How movement develops thinking in children. The development of visual-figurative thinking in children

A special process of cognition of the world around a person is thinking. Children preschool age stages of development quickly pass, which is reflected in the development of types of thinking.

Characteristics of thinking

Thinking is one of the basic psychological processes. Its formation has been well studied. It has been proven that it is closely related to speech. And it has the following features:

As the child matures and socializes, improvement occurs nervous system and thinking. For their development, you will need the help of adults who surround the baby. Therefore, already from the year you can start classes aimed at forming cognitive activity children.

Important! It is necessary to consider with what objects and how the child is ready to work. Taking into account the individual characteristics of children are selected educational materials and assignments.

Features of the thinking of this age group are defined as follows:

• generalization - the child is able to compare and draw conclusions about similar objects;
• visibility - the child needs to see facts, observe various situations in order to form his own idea;
• abstraction - the ability to separate features and properties from the objects to which they belong;
• concept - a representation or knowledge about a subject related to a specific term or word.

Systematic development of concepts occurs already at school. But groups of concepts are laid down earlier. Along with the development of abstraction in children, there is a gradual mastery of inner speech.

Types of mental activity in preschoolers

At preschool age, children are able to acquire knowledge about the world around them. The more they know the synonyms and characteristics of objects, the more developed they are. For children of the preschool stage of development, the ability to generalize, to establish connections between objects is the norm. At 5–7 years old, they are more inquisitive, which leads to numerous questions, as well as independent actions to discover new knowledge.

Types of thinking characteristic of children before school:

• visual-effective - prevails at the age of 3-4 years;
• figurative - becomes active in children older than 4 years;
• logical - mastered by children aged 5-6 years.

Visual-effective thinking involves the child observing visually different situations. Based on this experience, chooses the desired action. At 2 years old, the baby's action occurs almost immediately, he goes by trial and error. At 4 years old, he first thinks and then acts. As an example, the situation with opening doors can be used. A two-year-old baby will knock on the door, and try to find the mechanism for opening it. Usually he manages to carry out the action by accident. At 4 years old, the baby will carefully examine the door, remember what they are, try to find the handle and open it. These are different levels of mastering visual-effective thinking.

It is important to actively develop thinking based on images in preschool age. In this case, children acquire the ability to perform the tasks assigned to them without the presence of an object in front of their eyes. They compare the situation with those models and schemes that they have met before. At the same time, children:

• highlight the main features and characteristics that characterize the subject;
• remember the correlation of the subject with others;
• able to draw a schematic of an object or describe it in words.

In the future, the ability to distinguish from an object only those features that are needed in a particular situation develops. You can verify this by offering the baby tasks like “remove the excess”.

Before school, the child can, operating only with concepts, reason, draw conclusions, characterize objects and objects. This age period is characterized by:

• start of experiments;
• the desire to transfer the acquired experience to other objects;
• search for relationships between phenomena;
• active generalization of own experience.

Basic mental operations and their development

The first thing that a baby masters in the cognitive sphere is the operations of comparison and generalization. Parents identify a large number of items with the concept of "toys", "balls", "spoons", etc.

From the age of two, the operation of comparison is mastered. Often it is based on opposition, so that it is easier for children to form judgments. The main comparison parameters are:

• color;
• magnitude;
• form;
• temperature.

Generalization comes later. For its development, the already richer vocabulary of the child and the accumulated mental skills are required.

It is quite possible to divide objects into groups for children of three years of age. But to the question: “What is it?” they may not answer.

Classification is a complex mental operation. It uses both generalization and correlation. The level of operation depends on various factors. Mostly by age and gender. At first, the baby is only able to classify objects according to generic concepts and functional features (“what is it?”, “what is it?”). By the age of 5, a differentiated classification appears (dad's car is a service truck or a personal car). The choice of the basis for determining the types of objects in preschoolers is random. Depends on the social environment.

Questions as an element of improving mental activity

Little "why" - a gift and a test for parents. Appearance in in large numbers questions in children speaks of a change in stages preschool development. Children's questions are divided into three main categories:

• auxiliary - a preschool child asks older people to help in his activities;
• cognitive - their goal is to obtain new information that interested the child;
• emotional - their purpose is to receive support or certain emotions in order to feel more confident.

