Psychological characteristics of students of senior school age. Psychophysiological characteristics of a secondary school student

As is well known, childhood (that is, the time from the birth of a child to the age of 18) is divided into periods characterized by a qualitative peculiarity of psychophysiological characteristics at a given age. In the opinion of most psychologists (L.S. Vygotsky, I.S. Kohn, D.I. Feldstein), adolescence covers the period of a person’s life from childhood to adolescence, i.e. from 10-12 years old to 13-15 years old. This age is called the period of "storm" and "onslaught". (Parishioners 1990)

According to A.K. Markova, the following division of childhood into such age periods(Markova 1995):

infant - from birth to 1 year, and the first month is specially allocated in it - the neonatal period;

predo school age- from 1 year to 3 years;

preschool age - from 3 to 7 years;

junior school age - from 7 to 1 1-12 years;

middle school age (teenager) - from 12 to 15 years;

senior school age (youth) - from 15 to 18 years.

In turn, school age is divided into (Markova 1995):

junior school (7-10.11 years old), primary school age;

middle school age, or adolescence (10, 11-15 years old), age

4-8 grades; senior school age, or the age of early adolescence (15-17 years), age 9-11 grades.

The leading activity - the “driving force” for all school ages is education, however, the specificity of each school age is determined by the development of which aspects of the activity is carried out by the child in the course of learning. This determines the leading activity of each school age. (Vygotsky 2006) In the future, we will adhere to Vygotsky's views on the psychological characteristics of children of this age.

With the transition from the lower grades of the school, the position of schoolchildren in the system of business and personal relationships with people around them changes. For a schoolchild - a teenager, this transition is associated with his inclusion in the forms of social life accessible to him. At the same time, the real place that the child occupies in the daily life of the adults around him, in the life of his family, is also changing. Now his strength, his knowledge and skills put him in some cases on an equal footing with adults. (Mukhina 2006)

Development continues nervous system, mental activity. Especially noticeable in these years is the growth of consciousness and self-awareness of schoolchildren, which is a significant expansion and deepening of knowledge about themselves, about people, about the world around them. The development of schoolchildren's self-awareness finds its expression in a change in the motivation of the main types of activity: teaching, learning, work. Formerly "childish" motives, characteristic of primary school age, lose their motivating power. In their place, new, "adult" motives arise and are fixed, leading to a rethinking of the content, goals and objectives of the activity. Those activities that previously played a leading role, for example, play, begin to outlive themselves and are relegated to the background. New types of activity arise, the hierarchy of old ones changes, a new stage of mental development begins. (Mukhina 2006)

L.S. Vygotsky also noted two more neoplasms of age - this is the development of reflection, and on its basis - self-consciousness. The development of reflection in a teenager is not limited only to internal changes in the personality itself; in connection with the emergence of self-consciousness, an immeasurably deeper and broader understanding of other people becomes possible for a teenager. The development of self-consciousness, like no other side of mental life, was considered by JI.C. Vygotsky, depends on the culture of the content of the environment. (Vygotsky 2006) Many researchers, such as B.G. Ananiev, L.I. Bozhovich, N.S. Kon, S.L. Rubinshtein et al. note the formation of a fundamentally new level of self-awareness as an important outcome of personality development in adolescence. In the development of the cognitive side of self-consciousness, this is manifested in an increase in the importance of the system of one's own values. L.S. Rubinstein, characterizing the process of development of self-consciousness, conducts it through a series of steps - from naive ignorance in relation to oneself to more and more definite and sometimes sharply fluctuating self-esteem. “In the process of developing self-awareness, the center of gravity for adolescents is increasingly shifted from the outside of the personality to its inside, from more or less random traits, to the character as a whole. Associated with this is the awareness - sometimes exaggerated - of one's originality and the transition to the spiritual, ideological scales of self-esteem. As a result, a person defines himself as a person at a higher level. (Rubinstein 2009)

At this age, the student masters the social activity of interpersonal relations, realizes the stages of social consciousness (ideals, value orientations), compares himself with them through the opinions and assessments of other people. At the same time, further development of the structure learning activities. Thus, the middle school age is the age of mastering independent forms of educational activity and ways of interacting with another person in the course of educational activity. (Markova 1995) The social development of a teenager goes in two main directions - liberation from parental care and the establishment of new relationships with peers. The desire to be released from guardianship on the part of adults in a number of cases leads to more frequent and deepening conflicts with them. However, teenagers do not really want complete freedom, because they are not yet ready for it. They just want to have the right to make their own choice. (Markova 1995)

Adolescence is the period when a teenager begins to re-evaluate his relationship with his family. During this period, a teenager begins to appreciate his relationships with peers. In general, the main problem adolescence is the need to know oneself. (Markova 1995)

In turn, A.K. Markova puts forward three types of adolescence development.

The first type is characterized by a sharp, stormy, crisis course, when adolescence is experienced as a second birth, as a result of which a new "I" arises.

The second type of development is smooth, slow, gradual growth, when a teenager joins adulthood without deep serious shifts in his own personality.

The third type is a process of development when a teenager himself actively and consciously forms and educates himself, overcoming internal anxieties and crises by an effort of will. It is typical for people with a high level of self-control and self-discipline. (Obukhova 2004).

J. Piaget defined adolescent thinking as thinking at the level of formal operations. This new kind of data mining is abstract, speculative and free of the here and now. Thinking at the level of formal operations includes thinking about possibilities, as well as comparing reality with those events that might or might not happen. Thinking at the level of formal operations requires the ability to formulate, test and evaluate hypotheses, involves the manipulation not only of known elements that can be tested, but also of things that contradict facts. Adolescents also have an increased ability to plan and anticipate.

Cognitive development in adolescence includes the following:

More efficient use of individual information processing mechanisms, such as its storage in memory and transfer.

Development of more complex strategies for different types of problem solving.

More efficient ways to get information and store it in symbolic form.

Development of higher-order executive functions (metafunctions), including planning and decision making, and increased flexibility in choosing methods from a broader base of scenarios.

Due to the emergence of new and improvement of old cognitive skills, the range of thinking of adolescents becomes much wider, and the content of thinking becomes richer and more complex.

Thus, based on the above, it can be argued that problem-based learning is directly related to thinking at the level of formal operations, which, according to Piaget's theory, is confirmed in foreign language lessons where the problem-based teaching method is used.

It should be noted that in the middle school age the process of cognitive development is actively going on. They reflect relatively freely on moral, political and other topics that are practically inaccessible to the intellect of a younger student. The most important intellectual acquisition of middle school age is the ability to operate with hypotheses. (Obukhova 2004)

In adolescence, attention develops, which is characterized not so much by a large volume and stability, but by a specific selectivity. There are three main types of attention:

involuntary (occurs by itself, without effort of will) - this type is typical for the activities of preschoolers;

arbitrary (requires volitional efforts from a person) - begins to form with age, in the process of playing, learning, communicating with adults);

consistent.

In adolescence, the child's attention span increases, i.e.

for a short period of time he can consciously hold in his mind more objects.

Higher, compared with elementary school students, in adolescents and

stability of attention, the ability to distract from everything extraneous.

In the middle grades of the school, the development of the cognitive processes of schoolchildren reaches such a level that they are practically ready to perform all types of mental work of an adult,

including the most difficult ones. The cognitive processes of schoolchildren acquire qualities that make them perfect and flexible, and the development of the means of cognition is somewhat ahead of personal development proper.

According to N.D. Galskova, the interests of schoolchildren in this group are becoming more stable. It is from this age that professional orientation begins to form, which is finally determined in the senior classes. (Galskova 2004) At this age, many precise concepts are acquired, schoolchildren learn to use them in the process of solving various problems.

