Organization of work with young children with developmental disorders
1.Working with young children with disabilities. 3
2.Games and exercises for cognitive development with
correctional and pedagogical work with children with disabilities. 18
Working with young children with disabilities.
If we talk about the characteristics of early childhood, it should be noted that this period is especially important for the development of a child. It is during this period that the child’s development depends solely on the social conditions of his life. A significant number of modern children under 3 years of age are at risk. We are talking about mental, social, neuropsychic problems in development and other features of disabilities. Developmental disorders manifest themselves during the period of intensive formation of higher mental functions and affect the further social adaptation of the child, and therefore the quality of his life as a whole.
For a child with disabilities, the period of early childhood is doubly difficult. The role of vision, hearing, and motor skills in the interpersonal aspect of socialization is very great. The social connection with parents is the first real emotional attachment here and creates in the child an awareness of the importance and need for help in his interaction with the outside world and people. For most, the child’s attachment to his parents and their preference for other people around him are obvious. This can be noticed around the middle of the child's first year, when the relative promiscuity, not based on preferential choice, is replaced by a focus on one or two family members.
Fear of strangers often accompanies the development of attachments to certain people.
Basic patterns of age development.
In order to identify developmental abnormalities in a child as early as possible, it is important not only to have an idea of their causes, but also to know the basic patterns of normal development.
Mental development is carried out under the influence of biological and social factors in their inextricable unity. The relationship between these factors in the formation of various functions is ambiguous. The formation of such vital functions as the regulation of respiration, cardiovascular activity, and digestion is mainly determined by biological factors (genetic development program). The formation of functional systems associated with higher nervous activity is largely determined by the characteristics of the social environment, training and upbringing.
The patterns of brain development and maturation of functional systems determine the continuity of stages of a child’s neuropsychic development. This is determined by an important principle of brain evolution, namely the principle of heterochronicity of its development. The intensive and uneven development of mental functions during these periods causes their increased vulnerability. Uneven maturation manifests itself in partial (partial) developmental delays. For example, with normal mental development, a child may have a satisfactory understanding of speech and a temporary delay in the development of active, spoken speech. Parents usually say about such children: “He understands everything, but doesn’t speak.”
Along with the uneven maturation of individual functional systems and their links, their interaction is important for normal mental development, otherwise the systems will not be fully integrated into a single ensemble, which will lead to specific developmental deviations. Despite the different rates of maturation of each functional system at different stages of a child’s age-related development, his brain works as a single whole at all periods of life, which implies the formation of intersystem connections.
The development of intersystem connections in normal ontogenesis begins in the first months of a child’s life. Then their development is carried out more and more intensively. At the same time, connections with the motor-kinesthetic analyzer are most actively formed: turning the head towards the sound - auditory-motor connections, manipulations with a toy - visual-tactile-kinesthetic and visual-tactile-motor, self-imitation of sounds - auditory-vocal. And finally, one of the key functions of the first half of life is developing - hand-eye coordination, which will be improved throughout preschool age.
In a newborn child, along with a set of primary congenital reflexes that provide the vital functions of sucking, swallowing, breathing, and regulation of muscle tone, there is a predominance of the perception of contact irritations. The child responds to various tactile stimuli with a general and local motor reaction. At the same time, his most developed protective reflexes arise when the eyes or mouth are irritated. So, with painful irritation in the eye area, the child closes his eyes, in the area of the corner of the mouth, he turns his head in the opposite direction. In addition, all unconditioned reflexes associated with feeding are well expressed. Suppression or excessive expression of unconditioned reflexes indicate damage to the nervous system.
One of the important indicators of normal psychomotor development and the formation of interfunctional connections is, in particular, the child’s gaze fixation on his hand, which normally occurs at the age of 2–3 months, and then the direction of the hand towards the object. From 12–13 weeks, the child begins to raise his hands to a visual stimulus and direct them towards the object. He also points his hands towards his mouth and watches the movement of his hands. By 4 months, the child develops a reaction of active touch under the control of vision. This is manifested in the fact that after visually concentrating on an object, he directs both hands towards it and begins to move them over this object. At the age of 5–5.5 months, the child begins to grasp objects.
Visual-motor coordination becomes a key function from the 5th month of a child’s life. This manifests itself in the fact that the child reaches for a visible and nearby object, controlling the movements of the hand with his gaze. At this same stage, the child develops visual-tactile-motor connections, which is manifested in the tendency to put a toy in his hand into his mouth.
The development of a three-link connection of the visual-motor-tactile type serves as the basis for the further formation of manipulative and gaming activities.
Based on visual-motor manipulative behavior, active cognitive activity is formed in the child from the second half of life.
Already in the process of observing a young child, one can note those features of his behavior that are characteristic of lagging psychomotor development. In especially severe cases, the child may not show interest in his surroundings at all; or his actions with the object may have the character of stereotypy - long and monotonous repetitions of the same actions: he monotonously knocks the object against the object, swings, waves his hands in front of his eyes, etc. Such behavior is typical for children with various mental development disorders. It can be observed in mentally retarded children, as well as in children suffering from early childhood autism or mental retardation due to emotional deprivation.
The formation and development of a child’s psyche is based on a variety of activities, interaction with the outside world, and above all, with surrounding adults.
If a baby has motor or sensory impairment, then, first of all, the formation of perception of objects in the surrounding world is impaired. The lack of formation of objective actions delays the formation of objective perception. It is known that object actions develop as general motor skills improve under the control of vision. Thus, the child begins to actively manipulate objects if he holds his head well, sits steadily and when his visual perception is intact. Only under these conditions does the visuomotor manipulative behavior described above develop.
As the baby interacts with objects, he develops an active sense of touch and becomes able to recognize an object by touch. This function - stereognosis - is important for the development of cognitive activity. In children with developmental disabilities, especially in the presence of motor and visual impairments, the spontaneous development of this function is impaired, and special correctional classes are needed to develop it.
By 3 months, auditory reactions begin to acquire a dominant character; if you speak to a motor-excited and screaming child or rattle a sounding toy, he freezes and stops screaming. If at the moment the sound stimulus appeared the child was calm or asleep, he shudders.
The absence of auditory responses, their asymmetry, or an excessive latency period may indicate hearing impairment. Such a child urgently needs a special examination - electrocortical audiometry.
It should be borne in mind that the absence or weakness of reactions to sound stimuli is most often due to hearing loss, while the unevenness of reactions to sounds located on different sides may also be due to the behavioral characteristics of adults. So, if an adult always approaches a child’s crib from one side, then turning towards the sound in this direction will appear more clearly. If in these cases you give instructions to parents about the need for verbal contact with the child on the other side, then you can quickly notice the similarity of auditory reactions.
When assessing the auditory function of a child 3–6 months old, attention should be paid to the ability to localize sound in space, selectivity and differentiation of the reaction. Thus, a child at the age of 3 months quickly and accurately turns his head to the source of sound. A child at the age of 5–6 months quickly turns his head to the source of the sound only when his attention is not distracted by other, stronger stimuli, i.e. if at this moment he is not playing with a toy, does not communicate with an adult, etc. Otherwise, the child may not show a reaction to the sound at all or respond to it after a long latent period. This does not indicate a decrease in the level of sound perception, but the development of the function of active attention.
In children with developmental disabilities, reactions to sound may be absent, mild, fragmentary, or pathological. The absence of reactions is observed in deafness or severe hearing loss, as well as in severe mental retardation and sometimes in early childhood autism. A fragmented reaction, when a child perceives a sound stimulus but does not turn towards it, may be due to motor or visual defects. A decrease in the reaction manifests itself in the form of an extension of the latent period and its rapid extinction.
This occurs in inhibited and apathetic children, as well as in early childhood autism. Unlike children with hearing loss who respond only to louder sounds, repeated stimulation is often necessary to elicit a response in these children.
In a child who has suffered a birth injury or asphyxia, especially if he has increased intracranial pressure, the reaction to a sound stimulus is often enhanced and occurs very quickly. Such a child, in response to any sound stimulus, shudders violently, screams, and sometimes his hands and chin tremble. This type of reaction is pathological. Its long-term persistence is typical for children with mental retardation and increased excitability of the nervous system.
The first year of life is of utmost importance in the mental development of a child. The brain develops at the fastest rate. The child, initially helpless, by the end of the first year of life masters standing upright, walking, object-manipulative activities, and an initial understanding of spoken speech.
Already in the first period - the newborn period (0-1 month), along with a set of innate adaptive reactions that play a major role in the life of the body, from the 3-4th week of life it is possible to identify the initial prerequisites for the so-called communicative behavior: in response to When a child receives a gentle voice or a smile, oral attention begins to arise - the child freezes, his lips slightly stretch forward, he seems to “listen” with his lips.
This reaction is followed by a smile. Already in the neonatal period, it can be noted that the child reacts faster to a voice than to a sounding toy.
In the second period (1–3 months), along with the intensive development of reactions to visual and auditory stimuli, emotional reactions to communication with adults are more clearly manifested in the child: the smile stabilizes, and by the end of the period laughter appears. By 3 months, the child begins to develop a pronounced emotional reaction to the appearance of an adult - a “revival complex.” An attempt to make contact with a 10-12 week old baby causes him to become joyfully animated, squealing, throwing up his arms, moving his legs, and vocal reactions. At this age stage, a complex of revival arises at the sight of both a familiar and unfamiliar face.
The timely appearance and good expression of the revitalization complex indicate the normal mental development of the child.
In children who subsequently demonstrate pronounced deviations in mental development, the revitalization complex and other emotional, facial and vocal reactions to all surrounding stimuli are absent. Underdevelopment of individual components of the revitalization complex, for example, movements of the arms or legs (bilateral or unilateral), may indicate damage to the motor sphere; weakness or absence of vocal reactions or a nasal tone of voice are characteristic of damage to the speech-motor muscles, which in the future can lead to speech disorders.
The absence of a revival complex or its paradox, for example the appearance of fear, screaming and other negative emotions, is characteristic of children with emotional disorders - early childhood autism, early childhood nervousness and other disorders.
Since the revitalization complex is formed in close connection with the development of vision and hearing, if these analyzers are defective, it may be absent or appear in a rudimentary form. With congenital blindness or deafness, and especially with a combination of these defects, the revitalization complex is absent at this age stage.
If the damage to the central nervous system is not pronounced, in children who have suffered birth trauma, asphyxia, neonatal jaundice, as well as in premature and immature children, the revival complex appears at a later date. It may also be absent in children raised in conditions of emotional deprivation.
In the third period (3–6 months), the reactions included in the revitalization complex become increasingly differentiated. A child over 4 months old, when an adult approaches him and tries to make contact with him, carefully peers into the adult’s face, opens his eyes and mouth wide, and slows down general movements. Thus, he exhibits an indicative reaction, which in some cases turns into joyful animation, and in others gives way to fear and screaming. It should be noted that the fear reaction at this age stage does not appear in all children. This depends on the individual characteristics of the child, as well as on the conditions of his upbringing and environment. Excessive severity of the fear reaction at this age stage is typical for children with increased nervous excitability and early childhood autism. It may be the first sign of congenital childhood nervousness, mild brain dysfunction, and increased intracranial pressure due to hydrocephalus. It is also common in children with cerebral palsy.
The lack of differentiation of the revitalization complex at this age stage is characteristic of delayed psychomotor development, including due to insufficient communication between adults and the child. Differentiation of the revitalization complex occurs earlier in children raised at home than in children in institutions.
To assess mental development at this age stage, it is important to monitor how the child reacts to the toy. The leading form of activity at this age is toy manipulation.
The child not only fixes his gaze on the toys for a long time and follows their movement, but directs his hands towards them, grabs them, and pulls them into his mouth. This is accompanied by expressive emotional reactions: he either smiles or frowns.