Before the age of three, a child rarely uses all kinds of questions. It is characterized by chaotic and unsystematic questions. But even in them a cognitive character can be traced.

A large number of emotional questions is a signal that the baby lacks attention and self-confidence. In order to compensate for this, it is enough to communicate face-to-face for 10 minutes during the day. Children aged 2-5 will assume that their parents take a lot of interest in their personal affairs.

The absence of cognitive questions at age 5 should alert parents. More tasks should be given for thinking.

The questions of children of younger and older preschool age require answers of different quality. If at the age of three a child may not even listen to the answer, then at the age of 6 they may have new questions in the process.

Parents and teachers of the preschool development system should know how detailed and in what terms it is necessary to communicate with the child. This is the peculiarities of thinking and raising kids.

The prerequisites for asking cognitive questions in children appear about 5 years old.

Auxiliary questions are typical for the period up to 4 years. With their help, you can form the skills necessary for further development and life in everyday life.

How to develop thought processes in preschoolers?

For the development and improvement of thought processes in the preschool period, it is necessary to gradually build up the conceptual apparatus and characteristics of objects. You can refer to the following data:

• improvement based on imagination;
• activation of arbitrary and mediated memory;
• the use of speech as a tool for setting and solving mental problems.

Attentive attitude to the child is a kind of guarantee of the normal development of cognitive activity. For those who want to save money, it is important to know that games can be bought "for growth". At the same time, a younger child should be shown some actions and explain basic characteristics. Over time, complicate actions and concepts.

To help in the development of thinking in preschool age can:

• various types of board games (lotto, dominoes, inserts, etc.);
• active dialogues with the child during walks or at home, which are not in the nature of individual lessons;
• explanations of actions carried out by surrounding people or animals;
• modeling, applications, drawing;
• learning poetry, reading books.

Important! Sometimes malnutrition and lack of vitamins lead to inhibited work of the nervous system, rapid fatigue of the child, which also affects the development of thinking.

In order for mental activity to be normal, you need to monitor the sufficient amount of B vitamins, iron, zinc, and magnesium in the food of children.

Thus, the psychology of the child involves a gradual immersion in complex world objects and phenomena external environment. The stringing of concepts, knowledge, actions develops the thinking of preschoolers. Only joint activity allows you to successfully acquire the skills that are needed for later life.

Reading strengthens neural connections:

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When and how to start the development of thinking in children?
The development of thinking in children is the primary task of responsible parents. How to teach a child to think? Someone thinks that this task should be solved by the school. And someone, on the contrary, seeks to stuff the baby with useful knowledge as early as possible. This article will help parents understand the peculiarities of thinking of children of different ages and correctly direct the development of intellectual abilities.
The ability to think is one of the most important human qualities. This is confirmed by the existence of many synonyms for the concept of "thinking": mind, reason, quick wit, logic, ingenuity, intelligence, ingenuity. Folk wisdom is expressed in numerous proverbs and sayings about fools and wise men. According to one of them: what Vanya did not learn, Ivan will not learn. This statement shows the phenomenal receptivity of the child's brain.

The baby has intelligence from birth. The development of thinking in infants is called the sensorimotor stage. The little one learns the world with the help of the simplest actions, such as sucking, looking and grabbing. And this means that the environment must be filled with a variety of stimuli: wallpaper with a pattern, colorful pillows, images on the ceiling and mobile mobiles.
An empty room with neutral walls and a white ceiling significantly impoverishes the development of the child's intellectual abilities. Dear parents! When decorating a children's room, give preference to paintings by famous artists, rather than cartoon characters. Nurture your child's taste for classical music. Babies love Vivaldi's concertos and Beethoven's 5th symphony.

As often as possible, take the child in your arms, stroke and hug him. This activates tactile sensations. Psychologists recommend using such methods of communication not only for mothers, but also for fathers. Talk to your child. He does not yet understand the meaning, but all the words are firmly imprinted in his brain. You should not lisp with the little one. Babble is not a sign of mental incompetence, but a stage in the development of the speech apparatus.
It is useful for the kid to see parents, to observe their actions. Never quarrel and do not sort things out at home. The intelligence of infants is sensitive to negative emotions. Adequate methods of development of thinking should prevent the appearance of unhappy children. Stimulate your child's limitless potential with natural means to make life interesting and joyful. Any child will grow up smart if he is given what he needs and does it on time.

