The problem of periodization of development. The problem of periodization of mental development in childhood. Age structure includes

The designer must have certain knowledge, skills and design abilities, which must be aimed at creating a specific design. Ultimately, the created structure must meet all the requirements that were imposed on it at the beginning of the design. In addition, the designer must have qualities that contribute to the creative process.

Knowledge is a system of concepts acquired by a person. The volume and quality of knowledge required by the designer are determined by his qualification characteristics and are divided into two groups.

The first group includes general knowledge that is necessary for the design of any machines. This includes the entire complex of polytechnic knowledge that underlies the qualifications of an engineer: for example, strength of materials, theoretical mechanics, machine parts, metallurgy, etc.

The second group includes special knowledge associated with the specific operating conditions of the designed machine. This includes knowledge of the technological, design and operational features of the industry to which the new product belongs.

When designing machinery and equipment for the food industry, for example, it is necessary to know technical techniques and devices for ensuring hygienic requirements for manufactured products; when designing aircraft - techniques for ensuring minimum weight and maximum reliability, etc. In addition, it is required to know the basic standard designs of the industry, characterizing the existing level of technology and directions for future development. This group of knowledge also includes knowledge of the specific capabilities of production producing a new product.

If the general knowledge of a design engineer is universal and can be applied in any branch of production, then specialized knowledge are lost when moving to work in another industry and others design organizations. In this case, retraining of the designer is required to meet the new working conditions.

Design skills and abilities are based on knowledge and are formed in the process of practical activity. Knowledge and understanding of their work, the correct methodology for performing it, allow the designer to acquire those personality qualities that lead to mastery and success. A skill is the ability, in the process of purposeful activity, to perform the particular actions that comprise it automatically, without special attention directed to them. Skill is a person’s ability to perform their work productively, with the proper quality and at the appropriate time.

After designing certain parts of machines, mechanisms and products, when performing them again, the designer usually copes with his tasks much faster and with less mental stress. Thus, knowledge, skill and ability contribute to the design process. However, in addition to these qualities, the designer must have certain professional abilities, which are revealed during the design process and contribute to the successful creation of new machines. Professional abilities are a set of fairly stable, although, of course, changing under the influence of education of individual psychological qualities of a person’s personality. The following professional abilities are most important for a designer.

Technical thinking- the ability to use the entire complex of polytechnic knowledge to understand the essence of technical systems and quickly navigate all technical issues. Developed technical thinking allows you to quickly understand the operating principle of previously unknown machines and its individual components and mechanisms, to navigate general scheme and in the interaction of parts of the structure. Technical thinking allows us to perceive any machine as a synthesis of functional units, determine its purpose and find the causes of malfunctions.

Spatial imagination is of decisive importance in the work of the designer. The ability of spatial imagination allows you to draw up and read drawings. The simplest case of using spatial imagination is the compilation of orthogonal projections of a real spatial product. The designer solves a similar problem when drawing up drawings of parts of operating machines for carrying out repair work and restoring worn out and failed parts. In the process of designing new products, the designer makes drawings of parts and assemblies that do not really exist, but are imagined by him. Imagining a complex machine, mechanism and assembly located in space requires constant training and some experience. The designer must imagine the coordinates of the location of these mechanisms and components and their kinematic and design connections. Errors are often made in the design of the machine due to

with a lack of space for the extreme positions of mechanisms or the inability to assemble parts and mechanisms inside cramped housings. These errors are caused by a lack of spatial imagination.

Spatial imagination is necessary for reading drawings, when from flat projections it is necessary to imagine a spatial body with all the features of its structure and shape. Like any ability, spatial imagination can be improved by a person through practical exercises. This is achieved by solving descriptive geometry problems and studying drawings of various structures. As practice shows, not all people can develop spatial imagination to the degree required by a designer, so testing for spatial imagination is a limiting test when determining the professional suitability of designers.

Creative abilities allow the designer to create new, original machines. When solving a given problem, the designer can go in two ways: 1) apply known standard solutions, generally accepted schemes; 2) solve the problem creatively, strive to complete all design elements in a new, original way. These directions determine the work of the designer, on the one hand, as a technical worker performing pre-developed technical diagrams, and on the other hand, as a creative worker who creates new designs at the inventive level.