By the end of the period, the nature of visual tracking changes. If previously children followed the object without taking their eyes off, and having let the object out of sight, they did not return to it, then after 5 months the child, watching the object, seems to “feel” it with his gaze; If at the same time his attention is switched to another object (an adult’s face), then after a second he can return to actively examining the toy. The manifestation of this function is a very important indicator of normal neuropsychic development.
During this period, vocal reactions develop intensively and begin to acquire some independence. Along with melodious humming, babbling appears by the end of the period, as well as selectivity and differentiation of reactions to sound and the ability to localize sound in space.
In the development of hand movements, the visual analyzer begins to play a leading role: by the end of the period, the child quickly and accurately directs his hand to a toy located in his field of vision.
At the next fourth stage of development (6–9 months), when a child communicates with an adult, an indicative reaction is clearly manifested, which is replaced by a reaction of joyful animation to familiar faces and a reaction of fear to unfamiliar ones. In some cases, one can observe how the indicative reaction turns into cognitive interest, bypassing the fear reaction.
A distinctive feature of a child’s mental development at this age stage is his readiness to manipulate a toy together with an adult. In addition, by the end of this stage, the child develops the initial elements of communication with an adult using gestures. He stretches out his hands to an adult, indicating that he wants to be held, or reaches out with his hands to a distant object if he wants to receive it.
Deviations from normal age-related development at this stage are: complete indifference to communication with adults (mental retardation, severe mental retardation - autism); a general complex of animation and an imitative smile instead of an indicative reaction and playful manipulation (mental retardation); excessive severity and duration of the fear reaction, turning into a protest reaction and preventing communication (congenital childhood nervousness, autism, hyperexcitability).
To diagnose developmental disorders at this age stage, assessing the child’s reaction to directed speech is important. With normal development, by the end of this stage the child should demonstrate an initial situational understanding of addressed speech, responding with action to verbal instructions. For example, he raises his head and eyes to the lamp when asked: “Where is the light?”, presses his cheek to his mother when asked, “Kiss mom,” etc. By the end of the period, he also learns to play “okay” and looks for a toy hidden in front of his eyes.
The appearance of babbling is natural at this age. When communicating with an adult, after the indicative reaction and fear have been overcome, the child begins to pronounce chains of syllables ba-ba-ba, ma-ma-ma. If the adult begins to respond in kind, the child’s vocal activity increases, joyful animation appears, and the child will try to imitate the adult and himself. By the age of 9 months, babbling flourishes; it is enriched with new sounds, intonations and becomes a constant response to the vocal address of an adult.
In cases of mental retardation, cerebral palsy, autism, deafness, and later severe speech disorders, babbling is absent or appears in a rudimentary form.
The fifth period of age development of a child in the first year of life (9–12 months) is characterized primarily by the emergence of a new type of communication with an adult, namely objective-active. Contact with the child is established and maintained with the help of bright objects and toys that he manipulates reactively. At the same time, he begins to show a selective attitude towards various objects, but he always has a clearly expressed reaction to novelty. A characteristic feature of this stage of development is that the child’s active orienting and exploratory activity begins to suppress the fear reaction to new stimuli.
The revival complex at this age, with normal mental development, naturally fades away. Therefore, its severity, even in a premature and weakened child, is one of the signs of mental retardation.
To diagnose a child’s mental development at this age stage, a comprehensive assessment of emotional reactions is important.
If there is a delay in mental development, the child does not have an adequate reaction to a stranger, there is no interest in toys, the reaction to novelty is not expressed, and there are no cognitive and differentiated emotions. The facial expressions of such children are monotonous, the smile is imitative in nature and appears in response to any smiling face of an adult; they may exhibit an undifferentiated complex of animation and automatic visual tracking.
Children with autism do not develop objective-based communication with adults. With cerebral palsy, expressive facial and vocal reactions are usually absent; due to motor disorders, the child has difficulty grasping a toy and interacting with an adult, but with intact intelligence, adequacy and selectivity of emotional reactions are always observed.
Identifying the child’s reaction to verbal communication is also important for the diagnosis and prognosis of developmental disorders. Starting from 9 months, children with normal hearing and intelligence respond adequately to address, speech, its intonation, respond to their name, respond with action to some familiar phrases like: “open your mouth,” “give me a pen,” etc. By the end of this period, when With the word “no”, most children stop reaching for any object, i.e. the child’s actions begin to more clearly obey verbal commands, which indicates the beginning of the development of the regulatory function of speech. By the age of one year, the child understands simple everyday speech. However, it should be noted that these functions do not develop spontaneously in a child, but only in the process of special classes. Therefore, they may be absent due to pedagogical neglect.
Along with assessing speech understanding, you should also pay attention to the sounds the child makes. The beginning of this stage of development is characterized by active babbling, consisting of 5–6 syllables. The child echolically repeats syllables, copies intonation well, reproduces the melodic scheme of familiar phrases, and enjoys pronouncing various sound combinations with labial sounds, exclamations, and interjections. He accompanies all these sounds with expressive facial expressions and gestures.
By the end of the period, the child pays attention to the speaker’s face more often than before, nods his head as a sign of affirmation and shakes his head as a sign of denial. His vocal communication with adults expands, he expresses emotions of pleasure and displeasure. Most children signal biological needs and express requests through intonation.
A qualitative feature of this period is the beginning of communication between a child and an adult using sound combinations.
Normally, at this stage, for most children, the pre-speech period ends and speech development begins. At the same time, a new interest appears - looking at books with pictures. As a result of special classes, the child learns to recognize familiar objects in pictures, show them according to instructions, and then label them with babbling words. Interest in the rhythms of simple songs also develops.
The development of verbal communication in the specified volume is an indicator of good mental development. If mental development is delayed, a child at this age stage does not understand spoken speech and does not begin to speak on his own. He also does not strive for objective and effective communication with adults. It should be noted that if all the positive components of this age stage are well expressed in a child, and he does not begin to pronounce his own babbling words, then this has no direct diagnostic significance, since the appearance of active speech is characterized by large individual variations.
With normal mental development, by the end of this stage there is a pronounced differentiation of sensory reactions, which can be assessed by observing the child’s play actions.
He joyfully plays hide and seek, rings the bell, attracting the attention of others, plays with his image in the mirror, looks for a hidden object, prefers to use sounding toys, begins to use objects for their intended purpose - drinking from a cup, eating with a spoon, etc.
Thus, there is a need for timely and targeted development of social behavior in children with disabilities, which helps prevent the emergence of emotional, personal, behavioral difficulties, and expand their communicative and social experience. The sooner this happens, the higher the result of the child’s socialization will be.
Developmental education and upbringing of young children with disabilities organizes the process of their socialization, which is carried out as a result of mastering the necessary skills that are vital for the child.
To do this you need to pay attention to:
1. the formation of positive forms of communication and emotionally charged interaction between a child and a close adult. Parents and teachers contribute to the development of the child’s emotional response to the presence of an adult, actions aimed at him, and emotional communication;
2. formation of the image “I myself”: a) ideas about my body. Children are taught to identify parts of the body and face, their functions, first through contact with a person, then through familiarization with various objects, through actions performed with them; b) an idea of your first and last name, the ability to respond to a name, then call it; c) ideas about one’s appearance, conscious visual perception and ways of comparing oneself with others (first in the mirror, then in photographs);
3. formation of ideas about surrounding people (“I and others”). They learn to identify close adults, pay attention to other adults and peers, develop positive interaction skills with adults and peers in the process of joint productive activities;
4. formation of ideas about the surrounding objective world and skills of action in it;
5. formation of ways to assimilate social experience (joint actions, gestures, imitative abilities, the ability to perform actions according to a model and verbal instructions);
6. formation of social behavior skills. The child is included in routine moments, taught to understand the adult’s speech, encouraged to behave adequately (follow simple instructions, obey the rules of the game, exercises, reinforce social behavior skills in different situations);
7. develop self-service, hygiene, household skills (observance of the daily routine, ability to ask for a potty, compliance with sanitary and hygienic standards)
At each stage, the continuity of the tasks of training and education, as well as the final achievements of the child, is observed.
5. Features of the socialization of a child in a preschool educational institution
An important stage in the socialization of a young child with disabilities is his admission to a preschool institution. Preschool is a significant stage in the socialization of a child’s personality. A child with disabilities who is integrated into the educational environment and receives correctional assistance can be raised in a group together with normally developing children.
At the moment, not all institutions are ready to accept children with similar problems, but not all children with disabilities are often ready to be immediately included in a children's team.
6. Individual socialization programs for young children
This program is a list of activities aimed at restoring the abilities of a child with disabilities for everyday, age-related and educational activities in accordance with the structure of his needs, range of interests, level of aspirations, etc.
A normally developing baby actively strives for new experiences, loves to observe his surroundings, quickly discovers new things, strives to immediately explore them, and participates with interest in the games offered by adults. Such knowledge captivates the baby, arouses his interest, curiosity, surprise, and the joy of discovery.
Children with disabilities are deprived of the channels of obtaining information available to their healthy peers: constrained in movement and the use of sensory channels of perception, children cannot master the full variety of human experience that remains out of reach. They are also deprived of the opportunity to carry out practical activities and are limited in play activities, which negatively affects the formation of higher mental functions.
In children with disabilities, the process of learning about the world around them is difficult due to their developmental disorders, and is characterized by a lag behind age norms.
It is early age that is unique and decisive for all subsequent mental, physical, speech and emotional development of the child. This is the period of formation of functional systems, the formation of higher cortical functions as a result of the child’s interaction with the environment, which occurs especially intensively in the first three years of life. During this period, the brain’s ability to receive signals from the outside world, process and store information is improved, the processes of perception, visual-effective and visual-figurative thinking, memory, and attention are formed, which creates the basis for further mental development. Therefore, deviations in motor, mental, speech and emotional development, which manifest themselves at an early age, negatively affecting the further development of the child, causing difficulties in mastering reading, writing and counting, are the cause of the appearance of secondary psychological layers and school maladjustment.
The earliest intervention in order to identify and overcome deviations in the development of young children and prevent their consequences is relevant today and encourages the development and systematization of diagnostic methods and didactic materials for working with young children in preschool, primary care and family settings.
Features of the psychophysical development of children with disabilities
OVZ – limited health options. Persons with disabilities are people with disabilities in physical and (or) mental development, that is, deaf, hard of hearing, blind, visually impaired, with severe speech impairments, musculoskeletal disorders, and others.
Accordingly, children with disabilities are children whose health condition prevents them from mastering educational programs outside of special conditions of education and upbringing. The group of schoolchildren with disabilities is also extremely heterogeneous. It includes children with various developmental disorders: impairments of hearing, vision, speech, musculoskeletal system, intelligence, with severe disorders of the emotional-volitional sphere, with delayed and complex developmental disorders. Thus, the most important priority in working with such children is an individual approach, taking into account the specific psychophysical health of each child.
Psychophysical development is a concept containing 2 important, equivalent components - mental development and physical development. In childhood, these 2 components are most closely connected and, by providing the child with full psychophysical development, we create a solid foundation for full development in subsequent stages of life. And so, mental and physical development are two interconnected and interdependent aspects of the same process.
The assessment of physical development is based on the parameters of height, body weight, proportions of development of individual parts of the body, as well as the degree of development of the functional abilities of his body (vital capacity of the lungs, muscle strength of the hands, etc.; muscle development and muscle tone, state of posture, musculoskeletal apparatus, the development of the subcutaneous fat layer), which depend on the differentiation and maturity of the cellular elements of organs and tissues, the functional abilities of the nervous system and the endocrine apparatus. Historically, physical development has been judged primarily by external morphological characteristics. However, the value of such data increases immeasurably in combination with data on the functional parameters of the body. That is why, for an objective assessment of physical development, morphological parameters should be considered together with indicators of the functional state.
