Definition of crisis according to L.S. Vygotsky. Main characteristics of age-related crises in human life

1 - neonatal crisis (manifested in weight loss).

2 - crisis of 3 years (self-identification - “I” begins to speak about itself).

3 - crisis 7 years (change in leading type of activity, expansion of social circle, change in the role of significant adults)

4 - crisis adolescence(puberty and, consequently, imbalance of all physiological systems; a sense of adulthood; severance of emotional contacts with parents, transition to the formation of self-esteem with a focus on peers).

Low self-esteem in teenagers is much worse than high self-esteem. In any situation with a teenager, the main thing for parents is not to break off relations with him. In particular, when solving material issues, it is better if the teenager acts on an equal footing with his parents (partnership relations). In general, the ideal here is companionship between parents and children.

5 - crisis of adolescence (reassessment of values)

6 - mid-life crisis (40-45 years). It is more severe in men. Dissatisfaction with the achieved results in life arises, which is accompanied by the first loss of friends and loved ones.

7 - retirement crisis (severance of social ties). Here you need to create social connections yourself outside of work (grandchildren, interest clubs, etc.).

Further steps along the path opened by L. S. Vygotsky. First step was made already at the end of the 30s by psychologists of the Kharkov school (A.N. Leontyev, A.V. Zaporozhets, P.I. Zinchenko, PYa. Galperin, L.I. Bozhovich, etc.). They showed that the development of generalizations is based not on communication of the linguistic type, but on direct practical activity of the subject. Research by A.V. Zaporozhets (in deaf children, generalizations are formed as a result practical activities), V.I. Asnina (the same for normal children), A.N. Leontyev (studies of light sensitivity of the hand and the role of search activity in this process), P.Ya. Galperin (studying the differences aids animals and human tools) made it possible to approach from different angles the idea of ​​what is actually the driving force of mental development, and allowed us to formulate a thesis about the importance of activity in human development. There is an essential the difference between the concept of “learning” and the concept of “activity”. In the term “education,” the prefix “about” carries the meaning of external coercion, as if bypassing the child himself. The concept of “activity” emphasizes the connection of the subject himself with the objects of the reality around him. It is impossible to directly “transplant” knowledge directly into the subject’s head, bypassing his own activity. As emphasized by D.B. Elkonin, the introduction of the concept of “activity” inverts the entire problem of development, turning it towards the subject. According to him, the process of formation of functional systems is a process that is carried out by the subject himself. These studies opened the way for a new explanation of the determination of mental development. This does not mean that the problem has already been solved, but a plane has been found where one can look for its solution, emphasized D.B. Elkonin, - the plane is experimental... No influence of an adult on the processes of mental development can be carried out without the real activity of the subject himself. AND the process of development itself depends on how this activity is carried out Thus, research by Soviet psychologists discovered the role of a child’s activity in his mental development. And this would be a way out of the impasse of the problem of two factors. The development process is the self-movement of the subject due to his activity with objects, and the facts of heredity and environment are only conditions that do not determine the essence of the development process, but only various variations within the norm. Next step is associated with the answer to the question of whether this activity remains the same throughout child development or not. It was done A.N. Leontyev , who deepened the development of the idea of ​​L. S. Vygotsky about the leading type of activity .Thanks to the work of A.N. Leontiev's leading activities are being considered as a criterion for the periodization of mental development How psychological age indicator and a child. Leading activity characterized by the fact that - other types of activities arise and differentiate in it, - the main ones are rebuilt mental processes and - changes occur in the psychological characteristics of the individual at a given stage of its development. The content and form of leading activity depends on the specific historical conditions in which the child’s development takes place. In modern socio-historical conditions, when in many countries children are covered by a unified system of public education, the leaders in the development of the child become the following types activities : emotional-direct communication baby with adults tool-object activity baby early age, role-playing game preschooler, educational activities at primary school age, intimate and personal communication teenagers professional and educational activities in early youth. Changes in leading types of activity are prepared for a long time and associated with the emergence of new motives, which are formed within the leading activity preceding a given stage of development, and which encourage the child to change the position he occupies in the system of relationships with other people. Development of the problem of leading activity in child development - the fundamental contribution of Soviet scientists to child psychology. In numerous studies A.V. Zaporozhets, A.N. Leontsva, D. B. Elkonin and their employees was shown the dependence of mental processes on the nature and structure of external, objective activity. Monographs devoted to the analysis of the main types of leading activity in ontogenesis (especially books by V.V. Davydov, D.B. Elkonin) have become the property of world science. The study of the processes of formation and change of motives, the formation and loss of personal meaning in activities was begun under the leadership of A. N. Leontiev and continued in the research of L.I. Bozoic and her staff. The question of the substantive, operational content of activity was developed in the research of L.Ya. Galperin and his staff. They specifically addressed the role of the organization orienting activities for the formation of physical, perceptual and mental actions. Most productive direction in Soviet child psychology there was a study of the specific features of the transition of external activity to internal activity, the patterns of the process of internalization in ontogenesis. Next step in the development of the ideas of L. S. Vygotsky was prepared by the works of L. Ya. Galperin and A.V. Zaporozhets, dedicated analysis of the structure and formation of an objective action, identifying the indicative and executive parts in it . Thus began an extremely productive research functional development of the psyche child, predicted by L.S. Vygotsky. The question has become relevant on the relationship between functional and age-related genesis mental processes. Sharing these ideas, D.B. Elkonin made an assumption that was exceptional in its psychological depth and insight. He posed the question: “What is the meaning of the child’s objective actions?”, What do they serve?”. According to his hypothesis, in the process of child development, the motivational side of the activity must first be mastered (otherwise objective actions have no meaning!), and then operational and technical ; in development can be observed alternating these types of activities. In the concept of D.B. Elkonin overcomes one of the serious shortcomings of foreign psychology, where the problem of splitting two worlds constantly arises: the world of objects and the world of people . D.B. Elkonin showed that this splitting is false, artificial, in fact human action is two-faced: it actually contains human meaning and operational side . Strictly speaking, in the human world there is no world of physical objects; the world of social objects that satisfy socially formed needs in a certain socially developed way reigns supreme there. Even objects of nature appear for a person as included in a certain social life, as objects of labor, as humanized, social nature. Man is the bearer of these social ways of using objects. Hence, a person’s abilities are the level of mastery of social methods of using public objects. Thus, every object contains a social object. There are always two sides to be seen in human action: on the one hand, it is oriented towards society, on the other hand, towards the method of execution. This microstructure of human action, according to the hypothesis of D.B. Elkonin, is reflected in the macrostructure of periods of mental development of D.B. Elkonin offers a different look at the relationship between the child and society. It is much more correct, he believes, to tell the system "child in society" and not “the child and society,” so as not to contrast it with society. If we consider the formation of a child’s personality in the “child in society” system, then the nature of the relationship and the very content of the “child - thing” and “child - individual adult” systems, identified by European psychology as two spheres of a child’s existence, radically change. D.B. Elkonin shows that the system "a child is a thing" essentially there is a system "a child is a public object" , since what comes to the fore for the child in an object are socially developed actions with it, and not the physical and spatial properties of the object; the latter serve only as guidelines for actions with it. When assimilated socially developed ways of acting with objects and the child is formed as a member of society. System " child-adult "turns, according to D.B. Elkonin, into a system "a child is a social adult" . This happens because for a child, an adult is the bearer of certain types of activity that are social in nature. An adult carries out certain tasks in his activities, enters into various relationships with other people and himself obeys certain norms. These tasks, motives and norms of relationships that exist in the activities of adults are learned through reproduction or modeling of them in own activities(for example, in role-playing games for preschoolers), of course, with the help of adults. In the process of mastering these norms, the child is faced with the need to master increasingly complex, new objective actions. D.B. Elkonin shows that the child’s activity in the systems “child is a social object” and “child is a social adult” represents a single process in which the child’s personality is formed. Another thing, he writes, is that “this process, uniform in nature, of a child’s life in society during historical development bifurcates, splits into two sides." D.B. Elkonin discovered law of alternation, periodicity different types activities : for activities of one type, orientation in the system of relations followed by another type of activity in which orientation in the ways of using objects . Each time, contradictions arise between these two types of orientation. They and become the cause of development.Each era child development is built on one principle. She opens with orientation in the sphere of human relations . The action cannot develop further unless it is inserted into new system the child's relationship with society. Until the intellect has risen to a certain level, there can be no new motives. The law of alternation and periodicity in childhood development allows the sexual to imagine periods (epochs) in the stage of ontogenesis of the psyche. Developing the ideas of L.S. Vygotsky, D.B. Elkonin proposed considering each psychological age based on the following criteria: Social situation of development. This is the system of relationships into which a child enters in society. This is how he navigates the system of social relations, which areas of social life he enters. The main, or leading type of activity of the child during this period. In this case, it is necessary to consider not only the type of activity, but also the structure of activity at the appropriate age and analyze why this particular type of activity is leading. Main neoplasms of development. It is important to show how new achievements in development outgrow the social situation and lead to its “explosion”—a crisis. A crisis. Crises are turning points on the child development curve that separate one age from another. One can say, following L. S. Vygotsky: “If crises were not discovered empirically, they would have to be invented theoretically.” To reveal the psychological essence of the crisis means to understand the internal dynamics of development during this period. Hypothesis by D.B. Elkonina, taking into account the law of periodicity in child development, explains the content of developmental crises in a new way. So, 3 years and 11 years are crises of relationships, followed by orientation in human relationships; 1 year, 7 years - crises of worldview that open up orientation in the world of things. The hypothesis of D. B. Elkonin creatively develops the teaching of L. S. Vygotsky, it overcomes the intellectualism of his teaching about the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness. It explains the emergence and development of the child’s motivational-need sphere of personality. Previously, the theory of A.N. Leontiev showed the activity mechanism of the formation of generalizations, eliminating some of the ideas of L.S. Vygotsky about the role of verbal communication, expressed by him in his historical time. Development of child psychology L.S. Vygotsky and his school are inextricably linked with the introduction into scientific research of the strategy of formation of mental processes. As emphasized by L.S. Vygotsky, experiment in psychology - a model for the implementation of theoretical concepts. To study how a child assimilates the tools and means of culture during development, an experimental genetic method was developed to reveal the origin of the mental process. The principle of the experimental genetic method is that children are taken who lack the corresponding mental process, and then, based on a certain hypothesis, the missing process is formed in the laboratory. It models the process that happens in life. This strategy allows you to understand what is hidden behind the transitions from one level of development to another, since it is possible to construct this transition experimentally.

