Piaget's experiment on children's thinking. The theory of the development of thinking according to J. Piaget, egocentrism of children's thinking. The theory of the formation and development of mental actions by P. Ya. Galperin

Introduction

§1. Theory of children's thinking

2.1 Sensorimotor period

2.3 Stage of formal (propositional) operations

§3. The theory of child egocentrism

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Speech is the process of people communicating with each other through language, it is the activity of communication, influence, communication through language, it is a form of existence of consciousness. As we can see, speech can indeed be interpreted in a very diverse way, but the last definition attracts our attention to a greater extent. In this regard, it should be noted that most studies

The most large-scale and authoritative work in this area belongs to J. Piaget. Piaget was the first to systematically study the peculiarities of children's thinking and speech with extraordinary depth and breadth of coverage. It is worth highlighting some features of his research and the first clinical method he applied. This method of observation consists in the fact that the child is forced to speak out and carefully recorded exactly how his thought unfolds. What is new here is that in this case they are not limited to simply registering the answer that the child gives to the question posed to him, but they give him the opportunity to express everything that he would like. By following the child in each of his answers, guiding him all the time, encouraging him to express himself more and more freely, the observer finally obtains the greatest possible picture of the development of thought. In his work, Piaget tried not to fall under the influence of existing theories and focus directly on the collection of facts and their processing. It is also impossible not to notice the biological past of the author, which is manifested in the extraordinary thoroughness of the arrangement and classification of facts. It is the latter that Piaget pays special attention to, deliberately refraining from attempts to prematurely analyze and systematize the diversity of the facts obtained.

“We tried,” says Piaget, “to follow step by step the facts in the form in which they were presented to us by the experiment. We know, of course, that an experiment is always determined by the hypotheses that give rise to it, but so far we have limited ourselves to just a consideration of the facts.

§1. Theory of children's thinking

Piaget built his theory of children's thinking on the basis of logic and biology. He proceeded from the idea that the basis of mental development is the development of the intellect. In a series of experiments, he proved his point of view, showing how the level of understanding, intelligence affect the speech of children, their perception and memory. The children in his experiments did not see and did not remember at what level the water was in the communicating vessels, if they did not know about the connection between the water level and the cork that closed one of the vessels. If they were told about this property of communicating vessels, the nature of their drawings changed, they began to carefully draw the water level (the same or different), as well as the plug.

Thus, Piaget comes to the conclusion that the stages of mental development are the stages of the development of the intellect, through which the child gradually passes in the formation of an increasingly adequate scheme of the situation. The basis of this scheme is precisely logical thinking.

Piaget said that in the process of development, the organism adapts to the environment. Therefore, the intellect is the core of the development of the psyche, because it is understanding, the creation of the correct scheme of the environment that ensures adaptation to the world around. At the same time, adaptation is not a passive process, but an active interaction of the organism with the environment. This activity is a necessary condition for development, since the scheme, according to Piaget, is not given ready-made at birth, and it does not exist in the outside world either. The schema is developed only in the process of active interaction with the environment, or, as Piaget wrote, "the schema is neither in the subject nor in the object, it is the result of active interaction with the object." One of Piaget's favorite examples was that of a child who does not know the concept of a number, who realizes its meaning by sorting out pebbles, playing with them, lining them up.

The process of adaptation and formation of an adequate scheme of the situation occurs gradually, while the child uses two mechanisms for its construction - assimilation and accommodation. During assimilation, the built scheme is rigid, it does not change when the situation changes, on the contrary, a person tries to squeeze all external changes into the narrow, given framework of the already existing scheme. An example of assimilation for Piaget is a game in which the child learns about the world around him. Accommodation is associated with a change in the finished scheme when the situation changes, as a result of which the scheme is indeed adequate, fully reflecting all the nuances of this situation. The process of development itself, according to Piaget, is an alternation of assimilation and accommodation; up to a certain limit, the child tries to use the old scheme, and then changes it, building another, more adequate one.

§2. The development of human intelligence: periods and stages of development

Piaget identifies three main periods of development:

1. Sensorimotor intelligence (from birth to 1.5 years).

2. Specifically - operational (representative) intelligence (from 1.5-2 years to 11 years).

3. Formal operational intelligence (from 11-12 to 14-15 years old).

Piaget characterizes each stage in two ways: positively (as a result of differentiation, complication of the structures of the previous level) and negatively (in terms of shortcomings and features that will be removed at the next stage).

2.1 Sensorimotor period

Piaget's study of the development of thinking begins with an analysis of the child's practical, objective activity in the first two years of life. He believes that the origins of even extremely abstract knowledge should be sought in action, knowledge does not come from outside in a finished form, a person must “build” it.

Observing the development of his own three children (daughters Jacqueline and Lucienne and son Laurent), Piaget identified 6 stages of sensorimotor development. These are the stages of transition from innate mechanisms and sensory processes (like the sucking reflex) to forms of organized behavior used arbitrarily, intentionally. A child from birth to 1.5 - 2 years is characterized by the development of feelings and motor structures: he looks, listens, touches, smells, manipulates, and does this out of innate curiosity for the world around him.

There are two sub-periods of sensorimotor intelligence:

Up to 7-9 months, when the infant is centered on its own body;

From 9 months, when the objectification of the schemes of practical intelligence in the spatial sphere takes place.

The criterion for the emergence of intelligence is the use by the child of certain actions as a means to achieve the goal. So, by the end of the first sub-period, children discover connections between their own action and the result - by pulling up the diaper, you can get a toy lying on it. They also develop an idea of ​​the independent and permanent existence of other objects. The "constancy" of the object consists in the fact that now the thing for the child is not only a perceptual picture, it has its own existence independent of perception. The previously disappeared object, as it were, "ceased to exist", now the baby is active in searching for the object hidden before his eyes.