Intellectual abilities of a young child
The first three years of life are the most important time that determines the entire subsequent development of the child's intellectual abilities. It is during this period that connections between brain cells are most actively born. By the age of 3, 80% of all possible connections are formed. The further development of thinking in children will be based on this basis. Parents who have missed laying a solid foundation will try to teach their children how to work well on a bad computer.
In early childhood (from 1-3 years old), the main occupation of the child is object-manipulative activity. The kid no longer just confidently grabs various objects, but also performs various actions with them. First he throws, then taps one cube against another, tries to make a pyramid, picks up the details in shape and size. This is how visual-effective thinking is formed.

The peculiarities of children's thinking at this stage are connected with the fact that the little one learns the world by trial and error. By manipulating objects, the child is faced with the first tasks that require reflection. The ball rolled under the sofa, an interesting object is behind the closet door, the TV stopped showing your favorite cartoon. The perplexed kid enthusiastically proceeds to practical trials. He tries to get the ball with his hand, attracts improvised means.
Too quick parents immediately rush to the rescue, depriving the child of the pleasure of independent search. Dear mothers and dads! Do not rush to solve baby problems. Don't rush or push toddlers who are testing their limits. Give the little one time to figure out the principle of operation of this or that mechanism, to catch the connection or sequence. Don't interfere with the future genius!

Techniques for the development of thinking in young children:

- "Freedom of Expression!". Active kids draw on wallpaper, tear books, soil clothes. These are the first acts of children's self-expression. It is difficult for a child to understand why it is impossible to leave a handprint on the wall. Excessive predilection of mothers for cleanliness harms the development of creative thinking. You can raise a very clean and tidy person, but he will definitely not offer the world a single original idea.

- "Throw an idea!". Toddlers still do not have conscious attitude to solve mental problems. They act intuitively, guided by random ways and tools. Noticing that the child cannot succeed in any way, unobtrusively draw his attention to a more promising option. At the same time, avoid direct instructions, act according to the principle: "What if ...".

Features of thinking of preschool children
Many parents hope that the development of the thinking of preschool children is fully provided cognitive activities V kindergarten. Indeed, toddlers attending nursery preschool, demonstrate extensive knowledge in the field of natural phenomena, seasons, animate and inanimate nature, etc. All this is fine, but do not forget that the assimilation of the sum of knowledge is not thinking as such.
A thinking preschooler does not just memorize facts, but operates with information: compares objects, finds common and different, establishes causes and effects. At this age, the child acquires the ability to imagine an action before its implementation. Speak first, then execute. Such thinking is visual-figurative. This is not taught in kindergarten.

Methods for developing the thinking of a preschooler:

- "Associative Chains". Associations that connect objects and phenomena by similarity, contiguity and contrast form the basis of thinking. The development of children's intellectual abilities will be faster if they are taught to compare, to find similarities in different things. Throw a ball to the child and name any object. Let the preschooler, in turn, name something similar (by color, shape, size, weight).

- "Socks and Light Bulbs". Children love to fantasize. Nothing is impossible for a child's mind. Show the preschooler two unrelated objects. For example, a sock and a light bulb. Together, describe the main properties of each object. And then try to transfer the properties of one item to another. think about what might come of it.
Isn't it true, luminous socks would be very convenient to find under the bed. And woolen light bulbs would never break. Such methods of development of thinking contribute to the formation of flexibility and originality of the intellect, creativity. The child gets used to seeing the unusual in the ordinary, combining the incongruous, producing non-standard ideas.

The development of thinking in younger students
The efforts of kindergarten teachers could well leave the preschooler indifferent. But the school is simply obliged to influence the development of the intellectual abilities of children. Confident in speech, penetrating secrets mother tongue, mastering arithmetic operations, the younger student enters the time of verbal-logical thinking. Very soon, he will be quite free to compare, classify, establish patterns, reveal hidden properties and connections.
Parents who tirelessly shaped their children's mindsets from birth to school can take a breather. But not too long. The intellectual abilities of a child of primary school age without proper training can quickly wither away. By overloading the child's brain with new requirements and responsibilities, you can completely discourage any desire to think.