A.N. Leontiev, Developing the views of L.S. Vygotsky, he pointed out that life does not consist of individual types of activities. One is leading at a certain stage and has a significant significance, others - less. He pointed to signs of a leading type of activity :

Within such activities, new ones arise and differentiate;

In leading activities, mental processes are formed and restructured;

The main mental changes in personality observed during a given period of development depend on the leading type of activity.

Introduction

Bibliography

Introduction

Considering the process of child development, developmental psychology gives characteristics of different age periods and, therefore, operates with such concepts as “age” and “childhood”. Age or age period is a cycle of child development that has its own structure and dynamics.

Psychological age may not coincide with chronological age individual child, recorded on his birth certificate and then in his passport. The age period with its unique content, features of the development of the child’s mental functions and personality, the features of his relationships with others and the main activity for him - has certain boundaries. But these chronological boundaries can shift, and one child will enter a new age period earlier, and another later. The boundaries of adolescence, associated with the puberty of children, “float” especially strongly.

The initial age periods form childhood - an entire era, which is essentially preparation for adult life, independent work. The specifics of childhood are determined by the level of socio-economic and cultural development, the society in which the child lives, is raised and is educated. When does childhood end these days? Traditionally, child psychology - as the first part of age - covers the process of child development from birth to 7 years. But modern childhood continues even after entering school; the youngest student remains a child. Moreover, some psychologists also consider adolescence as a “prolonged childhood.” Whatever point of view we adhere to, we have to admit: real adulthood awaits a child only beyond the school threshold at 15 or 17 years old.

In this work we will consider age periodization.

1. Age periodization of Elkonin D.B.

Important role The theory of periodization of children’s mental development, created by D. B. Elkonin, based on the study of the internal essence of ontogenesis, played a role in the development of psychological science, because only internal changes development itself, only fractures and turns in its course can provide a reliable basis for determining the main eras in the construction of the child’s personality." The ideas of L. S. Vygotsky and A. N. Leontiev served as support for D. B. Elkonin, who, when constructing periodization, was based on next.

Firstly, he considered age-related development as a general change in personality, the formation of a new plan for reflecting reality, a change in activity and life position, the establishment of special relationships with others, the formation of new motives of behavior and value systems. At the same time, D. B. Elkonin proceeded from the fact that the concept of age, age limits and characteristics has not an absolute, but a relative meaning. This situation is confirmed, in particular, by the fact that traditionally established ideas about the age-related capabilities of children are currently being revised. Nevertheless, the psychological characteristics of age exist as the most typical, characteristic, indicating the general direction of development.

All three eras - early childhood, childhood, adolescence - are built on the same principle and consist of two naturally related periods. The transition from one era to the next occurs when a discrepancy arises between the operational and technical capabilities of the child and the tasks and motives of activity on the basis of which they were formed."

