The cognizing subject is not some abstract individual existing outside the concrete position conditions. The process of cognition always proceeds under certain circumstances. Recall this fact: when we climb mountains, at every turn a new view opens before us. What determines the emerging "picture" of the area? Is it only from the existence of this area itself and our visual apparatus? An important role in what kind of picture opens up to us is played by the point of view that we choose. Moreover, we cannot make observations unless we have chosen some definite "point of view".

Although the fact described above has been known to us since childhood, it allows us to understand, by analogy, the deepest feature of all knowledge. It has long been established in physics that the experimentally observed characteristics of moving bodies (velocity, mass, position in space, etc.) have certain values ​​not in general, but only relative to a certain frame of reference. In accordance with this, we can say that, in essence, any object of natural or socio-historical existence also exists and in a certain way manifests itself only in specific conditions, in one system or another. It is in relation to such a system that we can talk about the quantitative or qualitative certainty of the properties of an object.

Summarizing what has been said, we can conclude that a person cognizes the world every time from the point of view of a certain "cognitive position". The results that he obtains in this case turn out to be fair not in general, but only in relation to the given cognitive position.

In order to better understand the process of comprehending the world, it is necessary to take any subject of knowledge in the fullness of its socio-historical definitions and certainly consider it taking into account the specific cognitive attitude formed by the culture of a particular era. This setup assumes, firstly, subjective moment, expressed by the presence in the cognition of a certain intellectual perspective, secondly, objective point, associated with the selected (from the set of possible) interval of consideration.

Just as in the perception of a picture the "observation point" must be chosen taking into account the specific circumstances that predetermine maximum distinctness, so when choosing cognitive position must be taken into account objective conditions of knowledge. In this case, it acquires a new epistemological quality: on the one hand, as a certain "reference point" of the cognizing subject, which sets the intellectual perspective of seeing reality, on the other hand, as something externally determined, a certain measure that predetermines the objectivity of meaning and determines the scale of the approach. to the subject being studied, a certain projection of it, highlighted by the subject with the help of the subject-practical and conceptual means available to him.

The fact that in cognition there are many different semantic horizons that have an equal right to truth does not negate the fact that they are characterized by different cognitive capabilities. Three important methodological requirements follow from this: 1) when analyzing the process of comprehension of reality, it is necessary to fix the cognitive position occupied by the subject, its epistemological characteristics and possibilities; 2) fixing this or that position, it is necessary to achieve maximum consistency of the subjective and objective foundations of cognition (epistemological focusing); 3) it is necessary to investigate the logical and epistemological mechanisms of transition from one position to another.

It may happen that some statements about the properties and phenomena of reality turn out to be true not only with respect to the given conditions of cognition, but also in the transition to others. In physics, in such cases one speaks of invariant quantities and relations. Two consequences follow from this: 1) when asserting some truth, one must indicate the objective and subjective conditions under which it was obtained, 2) there is a class of truths that are valid for several cognitive horizons - this indicates the unity of the world and the presence of deep connections in the process of moving from one truth to another.

Topic 7. Theories of convergence of social and biological factors

1. The theory of development of V. Stern.

2. The theory of cognitive development by J. Piaget.

7.1. Theory of development of V. Stern

V. Stern tried to overcome the one-sidedness of the previous theories of development and formulated the theory of two factors.

ü Development is the result of convergence (rapprochement) of internal, hereditary factors with environmental conditions.

ü Mental development is self-development, self-deployment of the inclinations that a person has, directed and determined by the environment in which the child lives.

ü Development is determined by X - units of heredity Y - units of the environment.

Four main provisions of the theory of development of V. Stern:

1. Exist two hereditarily predetermined goals: 1) the desire for self-preservation, 2) the desire for self-development, including physical growth and spiritual maturation. The tendency to self-development causes the emergence and development of new, more adaptive and perfect abilities. The trend towards self-preservation stabilizes development achievements.

2. The ratio of inclinations and abilities. Inclinations are determined by heredity and set the upper limit of the development of human abilities. The environment slows down or promotes the development of inclinations. But even under adverse conditions, "talent will always find its way."

3. The pace of mental development is determined by heredity. But the neglect of education significantly slows down the pace of development, leading to the fact that the upper limit of the development of abilities, determined by inclinations, is not reached.