Another important change is the overcoming of absolute egocentrism, total unconsciousness. The child begins to distinguish himself (the subject) from the rest of the world of objects. Piaget recognizes the role of maturation processes, which creates opportunities for cognitive development. But for intellectual progress, the infant needs to independently interact with the environment, manipulate objects, which leads to the transformation and gradual improvement of its intellectual structures.

2.2 Period of specific (elementary) operations

The mental abilities of the child reach a new level. This is the initial stage of the internalization of actions, the development of symbolic thinking, the formation of semiotic functions, such as language and mental image. Mental visual representations of objects are formed; the child designates them by names, not by direct actions.

Specifically, operational intelligence consists of the following sub-periods:

Preoperative, preparatory (from 2 to 5 years);

The first level - the formation of specific operations (5 - 7 years);

The second level is the functioning of specific operations (8-11 years).

Initially, thinking has a subjective, illogical character. Actually, the features of this type of thinking were discovered and described by J. Piaget already at an early stage of creativity as characteristics of egocentric thinking.

In order to trace how logical systems develop in ontogeny, Piaget offered children (4 years and older) tasks of a scientific nature, which were called "Piaget's problems". These experiments are often also called "tests for the preservation of equality" (weight, length, volume, number, etc.). Since all tasks of this kind are built on general principles, for example, consider the volume conservation test.

Fluid volume retention test. Stages of implementation:

1. First, the child is shown two glasses filled with water or juice to the same mark. The child is asked if the amount of liquid in both glasses is the same. It is important that the child recognizes that "the waters are the same." The statement of initial equality is obligatory. The initial equality of the evaluated property is necessarily accompanied by a perceptual similarity - the water levels in the two glasses are aligned.

In this regard, it should be noted that most studies devoted to the thinking of the child, were predominantly analytical. That is why the wide possibilities of studying speech (as one of the forms of the existence of consciousness) empirically are of particular interest to psychologists.

The most large-scale and authoritative work in this area belongs to J. Piaget. Piaget was the first to systematically study the peculiarities of children's thinking and speech with extraordinary depth and breadth of coverage. It is worth highlighting some features of his research and the first clinical method he applied. This method of observation consists in the fact that the child is forced to speak out and carefully recorded exactly how his thought unfolds. What is new here is that in this case they are not limited to simply registering the answer that the child gives to the question posed to him, but they give him the opportunity to express everything that he would like. By following the child in each of his answers, guiding him all the time, encouraging him to express himself more and more freely, the observer finally obtains the greatest possible picture of the development of thought. In his work, Piaget tried not to fall under the influence of existing theories and focus directly on the collection of facts and their processing. It is also impossible not to notice the biological past of the author, which is manifested in the extraordinary thoroughness of the arrangement and classification of facts. It is the latter that Piaget pays special attention to, deliberately refraining from attempts to prematurely analyze and systematize the diversity of the facts obtained.

“We tried,” says Piaget, “to follow step by step the facts in the form in which they were presented to us by the experiment. We know, of course, that an experiment is always determined by the hypotheses that give rise to it, but so far we have limited ourselves to just a consideration of the facts.

§1. Theory of children's thinking

Piaget built his theory of children's thinking on the basis of logic and biology. He proceeded from the idea that the basis of mental development is the development of the intellect. In a series of experiments, he proved his point of view, showing how the level of understanding, intelligence affect the speech of children, their perception and memory. The children in his experiments did not see and did not remember at what level the water was in the communicating vessels, if they did not know about the connection between the water level and the cork that closed one of the vessels. If they were told about this property of communicating vessels, the nature of their drawings changed, they began to carefully draw the water level (the same or different), as well as the plug.

Thus, Piaget comes to the conclusion that the stages of mental development are the stages of the development of the intellect, through which the child gradually passes in the formation of an increasingly adequate scheme of the situation. The basis of this scheme is precisely logical thinking.

Piaget said that in the process of development, the organism adapts to the environment. Therefore, the intellect is the core of the development of the psyche, because it is understanding, the creation of the correct scheme of the environment that ensures adaptation to the world around. At the same time, adaptation is not a passive process, but an active interaction of the organism with the environment. This activity is a necessary condition for development, since the scheme, according to Piaget, is not given ready-made at birth, and it does not exist in the outside world either. The schema is developed only in the process of active interaction with the environment, or, as Piaget wrote, "the schema is neither in the subject nor in the object, it is the result of active interaction with the object." One of Piaget's favorite examples was that of a child who does not know the concept of a number, who realizes its meaning by sorting out pebbles, playing with them, lining them up.

The process of adaptation and formation of an adequate scheme of the situation occurs gradually, while the child uses two mechanisms for its construction - assimilation and accommodation. During assimilation, the built scheme is rigid, it does not change when the situation changes, on the contrary, a person tries to squeeze all external changes into the narrow, given framework of the already existing scheme. An example of assimilation for Piaget is the game, in which the child learns the world around him. Accommodation is associated with a change in the finished scheme when the situation changes, as a result of which the scheme is indeed adequate, fully reflecting all the nuances of this situation. The process of development itself, according to Piaget, is an alternation of assimilation and accommodation; up to a certain limit, the child tries to use the old scheme, and then changes it, building another, more adequate one.

§2. The development of human intelligence: periods and stages of development

Piaget identifies three main periods of development:

1. Sensorimotor intelligence (from birth to 1.5 years).

2. Specifically - operational (representative) intelligence (from 1.5-2 years to 11 years).

3. Formal operational intelligence (from 11-12 to 14-15 years old).

Piaget characterizes each stage in two ways: positively (as a result of differentiation, complication of the structures of the previous level) and negatively (in terms of shortcomings and features that will be removed at the next stage).