Predominance creativity among designers it is often caused not only by the volume of acquired knowledge and accumulated experience, but also by the peculiarity of their personality. Such workers are especially valuable for developing technical specifications and in the initial stages of design or in cases where the task at hand requires an innovative, non-standard solution. However, creative individuals are the least likely to take real conditions and limitations into account. Valuing theoretical and aesthetic aspects, they do not always take into account economic and social ones. They work enthusiastically at the stage of creating design principles and solving fundamental development issues. When these issues are basically resolved, their interest in them sharply decreases. If designers with a strong creative personality have to solve design work issues that are routine in nature, they are performed carelessly and negligently. As a result, the design may turn out to be of poor quality and inoperable, despite its originality and progressive design.

The lack of strong creative abilities does not mean that a designer cannot develop products. With knowledge of the typical structural elements of machines, standards and design methods, he can develop new equipment of medium complexity and work under the control of a more capable specialist. The bulk of a designer’s work cannot be called creative. The development of working documentation is painstaking work, in which the designers and performers are most valued. In addition to the considered abilities, which allow us to evaluate the business qualities and creative potential of the designer, there are a number of characteristics of a creative personality that influence the quantitative and qualitative indicators of the work performed.

Ingenuity is one of the types of creative abilities; it is the ability to create new technical solutions that are useful in each specific case. Ingenuity is promoted by a sense of the new, directed work towards a fundamentally new solution to a problem. Ingenuity is especially highly effective in combination with the creative activity of the employee.

Willingness to accept the new, unusual - the ability to analyze, select and use new things in development, and not be afraid to abandon old, familiar technical solutions.

there is formal and sometimes unfounded criticism from the developer’s managers.

Speed ​​of thought process ensures productivity of mental activity.

Flexibility of thinking characterizes a productive switching of the thought process to other problems and does not damage previously resolved issues.

Ability to direct attention to solve the main problems. Attention is the direction of mental activity in a certain direction related to the work being performed. The more interest is shown in the work being performed, the less effort is required to concentrate on it.

Ability to Observe- the ability to pay attention to what is associated with achieving a goal. Identifying the main, essential aspects of an object of research and assessing its usefulness makes it possible to develop technical solutions based on them and apply these observations in new developments.

Developed professional memory, its large capacity allows you to quickly solve design problems. In the economical use of memory, the organization of the memorization process is important. To relieve memory, it is advisable to use card indexes of solutions of interest, make data records, sketches of layouts, design solutions, and diagrams.

Ability to conduct engineering analysis means the ability to break down a structure element by element into individual parts, a process into individual operations and movements for their detailed study. Engineering analysis allows you to evaluate options and compare them.

Maturity of judgment- the ability to think logically and make sound decisions. Maturity of judgment is characterized by the ability to see the future and correctly use the data obtained.

Decision making skills- skillfully use the results of engineering analysis and choose a design with optimal performance.

Having your own point of view- developing the habit of creating your own version or your own assessment of the issue in all issues that you encounter, even when the situation does not require it. The point of view developed must be based on objective data.

Table 7.1 Signs that determine the creative contribution of the designer

Ability to express one's thoughts correctly and is clear in both written and oral form. This is associated with the ability to make logical generalizations, with the ability to take necessary notes and take part in discussions, as well as report on the results of their work.

The designer's initiative speaks of the ability to force oneself to work and refuse easy ways in resolving issues if this entails a deterioration in quality. Initiative is evidenced by the fact that in order to create a better design of the product, the designer solves issues not covered by the technical specifications.

Willingness to work hard speaks of the designer’s ability to devote himself entirely to solving a specific issue. Willingness to work develops into an inclination to work, to passion. This readiness helps resolve all issues to the end.

Broad outlook designer means that he has fundamental knowledge not only of his specialization, but also of many issues related to this specialization. As a rule, a wide range of interests provides a broad outlook.

Discipline characterizes the accuracy of the design instructions carried out by the designer, his diligence and hard work. The criteria for determining the creative contribution of designers in developments are signs (Table 7.1).

Response Plan:

The concept of periodization. 1

Classifications of periodization. 1

The problem of periodization mental development from the point of view of the activity approach 6

Age periodization of adult development phases: 7

The concept of periodization.

