verbal and speech games aimed at expanding the child’s horizons and vocabulary, logic games, attention games, construction toys, etc. will be especially useful. In a game, not only the process itself is important, but also the result that the child achieves during the game. This traces the development of the personal sphere of a preschooler. For example, a critical assessment of one’s own actions is formed, a comparison with the standard, so, having correctly solved the exercise, the child rejoices, feels self-confidence and the desire to win. Be sure to notice your child’s successes, praise him, tell him how happy you are for him, that you are confident in him, because during this period this is especially important for him.

Characteristics of the development of cognitive processes:

Or what should a 5-6 year old child be able to do?

ATTENTION:

• — complete the task without being distracted for 10-15 minutes;
• - keep 6-7 objects in the field of vision;
• - find 5-6 differences between objects;
• - carry out tasks independently according to the proposed sample;
• - find 4-5 pairs of identical objects

MEMORY:

• — memorize 6-8 pictures within 1-2 minutes;
• - recite several poems by heart;
• - retell the read work close to the text;
• - compare two images from memory;

THINKING:

• — determine the sequence of events;
• - fold the cut picture into 9 parts;
• - find and explain inconsistencies in drawings;
• - find and explain differences between objects and phenomena;
• - find an extra one among the 4 proposed items, explain your choice.

SPEECH DEVELOPMENT:

• Have a fairly rich vocabulary.
• Can participate in conversation and express his opinion.
• Able to reasonedly and kindly evaluate the answer or statement of a peer.
• Makes up a story based on a plot picture, a set of pictures; consistently, without significant omissions, retells short literary works.
• Determines the place of a sound in a word.
• Able to select several adjectives for nouns; replace words with another word with a similar meaning.

Teacher-psychologist
Tomracheva Yu.A.

Features of mental development in infancy

Stages of mental development:

1. From the very beginning of infancy, the child begins the active formation of mental function and memory. Separate conditioned reflexes are formed: when one of the parents appears nearby, the baby stops crying.
2. Then the baby begins to perceive melodic sounds and distinguish them.
3. At the next stage, the child finally distinguishes the mother from strangers and begins to recognize some objects, for example, toys or a pacifier.
4. , associative memory already appears .
5. At the early stage of infancy (usually the first half of the year), the child receives the main information from communication with adults .
   Accordingly, his mental development largely depends on this communication.
6. At this stage of development, children master the so-called expressive and facial means of communication with the outside world. The child studies the world on the basis of primary sensations: he examines objects, records someone’s movement, touches objects with his hands, can lick them with his tongue, touch them with his lips.
7. As a result of these actions the grasping function gradually develops , the baby consciously picks up objects, and his object-manipulative activity begins to develop, which significantly speeds up the process of cognition of the environment.

If the child’s mental development occurs without deviations, by the age of 1 year he masters the following functions :

• records the presence of simple objects that are needed for certain actions: a spoon, a plate, a chair, a table;
• understands their purpose;
• masters the methods and techniques of operating with these objects.

Later, at the early stage of preschool age (up to 3 years), he, as a rule, masters the following functions:

• upright walking; this ability significantly expands the boundaries of knowledge of the surrounding world;
• speech proficiency; the ability to communicate and perceive the speech of another person stabilizes the child’s mental development, he can express in words his needs for knowledge and then realize them;
• objective activity, it is formed together with the knowledge of symbols, signs and gestures.

Psychology of a preschooler

The preschool period of child development is divided into 3 main stages :

• junior preschool - 3-4 years;
• middle preschool - 4-5 years;
• eldest - 5-7 years old.

The psychological characteristics of the behavior of children of different groups differ significantly.

In early preschool age, the child is very sensitive to the attention of loved ones, manifestations of love and affection. Already at this stage of development, this little person realizes whether he is a boy or a girl, distinguishes adults by gender and tries to imitate his father if he is a boy, and his mother if he is a girl.

In older preschool age, communication with peers and the formation of self-esteem are of great importance.

The leading mental function in preschool age is the formation of skills during play.

Play plays a dominant role in the child’s mental development during this period. Depending on age, the game is different:

• at 3-4 years old she is mainly directing;
• at 4-5 years old - figurative role-playing;
• at 6-7 years old - role-playing.

