Mental development of children of different age groups. Increasing the level of mental development in preschoolers

Under mental development, most often they consider personality changes in the mental sphere, its qualitative and quantitative transformations. This process occurs only when the individual is in society, in the process of constant cognitive activity of the individual.

The mental development of the baby is facilitated by the implementation of mental education, when an adult specially organizes activities and trains the educated person in order to transfer to him the knowledge necessary and available for this age stage. The knowledge gained by the baby affects his mental education, helps to form cognitive processes. They, in turn, contribute to the formation of skills and abilities in various areas of the child's activity.

Some parents do not understand why the neighbor's child has intelligible speech and developed judgments, while his own child somehow develops poorly. He babbles something indistinct, he doesn't even try to reason. The time comes to think about school, and the child does not even show interest in books or writing. He also doesn't know the numbers. Parents begin to sound the alarm, worrying about the mental retardation of the baby.

And here I ask you to listen. Not all children have the same level of mental development. And the reason for this is not some kind of backwardness in mental processes. It's just that all children are different by nature, and each type of child has its own characteristics, its own pace of development, in any area of ​​its activity.

The type of his temperament and the means by which this process is carried out greatly affect the mental education of the child.

Let's compare two types of children in mental equivalent.

Phlegmatic children are very slow, they are long-thinking. Focusing is a big problem for them. Although the child may know the answer to the question, the knowledge is quite solid and thorough. Effective means for the mental education of phlegmatic children are children's books. You can make logical pauses while reading so that the child can gradually comprehend what he heard.

At this time, the sanguine person does not even need to ask questions, he will lay out everything, as if in spirit. Knows - does not know if he guesses something. He will tell everything, and even add and embellish. The means for the effective development of the mental abilities of sanguine people are didactic games. In them, the child will be able to quickly get a visual experience.

On the types of mental development and their features

Mental education depends on the level of its development, which is divided into types. Although many people did not know about it.
One of the types of mental development is linguistic.

Children with this type of development have a very extensive vocabulary. These kids are quite clearly and eloquently able to express their thoughts. Reading and writing are learned very early. They like to look at books, hold a pen or pencil correctly.

Come up with different stories. Children with linguistic development love poetry, they simply adore riddles. For precisely this there are the best means of mental development. To easily remember information, and they do it really easily, such children say all the phrases out loud.

Now I am writing about this and remembering my granddaughter. Just the other day I talked with her and was surprised that she repeats almost every phrase after me. Whatever I say, she says it exactly. Apparently, in her 2-plus years old, we can already clearly distinguish the linguistic type in mental development.

The next is logical-mathematical development. Already at preschool age, children can develop a rationalistic approach to the phenomena of life. Children of this type like to shift objects, sort them, are observant to the things around them.

These children are easily given the number, they easily do it in their minds. Checkers, chess and other mental and logical games are easily acquired by children with logical and mathematical development. The best friend of such children is a computer. Although this is debatable. In our time, literally any child with any type and type of mental development is pulling his little hands to computer and other digital technology.

What can you do. Age of technical transformation.

Children with spatial development have other features, they are very observant. If you rearrange something in the room, they will immediately notice it.

Such kids draw very well, orient themselves in space. Therefore, they are close to such activities as design.

Inventing something is a pleasure for them. "Golden Hands" talk about such. They can make something out of nothing. But they, unfortunately, cannot listen and, moreover, perceive a large amount of information. The upbringing of such children consists in instilling fine skills in preschoolers, and then they will turn out to be real little “artists”.

Special mention should be made of children with musical development. It is to these children that all the stages of the world belong in the future. Musical instruments surround them since childhood, because they only play with such toys, and their parents willingly buy them.

These children are very musical, listen to music, sing themselves. And not only on special days, standing on a chair in the middle of the room. They cannot concentrate in silence. Music must be played. At the same time, musical education will take place. Any musical accompaniment is required for such babies, even to fall asleep.

Motor or kinesthetic development appears in a different type of child. And these are also special children, and they also have their own characteristics. They are very good at expressing their feelings, able to control themselves through movements. They are predicted acting and theatrical, possibly sports future.