2.1 Sensorimotor period

Piaget's study of the development of thinking begins with an analysis of the child's practical, objective activity in the first two years of life. He believes that the origins of even extremely abstract knowledge should be sought in action, knowledge does not come from outside in a finished form, a person must “build” it.

Observing the development of his own three children (daughters Jacqueline and Lucienne and son Laurent), Piaget identified 6 stages of sensorimotor development. These are the stages of transition from innate mechanisms and sensory processes (like the sucking reflex) to forms of organized behavior used arbitrarily, intentionally. A child from birth to 1.5 - 2 years is characterized by the development of feelings and motor structures: he looks, listens, touches, smells, manipulates, and does this out of innate curiosity for the world around him.

There are two sub-periods of sensorimotor intelligence:

- up to 7-9 months, when the infant is centered on its own body;

- from 9 months, when the objectification of the schemes of practical intelligence in the spatial sphere takes place.

The criterion for the emergence of intelligence is the use by the child of certain actions as a means to achieve the goal. So, by the end of the first sub-period, children discover connections between their own action and the result - by pulling up the diaper, you can get a toy lying on it. They also develop an idea of ​​the independent and permanent existence of other objects. The "constancy" of the object consists in the fact that now the thing for the child is not only a perceptual picture, it has its own existence independent of perception. The previously disappeared object, as it were, "ceased to exist", now the baby is active in searching for the object hidden before his eyes.

Another important change is the overcoming of absolute egocentrism, total unconsciousness. The child begins to distinguish himself (the subject) from the rest of the world of objects. Piaget recognizes the role of maturation processes, which creates opportunities for cognitive development. But for intellectual progress, the infant needs to independently interact with the environment, manipulate objects, which leads to the transformation and gradual improvement of its intellectual structures.

2.2 Period of specific (elementary) operations

The mental abilities of the child reach a new level. This is the initial stage of the internalization of actions, the development of symbolic thinking, the formation of semiotic functions, such as language and mental image. Mental visual representations of objects are formed; the child designates them by names, not by direct actions.

Specifically, operational intelligence consists of the following sub-periods:

- preoperative, preparatory (from 2 to 5 years);

- the first level - the formation of specific operations (5 - 7 years);

- the second level - the functioning of specific operations (8-11 years).

Initially, thinking has a subjective, illogical character. Actually, the features of this type of thinking were discovered and described by J. Piaget already at an early stage of creativity as characteristics of egocentric thinking.

In order to trace how logical systems develop in ontogenesis, Piaget offered children (4 years and older) tasks of a scientific nature, which were called "Piaget's tasks". These experiments are often also called "tests for the preservation of equality" (weight, length, volume, number, etc.). Since all tasks of this kind are built on general principles, for example, consider the volume conservation test.

Fluid volume retention test. Stages of implementation:

1. First, the child is shown two glassesfilled with water or juice to the same mark. The child is asked if the amount of liquid in both glasses is the same. It is important that the child recognizes that "the waters are the same". The statement of initial equality is obligatory. The initial equality of the evaluated property is necessarily accompanied by a perceptual similarity - the water levels in the two glasses are aligned.

2. Then the adult pours water from one glass into a glass of another shape, wider and lower. As a rule, the experimenter draws the child's attention to these transformations: "Look what I'm doing." A transformation is performed in which the perceptual similarity is broken, although this does not affect the evaluated property in any way.

3. After the transfusion, the question is repeated: “Is the amount of liquid in two glasses the same?”, And always in the same form as at the beginning.

Typically, children under the age of 7 do not cope with standard conservation tasks. Solving problems, preschoolers demonstrate their specific ideas about the preservation (constancy, invariance) of various properties of an object during its spatial, perceptual transformation - "Piagetian phenomena". These are the most reliable facts in child psychology, they can be reproduced in any preschool child. As a rule, the child says that there is now less (or more) water in one of the glasses, i.e. he lacks an understanding of the preservation of the properties of an object during its perceptual transformation. Then the phenomenon of non-conservation is ascertained.

The preschooler evaluates the object as a global whole, directly, egocentrically, relying on perception. He is "centered" on the present moment and unable to simultaneously think about how things looked before; does not see that the action performed is in principle reversible (water can again be poured into identical glasses); focusing on one aspect (the difference in the height of the liquid levels), cannot take into account two parameters at once (height and width of the glass). Piaget regards the phenomenon of non-conservation as evidence of the inability of the child (before reaching the age of seven) to decentration and the inability to build logical reasoning.

In the case when the repeated question “Is the amount of liquid in two glasses the same?” the child confirms the equality of the property, it is said that he retains the attribute. Execution of the save test is a criterion for the functioning of specific operations. Recall that logical operations are mental actions that are characterized by reversibility. Reversibility refers, for example, to the relation of addition and subtraction or the relation of statements that the distances Between A and B and between B and A are the same. The ability to mentally use the principle of reversibility is one of the main signs of reaching the stage of concrete-operational thinking.

Another variant of Piaget's problems - "test for inclusion in a set" - involves comparing the whole and its parts.

Test for inclusion in a set

1. Show a few familiar objects, such as flowers. Objects must be divided into two subclasses (white and red), the number of elements in these subclasses must not be the same (4 red and 2 white).

2. The child is asked the question: “What is more - red flowers or flowers?”

3. The usual answer of a five-year-old child: "There are more red flowers."

Piaget's explanation is that the child is class-centered and cannot think about the class and its subclasses at the same time. When a child begins to solve such problems correctly (usually after 7 years), this indicates increased mental flexibility, the appearance of reversibility, an increase in the ability to decenter, which depends on the formation of operational structures. The child becomes able to understand that two features of an object are not related to each other, do not depend on each other (for example, the shape and amount of a substance). There are ideas about the preservation of various features - the material of the object, length, mass, volume, and later - about the preservation of time, speed. The ability to classify objects and seriation (i.e. ordered arrangement in a row, for example, in order of decreasing size) appears. Now the child can overcome the influence of direct perception and apply logical thinking to certain situations.