According to N.S. Leites, a teenager undergoes changes in the development of memory. It takes a consistent, logical character. In the assimilation of material and the development of speech skills, more and more importance is given to purposeful observation, the desire to find the main thing, to highlight strong points that facilitate memorization and reproduction. (Galskova 2004)

In middle school age, the amount of memory increases significantly, and not only due to better memorization of the material, but also its logical comprehension. The memory of a teenager, like attention, gradually takes on the character of organized, regulated and controlled processes. (Kon 1987) Due to the emergence of many new school subjects in the school, the amount of information that the student must remember, including mechanically, is significantly increasing. A teenager has problems with memory, and complaints about bad memory at this age are much more common than in younger students.

At this age, many scientific concepts are assimilated, schoolchildren

learn to use them in the process of solving various problems. This means that they have formed theoretical or verbal-logical thinking. At the same time, there is an intellectualization of all other

cognitive processes (Nemov 2011) An important feature of middle school age is the formation of an active, independent,

creative thinking. At this age, according to J. Piaget, a personality is finally formed, a life program is built. To create a program of life, it is necessary to develop hypothetical-deductive, that is, formal thinking. (Piaget 2008) Vygotsky, like J. Piaget, paid special attention to the development of thinking in adolescence - the adolescent's mastery of the process of memory formation, which leads to the highest norm of intellectual activity, new ways of behavior.

According to JI.C. Vygotsky, the function of concept formation underlies all intellectual changes at this age. JI.C. Vygotsky writes that in early childhood perception is at the center of consciousness, at preschool age it is memory, at school age it is thinking, as well as understanding of reality, understanding of others and understanding of oneself - this is what thinking brings with it to concepts. (Vygotsky 2006)

As noted by V.S. Mukhin, in adolescence, the development of speech occurs, on the one hand, due to the expansion of the richness of the dictionary, on the other hand, due to the assimilation of many meanings that the dictionary of both native and foreign languages ​​can encode. The adolescent intuitively approaches the discovery that language, being sign system, allows, firstly, to reflect the surrounding reality, and secondly, to fix a certain view of the world. It is in adolescence that a person begins to understand that the development of speech determines cognitive development. (Mukhina V.S., 2000)

According to A.P. Petrovsky, D. B. Elkonin, for schoolchildren in adolescence, the leading role is played by intimate-personal communication. Students accept situations related to relationship problems between them. Thus, it can be argued that dialogue for adolescents has a crucial role, and, using the principles of problem-based learning, one can successfully form the skills of dialogic speech.

Features of primary school students are associated with important biological and socio-psychological patterns of their development. At this age, there is a process of active maturation of the body, the formation of the motor sphere, and the strengthening of endurance. The movements of the child in music lessons become diverse, rhythmic, plastic. Positive influence the physical performance of children of this age has an increase in cognitive, motor activity and purposeful, precise execution of movements. Characterizing this age, A.V. Zaporozhets notes: “It must be borne in mind that we are dealing with a growing child's organism, the maturation of which has not yet ended, the functional features of which have not yet been formed and whose work has not yet been completed. When restructuring pedagogical process When improving educational programs, it is necessary to provide not only what a child of a given age is able to achieve with intensive training, but also what physical and neuropsychic costs it will cost him.

As studies by B.G. Ananyeva, L.I. Bozhovich, A.N. Leontiev, D.B. Elkonin, the social position of the child in society is changing, taking place against the background of an exacerbation of sensitivity, sensitivity to the assimilation of cultural and moral norms and rules of behavior. The content of the I-concept makes it vulnerable to any influences of other people, in connection with which, according to G.S. Abramova, it is a protected environment that is a resource for the development of a younger student.

The middle of childhood is associated with the crisis of seven years as a period of loss by the child of immediacy and spontaneity in activity and the acquisition of arbitrariness and mediation. Behavior becomes multifaceted - the real and fictional plans are divided, and the child is aware of their discrepancy.

As V.V. Davydov, in his cognitive activity children reproduce the real process of creation by people of concepts, images, values ​​and norms, which humanity has accumulated and expressed in ideal forms of spiritual culture.

In the process of educational and cognitive activity, the younger student solves the tasks corresponding to its content: analyzes the material in order to identify patterns in it, builds an integral object on the basis of this, mastering the general method of constructing the object under study. When solving a learning problem, the child's thought moves from the general to the particular, while he performs the following actions:

Transformation of the conditions of the problem in order to highlight the general relationship of the object under study;

Modeling of the selected relation in the subject, graphic or letter form;

Model transformation to study its properties;

Built systems of particular problems that are solved in a general way;

Control over the implementation of actions;

Evaluation of the assimilation of the general method.

The ability to learn will also make it possible for the student to independently formulate learning tasks, that is, tasks for finding common methods of action and trying to solve them.

For a younger student, the relationship with the teacher in modern school deprived of the content of adoration, respect and trust that were characteristic of this situation 30, 20 years ago. The fact is that the world is changing very much, and with it the system of human values. Today, a child in the first grade has several teachers. Prior to that, in most cases, he attended preschool institutions, where he had already met other people's adults. By tradition, students studying pedagogical specialties are taught that the teacher enjoys great authority among younger students, and life brings more and more evidence to the contrary. Modern teachers cease to be an unconditional authority for children very early (even at the beginning of childhood). Relations with teachers are built according to impersonal rules, which presuppose the preservation of a psychological distance, as if outlining the boundaries of the territory, the place occupied by each person. These are rules of leadership and subordination, universal for organizing any interaction, rules for negotiating, rules for expressing one's own point of view, following it, revising it, and the like. They are described in sufficient detail. modern psychology control and can be formulated as follows: definition, designation and keeping the distance. Determining the distance, according to G.S. Abramova, is connected for the younger student with the perception of the position of an adult (who is he for me?); the designation of the distance is the rules of influence (to whom what is possible and impossible); maintaining distance - keeping the boundaries of one's psychological space from the influence of another person. All this the child learns in a group game with peers.

Mastering this particular type of game is the most important task of developing the cognitive activity of a younger student. It is the game with peers, where mistakes in determining and maintaining distance are easily corrected by both parties, that accumulates useful mutual experience of experiencing and maintaining the boundaries of someone else's and one's psychological space.

An entertaining game with peers is the content of real life for a younger student - full and free. In children of this age, one can observe the conditions and forms of such a real life in selfless creativity, to which they devote themselves entirely. It is important that in these forms of activity, as well as in the game with peers, the most important experience of one's own completeness and integrity arises, filling the child's "I" with new forces and activating his cognitive activity. The younger student has sufficient strength and energy, which allows him to go to the goal in a more adequate way. He knows the value of his achievements, feelings own strength, his own enterprise, he is ready to experiment on his capabilities, on many of their manifestations, he does this for himself, and not for someone else. Thus, the child masters his psychological space and the possibility of life in it. He seems to be overwhelmed with feelings of his own mental and physical strength.

The child in this period is eagerly ready to learn, his courage in life makes it easy and quick to master entire areas of knowledge. He seems to be a person without stable interests - he is interested in everything, he is ready for any training. Only for this you need wise and experienced guides.

In domestic developmental psychology (G.S. Abramova, Sh.A. Amonashvili, B.G. Ananiev, L.I. Bozhovich, etc.), the studied age falls on the period of younger - the beginning of middle school age. One way or another, the school is the most important social space (except for the family and neighbors), where the life events of the child unfold, in which he solves his most important developmental problems.

In line with the resolution of the main contradiction of this age, through the embodiment of the experienced measure of correctness in their possibilities for organizing life, the child masters the most important human quality - diligence. It is at this time that all the labor skills of the child are included in his psychological space, as organizing stable elements, since all of them are associated with the experiences of the expediency of the efforts spent on organizing one's Self.

School childhood is a new stage in the formation of a child's cognitive individuality. Its content can be briefly presented as follows: to learn to correlate general and particular, generic and specific properties of objects, things and phenomena, people's relations; learn to organize their behavior in accordance with these properties. Everything new - new requirements, new rules in relations with other people, new norms of objective actions reveal hitherto unknown regularities of objects. The world is ordered by a system of scientific knowledge and concepts that the child needs to master.