This is the logical framework of D. B. Elkonin’s theory, which, as is easy to see, allows for largely different substantive interpretations of leading activities in different periods (this, by the way, is also one of the strengths of his theory).

Now let’s say in conclusion how D. B. Elkonin meaningfully interpreted the leading activities characteristic of different periods.

During infancy (I period, I epoch) this is “direct emotional communication with adults... against the background and within which oriented and sensory-manipulative actions are formed”

During the period of early childhood (II period, I era) - “object-tool activity, during which mastery of socially developed methods of acting with objects occurs”

In preschool age (I period, II era) - “the leading activity is play in its most developed form (role-playing game). Its main significance is that... the child models in it relationships between people... On this basis, the child develops a desire for socially significant and socially valued activity, which is the main point of readiness for schooling.”

In primary school age (II period, II epoch), the leading activity is learning, during which “...the intensive formation of the child’s intellectual and cognitive powers occurs” (ibid.).

The periodization developed by D. B. Elkonin made it possible to reveal many important features mental development of the child, first of all, patterns of change in leading types of activity, the appearance of major neoplasms on different ages etc. The productivity of the periodization under consideration and its adequacy to the real process of child development has been confirmed by numerous empirical studies of various stages of ontogenesis conducted in the last 20 years. The effectiveness of D. B. Elkonin’s periodization is confirmed by the results of experimental studies not only in developmental and pedagogical psychology, but also in social psychology.

2. Characteristics of age periodization

The period of infancy (from 0 to 2 years) is “direct emotional communication with adults... against the background and within which oriented and sensory-manipulative actions are formed.” The interest and attention of infants to each other appears in a form merged with practical action - feeling, touching, squeezing.

By the end of the first year, babies already begin to perform their first joint actions; they begin to imitate each other, starting noisy cooperative games: catch-up, hide-and-seek. All these actions are rare and brief. Their peculiarity is in their unstable attention to a peer - the child will lose sight of him for a second and seem to forget about him, being distracted by another subject, or very quickly gets tired of his peer.

In joint activities with adults, relationships are most often built according to the type of complete dependence or according to the type of following a given pattern. There is a naturally one-sided orientation in relationships here.

The crisis of the 1st year is associated with the actualization of the subject-practical side of activity, during which the child masters social experience, develops ways of handling objects, evaluates his actions, and asserts his position<Я>among the others.

During the period of early childhood (2-4 years) - “object-tool activity, during which mastery of socially developed ways of working with objects occurs”

A child’s early childhood is spent among people (adults and peers, older and younger children) who apply sanctions in the form of punishment (“no”, “taboo”) to their life activity, limiting it.

The child’s psychological space begins to acquire semantic depth, the first generalizations of experiences caused by encounters with the properties of objects, including one’s own, hidden from direct observation appear.

The child’s solution to the most important developmental task - mastering self-control - is carried out against the background of punishment from adults. Naturally, not only him, but also others - forgiveness and encouragement too.

The crisis of three years - the stubbornness and negativism of the baby - a test of strength - I of each of the participants in the interaction: both the child and the adult. By the age of 3, the child completes the first cycle of acquaintance with the human world. A new level begins from this key point social development, when not only society determines the relationship with the child, but he, having isolated his Self, begins to more and more actively enter into relationships with other people and society.

In preschool age - middle childhood (5-7 years old) - “the leading activity is play in its most developed form (role-playing game). Its main significance is that... the child models in it relationships between people... On this basis, the child develops a desire for socially significant and socially valued activity, which is the main point of readiness for schooling.”

The opportunity to experiment with one’s own self and non-self, which is created in the middle of childhood, and the experience of differentiated relationships (one’s own - others’) with people creates the conditions for realizing the boundaries of one’s own psychological space. This awareness occurs in a very complex way and is associated with an impact on its various properties - actually psychological and physical.

At this time, children expose their body to various influences, checking the information they know about its properties or conducting experiments.

The growing differentiation of feelings requires some kind of orderliness; probably, the child’s body itself becomes the natural scale for this. It is at this time that he solves the problem of establishing his gender identity. Gender becomes the basis that makes it possible to hold scattering, once integral feelings, to make them objectively related.

Child's success in different types activity is most closely connected with recognition by his peers - this is a manifestation of a person’s conditioned attitude towards a person (in other words, they love or are treated well only for something, and not just like that - disinterestedly).

In the literature, mid-childhood is associated with the crisis of six years as a period when the child loses spontaneity and spontaneity in activity, and acquires arbitrariness and indirectness, that is, behavior becomes multifaceted - the real and fictional planes are separated, the child is aware of their discrepancy; the objective and relational plans are divided; feelings become differentiated, the transition of one feeling to another is highlighted and realized.

The child no longer just reacts and assimilates, he already does a lot “for fun”, “on purpose”, using the laws of human relationships and the properties of objects known to him to influence himself and others.

The danger of this period is that the child does not yet know the limits of his strength, both physical and mental, so his influence (both on himself and on others) can be excessive; adults must definitely stop aggressive manipulation and violence.

The period of late childhood (8-12 years) rarely attracts special attention from researchers. It is traditionally considered one of the most stable periods human life

In domestic developmental psychology, the age under study falls on the period of junior - early middle school age.

At primary school age, the leading activity is learning, during which “...intensive formation of the child’s intellectual and cognitive powers occurs.” Primary school age is sensitive to educational activities.

It is believed that the most main task is the establishment and implementation of social connections. The solution to this particular problem involves experiencing oneself as the owner of the secret of one’s own Self (opaque to others). The child begins to intensively guard the boundaries of his own psychological space using a wide variety of means, which look to the observer as the appearance of secrecy, as if subtext in the child’s relationships with other people. At the same time, this is connected with the structuring of their psychological space - children create various kinds of hiding places, secluded places, notebooks, collections (for yourself).

It is at this time that all the child’s labor skills are included in his psychological space as stable elements that organize him, since all these skills are associated with the experience of the expediency of the efforts spent on organizing his self.

The assimilation of scientific concepts forms the child’s internal action plan; it manifests a meaningful orientation towards all dimensions of time (“I already know this”, “I will study this”, “I don’t know this”, “I will know this”). Mastering the laws of things and phenomena allows you to anticipate your actions and transformations of objects, which is reflected in the ability to plan your own movements in space and time

The arbitrariness of behavior, the control of one’s mental processes, and the internal plan of action will be determined by the content of the relationship and interactions of the child with an adult as the bearer of socially significant methods of action and truly moral relations.