Methods for developing the thinking of a younger student:
- Bloom's Cube. A paper cube is used, on the sides of which it is written: “describe”, “explain how?”, “explain why?”, “evaluate”, “suggest”, “think up”. The child rolls a die and, depending on the side that has fallen out, describes the properties, mechanism of action, causes, pros and cons, gives an assessment, and offers his own solution. The development of the intellectual abilities of children using this method can be carried out both at school and at home.

- "Systemic effect". The world consists of more than just individual items. If you combine several objects, you get a system that performs certain functions. The systems are car, computer, phone. And even an ordinary mop is also a system consisting of many fibers. Teach children to find useful systems in nature and in human activity: family, flock of birds, sofa bed, reinforced concrete.

Methods for developing the thinking of a teenager
The brain of a teenager can be compared to a fairly powerful processor. During this period, the development of abstract theoretical thinking is in full swing. Teenagers love to put forward hypotheses, justify and refute, argue and prove. They can abstract from a specific situation, work out combinations, change proportions.
Teenagers do not trust adults and communicate mainly with their peers. Parents are unlikely to be able to exert a significant influence on the characteristics of the thinking of children on the threshold of adulthood. The leading role here belongs to an older comrade or an authoritative teacher who could become a mentor for a teenager. Quite often this is the coach of the sports section or the head of the circle.

Methods for developing the thinking of a teenager:
- "Smart question". The work of thought is the path from a question to an answer. In order to easily and quickly analyze any phenomenon, teach a teenager to find answers to 5 basic questions: “what?”, “Where?”, “When?”, “Why?” and why?". The intellectual abilities of the child are also manifested in the very ability to ask questions. Teach the younger generation to correctly formulate clarifying, problematic, reflective, leading and other types of questions.

- "Morphological box". This method of developing thinking helps to carefully analyze complex systems and not miss a single solution. To begin with, it is necessary to highlight all the important features (parts, properties, features) in the object or phenomenon under study and write them down horizontally on a piece of paper. All written vertically possible options existence or performance (shape, size, etc.).

Let's say you decided to draw a portrait of an ideal person. We write down horizontally: eyes, nose, ears, etc. Vertical: shape, color, size, etc. Successively filling in all the cells of the resulting table, we get the most Full description phenomenon being studied. The morphological box is used in solving a wide range of mental problems. The main thing is to clearly formulate the problem and correctly identify the columns of the table.

Conclusion: The development of thinking in children does not pursue the goal of forming geniuses. Raise your child to be kind, responsible and smiling. A flexible mind and a healthy body are the natural states of the human body. Do your best to support them!

Practice compliance. Matching games can enhance perceptual reasoning by developing children's ability to recognize and compare visual information. There are an almost infinite number of ways to train compliance, but to get started, try:

• Color matching. Challenge the children to find as many blue things as they can, then as many red things as they can, and so on. You can ask them to find objects or things in the room that are the same color as their shirt or eyes.
• Matching shapes and sizes. Take cubes and blocks of various shapes and sizes and ask the children to assemble them according to the shape or size, and if the children are already quite developed, then in two ways at once.
• Write the letters on cards or paper and ask the children to find the ones that match. After this skill is mastered, you can move on to short and longer words.
• Ask the children to match the word with the picture. This game strengthens the connection between the written word and the visual image. There are similar cards and games on the market designed to develop this skill, but you can also make your own.
• Encourage children to find objects or things that start with a certain letter. This game strengthens the bonds between a certain letter or sound and the objects and people whose name or name begins with them.
• Play memory training games. Memory training games develop both skills - matching and memory. For such games, paired cards with different symbols are usually used. The cards are turned face down (after they have been examined) and the players must find the matching ones in the new deck.