Together with a new type of knowledge, new books, textbooks, enter the life of the child, starting from the preparatory group. Working with them is one of the first steps in mastering the skills of self-education. Under the guidance of a teacher, the student will learn to work on the text, just as he learns to understand the learning task, check his work according to the model, and evaluate it correctly.

The life of a child includes a dialogue not only with the teacher, but also with scientific text. The peculiarity of such a dialogue is that it forms a scientific picture of the world in the child - it opens up objectively existing patterns for him, which gradually become elements of his thinking. If the preschooler in the vast majority of cases focuses on his individual experience of action, then the younger student begins to focus on general cultural patterns of action that he masters in dialogue with adults. Dialogue necessarily implies mutual understanding, the possibility of accepting the point of view of another person. In this sense, communication between a junior schoolchild and a teacher opens up new forms of cooperation for him. Already by the third grade, a student can exercise control not only over his own work, but also over the work of his classmates, he can perform educational work independently or. paired with a friend. By the fourth grade, he can set himself a learning task, draw up a work schedule, evaluate and check it. New types of cooperation with other people also improve the system of moral assessments of the child, introduce a new quality into it - an assessment of the labor expended, both one's own efforts and the efforts of others. And in this sense, teaching is a genuine work for a small schoolchild. V.A. Sukhomlinsky wrote: "Teaching becomes labor only when it contains the most important signs of any labor - purpose, effort, results."

When the child himself learns to set himself the goal of the educational action and find the means to achieve it, his behavior acquires the characteristics of genuine arbitrariness. Goal setting is based on the child's personal attitude towards it - in its content one can see a reflection of the interests of their orientation and degree of stability.

According to A.V. Petrovsky, at primary school age, children have significant reserves of development, their identification and effective use is one of the main tasks of pedagogy. But before using the available reserves, it is necessary to bring the children up to the desired level of readiness for learning.

Under the influence of training, the restructuring of all cognitive processes begins, the acquisition of qualities characteristic of adults. This is due to the fact that children are included in new types of activities for them and systems of interpersonal relations that require them to have new psychological qualities. The general characteristics of all cognitive processes of a younger student should be their arbitrariness, productivity and stability. For example, from the first days of training, a child needs to maintain increased attention for a long time, be diligent enough, perceive and remember well everything that the teacher says.

It has been proven that ordinary children in the lower grades of the school are quite capable, if only they are taught correctly, assimilate and more complex material than that given in the current curriculum.

However, in order to skillfully use the reserves available to the younger schoolchild, it is necessary to first solve two important tasks. The first of them is to adapt children as quickly as possible to work at school and at home, to teach them to study without wasting unnecessary physical effort, to be attentive and diligent. In this regard, the curriculum should be designed in such a way as to arouse and maintain the constant interest of students. Such interest can be supported by means of gaming technologies. The second problem arises due to the fact that many children come to school not only unprepared for a new socio-psychological role for them, but also with significant individual differences in motivation, knowledge, skills and abilities. This makes learning too easy for some, extremely difficult for others, and only for others, who are not always in the majority, according to their abilities. Schoolchildren achieve a sufficiently important level of cognitive activity if the training is aimed at the active development of thought processes and is developing, focused on the “zone of proximal development” (L.S. Vygotsky).

Another problem is that in-depth and productive mental work requires perseverance from children, restraining emotions and regulating natural motor activity, focusing and maintaining attention on educational tasks, and not everyone can do this in the primary grades.

Self-regulation of behavior is a particular difficulty for children starting school. The child must sit still during the lesson, not talk, not walk around the classroom, not run around the school during breaks. In other situations, on the contrary, he is required to display an unusual, rather complex and subtle motor activity. Many first-graders clearly lack the willpower to constantly keep themselves in a certain state, to control themselves for a long period of time. In the classroom, the teacher asks the children questions, makes them think, and at home, parents demand the same from the child when doing homework. Intense mental work at the beginning of schooling tires children, but this often happens not because the child gets tired precisely from mental work, but because of his inability to physical self-regulation.

At primary school age, the basic human characteristics of cognitive processes (perception, understanding, memory, imagination, thinking and speech) are fixed and developed, the need for which is associated with entering school. From "natural", according to L.S. Vygotsky, these processes should become “cultural” by the end of primary school age, i.e. turn into higher mental functions associated with speech: arbitrary and mediated. This is facilitated by the main activities that a child of this age is mostly engaged in at school and at home: teaching, communication, play and work.

Attention in primary school age becomes arbitrary. But for quite a long time, especially in the primary grades, children's involuntary attention remains strong and competes with voluntary attention. As for the switchability of attention, it is even higher at this age than the average for adults. This is due to the youth of the body and the mobility of processes in the central nervous system of the child. Younger students can move from one type of activity to another without much difficulty and internal effort.

During school years, the development of memory continues. A.A. Smirnov conducted a comparative study of memory in children of primary and secondary school age and came to the following conclusions:

From 6 to 10 years old, children actively develop mechanical memory for unrelated logical units of information;

contrary to popular belief about the existence of increasing memorization of meaningful material with age, it is actually found inverse ratio: the older the younger student becomes, the less he has the advantages of memorizing meaningful material over meaningless. This is apparently due to the fact that the exercise of memory under the influence of intensive learning based on memorization leads to a simultaneous improvement in all types of memory in a child, and above all those that are relatively simple and not associated with complex mental work. In general, the memory of children of primary school age is quite good, and this primarily concerns mechanical memory, which progresses quite quickly during the first three to four years of schooling. The indirect, logical memory lags somewhat behind in its development, since in most cases the child, being busy with learning, work, play and communication, completely manages with mechanical memory.

Primary school age contains a significant potential for the mental development of children, but it is not yet possible to accurately determine it. The various solutions to this issue offered by educators and practitioners are almost always associated with the experience of applying certain teaching methods and diagnosing the child's capabilities. It is impossible to say in advance whether or not children will be able to master a more complex program if perfect teaching aids and methods of diagnosing it are used.

The cognitive development of a student is a complex interaction and relationship various forms thinking: visual-effective, visual-figurative and logical. One of the earliest forms of thinking - visual-effective - arises in close connection with the practical actions of children. The main feature of visual-effective thinking is the inseparable connection of thought processes with practical actions that transform the cognized object. Visual-effective thinking unfolds only as real changes in the situation are caused by practical actions. In the process of repeated actions with objects, the younger student highlights the hidden, internal characteristics of the object and its internal connections. Practical transformations thus become a means of activating the cognition of reality.

Another form of mental activity characteristic of younger schoolchildren is visual-figurative thinking when the student operates not with specific objects, but with their images and representations.

Finally, the third form of intellectual activity of a younger student is logical thinking, which develops by the beginning of a given age. Logical thinking is characterized by the fact that here the student operates with rather abstract categories and establishes various relationships that are not presented in a visual or model form.

In younger students, there is special type thinking, which is a unity of visual-effective and visual-figurative thinking and is aimed at revealing the properties and relationships of objects hidden from observation. This type of thinking has been called children's experimentation, which is not set by adults, but is built by the child himself.

Like experimentation in adults, it is aimed at understanding the properties and relationships of objects and is carried out as a control of one or another phenomenon: a person acquires the ability to cause or stop it, change it in one direction or another. In the process of experimentation, the younger student receives new, sometimes unexpected information for him, which often leads to a restructuring of both the actions themselves and the student's ideas about the object. In this activity, the moment of self-development is clearly traced: the transformations of the object reveal to the younger student its new properties, which, in turn, allow building new, more complex transformations.

