Vygotsky's cultural-historical concept briefly. Zone of Proximal Development Theory

Topic 2. Cultural historical concept L.S. Vygotsky and activity theory

1. Ontogenesis of the human psyche and personality in the theory of L.S. Vygotsky.

2. Laws of mental development.

3. The role of the child’s activity in his mental development.

1. Ontogenesis of the human psyche and personality in the theory of L.S. Vygotsky

Formation and development national psychology is inextricably linked with the name L.S. Vygotsky. All of him scientific activity was aimed at the transition of psychology “from a purely descriptive, empirical and phenomenological study of phenomena to the disclosure of their essence.” He introduced a new experimental-genetic method for studying mental phenomena, since he believed that “the problem of the method is the beginning and basis, the alpha and omega of the entire history of the child’s cultural development.”

L.S. Vygotsky developed the doctrine of age as a unit of analysis child development.

He offered a different understanding of the course, conditions, source, form, specificity and driving forces of the child’s mental development; described the eras, stages and phases of child development, as well as transitions between them during ontogenesis; identified and formulated the basic laws of child development.

Without exaggeration we can say that L.S. Vygotsky did everything to ensure that developmental psychology became a full-fledged and genuine science, having its own subject, method and laws; he did everything so that this science could solve the most important practical problems of teaching and raising children, and take a new approach to the problems of age-related normative diagnostics of mental development.

Central for the entire history of Russian psychology has become problem of consciousness. Vygotsky defined his field of study as "apex psychology"(psychology of consciousness), which contrasts with the other two - “superficial” (theory of behavior) and “deep” (psychoanalysis). He viewed consciousness as a "problem of the structure of behavior."

The merit of the scientist is that he first introduced the historical principle to the region developmental psychology. Historical study means the application of the category of development to the study of phenomena. To study something historically means to study it in motion. This is the main requirement of the dialectical method.

According to L.S. Vygotsky, environment stands out in relation to the development of higher mental functions as source development.

According to L.S. Vygotsky, higher mental functions arise initially as a form of collective behavior of the child, as a form of cooperation with other people, and only subsequently do they become individual functions of the child himself.

L.S. Vygotsky emphasized that the attitude towards the environment changes with age, and, consequently, the role of the environment in development also changes. He emphasized that the environment should be considered not absolutely, but relatively, since the influence of the environment is determined by the child’s experiences.

Each form of cultural development, cultural behavior, believed L.S. Vygotsky is already a product of the historical development of mankind. Transformation natural material into historical form there is always a process of complex change in the type of development itself, and by no means simple organic maturation. Hence form of development baby is appropriation cultural and historical experience of behavior.

As L.S. believed Vygotsky, specifics of development the child is not subject to biological laws, but subject to the action of socio-historical laws . All modern Vygotsky's theory child development interpreted this process from a biological point of view. From the point of view of L.S. himself. Vygotsky, all theories described the course of child development as a process of transition from individual to social. Therefore, the central problem of all foreign psychology without exception still remains the problem of socialization, the problem of the transition from biological existence to a socialized personality.

According to L.S. Vygotsky, driving force mental development - training . It is important to note that development and learning are different processes. According to Vygotsky, the development process has internal laws of self-expression.

Education there is internally necessary moment in the process of development in a child, not natural, but historical human characteristics. Learning is not the same as development. It creates a zone of proximal development, that is, the child develops an interest in life, awakens and sets in motion internal development processes. At first, they are possible for a child only in the sphere of relationships with others and cooperation with comrades. Then, permeating the entire internal course of development, they become the property of the child himself.

L.S. Vygotsky carried out experimental studies of the relationship between learning and development. This is the study of everyday life and scientific concepts, research on the acquisition of native and foreign languages, oral and written speech, zone of proximal development.

Development conditions later there were more details described by A.N. Leontyev. These are the morpho-physiological characteristics of the brain and communication. These conditions must be brought into effect by the activity of the subject. An activity occurs in response to a need. Needs also do not appear innately, they are formed, and the first need is the need to communicate with an adult. On its basis, the baby enters into practical communication with people, which is later carried out through objects and through speech.

2. Laws of mental development

L.S. Vygotsky formulated a number of laws of mental development:

1. Age development has a complex organization in time: its own rhythm, which does not coincide with the rhythm of time, and its own rhythm, which changes in different years life. Thus, a year of life in infancy is not equal to a year of life in adolescence.

2. The Law of Metamorphosis in Human Development: development is a chain of qualitative changes. A child is not just a small adult who knows less and can do less, but a being with a qualitatively different psyche.

3. The law of uneven age development: Each aspect of a child’s psyche has its own optimal period of development. This law is associated with the hypothesis of L.S. Vygotsky about the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness.

4. The law of development of higher mental functions. Initially, they arise as a form of collective behavior, as a form of cooperation with other people, and only subsequently become internal individual functions of the person himself.

Distinctive features of higher mental functions: indirectness, awareness, arbitrariness, systematicity - are formed during life, they are formed as a result of mastering special tools, means developed during the historical development of society. The development of higher mental functions is associated with learning in the broad sense of the word; it cannot occur otherwise than in the form of assimilation of given patterns, therefore this development goes through a number of stages.

The specificity of human development is that it is subject to the action of socio-historical laws. The biological type of development occurs in the process of adaptation to nature by inheriting the properties of the species and through individual experience. The person doesn't have congenital forms behavior in the environment. Its development occurs through the appropriation of historically developed forms and methods of activity.

Zone of proximal development- this is the distance between the level of the child’s actual development and the level of possible development. This level is determined through problems solved under the guidance of adults. According to L.S. Vygotsky, the zone of proximal development determines functions that have not yet matured, but are in the process of maturation; functions that can be called not the fruits of development, but the buds of development, the flowers of development. The level of actual development characterizes the successes of development, the results of development as of yesterday, and the zone of proximal development characterizes mental development for tomorrow.

The concept of the zone of proximal development has important theoretical significance and is associated with such fundamental problems of child and educational psychology as the emergence and development of higher mental functions, the relationship between learning and mental development, the driving forces and mechanisms of the child’s mental development.

The zone of proximal development is a logical consequence of the law of formation of higher mental functions, which are formed first joint activities, in collaboration with other people and gradually become internal mental processes of the subject. When a mental process is formed in joint activity, it is in the zone of proximal development; after formation, it becomes a form of actual development of the subject.

The phenomenon of the zone of proximal development indicates the leading role of education in the mental development of children. “Training is only good then,” wrote L.S. Vygotsky, “when it goes ahead of development.” Then it awakens and brings to life many other functions that lie in the zone of proximal development.

Like any valuable idea, the concept of the zone of proximal development is of great practical importance for resolving the issue of optimal timing learning, this is especially important both for the mass of children and for each individual child. Determining the level of actual and potential development constitutes a normative age diagnosis, in contrast to symptomatic diagnosis, which is based only on external signs of development. An important consequence of this idea is that the zone of proximal development can be used as an indicator of individual differences in children.