Without the implementation of any movement, such children simply will not sit still. It is simply useless to force them to sit still, they cannot stand it for a long time, they begin to crawl on the chair, pull their hands, move their legs. Children of this type of children are characterized by constant physical activity. Running and jumping, preschoolers of this type constantly attract the attention of others. It is simply impossible not to notice such a child.

The interpersonal type of mental development includes children who love and know how to communicate with others. Very sociable, easy to contact with other children. They are chosen as leaders in any team. Sometimes they even ask to settle some kind of dispute or conflict. These kids very often act as the ringleaders and organizers in any kind of children's activities. Other preschoolers are always well disposed and drawn to them.

And the last type of mental development is intrapersonal. These children are "white crows". So it is customary to call a person who is on his own mind. Does what he wants.

He does what he thinks is right. Most often, these are not attractive qualities, and such a child is lonely in a team. However, sometimes they show some features and outstanding abilities, and then they begin to envy them, or, at best, admire them.

Mental development and mental education of older preschoolers

In older preschool age, their own characteristics of mental abilities are manifested. At this age, there is a rapid growth of all cognitive processes, thinking plays an important role in the development of the surrounding space by the child.

The preschooler is imbued with curiosity, tries to set cognitive goals and tasks that are accessible to his age, willingly solves them through various studies and experiments.

The older preschooler learns to reason more logically. It can be very funny to listen to a kid who comes to his own conclusions, makes interesting logical conclusions.

From cause to effect

It is noticed that three-year-old kids are able to find the cause of the phenomenon. If the toy is dropped and broken, the child can already tell why it happened.

But older children can tell about the consequences of the phenomenon. Before entering school, preschoolers are able to draw conclusions in advance, because at this age the features of all types of thinking develop, the logical processes of thinking develop most intensively.

In the older preschool age, the development of mental abilities is at the highest rate. Now we need to talk more with children, give knowledge, develop all aspects of the child's personality, because at an older age, children become less receptive to personal formation.

Mental education, the tasks of its development in older preschoolers

Many people think that having put a store of knowledge into a small head, the mental upbringing of a child can be considered fully realized. I dare say that these people are wrong.

The tasks of the mental education of older preschoolers are well described in the "Program of Education in Kindergarten". There we see the following tasks: the formation of children's primary ideas about phenomena occurring or being around, the formation and development of basic mental processes, which include thinking, memory, attention and others, the development of the intellectual aspects of the personality of a preschooler, the education of children in the very first techniques in the implementation mental activity.

Let's briefly look at each of the tasks.

Every day for a child - an older preschooler - is a meeting with a new life fact, a phenomenon. But a child can acquire knowledge only under the direct guidance of an adult. Meeting with something unfamiliar, the child has questions, but he cannot find answers without an adult.

Of course, in some cases, observing a certain kind of phenomena, the child acquires the experience of cognition, but this is not characteristic of all children. Above, we have already talked about the types of children who are not able to focus on anything due to their temperament or type of mental development. This is where the role of the educator lies in shaping the children's primary ideas about the environment.

Explaining and explaining, and in most cases, demonstrating on visual materials, an adult introduces the baby to the outside world.

The acquisition of knowledge about the surrounding reality is carried out through the means of the formation of mental processes, which is the second task of the mental education of a child of older preschool age.

It is necessary to pay attention to the development of sensations and perception, memory and thinking, imagination and speech.

Having learned the environment through mental processes, the child undergoes mental education and an intensive increase in the level of intellectual skills and abilities.

A preschooler learns to examine objects, highlight essential and non-essential features, compares and distinguishes. This is also called logical thought processes, which also include analysis and generalization. These skills and abilities contribute to the successful and effective mastery of knowledge.

The main methods for the development of mental activity are the organization of the child's own experience. This is done through the presentation of visual materials. Use the possibilities of observation and experimentation. Children are especially interested in experiments with natural phenomena.

When pouring water into a glass and placing it in the freezer, the next day the child sees that there is something solid in the glass. And if a glass is placed in warm water, then this solid falls out of the glass in the form of a second glass, then the child learns with pleasure what happens to the liquid when it is placed in a cold environment.

Such experiences are very useful for children.
What is the mental development of a child?