Mental development is a process that unfolds over time and is characterized by both quantitative and qualitative changes.

Periodization - division life cycle for certain periods or age stages.

Dividing the life path into periods allows us to better understand the patterns of development and the specifics of individual age stages. The content (and name) of periods, their time boundaries are determined by the ideas of the author of the periodization about the most important, essential aspects of development. There are many different classifications, but there is no single generally accepted one.

Classifications of periodization.

L.S. Vygotsky distinguished 3 groups of periodization: according to external criteria, according to one and several signs of development.

For group 1, periodization is based on an external, but related to the development process, criterion. Stern's periodization, created according to the biogenetic principle (ontogenesis in a brief and condensed form repeats phylogeny, so the process individual development corresponds to the main periods of biological evolution and historical development humanity). Rene Zazzo (the stages of childhood coincide with the stages of the system of raising and educating children).

In group 2, not an external, but an internal criterion is used - any one aspect of development. The development of bone tissue in P.P. Blonsky and the development of childhood sexuality in Z. Freud. The development of leading activity in A.N. Leontiev, which determines the most important changes in mental processes and psychological characteristics personality of the child at this stage of development.

Periodizations based on one characteristic are subjective: the authors arbitrarily select one of many aspects of development. In addition, they do not take into account the change in the role of the selected characteristic in general development throughout life, and the meaning of any sign changes with the transition from age to age.

Today, it has been experimentally established that in groups with different levels of development, the leaders, temporarily or permanently, are types of activities that differ greatly in content, intensity and social value. This constantly blurs the idea of ​​the “leading type of activity” as the basis for the periodization of personality development.

The personality-forming principle at each age stage becomes a complex of interdependent activities, and not the dominance of one type of activity, primarily responsible for the successful achievement of development goals. Meanwhile, for each individual, as a result of psychological analysis, a leading type of activity inherent in him can be identified, which allows him to be distinguished from many others.

In the 3rd group of periodizations, an attempt was made to distinguish periods of development based on the essential features of this development. This is the periodization of L.S. Vygotsky and D.B. Elkonin. They use 3 criteria: social situation of development, leading activity and central age-related neoplasm.

Thus, Vygotsky considered mental neoplasms characteristic of a specific stage of development as a criterion for age periodization.

Age periodization of L.S. Vygotsky has the following form:

Neonatal crisis - infancy (2 months - 1 year);

Crisis of 1 year – early childhood (1 – 3 years) – crisis of 3 years;

Preschool age (3 – 7 years);

Crisis 7 years - school age (8 - 12 years);

Crisis of 13 years - puberty (14 - 17 years) - crisis of 17 years.

Basic provisions: the existence of stable and crisis stages of development.

D.B. Elkonin formulates the law of periodicity as follows: “A child approaches each point in his development with a certain discrepancy between what he has learned from the system of person-person relations and what he has learned from the system of person-object relations. 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.” Each age is characterized by its own social development situation; leading activity in which the motivational-need or intellectual sphere of the individual primarily develops; age-related neoplasms that form at the end of the period, among which the central one stands out, the most significant for subsequent development. The boundaries of ages are crises - turning points in the development of a child. Periodization by D.B. Elkonin is the most common in domestic psychology.

The periodization proposed by D.B. Elkonin includes 7 periods:

1. infancy (from birth to 1 year)

2. earlier childhood (from 1 year to 3 years)

3. junior and middle preschool age(from 3 to 5 years)

4. senior preschool age (5 – 7 years)

5. junior school age (7 -11 years)

6. adolescence (11 – 14 years)

7. early adolescence (14 – 17 years old)

Each of these stages requires its own style of communication, the use of special methods and techniques of training and education. It is traditional to divide the process child development in 4 stages:

Preschool childhood;

Junior school age (6 – 11 years);

Middle, teenage (11 – 15 years old);

Senior school student (15 – 17 years old).

A.V.Petrovsky in 1984 A psychological concept of age-based periodization of personality development was proposed, which is determined by the type of activity-mediated relationships of the individual with the groups that are the most reference for him. For each age period, they were allocated 3 phases of entering the reference community: adaptation, individualization, integration, in which development and restructuring of the personality structure occur.