One of the proofs impact of training on mental development child serves as the hypothesis of L.S. Vygotsky about the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness and its development in ontogenesis. Putting forward this idea, L.S. Vygotsky strongly opposed the functionalism of contemporary psychology. He believed that human consciousness is not the sum of individual processes, but a system, their structure. No function develops in isolation. The development of each function depends on what structure it is included in and what place it occupies in it. So, in early age perception is at the center of consciousness, preschool age- memory, in school - thinking. Other mental processes develop at every age under the influence of the dominant function in consciousness. According to L.S. Vygotsky, the process of mental development consists of a restructuring of the systemic structure of consciousness, which is determined by the level of development of generalizations. Entry into consciousness is possible only through speech, and the transition from one structure of consciousness to another is carried out thanks to the development of the meaning of the word, in other words, generalization. The development of generalization and changes in the semantic structure of consciousness can be directly controlled. Forming a generalization, translating it into more high level, learning rebuilds the entire system of consciousness.

But at the same time, the idea expressed by L.S. Vygotsky in the 30s, had a number of significant shortcomings. Firstly, the scheme of consciousness was of an intellectualistic nature. In the development of consciousness, only cognitive processes were considered, and the development of the motivational-need sphere of the conscious personality remained beyond the attention of the researcher. Secondly, L.S. Vygotsky reduced the process of development of generalizations to the processes of verbal interaction between people. At the same time he great importance focused on the role of interpersonal interaction. Thirdly, developmental psychology during the time of L.S. Vygotsky’s theory was extremely poor in experimental facts, so his hypothesis was not experimentally confirmed.

3 . The role of a child’s activities in his mental development

Overcoming shortcomings and historically determined limitations expressed by L.S. Vygotsky's hypothesis reflects the stages of formation of domestic developmental psychology.

The first step in the development of domestic psychology was taken already at the end of the 30s by psychologists of the Kharkov school (A.N. Leontyev, A.V. Zaporozhets, P.I. Zinchenko. P.Ya. Galperin, L.I. Bozhovich, etc. .). They showed that the development of generalizations is based not on communication of the linguistic type, but direct practical activity of the subject. Research by A.V. Zaporozhets (in deaf children, generalizations are formed as a result practical activities), IN AND. Asina (the same for normal children), A.N. Leontyev (study of light sensitivity of the hand and the role of search activity in this process), P.Ya. Halperin (studies of the differences between auxiliary means in animals and human tools) made it possible to clarify from different angles the idea of what is the driving force of mental development, allowed formulate a thesis about the importance of activity in human development.

There is a significant difference between the concept of “learning” and the concept of “activity”. The concept of “training” implies the presence of external coercion of a person. The concept of “activity” emphasizes the connection of the subject himself with the objects of the reality around him. It is impossible to directly “transplant” knowledge directly into the subject’s head, bypassing his own activity. The introduction of the concept of “activity” turns the entire problem of development around, turning it towards the subject (D.B. Elkonin). According to D.B. Elkonin, the formation process functional systems there is a process that the subject himself produces. These studies opened the way for a new explanation of the determination of mental development.

Research by domestic psychologists has discovered the role of a child’s activity in his mental development. This was a way out of the impasse of the problem of two factors. The development process is self-propulsion subject thanks to his activities with objects. Heredity and environmental factors- that's just conditions, which do not determine the essence of the development process, but only various variations within the normal range.

The next step in the development of developmental psychology in Soviet country is concerned with answering the question of whether activity remains the same throughout human development or not. It was made by A.N. Leontyev, who deepened the development of the idea of L.S. Vygotsky about leading type of activity.

Thanks to the works of A.N. Leontiev, leading activity is considered as a criterion for the periodization of mental development, as an indicator psychological age child. Leading activity is characterized the fact that other types of activity arise and differentiate in it, basic mental processes are restructured and changes occur in the psychological characteristics of the individual at a given stage of its development.

Emotionally direct communication between the baby and adults;

Tool-object activity of a young child;

Role-playing game for preschoolers;

Educational activities in primary school age;

Intimate and personal communication of adolescents;

Professional and educational activities in early youth.

A change in leading types of activity takes a long time to prepare and is associated with the emergence of new motives that are formed within the leading activity that precedes a given stage of development and encourage the child to change his position in the system of relationships with other people. The development of the problem of leading activity in human development is a fundamental contribution of domestic scientists to developmental psychology.

In numerous studies by A.V. Zaporozhets, A.N. Leontyev. D.B. Elkonin showed the dependence of mental processes on the nature and structure of external objective activity.

The study of the processes of formation and change of motives, acquisition and loss of personal meaning in activities was begun under the leadership of A.N. Leontyev and continued by L.I. Bozovic and her staff. The question of the substantive, operational content of activity was developed in the studies of P.Ya. Galperin and his staff. They especially considered the role of organizing orienting activities for the formation of physical, perceptual and mental actions. The most productive direction in Russian psychology was the study of the specific features of the transition of external activity to internal activity, the patterns of the process of interiorization in ontogenesis.

The next step in the development of the ideas of L.S. Vygotsky was prepared by the works of P.Ya. Galperin and A.V. Zaporozhets, devoted to the analysis of the structure and formation of an objective action, identifying the indicative and executive parts in it. The question of the relationship between the functional and age-related genesis of mental processes has become relevant.

D.B. Elkonin put forward a concept that overcomes one of the serious shortcomings of foreign psychology - the splitting of two worlds: the world of objects and the world of people. He showed that this split is false. Human action is two-faced: it contains a strictly human meaning and an operational side. Strictly speaking, there is no peace in the human world physical items, there the world of social objects reigns supreme, satisfying socially formed needs in a certain way. Even objects of nature appear for humans to be included in social life, as objects of labor, as humanized social nature. Man is the bearer of these social ways of using objects. There are always two sides to be seen in human action: on the one hand, it is oriented towards society, on the other hand, towards the method of execution. This microstructure of human action, according to the hypothesis of D.B. Elkonin, is reflected in the macrostructure of periods of mental development.

D.B. Elkonin discovered the law of alternation, periodicity different types activity: the activity of one type of orientation in a system of relations is followed by activity of another type, in which orientation occurs in the ways of using objects. They become the cause of development. Each era of child development is built on one principle. It opens with an orientation in the sphere of human relations. An action cannot develop further unless it is introduced into new system the child's relationship with society. Until intelligence has risen to a certain level, there can be no new motives.

Any activity has a complex structure. First of all, you need to keep in mind that there is no unmotivated activity. The first component of the activity structure is motive. It is formed on the basis of a particular need. The need can be satisfied different ways, i.e. using different objects. The need “meets” the corresponding object and acquires the ability to motivate and direct activity. Thus, a motive arises.