4. The sequence and content of the stages of development are determined by heredity.

In the concept of V. Stern, the factor of heredity plays a leading role, and the environment only contributes to the manifestation of inclinations as potential development opportunities.

The mechanism of mental development - introception- connection by the child of his internal goals with the goals of the environment. The child grows old to take from the environment everything that corresponds to his potential abilities, putting a barrier in the way of what contradicts them.

Usage twin method to test the theory of convergence of two factors. Comparison of the development of twins with identical (monozygous) and different (dizygotic) heredity, brought up in the same and different (separated twins) environmental conditions. conclusions: 1) it is necessary to expand the determinants that determine the patterns of mental development of the child, 2) the influence of the environment is not direct, but is mediated by the active effective position of the child himself.

7.2. J. Piaget's theory of cognitive development

The intellect has an adaptive nature and performs the function of balancing the organism with the external environment.

Development mechanisms: 1) assimilation – inclusion of the object in the existing schemes of action, 2) accommodation– changing the scheme of action in accordance with the characteristics of the object. Assimilation provides stabilization and preservation. Accommodation is growth and change. Balancing assimilation and accommodation results in the adaptation of the organism to the environment.

Development is determined by a complex system of determinants: heredity, environment and activity of the subject.

Development is an active construction process in which children build increasingly differentiated and comprehensive cognitive structures or schemas.

Scheme- any pattern (drawing, sample) of action that provides contact with the environment.

Intelligence Development- a successive change of stages, reflecting various logical structures of thinking, ways of processing information. The ultimate goal of the development of thinking is the formation of formal-logical operations.

Children's thinking is shaped by learning organized by adults (environmental factor), which is based on the level of development achieved by the child (heredity factors). At the same time, children interact with the environment, building their own cognitive structures (activity factors).

Stages of intellectual development of the child:

Periods	stages	Stage content
I. Sensorimotor intelligence (0-24 months)	1. Exercise of reflexes (0-1 month).	Launching innate action patterns - unconditioned reflexes
2. Elementary skills, primary circular reactions (1-4 months).	Coordination by the child of parts of his body, coordination of individual movements into a single scheme of action
3. Secondary circular reactions (4-10 months).	Reproduction of movements outside one's body, "prolongation of interesting spectacles"
4. The beginning of practical intelligence (10-12 months).	Coordination of two independent schemes of actions to achieve a result
5. Tertiary circular reactions (12-18 months).	Experimenting with actions, observing the results of experimentation
6. The beginning of the internalization of schemes (18-24 months).	Assimilation of methods of action with objects, preservation in memory of images of objects and methods of action
II. Representative Intelligence and Specific Operations (2-11 years old)	1. Pre-operational intelligence (2-7 years).	Thinking based on symbols, images, having an illogical, non-systemic character. Egocentric thinking of the child.
2. Specific operations (7-11 years).	Manifestation of systematic thinking in a situation of operating with specific objects.
III. Formal operations (11-15 years old)		Formation of formal-logical structures, abstract thinking, hypothetical-deductive logic.

Piaget's greatest discovery is the discovery of the phenomenon of egocentrism in children's thinking.

ü Egocentrism- a special cognitive position taken by the subject in relation to the surrounding world, when phenomena and objects are considered by him only from his own point of view.

ü Egocentrism- a set of pre-critical, pre-objective positions in the knowledge of other people's things, oneself.

ü Egocentrism- this is the absolutization of one's own cognitive perspective and the inability to coordinate different points of view on the subject.

Characteristics of a child's egocentric thinking:

1. Syncretism(unity) of children's thinking - the perception of the image without analyzing the details, the tendency to connect everything with everything.

2. juxtaposition- the tendency to associate everything with everything.

3. intellectual realism- identification of one's ideas about things with real objects.

4. Animism- general excitement.

5. Artificalism- the idea of ​​the artificial origin of natural phenomena.

6. Insensitivity to contradictions.

7. Impenetrable to experience.

8. transduction- the transition from the particular to the particular, bypassing the general.