These classifications mainly describe the stages of childhood development and, as a rule, end with adolescence or high school age.

E. Erikson traced the holistic life path personality, from birth to old age. Personal development in its content is determined by what society expects from a person, what values ​​and ideals it offers him, what tasks it sets for him at different age stages. But the sequence of stages of development depends on the biological origin. A personality, maturing, goes through a number of successive stages. At each stage, it acquires a certain quality (personal new formation), which is fixed in the personality structure and preserved in subsequent periods of life. Crises are inherent in all age stages; these are “turning points”, moments of choice between progress and regression.

everyone personal quality, which appears at a certain age, contains a deep attitude towards the world and oneself. This attitude can be positive, associated with progressive development personality, and negative, causing negative changes in development, its regression. You have to choose one of two polar relationships - trust or distrust in the world, initiative or passivity, competence or inferiority, etc. When the choice is made and the corresponding personality quality is fixed, say, positive, the opposite pole of the attitude continues to exist latently, and can appear much later, when the person is faced with a serious setback in life.

Periods of development

Period Infant Early childhood Preschool School

Leading activity Emotional communication Subject activity Game activity Educational activity

Psychodynamic periodization of mental development

Z. Freud oral anal phallic genital

E. Erikson Trust versus closedness Autonomy versus dependence Initiative versus guilt Hard work versus feelings of inferiority

E. Bern, Litvak You +/- I +/- They +/- Labor +/-

V. Shuts accession control openness

Periodization of cognitive development

Stages of development according to Piaget Sensorimotor Preoperational Concrete operations Formal operations

Type of thinking Subject - actionable Visual - figurative Theoretical or abstract (verbal-conceptual)

Type of reflection Concrete - sensual Abstract - generalized

Components of mental strategy Extraversion/

introversion Rationality/

irrationality Ethics/

(left hemisphere) Sensory/

Intuition

(right hemisphere)

V.S. Lazarev “Problems of understanding mental development in the cultural-historical theory of activity.” Questions of psychology. 1999. No. 3. p.18 – 27

The problem of periodization of mental development from the point of view of the activity approach

Understanding driving forces and mechanisms of mental development leads to the identification in the theory of activity of qualitatively unique periods of this development, the criterion for identifying which is a change in the type of leading activity. The concept of “leading activity” was introduced by A.N. Leontiev as such activity, “in connection with which the most important changes occur in the child’s psyche and within which mental processes develop that prepare the child’s transition to a new, higher stage of his development.” The currently existing periodizations of mental development, built on the basis of the principle of leading activity by D.B. Elkonin and V.V. Davydov, indicate the productivity of this principle as applied to initial periods human life. However, as we move toward older ages, questions arise that, based on this principle, become increasingly difficult to answer or cannot be answered at all.

Let's take the period when work becomes the leading activity for a person. This is a large part of life in which a person continues to change qualitatively. Starting a family, becoming a parent, raising children and then grandchildren, doing social work, a person at the same time labor activity carries out other types of activities and changes in them. Either we will have to, following the principle of leading activity, argue that only those changes that occur in connection with work activity are important, and the rest are not important, or we will admit that the principle used turns out to be insufficient for constructing a detailed periodization, at least after entering adulthood.

The presence of a leading activity does not mean that all other activities are not important for development. As a person grows up, the system of his activities becomes more and more diverse. New formations are formed not only in leading activities, but also in other activities.

Consistently implementing the activity approach, we must consider not just the replacement of one leading activity by another, but the development of a system of activities. Leading activity is the central formation of this system. But while maintaining the same leading activity, the system can change qualitatively due to the formation and development of its new components or the emergence of new connections in the structure of the system.

Thus, the criterion for periodization should be qualitative change systems of human activities. In the early periods of development, when this system is not developed and, in fact, coincides with the leading activity, the periodization built on the proposed principle will coincide with its existing variants, and at older ages it will be different.

Ananyev B.G. “On the problems of modern human knowledge” St. Petersburg. 2001.