The activity consists from individual actions, aimed at achieving consciously set goals goals. The purpose and motive of activity do not coincide. Let’s say a student is doing his math homework and solving a problem. His goal is to solve the problem. But the motive that really motivates his activity may be the desire not to upset his mother, or to get a good grade, or to free himself and go for a walk with friends. In all these cases it will be different meaning, which has a solution to a math problem for the child. Meaning action changes depending on the motive in connection with which the goal is set.

An action can usually be performed in different ways, e.g. with the help of different operations. The possibility of using a particular operation is determined by the conditions in which the activity takes place.

Questions related to the structure of the activity and the impact of the activity on the child's development concerned the external plan of action. But there is also an internal plan. In Russian psychology, it is customary to understand mental development as the formation of internal actions. Psychological mechanism the transition from an external to an internal plan of action is called interiorization.

Interiorization involves the transformation of external actions - their generalization, verbalization (translation into words) and reduction. As emphasized by A.N. Leontyev, the process of internalization does not consist in the fact that external activity moves to the internal plane of consciousness, it is a process in which the internal plane is formed.

Tasks for independent work

1. Get to know the basic facts scientific biography L.S. Vygotsky.

2. What is the development of L.S.’s ideas? Vygotsky in the Soviet period.

3. Name different approaches to the problem of developmental education in modern psychology and pedagogy, note the similarities and differences between them.

1. Vygotsky L.S. The problem of age: Collection. Op.T.4. - M., 1984.

2. Vygotsky L.S. The problem of learning and mental development at school age // Selected psychological studies. - M., 1956.

3. Reader on child psychology / Ed. G.V. Burmenskaya. - M., 1996.

Basic concepts of L. Vygotsky’s concept Topic: “ Scientific approaches to planning"

1. Basic concepts of the cultural-historical concept related to planning.

The most widespread concept from L.S. Vygotsky received such concepts as the law of development of higher psychological functions, zone of proximal development, neoplasms, leading activity, triangle of mediation, social situation of development, sensitive period, internalization, integration, ideas about the significance and role of an adult and a peer in the joint activities of a child.

L.S. Vygotsky introduced the concept "zones of proximal development" . By this he meant the discrepancy between the level of tasks that a child can solve independently and under the guidance of an adult.

Learning should lead to development, and this is possible if the teacher knows how to determine the “zone of actual development” and the “zone of proximal development.”

Vygotsky defined the current level of mental development as a stock of knowledge and skills.

The concept of the zone of proximal development to a certain extent explains the content of the process of the origin of individual activity.

Like any valuable idea, the concept of the zone of proximal development is of great practical importance for resolving the issue of optimal periods of education, and this is especially important both for the mass of children and for each individual child.

The definition of both levels of development - actual and potential, as well as at the same time the zone of proximal development - together constitutes what L.S. Vygotsky called it normative age diagnostics.

In the development of a child, notes L.S. Vygotsky, there are, as it were, two intertwined lines. The first follows the path of natural maturation - natural mental functions - sensations, perception.

The second consists in mastering cultures, ways of behavior and thinking - higher mental functions - thinking, attention, speech, memory, imagination.

Each mental function appears on stage twice - first as a collective, social activity, and then as internal method child's thinking. Between these two “exits” lies the process of interiorization, “growing” the function inward.

By internalizing, “natural” mental functions are transformed and “collapsed”, acquiring automation, awareness and arbitrariness. The transition from one type of activity to another is a process of internalization.

Higher mental functions (VPF) They go through two stages in their development. Initially they exist as a form of interaction between people, and only later as a completely internal process.

VPF are cultural and social in origin - the result of historical development.

The distinctive features of HMF are their indirect nature and arbitrariness.

The central link of the HMF is thinking; its development determines the essence of the formation of consciousness and activity, and is a necessary prerequisite for the development of personality.

Stable developmental processes are replaced by critical periods in the life of an individual, during which the rapid formation of psychological new formations occurs.

New formations that arise in one period or another qualitatively change the psychological functioning of the individual.

L.S. Vygotsky introduces the concept of a sensitive period - optimal combination conditions for the development of certain mental processes and properties inherent in a certain age.

Thus, thinking develops instrumental activity (1-3g),

speech – emotional – through sound (communication) (0-2.5 years),

imagination is a new formation of the preschool period,

a developed imagination determines a child’s readiness for the next period of life – school.

The leading activity for a preschooler is play. In the game, all mental processes intensively develop, the first moral feelings are formed. The nature of the game changes along with the child's development.

All learning is based on play.

Vygotsky introduces the concept "social situation of development" - a relationship between the child and the social environment specific to each age. The social environment is a source of development.

The main conditions for the full development of a child are communication between a child and an adult.

"The meaningful word is a microcosm of human consciousness."

Vygotsky introduces the concept "integration" (initially for children with developmental disabilities) and gives the concept of a psychological system. Introduces integrated education and training into practice.

Integration is now the basis of planning.

2. Implementation of an age-based approach.

One of the proofs of the influence of training on a child’s mental development is the hypothesis of L.S. Vygotsky about the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness and its development in ontogenesis.

In its development, a personality goes through a series of changes that have a staged nature. For each mental function there is a period optimal development– sensitive period.

At an early age, perception is at the center of consciousness, at preschool age - memory, at school age - thinking.

Vygotsky believed that human consciousness is not the sum of individual processes, but a system, their structure.

There are six functions that make man stand out from all other creatures. All of them are a product of the cerebral cortex.

Three of these functions are motor in nature and are completely dependent on the other three - sensory.

Sensory – vision, hearing, sensations.

Motor - motility (large and small), speech, writing.

No function develops in isolation; they are all interconnected. But at a certain age stage in a child’s life, some of these functions develop at lightning speed with the greatest efficiency and have their own specifics. Knowing these optimal age stages, you can build training most effectively with maximum impact.

Training should focus not so much on already mature functions and completed development cycles, but on those that are maturing.

"Belated" , like "premature" education (relative to the sensitive period) may provide bad influence on the development of the child’s psyche and it is ineffective.

L.S. Vygotsky came to the conclusion that learning should precede, run ahead and pull up, lead the development of the child.

Lev Semenovich defined the principles of age periodization:

cyclicality - periods of rise and intensive development are replaced by periods of slowdown and attenuation.
unevenness - different sides personalities (mental functions) develop unevenly. Differentiation of functions begins with early childhood. First, the basic functions are identified and developed, primarily perception, then more complex ones.
children's "metamorphoses" - a chain of qualitative changes in the psyche.
combination of evolution and involution. What developed at the previous stage dies or is transformed.

L.S. Vygotsky also considers the dynamics of transitions from one age to another. At different stages, changes in the child’s psyche can occur slowly and gradually, or they can occur quickly and abruptly. Accordingly, stable and crisis stages of development are distinguished.

A stable period is characterized by a smooth course of the development process, without sudden shifts and changes in the child’s personality. Stable periods make up most of childhood. They last, as a rule, for several years.

In addition to stable ones, there are crisis periods of development.