Younger teenagers are sensitive to extracurricular activities that are available to them and where they can show their new abilities. They tend to engage in activities with peers. Their greatest manifestation is the need for self-affirmation and a reckless readiness to act.

Senior school age children are sensitive to mastering their inner world. Older schoolchildren have a characteristic that is not always noticed, huge inner work: searching for a perspective on the path of life, developing a sense of responsibility and the desire to manage oneself, enriching the emotional sphere.

In a 6-9 year old child, a theoretical attitude to reality, the arbitrariness of mental processes, and an internal plan of action appear. Between 9 and 10 years, the third level of social development begins, when the child not only recognizes himself as a subject, but feels the need to realize himself as a subject, to enter into a wide range of social relations.

Adolescence (13-17 years) is one of the most difficult periods of a person. During this period, not only does a radical restructuring of previously established psychological structures occur, new formations arise, but also the foundations of conscious behavior are laid, and a general direction emerges in the formation of moral ideas and social attitudes.

On the one hand, this difficult period is indicative of negative manifestations, personality disharmony, curtailment and change in the child’s established interests, and the protesting nature of his behavior towards adults. On the other hand, adolescence is also distinguished by a host of positive factors - the child’s independence increases, all relationships with other children and adults become more diverse and meaningful, the scope of his activities expands significantly and significantly changes, a responsible attitude towards himself and other people develops, etc. d. The main thing is that this period is distinguished by the child’s emergence into a qualitatively new social position, in which his conscious attitude towards himself as a member of society is actually formed.

Along with the desire for adulthood, adolescents clearly demonstrate a pronounced need to communicate with peers.

At the age of 15, a new intermediate milestone of social development is identified (<я в обществе>). If in the first half of the year a 14-year-old teenager is most interested in self-esteem and acceptance by others, then already in a 15-year-old the main place is occupied by the issues of developing abilities, developing skills, intellectual development. From 15 to 17 years, the development of abstract and logical thinking, reflection on one’s own life path, the desire for self-realization. There is an active formation of self-awareness and the social position of a responsible subject.

Youth (18-22 years), the boundaries of which are associated with the age of mandatory human participation in public life. A person must take responsibility for the structure of life to the extent possible in specific social conditions.

The psychological space of a person is very heterogeneous, this makes the integrity of his Self unstable, the perception of life as my life fluctuates, often for reasons incomprehensible to the person himself.

The developed body, the desire of the Self to integrate with new strength exacerbates the need (longing) for confirmation of the reality of one’s own self, which has not only potential, but also real, truthful, true power accepted by other people. There is a readiness to establish a special relationship with others. I have already called it a relationship of friendship.

In a person in adolescence there is a huge need, a need for integration different manifestations life of his Self - he feels, experiences the possibility of this as the direction of the flow of life, but to achieve integration, strength is needed, energy is needed to overcome the inconsistency of different manifestations of life, its global inconsistency - the presence of death in life.

The source of such strength, such energy is each other, who, with his presence, provides the necessary psychological information for the integration of the Self.

In addition to the problem of the independent existence of one’s self - holistic, integrated, recognizing its properties by identifying them in a friend, in adolescence, the tasks of independent existence become relevant for development (namely mental development!). To implement them, you need the skills to organize your social life, including the most important skill of making responsible decisions.

Adolescence is the age of growth in the strength of the Self, its ability to manifest and maintain its individuality; at this time there are already grounds for overcoming the fear of losing one’s self in the context of group activities or intimacy, or friendship. It is in these conditions that the I tries its strength; through confrontation with other people, young men acquire clear boundaries of their psychological space, protecting them from the danger of the destructive influence of another.

Bibliography

1. Abramova G.S. Age-related psychology. M..1999.

2. Vygotsky L.S., Selected works. 1984, vol. 4

3. Obukhova L. F. Child (age) psychology M.. 1996.

4. Psychological Dictionary M..1991.

5. Feldshtein D.I. Age and pedagogical psychology M..20002.

6. Elkonin D.B. Child psychology M..1960.

7. Elkonin D.B. On the problem of periodization of mental development in childhood // Questions of psychology 1971. No. 4.

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The child learns to divide objects into classes.

From one year onwards, the process of perception and knowledge of the surrounding world begins to actively develop. A child aged from one to two years uses various options to perform the same action, and from one and a half to two years he has the ability to solve a problem by guessing (insight), i.e. the child suddenly finds a solution to this problem, avoiding trial and error method.

Having learned to influence one object on another, he is able to foresee the outcome of the situation.

The child can distinguish different shapes and primary colors.

Thanks to the development of perception, by the end of early childhood the child begins to develop mental activity. This is expressed in the emergence of the ability to generalize, transfer the experience gained from original conditions into new ones, in establishing connections between objects through experimentation, memorizing them and using them in solving problems.

In early childhood, the development of thinking continues, which gradually turns from visual-effective to visual-figurative, that is, actions with material objects are replaced by actions with images. The internal development of thinking proceeds in this way: intellectual operations develop and concepts are formed.

Memory development. By the age of two, a child develops working memory. Easy logical and themed games, he can draw up an action plan for a short period of time, and does not forget the goal set a few minutes ago.

From 11 months, the transition from pre-phonemic speech to phonemic speech begins and the formation phonemic hearing, which ends by the age of two, when the child can distinguish words that differ from each other by one phoneme.

During the second year of life, the child begins to assimilate the verbal designation of surrounding objects, and then the names of adults, the names of toys, and only then - parts of the body, i.e., nouns, and by the age of two, with normal development, he understands the meaning of almost all words related to the surrounding reality . This is facilitated by the development of the semantic function of children's speech, i.e., determining the meaning of a word, its differentiation, clarification and assignment of generalized meanings to words that are associated with them in the language. By the age of 1.5 years, a child learns from 30 to 100 words, but rarely uses them. By the age of 2 he knows 300 words, and by 3 – 1200–1500 words.

Self-awareness develops in early childhood. Developing self-awareness will lead to the formation of self-esteem.

Children begin to develop empathy - understanding emotional state another man.

Introduction

Infancy

Early age

Preschool age

Junior school age

Adolescence

Adolescence

Introduction

The periodizations of development, which consider as a basis the causes and driving forces of development, traditionally include the periodizations of L.S. Vygotsky and D.B. Elkonina. Let us consider the periodization of D.B.’s development. Elkonin, as the most developed classification.