Work on your ability to spot differences. Part of figurative thinking includes the ability to distinguish and determine on the fly what belongs to a certain group of objects and what does not. There are many simple exercises that can help children develop these skills. For example:

• Try using pictures "Find the odd one". They are in magazines, books and on the Internet. The items in the picture may be similar, but children need to look carefully and find these small differences between them.
• Encourage children to find objects that do not belong to them. Combine a group of items - say three apples and a pencil - and ask which object does not belong to them. As you progress, you may come up with more difficult tasks: use apple, orange, banana and ball, for example, then apple, orange, banana and carrot.

Train your visual memory. Show the children pictures, then hide some or all of them. Ask them to describe what they saw. Alternatively, show the children a number of items, set them aside, and ask them to name as many as they can.

• Encourage the children to talk about the pictures they have seen. After they have described them, tell them stories about the items depicted, compare with other pictures.

Develop attention to detail. Show the children a picture with words or pictures and ask them to find as many as they can.

Put together puzzles. Playing with various puzzles, children train their visual perception: they turn the elements of the puzzle, connect them and represent the picture as a whole. This is a key skill in mathematics.

Teach children where is the right, where is the left. Orientation in which is right, which is left, is part of the perceptual and visual perception. Explain the difference between the left and right side of the child's arms, based on the one he writes with. Strengthen knowledge, ask the child to take the object in left hand yours or wave right hand- use whatever comes to mind.

• Helpful for children in their early age Explain the concept of arrows indicating direction. Show the children pictures of left and right arrows and ask them to guess the direction.

Thinking is a mental process in which both hemispheres of the brain are involved. And the solution of the tasks assigned to him depends on how complex a person can think. That is why the development of thinking in children is so important. Perhaps in early childhood this is not very noticeable, since all the important decisions for the baby are made by his parents, and the achievements of the crumbs are most often measured by the number of steps taken, the ability to read syllables or fold the designer. But sooner or later there comes a moment when serious life goals and tasks arise in front of a person. To get a job in large and successful companies, applicants go through many tests, including an IQ test. Logical thinking and creativity are at the heart of every invention created by mankind. And if you want your child to have a chance to do something brilliant in his life, teach him to think right from childhood. Even if he chooses the path of art or, for example, sports, the ability to analyze his actions, clearly and logically build a line of his behavior will certainly lead him to success in any field.

Starting to develop the thinking of a child, you must clearly understand how his mind works. Our brain is divided into two hemispheres. The left hemisphere is analytical. It is responsible for rational logical thinking. A person with a developed left hemisphere of the brain is characterized by consistency, algorithmic and abstract thinking. He thinks heuristically, synthesizing individual facts in his mind into a complete picture. The right hemisphere is creative. It is responsible for the human tendency to dream and fantasize. People with a developed right hemisphere of the brain are very fond of reading, compose stories themselves, show abilities in various types arts - poetry, painting, music, etc.

There are many examples with a strongly developed right or left hemisphere. But psychologists believe that initially parents should try to harmoniously develop both logic and creativity in the child. And already in the course of classes, it is worth looking closely at how the child thinks in order to understand what is easier for him. For example, a figuratively thinking kid automatically starts solving a math problem from a drawing, and a child with analytical thinking starts drawing a house from a schematic sketch. Be sure to take into account the nature of the crumbs' thinking in its further training.

Now for some theory. Despite its complexity and volume, human thinking is divided into 4 main types:

1. visual-effective
2. figurative
3. logical
4. creative

A small child who wants to feel and try everything, breaking cars and tearing off hands from dolls, is guided by visual-effective thinking. It is inherent in all children, and sometimes persists in some adults. But such people no longer break anything, but, on the contrary, design beautiful cars or do ingenious operations, securing the title of “golden hands”.

Figurative thinking in children

Figurative thinking in children involves operating with figures and images. It begins to develop in toddlers at preschool age, when they build models from the constructor, draw or play, imagining something in their mind. The development of figurative thinking in children takes place most actively at the age of 5-6 years. And already on the basis of figurative thinking, logic begins to form in children. The development of thinking in kindergarten is based on the formation in children of the ability to create various images in their minds, memorize and reproduce situations, train memory and visualization. At school age, it is also useful to periodically do such exercises. But since the school curriculum pays more attention to the analytical and logical component, parents should, while drawing, creating crafts from various materials as well as reading and making up interesting stories.