Play is often referred to as developmental practice. She also plays an important role in the upbringing of the older preschooler. In play activity, the formation of basic mental processes is possible, on which a lot, if not all, depends.

When children play, they communicate a lot, and speech activity develops well at this time. Coming up with the plot of the game, the imagination is formed. And this contributes to the further transfer of game conclusions to the everyday situations of the child.

In game situations, thinking is formed through the generalization of various images and phenomena. Game items - substitutes help the child to operate in space, and this leads to the formation of logic, mental capabilities of the baby.

We see how a child plays, but we do not see how mental development takes place at this time, mental processes develop, mental inclinations appear.

Teaching a child is most effectively carried out exclusively in the activity that is closest to him. And in preschool children, the leading activity is play.

In this article:

If we compare the speed with which mental development proceeds in children of preschool age with the speed of the same development in other age periods, it will become obvious that preschoolers develop in this respect especially rapidly and actively.

Until the age of seven, the main part of the concepts is laid in the minds of babies, which will later become the basis for full-fledged mental development. Children learn the world by analyzing the external qualities of objects, learn about their features, purpose, and interaction precisely at preschool age. Therefore, abstract thinking, as well as the ability to compare, generalize, and single out, are formed during this period.

On the mental activity of preschoolers

The mental development of children at preschool age is easy to determine by analyzing the main indicator - the level of mental activity. Here it is important to determine to what extent the child is able to set cognitive tasks for himself and look for suitable answers to solve them.

It is important that preschoolers have the opportunity not only to assimilate information, but also to enrich their personal life experience, which, in turn, will become an impetus for the emergence of new creative solutions. Competent adult support allows children to gain more new knowledge, which is especially important for mental development.

Logic and imaginative thinking: their role in mental education

At an early age, the mental development of a child is associated mainly with perception. Over time, imagination and memory take over. With the first in a child, the main processes of memory, as well as mental activity, are associated.

premature
the development of logical thinking to the detriment of figurative thinking can have a negative impact on the mental development of preschool children. That is, the more attention children pay to logical tasks, reflecting on options and decision schemes, the less they will feel the need to use visual images.

Nevertheless, child psychologists are sure that before entering school, children must master at least the simplest methods of logical thinking in order for their educational activities to be successful in the future.

On the role of mental processes

The mental development of preschool children is directly related to a number of
mental processes. Attention plays a huge role here. During the entire preschool period, attention passes through several stages of development, ranging from involuntary to stable and concentrated.

It is quite difficult for kids at preschool age, as well as for primary school students, to focus and keep their attention on a lesson or lesson. Thanks to memory, the child receives the necessary material for thinking. It is on its basis that skills and abilities are formed.

Skill
memorizing allows you to expand the horizons of preschool children, makes their experience richer, which, in turn, lays the foundation for the further development of babies. Perceptions, judgments and ideas are colored by the emotions of preschoolers, and cognitive activity is invariably associated with a number of feelings, including curiosity, confidence, doubt, etc.

At a young age, children's imagination and perception are still inseparable, while the former remains limited. Throughout the preschool period, imagination continues to expand, and mental development moves to a new level due to the active development of thought processes.

About means for mental education

It is obvious that mental development in preschoolers will take place without the intervention of adults. Nevertheless, there is such a thing as mental education, which is understood as purposeful actions to stimulate mental development. In this case, adults help children develop, creating all the necessary conditions for this, using effective means.

Their task
- diversify the activities of the baby as much as possible, opening up all the possibilities for him to get acquainted with the outside world and maximize the development of cognitive activity.

The more diverse the activities of a preschooler, the better it will affect his mental development. In the process of carrying out any activity, a preschooler should be able to communicate with people around him, learn from experience and knowledge, master the subtleties of his native language, and especially relationships.

About the influence of the surrounding reality on the child

The surrounding reality is one of the main means of mental education of preschool children. During interaction with the outside world, the child gets the opportunity to expand his horizons, his cognitive processes are actively developing. The more information a child receives, the more active his brain works.

Using
different items in everyday life, during a game or a walk, children learn about their functional purpose, properties, composition. At preschool age, children already clearly understand that everything in this world is connected and that certain actions, objects stand behind the implementation of any activity.