The social and cultural environment can speed up or slow down the rate at which a developmental stage progresses, primarily by whether it provides him with the right materials to study, tasks to solve, and so on. The transfer of ready-made knowledge (learning the correct answers) is inefficient; development occurs when a person's own activity takes place, the active construction and self-regulation of cognitive processes. Also important for the development of thinking (and in particular for the development of awareness of other points of view) is the exchange of ideas, discussion and argument with peers.

The transition to concrete-operational thinking restructures all mental processes, moral judgments and the ability to cooperate with other people.

However, all these logical operations are concrete - they are applied only to real, tangible objects and actions with them, they are subordinate to the specific content in which reality is presented to the child.

2.3 Stage of formal (propositional) operations

Formal-operational structures are manifested in the child's ability to reason hypothetically and independently of the content of the subject area, without a specific support. Formal mental operations are the basis of the logic of an adult; elementary scientific thinking is based on them, functioning with the help of hypotheses and deductions. Abstract thinking is the ability to build conclusions according to the rules of formal logic and combinatorics, which allows a teenager to put forward hypotheses, come up with their experimental verification, and draw conclusions.

Particularly noticeable are the new achievements of adolescents in experiments on the derivation of some of the simplest physical laws (the laws of the swing of a pendulum; ways to combine colorless liquids to get a yellow liquid; factors affecting the flexibility of some materials; on the increase in acceleration when sliding on an inclined plane). In this situation, the child of the preoperational level acts chaotically, “for good luck”; a child of a particular intelligence level is more organized, tries some options, but only some, and then refuses to try. A teenager of the formal level, after several trials, stops direct experimentation with the material and starts compiling a list of all possible hypotheses. Only then does he begin to test them one by one, trying to isolate the operating variables and examine the particular impact of each. This type of behavior

- systematic testing of all possible combinations

- is based on new logical structures, which Piaget uses the language of propositional logic to characterize.

A teenager acquires the ability to understand and build theories, to join the worldview of adults, going beyond the limits of his direct experience. Hypothetical reasoning introduces the adolescent into the realm of the potential; at the same time, idealized ideas are not always verifiable and often contradict real facts. Piaget called the teenage form of cognitive egocentrism "naive idealism" of a teenager, who attributes unlimited power to thinking in striving to create a more perfect world. Only by assuming new social roles as adults does the adolescent encounter obstacles, begins to take into account external circumstances, and the final intellectual decentration in the new sphere takes place.

As for the period of transition from youth to adulthood, Piaget outlines a number of problems regarding the further development of the intellect, its specialization. During the period of building a life program, from 15 to 20 years, we can assume the process of intellectual differentiation: firstly, general cognitive structures are revealed that are used by each individual in a specific way in accordance with their own tasks, and secondly, special structures are formed for different areas of activity .

§3. The theory of child egocentrism

So, the concept of children's egocentrism occupies, as it were, the place of a central focus, in which the threads coming from all points intersect and gather at one point. With the help of these threads, Piaget brings to unity all the variety of individual features that characterize the logic of the child and turns them from an incoherent, disordered, chaotic set into a strictly connected structural complex of phenomena caused by a single cause. Now let's try to find out the thought of Piaget himself, to determine what the author sees as the actual basis of his concept. Piaget finds such a basis in his first study, devoted to elucidating the function of speech in children. In this study, he comes to the conclusion that all children's conversations can be divided into two groups, which can be called egocentric and socialized speech. Under the name of egocentric speech, Piaget understands speech that differs primarily in its function. “This speech is egocentric,” says Piaget, “primarily because the child speaks only about himself. He is not interested in whether they are listening to him, does not expect an answer. He does not feel like influencing the interlocutor or really telling him something. The child talks to himself as if he's thinking aloud. He doesn't address anyone." The calculated coefficient of egocentric speech ranges from 44% to 47% for children aged 5-7 years and from 54% to 60% for children aged 3-5 years. And so, based on a series of experiments, as well as on the fact of egocentric speech, Piaget comes to the conclusion that the child’s thought is egocentric, that is, the child thinks for himself, not caring either about being understood or about understanding the point of view. another.

The scheme is fundamental for the perception of Piaget's theory:

extraverbal autistic thinking

Egocentric speech and egocentric thinking

Socialized speech and logical thinking

Egocentric thought is an intermediate link between authentic and socialized thoughts. In its structure it remains authentic, but its interests are no longer directed to the satisfaction of organic needs or the needs of play, as in pure autism, but are also turned to mental adaptation, as in an adult. Characteristically, in his reasoning, Piaget relies on Freud's theory: “And psychoanalysis came indirectly to an extremely similar result. One of the merits of psychoanalysis is that he established a distinction between two kinds of thinking: one is social, capable of being expressed, guided by the need to adapt to others (logical thought), the other is intimate and therefore not amenable to expression (authentic thought)" (1, p. 350). However, under the influence of external factors, egocentric thinking is gradually socialized. The active beginning of this process can be attributed to 7-8 years ("the first critical period"), but the result is a transition to the form of thinking, which Piaget called socialized, trying to emphasize the completeness of the process.

Above, we briefly got acquainted with the main facts and theses of the study of children's egocentrism. We can say that it was this study, for all its controversy, that paved the way for further study of child psychology. Moreover, all subsequent theories, to a greater or lesser extent, were based on Piaget's research.