Age periodization of adult development phases:

The accumulation of scientific data (experimental, biographical, demographic) about individual phases of an adult’s life contributed to the construction of various comparative characteristics these phases and the identification of some general principles of periodization of the human life cycle, with the help of which mature changes were delimited from youth, on the one hand, and old age, on the other. Some Soviet anthropologists call the beginning of maturity youth. For example, according to V.V. Ginzburg, this period for men covers the time from 16–18 to 22–24 years, for women – from 15–16 to 18–22 years. V.V. Bunak believes that early youth is limited to 17–20 years, and late youth covers the period from 20 to 25 years. Foreign scientists also have different opinions: D.B. Bromley calls early adulthood the period from 21 to 25 years, D. Birren combines youth and early adulthood into one general period– from 17 to 25 years old.

The characteristics and time boundaries of middle age or middle adulthood are even more uncertain: from 20 to 35 years (D. Wexler), 25 – 40 (D.B. Bromley), 25 – 50 (D. Birren), 36 – 60 (according to international age classification). Birren designates the entire range of development between youth and old age as periods of maturity; D. Bromley - as periods of adulthood, in V.V. Ginzburg and V.V. Bunak the early period is called maturity and adulthood, and the late period (40 - 55 years) - maturity. The German anthropologist G. Grimm does not divide adulthood into separate periods and calls this entire range of life phases working age, as is customary in demography.

In the process of ontogenesis, a number of successive periods are empirically distinguished, qualitatively different in terms of the structure, functioning and correlation of various mental processes and characterized by special personal formations. Therefore, the search for the scientific basis for the periodization of a child’s mental development acts as a fundamental problem of domestic developmental psychology, on the development of which the strategy for building an integral system of educating growing people largely depends.

The problem of periodization of mental development has been repeatedly discussed in foreign developmental psychology. In his works D.I. Feldshtein gives detailed analysis foreign periodizations of mental development - E. Erikson, E. Spranger, G. Sullivan, etc., pointing out that these concepts differ primarily in accordance with the different criteria that underlie them. In some cases, the boundaries of age periods were identified based on the existing system of educational institutions, in others - in accordance with “crisis” periods in the development of the child, and thirdly - in accordance with the anatomical and physiological characteristics characterizing this development. A significant group of periodizations of mental development was built on the basis of isolating any one sign of child development as a conditional criterion for dividing it into separate periods. Thus, 3. Freud, considering the development of a child only through the prism of his puberty, identified in this regard the stages - oral, anal, phallic, latent, genital, corresponding to asexual, neutral-sex, bisexual and sexual childhood. G. Sullivan created a periodization of age-related development by analogy with Freud: like Freud, the source of a child’s development is a certain primary need that is irreducible to others, but, unlike him, the need for interpersonal relationships is accepted as such.

E. Spranger divided the psyche into the physical and spiritual spheres and attributed to each of them an independent existence from each other. L. Kohlberg based periodization on the genesis of moral consciousness, which appears not simply assimilation external rules behavior, but a process of transformation and internal reorganization of the norms and rules imposed by society. As a result of “moral development”, internal moral standards are formed. A. Gesell made an attempt to organize the accumulated empirical material in the operational concept of development according to the criterion of “degree of adulthood.” By measuring the degree of adulthood, A. Gesell sought to overcome the dualism of the organism and the environment. Trying to identify alternating scales of development - renewal, integration, balance - A. Gesell, while recognizing the fact of cultural influences, denied their determining nature for the process of personality development. Culture, in his opinion, models and channels, but does not generate stages and trends of development.

The most famous and widespread in foreign psychology is the periodization of E. Erikson, who was the first to characterize the stages of the entire life cycle from birth to old age. With the undoubted value of highlighting in this periodization of neoplasms that appear the most important characteristics separate periods of childhood, E. Erikson considers them separately from each other (each stage, according to him, arises independently of the neoplasms of the previous stages), without defining the driving forces of psycho social development personality, specific mechanisms that connect the development of the individual and the development of society. The most important link that L. S. Vygotsky designated as the “social situation of development” falls out of his periodization. And since the mechanism of the connection between the development of society and the individual turns out to be undiscovered, it remains to explain it by predetermination, which is what E. Erikson does.

As D.I. Feldstein points out, all these attempts to classify periods of ontogenesis have not received sufficient confirmation in the specific results of studying the mental development of children, although among those scientists who worked on constructing a periodization of mental development were prominent psychologists.