D.B. Elkonin viewed the child as an integral personality, actively learning the world: the world of objects and the world of people. There are, therefore, two systems of relationships: child-thing and child-adult. However, a thing, having certain physical properties, also carries within itself socially developed ways of using it, ways of acting with it. Thus, a thing is a social object, the actions with which a child must learn with the help of an adult. An adult appears to a child not only as a person, but also as a representative of a certain society, having social roles, attitudes, motives, stereotypes of action, including stereotypes of upbringing. Therefore, an adult is a social adult. The child’s activity within the systems “child is a social object” and “child is a social adult” represents a single process in which his personality is formed. However, making up a single process of mastering the “child - object” and “child - adult” systems, within the framework of the leading activity of a given age, one of the systems comes to the fore, occupying a dominant position. Consequently, successive leading activities determine the sequential alternation primarily of the “child - object” and “child - adult” systems.

Periodization age development D.B. Elkonina

The child approaches each point in his development with a certain discrepancy between what he has learned from the system of person-person relationships and what he has learned from the person-object system. It is precisely the moments when this discrepancy takes on the greatest magnitude that are called crises, after which the development of the side that lagged behind in the previous period occurs. But each side prepares the development of the other.

What is the theoretical and practical significance of the hypothesis about the periodicity of mental development processes?

Firstly, this periodization shows the relationship between intellectual (cognitive) development and the formation of a person’s personality as a social individual. Secondly, this hypothesis makes it possible to consider the process of mental development not as linear, but as proceeding in an ascending spiral. Thirdly, it opens the way to the study of the connections that exist between individual periods, to the establishment of the functional significance of any previous period for the onset of the subsequent one. Fourthly, the hypothesis is aimed at dividing mental development into eras and stages that corresponds to the internal laws of this human development.

Let's consider the periodization of D.B. Elkonin, dwelling in more detail on each stage of development, in order.

Infancy

The social situation of the inextricable unity of a child and an adult contains a contradiction: the child needs the adult as much as possible and, at the same time, does not have specific means of influencing him. This contradiction is resolved throughout the entire period of infancy. The resolution of this contradiction leads to the destruction of the social development situation that gave rise to it.

Social situation common life child and mother leads to the emergence of a new type of activity - direct emotional communication between the child and mother. As studies by D.B. have shown. Elkonin and M.I. Lisina, a specific feature of this type of activity is that the subject of this activity is another person. But if the subject of activity is another person, then this activity is communication. What is important is not what people do with each other, emphasized D.B. Elkonin, but the fact that another person becomes the subject of activity. Communication of this type in infancy is very pronounced. On the part of the adult, the child becomes the subject of activity. On the part of the child, one can observe the emergence of the first forms of influence on an adult. Thus, very soon the child’s vocal reactions acquire the character of an emotionally active call, whining turns into a behavioral act aimed at an adult. This is not yet speech in the proper sense of the word, as long as it is just emotional and expressive reactions.

Communication during this period should be emotionally positive. Thus, the child creates an emotionally positive tone, which serves as a sign of physical and mental health.

The specific reaction of a smile on the mother’s face is an indicator that the social situation of the child’s mental development has already taken shape. This is a social situation of connection between a child and an adult. L.S. Vygotsky called it the social situation "WE". According to L.S. Vygotsky, a child is like an adult paralytic who says: “We ate”, “We took a walk”. Here we can talk about the inextricable unity of the child and the adult. The child does nothing maybe without an adult. The life and activities of a child are, as it were, woven into the life and activities of the adult caring for him. In general, this is a situation of comfort, and the central element of this comfort is an adult. As D.B. Elkonin noted, a pacifier and rocking are ersatz , adult substitutes, telling a child: “Everything is calm!”, “Everything is fine!”, “I’m here.”

At first glance, it seems that the development of actions is a spontaneous process. Indeed, it would seem that almost nothing can be taught to a child in his first year of life, but the man turned out to be more cunning. D.B. Elkonin said that a long time ago man came up with programmed education for children in the first year of life. These are toys in which the actions that the child must perform with their help are programmed. Manipulating a child with toys is a hidden joint activity. Here the adult is not present directly, but indirectly, being, as it were, programmed into the toy.

Grasping, directing towards an object stimulates the occurrence of sitting. When a child sits down, other objects open up in front of him. Objects appear that cannot be touched. The law of the child’s advanced acquaintance with the world and advanced orientation appears again. The child is drawn to the object, it is attractive, but it can only be obtained with the help of an adult.

The study of the emergence of the sign function in ontogenesis shows that for its formation it is necessary to develop sympraxic communication, that is, communication in the course of “cumulative activity” (D.B. Elkonin’s term). Therefore, for child psychology, the search for the roots of the sign function depends on solving the problem of the formation of joint activity.

By 9 months (the beginning of the 1st year crisis), the child stands on his feet and begins to walk. As emphasized by D.B. Elkonin, the main thing in the act of walking is not only that the child’s space expands, but also that the child separates himself from the adult. For the first time, the unified social situation “We” is fragmented; now it is not the mother who leads the child, but the child who leads the mother wherever he wants. Walking is the first of the main new formations of infancy, marking a break in the old developmental situation.

The second main new development of this age is the appearance of the first word. The peculiarity of the first words is that they are in the nature of pointing gestures. Walking and enriching object actions require speech that would satisfy communication about objects. Speech, like all new developments of age, is transitional in nature. This is an autonomous, situational, emotionally charged speech, understandable only to those close to you. This speech is specific in its structure, consisting of fragments of words. Researchers call it "nanny language." But whatever this speech may be, it represents a new quality that can serve as a criterion that the old social situation of the child’s development has disintegrated. Where there was unity, there became two: an adult and a child. Between them a new content grew - objective activity.

To sum up the first stage of child development, we can say that from the very beginning there are two interconnected lines human development: the line of development of orientation in the meanings of human activity and the line of development of orientation in the methods of human activity. Mastering one opens up new opportunities for developing the other. There is a clear, main line of development for each age. However, the main new formations leading to the destruction of the old social situation of development are formed along a different line, which is not a guideline in a given period; they arise, as it were, latently. But this orientation will determine development in the next age period. The main task of raising a child during this period (the period of infancy) is to maximize and develop the child’s broad orientation in the surrounding reality. As emphasized by D.B. Elkonin, any early creation of a ready-made functional system takes up a piece of the central nervous system and then it needs to be rebuilt. It is important that functional systems were built on an enriched indicative basis.

Early age

As emphasized by D.B. Elkonin, at the end of the first year of life, the social situation of complete unity between a child and an adult explodes from the inside. Two people appear in it: a child and an adult. This is the essence of the crisis of the first year of life. At this age, the child acquires a certain degree of independence: the first words appear, the child begins to walk, and actions with objects develop. However, the child's range of capabilities is still very limited. Firstly, speech is autonomous in nature: words are situational, they are just fragments of our words, words are polysemantic, polysemantic. Moreover, autonomous speech itself contains a contradiction. This speech is a means of communication addressed to another, but, as a rule, it is still devoid of constant values. Secondly, in almost every action that a child performs with one or another object, it is as if an adult is present. And, above all, it is present through the construction of objects that the child manipulates. As emphasized by D.B. Elkonin, this phenomenon is exceptional, it is observed only at the end of infancy. It does not occur at older ages. Not a single human object, pointed out D.B. Elkonin, the method of its use is not written, the social way of using an object should always be revealed to the child. But since it cannot yet be shown to a baby, it is necessary to construct objects that, by their physical properties, determine the way children act. While manipulating objects, focusing on their physical properties, the child himself, however, cannot discover socially developed ways of using objects.