9. Causality- inability to establish causal relationships.

10. Weakness of introspection(self-observation).

The general task facing Piaget was aimed at revealing the psychological mechanisms of integral logical structures, but first he singled out and investigated a more particular problem - he studied the hidden mental tendencies that give a qualitative originality to children's thinking, and outlined the mechanisms for their emergence and change.

Let us consider the facts established by Piaget with the help of the clinical method in his early studies of the content and form of children's thought. The most important of them: the discovery of the egocentric nature of children's speech, the qualitative features of children's logic, and the child's ideas about the world that are unique in their content. However, Piaget's main achievement is the discovery of the child's egocentrism. Egocentrism is a central feature of thinking, a hidden mental position. The originality of children's logic, children's speech, children's ideas about the world are only a consequence of this egocentric mental position.

In studies of children's ideas about the world and physical causality, Piaget showed that a child at a certain stage of development in most cases considers objects as they are given by direct perception, that is, he does not see things in their internal relations. The child thinks, for example, that the moon follows him when he walks, stops when he stops, runs after him when he runs away. Piaget called this phenomenon "realism". It is this realism that prevents the child from considering things independently of the subject, in their internal interconnection. The child considers his instantaneous perception to be absolutely true. This happens because children do not separate their I from the world around them, from things.

Piaget emphasizes that this "realistic" position of the child in relation to things must be distinguished from the objective one. The main condition for objectivity, in his opinion, is the full awareness of the countless intrusions of the Self into everyday thought, the awareness of the many illusions that arise as a result of this invasion (illusions of feeling, language, point of view, value, etc.). In its content, children's thought, at first not completely separating the subject from the object and therefore "realistic", develops towards objectivity, reciprocity and relativity. Piaget believed that gradual dissociation, the separation of subject and object, is carried out as a result of overcoming the child's own egocentrism.

So, the first direction of the decentration of children's thought is from realism to objectivity.

At first, in the early stages of development, every idea of ​​the world is true for the child; for him thought and thing are almost indistinguishable. In a child, signs begin to exist, being originally part of things. Gradually, through the activity of the intellect, they separate from them. Then he begins to consider his idea of ​​things as relative to this point of view. Children's ideas develop from realism to objectivity, passing through a series of stages: participation (participation), animism (universal animation), artificalism (understanding of natural phenomena by analogy with human activity), in which the egocentric relationship between the Self and the world is gradually reduced. Step by step in the process of development, the child begins to take a position that allows him to distinguish what comes from the subject, and to see the reflection of external reality in subjective representations. The subject who ignores his I, Piaget believes, inevitably puts his prejudices, direct judgments and even perceptions into things. Objective intelligence, a mind aware of the subjective I, allows the subject to distinguish fact from interpretation. It is only through gradual differentiation that the inner world is singled out and contrasted with the outer. Differentiation depends on how much the child is aware of his own position among things.

Piaget believed that in parallel with the evolution of children's ideas about the world, directed from realism to objectivity, there is a development of children's ideas. from absoluteness("realism") to reciprocity (reciprocity). Reciprocity appears when the child discovers the points of view of other people, when he ascribes to them the same meaning as his own, when a correspondence is established between these points of view. From that moment on, he begins to see reality not only as directly given to him, but as if established, thanks to the coordination of all points of view taken together. During this period, the most important step in the development of children's thinking is taking place, because, according to Piaget, ideas about objective reality are the most common that exists in different points of view, in which different minds agree with each other.

In experimental studies, Piaget showed that in the early stages of intellectual development, objects appear to the child as heavy or light, according to direct perception. The child considers large things always heavy, small things always light. For a child, these and many other ideas are absolute, while direct perception seems to be the only possible one. The appearance of other ideas about things, as, for example, in the experiment with floating bodies: a pebble - light for a child, but heavy for water - means that children's ideas begin to lose their absolute significance and become relative.

The lack of understanding of the principle of conservation of the amount of matter when the shape of the object changes once again confirms that the child at first can reason only on the basis of "absolute" ideas. For him, two plasticine balls of equal weight cease to be equal as soon as one of them takes on a different shape, for example, a cup. Already in early works, Piaget considered this phenomenon as a common feature of children's logic. In subsequent studies, he used the emergence of a child's understanding of the conservation principle as a criterion for the emergence of logical operations and devoted his genesis to experiments related to the formation of concepts of number, movement, speed, space, quantity, etc.