At the age of 6-7 years, the child begins to develop logical thinking. The student learns to analyze, highlight the main thing, generalize and draw conclusions. But, unfortunately, the development of logical thinking in children at school has absolutely no element of creativity. Everything is very standard and formulaic. In a fifth-grader's notebook, you can find as many tasks as you want, solved by actions, and not a single one, solved outside the box. Although for such relatively simple tasks there can be many solutions. But teachers do not pay attention to this, since the time of the lessons is limited and the children do not have the opportunity to sit and think.

This should be done by the parents. Do not force your child to solve ten examples of the same type “for training”, it is better to play chess or monopoly with him. There simply are no standard solutions, and you will definitely not find template options there. This will help the child develop logic. And strong logic in combination with unexpected, non-standard and creative solutions will raise his thinking to a new level.

How to develop creativity in a child? The simplest thing you should remember is that the development of creative thinking in children occurs at the moment of communication. It is when communicating with other people (talking in person, reading a book or, for example, listening to an analytical program) that a comparison of different points of view on the same issue takes place in the human mind. And only as a result of communication a person can develop his own opinion, and this is nothing but creativity. A person who is clearly aware that there can be several correct answers to one question is a truly creative person. But for your child to understand this, just telling him about it is not enough. He must himself come to this conclusion by doing many exercises.

And they don't teach it in school either. Therefore, parents should work with the child at home to make his thinking original, associative and flexible. It is not so difficult. You can add from the same geometric shapes completely different pictures, construct figures of people and animals out of paper, or just take the most common and understandable household item and try with your child to come up with as many new non-standard uses for it as possible. Fantasize, invent new exercises, think creatively yourself and be sure to teach this to your child. And then happy and loud exclamations of “Eureka!” will sound more and more often in your house.

The study of child development is undoubtedly of great theoretical and practical interest. It is one of the main ways to in-depth knowledge of the nature of thinking and the laws of its development. The study of the ways in which a child's thinking develops is also of understandable practical pedagogical interest.

The ability to think is gradually formed in the process of development of the child, the development of his cognitive activity. Cognition begins with the brain's reflection of reality in sensations and perceptions, which form the sensory basis of thinking.

One can speak about a child's thinking from the time when he begins to reflect some of the simplest connections between objects and phenomena and to act correctly in accordance with them.

A detailed study of thinking requires the identification and special analysis of its various processes, aspects, moments - abstraction and generalization, ideas and concepts, judgments and conclusions, etc. But the real process of thinking includes the unity and interconnection of all these aspects and moments.

The intellectual development of the child is carried out in the course of his objective activity and communication, in the course of mastering social experience. Visual-effective, visual-figurative and verbal-logical thinking are successive stages of intellectual development. Genetically, the earliest form of thinking is visual-effective thinking, the first manifestations of which in a child can be observed at the end of the first - beginning of the second year of life, even before mastering active speech. Already the first objective actions of the child have a number of important features. When a practical result is achieved, some signs of an object and its relationship with other objects are revealed; the possibility of their knowledge acts as a property of any subject manipulation. The child encounters objects created by human hands, and so on. enters into subject-practical communication with other people. Initially, an adult is the main source and mediator of a child's acquaintance with objects and ways of using them. Socially developed generalized ways of using objects are the first knowledge (generalizations) that a child learns with the help of an adult from social experience.

Visual-figurative thinking occurs in preschoolers at the age of 4-6 years. The connection between thinking and practical actions, although it remains, is not as close, direct and immediate as before. In some cases, no practical manipulation with the object is required, but in all cases it is necessary to clearly perceive and visualize the object. Those. preschoolers think only in visual images and do not yet master concepts (in the strict sense).

Significant shifts in intellectual development child arise at school age, when his leading activity is teaching, aimed at mastering systems of concepts in various subjects. These shifts are expressed in the knowledge of ever deeper properties of objects, in the formation of the mental operations necessary for this, the emergence of new motives for cognitive activity. The mental operations that are formed in younger schoolchildren are still connected with specific material, they are not generalized enough; the resulting concepts are concrete in nature. The thinking of children of this age is conceptually concrete.