Toddlers are aware that each item is made of a specific material, which, in turn, has special properties. They know that the vase is made of glass and can break, while the shovel is made of iron and heavy.

adults
during the implementation of household activities, they must constantly focus the attention of children on everything that surrounds them, emphasizing the properties and functions of objects, describing and analyzing their own actions, using concepts denoting temporal relationships.

So, in the process of dressing, it is important to pay the baby's attention to the color of the clothes and the material from which it is made, its qualities and properties. While putting the children to bed, you can tell them that the night has come, and then it will be day again and you can go for a walk. So, simple descriptions of everything that surrounds a child can effectively stimulate his mental development.

Observations of natural phenomena as a means for mental education

Observing everything that happens in nature, the child again gets the opportunity to develop. You can watch insects and animals, birds and plants. Naturally, adults should direct attention
children to the processes taking place around them, thus stimulating their mental development. Preschool kids can be shown how a flower bloomed in the morning and how it closed again with the onset of evening, drawing parallels between how a plant reacts to the sun and its absence.

Children can be shown how it rains, how snowflakes fall, together with them look for suitable comparisons, show and tell how life begins for young animals and chicks.

It is very important that adults direct children's observations in the right direction, helping them first see this or that phenomenon, and then draw the right conclusion about it.

Observation is an important personality trait

During regular observations and analysis of the structure of the surrounding world, children develop an extremely important and necessary quality for them - observation. Preschoolers learn to notice changes in reality and respond to them.

To
to develop observation, which, in turn, stimulates mental development, children can be given simple tasks from everyday life from time to time. For example, you can make small changes in the room during the absence of the child and ask him to determine what exactly has changed.

The more observant the baby is, the more cognitive interests he will have. At preschool age, most children are focused on getting to know nature and its phenomena, as well as on toys and games.

What is the role of play in the process?

The game is one of the most effective means that can and should be resorted to, stimulating mental development. During the game, children learn to reflect reality, use the accumulated knowledge and experience, share them with other participants in the game.

Each type of game has its own impact on the mental development of preschool children. For example:

The game can really stimulate the mental development of preschool children, but only if adults take responsibility for its organization. The main advantage of the game as an activity is the ability to solve mental problems of varying complexity without tension and pressure from adults.

On the role of labor activity

During labor activity, children get the opportunity to get acquainted not only with the appearance of objects and their properties, but also to understand what changes occur when interacting with them. For example, soap foams when rubbed under water, sand becomes soft and sticky when wet, and so on.

In the process of labor activity, the child learns to establish cause-and-effect relationships, based on personal experience, analyzes, and conclusions.

Despite the fact that play and work have a serious impact on the mental development of preschool children, education still plays the main role in the process. Its main advantage lies in the purposefulness and systematic action, due to which knowledge and skills are consistently mastered and firmly fixed in children.

SENSORY PERCEPTION OF A CHILD AS A MENTAL PROCESS OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT IN YOUNGER PRESCHOOL AGE

In early childhood, interest in the world around us quickly grows - this is a powerful engine of development. The child wants to see and hear everything. However, he needs not only visual and auditory impressions, but also tactile, muscular ones: the baby wants to get to everything, pick it up, feel it, crush it, tear it, throw it away.

At preschool age, the accumulation of knowledge proceeds rapidly, speech is formed, cognitive processes are improved, the child masters the simplest methods of mental activity. Ensuring the mental development of a preschooler is of great importance for all his future activities. Sensory perception and its development is a condition for the successful mastery of any practical activity. The period of the first three years is the period of the most intensive physical and mental development of children. The age of early childhood is most favorable for the improvement of the activity of the sense organs, for the formation of a cognitive attitude to the world around. Perception is the leading cognitive process of preschool age. Knowledge of the world begins with sensations, with perception. The richer the sensations and perceptions, the wider and more multifaceted the information received by a person about what surrounds him, how he lives and who is next to him. Sensory perception, the level of development of its sensations and perceptions are an important prerequisite for successful cognitive activity. Mastering the methods of cognitive activity is one of the main indicators of mental development. For the full mental development of a child in the first years of life, it is necessary to take care of the development of his perception and thinking.