The child's thought also develops in a third direction - from realism to relativism. At first, children believe in the existence of absolute substances and absolute qualities. Later, they discover that phenomena are related and that our estimates are relative. The world of independent and spontaneous substances gives way to the world of relations. At first, the child considers, say, that in each moving object there is a special motor that plays a major role in the movement of the object. In the future, he considers the movement of an individual body as a function of the actions of external bodies. So, the child is already beginning to explain the movement of clouds in a different way, for example, by the action of the wind. The words "light" and "heavy" also lose their absolute meaning, which they had during the early stages, and acquire a relative meaning depending on the chosen units of measurement.

Along with the qualitative originality of the content of children's thought, egocentrism determines such features of children's logic as syncretism (the tendency to connect everything with everything), juxtaposition (lack of connection between judgments), transduction (transition from the particular to the particular, bypassing the general), insensitivity to contradiction, etc. .

The phenomena discovered by Piaget, of course, do not exhaust the entire content of children's thinking. The significance of the experimental facts obtained in Piaget's research lies in the fact that thanks to them, the most important psychological phenomenon, which remained little known and unrecognized for a long time, is revealed - the child's mental position, which determines his attitude to reality.

Egocentrism shows that the external world does not act directly on the mind of the subject, but our knowledge of the world- it is not a simple imprint of external events. The subject's ideas are partly the product of his own activity. They change and even distort depending on the dominant mental position.

According to Piaget, egocentrism is a consequence of the external circumstances of the subject's life. However, the lack of knowledge is only a secondary factor in the formation of children's egocentrism. The main thing is the spontaneous position of the subject, according to which he relates to the object directly, without considering himself as a thinking being, without realizing the subjectivity of his own point of view.

Piaget emphasized that the decrease in egocentrism is explained not by the addition of knowledge, but by the transformation of the initial position, when the subject correlates his initial point of view with other possible ones. To be freed in some respect from egocentrism and its consequences means to decenter in this respect, and not only to acquire new knowledge about things and the social group. According to Piaget, to get rid of egocentrism means to realize what was perceived subjectively, to find one's place in the system of possible points of view, to establish a system of general and mutual relations between things, personalities and one's own Self.

Following the discovery of the egocentrism of children's thinking, J. Piaget described the phenomenon of egocentric speech. Revealing the essence of this phenomenon, it is important to remember that for J. Piaget, language does not shape thinking, but only reflects it. Piaget sees in it only a manifestation of what he called the “general symbolic function” (for comparison, let us recall the statement of L. S. Vygotsky about the fact that thinking is not “reflected”, but “accomplished” in the word.

Piaget believed that children's speech is egocentric, primarily because the child speaks only "from his own point of view" and, most importantly, he does not try to take the point of view of the interlocutor. For him, anyone he meets is an interlocutor. Only the appearance of interest is important to the child, although he probably has the illusion that he is heard and understood. He does not feel the desire to influence the interlocutor and really tell him something. Egocentric speech, expressing the "logic of feelings" and addressed by the child to himself, according to J. Piaget, will gradually die out, giving way to speech addressed to others and performing a communicative function.

The teachings of J. Piaget met with criticism from L. S. Vygotsky. In particular, he showed that egocentric speech is one of the stages in the formation of thinking and speech. That is, in the course of mental development, egocentric speech does not disappear, but turns into inner speech. Egocentrism, according to L. S. Vygotsky, is not an initially predetermined state, but only characterizes the features of one of the stages in the development of higher mental functions.

L. Kolberg continued the experiments of J. Piaget, in which moral judgments and ethical ideas of children of different ages were revealed. The children were asked to evaluate the actions of the heroes of the story and justify their judgments. It turned out that at different age stages, children solve moral problems in different ways. For example, young children consider a child who accidentally breaks several cups to be more guilty and more "spoiled" than another who breaks only one cup, but maliciously. Older children, especially after 9-10 years old, assess this situation differently, focusing not only on the result of the action, but also on the motives behind the act.

L. Kolberg used stories containing complex moral conflicts that needed to be resolved. For example: “A woman with cancer is not helped by any medicine. She asks her doctor to give her a lethal dose of sleeping pills to end her suffering. Should the doctor grant her request?”