Conclusion

Piaget is one of the most revered and cited researchers, whose authority is recognized throughout the world and the number of followers is not decreasing. The main thing is that he was the first to understand, investigate and express the qualitative originality of children's thinking, showing that the thinking of a child is completely different from the thinking of an adult. The methods developed by him for studying the level of development of the intellect have long become diagnostic and play an important role in modern practical psychology. Those laws of the process of mental activity that were discovered by Piaget remained unshaken, despite the large number of new facts about children's thinking. The opportunity he opened to understand and shape the child's mind is Piaget's greatest merit.

Bibliography

1. Vallon A. Mental development of the child. - M., 1967.

2. Developmental and pedagogical psychology / Ed. A.V. Petrovsky. - M., 1979.

3. Volkov B.S., Volkova N.V. Tasks and exercises in child psychology. - M., 1991.

4. Martsinkovskaya T.D. Genetic psychology of Jean Piaget. - M., 2005

5. Obukhova L.F. Jean Piaget's concept: pros and cons. - M., 1981

6. Piaget J. Selected psychological works. - M., 1986

7. Piaget's theory. History of foreign psychology. - M., 1986

8. Piaget J. Piaget J. Speech and thinking of the child. M., 1994

9. Elkonin D.B. Selected psychological works. - M., 1989

10. Yaroshevsky M.G. History of psychology from antiquity to the middle of the XX century. - M., 1996.

Jean Piaget was one of the first researchers to shed light on the question of how the mental abilities of children develop, Piaget noticed that the progress of children's cognitive skills goes through a series of stages. Although Piaget's theory played a very important role, psychologists continue to develop his ideas. In addition, many psychologists have become interested in questions about how children acquire intellectual skills that are highly valued in their culture. As a rule, children do this under the guidance of experienced "mentors".

Piaget's stages of cognitive development

Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years)

In the first 2 years of life, the intellectual development of the child takes place for the most part at the non-verbal level. The child learns to coordinate purposeful movements and the information provided by the senses. At this time, the concept of the permanence of the subject arises (the understanding that the sing still exists, even if it is not visible). By about 18 months, the baby begins to actively follow disappearing objects with his eyes.

By the age of 2, a child can anticipate where an object behind a screen will move. For example, watching an electric train. In general, development at this stage shows that 1 the child's concepts are stabilizing. Objects cease to disappear and appear magically, and the confused and incoherent sensations of infancy are replaced by a more regular and predictable world.

Preoperative stage (2-7 years)

During the preoperative period, children begin to think symbolically and use language. However, the child's thinking is still very intuitive - and he uses little reasoning and logic. In addition, the child uses language in a way that is not as complicated as it might seem. Children have a tendency to confuse words with the things they represent. If a child calls a toy block a "car" and you use the block to make a "train", the child may get very upset. For children, the name of an object is, as it were, a part of the object, the same as its size, shape and color. During this period, the child is primarily engaged in naming objects. A child at the preoperative stage can be offended by an offensive name no less than pokes and slaps. Take, for example, one little girl who got angry with her older brother. To get even with a stronger and bigger opponent, she shouted out: “You are an elastic band from panties!” It was the worst thing she could imagine.

During the pre-operational stage, the child is still quite egocentric (not able to understand the point of view of other people - approx.. The concept of egocentrism helps us understand why children at times seem desperately egocentric or unwilling to do what they are told.

Specific operational stage (7-11 years)

An important stage of development during which the child learns the concept that mass, weight and volume remain the same when the shape of objects changes. Children learn the principle of invariance when they begin to understand that rolling a ball of clay into a snake does not increase the amount of clay. In the same way, if we pour liquid from a tall, narrow container into a flat dish, this will not reduce the amount of liquid. In both cases, the volume remains constant, although the shape or appearance changes. The original amount of the substance remains unchanged.

During a particular operational stage, children begin to apply the concepts of time, space, and number. The child can think logically about very specific things or situations, categories and principles.

Another important skill that is acquired at this time is the use of reversibility of thoughts and mental operations. A conversation with a 4-year-old boy at this developmental stage shows what happens when a child lacks the capacity for reversibility.

"You have a brother?" "Yes",
"What's his name?" "Jim".
"Jim has a brother?" "No".

The reversibility of thinking allows children at the operational stage of development to understand that if four times four is eight, then four times two will also be eight. Younger children have to memorize each operation separately. So a pre-operational child may know that nine times four is 36. But he may not understand that four times nine is also 36.

Formal Operations Stage

Sometimes after the age of 11, children begin to break away from specific objects and examples. Thinking is based more on abstract principles (symbolic ideas) such as "democracy", "honor" or "value". Children who reach this stage think about their own thoughts and become less self-centered. Older children and adolescents also gradually learn to think about hypothetical possibilities (hypotheses, guesses, or representations).

For example, if you ask a younger child, "What do you think would happen if people could fly?", the child would probably answer, "People can't fly." Older children are already able to imagine such possibilities and reason about the consequences.

At the stage of formal operations, the child develops full-fledged intellectual abilities of an adult. Older teenagers are capable of inductive AND deductive thinking, they understand mathematics, physics, philosophy, psychology and other abstract spiders. They can learn to test hypotheses in a scientific way. Of course, not everyone reaches this level of thinking. Many adults can also think formally about some topics, but their thinking becomes concrete if the topic is unfamiliar to them. This implies that formal thinking may be the result of culture and learning rather than maturation. In any case, at the end of adolescence, improvements in intelligence are based on the acquisition of knowledge, experience and wisdom, and not on an unexpected qualitative change in thinking.

Operations are not performed in isolation: being interconnected, they create stable and at the same time mobile structures. The stability of structures is possible only due to the activity of the organism, its intense struggle with the forces that destroy it.