An analysis of classification schemes for the periodization of child development shows that in order to improve the educational process aimed at the harmonious development of the individual, it was necessary to create a scientific theory of its construction, based on the study of the internal essence of ontogenesis, 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 a child’s personality” (L. S. Vygotsky). Ideas L.S. Vygotsky and A.I. Leontiev served as support for D.B. Elkonin, who managed to create a scientifically productive concept of periodization of mental development of the individual, generally accepted in Russian psychology.

The cornerstone of the scientific basis of the concept of periodization of mental development, generally accepted in Russian psychology, was the teaching of L. S. Vygotsky about age, its structure and dynamics. This doctrine made it possible to consider development as internally determined, that is, determined not by a random set of external circumstances, but by internal contradictions. L. S. Vygotsky wrote that only internal changes in development itself, only fractures and turns in its course can provide a reliable basis for determining the main eras in the construction of a child’s personality. When creating principles for constructing a periodization of development, in the author’s opinion, it is necessary to take into account the dynamics of the transition from one age to another, when “smooth” evolutionary periods are replaced by “jumps” and “interruptions of gradualness”.

As L. S. Vygotsky pointed out, age-related changes here can occur either abruptly, critically, or gradually, smoothly, lytically. During lytic periods, there are no sharp fundamental shifts and changes for a long time. Changes accumulate slowly, then a jump occurs, and an age-related neoplasm is detected. The results of the turning point changes in personal characteristics clearly appear only when comparing the characteristics of children at the beginning and at the end of the age stage.

Critical age periods are distinguished by the fact that over a relatively short period of time, pronounced psychological changes and changes in the child’s personality occur. Development takes on the rapid character of a revolutionary process. The main features of such periods:

> unclear beginning and end of the crisis;

> the emergence of difficulties in raising children. They are that “every child at this age becomes relatively difficult to educate compared to himself at an adjacent stable age.”

Alternating with stable lytic periods, critical periods are turning points in development, confirming that the child’s development occurs according to dialectical laws. The emergence of something new in development is always associated with the death of elements of the old. However, the significance of critical periods lies not only in a certain concentration of dying processes - constructive work and positive changes always take place here; It is they who constitute the main meaning of each critical period.

In addition to L. S. Vygotsky’s teaching on age, the concept of periodization of mental development created by D. B. Elkonin was based on such provisions and principles generally accepted in Russian developmental psychology as a specific historical understanding of the nature of childhood, taking into account the socio-historical conditions of the child’s development, and also recognition of the role of leading activity in mental development. D. B. Elkonin finds a theoretical and methodological solution to the question of the basis for distinguishing ages and their dynamics within the framework of the theory of activity, with its consideration social nature the psyche and activity of the child, the social nature of his connections both with other people and with physical objects. All activities develop within the framework of the “child in society” system, the subsystems of which are “child - thing” and “child - adult”. What exactly is their manifestation? social character? The “child - thing” subsystem is in fact the “child - social object” subsystem. Socially developed ways of acting with an object are not given directly, as some physical characteristics of things. Therefore, a special process of the child’s assimilation of social ways of acting with objects becomes internally necessary. This “naturally leads him to an adult as the bearer of social tasks of activity.”

In the “child - adult” subsystem, the adult appears to the child not from the side of random and individual qualities, but as a carrier certain types activity that is social in nature. “There is reason to assume that children’s assimilation of tasks, motives and norms of relationships that exist in the activities of adults is carried out through the reproduction or modeling of these relationships in children’s own activities, in their communities, groups and teams.” Thus, the “child - adult” system turns, according to D. B. Elkonin, into the “child - social adult” system. An adult carries out certain tasks in an activity that is social in nature, enters into various relationships with other people and is himself subject to certain norms. Children learn these tasks, motives and norms of relationships that exist in the activities of adults through reproducing or modeling them in their own activities (for example, in role-playing play 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 substantive actions."

D. B. Elkonin showed 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, which is uniform in nature, of a child’s life in society, in the course of historical development bifurcates, splits into two sides.”

D. B. Elkonin discovered the law of alternation, periodicity of different types of activity: activity of one type, orientation in the system of relations, is followed by activity of another type, in which orientation occurs in the ways of using objects. Each time, contradictions arise between these two types of orientation. They become the cause of development. Each era of child development is built on one principle. It opens with an 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 intelligence has risen to a certain level, there can be no new motives.