The process of thinking involves not only the use of already worked out schemes and ready-made methods of action, but also the construction of new ones (of course, within the limits of the child's own capabilities). Experimentation stimulates the student to search for new actions and contributes to the courage and flexibility of children's thinking. The opportunity for self-experimentation gives the student options different ways actions, while removing the fear of making a mistake and the constraint of children's thinking with ready-made schemes.

In the process of experimentation, a younger student acquires new knowledge, i.e. the process of thinking develops not only from ignorance to knowledge (from the incomprehensible to the understandable, from obscure knowledge to more precise l. certain), but also in the opposite direction - from understandable to incomprehensible, from certain to indefinite. The appearance of unclear knowledge and the formulation of new questions are also facilitated by contradictory situations in which the same object at different points in time has contradictory, mutually exclusive properties.

A distinctive feature of the cognitive activity of the student is egocentrism.

The basis of the egocentric position is the selection of oneself and, consequently, the acceptance of the position as the only and absolute. The egocentrism of a younger student is expressed in the impossibility of taking a different point of view, taking into account the different parameters of an object in the absence of an idea about the conservation of quantity. Characteristic for primary school age is the phenomenon of egocentric speech, i.e. speech for oneself, not addressed to the interlocutor. Thinking occurs in terms of speech, which in its function and structure differs significantly from the external one: it is not directed at the interlocutor, it is extremely shortened, it does not repeat what is before the eyes, it is predicative (i.e. predicates predominate in it and are understandable only to oneself ). The egocentric speech of a junior schoolchild has much in common with the inner speech of an adult. The fact of the disappearance of egocentric speech in middle school age allows us to say that after 10 years it does not die off, but turns into inner speech. Vygotsky noted that egocentric speech is a stage in the formation of inner speech, which is the main means of activating the thinking of a younger student.

The complex development of children's intellect at primary school age goes in several different directions: the assimilation and active use of speech as a means of thinking; connection and mutually enriching influence on each other of all types of thinking: visual-effective, visual-figurative and verbal-logical; separation, isolation and relatively independent development in the intellectual process of two phases: preparatory and executive.

The first of these is associated with the formation of speech in children, with its active use in a variety of tasks. Development in this direction is successful if schoolchildren are taught to reason aloud, to reproduce the train of thought in words and to formulate the result obtained.

The second direction is successfully implemented if children are given tasks that require both developed practical actions, and the ability to operate with images, and the ability to use concepts, to reason at the level of logical-geometric abstractions. If any of these aspects is poorly represented, then one-sided intellectual development child.

With the admission of the child to school, along with communication and play, educational activities are put forward among the leading ones. This activity plays a special role in the development of the cognitive activity of the junior schoolchild. Independent educational activity takes shape at this time and largely determines the intellectual development of children from 6-7 to 10-11 years old. In general, when a child enters school, his development begins to be determined not by three, as it was in preschool childhood, but by four different types of activity. V.V. Davydov believes that it is within the educational activity of a child of primary school age that the basic psychological neoplasms characteristic of him arise, which determine the nature of its other types: play, labor and communication. Each of the above activities has its own characteristics in primary school age.

During the period of study in the lower grades of school, children advance so rapidly in their development that a noticeable gap forms between first graders and students in the third or fourth grades in just two or three years. Along with it, the individual differences of children in terms of the achieved level of development also increase. Visual-figurative thinking dominates among first-graders and partly second-graders, while students of the third and fourth grades rely more on verbal-logical and figurative thinking, and they equally successfully solve problems in all three plans: practical, figurative and verbal-logical ( verbal).

First-graders and a significant part of second-grade students are not capable of full self-regulation, while children studying in the third and fourth grades are quite able to control themselves both externally - their behavior, and internally - their mental processes and feelings.

The entry of a child into school marks not only the beginning of the transition of cognitive processes to a new level of development, but also the emergence of new conditions for a person’s personal growth. During this period of time, educational activity becomes the leading one for the child, but other types of activities in which the child of this age is included - play, communication and work, affect his personal development. The second is connected with the fact that in teaching and other activities in given time many business qualities of the child are formed, which are clearly manifested already in adolescence. This is, first of all, a complex of special personal properties, on which cognitive activity and motivation to achieve success.

The prerequisites for the formation of a cognitive motive begin to take shape in children as early as the preschool years. At primary school age, the corresponding motive is fixed, becomes a stable personality trait.

An important point is also the conscious setting of the goal of achieving success and the volitional regulation of behavior, which allows the student to achieve them. The child's conscious control of their own actions at primary school age reaches a level where they can control their behavior on the basis of a decision, intention, and long-term goal. This is especially pronounced in those cases where they are passionate about a certain activity.

The motivation to achieve success is influenced by two other personal formations: self-esteem and the level of claims. Children who enjoy authority among their peers and are engaged in children's interest groups are characterized by both adequate self-esteem and high level claims.

The last act that internally strengthens the motive for achieving success, making it sustainable, is the child's awareness of his abilities and capabilities, the difference between both and strengthening on this basis of faith in his success.

In parallel with the motivation and influence of the achievement of cognitive success at a younger age, two other personal qualities are improved: diligence and independence. Industriousness arises as a result of repeated success when applying sufficient effort and receiving rewards for this, especially when the child has shown perseverance towards achieving the goal. Industriousness in the initial period of schooling is developed and strengthened mainly in teaching and in work.

Highly great importance for the development of personality, the faith of the younger schoolchild in his success acquires. It must be constantly instilled and supported by the teacher, and the lower the child's self-esteem and level of claims, the more persistent his corresponding actions should be. Industriousness arises when the child receives satisfaction from work. It, in turn, depends on the extent to which the study and work of the younger schoolchild are capable of satisfying the needs characteristic of children of this age with their results. As incentives reinforcing success in these types of activities, should be those that give younger students positive emotions.

The independence of children of primary school age is combined with dependence on adults, and this age can become a turning point, critical for the formation of this personality trait. On the one hand, gullibility, obedience and openness, if they are excessively expressed, can make a child dependent, dependent, delay the development of this personality trait. On the other hand, too early emphasis only on autonomy and independence can give rise to disobedience and closeness, complicate for the child the acquisition of meaningful life experience through trust and imitation of other people. In order for neither of these undesirable tendencies to manifest itself, it is necessary to make sure that the education of independence and dependence is mutually balanced.

Diligence and independence, the ability to self-regulate create favorable opportunities for the development of children of primary school age and beyond direct communication with teachers or peers. In particular, we are talking about the already mentioned ability of children of this age to spend hours alone doing what they love. At this age, it is important to provide the child with various educational games.

No matter how much effort and time goes into making children ready for learning as early as preschool, almost all children face some form of difficulty during the early years of schooling. The most common occurrence negative character at this time there is satiety with studies, which quickly sets in in many children soon after they enter school. Outwardly, it usually manifests itself in the inability to maintain at the proper height the initial natural interest in school and in academic subjects.

In order to prevent this from happening, it is necessary to include additional incentives for learning activities. With regard to children of primary school age, such incentives can be both moral and material. It is no coincidence that moral incentives are put in the first place here, since in stimulating children of primary school age to learn they often turn out to be more effective than material ones. These include, for example, approval, praise, setting the child as an example to others. By carefully observing the behavior of the child, it is important to notice in time what he reacts best to and more often turn to forms of moral encouragement. At the beginning of schooling, it is desirable to exclude or minimize any punishment for poor study. As for material incentives for success, as practice shows, they are pedagogically and psychologically ineffective and act mainly situationally. They can be used, but they must not be abused. At the same time, it is necessary to combine moral and material methods of stimulating the cognitive activity of a younger student. The child's ability to independently compare the results of performing actions with the characteristics of the actions themselves indicates that the initial types of self-control in his educational activity have already been formed.

In the development of thinking and speech, children are greatly helped by spontaneous reasoning aloud. In one of our experiments, a group of 9-10 year old children were taught to reason aloud during a musical game.