Child: “It would be good to let the woman die to save her pain. But this could be unpleasant for her husband - after all, this is not like putting an animal to sleep, he needs his wife.

Teenager: “The doctor has no right to do this. He cannot give life and must not destroy it.”

Adult: “A dying woman should have free choice. It is the quality of life that matters, not the fact of life itself. If she believes that it is not worth living, having become simply something alive, but no longer a person, she has the right to choose death. People should be given the opportunity to decide for themselves what will happen to them.”

From these answers it is clear that the child proceeds from purely practical considerations, without resorting to moral principles. The teenager considers the problem from the point of view of one abstract principle - the value of life. The position of an adult is multifaceted.

.Piaget.

;

(from 2 to 7 years old) and (from 7 to 11 years);

period of formal operations.

Definition of intelligence

Intelligence

The main stages in the development of a child's thinking

Piaget identified the following stages in the development of intelligence.

1) Sensory-motor intelligence (0-2 years)

During the period of sensory-motor intelligence, the organization of perceptual and motor interactions with the outside world gradually develops. This development proceeds from being limited by innate reflexes to the associated organization of sensory-motor actions in relation to the immediate environment. At this stage, only direct manipulations with things are possible, but not actions with symbols, representations in the internal plan.

Preparation and organization of specific operations (2-11 years old)

· Sub-period of pre-operational representations (2-7 years)

At the stage of pre-operational representations, a transition is made from sensory-motor functions to internal - symbolic, that is, to actions with representations, and not with external objects.

This stage of the development of the intellect is characterized by the dominance of assumptions and transductive reasoning; egocentrism; centralization on the conspicuous features of the subject and neglect in reasoning of its other features; focusing attention on the states of a thing and inattention to its transformations.

· Sub-period of specific operations (7-11 years)

At the stage of specific operations, actions with representations begin to be combined, coordinated with each other, forming systems of integrated actions called operations factions(for example, classification

Formal operations (11-15 years old)

The main ability that appears at the stage of formal operations (from 11 to about 15 years old) is the ability to deal with possible, with the hypothetical, and perceive external reality as a special case of what is possible, what could be. Knowledge becomes hypothetical-deductive. The child acquires the ability to think in sentences and establish formal relationships (inclusion, conjunction, disjunction, etc.) between them. The child at this stage is also able to systematically identify all the variables that are essential for solving the problem, and systematically sort through all possible combinations these variables.

The main mechanisms of cognitive development of the child

1) the mechanism of assimilation: the individual adapts new information (situation, object) to his existing schemes (structures), without changing them in principle, that is, he includes a new object in his existing schemes of actions or structures.

2) the accommodation mechanism, when an individual adapts his previously formed reactions to new information (situation, object), that is, he is forced to rebuild (modify) old schemes (structures) in order to adapt them to new information (situation, object).

According to the operational concept of intelligence, the development and functioning of mental phenomena is, on the one hand, the assimilation or assimilation of this material by existing patterns of behavior, and on the other, the accommodation of these patterns to a specific situation. Piaget considers the adaptation of the organism to the environment as a balancing of the subject and the object. The concepts of assimilation and accommodation play the main role in Piaget's proposed explanation of the genesis of mental functions. In essence, this genesis acts as a succession of various stages of balancing assimilation and accommodation. .

Egocentrism of children's thinking. Experimental studies of the phenomenon of egocentrism

Egocentrism of children's thinking- a special cognitive position taken by the subject in relation to the surrounding world, when the objects and phenomena of the surrounding world are considered from their own point of view. The egocentrism of thinking causes such features of children's thinking as syncretism, the inability to focus on changes in the object, the irreversibility of thinking, transduction (from particular to particular), insensitivity to contradiction, the combined effect of which prevents the formation of logical thinking. Piaget's well-known experiments are an example of this effect. If, in front of the child's eyes, equal amounts of water are poured into two identical glasses, then the child will confirm the equality of volumes. But if in his presence you pour water from one glass into another, narrower one, then the child will confidently tell you that there is more water in the narrow glass.