At first, the game consists of manipulating various objects. Then, with age, role-playing begins, simulating human activity .

Playful activities are literally of great importance in the mental development of a child.

In their process:

• the ability to communicate with peers develops;
• creative thinking appears;
• intellectual activity improves;
• finally, it is gaming skills that often become the basis of learning ability in kindergarten, and then at school.

Psychological features of the development of preschool children

 The article analyzes the psychological characteristics of preschool children.

Key words: psychological processes, mental activity, development.

The psychology of preschool children has its own characteristics. Closer to 4 years, children begin to develop new types of mental activity, they show a desire to talk and listen, they begin to be interested not only in the object itself, but also in its design and methods of its use, and this in turn leads to the emergence of the question “why” in the child’s speech. ? (this question is asked so often that children during this period are called “whys”) - the adult who answers the questions becomes an authority for him.

Speech develops gradually and also gradually begins to accompany any of the child’s activities (drawing, playing, counting, observing, etc.). A distinctive feature of speech development can be called the desire of children to invent their own words, using already familiar ones as a basis. By the age of 5–6, a child can coherently express his thoughts, structure phrases correctly, he pays attention to his words and the situation in which they are spoken; at this age, internal speech is already sufficiently formed, which allows the child to plan a future statement.

L. N. Leontyev wrote that in the preschool years the child “ties the first knots, establishes the first connections and relationships that form a new, higher unity of activity and at the same time a new, higher unity of the subject - the unity of the personality,” he said that therefore The period of preschool childhood is important, because in it “the mental mechanisms of the personality take shape” [1]. During this period, the child begins to actively explore the world around him, make discoveries, and get acquainted with objects in the house, in kindergarten and on the street. The child examines, listens, touches, tries, studies the properties, capabilities and limits of objects. Since during this period mental activity begins to actively work and develop, the child rethinks many objects already familiar to him, analyzes them in ways accessible to him - didactic games, dancing, modeling from clay or plasticine and drawing will be relevant for this period in education . By school, children have formed certain evaluation criteria, guided by which they express their attitude towards the world, and their relationships with others gradually acquire a moral character, and feelings of camaraderie and friendship deepen.

In preschool age, there is an active development of cognitive processes, for example, sensory development, which acquires a number of features: sensory standards are assimilated, focus, planning, controllability and awareness of perception grow. Thinking changes, each new stage of development occurs thanks to the previous one, the child masters new ways of thinking and mental actions. Thinking itself goes from the visual-effective to the visual-figurative and further to the verbal-logical, becoming extra-situational. The effective form of thinking plays an important role for children, since at this stage the internalization of thinking occurs and at the same time a restructuring of practical actions occurs; with imaginative thinking in children, the pre-analytical stage of thinking predominates - the child thinks in patterns, certain images that he has preserved on the basis of perception.

Mastered speech develops reasoning, which becomes a way to solve mental problems, problematic thinking appears (curiosity develops and questions arise). The child discovers more complex connections and relationships, learns to reason, engages in experimentation (it helps to understand connections and relationships, apply one’s own knowledge and strengths), and develops independence and perseverance. Perception becomes more complex, for example, recognition of a part of an object evokes its integral image and comparison with the name of this object; the child no longer needs to touch it with the perceiving organ. When perceiving pictures for preschoolers, the question asked to them plays an important role, otherwise the process of analysis may become difficult, and when perceiving space, children are already able to navigate, relying on visual perception, but may have difficulty distinguishing the left and right sides.

The development of thinking has a close connection with speech, which in turn goes from situational, associated with a specific event, to a universal means of communication and connection. Speech acquires expressiveness and new forms, the child learns the laws of language by “interacting” with words, learns a coherent and logical presentation of thoughts, reasoning - this is how speech becomes a means of cognition and thinking. Expressed functions of speech appear: planning function for solving practical and intellectual problems; sound function, responsible for words as objects of cognition and development of written speech. Speech becomes a specific type of activity for the child, which has various forms (listening, conversation, reasoning, stories), and at the end of phonemic development the child correctly distinguishes and pronounces sounds [2]. At 5–6 years old, a child understands fairy tales and short stories well, can answer questions asked during the story or after finishing a story he has heard, and can come up with a short story himself or an alternative ending/direct continuation to an already familiar fairy tale.