In children, the acquisition of a concept largely depends on the experience on which they rely. Significant difficulties arise when a new concept denoted by a certain word does not agree with what is already associated with this word in the child, i.e. with the content of the given concept (often incorrect or incomplete), which he already owns. Most often this happens in those cases when a strictly scientific concept, assimilated by children in the basement, diverges from the so-called worldly, pre-scientific concept, already learned by them outside of special education, in the process of everyday communication with other people and the accumulation of personal sensory experience (for example, a bird this is an animal that flies, so butterflies, beetles, flies are birds, but a chicken, a duck are not, they do not fly.Or: predatory animals are "harmful" or "terrible", for example, rats, mice, and a cat is not a predator, it pet, affectionate).

junior schoolchildren they already master certain more complex forms of reasoning, they realize the power of logical necessity. On the basis of practical and visual-sensory experience, they develop - at first in the simplest forms - verbal-logical thinking, i.e. thinking in the form of abstract concepts. Thinking now appears not only in the form of practical actions and not only in the form of visual images, but above all in the form of abstract concepts and reasoning.

The development of processes that subsequently lead to the formation of concepts has its roots deep in childhood, but only in the transitional age do those intellectual functions mature, take shape and develop, which in a peculiar combination form the mental basis of the process of concept formation.

Observation data from children suggests that the child begins to draw “conclusions” early. It would be wrong to deny that children of preschool and perhaps even preschool age have the opportunity to make some "inferences"; but it would be completely unreasonable to equate them with the inferences of adults, in particular with those forms of inference used by scientific knowledge.

A boy at the age of 4 years 6 months turns to his father: “Dad, the sky is bigger than the earth, yes, yes, I know that. Because the Sun is bigger than the Earth (he learned this from adults even earlier), and Vera (his older sister) just showed me that the sky is bigger than the Sun. And after 3 months in the summer after a walk by the stream: "Stones are heavier than ice." - "How did you know that?" - “Because ice is lighter than water; they go to the bottom in the water. This child compared visual situations of his experience and information about objects he received from adults.

The above fact clearly reveals the features of typical preschooler inferences. His thought still functions within perception. Therefore, his reasoning is very often carried out by means of the transfer of entire visual situations; the conclusion goes from a single fact to a single fact.

To characterize the specific form of these children's inferences, which dominates at preschool age, the psychologist V. Stern introduced the term transduction , distinguishing it from both induction and deduction. Transduction is a conclusion that passes from one particular or single case to another particular or single case, bypassing the general one. Transductive inferences are made on the basis of similarity, difference, or analogy. What distinguishes them from induction and deduction is the lack of generality. Piaget correctly noted that Stern only gave a description, not an explanation, of transduction. The absence of generalization in transduction is in fact not its primary, not defining feature. The child in transduction does not generalize because and insofar as he cannot isolate the essential objective connections of things from the random combinations in which they are given in perception. The situational attachment of the preschooler's thinking affects the transduction. But transduction is by no means the only leading form of inference in a preschooler. The development of the forms of children's thinking is inseparable from the development of its content, from the acquaintance of the child with a specific area of ​​reality. Therefore, the appearance of higher types of inference occurs at the beginning, so to speak, not along the entire front of intellectual activity, but in separate islands, primarily where the child’s acquaintance with facts, his connection with reality turns out to be the deepest and most durable.

Elementary causal dependencies are noticed by children early, as evidenced by numerous observations. However, one cannot, of course, ascribe to a preschool child a generalized understanding of complex causal dependencies. The mental activity of the child develops at first primarily in the process of observation, in the closest connection with perception. It is very instructive and vivid in its attempts to understand and explain what is observed when perceiving pictures. To explain their content, children often resort to a whole series of reasoning and inferences.

As long as the general is not yet recognized as the general, based on essential connections, but is reduced to a collective generality of the particular, the child’s reasoning at first usually comes down to transferring by analogy from one particular case to another or from the particular to the general as a collective collection of particular cases (approaching that , which in logic was called inductive reasoning, through a simple enumeration) and from the general as such a set of particular cases to one of them. These transference-based inferences of the child are based on random single connections, relations of external resemblance, more or less random causal relationships. And sometimes the child has "inferences" from the presence of one object or feature to another due to the strong associative connection established between them by contiguity. As long as the child is not able to reveal essential, internal connections, his inferences easily slip into transfers of external associative connections from one situation to another, clothed in an external form of inferences. But along with this, in areas that are practically more familiar and close to the child, genuine inductive-deductive, of course, elementary conclusions begin to appear in him.