Vygotsky attached great importance to crises and considered the alternation of stable and crisis periods as a law of child development.

In the teacher’s plans, the age-based approach is implemented:

1. By leading type of activity:

1-3 years - object-tool

3-4 – game actions

4-7 l. - a game

2. By leading type of gaming activity:

In early age groups - plot-display game

IN younger group– director’s

In the middle - a role-playing game

For older kids, it’s a game with rules.

3. According to the form of thinking

Early age – visually effective

Younger age – visual-figurative

Older age – logical

4. Teaching techniques and methods:

Early age - showing, acting out, observing, looking at illustrations, comparing, etc.

Younger age - conversation, reading, experimenting, dramatization games, conversation

Older age – research, problematic situation, modeling, project, experience.

5. Duration of GCD:

Early age – 8 min.

Junior groups – 10-15 min

Medium group – 20 min

Senior group - 25 min

Preparatory group – 30 min

6. Duration of weekly load:

Junior groups – 30 min

Medium group – 40 min

Senior group - 45 min

Preparatory group – 1 hour 30 minutes

7. Objectives of teaching fine arts:

Early age - free

Younger age - learning to depict round objects

Middle age - learning to depict oval objects

Older age – learning to transfer characteristic features

Preparatory to school - learning to convey individual characteristics

8. Objectives of teaching design:

Early childhood – playing with building materials

Younger age - according to the model

Older age - according to plan, scheme

3. Activity approach.

This is an approach to organizing the learning process, in which the problem of student self-determination comes to the fore.

The goal of the activity approach is to develop the child’s personality as a subject of life, to teach him to be the master of his life.

The activity approach plays a very important role in developmental education, because activity is the driving force of mental development.

Any activity of a subject includes a goal, a means, the process of transformation itself and its result.

A certain period of preschool childhood has its own leading activity,

within which new types of activities arise, develop (being rebuilt) mental processes and personal new formations arise.

The leading activities in the development of a child are the following:

emotionally direct communication between the infant and adults,
instrumental-objective activity of a young child,
role-playing game for preschoolers.

Within a single leading activity, new personal formations develop.

Neoplasms are products of development, criteria that determine the stages of a child’s development.

Stages of development are characterized by age-related neoplasms, i.e. qualities or properties that did not exist before.

The environment becomes completely different as a child moves from one age stage to the next.

Towards the end of the period, neoplasms appear, among which a special place is occupied by the central neoplasm, which has highest value for development at the next stage.

Through activity, internalization is carried out -

formation of internal structures of the human psyche by assimilation of the structures of external social activity. The transition from one type of activity to another is internalization.

Collective activity is genetically primordial

a step in the formation of consciousness, serves as the fundamental basis of individual consciousness.

The activity approach is:

In the area of content - highlighting the features of organizing children's activities in accordance with the stage of children's development, implementing the principle of integration in the construction of a play space.
In the field of technology - the use of modern developmental technologies by educators and specialists, the use of flexible tactics for managing children's activities, including play activities.
In the field of methodological work - a creative approach to the implementation of new developmental technologies, the creation on a systematic basis of an information bank of games and exercises, developmental technologies.
In the field of organization - the creation of a system for assessing the quality of education of preschool children.

And:

taking into account the age, psychological and physiological characteristics of the child, the role and significance of activities and forms of communication with children;
diversity of individual educational trajectories and individual development of each child (including gifted children and children with disabilities), ensuring the growth of creative potential, cognitive motives, enrichment of forms of educational cooperation and expansion of the zone of proximal development.

Basic principles of the activity approach:

Activity is the driving force of child development.
(A.V. Zaporozhets).

The main goal is the development of the child, understood as the ability to independently solve new problems (intellectual, practical, personal).

Solve the problems of a child’s development by means and methods that are adequate to the laws of his physical and mental development.

For the results of mastering the Program, take the child’s qualities (physical, personal, intellectual), arising in the form of neoplasms at the end of each age period.

4. Personal approach to the problem of child development.

The main task of the teacher is to reveal the abilities of each child. A personal approach is a means of developing children’s hidden talents, genetically endowed capabilities, their creative abilities, and individuality.

You can open them using:

Effective communication

Support and encouragement of activity and initiative

In providing choice (variability of content, programs, forms and methods, environment)

Creating conditions – zones of active development

Taking into account children's preferences

Joint observations, experiments, micro-studies

Individual educational routes

Creating a situation of success.

The personal approach is to accept the child as he is.

According to Sh. Amonoshvili: “Every child is unique!” It is necessary to recognize or recognize its uniqueness and build an individual educational route through various types of children's activities.

Ideas about the progressive development of a child through his personal development are fundamentally opposed to ideas about the priority of intellectual development.

Problems of the personal approach were dealt with by L.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontyev, L.I. Bozovic, D.B. Elkonin, A.V. Zaporozhets.

They said that the activity offered to the child should be meaningful for him, only in this case it will have a developmental effect on him.

Basic principles of the personal approach:

The principle of activity, initiative and subjectivity in the development of a child.
The principle of the leading role of personal development in relation to intellectual and physical.
The principle of uniqueness and intrinsic value of child development in preschool childhood.
Principle of developmental amplification (A.V. Zaporozhets) in contrast to the principle of intensification.

Amplification means assistance in transforming a child’s activity, assigned by an adult, into children’s initiative aimed at creative rethinking, the main result of which is the generation of a new image of oneself and one’s capabilities. Thanks to this, the activity itself (in its various forms) from “an instrument of pedagogical influence” transforms into a means of self-development and self-realization of the subject - the child.”

Extract from the plan (2 ml. gr.):

Morning. In. Job (IR) according to FEMP (on the previous topic), "Sorters" , reading x/l, learning poetry. IR "Charging for the tongue" . Work on IOM.

Walk. Stick drawing, micro-study "Dry branches" ,

IR for movement development "Jumping" , "Stream" .

Evening. DI "Locomotive" (sensory), IR according to the program "School of the Seven Dwarfs" ;

Games for developing hand motor skills "Laces" , "Beads" ; IR "Finger game "Ant's Journey" . Montensori framework. Circle "Let's help the baby" .

OD in sensitive moments. Talk "How I Dress" , "What am I wearing" ,

KGN “We wash our hands correctly” .

5. The modern content of education includes 4 components:

scientifically based knowledge system
scientifically based system of skills and abilities
emotional and value attitudes towards the world
experience creative activity

The first component is already acquired knowledge in various areas of the surrounding reality - basic and scientific. Children must master the basics of science; this requires a varied approach to the content of education, taking into account the children’s abilities.

The 2nd component is nothing more than methods of activity, accumulated experience. These are acquired intellectual, labor, physical and practical skills that are needed to analyze, compare, generalize, draw conclusions, make decisions, achieve goals, read, write, express thoughts, solve problems, perform necessary work, act, walk, run, jump, etc.

This is something without which a person cannot live fully and realize himself.