The staged development of the system of mental actions - this is how Piaget presented a picture of consciousness.

At the same time, at first, Piaget was influenced by Freud, believing that a human child, being born, is driven by one motive - the desire for pleasure - and does not want to know anything about reality, which is forced to reckon with only because of the demands of others. Later, he recognized the starting point in the development of the child's psyche as the child's real external actions (sensory-motor intelligence, that is, the elements of thought given in movements that are regulated by sensory impressions).

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) - Swiss psychologist, founder of the Geneva Epistemological Center (Geneva School of Genetic Psychology). The author of the concept of staged development of the child's psyche. In the initial period of his activity, he described the features of children's ideas about the world: the inseparability of the world and their own "I", animism, artificalism (perception of the world as created by human hands). He analyzed in detail the specifics of children's thinking ("Speech and Thinking of a Child", 1923). To explain the ideas of children, he used the concept of egocentrism, by which he understood a certain position in relation to the world around him, overcome through the process of socialization and influencing the constructions of children's logic. Later he paid special attention to the development of intelligence. In his research, he tried to

to show that the development of thinking is connected with the transformation of external actions into internal ones through their transformation into operations. A significant part of his research in the field of intelligence was reflected in the book "Psychology of Intellect", 1946.

J. Piaget's research became widely known, which contributed to the creation of a scientific direction, which he called genetic epistemology. The theory of the development of intelligence in childhood, proposed by J. Piaget within the ontogenetic direction, became widely known. Piaget proceeded from the assertion that the basic mental operations have an activity origin. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the theory of the development of the child's thinking, proposed by Piaget, was called "operational". An operation, according to Piaget, is an internal action, a product of the transformation (“interiorization”) of an external objective action, coordinated with other actions into a single system, the main properties of which are reversibility (for each operation there is a symmetrical and opposite operation). Piaget identified four stages in the development of mental operations in children.

The first stage is sensorimotor intelligence. It covers the period of a child's life from one to two years and is characterized by the development of the ability to perceive and cognize the objects of the real world that make up the environment of the child. Moreover, under the knowledge of objects, it is supposed to comprehend their properties and features.

By the end of the first stage, the child becomes a subject, that is, he distinguishes himself from the world around him, realizes his "I". He has the first signs of volitional control of his behavior, and in addition to cognition of the objects of the world around him, the child begins to cognize himself.

The second stage - operational thinking - refers to the age of two to seven years. This age, as is known, is characterized by the development of speech, therefore, the process of interiorization of external actions with objects is activated, and visual representations are formed. At this time, the child has a manifestation of egocentric thinking, which is expressed in the difficulty of accepting the position of another person. At the same time, there is an erroneous classification of objects due to the use of random or secondary features.

The third stage is the stage of specific operations with objects. This stage begins at the age of seven or eight and lasts until the age of 11 or 12. During this period, according to Piaget, mental operations become reversible.

Children who have reached this level can already give logical explanations for the actions performed, are able to move from one point of view to another, and become more objective in their judgments. According to Piaget, at this age, children come to an intuitive understanding of the two most important logical principles of thinking, which can be expressed by the following formulas:

The first formula is that if A = B and B -= C, then A = C.

The second formula contains the statement that A + B = B + A.

At the same time, children manifest an ability called by Piaget seriation. The essence of this ability lies in the ability to rank objects according to some measurable feature, for example, by weight, size, volume, brightness, etc. In addition, during this period, the child manifests the ability to combine objects into classes and allocate subclasses.

The fourth stage is the stage of formal operations. It covers the period from 11-12 to 14-15 years. It should be noted that the development of operations formed at this stage continues throughout life. At this stage of development, the child develops the ability to perform operations in the mind using logical reasoning and abstract concepts. At the same time, individual mental operations are transformed into a single structure of the whole.

In our country, the theory of the formation and development of intellectual operations, proposed by P. Ya. Galperin, has become widespread. This theory was based on the idea of ​​a genetic dependence between internal intellectual operations and external practical actions. This approach was also used in other concepts and theories of the development of thinking. But unlike other areas, Galperin expressed his ideas regarding the laws of development of thinking. He talked about the existence of a gradual formation of thinking. In his works, Galperin singled out the stages of internalization of external actions, determined the conditions that ensure the successful transfer of external actions into internal ones. It should also be noted that Galperin's concept is of great importance not only for understanding the essence of the process of development and formation of thinking, but also for understanding the psychological theory of activity, since it shows the process of mastering a specific action at the level of formation of mental operations.

Galperin believed that the development of thinking in the early stages is directly related to objective activity, to the manipulation of objects. However, the transfer of external actions into internal ones with their transformation into certain mental operations does not occur immediately, but in stages. At each stage, the transformation of a given action is carried out only for a number of parameters. According to Galperin, higher intellectual actions and operations cannot be formed without relying on previous methods of performing the same action, and those rely on the previous methods of performing a given action, and in the end, all actions are based on visual-effective methods.

According to Galperin, there are four parameters according to which the action is transformed. These include: performance level; measure of generalization; completeness of actually performed operations; development measure. In this case, the first parameter of the action can be located on three sublevels: actions with material objects; actions in terms of external speech; actions in the mind. The other three parameters characterize the quality of the action formed at a certain sublevel: generalization, abbreviation, mastery.

The process of formation of mental actions in accordance with the concept of Galperin has the following stages:

The first stage is characterized by the formation of an indicative basis for future action. The main function of this stage is to get acquainted in practice with the composition of the future action, as well as with the requirements that this action must ultimately meet.

The second stage of the formation of mental action is associated with its practical development, which is carried out with the use of objects.