Mental development is a natural change in mental processes over time, expressed in their quantitative, qualitative and structural transformations. Mental development presupposes the emergence of new qualities and functions, changes in their quantitative and qualitative characteristics and at the same time the transformation of already existing forms of the psyche.
Psychophysical development includes a number of age stages, each of which is characterized by its own characteristics.
Based on pedagogical experience and available psychological and physiological research, it is customary to distinguish the following age stages of mental development of children: infant - from birth to 1 year, pre-preschool - from 1 to 3 years, preschool - from 3 to 7 years, junior school - from 7 to I2 years, teenage - from 12 years.
Psychophysical characteristics of children are normal.
Already by the time of birth, the child has formed congenital unconditioned reflexes, on the basis of which a number of preparatory stages for psychophysical development are formed in infancy, in particular for the development of motor skills and speech. By the end of the first year of life, the child begins to take his first steps, understands, albeit limitedly, some words addressed to him and babbles himself, becomes able to pronounce the first words, although they often differ from the words used by adults, since the child gives objects and actions his own own designation.
pre-school - from 1 to 3 years;
In pre-preschool age, especially large changes in development occur, which are of exceptional importance for the formation of mental functions. A child at this age, due to the development of motor skills and the beginning of walking, actively interacts with objects and toys, and learns to a certain extent how to use various objects, which significantly expands his cognitive experience. Speech develops especially intensively at this age (by the end of the third year, the child’s vocabulary reaches approximately 1000 words), which plays an exceptional role in restructuring, improving and enriching the child’s means of communication with others, in the perception and knowledge of the world around him. The development of speech determines the development of thinking, since the word correlates with things, objects and actions. The child’s level of development allows him to follow the simplest verbal instructions of adults. In turn, the level of development of thinking contributes to the enrichment of vocabulary and the development of speech in general.
preschool - from 3 to 7 years;
In preschool age, the development of mental functions and personality traits is especially intense. During this period, the motor sphere is improved. Movements become more coordinated, dexterous, and confident, which expands the child’s range of practical activities. A child of this age is capable of basic self-care and performing simple duties around the house or in kindergarten, and is able to cope with activities such as modeling, drawing, gluing, cutting. However, the subtle, most differentiated movements of the fingers are not yet sufficiently developed. Also, in physical development at this age, the growth process slows down somewhat, but the functional capabilities of organs and systems are actively improved. At the age of 5-6 years, the replacement of milk teeth with permanent teeth begins. the child switches to the adult's diet. At this age, subtle skills develop: the ability to ride a two-wheeled bicycle, ice skate, and dance.
Speech development in preschoolers is exceptionally rapid. By the age of three, normally developing children usually master the entire system of sounds of their native language and the basic forms of its grammatical structure. The vocabulary is significantly enriched, which by the age of six is over 3,500 words. Due to the expansion of the child’s forms of communication with others, he develops coherent speech. At the same age, the regulatory function of speech begins to form. A child achieves this level of speech and mental development in the process of verbal communication, vigorous activity, and interaction with the external environment. The perception of a preschooler acquires the features of an independent, purposeful process. Involuntary memorization develops intensively and the first elements of voluntary active memorization gradually begin to take shape.
Development of thinking.
junior school - from 7 to I2 years;
With the transition to school, children begin to differentiate play and work more clearly, and each of these types of activities takes its own specific place, has its own motive, its own direction. But gradually learning begins to occupy such a significant place in the child’s activity that in itself it becomes an extremely important factor shaping the development of his personality. During the period of schooling, higher mental functions such as logical memory, voluntary attention, more complex forms of thinking, etc. are especially intensively developed and improved. Mental functions such as attention are also significantly restructured by school age. The ability to actively and voluntarily direct one’s attention, retain and concentrate it on a specific object of activity arises. Thinking based on abstraction and generalization appears. Great changes occur in the development of the emotional-volitional sphere; in essence, it regulates all the intellectual activity of the subject.
At this age, the greatest increase in the brain is observed - from 90% of the adult brain at 5 years to 95% at 10 years. Improvement of the nervous system continues. New connections between nerve cells develop, and the specialization of the cerebral hemispheres increases. By the age of 7–8 years, the nervous tissue connecting the hemispheres becomes more perfect and ensures their better interaction. These changes in the nervous system lay the foundation for the next stage of the child's mental development.
Bone growth is especially noticeable. This applies primarily to the facial bones, as well as the long bones of the arms and legs. Baby teeth are completely replaced by permanent teeth.
Despite the fact that muscles in middle childhood become stronger and stronger, they still function differently in a child than in an adult. Clumsiness, lack of coordination of movements, inability to sit still for a long time and rapid fatigue are typical for children with immature, sufficiently developed muscle tissue. As the muscles become stronger, children experience an increasing need for movement and physical activity.
Schoolchildren between the ages of 7 and 11 usually do not experience as dramatic an improvement in motor abilities as occurs between birth and age five. However, even at this age, motor skills develop, allowing children to master a variety of complex physical activities and improve their motor skills.
Teenager from 12 years old
The main novelty in psychological development at this age is the transfer of social consciousness within oneself; the child sees himself as part of society. This feature allows him to better understand others, teaches him to control and regulate his behavior, and provides the basis for further personal development. Realizing himself as a member of society, a teenager moves to a new step in understanding himself and his place in the world. The scope of social life is expanding significantly. The child searches for himself, tries in different areas, tries to determine the social significance of a particular position. By adolescence, ideas about morality and morality are united into a single system of beliefs, which significantly influences the needs and aspirations of the growing child.
In physical development, this period is characterized by a pronounced restructuring of the endocrine system and increased growth. Girls usually develop secondary sexual characteristics earlier than boys. During this period, functional disorders of the cardiovascular and nervous systems often occur, caused, on the one hand, by rapid, disproportionate growth of the whole body and individual organs, and on the other, by instability of the autonomic-endocrine system.
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Features of psychophysical development in children with mental retardation.
infant from birth to 1 year
It is noted that the development of a mentally retarded child from the first days of life differs from the development of normal children. In many children, the development of upright standing is delayed, that is, they begin to hold their head up, sit, stand, and walk much later. This delay in some children can be quite significant, affecting not only the entire first, but also the second year of life.
In mentally retarded children, from an early age there is a decrease in interest in the environment, indifference, and general pathological inertia, which, however, does not exclude loudness and irritability. In newborn babies, later in comparison with normally developing children, a “revitalization complex” and the need for emotional communication with adults arise. In the future, they have no interest in toys suspended above the crib or in the hands of an adult. There is no timely transition to communication with adults based on joint actions with toys, and a new form of communication – sign language – does not arise.
Mentally retarded children in the first year of life do not differentiate between “their own” and “other people’s” adults, they do not have active grasping, visual-motor coordination and perception of the properties of objects, as well as the selection of some objects from a number of others, are not formed.
In this category of children, the prerequisites for speech development do not appear in a timely manner: objective perception and objective actions, communication with adults and, in particular, pre-speech means of communication. Underdevelopment of the articulatory apparatus and phonemic hearing leads to the fact that mentally retarded children do not develop not only babbling, but also humming in a timely manner.
pre-school - from 1 to 3 years;
The achievements of an early age with normal development are the mastery of walking (upright posture), the development of objective activities and the development of speech. At the beginning of the 2nd year of life, normally developing children begin to walk independently. In some mentally retarded children, the development of upright walking occurs at the same time. But for many of them, mastering walking is delayed for a long time, sometimes until the end of early childhood. In addition, their movements are qualitatively different from the movements of children with normal development. They experience unsteadiness, awkward gait, and slow or impulsive movements.
They do not experience genuine familiarization with the objective world, which is typical for normal children. Many of them, with the mastery of walking, develop “field behavior”, which can be mistaken for interest in the surrounding object world: children grab into their hands everything that falls into their field of vision, but immediately throw these objects, showing no interest in their properties , nor to the destination. Based on the mastery of objective actions, objective activity arises in children with normal development in the second year of life, and in the third year it becomes leading. Like any leading activity, it contributes to the mental development of the child as a whole - the development of motor skills, perception, thinking, speech.
In mentally retarded children, objective activity is not formed. Some of them do not show interest in objects, including toys. They do not pick up toys at all or manipulate them. They have no orientation not only like “What can you do with this?”, but also “What is this?” In other cases, children of the third year of life begin to manipulate objects, sometimes reminiscent of the specific use of objects, but in reality the child, when performing these actions, does not take into account the properties and purpose of objects at all. In addition, these manipulations are interspersed with inappropriate actions - actions that contradict the logic of using the object (shoves a large car into a small garage, knocks a doll on the table). The presence of inappropriate actions is a characteristic feature of a mentally retarded child.
The first few words, imprecisely pronounced, appear in mentally retarded preschoolers at 2-3 years old or even at 5 years old. These are mainly nouns - names of objects in the immediate environment and verbs denoting frequently performed actions.
preschool - from 3 to 7 years;
For mentally retarded children, preschool age is the beginning of the development of perceptual action. Based on the child’s awakened interest in objects and toys, an acquaintance with their properties and relationships arises.
The fifth year of life turns out to be a turning point in the development of perception of a mentally retarded child. Children can already choose a toy based on a model (shape, color, size). Some children show progress in the development of holistic perception. By the end of preschool age, more than half of mentally retarded children reach the level of perceptual development with which normal children begin preschool age. Perceptual orientation arises in them on the basis of the assimilation of sensory standards, which contribute to the memorization of words denoting the properties of shape, size and color.
In children with normal development, the second side of sensory cognition after perception is visual-effective thinking. It contains aspects of mental activity: determining the goal, conditions, and means of achieving it. Visual-effective thinking is the initial one; on its basis, first visual-figurative, and then verbal-logical thinking arises. In mentally retarded children, visual-effective thinking is characterized by a lag in the pace of development. By the end of preschool age, not all children are able to perform even such practical tasks in which an action performed with a tool or hand is aimed at achieving a practical result. Children do not actively search for a solution; they remain indifferent to the result.
A mentally retarded child of preschool age, unlike a normal child, does not know how to navigate in space, does not use past experience, and cannot evaluate the properties of objects and the relationships between them.
Thus, while by the age of 6 a normally developing child achieves enormous success in the cognitive sphere, a child with mental retardation lags significantly behind in the development of all mental functions.
Some preschoolers, even at 5 years old, use babbling words or pronounce only the first syllable of the desired word. The phonetic structure of speech in almost all such children is not fully formed by the beginning of school. Exceptions are very rare.
However, this phenomenon occurs only if attention is not paid to the development and correction of the child. Being placed in a special children's institution where correctional and developmental classes are conducted, these children achieve great success in the development of speech and cognitive processes.
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Mentally retarded children in preschool age have an extremely low level of readiness for schooling and underdevelopment of cognitive interests. For mentally retarded children to successfully master educational activities, an individual approach is required, which is carried out in correctional educational institutions. This approach lies in the focus of education on the correction of mental defects inherent in schoolchildren with intellectual disabilities.
The intellectual defect in these children is manifested primarily by disturbances in thinking: stiffness, the establishment of mainly private concrete connections, and the inability to be distracted. The prerequisites for intellectual activity also inevitably suffer. Attention is characterized by insufficient voluntariness and purposefulness, narrowing of volume, difficulty concentrating, as well as switching. Often, with a good ability for mechanical memorization, weakness of semantic and especially associative memory is observed. New information is learned with great difficulty. Memorizing new material requires repeated repetition and reinforcement with specific examples.