The 3rd component includes a system of value relations to the environment. These are emotions, experiences, feelings - these are forms of reflection of reality that characterize a person as a person. These are the actions by which we judge a person as a higher rational being - a consequence of his social development (education), culture.

The 4th component of the content of education is the experience of creative activity, which will ensure the readiness of the individual for the creative transformation of reality.

This component presupposes both knowledge and skills, but is not limited to them. By acquiring knowledge and skills in any way, each person prepares for creative activity.

Therefore, creativity must be taught to a child from a very early age.

For procedures of creative activity, it is impossible to specify a system of actions. This system is created by the individual himself. Implemented this component through posing problems and creative tasks. Without creativity there is no development!

He is not the author of the methods, but his theoretical developments and observations formed the basis practical systems famous teachers (for example, Elkonin). The research begun by Vygotsky was continued by his students and followers, giving them practical use. His ideas seem especially relevant now.

Biography of L.S. Vygotsky

L.S. Vygotsky was born on November 17, 1896 in Orsha, the second child in a large family of a bank employee. In 1897, the family moved to Gomel, where it became a kind of cultural center (the father is the founder of the public library).

Lev was a gifted boy and was educated at home. From 1912 he completed his studies at a private gymnasium.

In 1914, after graduating from high school, Vygotsky entered the medical faculty of Moscow State University, and a month later he was transferred to law and graduated in 1917. At the same time, he received an education at the Faculty of History and Philology of the Shanyavsky University.

In 1917, with the beginning of the revolution, the young man returned to Gomel. The Gomel period lasted until 1924 and was the beginning of his psychological and pedagogical activity. Here he marries and has a daughter.

At first he gave private lessons, then taught a course in philology and logic at various schools in the city, and took an active part in the formation of a new type of school. He also taught philology at the Pedagogical College, where he created a consulting room for psychology. Here Vygotsky began his psychological research.

In 1920, Lev contracted tuberculosis from his brother, who died.

In 1924 he was invited to the Moscow Institute of Experimental Psychology. From that moment on, the Moscow period of the scientist’s family began.

In 1924 - 1925 Vygotsky created his own cultural and historical history on the basis of the institute. psychological school. He began to become interested in working with special needs children. Continuing his psychological research, he simultaneously worked in the People's Commissar of Education, where he proved himself to be a talented organizer.

Through his efforts, an experimental defectology institute was created in 1926 (now the Institute of Correctional Pedagogy). He headed it until the end of his life. Vygotsky continues to write and publish books. From time to time the illness put him out of action. In 1926 there was a very severe outbreak.

From 1927 - 1931 The scientist published works on the problems of cultural-historical psychology. During these same years, he began to be accused of retreating from Marxism. It became dangerous to study psychology, and Vygovsky devoted himself to pedology.

The disease periodically worsened, and in 1934 Lev Semenovich died in Moscow.

Main directions of Vygotsky's research

Vygotsky was, first and foremost, a psychologist. He chose the following areas of research:

comparison of adults and children;
comparison of modern man and ancient man;
comparison of normal personality development with pathological behavioral deviations.

The scientist drew up a program that determined his path in psychology: to look for an explanation of internal mental processes outside the body, in its interaction with the environment. The scientist believed that these mental processes can only be understood through development. And the most intensive development of the psyche occurs in children.

This is how Vygotsky came to in-depth study child psychology. He studied the patterns of development of normal and abnormal children. In the process of research, the scientist came to study not only the process of child development, but also his upbringing. And since pedagogy is the study of upbringing, Vygotsky began research in this direction.

He believed that any teacher should build his work based on psychological science. This is how he connected psychology with pedagogy. And a little later, a separate science in social pedagogy emerged - psychological pedagogy.

While studying pedagogy, the scientist became interested in new science pedology (knowledge about the child from the point of view of various sciences) and became the main pedologist of the country.

He put forward ideas that revealed the laws of cultural development of the individual, his mental functions (speech, attention, thinking), explained the internal mental processes of the child, his relationship with the environment.

His ideas on defectology laid the foundation for correctional pedagogy, which began to practically help special children.

Vygotsky did not develop methods for raising and developing children, but his concepts proper organization training and education have become the basis of many developmental programs and systems. The scientist’s research, ideas, hypotheses and concepts were far ahead of their time.

Principles of raising children according to Vygotsky

The scientist believed that education does not consist in adapting the child to environment, but in the formation of a personality that goes beyond this environment, as if looking forward. At the same time, the child does not need to be educated from the outside, he must educate himself.

This is possible with proper organization of the education process. Only the personal activity of a child can become the basis of education.

The teacher should only be an observer, correctly guide and regulate the child’s independent activity at the right moments.

Thus, education becomes an active process from three sides:

the child is active (he performs an independent action);
the teacher is active (he observes and helps);
The environment between the child and the teacher is active.

Education is closely related to learning. Both processes are collective activities. The structure of the new labor school, which Vygotsky created with his students, is based on the principles of the collective process of education and training.

Unified Labor School

It was the prototype of a democratic school based on a creative, dynamic, collaborative pedagogy. It was ahead of its time, imperfect, and made mistakes, but it was still successful.

Vygotsky’s ideas were implemented by teachers Blonsky, Wenzel, Shatsky and others.

The pedological theory was tested at the school:

there were rooms for psychological and pedological diagnostics;
constant medical and psychological monitoring was carried out;
classes were created according to the principle of the child’s pedological age.

This school existed until 1936, when attacks began on it Soviet power. The school was repurposed as a regular one.

The very idea of pedology was distorted, and it fell into oblivion. Pedology and the idea of a labor school received a second life in the 90s. with the collapse of the USSR. Unified labor school in modern understanding is a democratic school, very relevant in today's education.

Development and education of special children

Vygotsky developed a new theory of abnormal child development, on which defectology is now based and all practical correctional pedagogy is built. The purpose of this theory: the socialization of special children with a defect, and not the study of the defect itself. It was a revolution in defectology.

He connected special correctional pedagogy with the pedagogy of a normal child. He believed that the personality of a special child is formed in the same way as that of ordinary children. It is enough to socially rehabilitate an abnormal child, and his development will follow the normal course.

His social pedagogy was supposed to help the child remove the negative social layers caused by the defect. The defect itself is not the cause of the child’s abnormal development, it is only a consequence of improper socialization.

The starting point in the rehabilitation of special children should be an unaffected state of the body. “We should work with the child based on what is healthy and positive,” Vygotsky.

By starting rehabilitation, you can also start the compensatory capabilities of the special child’s body. The idea of the zone of proximal development has become very effective in restoring the normal development of special children.

Zone of Proximal Development Theory

The zone of proximal development is the “distance” between the level of the child’s actual and possible development.

Level of current development- this is the development of the child’s psyche in this moment(which tasks can be completed independently).
Zone of proximal development- this is the future development of the individual (actions that are performed with the help of an adult).