There are many variations of such experiments, but they all demonstrated the same thing - the child's inability to focus on changes in the object. The latter means that the baby fixes well in memory only stable situations, but at the same time the process of transformation eludes him. In the case of glasses, the child sees only the result - two identical glasses with water at the beginning and two different glasses with the same water at the end, but he is not able to catch the moment of change.

Another effect of egocentrism consists in the irreversibility of thinking, i.e., the inability of the child to mentally return to the starting point of his reasoning. It is the irreversibility of thinking that does not allow our baby to follow the course of his own reasoning and, returning to their beginning, imagine the glasses in their original position. The lack of reversibility is a direct manifestation of the child's egocentric thinking.

Stage of specific operations

Stage of specific operations(7-11 years old). At the stage of specific operations, actions with representations begin to be combined, coordinated with each other, forming systems of integrated actions called operations. The child develops special cognitive structures called factions(for example, classification), thanks to which the child acquires the ability to perform operations with classes and establish logical relationships between classes, uniting them in hierarchies, whereas earlier his abilities were limited to transduction and the establishment of associative links.

The limitation of this stage is that operations can be performed only with concrete objects, but not with statements. Operations logically structure the performed external actions, but they cannot yet structure verbal reasoning in a similar way.

J. Piaget “Psychology of the intellect. The genesis of the number in a child. Logic and psychology»

1. Main provisions of the theory Zh.Piaget.

According to Jean Piaget's theory of intelligence, human intelligence goes through several main stages in its development:

Continues from birth to 2 years sensorimotor intelligence period;

from 2 to 11 years - the period of preparation and organization of specific operations, in which sub-period of pre-operational representations(from 2 to 7 years old) and sub-period of specific operations(from 7 to 11 years);

lasts from 11 years to about 15 period of formal operations.

The problem of children's thinking was formulated as qualitatively unique, having unique advantages, the activity of the child himself was singled out, the genesis was traced from "action to thought", the phenomena of children's thinking were discovered, and methods for its research were developed.

Definition of intelligence

· Intellect is a global cognitive system consisting of a number of subsystems (perceptual, mnemonic, mental), the purpose of which is to provide information support for the interaction of the individual with the external environment.

· Intelligence is the totality of all cognitive functions of an individual.

• Intelligence is thinking, the highest cognitive process.

Intelligence- flexible at the same time stable structural balance of behavior, which in essence is a system of the most vital and active operations. Being the most perfect of mental adaptations, the intellect serves, so to speak, as the most necessary and effective tool in the interactions of the subject with the outside world, interactions that are realized in the most complex ways and go far beyond the limits of direct and instantaneous contacts in order to achieve pre-established and stable relationships. .

Piaget's theory of the development of intelligence is the most developed and influential of all known theories of intellectual development, in which ideas about the internal nature of intelligence and its external manifestations are consistently combined. In order to better appreciate the contribution to psychological science in general and to the development of the psychology of thinking, in particular, let us turn to the statements of two well-known experts in this field.

“A paradox is known,” writes L. F. Obukhova, according to which the authority of a scientist is best determined by how much he slowed down the development of science in his field. Modern foreign psychology of childhood is literally blocked by Piaget's ideas. ... No one manages to break out of the limits of the system he has developed,” emphasizes the author.

“The irresistible and attractive power of the works and ideas of J. Piaget,” according to N. I. Chuprikova, is primarily in the breadth of the reality captured by his analysis, in the facts described by him, in ... the level of generalization and interpretation. At this level, through the facts and their interpretation, the action of strict and immutable laws of development visibly shines through. The “strict and immutable laws of development” discovered by Jean Piaget also “slowed down” the development of science on the mechanisms of cognitive development of a child from birth to adolescence inclusive. Let's turn to the theory itself.

Piaget's theory of the development of the intellect is, first of all, a dynamic concept of the development of the intellect, considering the process of its formation in the course of the individual development of the child. This approach is called genetic. The concept of J. Piaget provides answers to the most acute questions of human cognitive development:
- whether the subject is able to distinguish the internal, subjective world from the external and what are the limits of such a distinction;
- what is the substratum of the ideas (thoughts) of the subject: are they the product of the external world acting on the mind or are they the product of the subject's own mental activity;
- what are the relationships between the thought of the subject and the phenomena of the external world;
- what is the essence of the laws to which this interaction is subject, in other words, what is the origin and development of the basic scientific concepts that a thinking person uses.