Due to the general underdevelopment of analytical-synthetic activity, these children have great difficulty forming all linguistic generalizations, and slowly assimilate all the laws of language. All of these factors determine both the slow pace of speech acquisition and the qualitative underdevelopment of all its components: the phonetic-phonemic aspect, vocabulary and grammatical structure of speech. Poor pronunciation makes communication difficult. The child, knowing that he speaks differently from everyone else, tries to use speech less, remains silent when asked about something, and resorts to pointing gestures. This negatively affects the development of his emotional and personal sphere.
The child becomes wary, withdrawn, and constantly expects reproach. Where possible, he prefers to use not speech, but pointing gestures and facial expressions, conveying with them his desire to receive some object, expressing a positive or negative attitude towards what is happening. The speech of mentally retarded children is characterized by a significant predominance of passive vocabulary over active.
teenage - from I2 years
Adolescence is a period of personal development and integration into society.
An important quality of personality is a person’s more or less objective attitude towards himself, his self-esteem, which is formed more slowly in mentally retarded people than in normally developing peers. A significant difficulty is instilling adequate self-esteem in students, since most adolescents with intellectual disabilities tend to have inflated self-esteem. In the conditions of special education, the self-esteem of mentally retarded students is corrected and by the time they graduate from school it approaches adequate.
Research and observations have shown that after graduating from a special (correctional) school of type VIII, mentally retarded adolescents integrate into the environment, adapting to it with varying degrees of success. Relatively well-off intellectually and physically, young people enter the enterprises where they completed their internship during their school years, or where their parents can place them. They work as painters, bookbinders, low-grade repairmen, shoemakers, seamstresses, cleaners, auxiliary workers, etc. Some graduates work in agriculture. As a rule, they turn out to be hardworking, efficient, but lacking initiative, sometimes overly hasty or, conversely, slow. Some of them require more or less regular support and assistance from experienced workers. Others perform familiar operations on their own. Some graduates of special schools for mentally retarded children do not work. They live in families and help in the household as much as they can. Some become vagabonds and end up in criminal organizations.
Bibliography:
1, Special psychology
2 Special psychology
3, About children with developmental disabilities
4 Logopsychology.
5 Disruption of the process of mastering reading in schoolchildren.
6 Teaching and raising children in a auxiliary school.
7. . Psychological and pedagogical diagnostics of the development of children of early and preschool age.
Features of psychophysical development in children with complex defects.
Psychophysiology of children with complex developmental disorders is a branch that studies the characteristics of the psychophysical development of a person who has two or more disorders.
Based on the combination of violations, more than 20 types of complex and multiple violations can be distinguished. These can be various combinations of sensory, motor, speech and emotional disorders with each other (complex sensory impairment as a combination of visual and hearing impairments; visual impairment and systemic speech impairment; hearing and movement impairments; visual and movement impairment), as well as a combination of all types these defects with mental retardation of varying degrees (deafness and mental retardation, blindness and mental retardation, motor impairments and mental retardation; various combinations of mental retardation and complex sensory impairments with multiple defects).
The greatest scientific traditions in this area have the science of the mental development of a deaf-blind child - a child with double sensory impairment.
infant from birth to 1 year
Observations of the development of young children with congenital deaf-blindness and preserved cognitive development capabilities show great capabilities of touch and smell. If you do not interfere with the development of the intact activity of such a child and promote his timely grasping, sitting, upright walking and independence in everyday activities, you can achieve completely free orientation in the room and the development of full-fledged objective actions. Such a child is able, already in early childhood, to take his first steps on time, to recognize people close to him by smell.
pre-school - from 1 to 3 years;
The mental development of children with complex sensory impairment is based on intact intellectual and sensory (olfaction, vibration and kinesthetic sensitivity) capabilities and their improvement. Observations of the development of young children with congenital deaf-blindness and intact cognitive development capabilities show great capabilities of touch and smell. If you do not interfere with the development of the intact activity of such a child and promote his timely grasping, sitting, upright walking and independence in everyday activities, you can achieve completely free orientation in the room and the development of full-fledged objective actions. Such a child is able, already in early childhood, to move completely freely around a familiar room, recognize people close to him by smell, characteristic movements and by feeling his feet and shoes, take out objects and toys he likes and act with him in accordance with their purpose.
preschool - from 3 to 7 years
In the development of a deaf-blind child of preschool age, the formation of the first means of communication - gestures - plays a leading role. Thanks to an adult, the child gradually learns the order of everyday everyday situations (morning toilet, breakfast, games, lunch, nap, afternoon snack, walk, dinner, evening toilet and getting ready for bed, etc.). An object or a gesture depicting an action with an object can become a signal for every everyday situation that is significant for a child. A deaf-blind child’s independent mastery of first individual actions, and then a whole cycle of actions within each everyday or play situation, makes it possible to make a natural gesture a sign of a certain individual object and action with it. All this prepares for the replacement of a natural gesture with a conventional sign (a deaf language gesture, a dactyl or spoken word), and makes it possible to subsequently replace the gesture with a dactyl word, and then with a written phrase (written in capital letters or in raised dotted Braille).
Modeling, modeling, drawing and playing are of great importance for the formation of correct ideas about the environment for a deaf-blind child. It is these types of activities that make it possible to control the adequacy of a child’s ideas about the environment; with their help, the meaning of children’s first words is generalized, when one name can denote a real object and its image, a real object and an object that replaces it in the game.
junior school - from 7 to I2 years
Any child cannot develop as an individual without mastering the objective world, without learning to independently navigate in time and in the surrounding space, without mastering self-service skills. In the education of children with complex disabilities, this period can take both preschool and school age of the child. Mastering writing and reading often takes the entire school period of such a child’s development.
teenage - from I2 years
The content of such a child’s school education should be social and everyday orientation in the most significant aspects of people’s everyday life. With special education, a child with a complex sensory impairment must gain an understanding of a person’s life path, the behavioral characteristics of people without developmental disorders at different age periods, the possible types of social support for people with disabilities and how to receive it. During schooling, such a child must master writing and reading to such an extent that he can talk about the circumstances of his own life and understand descriptions of the lives of other people. A child with complex sensory impairment can master all the necessary self-care and household skills in order to feel independent in everyday life. He can master certain labor skills to work in specialized enterprises for people with disabilities or at home. Under certain circumstances (constant help and attention from family, teachers, support organization), a deaf-blind person can continue his education after graduating from school at a college or university and find his place in life among professionally well-prepared people.
Bibliography:
1 Special psychology
2 Fundamentals of special psychology
3, Fundamentals of correctional pedagogy.
4 Raising children and adolescents with severe and multiple developmental disorders.
5 Zhigoreva with complex developmental disorders_ pedagogical assistance
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6. Early adolescence. The leading activity is educational and professional. Early adolescence is a transition from purely physiological to social maturity, the time to develop views and beliefs, and the formation of a worldview. The main content of life at this age is inclusion in adult life, assimilation of the norms and rules that exist in society. The main new developments of age are: worldview, professional interests, self-awareness, dreams and ideals.
The problem of periodization of human age development also attracted other scientists. Thus, 3. Freud believed that the foundation of personality is mainly formed during the first five years of life and is determined by factors of constitutional and individual development. The basis for personality development are two prerequisites: genetic - manifested in the form of experiences in early childhood and influencing the formation of an adult personality, and the second prerequisite - innate psychosexual needs (sexual instincts), the energetic basis of which is libido. Libido, according to Z. Freud, is the force with which sexual desire manifests itself. Another point of view; libido is psychic energy that has a sexual connotation.
With age, psychosexual needs progress, passing through several stages in their development, each of which is associated with certain areas of the body - erogenous zones, on which the individual focuses at a certain period of life and in a biologically determined sequence, which gives him pleasant tension.
The social experience gained in this regard forms certain values and attitudes in the individual.
According to 3. Freud, a personality in its development goes through five stages of psychosexual development: oral, anal, phallic, latent and genital. With each of these stages he associates the formation of different types of character. The worse a child copes with mastering the needs and tasks inherent in a particular stage, the more susceptible he is to regression under conditions of physical or emotional stress in the future.
E. Erikson dealt with the problem of periodization of personality development. The formation of personality in the concept is understood by him as a change of stages, at each of which there is a qualitative transformation of a person’s inner world and a radical change in his relationships with people around him. As a result, new personality qualities emerge. But new qualities can arise and establish themselves only if the appropriate conditions for this have already been created in the past. Forming and developing as a person, a person acquires not only positive qualities, but also disadvantages. Considering that it is impossible to present all lines of individual development in a single theory, E. Erikson in his concept presented only two extreme lines of personal development: normal and abnormal. He divided human life into eight distinct stages of development:
1. Oral-sensory stage (from birth to one year). At this stage, a conflict arises between trust and distrust in the world around us.
2. Muscular-anal stage (from one to three years) - a conflict between a sense of independence and a feeling of shame and doubt.
3. Locomotor-genital stage (from four to five years). This stage is characterized by a conflict between initiative and guilt. At this time, the child is already convinced that he is a person, since he runs, talks, and enters into relationships with other people.
4. Latent stage (from six to eleven years) - a conflict between hard work and feelings of inferiority.
5. Adolescence stage (from twelve to nineteen years old) - a conflict between the understanding of belonging to a particular gender and the lack of understanding of the forms of behavior corresponding to this gender.
6. Early maturity (twenty to twenty-five years). During this period, a conflict arises between the desire for intimate relationships and the feeling of isolation from others.
7. Middle maturity (twenty-six to sixty-four years) - a conflict between vital activity and focus on oneself, one’s age-related problems.
8. Late maturity (sixty-five years - death) - a conflict between a sense of fullness of life and despair. During this period, the creation of a completed form of ego-identity occurs. A person rethinks his whole life, realizes his “I” in spiritual thoughts about the years he has lived.
E. Erikson believed that if these conflicts are resolved successfully, then the crisis does not take acute forms and ends with the formation of certain personal qualities, which together make up one or another type of personality. People go through these stages at different speeds and with different success. Unsuccessful resolution of the crisis at any of them leads to the fact that, moving to a new stage, a person brings with him the need to resolve contradictions inherent not only in this, but also in the previous stage.
In the history of the development of psychology, there have been many other attempts to create an age-based periodization of personality development. Moreover, different authors (E. Spranger, 1966, S. Buller, 1933, K. Levin, 1935, G. Seliven, 1953, J. Cowman, 1980, etc.) built it according to different criteria. In some cases, the boundaries of age periods were determined based on the existing system of educational institutions, in others - in accordance with “crisis periods”, in others - in connection with anatomical and physiological characteristics.
In the 80s A.V. Petrovsky developed the concept of age-based periodization of personality development, determined by the phases of a child’s entry into the most referent communities for him: adaptation, individualization and integration, in which the development and restructuring of the personality structure occurs. According to his views, the adaptation phase is the first phase of the formation of an individual in a social group. When a child enters a new group (kindergarten group, school class, etc.), he needs to adapt to the norms and rules of its life, communication style, and master the means of activity that its members own. This phase involves the loss of individual traits. The individualization phase is generated by the child’s dissatisfaction with the achieved result of adaptation - the fact that he has become like everyone else in the group - and his need for the maximum manifestation of his individual characteristics. The essence of the third phase is that the individual is integrated into the group. The child retains only those personality traits that meet group needs and his own needs necessary to maintain his status in the group.
Each phase of personality development in a group has its own difficulties. If difficulties arise with adaptation in a group, traits such as conformity, self-doubt, and timidity may develop. If the difficulties of the second phase are not overcome and the group does not accept the child’s individual characteristics, conditions arise for the development of negativism, aggressiveness, and inflated self-esteem. Disintegration leads either to the ousting of the child from the group or to his isolation in it.
Along the way, a child is included in groups with different characteristics: prosocial and asocial, high and low levels of development. He can simultaneously belong to several groups, be accepted in one and rejected in another. That is, the situation of successful and unsuccessful adaptation, individualization and integration is repeated many times, resulting in the formation of a relatively stable personality structure.