The child himself, on his own, is never able to discover the social essence, the social function, the social way of using objects.

When removed, a weapon contains a purpose for which it must be used. Ideas about the goal, about the final result, do not initially exist as data and orienting the child’s actions. They arise only as a result of the implementation of the objective action itself. Only after the child drinks water from a cup does he have a goal - to drink water from a cup. Only after the child learns to use a tool does he develop goals that begin to guide the child’s actions with objects. Thus, the goal must be isolated as a result of action in a specific situation.

In the joint objective action of a child and an adult, initially everything is merged. The very method of orienting an action, like a goal, is also not given in the form of some kind of abstract pattern, but exists within the action of a child with an adult; only a gradual dismemberment of action occurs in the course of development. All mental processes are formed on the basis of objective action, therefore to understand objective action means to understand development.

In a joint objective action, its goal and objective orientation, execution and evaluation are initially merged.

D.B. Elkonin considered the development of objective action at an early age in two main directions. This is, firstly, the development of action from joint with an adult to independent execution and, secondly, the development of means and ways of orienting the child himself in the conditions of carrying out an objective action.

At the first stages of the development of objective action, mastering the social functions of the object and those goals that can be achieved with a certain socially established way of using the object is possible only in the course of joint activity.

As was shown by I.A. Sokolyansky and A.I. Meshcheryakov, the adult takes the child’s hands in his own and performs an action with them (brings the spoon to the child’s mouth). And orientation, and execution, and control, and evaluation of the action are on the side of the adult. Then a partial or jointly divided action occurs. The adult just begins the action, and the child finishes it. As soon as a divided action appears, we can say that the goal of the objective action has emerged: the child knows what will happen as a result of performing the action. Next, there is the possibility of executing an action based on the display. This is a step of extreme importance. The adult has separated the orienting part of the action from the executive part and wants the child to do the same. This gap, as emphasized by D.B. Elkonin is produced by an adult, so the process is by no means spontaneous, not spontaneous.

D.B. Elkonin rightly noted that toys play an important role in mastering objective actions, along with tools. A toy is an object that simulates some object in the adult world. In relation to toys, there is no strict logic for their use, and the adult does not impose on the child a way of acting with them. Toys are multifunctional; you can do whatever you want with them. Because of these properties of the toy, the orienting side of the action is separated from the executive side. Thanks to the action with the toy, the situation is also included in the orientation. As a result, further schematization of the action occurs. The child begins to compare his action with the actions of an adult, he begins to recognize in his action the actions of an adult and for the first time begins to call himself by the name of an adult: “Peter-Papa.” Thus, the transfer of action contributes to the separation of the child from the adult, comparison of oneself with him, and identification of oneself with the adult. The social situation thus begins to disintegrate. The role of an adult increases in the eyes of a child. The adult begins to be perceived by the child as a bearer of patterns of human action. This is possible only as a result of micro-changes in objective action.

Finally, as a result of the transition of action from joint to independent, the adult retains control and evaluation of the action performed by the child; they constitute the content of communication between the child and the adult regarding objective actions.

When a single objective action disintegrates and the adult is separated from the child, the child for the first time sees the adult and his actions as models. It turns out that the child acts like an adult, not with him, not under the guidance of an adult, but like him.

By the end of this age, the child uses his objective actions to establish contacts with an adult; with the help of objective actions, the child tries to call an adult to communicate. When, with the help of a mastered action, a child calls an adult to play, communication again arises as an activity, the subject of which for the child becomes an adult. In the same way that objective action develops, emphasized D.B. Elkonin, speech formation also occurs. At an early age, the word acts as a tool for the child, which, however, he uses much more often than any other tool. Precisely because the word at this age acts as a tool, extremely intensive development of speech occurs. In almost two to three years, a child masters his native language, and in a bilingual environment, two. Like mastering any other tool, the word is differentiated, saturated with objective meaning and, thanks to its transfer to other situations, is torn away from the subject and generalized. The role of images and toys in this process is great. L.S. Vygotsky wrote that by the power of one thing it is necessary to steal the name from another. This is what happens in visual arts and the game. To date, the following main trends in the development of speech in young children are known.

Passive speech is ahead of active speech in development. The stock of passive speech affects the enrichment of the active vocabulary. First, the child understands instruction words, then he begins to understand name words, later he understands instructions and instructions, and finally understands stories, that is, understands contextual speech.

The intensive development of speech at an early age indicates that speech, according to D.B. Elkonin, should be considered not as a function, but as a special object that the child masters in the same way as he masters other tools (spoon, pencil, etc.). The development of speech is a “twig” in the development of independent objective activity.

Preschool age

D.B. Elkonin believed that the main psychological neoplasms of preschool age are:

1) The emergence of the first schematic outline of a complete child’s worldview. A child cannot live in disorder. The child tries to put everything he sees in order, to see the natural relationships into which such an unstable world around him fits. J. Piaget showed that a child in preschool age develops an artificalist worldview: everything that surrounds the child, including natural phenomena, is the result of human activity. This worldview is linked to the entire structure of preschool age, in the center of which is a person

While constructing a picture of the world, the child invents and invents a theoretical concept. He builds schemes of a global nature, worldview schemes. D.B. Elkonin notices here a paradox between low level the child’s intellectual capabilities and the high level of his cognitive needs.

2) The emergence of primary ethical authorities “What is good and what is bad” These ethical authorities grow next to the aesthetic ones “Beautiful cannot be bad.”

3) The emergence of subordination of motives. At this age, one can already observe the predominance of deliberate actions over impulsive ones. Overcoming immediate desires is determined not only by the expectation of reward or punishment on the part of an adult, but also by the expressed promise of the child himself (the principle “ of this word"). Thanks to this, such personality qualities as perseverance and the ability to overcome difficulties are formed; There is also a sense of duty towards other people.

4) Emergence arbitrary behavior. Voluntary behavior is behavior mediated by a certain idea. D.B. Elkonin noted that in preschool age, an image orienting behavior first exists in a specific visual form, but then it becomes more and more generalized, appearing in the form of a rule or norm. Based on the formation of voluntary behavior in a child, according to D.B. Elkonin, there is a desire to control oneself and one’s actions.