This is based on the assumption that a child, while learning some elementary action, simultaneously masters general principle this action. Firstly, this action itself has a wider application than its element. Secondly, having mastered the principle of action, you can apply it to perform another element.

This will be an easier process. There is development in the learning process.

But learning is not the same as development: learning does not always push development; on the contrary, it can become a brake if we rely only on what the child can do and do not take into account the level of his possible development.

Learning will become developmental if we focus on what the child can learn from previous experience.

The size of the zone of proximal development is different for each child.

It depends:

on the needs of the child;
from its capabilities;
on the willingness of parents and teachers to assist in the development of the child.

Vygotsky's merits in pedology

At the beginning of the 20th century, educational psychology appeared, which was based on the fact that learning and upbringing depend on the psyche of a particular child.

The new science did not solve many problems of pedagogy. An alternative was pedology - a comprehensive science about the full age development of a child. The center of study in it is the child from the point of view of biology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, pediatrics, and pedagogy. The hottest problem in pedology was the socialization of the child.

It was believed that child development proceeds from the individual mental world to the external world (socialization). Vygotsky was the first to postulate that the social and individual development of a child are not opposed to each other. It's just two different shapes the same mental function.

He believed that the social environment is the source of personal development. The child absorbs (makes internal) those activities that came to him from the outside (were external). These types of activities are initially enshrined in social forms of culture. The child adopts them by seeing how other people perform these actions.

Those. external social and objective activity passes into the internal structures of the psyche (interiorization), and through general social-symbolic activity (including through speech) of adults and children the basis of the child’s psyche is formed.

Vygotsky formulated the basic law of cultural development:

In the development of a child, any function appears twice - first in the social aspect, and then in the psychological (i.e., first it is external, and then it becomes internal).

Vygotsky believed that this law determines the development of attention, memory, thinking, speech, emotions, and will.

The influence of communication on raising a child

The child develops quickly and masters the world if communicating with an adult. At the same time, the adult himself should be interested in communication. It is very important to encourage verbal communication child.

Speech is a sign system that arose in the process of socio-historical development of man. She is capable of transforming childish thinking, helps solve problems and form concepts. At an early age, a child’s speech uses words with a purely emotional meaning.

As children grow and develop, words of specific meaning appear in their speech. In senior adolescence The child begins to designate abstract concepts in words. Thus, speech (word) changes the mental functions of children.

The mental development of a child is initially controlled by communication with an adult (through speech). Then this process moves into the internal structures of the psyche, and inner speech appears.

Criticism of Vygotsky's ideas

Vygotsky's research and ideas on psychological pedagogy were subjected to the most vehement condemnation.

His concept of learning, based on the zone of proximal development, carries the danger of pushing forward a child who does not have sufficient potential. This can dramatically slow down children's development.

This is partly confirmed by the current fashionable trend: parents strive to develop their children as much as possible, without taking into account their abilities and potential. This dramatically affects the health and psyche of children and reduces motivation for further education.

Another controversial concept: systematically helping a child perform actions that he has not mastered on his own can deprive the child of independence of thought.

Dissemination and popularity of Vygotsky's ideas

After the death of Lev Semenovich, his works were forgotten and did not spread. However, since 1960, pedagogy and psychology have rediscovered Vygotsky, revealing many positive aspects in him.

His idea of the zone of proximal development helped assess learning potential and proved fruitful. Her outlook is optimistic. The concept of defectology has become very useful for correcting the development and education of special children.

Many schools have adopted Vygotsky’s definitions of age standards. With the advent of new sciences (valeology, correctional pedagogy, a new reading of previously perverted pedology), the scientist’s ideas became very relevant and fit into the concept modern education, the new democratic school.

Many of Vygotsky’s ideas are being popularized here and abroad today.

Michael Cole and Jerome Bruner incorporated them into their theories of development.

Rom Harré and John Shotter considered Vygotsky to be the founder of social psychology and continued his research.

In the 90s Valsiner and Barbara Rogoff deepened developmental psychology based on Vygotsky's ideas.

Vygotsky's students were prominent Russian psychologists, including Elkonin, who also worked on problems of child development. Together with teachers, based on Vygotsky’s ideas, he created an effective Elkonin-Davydov-Repkin development program.

It is used to teach mathematics and language according to a special system; it is approved by the state and is now widely used in schools.

In addition, there are still many talented hypotheses and unrealized ideas of Vygotsky that are waiting in the wings.

Treasury of the scientist's works. Bibliography

Lev Semenovich Vygotsky wrote more than 190 works. Not all of them were published during his lifetime.

Vygotsky's books on pedagogy and psychology:

"Thinking and Speech" (1924)
"Instrumental method in pedology" (1928)
"The problem of the cultural development of the child" (1928)
"Instrumental Method in Psychology" (1930)
"Tool and sign in the development of the child" (1931)
"Pedology school age" (1928)
"Pedology of Adolescence" (1929)
"Pedology of a teenager" (1930-1931)

Main publications:

1. Pedagogical psychology. — M: Education worker, 1926

2. Pedology of a teenager. - M: Moscow State University, 1930

3. Main trends of modern psychology. — M + Leningrad: Gosizdat, 1930

4. Sketches on the history of behavior. Monkey. Primitive. Child. — M + Leningrad: Gosizdat, 1930

5. Imagination and creativity in childhood. — M + Leningrad: Gosizdat, 1930

6. Thinking and speech. — M + Leningrad: Sotsgiz, 1934

7. Mental development children in the learning process. - M: State educational teacher, 1935

8. Developmental diagnostics and pedological clinic for difficult childhood. — M: Experiment, defectol. Institute named after M. S. Epstein, 1936

9. Thinking and speech. Problems of child psychological development. Favorites pedagogical research. - M: APN, 1956

10. Development of higher mental functions. - M: APN, 1960

11. Psychology of art. Art. - M, 1965

12. Structural psychology. - M: Moscow State University, 1972

13. Collected works in 6 volumes:

vol. 1: Questions of the theory and history of psychology;

vol. 2: Problems of general psychology;

vol. 3: Problems of mental development;

vol. 4: Child psychology;

vol. 5: Fundamentals of defectology;

vol. 6: Scientific heritage.

M: Pedagogy, 1982-1984

14. Problems of defectology. — M: Enlightenment, 1995

15. Lectures on pedology 1933-1934. - Izhevsk: Udmurt University, 1996

16. Vygotsky. [Sat. texts.] - M: Amonashvili, 1996

L. S. Vygotsky showed that humans have a special type of mental functions that are completely absent in animals. These functions, called higher mental functions by L. S. Vygotsky, constitute the highest level of the human psyche, generally called consciousness. They are formed during social interactions i.e. have a social nature. At the same time, under the highest mental

functions include: voluntary memory, voluntary attention, logical thinking, etc.

Three components can be distinguished in Vygotsky’s concept.

"Human and nature".

During the transition from animals to humans, a radical change occurred in the relationship of the subject with the environment.