At each age stage, in a certain social environment, a child goes through three phases in his personal development. If, for example, difficulties with integration arose at the previous stage, then at the next stage difficulties with adaptation will appear and conditions will be created for a crisis in personal development.
Periodization of personality development proposed by A.V. Petrovsky, covers the time period of a person’s life, which ends with the personal and professional self-determination of a growing person. It distinguishes the periods of early childhood, kindergarten childhood, primary school age and senior school age. The first three periods form the era of childhood, in which the process of adaptation prevails over the process of individualization. The era of adolescence (the period of middle school age) is characterized by the dominance of the process of individualization over the process of adaptation; the era of youth (the period of high school age) is characterized by the dominance of the process of integration over the process of individualization. Thus, according to A.V. Petrovsky, childhood is mainly the child’s adaptation to the social environment, adolescence is the manifestation of one’s individuality, youth is preparation for entering society and integration into it.
In order to skillfully organize the process of social rehabilitation of a child with disabilities and achieve the set goal, it is important in the course of interaction with him to rely not only on the general patterns of personality development in ontogenesis, but also to take into account specific patterns that manifest themselves in a unique way at each age stage and are reflected in the periodization of human age development.
The concepts of age periodization of human development mainly reflect the common point of view of psychologists on determining the boundaries of age stages.
They are relatively averaged, but this does not exclude individual originality of mental and personal development.
Specific characteristics of age are determined by: changes in the nature of upbringing in the family; the peculiarities of a child’s inclusion in groups of different levels and in educational institutions; the formation of new types and types of activities that ensure the child’s mastery of social experience, a system of established knowledge, norms and rules of human activity; features of physical development that must be taken into account during the social rehabilitation of children with disabilities.
6.4 Critical and sensitive periods in personality development
The development of a child’s personality is a discrete, uneven forward movement. All personal properties and qualities of a child develop in accordance with the law of heterochrony. Heterochrony is a pattern expressed in the uneven development of hereditary information over time. Heterochrony characterizes not only the ontogenesis of a person’s cognitive functions and individual properties, but also his formation as a person. This process occurs at different times - according to the sequence of assimilation of social roles and their change under the influence of social factors that determine the life path and individual variability of the properties of a person as a person and are most clearly manifested in critical and sensitive periods of development.
Considering the dynamics of transitions from one age to another, L.S. Vygotsky drew attention to the fact that changes in the child’s psyche at different stages can occur in some cases slowly and gradually, in others quickly and sharply. To designate the above-mentioned features of a child’s mental development, he introduced the concepts of “stable” and “crisis” stages of development. Stable periods make up most of childhood and last for several years. They proceed smoothly, without sudden shifts and changes in the child’s personality. The personality traits that emerge at this time are quite stable.
Crisis periods in a child's life are times when a qualitative restructuring of the child's functions and relationships occurs. Developmental crises are special, relatively short periods of ontogenesis, characterized by sharp psychological changes in the development of a child, separating one age from another. They begin and end, as a rule, unnoticed. The exacerbation occurs in the middle of the period. At this time, the child is out of the control of adults, and those measures of pedagogical influence that previously brought success cease to be effective. External manifestations of a crisis can be disobedience, affective outbursts, conflicts with loved ones. At this time, children and adolescents’ performance declines, interest in activities weakens, sometimes internal conflicts arise, manifested in dissatisfaction with oneself, existing relationships with peers, etc. These short but stormy stages have a significant impact on the formation of the child’s character and many other qualities personality.
L.S. Vygotsky considered the alternation of stable and crisis periods as a law of child development. During periods of crisis, the main contradictions intensify: on the one hand, between the increased needs of the child and his still limited capabilities, on the other, between the new needs of the child and previously established relationships with adults, which encourages him to learn new forms of behavior and communication.
In terms of their qualitative characteristics, intensity and duration, crisis conditions vary among different children. However, they all go through three phases: the first phase is pre-critical, when previously formed forms of behavior disintegrate and new ones emerge; the second phase - climax - means that the crisis reaches its highest point; the third phase is post-critical, when the formation of new forms of behavior begins.
There are two main ways in which age-related crises occur. The first way, the most common, is a crisis of independence. Its symptoms are obstinacy, stubbornness, negativism, devaluation of an adult, jealousy of property, etc. Naturally, these symptoms are not the same for each crisis period, but appear in connection with age-related characteristics.
The second way is a crisis of addiction. Its symptoms are the opposite: excessive obedience, dependence on elders and strong people, regression to old interests and tastes, forms of behavior. Both the first and second options are ways of unconscious or insufficiently conscious self-determination of the child. In the first case, there is a going beyond the old norms, in the second - an adaptation associated with the creation of a certain personal well-being. From a development point of view, the first option is the most favorable.
In childhood, the following critical periods of age-related development are usually distinguished: the crisis of the first year of life or the crisis of the newborn, the crisis of three years, the crisis of 6-7 years, the teenage crisis, the crisis of 17 years. Each of these crises has its own causes, content and specific features. Based on the theoretical concept of periodization proposed by D.B. Elkonin, the content of crises is defined as follows: the “crisis of three years” and the “adolescent crisis” are crises of relationships, after which a certain orientation in human relations arises, the “crisis of the beginning of life” and the “crisis of 6-7 years” - These are crises of worldview that give the child an orientation into the world of things.
Let us briefly consider the content of some of these crises.
1. The newborn crisis is the very first and most dangerous crisis that a child experiences after birth. The main factor causing a critical situation is physiological changes. In the first minutes after birth, severe biological stress arises, requiring the mobilization of all the resources of the child’s body. The pulse of a newborn in the first minutes of life reaches 200 beats per minute and in healthy children returns to normal within an hour. Never again will the body's defense mechanisms be tested so strongly as in the first hours of a child's independent life.
The neonatal crisis is an intermediate period between intrauterine and extrauterine lifestyles, it is a transition from darkness to light, from warmth to cold, from one type of nutrition and breathing to others. After birth, other types of physiological regulation of behavior come into play, and many physiological systems begin to work anew.
The result of the newborn crisis is the child’s adaptation to new individual living conditions and further development as a biosocial being. Psychologically, the foundation for the child’s interaction and communication with adults is laid; physiologically, conditioned reflexes begin to form, first to visual and auditory, and then to other stimuli.
2. Three-year crisis. The three-year crisis represents a breakdown in the relationship that has previously existed between the child and the adult. Towards the end of early childhood, the child develops a tendency towards independent activity, which is expressed in the appearance of the phrase “I myself.”
It is believed that at this stage of development of the child’s personality, adults begin to act as carriers of patterns of actions and relationships in the surrounding reality. The phenomenon “I myself” means not only the emergence of outwardly noticeable independence, but also the simultaneous separation of the child from the adult. Negative aspects in a child’s behavior (stubbornness, negativism, obstinacy, self-will, devaluation of adults, desire for protest, despotism) arise only when adults, not noticing the child’s tendency to independently satisfy his desires, continue to limit his independence, maintain the old type of relationship, constrain the child’s activity and freedom. If adults are tactful, notice independence, and encourage it in the child, then difficulties either do not arise or are quickly overcome.
So, from the new formations of the three-year crisis, a tendency arises towards independent activity, similar to the activity of adults; adults act as models of behavior for the child, and the child wants to act like them, which is the most important condition for his further assimilation of the experience of the people around him.
3. The crisis of 6-7 years appears on the basis of the emergence of personal consciousness in the child. He develops an inner life, a life of experiences. The preschooler begins to understand that he does not know everything, that he has good and bad personal qualities, that he occupies a certain place among other people, and much more. The crisis of six or seven years requires a transition to a new social situation, a new content of relationships. The child must enter into a relationship with society as a collection of people carrying out obligatory, socially necessary and socially useful activities. As a rule, this tendency manifests itself in the child’s desire to go to school as soon as possible and start learning.
4. The teenage crisis or the 13-year-old crisis is a crisis in a teenager’s relationships with adults. In adolescence, an idea of oneself arises as an adult who has crossed the boundaries of childhood, which determines the reorientation of some norms and values to others, from children's to adults. The teenager’s interest in the other sex appears and at the same time attention to his appearance increases, the value of friendship and friend, and the value of the group of peers increases. Often at the beginning of adolescence, conflict arises between an adult and a teenager. The teenager begins to resist the demands of adults, which he previously willingly complied with, and becomes offended if someone limits his independence. The teenager develops a heightened sense of self-esteem. As a rule, he limits the rights of adults and expands his own.
The source of such a conflict is the contradiction between an adult’s idea of a teenager and the tasks of his upbringing and the teenager’s opinion of his own adulthood and his rights. This process is aggravated by another reason. During adolescence, a child’s relationships with peers, and especially with friends, are built on some important norms of adult morality of equality, and the basis of his relationships with adults continues to be the special childish morality of obedience. A teenager’s assimilation of the morality of equality of adults in the process of communicating with peers comes into conflict with the norms of the morality of obedience, because it becomes unacceptable for the teenager. This creates great difficulties for both adults and teenagers.
A favorable form of transition for a teenager to a new type of relationship is possible if the adult himself takes the initiative and, taking into account his requirements, rebuilds his relationship with him. Relationships between an adult and a teenager should be built according to the type of relationships between adults - on the basis of community and respect, trust and help. In addition, it is important to create a system of relationships that would satisfy the teenager’s craving for group communication with peers, but at the same time be controlled by an adult. Only in such conditions can a teenager learn to reason, act, perform various tasks, and communicate with people like an adult.
Along with crises in the life of a growing person, there are periods that are most favorable for the development of certain mental functions and personal qualities. They are called sensitive, because. At this time, the developing organism is especially responsive to a certain kind of influence from the surrounding reality. For example, an early age (first-third year of life) is optimal for speech development. Simultaneously with the development of speech, the child intensively develops thinking, which at first is of a visual and effective nature. Within the framework of this form of thinking, the prerequisites are created for the emergence of a more complex form - visual-figurative thinking, when the implementation of any action can occur without the participation of practical actions, by operating with images. If a child has not mastered verbal forms of communication before the age of five, then he will then be hopelessly behind in mental and personal development.
The period of preschool childhood is most optimal for the development of the need for joint activities with adults. If in early childhood the child’s desires have not yet become their own desires and they are controlled by adults, then at the border of preschool age the relations of joint activity come into conflict with the new level of the child’s development. Tendencies toward independent activity arise; the child develops his own desires, which may not coincide with the desires of adults. The emergence of personal desires transforms the action into volitional action, on the basis of which the possibility opens up for the subordination of desires and the struggle between them.
This age, as L.S. believed. Vygotsky is also sensitive to the development of perception. He attributed memory, thinking, attention to certain moments of the act of perception. Primary school age is a period of intensive qualitative transformation of cognitive processes. They begin to acquire an indirect character and become conscious and voluntary. The child gradually masters his mental processes, learns to control attention, memory, and thinking.
At this age, the child most intensively develops or does not develop the ability to interact with the environment. With a positive outcome of this stage of development, the child develops an experience of his own skill; with an unsuccessful outcome, a feeling of inferiority and inability to be on an equal footing with other people.
In adolescence, the child’s desire to assert his independence and independence is most clearly manifested.
When considering age-related crises and sensitive periods of development, we presented conclusions drawn on the basis of the general patterns of development of a growing person, without highlighting the problems associated with the peculiarities of their course in children with disabilities. This is due to the fact that both crisis and sensitive periods are common in the development of any child - normal or having some kind of defect. However, it should be remembered that not only the individual characteristics of the child, the current social situation, but also the nature of the disease, defect and their consequences certainly influence the characteristics of crisis and sensitive periods of personality development. Moreover, these differences will be more or less typical for similar groups of diseases, and the specificity of the course of crisis and sensitive periods will be determined by the time of their appearance, duration and intensity of the course. At the same time, as practice shows, in the course of interaction with a child, it is necessary to take into account not only individual characteristics, but to focus, first of all, on the general patterns of child development, since in the process of social rehabilitation it is necessary to form a personality that should feel equal to not only in a familiar environment, but also among all people.