The central position of the concept of J. Piaget is the position on the interaction between the organism and the environment, or the position on equilibrium.

The external environment is constantly changing, says Piaget. The organism, i.e. a subject that exists independently of the external environment (object) strives to establish a balance with it. Equilibrium with the environment can be established in two ways: either by adapting the external environment to itself by the subject by changing it, or by changing the subject itself. Both that and another is possible, only by fulfillment by the subject of certain actions. Performing actions, the subject thereby finds ways or schemes of these actions that allow him to restore the disturbed balance. According to Piaget, the scheme of action is the sensorimotor equivalent of a concept, a cognitive skill. “She, (the scheme of action), - comments L. F. Obukhova, - allows the child to economically and adequately act with objects of the same class or with different states of the same object.” If the child is affected by an object of another class, then in order to restore the disturbed balance, he is forced to perform new actions and thereby find new schemes (concepts) that are adequate to this class of objects. So, action is an "intermediary" between the child and the outside world, with the help of which he actively manipulates and experiments with real objects (things, their shape, properties, etc.). Indeed, when a child is confronted with new problems (objects) that violate his already established ideas about the world (disturb the balance), this makes him look for answers to them. The "knocked out of balance" child tries to balance himself with this changed environment by explaining it, that is, by developing new schemes or concepts. The different and ever more complex methods of explanation used by the child are the stages of his cognition. Thus, the need to restore balance by the subject is the driving force of his cognitive (intellectual) development, and the balance itself is an internal regulator of the development of intellect. That is why Piaget's intellect is "the highest and most perfect form of psychological adaptation, the most effective ... tool in the interactions of the subject with the outside world," and thought itself is "a compressed form of action." The development of action schemes, in other words, cognitive development occurs “as the child’s experience in practical action with objects grows and becomes more complex” due to “the internalization of objective actions, i.e. their gradual transformation into mental operations (actions performed internally)” .

From what has been said, it is clear that the very schemes of actions, operations, i.e. the concepts discovered by the subject as a result of his actions are not innate. They are the result of objective actions performed by an active subject when interacting with an object. Therefore, the content of mental concepts is determined by the characteristics of this object. An innate character is the activity of the subject, fixed in him by the genetic program of development. Consequently, the pace of the child's cognitive development is determined, firstly, by the level of his activity, the degree of maturation of the nervous system, secondly, by the experience of his interaction with the objects of the external environment affecting him, and, thirdly, by language and upbringing. Thus, we do not see anything innate in the level of development of the intellect. It is only innate that the intellect (cognitive development) is able to function. And the way of this functioning and the level of its achievements will be determined by the action of the listed factors. Therefore, all children go through the stages of cognitive development in the same sequence, but the methods of their passage and intellectual achievements will be different for everyone due to different conditions of their development.

So, we found out that the cognitive development of the subject is a necessary condition for his adaptation (adaptation). In order to adapt, i.e., to solve new problems, the organism must either modify its existing schemes of activity (concepts) or develop new ones. Thus, there are only two adaptation mechanisms. The first of these is the mechanism of assimilation, when an individual adapts new information (situation, object) to his existing schemes (structures), without changing them in principle, i.e., he includes a new object in his existing schemes of actions or structures. For example, if a newborn, a few moments after birth, can grab an adult's finger put into his palm, just like he can grab the parent's hair, a cube put into his hand, etc., i.e. each time he adapts new information to existing action plans. And here is an example illustrating the operation of the mechanism of assimilation in early childhood. At the sight of a fluffy spaniel, the child screams: "Doggy." He will say the same thing when he sees a fluffy setter or collie. But when he first sees a fur coat, he will again say “dog”, because. according to his system of concepts, everything fluffy is a dog. In the future, in addition to the characteristics - fluffy, a whole set of others are built into the concept of "dog": soft, four-legged, lively, friendly, tail, wet nose, etc. Thus, the concept is being improved, which allows us to further differentiate it from the concept of "fur coat".