The third stage is associated with the continuation of mastering the given action, but without relying on real objects. At this stage, the action is transferred from the external, visual-figurative plan to the internal plan. The main feature of this stage is the use of external (loud) speech as a substitute for manipulating real objects. Galperin believed that the transfer of an action to a speech plan means, first of all, the speech performance of a certain objective action, and not its voicing.

At the fourth stage of mastering mental action, external speech is abandoned. The transfer of the external speech execution of the action entirely into internal speech is carried out. A specific action is performed "silently".

At the fifth stage, the action is performed completely on the internal plane, with appropriate reductions and transformations, with the subsequent departure of the performance of this action from the sphere of consciousness (i.e., constant control over its implementation) into the sphere of intellectual skills and abilities.

44. Intellect - a set of human mental abilities that ensure the success of his cognitive activity.

In a broad sense, this term is understood as the totality of all cognitive functions of an individual (perception, memory, imagination, thinking), and in a narrow sense - his mental abilities1. In psychology, there is a concept intelligence structures, however,

understanding of this structure varies widely depending on the views of a particular psychologist. For example, the famous scientist

R. Cattell singled out two sides in the structure of intelligence: dynamic - "fluid" (fluid), and static - "crystallized" (crystallized). According to his concept, "fluid intelligence" manifests itself in tasks, the solution of which requires quick and flexible adaptation to a new situation. It depends more on the genotype of the person. "Crystal-

“Lized intelligence” is more dependent on the social environment and manifests itself in solving problems that require appropriate skills and experience.

You can use other models of the structure of intelligence, for example, highlighting the following components in it:

Ability to learn (rapid mastering of new knowledge, skills and abilities);

Ability to successfully operate with abstract symbols and concepts;

Ability to solve practical problems and problem situations;

The amount of available long-term and operative memory.

Accordingly, intelligence tests include several groups of tasks. These are tests that reveal the amount of knowledge in a particular area; tests that evaluate the intellectual development of a person in connection with his biological age; tests that determine a person's ability to solve problem situations and intellectual

tasks. In addition, there are special tests. For example, for abstract-logical or spatial thinking, for verbal intelligence, etc. To the most famous tests of this kind

relate:

_ Stanford-Binet test- evaluates the intellectual development of the child;

_ Wechsler test- evaluates the verbal and non-verbal components of intelligence;

_ Raven test- non-verbal intelligence;

_ Eysenck test (IQ)- determines the general level of intelligence development.

In the study of intelligence in psychology, there are two approaches: intellectual abilities are innate or develop in the process of individual development, as well as their intermediate version.

As part of the operational approach, the most developed factor models of intelligence are based on the following provisions:

Intelligence is a latent property of some mental structure that can be measured;

Intelligence as a psychological construct is given to the researcher only through various indirect manifestations in solving problems of different levels of complexity;

The set of behavioral manifestations of intelligence is always greater than the set of properties;

The solution to the problem may be right or wrong;

Any problem can be solved correctly in an infinite amount of time.

A consequence of these provisions is the principle that the difficulty of a task determines the level of intelligence required to solve it correctly. Thus, the essence of the measuring approach lies in the procedure and content of test tasks [V.N. Druzhinin, 1999].

Ch. Spearman's model.

As a result of his research, Spearman suggested that the success of any intellectual activity is determined by:

a certain common factor, a common ability;

factor specific to this activity.

The success of the tests by the subjects depends on the level of development of their general ability (general G - factor) and the corresponding special ability (S - factor). The G factor was defined by Spearman as total "mental energy", but he did not propose a procedure for measuring it. G - factor affects the success of any activity. According to Spearman, the role of the G-factor is maximum when solving complex mathematical problems and tasks on conceptual thinking and is minimal when performing sensorimotor actions.

Later, Spearman also singled out the level of group factors (arithmetic, mechanical, linguistic (verbal)).

Rice. 1 Ch. Spearman's model of intelligence

Model L. Thurstone

Unlike Spearman, Thurstone denied the existence of a single factor that ensures the productivity of intellectual actions. According to his assumptions, every intellectual act is the result of the interaction of many individual factors. 7 factors were reproduced most frequently in Thurstone's studies. This:

"V. Verbal comprehension - is tested by tasks for understanding the text, verbal analogies, conceptual thinking, interpretation of proverbs, etc.

W. Verbal fluency - measured by tests for finding rhymes, naming words belonging to a certain category.

N. Numeric factor - tested by tasks for the speed and accuracy of arithmetic calculations.

S. Spatial factor - divided into two sub-factors. The first determines the success and speed of perception of spatial relationships (recognition of flat geometric figures), and the second is associated with the mental manipulation of visual representations in three-dimensional space.

M. Associative memory - measured by tests for the rote memorization of verbal associative pairs.

R. Speed ​​of perception - is determined by the rapid and accurate perception of details, similarities and differences in images. Separate verbal and figurative sub-factors.

I. The inductive factor is tested by tasks for finding a rule and completing a sequence (by the type of D. Raven's test). Least accurate."

However, as further studies showed, Thurstone factors turned out to be dependent, i.e. correlated with each other, which confirms Ch. Spearman's assumption about the existence of a single G-factor.

Model J. Gilford

Guilford, as a result of systematizing his research, proposed a model of the "structure of intelligence (SI)". The model is three-dimensional, according to the scheme: content (tasks) - mental process (operations) - result.

The operation, according to Guilford, is a mental process. It can be cognition, memory, divergent and convergent thinking, evaluation.

The results are the form in which the subject gives the answer. They can be: element, classes, relations, systems, types of transformations and conclusions.

The factors in this model are independent and each of them is formed by a combination of categories of three dimensions of intelligence, the names of the factors are conditional. Total factors

According to Guilford, more than 100 factors have now been identified.