The law of alternation and periodicity in childhood development allows us to re-present periods (epochs) in the stage of ontogenesis of the psyche (see: Table 1 - given according to).

D. B. Elkonin’s hypothesis, taking into account the law of periodicity in child development, explains in a new way the content of developmental crises. 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.

In the concept of D. B. Elkonin, one of the serious shortcomings of foreign psychology is overcome, 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 and artificial. In fact, human action is two-faced: it actually contains human meaning and the operational side. Strictly speaking, in human world there is no world of physical objects; the world of social objects, satisfying socially formed needs in a certain socially developed way, reigns supreme there. 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.

However, according to D. I. Feldstein, the pathos of D. B. Elkonin’s theory is not at all in the fact that it emphasizes the incorrectness of the absolute opposition of the child’s relationship to people and to objects and indicates the social nature of both relationships - all these are just necessary, introductory provisions D. B. Elkonin, leading to the real, original core of his concept. The essence of D. B. Elkonin’s position is that he offers, albeit not an exhaustive, but a constructive solution, based on which it turns out to be possible to build a logically complete concept of periodization, its internal driving forces within the framework of the theory of activity, a solution to the problem of the relationship between the subsystems “child - thing” and “child - adult”.

D. B. Elkonin, using a large amount of experimental material, determined the age limits of individual periods. Clearly distinguishable crisis transitions between them are shown. It is assumed that they are associated with a change in individual leading activities. It is further assumed that this change is explained by the self-propulsion of activity and the presence of internal contradictions in it. Developing the ideas of A. Vallon, who pointed out that “the transition from one stage of a child’s development to another is the result of the fact that the activity that predominates at the first stage becomes secondary and, perhaps, even disappears completely at the next,” D. B. Elkonin He saw his task as concretely demonstrating what exactly the content of the movement of activity consists of. Within the system of leading activity, D. B. Elkonin discovers a hidden (coming to the surface only during the period of so-called psychological crises) dialectical contradiction between two aspects of leading activity - operational-technical (intellectual-structural, as J. Piaget would say), related to development subsystem “child - thing”, and emotional and motivational, associated with the development of the subsystem “child - adult”. Accordingly, in the general sequence of leading activities, activities with preferential development of one side or the other alternate alternately. D. B. Elkonin writes about this, pointing out that he formulates a hypothesis about the periodicity of mental development processes, which consists in the naturally repeating replacement of some periods by others. Periods in which there is a predominant development of the motivational-need sphere are naturally followed by periods in which the predominant formation of the operational and technical capabilities of children occurs, and vice versa.

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 new formations 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 research various stages ontogenesis carried out in the last 20 years.

The core principles of D. B. Elkonin’s periodization, its main provisions served as the basis for further research into the process of personality development of growing people, determining the direction of new searches, in particular, to reveal the contradictions that ensure the movement of activity, identifying the nature of development individual species activities at different age stages of personality development. These studies helped D.I. Feldstein develop the idea of ​​L.S. Vygotsky and D.B. Elkonin about the patterns of personality development in ontogenesis, give them a modern sound and create on their basis a concept of patterns of level-by-level social development of the personality in ontogenesis.

According to this concept, a purposeful consideration as an object of research of the characteristics of the social development of children, the conditions for the formation of their social maturity and the analysis of its formation at different stages of modern childhood allowed the author to isolate two main types of really existing positions of the child in relation to society, conventionally called by us “I am in society" and "Me and society".

The first position, where the emphasis is on oneself, reflects the child’s desire to understand his Self - what I am and what I can do. The second concerns the subject’s self-awareness public relations. It is significant that both of these positions are clearly associated with certain stages of childhood development - stages, periods, stages, phases, fixing the corresponding position of a growing person in relation to social reality, his ability to be included in activities and develop in it. It is precisely depending on the nature and content of the activity, the predominant development of one or another aspect of it that the child’s relationships to objective influences, to other people and to himself are most actively developed, integrating into a certain social position.

The subject-practical side of the activity, in the process of which the child’s socialization occurs - the development of social experience through the development of tools, signs, symbols, the mastery of socially fixed actions, their social essence, the development of ways of handling objects when assessing one’s actions, the ability to look closely at oneself, to try on oneself to the environment, reflection on one’s actions and behavior, is associated with the affirmation of the position of the Self among others - “I am in society.”