Throughout the existence of the animal world, the environment has acted on the animal, modifying it and forcing it to adapt to itself. With the advent of man, the opposite process is observed: man acts on nature and modifies it.

the creation of tools, in the development of material production (the thesis explains the existence of mechanisms for changing nature on the part of man).

"Man and his own psyche." mastery of nature did not pass without a trace for man, he learned to master his own psyche, he developed VPF, expressed in forms of voluntary activity.

By VPF we mean: voluntary memory, voluntary attention, logical thinking, etc. (a person’s ability to force himself to remember some material, pay attention to an object, organize his mental activity). man mastered his behavior, as well as nature, with the help of tools, but special tools - psychological. He called these psychological tools

signs. Vygotsky called signs the artificial means with the help of which primitive man was able to master his behavior, memory and other mental processes. The signs were objective - a “knot for memory” or a notch on a tree also act as a sign, as a means by which they master memory. For example, a person saw a notch and remembered what to do. Signs-symbols were triggers for higher mental processes, i.e. they acted as

psychological tools.

"Genetic aspects".

As a result, from the external command function of the word its organizing function was born. This is how a person learned to control his behavior. The ability to give orders to oneself was born in the process of human cultural development. It can be assumed that at first the functions of the person ordering and the person executing these orders were separated and the whole process, in the words of L. S. Vygotsky, was interpsychological , i.e. interpersonal. Then these relationships turned into relationships with oneself, i.e. intrapsychological. interiorization. Vygotsky called the process of transforming interpsychological relationships into intrapsychological ones

In ontogenesis, according to Vygotsky, fundamentally the same thing is observed. First, the adult uses a word to influence the child, encouraging him to do something, and the child adopts the method of communication and begins to influence the adult with a word, then the child begins to influence himself with a word (2).

Conclusion:

HMFs have an indirect structure.

characteristic of the development of the human psyche interiorization relations of control and means-signs.

The main conclusion is this: man is fundamentally different from animals in that he has mastered nature with the help of tools. This left an imprint on his psyche - he learned to master his own HMF. For this he also uses tools, but the tools are psychological. Such tools are signs or symbolic means. They have a cultural origin, and the universal and most typical system of signs is speech.

Consequently, human HMFs differ from the mental functions of animals in their properties, structure and origin: they arbitrary, mediated, social.

Today in Russian psychology the fundamental thesis is the assertion that the origin of human consciousness is connected with his social nature. Consciousness is impossible outside of society. The specifically human path of ontogenesis consists in the assimilation of socio-historical experience in the process of training and education - socially developed ways of transmitting human experience. These methods ensure the full development of the child’s psyche (2).

In animals, species experience is transmitted in 2 ways:

hereditary – instinctive behavior programs

(protecting the young, obtaining food, creating a nest, mating dances).

imitation of parents and those animals that are near the baby

The channel of individual learning is preserved, but a person has a social way of transmitting specific experience through culture.

The species experience of humanity is stored outside in culture. People, through sign systems, encode specific experience and pass it on to other generations through the sign system. T.arr. The experience of humanity is stored in objects of material and spiritual culture. Therefore, a person who, at the moment of birth in words, was born as a creature unadapted to life, in order to become a person, must appropriate to himself the cultural and historical experience of humanity. This process assignments cultural and historical experience of mankind is called cultural development of man.

As a result of this appropriation, a person develops special new human qualities, which Vygotsky called VMF.

Vygotsky: “Real carriers of culture, embodying phenomena - signs (speech, dance, painting, music, word, mathematical, communication signs, works of art, myths, symbols)….. Signs- these are the symbols that humanity came up with to indicate coding. The sign has a certain content. The content that is fixed in a sign is called meaning.

Sign– its meaning is recorded in the dictionary (content, meaning).

1. for mental changes, humanity has created artificial organs - signs, and first of all - speech. Vygotsky considered the sign and its meaning to be the basis of human consciousness.

2. mental development of a person is carried out not through adaptation, but through process appropriation of historically developed forms and methods of activity.

3. Vygotsky introduced the concept natural and higher mental functions. A person is born with natural inclinations and functions.

Vyg.: “In the process of historical development, social man changes his natural inclinations and functions, develops and creates new forms of behavior - specifically cultural ones - this is the VPF, i.e. the assimilation of culture creates special forms of behavior. In the course of assimilation of culture, the entire mental appearance of a person changes. Vyg. especially emphasized the processes of mastering external sign systems: language, writing, counting, drawing, etc., the process of mastering the HMF: voluntary attention, logical memory, etc.

4. Driving force human mental development is not organic maturation, but appropriation of socially developed experience. This appropriation is possible only in the learning process, therefore the driving force of mental development according to Vygotsky is - training and education.

Vyg. especially emphasized the role of an adult, without whom the child’s mental development will not occur. Only an adult can reveal the contents of signs to a child.

Learning is effective in the zone of proximal development.

Systematicity– the process of growth and development of lower and higher mental functions that form a single holistic process. They merge and coincide with one another (10).

L. S. Vygodsky emphasized unity of hereditary and social aspects in the process of development. Heredity is present in the development of all mental functions of a child, but has a different specific weight.

Elementary functions (starting with sensations and perception) are more genetically determined than higher (voluntary memory, logical thinking, speech). Higher functions are a product of human cultural and historical development, and hereditary inclinations play the role of prerequisites here, and not the moments that determine mental development. How more complex function, the longer the path of its ontogenetic development, the less the influence of heredity affects it.

According to L. S. Vygotsky , Wednesday acts in relation to the development of higher mental functions as source development. Attitudes towards the environment change with age, and therefore the role of the environment in development also changes. The environment must be considered not absolutely, but relatively, since the influence of the environment is determined experiences child, which are a knot in which the diverse influences of various external and internal circumstances are tied (11).

Vygotsky formulated 4 laws of child mental development.

Cyclicity, unevenness, a combination of evolution and involution, human metamorphosis, changes qualitatively, changes are valuable for each period.

L. S. Vygotsky formulated a number of laws of child mental development.

1. Child development has complex organization in time: its own rhythm, which does not coincide with the rhythm of time and which changes in different years of life. The value of each year or month of a child’s life is determined by its place in developmental cycles. So, a year of life in infancy is not equal to a year of life in adolescence. Periods of rise and intensive development are followed by periods of slowdown and attenuation.

2. Law of Metamorphosis in child development: there is development chain of qualitative changes. A child is not just a small adult who knows less or can do less, but a being with a qualitatively different psyche. At each age level, it is qualitatively different from what happened before and what will happen next.

3. Law of Unevenness child/development: each side in the child's psyche has its own optimal development period. L. S. Vygotsky’s hypothesis about the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness is connected with this law.

Initially, in infancy up to one year, the child’s consciousness is undifferentiated. Differentiation of functions begins in early childhood. First, the basic functions are identified and developed, primarily perception, then more complex ones. Perception, developing intensively, seems to move to the center of consciousness and becomes the dominant mental process. Initially it is merged with emotions - “affective perception”.