The task of social rehabilitation of children with disabilities in this regard will be to promptly determine the emergence of critical and sensitive periods in the child’s life, create conditions for the successful resolution of critical situations and use the opportunities of each sensitive period for the development of certain personal qualities.
6.5 Managing the personality development of a child with disabilities
The concept of “management” is considered as an element, a function of various organized systems (biological, social, technical), ensuring the preservation of their specific structure, maintenance of the mode of activity, implementation of their programs and goals.
From the point of view of the systems approach, a person is a system, and management is a necessary element of it. A child's personality cannot develop without an adult. Consequently, managing the personality development of a child with disabilities is a targeted pedagogical and socio-psychological influence on a developing person with the aim of instilling, preserving, improving and developing the personal properties and qualities necessary for his successful entry into the system of social relations.
There are two types of control: spontaneous - the result of the influence on a child of a mass of random individual acts, and conscious, carried out on the basis of a clearly defined goal, thoughtful content and anticipation of the final result.
Managing the personality development of a child with disabilities is conscious management, the ultimate goal of which is the formation of a stable, full-fledged personality capable of successfully interacting with the surrounding social environment.
The psychological meaning of managing personality development in the process of social rehabilitation is that a social rehabilitation specialist, implementing the intended program, must proceed from the fact that the child is not only an object, but also a subject of influence, an active participant in multifaceted relationships. This approach to social rehabilitation work requires taking into account, firstly, the psychological and physiological characteristics of the child’s development, the nature of secondary disorders, individual and age characteristics; secondly, the social conditions of development and the characteristics of his immediate social environment, as well as children's groups and groups, if a child is included in these groups; thirdly, the specific conditions of the social rehabilitation process.
To make the influence of one person on another more significant, various techniques and methods of influence are used.
Socio-psychological influence is the purposeful transfer of information from one participant in the interaction to another, suggesting a change in the mechanisms for regulating the behavior and activity of the person on whom the influence is directed.
The method of influence is a set of means, actions and rules for their use.
The method of influence is a set of techniques that implement influence.
Techniques and methods of influence are aimed, first of all, at changing the motivation of a person’s activity and the factors that regulate this activity, as well as the mental states in which the person is: uncertainty, depression, anxiety, fear, etc.
Among the most common means of influencing one person on another in the process of interpersonal interaction are usually called:
1. Speech influence (verbal information). Speech influence is aimed at conveying the content of thought to a child or adolescent and with its help to form or change the system of his values: motivations, attitudes, value orientations in relation to himself or certain objects and phenomena.
2. Non-verbal influence (non-verbal information). It is used simultaneously with speech influence in order to enhance its effectiveness, or separately - to convey one’s own information, as well as to create a more favorable environment when communicating with a partner. Non-speech influences include: facial and pantomimic movements, voice intonation, pauses, gestures, etc.
3. Involving a child and adolescent in specially organized activities in order to satisfy the need for communication and self-affirmation. These types of activities are: playful, productive (modelling, designing, drawing), educational, sports, feasible household work, etc. The inclusion of children in these types of activities allows them to change their unfavorable status and, thereby, consolidate the positive state that has arisen and a new type behavior. In this case, it is advisable to choose the most effective form of organization from the point of view of the educational capabilities and capabilities of a child with disabilities.
Thus, for the formation of communication skills and the development of skills for interaction with peers, tasks that require paired or group performance can be useful. Group activities significantly expand children's business communication, increase opportunities for mutual assistance, and develop a sense of goodwill.
Children should also be trusted to carry out other important tasks: patronage of children, summing up collective affairs, and much more. Moreover, it has been noted that the success of this approach is more effective if at the initial stage the child’s desire to interact or be with a certain person is taken into account.
However, in some cases such work may be unsuccessful. In this regard, it is recommended to deeply understand the reasons for the child’s immunity to socio-psychological influences and use a special technique called the regression technique. The essence of this technique is that the adult directs his efforts to activate the child’s motives of a lower sphere (safety, survival, food motive) and, if successful, uses the increased activity in this area to form the necessary social motives in him.
One of the most common traumatic factors for a child with disabilities that prevents him from engaging in interpersonal relationships and interacting with others, especially strangers and in unfamiliar situations, is fear of uncertainty. It is believed that the higher the factor of subjective uncertainty, the higher the anxiety, the level of emotional experiences, the consequences of which can be a loss of focus in activities, personal activity, withdrawal, and isolation. Uncertainty can manifest itself in the assessment of personal prospects, one’s role and place in life, in the efforts expended in study, work, in the assessment of acquired moral and social norms.
All of the negative reasons listed can cause internal tension in a child, and especially in a teenager and young man, and he tries to defend himself with the means at his disposal. Such means may include rethinking the situation that has arisen, searching for new goals, or resorting to regressive forms of response in the form of indifference, apathy, depression, aggressiveness, etc.
A social rehabilitation specialist must foresee such an outcome from interaction with children and adults around the child and know the main ways out of this situation. Among the methods that can have a positive effect when children develop feelings of uncertainty and fear of the unknown, the method of creating uncertain situations and the method of orienting situations are often used.
A method for creating uncertain situations. Its essence is that the child is asked to complete a task that he cannot do. When he begins to find it difficult, he is correctly suggested a way out of the situation. The child accepts this hint and begins to respond to it in the required way. The usefulness of this method lies in the fact that if the task is successfully solved, the child develops a sense of self-confidence, the belief that he can perform similar tasks in the same way as other children.
The method of orienting situations is aimed at ensuring that in a specially created game situation or when performing a task, all its participants experience a certain role and the same situation. The goal is for the child to experience the same demands on himself and his activities as all other members of the group. This method allows all children included in this group to develop the same required attitude towards a certain situation and, taking this into account, change their behavior in the right direction.
In the process of managing the development of a child’s personality, as a rule, two methods of influence are used: direct and indirect.
The direct method is based on volitional pressure on the child’s psyche. This method is a direct response to a specific situation and involves making a logically grounded requirement to resolve the issue: ordering what needs to be done, punishing, etc. If it is used ineptly, tense situations can arise between a child and an adult. The most common types of direct influence on a person include persuasion and suggestion.
Persuasion is a mechanism for influencing the consciousness of a person by appealing to her own critical judgment. Persuasion is more effective if it is addressed to a group rather than an individual, since here the group’s pressure mechanism comes into play, which makes its own adjustments to this process.
The effectiveness of persuasion is also influenced by the authority of the source, the availability and persuasiveness of information, and many other factors.
Persuasion is used, as a rule, where consistent, purposeful work with people is built on the basis of their respect. This happens better in conditions where a relaxed atmosphere is created, for example, over a cup of tea, while doing some kind of joint work, etc. In social rehabilitation practice, persuasion as a way of influencing another person is more widely used in working with adolescents and young men.
If the method of persuasion is used incorrectly, the so-called “boomerang effect” is possible, when the opposite result occurs. This can happen as a result of excessive, annoying information, its misunderstanding or its distance from the child's wishes.
Another common way of influencing people is suggestion.
Suggestion is a psychological influence on the psyche of another person, primarily on his emotional, unconscious sphere, or on groups of people in addition to, and sometimes against, their will. The mechanism of suggestion is based on a decrease in consciousness and criticality towards the suggested content.
Suggestion is based mainly on the authority of the source of information. Suggestion is only verbal. In suggestion, a very important role is played by the expressive element and, above all, the intonation of the voice, which enhances the persuasiveness and significance of the words for the suggested person. According to some psychologists, the success of suggestion depends 90 percent on the correct use of intonation.
Not all people have the same ability to suggest. Suggestibility is higher in persons with a weak nervous system, with sharp fluctuations in attention, and with a low level of intelligence. Suggestibility depends on age differences. Children turn out to be more suggestible than teenagers and young men.
Through indoctrination, children are instilled with many norms and rules of behavior, rules of personal hygiene, and attitudes towards work. In social rehabilitation work, with the help of suggestion, children develop an attitude of confidence in their strengths and capabilities, rules for relationships with people, norms and rules of behavior.
The indirect method involves indirect influence, i.e. not directly, but through the formation of values, motives of activity, interests, relationships, etc. This method, in comparison with the first, is considered more effective, since it does not humiliate the child’s self-esteem.
An important means of influencing the developing personality of a child is a psychologically competent assessment. This type of influence on a child includes encouragement, punishment, reproach, remark, praise, approval and a number of other, both positive and negative assessments. Timely assessment of even a minor achievement of a child in the process of social rehabilitation is an important signal for him to move forward, indicating successful self-affirmation in a socially valuable direction. Thus, psychologist A.G. Kovalev offers the following rules for assessing personality:
A positive assessment is effective in combination with high and fair demands on a person;
Global positive and global negative ratings are unacceptable. A global positive assessment gives the child a feeling of infallibility, reduces self-criticism and self-demandingness, and closes the way for further self-improvement. A global negative assessment undermines a child’s self-confidence and causes aversion to various activities.
The most appropriate is a partial positive assessment, as a result of which the individual is proud of his achievement in a particular matter and, at the same time, realizes that the success achieved does not give grounds for complacency in all other respects. A partial negative assessment creates a situation in which the child understands that in this particular case he is making a mistake, he is not doing everything right, but he still has the opportunity to correct the situation, since he has the necessary strength and capabilities for this.
Direct (with the name given) and indirect (without specifying it) assessments in the presence of other children are effective in cases where
The child has achieved great success in social activities thanks to personal initiative and effort, he should be praised personally and publicly;
The child made serious mistakes, mainly not through his own fault, but due to the existing objective conditions - it is recommended to indicate the very fact of the violation without naming the child’s last name.
In both the first and second cases, children will be grateful for a fair assessment.
Based on the assessment of others, primarily adults, as well as on the basis of assessment of the results of their own activities, children gradually develop self-esteem. Its role is especially noticeable in cases of high or low self-esteem. If a teenager has high self-esteem, for example, he often has conflicts with others, difficulties in choosing a boyfriend or girlfriend; for this reason, he may not be accepted into their company by his peers. With low self-esteem, a child becomes dependent on other peers, and such traits as lack of self-confidence, dissatisfaction with himself, etc. appear.
Self-esteem is not only a regulator of behavior, but also an essential factor in the formation of a child’s personality. Comparing himself with other children, the child, through self-esteem, critically evaluates his capabilities and determines a program of self-education.
The results of self-education are significantly affected by the child’s emergence of an ideal to which he strives. A successfully or unsuccessfully chosen ideal is largely determined by one’s self-esteem. If self-esteem is adequate, then the chosen ideal contributes to the formation of such qualities as self-criticism, high demands on oneself, perseverance, self-confidence, and if self-esteem is inadequate, then qualities such as uncertainty or excessive self-confidence can be formed.
Self-education is the highest level of development of self-regulation and self-government. As the degree of awareness increases, it becomes an increasingly significant force in the self-development of the individual. Self-education is inextricably linked with education and not only reinforces it, but also creates real prerequisites for more effective personality formation.
Necessary components of self-education that are important to develop in a child with disabilities are the ability for self-analysis of personal development, self-report and self-control. However, all this must be taught to the teenager so that he can master such self-education techniques as self-order, self-approval and self-hypnosis.
Knowing yourself is especially important for organizing self-education. Self-knowledge is one of the most difficult and most subjectively important tasks. Its complexity is due to the fact that before starting to study himself, the child must develop his cognitive abilities, accumulate the appropriate means, and then apply them to self-knowledge.