Memory also develops during the entire preschool period. A. A. Lyublinskaya described what transitions occur during the development of memory, for example, single ideas from the perception of a specific object are replaced by operating with generalized images; logical comprehension and clearly differentiated and dynamic images appear that reflect the diversity of connections [3]. For younger preschoolers, the image is created on the basis of practical actions and only then in speech, when, like for older preschoolers, the image arises on the basis of mental analysis and synthesis. It is possible to highlight the features of memory development in preschool age: in children, predominantly involuntary figurative memory, but when combined with speech and thinking, it begins to acquire an intellectual character; verbal-semantic memory provides indirect cognition and expands the scope of cognitive activity; elements of voluntary memory are formed and prerequisites are formed that transform the memorization process into a specific mental activity, which in turn ensures mastery of logical memorization techniques; With age and accumulation of experience (behavior and communication with adults and peers), memory is included in the development of personality [2].

In the preschool period, personal mechanisms of behavior arise and the motivational sphere of the individual is actively formed, as well as the primary subordination of motives, and the development of will and arbitrariness occurs [1]. An important place among the motives is occupied by the cognitive motive, which is typical for older preschoolers, since at the age of 5–6 years mental activity begins to acquire an independent character, which allows children to “gain” experience. Thus, intellectual activity provides children with the opportunity to solve new problems without outside help, establish cause-and-effect relationships and hidden properties and relationships of objects [4]. Children from the age of 3 begin to show independence, and with age they understand that their capabilities have increased, the tasks and goals that they set for themselves also increase, as do the efforts put into their implementation, and a craving for experimentation appears. By the age of 5–6 years, children have a fairly high will and endurance, the child is already able to predict certain events that may appear on the way to the desired goal and, to the best of their individual characteristics, tolerate them calmly, while in a child of 3–4 years this can take more energy and time to cope with your immediate desires, which is willpower training.

Attention in children is involuntary, and increased stability of attention is observed in studies that include children looking at pictures, describing them, and listening to stories. By the age of 6–7 years, attention becomes voluntary - children can control attention, hold and direct it, using techniques that they adopted from adults.

The leading activity for preschool children is play. A game (especially a role-playing game) is a special form of activity for children; it helps them reconstruct and adopt social experience. One of the first role-playing games in a child’s “arsenal” is usually a “family game” or “mother-daughter game” - an adult shows the child how to “play”, that is, perform certain actions with certain objects, at first he simply repeats what the adult showed , but subsequently the child himself adds new elements to the game, guided by the experience gained from life and fantasies based on it. Later, various professions appear in games, which the child becomes familiar with; in games, he tries on these professions and creates different combinations. With the help of role-playing games, children become aware of the norms of social behavior, social roles, and the moral behavior of each child involved in the game develops; in addition, they learn to interact in a team, choose ways to convey information to fellow players and build their own line of behavior. With age, the relationships in games between children become more complicated; if 4-year-old children are interested in manipulating objects characteristic of a certain profession, imitating the actions of an adult, then for older children, for example, six-year-old children, they are mainly interested in the social function (playing “hospital”, the child is interested in the condition of the “patient”, his “complaints”, tries to show concern, thereby fulfilling the social role of a doctor).

Literature:

1. Leontyev A. N. Problems of mental development. - M.: Publishing house Moscow. University, 1981. - 584 p.
2. Uruntaeva G. A. Preschool psychology. - M.: Publishing House, 2001. - 336 p.
3. Lyublinskaya A. A. To the teacher about the development of the child. - M.: Education, 1972. - 256 p.
4. Vinogradova E. L. Conditions for the formation of cognitive motivation of preschoolers 5–6 years old // Psychological Science and Education. - 2004. - No. 2. - P. 43–46.