R. B. Cattell Model

Cattell, as a result of analyzing the results of a large number of tests, two factors were proposed: the factor of "connected intelligence" and the factor of "fluid intelligence". "Connected intellect" determines the degree of mastery of the culture of the society to which the individual belongs. Fluid intelligence determines the ability of the nervous system to process information quickly and accurately.

The factor of "connected intelligence" is diagnosed by tests for vocabulary, reading, taking into account social norms, and the factor of "fluid intelligence" - by tests to identify patterns in a number of figures and numbers, the amount of RAM, and spatial operations. These factors, according to Cattell, are basic. In addition to them, he singled out three additional partial factors: "visualization" - as the ability to manipulate images, "memory" - as the ability to store and reproduce information, and "speed" - as the ability to maintain a high rate of response.

The level of development of partial factors is determined by the experience of the interaction of the individual with his environment.

Later it was shown that the factor of "connected" and the factor of "fluid" intelligence correlate and in the course of the study it is impossible to separate the "fluid intelligence" from the "connected intelligence", since they merge into a single common factor (G - factor according to Spearman).

Hierarchical models of intelligence by F. Vernon and D. Wexler.

The factors in the Vernon model are located at four levels. The first level is occupied by G - factor (Spearman), on the second - there are two main factors: verbal-educational (V: ED) and practical-technical (K: M). On the third are special abilities (technical thinking, arithmetic ability, etc.) and on the last there are more private subfactors.

Vernon's model differs by the presence of only three levels. The first is general intelligence (according to Spearman), the second - "group" factors "(non-verbal and verbal intelligence) and the third - specific factors determined by the success of individual subtests.

Concepts of intellect by G. Yu. Eysenck and L. T. Yampolsky

Eysenck is a representative of a one-dimensional approach to intelligence. According to Eysenck, three types of concepts of intelligence can be distinguished: biological, psychometric and social. These concepts correspond to three structural levels of intelligence.

"Biological intelligence" is associated with brain structures that provide meaningful behavior. Methods for its measurement can be: electroencelography (EEG), measurement of average evoked potentials (AEP), galvanic skin response (GSR), measurement of reaction time (RT).

"Psychometric intelligence" is defined as the performance of IQ tests. This success depends on both biological intelligence and cultural factors.

"Social intelligence" is determined by the success of adaptation in society.

According to Eysenck, the biological level is fundamental to the rest.

Solving the problem of the correlation between the speed of information processing and cognitive differentiation, Eysenck combines the complexity factor (depending on the success of completing complex tasks in a limited time) and the speed factor (depending on the speed of performing simple tasks), since there is a correlation between the results of simple tests performed with a time limit and the same tests without time limit, close to one.

Drawing conclusions from the results of his research, Eysenck suggests that there are three main parameters that characterize IQ. These are speed, perseverance (depending on the number of attempts to solve the problem) and the number of errors.

The main parameter characterizing the level of intelligence according to Eysenck is the speed of information processing. Eysenck proposes to use as its indicator the reaction time of choosing from a variety of alternatives. As can be seen, Eysenck fails to get out of the speed-difficulty measurements. Thus, the level of intelligence is characterized not only by the speed of thought processes, but also by the ability of a person to work with many alternatives. The factor that ensures the processing of complex information and determines individual productivity, V.N. Druzhinin calls "individual cognitive resource".

Yampolsky made an attempt to resolve the dilemma of "complexity" and "speed". So, as a result of processing the results of the test he created for logical-combinatorial thinking, three factors were identified. These factors characterize the performance of the test by the test subject. The first factor is the decision time factor; the second - the correctness of solving simple problems; the third is the factor of the correctness of solving complex problems. The factors are not orthogonal, but are related to each other. The correlation of the first factor with the second is 0.202, the second with the third - 0.832, the third with the first - 0.389.

Yampolsky proposed the following model of intelligence:

i - level of difficulty;

Ii - success in solving problems of the i-th level of complexity

Fi - the correctness of solving problems of the i-th difficulty;

F1 - ideomotor speed".

The process of development of the intellect, according to Piaget, consists of three large periods, during which the emergence and formation of three main structures takes place. First, sensorimotor structures are formed), there is a system of reverse actions) performed materially and sequentially, then specific operations arise (a system of actions performed in the mind, but based on external, visual data). After that, the opportunity opens up for the formation of formal operations. This is the period of formation of formal logic, hypothetical-deductive reasoning.
Development, according to Piaget, is the transition from a lower stage to a higher one. The previous stage always prepares the next one. Any action (movement, thinking, feeling) responds to some need that arises when something inside or outside of us has changed, and when it is necessary to restructure behavior depending on this change.
The order of these stages is unchanged. Associated with biological maturation. The age at which balance structures appear is influenced by the activity of the child and his environment.
Thus, the stages of intellectual development, according to J. Piaget, can be considered as stages of mental development in general. For their development is subject to the intellect.
Literature
Bruner J. Psychology of knowledge. M., 1977.
Obukhova L.F. Age-related psychology. – M.: Russia, 2001, 414 p.
Piaget J. Selected psychological works. - M., 1994.

Questions for self-control of knowledge on the topic "The Teaching of Jeanne Piaget on the Intellectual Development of the Child":
1. Name the main stages of the scientific biography of J. Piaget.
2. The main provisions of the concept of J. Piaget.
3. Define the concepts of accommodation, assimilation.
4. Define egocentrism and egocentric speech.
5. Tell us about the main features of the formation of the stages of the child's intellectual development.
Test tasks on the topic "The Teachings of Jeanne Piaget on the Intellectual Development of the Child":
1. Phenomena of mental development discovered by J. Piaget: a) egocentrism, b) syncretism, c) distress.
2. According to the views of J. Piaget, the decisive role in cognitive development belongs to: a) adults who provide training and education, b) the child himself, c) heredity.