Self-knowledge begins in early childhood, but then it has completely special forms and content. First, the child learns to separate himself from the physical world, later - to realize himself as a member of a social microgroup, in adolescence - the awareness of the “spiritual self” begins - his mental abilities, character, moral qualities, a conscious personal ideal arises, comparison with which causes dissatisfaction with oneself and the desire to change oneself. Self-improvement begins with this, and the child also needs help with this.
An important condition in creating psychological comfort in relationships with a child with a developmental defect is psychological support.
Psychological support is a process in which an adult, interacting with a child, focuses on the positive aspects and advantages of the child in order to strengthen his self-esteem. It allows you to help him believe in himself and his abilities, avoid mistakes, and support him in case of failures.
To learn how to psychologically support a child, a social rehabilitation specialist needs to change the usual style of communication with children. Instead of focusing on mistakes and bad behavior and failures in completing tasks when communicating with a child, you need to focus on the positive aspects of his actions, find them and encourage what the child is doing.
Supporting a child means believing in him. A child needs support not only when he feels bad, but also when he feels good. You need to understand the role of psychological support and know that by providing it you can disappoint the child. For example, constant reproaches like “you could have done better” lead him to the conclusion: “Why try, I will never satisfy an adult.”
It must be remembered that there are factors that may seem harmless at first glance, but they can lead children to disappointment. Such factors, according to psychologists, may be excessive demands on the child from parents and other participants in the social rehabilitation process, rivalry between siblings, excessive ambitions of the child, etc.
How to support a child?
There are false methods, so-called “traps” of support. For example, typical ways for parents to support a child are overprotection, creating dependence on an adult, imposing unrealistic standards, stimulating competition with peers, which do not create a sense of psychological protection in the child, but lead to anxiety and interfere with normal personal development.
In order to provide psychological support to a child, an adult must use words and actions that would work to develop his “I-concept” and a sense of usefulness and adequacy. These ways can be: demonstrating satisfaction with what the child has achieved; learning ways to cope with various tasks; the use of phrases that reduce tension, such as “We are all human and we all make mistakes”; emphasizing faith in the child’s strengths and capabilities.
When providing psychological support, it is not recommended to focus attention on the child’s past mistakes and failures, since they are aimed not at supporting, but against him. They can cause feelings of persecution and lead to conflict with adults. To show faith in a child, an adult must have the courage and desire to do the following:
Forget about the child’s past mistakes and failures;
Help your child gain confidence that he can cope with this task;
If a child fails at something, allow him to start from scratch, relying on the fact that adults believe in him, in his ability to succeed;
Remember past successes and return to them, not to mistakes;
It is very important to take care to create a situation for your child with guaranteed success.
This approach can help the child solve those tasks that he can do. Psychological support is to enable the child to feel needed.
Control questions
1. Name the main factors and conditions of personality development and reveal the features of their impact on the child.
2. Justify why, the earlier and more physical changes occur in a child as the body matures, the more adequate and stronger social reactions to them become.
3. What are the inhibitory factors in the development of the personality of a child with disabilities and how to overcome them?
4. Reveal the essence of the concepts “age”, “chronological age”, “psychological age”.
5. Reveal and justify the main provisions and content of the periodization of personality development proposed by D.B. Elkonin.
6. Characterize the main stages of socialization of a child’s personality. Reveal the substantive aspects of the stage-by-stage social development of the individual, highlighted by D.I. Feldstein.
7. What is a “developmental crisis” in a child’s personality? Reveal the specifics of the course of crisis conditions in children.
8. Reveal the essence of the concept of “sensitive periods of development” of children and the tasks of their social rehabilitation in this regard.
9. Reveal the psychological meaning of managing the personality development of a child with disabilities, as well as the place and role of psychological support in this process.
Topics for reports and messages
1. A child with disabilities and the characteristics of his personal development.
2. Experience in using cultural institutions (concert halls, cinemas, clubs, libraries, etc.) for the purpose of more effective socialization of children with disabilities.
3. Formation of the “I-image” in adolescents with limited health capabilities.
Literature
1. Andreeva G.M. Social Psychology. M., 1988.
2. Bozhoeich L.I. Personality and its formation in childhood. M., 1978.
3. Vygotsky L.S. Collection of op. T. 5. Fundamentals of defectology. M., 1983.
4. Rozanova V. Study of the mental development of abnormal children // Defectology. 1983. No. 6.
5. Kon I.O. Psychology of high school students. M., 1980.
6. Mukhina B.S. Age-related psychology. M., 2000.
7. Obukhova. L.F. Age-related psychology. M., 1996.
8. Petrovsky A.V. Introduction to Psychology, M., 1995.
9. Pozhar L. Psychology of abnormal children and adolescents - pathopsychology. Voronezh, 1996.
10. Practical psychology of education / Ed. I.V. Dubrovina. M., 1997.
11. Ruvinskip L.I., Solovyova. A.E. Psychology of self-education. M., 1982.
12. Slastenin V.A., Kashirin V.P. Psychology and pedagogy. M., 2001.
13. Social psychology / Ed. A.V. Petrovsky. M., 1987.
14. Feldshtein D.L. Problems of developmental and educational psychology. M., 1995.
15. Chernyshev A.S., Dymov E.I. and others. Organization of psychological services at school. Kursk, 1991.
16. Elkonin D.B. On the problem of periodization of mental development in childhood // Reader on developmental psychology. M., 1994.
17. Elkonin D.V. Child psychology. M., 1960.
Chapter 7. A child with disabilities in the system of interpersonal relationships
7.1 The concept of “group” in psychology. Classification of groups
A person lives among people. His whole life takes place in various more or less stable associations, designated in social psychology by the concept of “group”.
A group is a community of people limited in size that stands out or is separated from the social whole on the basis of qualitative characteristics: the nature of the activity performed, age, gender, social affiliation, structure, level of development.
The main characteristics of a group that distinguish it from a simple collection of people are: a certain duration of existence; having a common goal or goals; interaction between group members; development of at least an elementary group structure; awareness by an individual of himself as “We” or his membership in the group.
The main condition for the functioning and development of a group is joint activity. The content of the joint activities of group members mediates all processes of group dynamics: the development of interpersonal relationships, the partners’ perception of each other, the formation of group norms and values, forms of cooperation and mutual responsibility. The size, structure and composition of the group are determined by the goals and objectives of the activity in which it is included or for the sake of which it was created.
In psychology, groups are divided according to the following criteria:
According to the directness of relationships: into real (contact) and conditional groups.
A real group is a community limited in size, existing in a single space and time and united by real relationships (school class, social rehabilitation group, etc.)
A conditional group is united according to a certain characteristic: type of activity, gender, age, level of education, etc. This is a community of people, including subjects who do not have direct or indirect, objective relationships with each other. The people who make up this community may not only never meet, but also know nothing about each other. For example, blind or deaf-mute children as categories of abnormal children.
By size: large, small, micro groups. Large groups are a quantitatively unlimited community of people, distinguished on the basis of certain social characteristics: social class, gender, age, nationality, etc. In large groups, norms of behavior, social and cultural values and traditions, and public opinion are developed, which are brought to the consciousness of each person through small troupes.
A small group includes a relatively small number of individuals united by common goals and objectives.
A microgroup can function as a dyad or triad.
According to social status: into formal (official) and informal (unofficial) groups.
A formal group is a real or conditional social community that has a legally fixed status, whose members, under the conditions of the social division of labor, are united by socially assigned activities. Official groups always have a certain normative structure, appointed or elected leadership, assigned rights and responsibilities of its members (educational group, kindergarten group, etc.).
An informal group is a real social community that does not have a legally fixed status, voluntarily united on the basis of interests, friendship and sympathy, or on the basis of pragmatic benefit. Informal groups can act as isolated communities or communities that develop within formal groups. Their interests may have different directions depending on the goals and values of the group.
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Calendar of age-related crises in a child
Most child psychologists agree that age-related crises are simply necessary for a child; without surviving them, the baby will not be able to fully develop. Stable and crisis periods alternate in a child’s life - this is a kind of law of the development of the child’s psyche. As a rule, crises pass quite quickly - in just a few months, while periods of stability are much longer. But it is worth noting that an unfavorable combination of circumstances can significantly increase the duration of the crisis period; sometimes a restless period in a child’s life can last a year or more. During a crisis, a child undergoes a significant shift in development, his behavior pattern changes; usually, these periods are short-lived, but quite stormy. The beginning and end of a crisis are quite difficult to determine; usually at this time the child is practically impossible to educate, the persuasion and agreements that were successfully used by the parents before do not work, the child’s behavior becomes inexplicable, and the reaction to various situations is quite violent. Many parents note that during periods of crisis, children become more capricious, whiny, and have outbursts of anger and hysterics. But, do not forget that each child is individual and each specific crisis can proceed differently. For a child, this period also does not pass unnoticed; it is difficult for him to find a common language with others, and the baby experiences an internal conflict.Children with disabilities also experience age-related crises, but they can occur in a different age period (for example, they may occur a year later than during normal development, or a child with disabilities may experience a crisis at only 6 years of age when they are 3 years old). If the crisis is more protracted, the child may become “stuck” in a crisis state. The crisis state is superimposed on the personal and behavioral characteristics of the child. The main guideline is psychological maturity to pass through one or another stage in personality formation, and not the child’s passport age. It is necessary to be very careful and be able to distinguish manifestations of a crisis from the stable psychological characteristics of a particular child with disabilities.
There are several age-related crises:
In order to know how to behave with your baby at a certain period of life, you need to know when crisis periods occur. The child’s age-related crises calendar will help you calculate them; it will tell you when your baby will react particularly violently to what is happening around him, and when you should pay maximum attention to your child. Let's take a closer look at how a child's behavior changes during periods of crisis and how parents should behave.
Crisis of the baby's first year of life
Almost all babies experience a crisis at the end of the first year of life. At this age, many children already begin to walk independently, pronounce their first words, try to dress and eat without the help of adults. As a rule, at this time, the child responds with capriciousness to the excessive desire of the parents to help him in everything and take care of him. New skills give the baby the opportunity to feel independent, but at the same time, the child begins to feel fear that he is losing his mother. Girls usually experience this crisis period a little earlier than boys, about one and a half years old, but for boys these worries pass closer to two years. How should parents behave during this difficult time? During the first age crisis, the baby experiences a great need to communicate with his mother; he wants to be with her always, without retreating a step. If the mother needs to leave, the child begins to be capricious and bored, and upon returning he asks to be held and tries to attract attention to himself in various ways.
Mom, in order to be able to mind her own business, should first devote time to the baby, play with him, read books, talk. Having enjoyed the presence of mommy, the child will soon want to play on his own. Very often, parents encounter stubbornness during this period of their child’s life. The child may refuse to eat, walk, or protest against getting dressed. In this way, your baby is trying to prove his maturity and independence. Your child’s favorite toy can come to your aid: a car or a doll is going for a walk, and the bunny behaves well at the table.
At the end of this period, your baby will gain new knowledge about himself, his capabilities and the world around him, and previously unknown character traits will appear. Remember that if this period is unfavorable, then there may be a disruption in the correct development.
How to survive the crisis of two years in a baby?
At this age, the baby begins vigorous research activity, trying to figure out what can be done and what cannot be done. This is necessary for the child to determine for himself the boundaries of what is permitted and to feel that he is safe.