The control group did not receive this experience. The children from the experimental group completed the task much faster and more efficiently than the children from the control group. The need to reason aloud and justify one's decisions leads to the development of reflexivity as an important quality of the mind that allows a person to analyze and realize his judgments and actions. There is a development of voluntary attention, the transformation of processes

memory on an arbitrary and meaningful basis. At the same time, arbitrary and involuntary types of memory interact and contribute to the development of each other.

At primary school age, the nature of the cognitive activity of the student is mainly formed, its main features are formed, which further influence practical activities and academic performance. As an example of positive character traits that manifest themselves in objective practical activity and manifest themselves during this period of life, one can name purposefulness, efficiency, perseverance, responsibility, conscientiousness, and as examples of qualities related to the sphere of interpersonal communication - contact, complaisance, kindness, devotion and performance.

The formation of the cognitive character of the younger student takes place in games, in interpersonal communication and in domestic work, and with the beginning of schooling, training is added to these activities. Each of these activities has two aspects: subject and interpersonal. The subject content of the corresponding activity forms and strengthens the first of the above characterological groups of qualities, and the interpersonal content - the second. Both groups are associated with the emergence and overcoming of certain difficulties by the student.

Difficulties associated with interpersonal relationships, in which character is also formed, are of a different kind. They relate to the sphere of communication, interaction and mutual understanding of people, are manifested in the persistence with which the child seeks to achieve his own in personal and business relationships, for example, to attract attention, win the favor of a person, establish friendly personal and business contacts with him. Such characterological differences can be illustrated by examples. We see that some children, communicating with other children and adults, make sure that those around them understand them correctly and treat them well. If they notice that this is not so, then by all means, they try to change their attitude towards themselves. Another example is the behavior of a child with character in a role-playing game. Such a child almost always tries to make sure that mutual understanding arises and is maintained between the participants in the game.

There is a relationship and continuity in the development and strengthening of the character of the child in various types cognitive activity. It lies in the fact that the manifestation of character in a more complex and difficult type of activity, which appears as the child grows up, occurs when the corresponding character trait has already manifested itself and is fixed at a genetically earlier stage in simpler types of activity. For example, when entering school and transitioning to a new type of activity - learning - the child will only successfully overcome the difficulties associated with this, strengthen his character, when he has already learned to overcome difficulties in the game, in work and in communication. The character of the child will be consolidated and successfully developed in communication with new schoolmates only when the corresponding traits are manifested and strengthened in interaction with peers during preschool age.

In choosing the form of the game, it is necessary to gradually move from more interesting to less attractive;

The degree of difficulty of educational and gaming activities should increase gradually;

At first, the activity should be offered to the child by an adult, and then he himself should move on to an independent and free choice.

It is necessary to include the child in a joint musical role-playing game, performing which he will be forced to adapt to the individual characteristics and actions of other people;

As partners for communication and joint musical activity of the child, such children are selected who differ significantly from each other and from himself and require different interpersonal behavior;

Gradually complicate the musical and game tasks that children need to solve in communication and interaction with people.

Of course, all this must not be done at once, but gradually, step by step, moving from simpler to more complex tasks interpersonal plan.

Most of their time, children of this age are engaged not in communication, teaching or housework, but in playing. It is the process of activation of cognitive processes to the same extent as in other activities. The change in the role of play in primary school age is due to the fact that it begins to serve as a means of forming and developing many useful personal qualities in a child, primarily those that, due to the limited age capabilities of children, cannot be actively formed in other, more “adult” types. activities. The game in this case acts as a preparatory stage in the development of the child, as a beginning or a test in the education of important personal qualities and as a transitional moment to the inclusion of the child in stronger and more effective activities from an educational point of view: teaching, communication and work.

The transitions between play and work activities at primary school age are very conditional, since one type of activity can imperceptibly pass into another and vice versa. If the teacher notices that in learning, communication or work the student lacks certain qualities of cognitive activity, then first of all you need to take care of organizing such games where the corresponding qualities could manifest and develop. If, for example, the cognitive activity of a child's personality is well revealed in learning, communication and work, then on the basis of these qualities it is possible to build, create new, more complex game situations that advance his development. It has been established, for example, that the easier the task, for the successful solution of which the student receives praise from the teacher, the more reason he believes that the teacher low estimates his abilities. And, on the contrary, the more difficult the task, after the unsuccessful solution of which the student receives a censure from the teacher, the sooner he will conclude that the teacher highly appreciates his abilities. In other words, the student fully understands that the lack of abilities can be compensated by the application of efforts and, conversely, the lack of efforts can be supplemented by the development of abilities. This usually occurs at the age of 10-12 years. In order to reach this level of cognitive development, a junior student must understand that it is necessary to evaluate and praise people not so much for their abilities, but for their efforts, and that there are complementary, compensatory relationships between efforts and abilities. For the correct upbringing of the desire to achieve success, it is important to resolve the question of how the development of this personality trait depends on the style and nature of communication between teachers and students that develop in situations where it is possible to achieve success in any type of activity.

Intellectual activity based on an active thought process, the search for ways to act, already at primary school age, under appropriate conditions, can become familiar to children. In this regard, Z.A. Mikhailov writes: "The child shows special mental activity in the course of achieving the game goal, both in the classroom and in everyday life." Entertaining game moments are contained in a variety of exciting musical material. The forms of organization of children are diverse: with the whole class, with groups and individually. The teacher must create conditions for games, maintain and develop interest, encourage independence, stimulate creative initiative.

Thus, the features of the development of younger schoolchildren are manifested in educational and communicative, labor and educational-playing activities, and it is important to create situations in the educational process in which children can combine all these types of activities. Younger students are reactive to direct impressions delivered by the senses, sensitive, receptive to figurative and emotional phenomena, easily move from serious, mental activity to entertaining, playful.

The beginning of primary school age is determined by the moment the child enters school. Initial period school life occupies the age range from 6-7 to 10-11 years (grades 1-4). At primary school age, children have significant reserves of development. During this period, the further physical and psychophysiological development of the child takes place, providing the possibility of systematic education at school.

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Junior school age (6 - 11 years old)

The beginning of primary school age is determined by the moment the child enters school. The initial period of school life occupies the age range from 6-7 to 10-11 years (grades 1-4). At primary school age, children have significant reserves of development. During this period, the further physical and psychophysiological development of the child takes place, providing the possibility of systematic education at school.

Physical development.First of all, the work of the brain and nervous system is improved. According to physiologists, by the age of 7, the cortex hemispheres is already largely mature. However, the most important, specifically human parts of the brain, responsible for programming, regulation and control of complex forms of mental activity, have not yet completed their formation in children of this age (development of the frontal parts of the brain ends only by the age of 12). At this age, there is an active change of milk teeth, about twenty milk teeth fall out. The development and ossification of the limbs, spine and pelvic bones are at a stage of great intensity. At adverse conditions these processes can proceed with large anomalies. Intensive development of neuropsychic activity, high excitability of younger schoolchildren, their mobility and acute response to external influences are accompanied by rapid fatigue, which requires careful attitude to their psyche, skillful switching from one type of activity to another.
Harmful influences, in particular, can be exerted by physical overload (for example, prolonged writing, tiring physical work). Improper seating at the desk during class can lead to curvature of the spine, the formation of a sunken chest, etc. At primary school age, uneven psychophysiological development is noted in different children. Differences in the rates of development of boys and girls also persist: girls continue to outpace boys. Pointing to this, some scientists come to the conclusion that in fact in the lower grades “children sit at the same desk different ages: on average, boys are younger than girls by a year and a half, although this difference is not in the calendar age. An essential physical feature of younger schoolchildren is an increased growth of muscles, an increase in muscle mass and a significant increase in muscle strength. The increase in muscle strength and the general development of the motor apparatus determine the greater mobility of younger students, their desire for running, jumping, climbing and the inability to stay in the same position for a long time.