In the second and third years of life, the actions of perception and mental actions develop quite noticeably. If for almost the entire duration of infancy the mental life of the child was of a coherent, undifferentiated character, now one can quite clearly see: here the baby is visually examining an object, its properties; here he solves a mental problem: how to get a bright toy from the shelf? But it is impossible, apparently, to single out memory, attention, and imagination as separate mental processes. They seem to be woven into the activity of the child, they are involuntary.

At the beginning of the second year of life, the baby recognizes familiar people well, even if he has not seen them for several weeks, he recalls the events that happened a week ago. He also begins to navigate in space: in the arrangement of rooms in the house, the objects in them; when he goes outside, he himself goes to the place where he usually plays. By the end of the second year of life, recognition becomes even more perfect. In the third year of life, the baby can, on occasion, recall rather distant events (remember what he did two or three months ago; tell what toys he has at home).

If you don’t really think about it, you can take it as a self-evident fact that by the end of the first year of life the baby’s perception is quite developed - after all, he recognizes close people, shuns strangers, orients himself well in the environment, performs various manipulations with objects, distinguishes some of their properties. All this is so. But a more careful approach reveals that the perception of the child is extremely imperfect. After all, recognition - people or objects - can be different. Is a child able to consistently, systematically inspect, examine an object at the beginning of early childhood, is it possible to single out different properties and signs in it? If we observe a child, we will see that looking at an object, he snatches out some one property, some one sign that catches the eye, and identifies it by it. This sign is some part of the object with which the baby is dealing at the time when he interacts with this object. The child does not perceive drawings or photographs as images of people, or animals, or objects. And if he calls the object and the image the same, if he perceives them as one and the same, then this is because he singles out one detail in the object and in its image that attracted him. Everything else is unimportant for him, as if it does not exist, it is discarded. In the second year of a child's life, the spatial position of a perceived object or its image is often indifferent to him. He can look at the pictures in the book upside down - this tells us that only individual features are important to him, and not the whole part of the object or image. Therefore, in early childhood, the upbringing of a child solves, among other tasks, the following one - to make his perception more complete, comprehensive. Only such a perception can properly serve the actions that take shape in early childhood (take an object and manipulate it). The very mastery of these actions, if it is built pedagogically correctly, helps the development of perception. The accumulation of knowledge and ideas in the child, in that case, will be correct, systemic, if this process takes place under appropriate guidance. The task of the teacher is to consistently increase the stock of knowledge in children, to streamline, clarify, and systematize them. The child should get a clear idea about the surrounding objects, their purpose, some qualities and properties. He also acquires knowledge about some natural phenomena, animate and inanimate nature. Knowledge of the surrounding world begins with sensations and perceptions. The higher the level of their development, the richer the possibilities of cognition of the surrounding reality. In a preschool there is a huge opportunity to help every child explore our world through sensory perception, thereby ensuring the mental development of the baby. The basis of the child's mental development is the development of his sensory experience. The development of sensations and perception of the child is a necessary prerequisite for the formation of more complex thought processes in him. All the complex work of analyzers - from the physiological reception of signals by peripheral sensory organs (ear, eye, skin) to the complex processing of all incoming sensory information by the brain - this is sensory development - the development of sensations, perceptions, ideas. The child grows, and the activity of the analyzers becomes more and more differentiated. The ability not only to distinguish, but also to know, to recognize the qualities of objects, shades of colors, smells, surfaces, temperatures, etc., as signs of various things, provides a new character for the orientation of the child in the world around him. This fact opens up broad pedagogical perspectives. Skillfully working on the development of children's distinguishing sensitivity, the educator makes extensive use of the richest possibilities for decomposing the whole into parts, provided by the very structure and function of the child's analyzers and their interaction. Thus, the educator leads the children to a deeper and more diverse knowledge of reality. To understand the development of sensitivity, it is not important how the child calls the new quality of the object. His significantly formed cognitive attitude to the subject, to the selection of a number of features in it. The child already sees and distinguishes them without any preliminary reinforcement, he is waiting for their verbal designation, that is, not only distinguishes, but also wants to know. This is revealed in the child's developing powers of observation. He now looks differently at the world around him (for example, at nature), he sees something else in it, that is, he moves to a new stage of reflecting reality. The educated observation of children, their subtle discrimination of the signals of reality, is of great practical importance. It provides the best orientation in the environment, which is necessary for any person in various life circumstances of his work and struggle.