5) The emergence of personal inquiry - the emergence of awareness of one’s limited place in the system of relations with adults. The preschooler becomes aware of the possibilities of his actions, he begins to understand that he cannot do everything (the beginning of self-esteem). When talking about self-awareness, they often mean awareness of one’s personal qualities (good, kind, evil, etc.). IN in this case we're talking about about awareness of one’s place in the system of social relations. 3 years - external “I myself”, 6 years - personal self-awareness. And here the external turns into the internal.

Under the leadership of D.B. Elkonin conducted an interesting experiment.

There is a pile of matches in front of the child. The experimenter asks to take one at a time and move them to another place. The rules are deliberately made meaningless.

The subjects were children 5, 6, 7 years old. The experimenter observed the children through a Gesell mirror. Children who are preparing for school do this work meticulously and can sit at this activity for an hour. The smaller children continue to rearrange the matches for a while, and then begin to build something. The little ones bring their own challenge to these activities. When saturation occurs, the experimenter comes in and asks to do more work: “Let’s agree, let’s do this bunch of matches and that’s it.” And the older child continued this monotonous, meaningless work, because he agreed with the adult. The experimenter said to children of middle preschool age: “I will leave, but Pinocchio will stay.” The child’s behavior changed: he looked at Pinocchio and did everything right. If you carry out this action several times with a substitute link, then even without Pinocchio the children obey the rule. This experiment showed that the system of relationships between a child and an adult lies behind the fulfillment of the rule. When a child obeys a rule, he greets the adult with joy.

So, following the rule, D.B. believed. Elkonin, lies the system of social relations between a child and an adult. First, the rules are fulfilled in the presence of an adult, then with the support of an object that replaces the adult, and finally, the rule becomes internal. If compliance with the rules did not include a system of relationships with an adult, then no one would ever follow these rules. A child’s readiness for schooling involves “growing in” social rule, emphasized D.B. Elkonin, however, a special system for the formation of internal rules in modern system There is no provision for preschool education.

At this age, the phenomenon of egocentrism, or centralization, appears. In order for the transition from pre-operational to operational thinking to become possible, it is necessary that the child move from centralization to decentration. Centering means that the child can see the whole world only from his own point of view. At first, no other points of view exist for the child. A child cannot take the point of view of science or society.

Exploring the phenomenon of centralization, D.B. Elkonin suggested that in role-playing collective game, that is, in the leading type of activity of a preschool child, the main processes associated with overcoming “cognitive egocentrism” occur. Frequent switching from one role to another in various games children, the transition from the position of a child to the position of an adult leads to a systematic “shaking” of the child’s ideas about the absoluteness of his position in the world of things and people and creates conditions for the coordination of different positions. This hypothesis was tested in a study by V.A. Nedospasova.

Thanks to decentration, children become different, the subject of their thoughts, their reasoning becomes the thought of another person. No learning is possible until the teacher’s thought becomes the subject of the child’s reasoning. Decentration is formed in this way, first many centrations are formed, then differentiation of oneself from the other and his point of view occurs without actually becoming involved in it, but only assuming it.

So, by the end of preschool age we have three lines of development.

1 - line of formation of voluntary behavior,

2 - line of mastering the means and standards of cognitive activity,

3 - line of transition from egocentrism to decentration. Development along these lines determines the child’s readiness for schooling.

To these three lines, which were analyzed by D.B. Elkonin, one should add the child’s motivational readiness for schooling. As was shown by L.I. Bozovic, the child strives for the function of a student. So, for example, during the “school game” children younger ages take on the function of a teacher, older preschoolers prefer the role of students, since this role seems especially significant to them.

By the age of 7, a number of complex formations arise, which lead to the fact that behavioral difficulties change sharply and radically; they are fundamentally different from the difficulties of preschool age.

Such new formations as pride and self-esteem remain, but the symptoms of the crisis (mannering, antics) are transient. In the crisis of seven years, due to the fact that differentiation of internal and external arises, that semantic experience arises for the first time, an acute struggle of experiences also arises. A child who does not know which candy to take - bigger or sweeter - is not in a state of internal struggle, although he hesitates. Internal struggle (contradictions of experiences and choice of one’s own experiences) becomes possible only now.

elkonin age mental neoplasm

Junior school age

The leading activity for all school ages is learning, but the specifics of each age are determined by which aspects of reality are mastered by the child in the course of learning. This determines the leading activity of each school age. Thus, at primary school age, a child masters “subject-based” reality, that is, knowledge reinforced in educational courses. In contrast to the early years, at primary school age the child masters, through learning, that objective reality that goes far beyond the limits of his personal direct experience. Junior school age - the age of entry into educational activities, mastery of its structural components

A restructuring of the entire system of the child’s relationship with reality is taking place, as D.B. emphasized. Elkonin. A preschooler has two spheres of social relations: “child - adult” and “child - children”. These systems are connected play activities. The results of the game do not affect the child’s relationship with his parents, relationships within children's group relationships with parents are also not determined. These relationships exist in parallel, they are connected by hierarchical connections. One way or another, it is important to consider that the well-being of a child depends on intrafamily harmony.

A new structure of these relationships emerges at school. The “child - adult” system is differentiated:

"child - teacher"

"child - adult"

“child – children” “child – parents”

Adolescence

Adolescence must be considered not as a separate stage, but in the dynamics of development, since without knowledge of the patterns of child development in ontogenesis, the contradictions that make up the strength of this development, it is impossible to identify the mental characteristics of a teenager. This research is based on an activity approach that considers personality development as a process driving force which is, firstly, the resolution of internal contradictions, and secondly, a change in types of activity, which determines the restructuring of existing needs and the emergence of new ones. In the process of studying

domestic psychologists (L.S. Vygodsky, A.N. Leontyev, D.B. Elkonin, etc.) found that the leading activity for adolescence is the assimilation of norms of relationships, which receive the most complete expression in socially useful activities.

Thus, the study of adolescence is a very complex, long and multifaceted process that has not been completed to this day. There is still no unambiguous understanding of all its features, and disputes between psychologists continue. But, despite this, we can highlight the main points that define the teenage period of development and note its main characteristics.

As noted by D.B. Elkonin, self-change in adolescence arises and begins to be realized first psychologically, as a result of the development of educational activities - the development of the cognitive sphere, and is only reinforced by physical changes. However, in our opinion, it is psychophysiological changes that provoke changes in the cognitive sphere at a basic level, although they are considered by D.B. Elkonin again.