During primary school age, there are significant changes not only in physical development, but also in the mental development of the child: the cognitive sphere is qualitatively transformed, the personality is formed, a complex system of relations with peers and adults is formed.

cognitive development.The transition to systematic education makes high demands on the mental performance of children, which is still unstable in younger students, resistance to fatigue is low. And although these parameters increase with age, in general, the productivity and quality of work of younger students is about half that of the corresponding indicators of senior students.

Educational activity becomes the leading activity in primary school age. It determines the most important changes taking place in the development of the psyche of children at this age stage. Within the framework of educational activity, psychological neoplasms are formed that characterize the most significant achievements in the development of younger schoolchildren and are the foundation that ensures development at the next age stage.

Primary school age is a period of intensive development and qualitative transformation of cognitive processes: they begin to acquire a mediated character and become conscious and arbitrary. The child gradually masters his mental processes, learns to control perception, attention, memory. A first grader remains a preschooler in terms of his mental development. It retains the peculiarities of thinking inherent in preschool age.

The dominant function in primary school age becomes thinking. Thought processes themselves are intensively developing and restructuring. The development of other mental functions depends on the intellect. The transition from visual-figurative to verbal-logical thinking is being completed. The child develops logically correct reasoning. School education is structured in such a way that verbal and logical thinking is predominantly developed. If in the first two years of schooling children work a lot with visual samples, then in the next classes the volume of this kind of work is reduced.

Figurative thinking is becoming less and less necessary in educational activities.At the end of primary school age (and later) there are individual differences: among children. Psychologists single out groups of "theorists" or "thinkers" who easily solve learning problems verbally, "practitioners" who need reliance on visibility and practical actions, and "artists" with bright figurative thinking. In most children, there is a relative balance between different types of thinking.

Perception younger schoolchildren is not differentiated enough. Because of this, the child sometimes confuses letters and numbers that are similar in spelling (for example, 9 and 6). In the process of learning, perception is restructured, it rises to a higher level of development, takes on the character of a purposeful and controlled activity. In the process of learning, perception deepens, becomes more analyzing, differentiating, and takes on the character of organized observation.

It is during the early school years that it develops Attention. Without the formation of this mental function, the learning process is impossible. At the lesson, the teacher draws the attention of students to the educational material, holds it for a long time. A younger student can focus on one thing for 10-20 minutes.

Some age features relevant to primary school students. The main one is the weakness of voluntary attention. The possibilities of volitional regulation of attention, its management at the beginning of primary school age are limited. Involuntary attention is much better developed at primary school age. Everything new, unexpected, bright, interesting by itself attracts the attention of students, without any effort on their part.

The sanguine person is mobile, restless, talks, but his answers in the lessons indicate that he is working with the class. Phlegmatic and melancholy are passive, lethargic, seem inattentive. But in fact, they are focused on the subject being studied, as evidenced by their answers to the teacher's questions. Some children are inattentive. The reasons for this are different: for some - laziness of thought, for others - the lack of serious attitude to study, in the third - increased excitability of the central nervous system, etc.

Primary schoolchildren initially remember not what is most significant in terms of educational tasks, but what made the greatest impression on them: what is interesting, emotionally colored, unexpected or new. Younger students have a good mechanical memory. Many of them mechanically memorize study tests throughout their education in elementary school, which leads to significant difficulties in the middle classes, when the material becomes more complex and larger in volume.

Among schoolchildren, there are often children who, in order to memorize the material, only need to read a section of the textbook once or carefully listen to the teacher's explanation. These children not only memorize quickly, but also retain what they have learned for a long time, and easily reproduce it. There are also children who quickly memorize educational material, but also quickly forget what they have learned. Usually on the second or third day they already poorly reproduce the learned material. In such children, first of all, it is necessary to form an attitude for long-term memorization, to teach them to control themselves. The most difficult case is slow memorization and fast forgetting. educational material. These children must be patiently taught the techniques of rational memorization. Sometimes poor memorization is associated with overwork, so a special regimen is needed, a reasonable dosage of training sessions. Very often, poor memory results do not depend on a low level of memory, but on poor attention.

Communication. Usually, the needs of younger students, especially those who were not brought up in kindergarten, are initially personal. A first-grader, for example, often complains to the teacher about his neighbors who allegedly interfere with his listening or writing, which indicates his concern for personal success in learning. In the first class interaction with classmates through the teacher (me and my teacher). Grade 3 - 4 - the formation of a children's team (we and our teacher).
There are likes and dislikes. There are requirements for personal qualities.
A children's team is formed. The more referential the class, the more the child depends on how his peers evaluate him. In the third - fourth grade, there is a sharp turn from the interests of an adult to the interests of peers (secrets, headquarters, ciphers, etc.).

Emotional development.The instability of behavior dependent on emotional state child, complicates both the relationship with the teacher and the collective work of children in the classroom. In the emotional life of children of this age, first of all, the content side of experiences changes. If the preschooler is pleased that they are playing with him, sharing toys, etc., then the younger student is mainly concerned about what is connected with teaching, school, and the teacher. He is pleased that the teacher and parents are praised for academic success; and if the teacher makes sure that the feeling of joy from educational work arises in the student as often as possible, then this reinforces positive attitude student to learning. Along with the emotion of joy, emotions of fear are of no small importance in the development of the personality of a junior schoolchild. Often, because of fear of punishment, children tell lies. If this is repeated, then cowardice and deceit are formed. In general, the experiences of a younger student are sometimes very violent.At primary school age, the foundation of moral behavior is laid, the assimilation of moral norms and rules of behavior takes place, and the social orientation of the individual begins to form.

The nature of younger students differs in some features. First of all, they are impulsive - they tend to act immediately under the influence of immediate impulses, motives, without thinking and weighing all the circumstances, for random reasons. The reason is the need for active external discharge with age-related weakness of volitional regulation of behavior.

An age-related feature is also a general lack of will: the younger student does not yet have much experience in a long struggle for the intended goal, overcoming difficulties and obstacles. He can give up in case of failure, lose faith in his strengths and impossibilities. Often there is capriciousness, stubbornness. The usual reason for them is the shortcomings of family education. The child is accustomed to the fact that all his desires and requirements are satisfied, he did not see a refusal in anything. Capriciousness and stubbornness are a peculiar form of a child's protest against the firm demands that the school makes on him, against the need to sacrifice what he wants for the sake of what he needs.

Younger students are very emotional. Emotionality affects, firstly, that their mental activity is usually colored by emotions. Everything that children observe, what they think about, what they do, evokes an emotionally colored attitude in them. Secondly, younger students do not know how to restrain their feelings, control them. outward manifestation. Thirdly, emotionality is expressed in their great emotional instability, frequent mood swings, a tendency to affect, short-term and violent manifestations of joy, grief, anger, fear. Over the years, the ability to regulate their feelings, to restrain their undesirable manifestations, develops more and more.

CONCLUSION

Younger students will have a very important moment in their lives - the transition to the middle school. This transition deserves the most serious attention. This is due to the fact that it radically changes the conditions of the teaching. New conditions place higher demands on the development of thinking, perception, memory and attention of children, on their personal development, as well as the degree of formation of educational knowledge among students, learning activities, to the level of development of arbitrariness.

However, the level of development of a significant number of students barely reaches the necessary limit, and for quite a few large group schoolchildren, the level of development is clearly insufficient for the transition to the middle link.

The task of the elementary teacher and parents is to know and take into account psychological features children of primary school age in training and education, conducting a complex corrective work with children, using various games, tasks, exercises.

School age

period of life from 6-7 to 17-18 years. Conditionally allocate the younger Sh. (up to 11 years old) and senior Sh. (from the age of 12), which is usually called adolescence, or puberty. Due to individual fluctuations in the timing of puberty, the boundaries of senior school and adolescence do not always coincide.