Thus, an analysis of the child's thinking reveals in him relatively very early - at preschool age and even at its beginning - the emergence of diverse mental activity. At little preschooler one can already observe a number of basic intellectual processes in which adult thinking takes place; questions arise before him; he strives for understanding, seeks explanations, he generalizes, concludes, reasons; it is a thinking being in which true thinking has already awakened. Thus, there is an obvious successive connection between the thinking of a child and the thinking of an adult.

It is only when the child becomes a teenager that the transition to thinking in concepts becomes fundamentally possible.

L.S. Vygotsky distinguishes three main stages in the development of concepts and, accordingly, in conceptual thinking.

The first stage in the formation of concepts is the formation of an unformed and disordered set, the selection of a certain set of objects, united without sufficient internal relationship and relationship between its constituent parts. The meaning of a word at this stage of development is an unfinished, unformed syncretic cohesion of individual objects, somehow connected with each other in the representation and perception of the child into one fused image. In the formation of this image, the syncretism of children's perception or action plays a decisive role, so this image is extremely unstable.

The second major stage in the development of concepts embraces many functionally, structurally, and genetically diverse types of one and the same way of thinking in its nature. This thinking is called Vygotsky thinking in complexes. This means that the generalizations created with the help of this way of thinking represent, in their structure, complexes of individual concrete objects or things, united not only on the basis of subjective connections, but on the basis of objective connections that actually exist between these objects.

The meanings of words at this stage of development can most accurately be defined as "family names" combined into complexes or groups of objects. The most essential thing for the construction of the complex is that it is based not on an abstract and logical, but on a very specific and actual connection between the individual elements that make up its composition. The complex, like the concept, is a generalization or union of specific heterogeneous objects. But the connection underlying the generalization can be very various types. Any connection can lead to the inclusion of this element in the complex, as long as it is actually available.

Thinking in complexes includes several intermediate stages: 1) combining objects into “collections” - mutual complementation of objects according to any one attribute; 2) "pseudo-concept" - a complex association of a number of specific objects that are phenotypically, in their own way appearance, according to the totality of external features, completely coincide with the concept, but according to its genetic nature, according to the conditions of its emergence and development, according to causal-dynamic relationships, it is not a concept.

A child at the stage of complex thinking thinks the same objects as the meaning of a word as an adult, and this is the basis for understanding between them, but thinks with the help of other intellectual operations.

The concept in its natural and developed form presupposes not only the unification and generalization of individual concrete elements of experience, it also presupposes the isolation, abstraction of individual elements and the ability to consider them outside the concrete and actual connection to which they are given in experience. The concept development stage is also divided into several sub-stages: 1) the stage of potential concepts and 2) the stage of true concepts. Only the mastery of the process of abstraction and the development of complex thinking can lead the child to the formation of true concepts. The decisive role in the formation of a true concept belongs to the word. “From syncretic images and connections, from complex thinking, from potential concepts, on the basis of the use of the word as a means of forming a concept, that peculiar significative structure arises, which we can call a concept in the true meaning of this word” .

It is in middle and senior school age more complex cognitive tasks become available to schoolchildren. In the process of solving them, mental operations are generalized, formalized, thereby expanding the range of their transfer and application in new situations. A system of interconnected, generalized and reversible operations is formed. The ability to reason, to substantiate one's judgments, to realize and control the process of reasoning, to master its general methods, to move from its expanded forms to folded forms is developed. A transition is being made from conceptual-concrete to abstract-conceptual thinking.

The intellectual development of the child is characterized by a regular change of stages, in which each previous stage prepares the subsequent ones. With the emergence of new forms of thinking, the old forms not only do not disappear, but are preserved and developed. Thus, visual-effective thinking, characteristic of preschoolers, acquires new content among schoolchildren, finding, in particular, its expression in solving ever more complex structural and technical problems. Verbal-figurative thinking also rises to a higher level, manifesting itself in the assimilation of poetry, fine arts, and music by schoolchildren.