The remaining functions are on the periphery of consciousness and depend on the dominant function.

Each age period is associated with a restructuring of interfunctional connections - a change in the dominant function, the establishment of new relationships between them (11).

Age sensitivity is an optimal combination of conditions inherent in a certain age period for the development of certain mental properties and processes. Premature or delayed training in relation to the sensitive period may not be effective enough, which adversely affects the development of the psyche. During sensitive periods, the child is especially sensitive to learning and development certain functions ().

4. The law of development of higher mental functions. Higher mental functions arise initially as a form of collective behavior, as a form of cooperation with other people, and only subsequently do they become internal individual functions (forms) of the child himself (11).

The biological type of development occurs in progress devices to nature through inheritance of the properties of the species and through individual experience. A person does not have innate forms of behavior in the environment. Its development occurs through the appropriation of historically developed forms and methods of activity.

According to L. S. Vygotsky, driving force of mental development - training. It is important to note that development and learning are different processes. According to L. S. Vygotsky, the development process has internal laws of self-expression. He considers development as the formation of a person or personality, accomplished through the emergence at each stage of new qualities specific to a person, prepared by the entire previous course of development, but not contained in a ready-made form at earlier stages . Education, according to L. S. Vygotsky, is an internally necessary and universal moment in the process of development in a child of not natural, but historical human characteristics. Learning is not the same as development. It creates zone of proximal development, that is, it arouses in the child an interest in life, awakens and sets in motion internal processes of development, which at first are possible for the child only in the sphere of relationships with others and cooperation with comrades, but then, permeating the entire internal course of development, become the property of the child himself .

Zone of proximal development- this is the distance between the level of the child’s actual development and the level of possible development, determined using tasks solved under the guidance of adults. The zone of proximal development determines functions that have not yet matured, but are in the process of maturation; functions that can be called not the fruits of development, but the buds of development, the flowers of development.

and educational psychology, such as the emergence and development of higher mental functions, the relationship between learning and mental development, the driving forces and mechanisms of the child’s mental development.

The zone of proximal development is a logical consequence of the law of formation of higher mental functions, which are formed first by joint activity, in collaboration with other people, and gradually become internal mental processes of the subject. When the mental process is formed in joint activities, it is in the zone of proximal development; after formation, it becomes a form of actual development of the subject.

The phenomenon of the zone of proximal development indicates the leading role of learning in the mental development of children. According to L. S. Vygotsky, learning is only good when it goes ahead of development. Then it awakens and brings to life many other functions that lie in the zone of proximal development. In relation to school, this means that teaching should focus not so much on already mature functions, completed development cycles, but on maturing functions.

Education and activity are inseparable; they become the source of development of the child’s psyche. The main changes in the development of mental functions and personality of the child that occur at each age stage are due to leading activities.

Methodological apparatus of special psychology. Concept of L.S. Vygotsky.

History of creation theoretical foundations special psychology is associated with the name L.S. Vygotsky. He formulated and justified modern ideas about the nature and essence of abnormal development.

Methodological foundations of special psychology. are based on the methodological principles of dialectical materialism. They act as a system of explanatory principles. Three principles are most important for understanding abnormal development:

The principle of determinism is when real natural mental processes are determined, i.e. arise, develop and are destroyed naturally, as a result of certain causes. The principle of determinism was formulated most accurately in the dialectical tradition by S. L. Rubinstein: an external cause always acts, refracting through an internal condition.

The principle of development is expressed in the fact that all psychological phenomena are considered as constantly developing qualitatively and quantitatively; all mental phenomena must be considered exclusively in a dynamic sense, that is, in the process of development and formation.

The principle of the unity of consciousness and activity - on the one hand, the psyche is formed in activity, on the other - activity is a reflection of the level of consciousness.

Along with general psychological specials. psychol. is based on a number of principles that have more specific scientific meaning:

The principle of complexity - the discovery of the causes and mechanisms of the occurrence of a particular deviation is carried out by a group of specialists (doctors, speech pathologists, speech therapist, psychologist, social worker).

The principle of systemic structural-dynamic study is based on the idea of the systemic structure of the psyche and involves an analysis of the results of mental activity at each of its stages. The analysis involves not only identifying individual violations, but also establishing the relationship between them, their hierarchy.

The principle of qualitative analysis of the results of a psychodiagnostic study of a child.

Vygotsky's concept.

L.S. Vygotsky discovered that all contemporary concepts of mental development implemented an approach that he called “biologizing” or “naturalistic.” The biologization interpretation identifies and puts on a par psychological development animal and child development.

L.S. Vygotsky argued that a different, non-biological, understanding of the development of higher mental functions of a person is necessary. He didn't just point out the importance social environment for the development of the child, but sought to identify the specific mechanism of this influence.

Vygotsky distinguished lower, elementary mental functions (phase of natural development) and higher mental functions (phase of “cultural” development). The hypothesis put forward by Vygotsky offered a new solution to the problem of the relationship between mental functions - elementary and higher. The main difference between them is the level of arbitrariness, i.e. natural mental processes cannot be regulated by humans, but people can consciously control higher mental functions (HMF).

An additional connection arises between the influencing stimulus and a person’s reaction (both behavioral and mental) through a mediating link - a stimulus-means, or sign.

Signs (or stimulus-means) are mental tools that, unlike tools of labor, change not the physical world, but the consciousness of the subject operating them. A sign is any conventional symbol that has a specific meaning. Unlike a stimulus-means, which can be invented by a person himself (for example, a knot on a scarf or a stick instead of a thermometer), signs are not invented by children, but are acquired by them in communication with adults. The universal sign is the word. The mechanism of change in the child’s psyche, which leads to the emergence of higher mental functions specific to a person, is the mechanism of internalization (rotation) of signs as a means of regulating mental activity.

Interiorization is a fundamental law of the development of higher mental functions in phylogenesis and ontogenesis. This is Vygotsky’s hypothesis about the origin and nature of higher mental functions. The child’s higher mental functions arise initially as a form of collective behavior, as a form of cooperation with other people, and only subsequently, through internalization, do they become individual functions.

IN general concept“development of higher mental functions” Vygotsky includes two groups of phenomena that together form the process of “development of higher forms of child behavior”: - processes of mastering language, writing, counting, drawing as external means of cultural development and thinking, - processes of development of special higher mental functions ( voluntary attention, logical memory, concepts, etc.).

Distinctive features of higher mental functions: indirectness, arbitrariness, systematicity; are formed intravitally; are formed by internalizing samples.

Highlighting two historical stages of human development, biological (evolutionary) and cultural (historical) development, Vygotsky believes that it is important to distinguish and uniquely contrast them as two types of development in ontogenesis. In the conditions of ontogenetic development, both of these lines - biological and cultural - are in complex interaction, merged, and actually form a single, albeit complex process.