Consistently high rates of variability in boys and changes in the coefficient of ascillation in girls (a clear increase in the coefficient of ascillation by 14.5 years and a decrease by 15.5 years). It was found that the individual indicators of variability of boys, although significantly different from each other, are generally stable, while the indicators of girls, which usually do not differ from each other high rate ascillations, at 14.5 years of age give maximum values ​​of variability, increasing both in individual and in general indicators. This spasmodic manifestation of high variability in girls is expressed during the period of rapid pubertal growth, characterized by instability of interests, emotional outbursts, sudden changes mood, moment of change, increased vulnerability and increasing potential of girls' personality. This age indicator for girls (14.5 years) coincides with the critical transition from adolescence to adolescence (according to the periodization of D.B. Elkonin).

According to the concept of D.B. Elkonina's adolescence, like everyone else new period, is associated with new formations that arise from the leading activities of the previous period. Educational activity produces a “turn” from a focus on the world to a focus on oneself. By the end of primary school age, the child has new opportunities, but he does not yet know what he is. Solving the question “What am I?” can only be found by confronting reality. Features of the development of a teenager at this age are manifested in the following symptoms:

Difficulties arise again in relationships with adults: negativism, stubbornness, indifference to assessing success, leaving school, since the main thing for the child now happens outside of school.

Children's companies (searching for a friend, searching for someone who can understand you).

The child begins to keep a diary. Many of the researchers reported on “secret notebooks and diaries” in which the teenager “finds an extremely free refuge, where no one and nothing constrains him. Left to himself, he freely and independently expresses his inner, sometimes deeply intimate experiences, exciting thoughts, doubts and observations.”

Comparing himself with an adult, a teenager comes to the conclusion that there is no difference between him and an adult. He begins to demand from those around him that he no longer be considered small; he realizes that he also has rights. The central new development of this age is the emergence of the idea of ​​oneself as “not a child”; the teenager begins to feel like an adult, strives to be and be considered an adult, he rejects his belonging to children, but he still does not have a feeling of genuine, full-fledged adulthood, but there is a huge need for recognition of his adulthood by others.

In the periodization of D.B. Elkonin in the same way as in the theory of L.S. Vygotsky, adolescence, like any psychological age, is associated with the emergence of something new in development. However, these new formations, in his opinion, arise from the leading activities of the previous period. Educational activity produces a “turn” of the child from being focused on the world to focusing on himself. By the end of primary school age, the child has new opportunities, but he does not yet know what he is. Solving the question “Who am I?” can only be found by confronting reality. At the beginning of adolescence, in the system of developmental education (according to Elkonin-Davydov), educational activity moves to a new, more high level. It becomes an activity aimed at self-education and self-improvement of students.

Objective adulthood is manifested in the child’s readiness to live in the society of adults as an equal participant.

· Elements of objective adulthood in adolescence can be seen in the attitude of adolescents to study and work, to parents and peers, to children and the elderly. They reveal themselves:

o in the intellectual sphere - independence in acquiring knowledge, the desire for self-education;

o in the socio-moral sphere - helping adults and supporting them, defending one’s own views, compliance of moral and ethical ideas with the real behavior of a teenager;

o in romantic relationships with peers of the opposite sex - forms of spending free time (dates, parties, dancing);

o in appearance - following fashion in clothing, behavior, and speech (“buzzwords”).

· Subjective adulthood, or a feeling of adulthood, is characterized by the appearance in a teenager of treating himself not as a child, but as an adult. The main indicators of a sense of adulthood are:

o manifestation of the need for respect, trust, recognition of independence;

the desire to protect some areas of your life from adult interference;

o having one’s own line of behavior, despite the disagreement of adults or peers.

Adolescence

Adolescence is one of the most confused and contradictory in psychological and pedagogical ideas and theories. The confusion and contradictory nature of ideas can be explained (like adolescence) by the evolving nature of age itself in the history of civilization. According to the hypothesis of D.B. Elkonin (1996) about the historical content of childhood, both adolescence and youth are historically young and therefore have not acquired their cultural and historical form and development mechanisms. As a result, a researcher describing a given age period is forced to speak either in the language of a project (“What is it, the “ideal” youthful age?”), or to describe all the variety of paths of change that the “observed” boys and girls go through. In other words, the object of research itself is historically young and has not yet acquired its cultural and historical form.

That is why ideas about adolescence and adolescence are not based on the results of scientific research, but only reflect the existing system of education and training, i.e. determined by educational institutions (D.B. Elkonin, 1971; L.S. Vygotsky, 1984; A.A. Markosyan, 1974; L.I. Bozhovich, 1995; D.I. Feldshtein, 1996, etc.).”

In Soviet psychology Elkonin D.B. considered the importance of communication in adolescence and high school age from the position of cultural-historical theory. Elkonin noted that in adolescence, communication is the leading activity, but even in adolescence it does not lose its importance. Thanks to communication, guys build relationships and get involved in different kinds activities.

Elkonin calls the period from 11 to 17 years “adolescent”, dividing it into two phases. Elkonin considers the leading activity of 11-15 year olds (middle school age) to be communication in a system of socially useful activities, including such collectively performed forms as social-organizational, sports, artistic and labor. Within this activity, adolescents master the ability to build communication depending on various tasks and requirements of life, the ability to navigate personal characteristics in the qualities of other people, the ability to consciously obey the norms accepted in the team. For 15-17 year olds (senior school age), educational and professional activity becomes the leading activity (although communication still remains leading), thanks to which high school students develop certain cognitive and professional interests, elements of research skills, the ability to make life plans and develop moral ideals, self-awareness.

This periodization is normative and expresses, first of all, the departmental point of view of the school, describing what a high school student should do. The inner world of the individual, her freedom, extracurricular activities, initiative (and not just the ability to “obey norms”), friendship, love fall out of her as something insignificant, secondary, although the above is very significant at this age and affects the further development of the individual. But, along with this, the inner world of the individual, extracurricular activities, friendship, love fall out, in this concept, as something unimportant.

Despite the established ideas about high school students as people who are completely focused on the future, one can find a lot of evidence of their absorption in the present. Even self-determination, although directed with all its goals, expectations, hopes into the future, is still carried out as self-determination in the present - in the practice of living reality and in relation to current events. From these positions, the importance of communication should also be assessed - an activity that occupies a huge place in the lives of adolescents and high school students and is of independent value to them.

List of used literature

1. Elkonin D.B. Selected psychological works. Moscow, 1989

2. Elkonin B.D. Developmental psychology: Tutorial for Universities 2007, Academy IC Series “Higher Professional Education”

3. Obukhova L.F., Doctor of Psychological Sciences. Child (age) psychology. Textbook. Moscow, Russian Pedagogical Agency. 1996

4. Elkonin B.D. Introduction to developmental psychology Moscow, 1995.