Psychologists explain this quite simply: the baby’s behavior model is formed on the basis of the reaction of mom and dad to this or that action on the part of the baby; if the reaction is natural, then it is deposited in the child as a norm; if the parents’ reaction differs from the usual, the baby will not will feel safe. It is important for parents to understand that such a check on the part of the baby is not a whim, but a desire to make sure that everything is in order. It is worth remembering that over time your child will have to face resistance from other people and the environment. During this period of development, parents should clearly set the boundaries of what can be done and what cannot be done. This prohibition must not be waived under any circumstances. If you succumb to pity and allow something forbidden, the child will instantly feel his power and will try to manipulate you. Each parent must find ways to influence the child independently, guided by the child’s individuality, because for some a hint is enough, for others they only react to a shout, and some understand the parents’ demands only after a conversation. It is worth noting that the most effective way to stop hysterics is the absence of an audience, therefore, psychologists recommend sometimes ignoring the child’s whims and hysterics. What should parents do if their child has a tantrum? Firstly, you should not indulge your child’s desires; you must firmly adhere to your prohibitions. Secondly, do not try to switch the child’s attention; this method is only suitable for very young children. Thirdly, try to briefly and succinctly explain to the capricious person why his demands will not be met. If a child comes to you for reassurance, do not push him away and try to discuss the situation when the baby returns to normal.
Three-year baby crisis
Almost all children experience changes in behavior between the ages of two and three years - the so-called three-year crisis. At this time, children become capricious, their behavior changes far from for the better: hysterics, protest, outbursts of anger and aggression, self-will, negativity and stubbornness - you have never seen your child like this. All these manifestations of the crisis are connected with the fact that it is at this age that the child begins to position himself as an independent person and shows his will. The child must be given the opportunity to choose; for this, parents must use unique tricks, for example, allowing the child to independently choose the dishes from which he will eat or from two blouses the one he wants to wear for a walk. Hysterical fits and throwing things and toys on the floor are quite natural during this period. You should only worry if the child cannot get out of the state of hysterics or they are repeated several times a day. Try to use all sorts of persuasion and explanations to prevent your child from becoming hysterical, because preventing it is often easier than stopping it. The most important thing that mothers and fathers should remember is that they must not allow the child to get what he wants during a tantrum. Does it happen that a three-year-old child does not have a crisis? Rather, it happens that this period passes quickly and does not make significant changes in the character and behavior of the baby.
A child aged 4-5 years is capricious - how to deal with this?
The most difficult childhood crisis is considered to be the crisis period at the age of three. And so, it would seem that when this period is left behind, there should be a lull, but suddenly the child again becomes restless, capricious and demanding. What is this connected with?
Children attending preschool institutions, sections and clubs rarely experience a crisis at the age of 4-5 years. Therefore, if you notice that a child has become capricious or, on the contrary, too withdrawn, then most likely this is a reason to expand his circle of communication with peers.
A child has a crisis at 7 years old - what to do?
The crisis of a seven-year-old child, just like the crisis of a three-year-old, is accompanied by a sharp change in behavior. During this period, it seems that the child does not hear the comments and requests of adults, and at this time the child also allows himself to deviate from the permitted framework: he argues, makes reservations, and grimaces. Quite often, a crisis in a seven-year-old child is associated with the beginning of his educational activities. It is worth remembering that the child’s psyche is quite complex and unpredictable, so this crisis period can begin earlier (at 5-6 years of age) or later (8-9 years). The main reason for this crisis is that the baby overestimates his capabilities. How does the crisis manifest itself at 7 years old? Has your baby started to get tired quickly, has irritability, nervousness, and inexplicable outbursts of anger and rage appeared? Then it’s time to sound the alarm, or rather, be more attentive to the child. At this time, the child may be too active, or, on the contrary, may withdraw into himself. He strives to imitate adults in everything, he develops anxiety and fears, as well as self-doubt.
By the age of seven, play gradually takes second place, giving way to learning. Now the child experiences the world in a completely different way. This process is more likely associated not with the start of school, but with the fact that the child is reconsidering his own personality. At this time, the child learns to be aware of his emotions; now he understands why he is upset or happy. The baby is painfully worried if his inner “I” does not correspond to the ideal. If before it was enough for your baby to simply be sure that he is the best, now he needs to understand whether this is really so and why. In order to evaluate himself, the child monitors the reactions of others to his behavior and rather critically analyzes everything that happens.
Parents should remember that the child’s self-esteem is still very vulnerable, which is why self-esteem can be either overestimated or underestimated unreasonably. Both the first and second lead to serious internal experiences in the baby and can cause him to become withdrawn or, conversely, hyperactive. In addition, now the baby strives to grow up as soon as possible; the adult world is very attractive and interesting for him. At this age, children quite often have idols, while children actively imitate the chosen character, copying not only his positive, but also negative actions and actions. What should parents do at this time? Of course, first of all, you need to help your child learn to realistically assess his capabilities, while maintaining his self-confidence. This will help him learn to adequately evaluate his achievements and will not lead to disappointment in himself. Try to evaluate the child’s actions not as a whole, but by individual elements, teach the child that if something doesn’t work out now, in the future everything will definitely go exactly the way you wanted.
In conclusion, I would like to say that there is another crisis - the crisis of adolescence, which also requires a certain model of behavior from parents. Remember that everything is only in your hands, help your child cope with his experiences, support and guide him. Parental love can help you survive any crisis, even the most difficult one.
The material was prepared using Internet resources
Age is a category used to designate the temporary characteristics of individual development. There are chronological age and psychological age. Chronological age is determined by the amount of time an individual has lived since his birth. Psychological age is a qualitatively unique stage of development of an individual, determined by the laws of the formation of the body, the conditions of training and upbringing.
Age-related development of a person is a complex process, which, due to various circumstances, leads to a change in his personality at each age stage. In order to understand the patterns of age-related development, scientists have divided the entire human life cycle into certain time periods - periods, the boundaries of which are determined by the authors’ ideas about the most significant aspects of development.
The first attempt at a systematic analysis of the category of psychological age belongs to L.S. Vygotsky. He believed that development is, first of all, the emergence at a certain stage of life of a new quality or property - an age-related neoplasm, naturally conditioned by the entire course of previous development. Representations by L.S. Vygotsky’s idea of age-related development was developed in his research by D. B. Elkonin. The basis for the periodization of mental development proposed by him was the idea that each age, as a unique and qualitatively special period of a person’s life, is characterized by the peculiarities of the conditions in which he lives (the social situation of development), a certain type of leading activity and the resulting specific psychological neoplasms.
The most important condition for the development of a child’s personality is his inclusion in activities in the “child - thing” system, where he masters socially developed ways of acting with objects (eating with a spoon, drinking from a mug, reading a book, etc.), that is, elements of human culture, and in activities to master human relations in the “person - person” system. These systems of relationships are mastered by the child in various activities. Among the types of leading activities that have the strongest impact on the development of the child, he distinguishes two groups.
The first group includes activities that orient the child to the norms of relationships between people. This is the direct emotional communication of an infant, the role-playing game of a preschooler, and the intimate and personal communication of a teenager. The second group consists of leading activities, thanks to which socially developed methods of acting with objects and various standards are assimilated: the subject-manipulative activity of a young child, the educational activity of a junior school student, and the educational and professional activity of a high school student.
In the activity of the first type, the motivational-need sphere is mainly developed, in the activity of the second type - the intellectual-cognitive one. These two lines form a single process of personality development, but at each age stage one of them receives preferential development. Due to the fact that the child alternately masters the systems of relationships “person - person” and “person - thing”, there is a natural alternation of the most intensively developing spheres. Thus, in infancy, the development of the motivational sphere outstrips the development of the intellectual sphere; in the next, early age, the motivational sphere lags behind and intelligence develops at a faster pace, etc.
The named features of the development of a child’s personality are reflected in the law of periodicity formulated by D.B. Elkonin. Its essence is as follows: “a child approaches each point in his development with a certain discrepancy between what he has learned from the system of relations “person - person” and what he has learned from the system of relations “person - object.” The moments when this discrepancy takes on the greatest magnitude 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.”
Thus, 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 them 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 proposed by D.B. Elkonin, covers the period of time from the birth of a child to graduation and divides it into six periods:
1. Infancy: from birth to one year of life.
2. Early childhood: from one year of life to three years.
3. Preschool childhood: from three to seven years.
4. Junior school age: from seven years to ten-eleven years.
5. Adolescence: from ten to eleven to thirteen to fourteen years.
6. Early adolescence: from thirteen-fourteen to sixteen-seventeen years.
Let's consider the features of each of the identified ages:
1. Infancy is the beginning of the process of personality development. The leading activity is direct emotional communication. In the third month, with normal development, the child develops the first social formation, the so-called “revitalization complex.” By the end of the first year of life, a new formation appears, which is necessary to ensure all subsequent development - the need for communication with other people and a certain emotional attitude
2. Early childhood. The leading activity is object-manipulative. At the turn of infancy and early childhood, a transition to actual object-based actions occurs: the child, in collaboration with adults, masters the objects necessary for life and how to use them. At the same time, the child’s verbal forms of communication with adults intensively develop. However, speech, like the objective actions themselves, is so far used by him only to establish contacts with adults, but not as a tool of thinking. New developments of age are speech and visual-effective thinking.
3. Preschool childhood. The leading activity is role-playing game. By engaging in play activities, the child models the activities of adults and relationships between people, as a result of which he learns the “fundamental meanings of human activity.” However, in modern society, play is not the only type of activity for children at this age. They begin to draw, sculpt, design, learn poetry, listen to fairy tales. These types of activities create conditions for the emergence of personal formations that will be finally formed at the next age stages.
The main psychological new formations of age are: the emergence of the first schematic, integral child’s worldview; the emergence of the first ethical ideas; the emergence of subordinate motives. The child develops a desire for socially significant and assessed activities, which characterizes his readiness to study at school.
4. Junior school age. The leading activity is teaching. In the process of learning, the child’s cognitive sphere is actively formed, knowledge about objects and phenomena of the external world and human relationships is acquired. Through teaching in this period, the entire system of the child’s relationships with the outside world is mediated. The main psychological new formations of this age are: voluntariness and awareness of all mental processes (except intelligence); reflection - awareness of one’s own changes as a result of the development of educational activities; internal plan of action.
5. Adolescence. The leading activity is communication in the system of socially useful activities (educational, social-organizational, labor, etc.). Adolescence marks the transition from childhood to adulthood. The uniqueness of the social situation of development in adolescence is that the teenager is included in a new system of relationships and communication with adults, and it is reoriented from adults to peers. In the course of a teenager’s relationship with the social environment, internal contradictions arise, which are the driving force of his mental and personal development. In adolescence, the need to “be an individual” clearly manifests itself. In the process of communication and interaction with peers, a teenager strives for self-affirmation, tries to understand himself, his positive and negative qualities, in order to be accepted among his peers. New developments of age: the emergence of an idea of oneself not as a child, but as an adult. He develops self-esteem, the desire to be independent, and the ability to obey the norms of collective life.
6. Early adolescence. The leading activity is educational and professional. Early adolescence is a transition from purely physiological to social maturity, the time to develop views and beliefs, and the formation of a worldview. The main content of life at this age is inclusion in adulthood, assimilation of the norms and rules that exist in society. The main new developments of age are: worldview, professional interests, self-awareness, dreams and ideals.
The problem of periodization of human age development also attracted other scientists. Thus, 3. Freud believed that the foundation of personality is mainly formed during the first five years of life and is determined by factors of constitutional and individual development. The basis for personality development are two prerequisites: genetic - manifested in the form of experiences in early childhood and influencing the formation of an adult personality, and the second prerequisite - innate psychosexual needs (sexual instincts), the energetic basis of which is libido. Libido, according to Freud, is the force with which sexual desire manifests itself. Another point of view; libido is psychic energy that has a sexual connotation.
With age, psychosexual needs progress, going through several stages in their development, each of which is associated with certain areas of the body - erogenous zones, on which the individual focuses at a certain period of life and in a biologically determined sequence, which gives him pleasant tension.