The formation of a qualitatively different social position “I and society” is associated with the actualization of activities aimed at mastering the norms of human relationships, ensuring the implementation of the individualization process. The child strives to express himself, to highlight his I, to oppose himself to others, to express his own position in relation to other people, having received from them recognition of his independence, taking active place in a variety of social relations, where his Self acts on an equal basis with others, which ensures the development of a new level of self-awareness of himself in society, socially responsible self-determination.

In other words, the development of a certain position of the child in relation to people and things leads him to the possibility and necessity of realizing the accumulated social experience in such activities that most adequately meet general level mental and personal development. Thus, the position “I am in society” develops especially actively during periods early childhood(from 1 year to 3 years), junior school (from 6 to 9 years) and senior school (from 5 to 17 years) ages, when the subject-practical side of activity is updated. The position “I and society,” the roots of which go back to the infant’s orientation toward social contacts, is most actively formed in preschool (from 3 to 6 years) and adolescence (from 10 to 15 years) when the norms of human relationships are especially intensively absorbed. Identification and disclosure of the characteristics of the child’s different positions in relation to society made it possible to identify two types of naturally occurring boundaries of the social development of the individual, designated by the author as intermediate and key.

The intermediate stage of development - the result of the accumulation of elements of socialization - individualization - refers to the child’s transition from one period of ontogenesis to another (at 1 year, 6 and 15 years). The nodal turning point represents qualitative shifts in social development, carried out through the development of personality; it is associated with a new stage of ontogenesis (at 3 years, 10 and 17 years). The named types of boundaries fix the level of social position achieved by a growing person, emphasizing the certain nature of this position, which forms the “flatness” necessary for further development personality.

In the social position that develops at the intermediate stage of development (it is this that is designated by the author with the formula “I am in society”), the need of the developing personality to integrate oneself into society is realized - from considering oneself among others, striving to be like others, to establishing oneself among others, self-realization. At a key turning point in development, when a social position is formed, denoted by the author with the formula “I and society”, the need of a growing person to determine his place in society is realized, public recognition- from the consciousness of the presence of one’s Self in a system of equal relations with other people.

And intermediate and key boundaries arise in the process of social development more than once - they, naturally alternating, follow one after another. However, when maintaining general and principles, similar milestones differ qualitatively at different levels of personality development in terms of capacity and content, unfolding in appropriate forms, i.e., there is a process of constant saturation of children’s social positions.

The concept of D. I. Feldshtein has great importance For modern development teaching about age, since it allows not only to reveal the functional load of each stage of development, but also to trace, according to certain parameters, the content and complexity of the content of the process of personal development throughout the vast distance of growing up. Author of the concept, solving the problem of identification and assessment different levels formation of personality through the prism of social development, approached the construction of a holistic theoretical model of social-normative periodization of development, fixing the features of the formation of a socially responsible position of a growing person, his motivational-need sphere at different phases, periods and stages of ontogenesis - from self-distinction through self-affirmation to self-determination and self-realization .

Test questions

1. What is the essence and significance of L. S. Vygotsky’s teaching about age for the development of developmental psychology? .

2. What are the characteristics of the main components of the age structure? .

). What are the ideas of A. N. Leontyev, D. B. Elkonin, P. Ya. Galperin and D. I. Feldshtein about the role of leading activity in the development of a child? Explain each scientist's point of view in detail.

4. What is the essence of age-related crises, according to L. S. Vygotsky? What are the differences in the interpretation of the psychological content of age-related crises in foreign and domestic psychology? .

5. What leading principles and provisions of Russian developmental psychology formed the basis of D. B. Elkonin’s concept of periodization of mental development? What is the significance of this concept for revealing the most important patterns of mental development of a child? .

6. What is the essence of the concept of level-by-level personality development in D.I. Feldshtein’s ontogenesis and what is its role in understanding the social development of the individual? .

Give definitions of the following concepts

> Psychological age.

> Social development situation.

> Leading type of activity.

> Central neoplasms of age.

> Age crises.

> Periodization of mental development.

> Level-by-level personality development.