Features of mental processes

Gradually, mental processes in preschool age occur with the development of various types and stages of thinking:

• visual-effective thinking is characteristic of the younger stage of preschool age; by manipulating with objects, the child gets an idea of ​​their structure and properties;
• visual-figurative , it is formed in middle preschool age, when a small person begins to perceive not only specific objects. but also their images;
• verbal-logical - it is formed later, by the age of 6-7, the child learns to operate with abstract concepts;

Psychological neoplasms of preschool age

Gradually, the child begins to learn to systematize what he sees or hears , to group it, figuratively speaking, to put it in order.

He builds his own picture of the world , where a lot of space is given to fiction. The child develops a so-called artificialist worldview - he still considers everything around him to be the result of human activity.

Gradually, as mental new formations in a child in preschool age, certain ethical standards are formed. He is already able to make his own moral assessments and emotionally color his attitude towards other people.

New motives for certain actions also appear. The child begins to understand the order of relationships between people . If earlier his actions were largely impulsive, then gradually in preschool age they become more deliberate.

The following personal qualities begin to form::

• obligation;
• persistence in achieving goals;
• awareness of a certain sense of duty towards other people, mainly close ones.

The child begins to consciously manage his behavior in accordance with the moral principles brought up in him.

Psychological basis of the preschool education system

The basis of preschool education in Russia is the Federal State Standard of Preschool Education (hereinafter referred to as FSES DO), which contains the main regulatory legal acts, a set of methods, means and techniques for the upbringing, training and development of preschool children, taking into account their mental and personal characteristics.

The cultural and personal concept developed by L.S. had a great influence on the formation of the Federal State Educational Standard for Educational Education. Vygotsky. In accordance with this concept, the basis of modern preschool education is personality-oriented, activity-based, individually differentiated and environmental approaches to organizing the educational process. It is these processes that are most relevant for obtaining the desired result of preschool education.

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Note 1

The expected result of preschool education is the formation of personal qualities of preschool children necessary for subsequent successful learning at school.

The psychological basis of the preschool education system is:

1. Holistic ideas about a preschool child, the characteristics of his mental and physical development. This knowledge is necessary for the teacher in order to organize an effective and holistic educational process, focused on the patterns of development of the preschool child.
2. Holistic ideas about the characteristics of the life activity of a preschool child. Children of preschool age acquire the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities not only in the process of organized educational activities, but in other types of their own activities (play, work, entertainment events, etc.). That is, the preschool education system should not be limited only to the kindergarten; it is necessary to cooperate with the families of pupils. It is also important to take into account all aspects of a preschool child’s life.
3. An idea of ​​the individual development trajectory and behavioral characteristics of preschool children. The Federal State Educational Standard for Preschool Education indicates that in the process of implementing the educational program of a preschool educational institution, it is important to take into account not only the individual capabilities, but also the needs of each student. Based on these data, develop a Work Program for the preschool educational institution group.

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All of these elements, which together represent the basis of preschool education, must be carefully studied not only by the teacher, but also by the methodologist of the preschool educational institution. The results obtained are the foundation of the educational program of the preschool educational institution and the organization of the educational process.

Development of mental functions

Various processes and functions of the psyche develop differently in preschool age. But by the age of 7 they should already be fully formed.

Memory

Thanks to the development of memory, a child by the senior preschool age should be able to fully assimilate the acquired knowledge, remember and systematize it.

is of great importance . That is, not everything seen and heard, but rather necessary, useful and interesting.

Speech

By the senior preschool age, the child’s speech is already practically formulated, he has a certain vocabulary.

It is by this age that his speech baggage already contains a certain set of synonyms and antonyms.

At the same time, even in older preschool age, certain deficiencies in speech proficiency may still persist :

• difficulties with the pronunciation of hissing and sonorous sounds;
• incomplete mastery of intonation;
• insufficient ability to regulate speech tempo.

Usually, these speech defects are corrected after some time with the expansion of the circle of friends already at school .

Attention

It can be voluntary or involuntary. If at the younger stage of preschool age involuntary attention dominates (the child cannot yet concentrate it on one object or person for a long time), then by the age of 6-7 years children are usually capable of such concentration.

However, children in primary school are still often distracted by extraneous stimuli and are not always able to quickly assimilate the required amount of information.

To develop attention with a child already in preschool age, special classes should be conducted , for example, on memorizing objects.