Physical development. After the period of the first physiological stretching (4-6 years) before the onset of puberty, a relative stabilization of the growth rate is noted. For an approximate calculation normal growth in children older than 4 years, the following formula can be used: 100 + 6 (n - 4), where n is in years. Body weight (weight) of children under 11 years of age is calculated by the formula: 10.5 kg+ 2n; children 12 years and older according to the formula: (n ․ 5) - 20 kg, where n is in years. It is possible to accurately assess the correspondence of height and body weight to the age of the child only according to standard height and weight tables.

Anatomical and physiological features. Skin and subcutaneous tissue. The structure of the dermis in Sh. approximately the same as in adults, but the collagen fibers are thinner. By the age of 7, the formation of the excretory ducts of the sweat glands ends, an adequate one is established. With the onset of puberty, apocrine cells begin to function, secondary hair growth appears (see Puberty) . The intensity of the blood supply to the skin is high.

The degree of development of subcutaneous tissue is largely determined by hereditary, constitutional factors. It is more pronounced in girls. By 5-7 years of age, accumulations of fat cells appear in the chest and abdominal cavities, retroperitoneal space.

Muscular system. The mass of muscles continues to increase (mainly the muscles of the limbs), as well as the diameter of the muscle fibers. Muscle mass in relation to body weight is 27.7% at 8 years old, and 32.6% at 15 years old. Diameter of myofibrils in newborns 7 micron, at 16 years old - about 28 micron. By the age of 8-10, the development of the connective tissue frame of muscles also ends. Relative muscle strength (per 1 kg body weight) from 6-7 years of age increases rapidly. The indicator of muscular work performed in 1 min, at 7 years is 290 kgm, at 16-18 years old - 1000-1200 kgm. At the age of 7-9 years, the maximum speed of restoration of muscle performance after muscular work is noted, but the children of the younger Sh. not yet capable of long-term physical stress. Muscle from 7 to 17 years increases by 2 times. From 8-9 years old, they become stronger, muscle volume increases significantly. Motor skills are improved - at the age of 6, fine work with fingers (for example, modeling, writing) becomes possible; by 10-12 years of age, coordination of movements is quite well developed, by 14 years of age - the ability to move quickly.

Skeletal system. The intensity of metabolism in the bone tissue decreases somewhat, but the processes of osteogenesis and bone growth continue, and the calcium content in the bone tissue increases. There is still a lot of cartilage tissue, the flexibility of the skeleton is increased. The structure of bone tissue only by the age of 12 approaches its structure in adults. In the younger Sh. there is a change of milk teeth to permanent ones, by the age of 11 the second ones appear. The volume is increasing chest, she is increasingly involved in breathing. From 6 to 9-10 years of age, there is a relative stabilization of the size of the pelvis, then they increase, sex differences appear in its structure.

Respiratory system. By the age of 8-9, a cavernous, intensely blood-supplied part of the submucosal tissue of the nose is formed. Paranasal sinuses develop rapidly. By the age of 10, in boys, it resembles a man's in shape, gradually expanding. lengthens on average from 5.7 cm(at 6-8 years old) up to 6.3 cm(at 10-12 years old) and 7.2 cm(at 14-16 years old), width, respectively - from 10 to 11.3 and 14 mm. The diameter of the bronchi and bronchioles, the size of the alveoli, the respiratory surface of the lungs increase. The elastic frame of the lungs reaches full development. By about the age of 7, the structure of the lung tissue is finally formed, later (up to about 12 years) only the mass of the lungs increases due to an increase in the linear size of the alveoli. The functional capabilities of the respiratory organs noticeably change: the respiratory volume increases from 6 to 14 years 118 ml up to 227 ml, minute volume of breathing - 3200 to 5000 cm 3. The respiratory rate decreases from 25 breaths per minute (at 5 years) to 20 (at 12 years). Vital capacity increases from 1200 ml(at 6 years old) up to 2700 (at 14 years old), maximum light from 42 l/min up to 68 l/min, breathing reserve from 38.5 l/min up to 63.1 l/min respectively.

The cardiovascular system. The mass of the heart increases from 105 G(at 6 years old) up to 175 G(at age 12) and 230 G(at age 14). At the age of 12-14, there is a second period of intensive increase in heart mass (the first at 0-2 years, the third at 17-20 years). By the age of 7-8, the heart tissue ends, the number of connective tissue and elastic fibers increases. The average heart rate from 5 to 12 years of age decreases from 100 to 80 beats per minute. The stroke and minute volume of blood increases, the blood flow velocity gradually decreases. at 6 years old 105/70, at 11 years old on average about 110/70, at 17 years old - 120/75 mmHg Art.

Digestive organs. The length of the esophagus increases from 16 cm(at 5 years old) up to 18 cm(at age 10) and 19 cm(at the age of 15). Physiological narrowing of the esophagus in the younger Sh. formed. The distance from the teeth to the entrance to the stomach gradually increases: at 5 years - 26-27.9 cm, 10 years - 27-33 cm, 15 years old - 34-36 cm(approximately this figure is 20 + n, where n is the number of years). The functional capacity of the stomach reaches 1300-1500 by the age of 10-12 ml; the surface of its mucous membrane, the number of gastric glands increases. By the age of 8, the formation of the cardiac part of the stomach is completed. The length of the small intestine increases. The liver also increases, their functional increases. From the age of 7, the lower edge of the liver does not extend beyond the costal arch along the midclavicular line, and along the midline should not extend beyond the upper third of the distance from the navel to the xiphoid process. Digestion processes are improved: the coefficient of fat splitting increases; the topography of absorption processes in the intestine changes. The frequency of bowel movements 1-2 times a day, formalized.

Urinary organs. The mass and size of the kidneys increases; their structure is being improved: mainly in the Sh. the structure of the renal glomeruli and tubules does not differ from their structure in adults. The diameter of the ureters is relatively larger than in adults; in the bladder continues to increase the number of muscle and elastic fibers. Capacity Bladder at 5-9 years old - 200 ml, 9-12 years old - 200-300 ml, 12-15 years old - 300-400 ml. Length urethra boys 10-12 cm, girls - up to 2 cm. The daily amount of urine gradually increases: in children from 5 to 8 years old, it is 700 ml, from 8 to 11 years - 850 ml, from 11 to 15 years old - 1100 ml.

Hematopoietic system. Bone marrow mass continues to increase. Changes, after 5 years there is an increase in the number of neutrophils and a decrease in the number of lymphocytes (see Hemogram , Blood) . The mass and size of the spleen increase: weight from 17 G(6 years) up to 94 G(12 years old), sizes from 8×5 cm(8 years) up to 11×6 cm(12 years). Indicators of the blood coagulation system do not differ from those in adults.

The immune system. Improved local and general. The ability to synthesize interferon is increasing more and more. By 6-12 years, the weight of the thymus gland reaches a maximum - approximately 30 G, then it gradually decreases. By the age of 10, the number of lymph nodes is the same as in adults, the number of lymphoid follicles in the intestine increases. nasopharynx well developed. The content of immunoglobulins in the blood by the age of 10-12 is approaching the level of adults.

Endocrine system. The development and improvement of the hypothalamic-pituitary system is coming to an end. It increases, its structure improves (the number of follicles increases). The mass and size of the parathyroid glands increase. In the adrenal glands, differentiation ends, the cortical layer is completely formed. Under the influence of gonadotropic hormones of the pituitary gland, the testicles in boys and girls increase in size, function more and more actively and cause the gradual appearance of signs of puberty.