Full-fledged mental development occurs only in the process of organized activity, therefore the task of the teacher is both to create the appropriate conditions for this, and to implement targeted educational influences on the child. In order to properly organize this process, one must know the patterns and possibilities of their mental development. The main feature of the mental development of a preschool child is the predominance of figurative forms of cognition: this is perception, which is on a par with figurative thinking and imagination.

Literature:

"Age-related psychology". G.S. Abramov. Yekaterinburg: Business book, 1999.

"Psychology of the preschooler". Compiled by G.A. Uruntaev. - 2nd ed., revised. and additional - M .: Publishing Center "Academy", 2000.

"The world of childhood. Preschooler. Ed. A.G. Khripkova. - 2nd ed., add. - M .: Pedagogy, 1997.

"Fundamentals of Psychology". Ed.-stat. L.D. Stolyarenko. Ed. 3rd, add. and reworked. - Rostov n / a: "Phoenix", 2002.

"Pedagogy". Ed. P.I. piddly. - M .: Pedagogical Society of Russia, 2000.

"Education and education in the second junior group of kindergarten." Compiled by M.B. Zatsepin. - M .: Mosaic-Synthesis, 2008.

“What to say over the cradle. Maternal folklore for the formation of a picture of the world of a modern child. A.B. Teplov. M .: LLC "Pedagogical Literature", 2014.

Signs of sufficient mental development of the child are the volume, nature and content of the baby's knowledge, the level of formation of his cognitive processes (such as: the perception of the child, his memory, thinking, imagination, attention of the baby), the tendency to independent creative knowledge.

From the first months of life, the baby begins to form and develop the ability to accumulate knowledge, improve mental operations, thus his intellectual development takes place. In preschool children, to one degree or another, a number of properties of the mind develop - speed, breadth, criticality, flexibility of thinking, creativity, independence. The mental development of a preschool child in this case depends on a number of social and biological factors, among which the main ones are the mental upbringing and education of the baby.

Mental education of children
Mental education of a child is a set of actions on the part of adults aimed at the baby, at the mental development of the child in order to transfer to him the skills and knowledge necessary for comprehensive development and adaptation to the surrounding reality. At the same time, mental education and mental development of the child are closely interconnected. Mental education, in fact, determines mental development, helps, promotes it. This is possible only if adults take into account all the basic patterns and possibilities of the mental development of preschool children.

Mental education, the purpose of which is to influence the child, its development contributes to the formation of the child's morality, moral development, the formation of skills and habits of a healthy lifestyle. Mental education is carried out:
1. in everyday life;
2. during verbal and effective-practical communication with adults;
3. in gaming activities;
4. in the process of systematic learning.

Features of the mental development of a young child
In the period up to 7 years, high rates of intellectual development of babies are observed in comparison with subsequent age periods in their lives, and it is important to use all the opportunities for the mental development of the child during this special period. Particular attention should be paid to the intellectual development of young children. In the course of numerous studies, experts on this issue have found out: in cases where in the first two years of life, babies live richly, they have active cognitive activity, the brain of such children develops very quickly: up to three to seven years it reaches a normal 80% of brain mass adult. Paradoxically, but data on physiology argue that most of today's kids under two years of age suffer not from an oversaturation of information, but from its deficiency. But don't overwhelm your child with information.

Possible deviations in the intellectual development of the baby, which arose during early childhood, are very difficult to correct. For example, if attention is not paid to playing with building materials, constructors, etc., then in the future one can observe a lack of development of the baby’s spatial imagination, as a result, it is more difficult for such children to understand the educational material in the lessons of geometry, drawing, etc.

Cognitive processes that develop in a child are manifested in various types of children's activity. So, a kid with a developed imagination develops an image of the subsequent activity, he plans it, realizes what is required of him. The skills that the baby learns do not just expand his worldview, they lay the foundations for attitudes towards people, nature, and art.