Nervous system. The mass of the brain from 6-7 years old increases more slowly. At 6-7 years old, it averages 1313 in boys. G, in girls 1225 G, at 11-12 years old - 1348 G and 1259 G, at 14-15 years old - 1356 G and 1318 G respectively. The structure of the cerebral cortex by the age of 8 is almost the same as in adults. Continues nerve fibers (mainly in the cortex), not yet covered with myelin sheath. Length spinal cord by the age of 7-10 it doubles. Improved and becomes more complex neuropsychic activity. Associative connections develop in the cerebral cortex, and the possibilities of analytical activity increase. Active inhibitory processes are improved, complex processes are easier to form. Learning to read and write helps further development speech, its imagery, convey your thoughts in it. At the same time, in the behavior of the children of the younger Sh. there are still many game elements, they are not capable of long-term concentration, self-control. Some children find it difficult to communicate with the team, which can affect their mental development.

Morbidity features. Children at school age get sick less often than children early age, which is associated with the development of immunity and the improvement of adaptive mechanisms. still vulnerable, prone to peeling, its intense contributes to the spread of infection. The high resorptive capacity of the skin can lead to undesirable consequences with the inappropriate use of ointments and creams containing biologically active substances (for example,). Musculoskeletal, although it reaches a certain degree of development, is still resistant to adverse effects. Excessive quickly leads to fatigue. Due to the flexibility of the skeleton, with the wrong posture of the child in the classroom at school and at home (use of age-appropriate furniture), posture disorders develop (Posture) , Scoliosis . At this age, the highest frequency of injuries (for example, bone fractures) is noted, due to the sharply increasing physical activity of children.

With the development of the paranasal sinuses, the frequency of sinusitis (sinusitis, etc.) increases. Often observed, there are tonsillitis. Often at children Sh. heart murmurs (mainly of a functional nature) are detected. The frequency of myocarditis, rheumatism, nephritis, gastritis, duodenitis, peptic ulcer, cholecystitis increases.

Hygiene. It is very important to develop hygiene skills in children, to accustom them to cleanliness. It is desirable to allocate Sh. a separate room or a comfortable corner. The room where the child is located must be kept clean (daily and objects in the room are wiped with a damp cloth), ventilated (in winter 3-4 times a day for 10-15 min windows are kept open all day in summer). The child must have a separate bed. Bed linen (preferably cotton) is changed regularly.

Admission to school - crucial moment in a child's life. Teachers and parents should help in overcoming the difficulties facing him. Violation of the rules of mental hygiene of a student entails negative consequences (, nervous system disorder, etc.). It is important to teach the child to properly allocate time to complete the lessons, alternate the types of classes in different subjects, take breaks between them for 10-15 min during which tension is relieved, the eyes rest.

It is necessary to properly organize the student. The furniture must match his height. It is important to monitor the position of the child during classes; in order to reduce the load on when writing, you need to sit straight, leaning on the back of a chair, without leaning your chest on the table, the legs at the ankle, knee and hip joints are bent at a right angle; a uniform load on both halves of the pelvis is necessary; keep your head with a slight tilt forward, the distance from to the table is 30-35 cm. The table for classes is placed so that it falls from the window to the left; from a table lamp (60 Tue) should not fall into the eyes. Incorrect and incorrect table and chair heights can lead to impaired vision and posture. Preparation of lessons begins with written work, and then proceed to oral assignments. First of all, they perform tasks of medium difficulty, then the most difficult and, finally, the easiest.

To restore strength and performance of all body systems, a normal one is needed. Children 6 years old need at least 12 hours of sleep h(of which 2 h in the afternoon), 7-9 years - 10 h, 10-12 years old - 9 1/2 h, 13-15 years old - 9 h.

Nutrition. Requirements for proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and energy - see Nutrition . Of the total daily energy needs, 14%, - 31%, - 55% should fall on. At the same time, proteins of animal origin at 6 years old should be 65%, and in children over 6 years old - 50-60% of their total amount; vegetable fats - 10-15% of all fats; easily digestible carbohydrates - no more than 20% of the carbohydrate diet. Daily water requirement (including water found in food) is reduced from 90-100 ml/kg at 5 years up to 40-50 ml/kg At 18 years old. You should adhere to a certain diet with 4-5 meals a day. Approximate hours of eating with 5 meals a day: 1st breakfast - 7 h 30 min, 2nd breakfast - 10-11 h, lunch - 13-14 h, afternoon tea - 16-17 h, dinner - 19-20 h. In terms of calories, the 1st (homemade) breakfast should account for 15%, the 2nd (school) - 20%, lunch - 35%, afternoon tea - 10-15%, dinner - 20%. In extended day groups, a 3-time meal is organized, constituting 65-70% of the daily requirement for nutrients and energy. Breakfast at school should consist of a hot meal and a drink. Lunch is desirable from 4 courses: start, 1st, 2nd and 3rd courses. In the afternoon they usually give milk and bread.

Every morning, children are encouraged to do exercises. For children of the younger Sh. outdoor games are useful, including elements of sports games, relay races. Subsequently, enter gymnastic exercises for balance, hanging, resting, climbing, throwing, etc. Skiing, basketball, volleyball, etc. are recommended. The degree of permissible physical activity (including the possibility of practicing a particular sport) is determined depending on the age of the child, his state of health and physical fitness.

For the purpose of hardening, air and solar, water procedures are used. it is better to start with air baths, which are taken indoors for 1-2 weeks. at an air temperature not lower than 16 °, their duration at first is 3-4 min, then it is increased every day by 1 min, bringing up to 10 min. It is good to combine air with gymnastics. Walking and daytime sleep on a green area or on an open veranda have a hardening effect. In total, children should be outside during the cold season 2-5 h, summer 10-12 h daily. Washing, wiping and dousing the legs and body, and bathing are recommended as hardening water procedures. Rubbing and dousing the body is first carried out at 35 °, after a week the water temperature begins to be reduced (every 1-2 days by 1-2 °) and brought to 24-22 °. For sponging and dousing the legs, the initial temperature of the water is 30 °, after a week they begin to reduce it (every 1-2 days by 1-2 °) and bring it to 16-14 °. water is carried out indoors at room temperature. After the procedure, the skin is wiped dry. In all cases, when it is necessary to stop, and then resume it after 3-5 days, it should be 2-3 ° warmer than during the last procedure. If water procedures have not been carried out for a longer time, they are started again from the initial temperature. The air temperature during bathing should not be lower than 22 °, the water temperature for children under 10-12 years old should not be lower than 20 °.

Sunbathing is recommended between 10 and 12 noon. They begin at an air temperature in the shade not lower than 18 °. Duration of the first bath 2 min; one minute the child lies on his back, the second on his stomach. After a day or two, add 2 min for the procedure.

Dispensary supervision. Children of Sh. should undergo annual preventive medical examinations. The composition of medical specialists participating in examinations and the scope of additional examinations are determined in accordance with the instructions for medical examination of the child population in cities and rural areas. So, in rural areas, students in grades 1-8 once a year are examined by a pediatrician and a dentist. In addition, students in grades 1, 3, 6 and 8 are additionally examined. Examinations by other specialists are carried out according to indications. Preventive medical examinations also include anthropometry, clinical blood and urine tests, helminthological studies, visual acuity, hearing, measurement. During examinations, they pay attention to the neuropsychic and children, the state of internal organs, the musculoskeletal system, and teeth. Remedial measures should be aimed at compliance with hygienic regime at school and at home, organizing rational nutrition, physical education identified diseases.

Bibliography: Children's diseases, ed. P.N. Guzenko, Kyiv, 1984; Children's diseases, ed. L.A. Isaeva, M., 1986; Children's diseases, ed. A.F. Tura et al., M., 1985; Mazurin A.V. and Vorontsov I.M. children's diseases, M., 1985; Guide to Pediatrics, ed. R.E. Bermakh and V.K. Vaughan, . from English, vol. 1, M., 1987.

1. Small medical encyclopedia. - M.: Medical Encyclopedia. 1991-96 2. First health care. - M.: Great Russian Encyclopedia. 1994 3. Encyclopedic Dictionary medical terms. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. - 1982-1984.