Another is the mechanism of accommodation, when an individual adapts his previously formed reactions to new information (situation, object), i.e. he is forced to rebuild (modify) old schemes (structures) in order to adapt them to new information (situation, object). For example, if a child continues to suck on a spoon in order to satisfy hunger, i.e. try to adapt the new situation to the existing sucking pattern (assimilation mechanism), then soon he will be convinced that such behavior is ineffective (he cannot satisfy the feeling of hunger and thereby adapt to the situation) and he needs to change his old pattern (sucking), i.e. modify the movements of the lips and tongue in order to pick up food from the spoon (accommodation mechanism). Thus, a new scheme of action (a new concept) appears. Obviously, the functions of these two mechanisms are opposite. Thanks to assimilation, the existing schemes (concepts) are refined and improved, and thus balance with the environment is achieved by adapting the environment to the subject, and thanks to accommodation, restructuring, modification of existing schemes and the emergence of new, learned concepts. The nature of the relationship between them determines the qualitative content of human mental activity. Actually logical thinking as the highest form of cognitive development is the result of a harmonic synthesis between them. In the early stages of development, any mental operation is a compromise between assimilation and accommodation. The development of the intellect is the process of maturation of operational structures (concepts) that gradually grow out of the child's objective everyday experience against the background of the manifestation of these two main mechanisms.

According to Piaget, the process of development of the intellect consists of three large periods, within which the emergence and formation of three main structures (types of intellect) takes place. The first of these is sensorimotor intelligence, the duration of which is from birth to 2 years.

Within this period, the newborn perceives the world without knowing himself as a subject, without understanding his own actions. Real for him only that which is given to him through his sensations. He looks, listens, touches, smells, tastes, screams, hits, crushes, bends, throws, pushes, pulls, sprinkles, performs other sensory and motor actions. At this stage of development, the leading role belongs to the direct sensations and perception of the child. His knowledge of the world around him is formed on their basis. Therefore, this stage is characterized by the formation and development of sensitive and motor structures - sensory and motor abilities. One of the main questions is about the initial or primary patterns of action that allow the newborn to establish balance in the first hours and days of his life.

They, according to Piaget, are the reflexes of the newborn, with which he is born, and which allow you to act expediently in a limited number of situations. But since there are few of them, he is forced to change them and form new, more complex schemes on their basis. For example, by combining innate sucking and grasping reflexes, a newborn learns, firstly, to drag objects into his mouth. Secondly, this new scheme, combined with innate visual control, allows the child to use the nipple himself and, thirdly, to switch to a new type of feeding - from a spoon. There are 6 stages within sensorimotor intelligence.

1. Stage of exercise of reflexes (0-1 month). The example above was already given with a newborn who grabbed the parent's finger put into his hand, as well as any other object. If you touch his lips with your finger, he will begin to suck on it, just like any other object. The behavior of the newborn is subject to "mastering" all objects in contact with him with the help of innate reflexes (action patterns) of sucking and grasping (assimilation). He does not distinguish objects from each other and therefore treats everyone the same. Piaget believed that at this stage, children "exercise" those skills that they now possess, and since there are few of them, they repeat them over and over again.

2. Stage of primary circular reactions (1-4 months). The baby already distinguishes between sucking a blanket and a pacifier. Therefore, when he is hungry, he pushes back the blanket, preferring his mother's breast. He "becomes aware" of the existence of his fingers by bringing them to his mouth. He slowly sucks his thumb. He turns his head in the direction of the sounds made by the mother, and follows her movements around the room.

Obviously, all these are new patterns of action by which the baby adapts to his environment. He demands breasts, because “understood” that some objects he suckles give milk, while others do not. He intentionally raises and directs his thumb into his mouth. Finally, he follows the mother, which indicates visual-auditory coordination. All this is the result of accommodation. However, if the mother leaves the room or the favorite toy disappears from sight, then the baby does not react to this in any way, as if they never existed.

3. Stage of secondary circular reactions (coordination of vision and grasping) (4-8 months).

Accidentally hitting the sound "roly-poly" with his hand, the baby heard its melodic sound, which attracted his attention. He touched the toy again, and again the pleasant sounds were repeated. Repeating this movement many times, the baby “understands” that there is some connection between pushing the “roly-poly” and the music that it makes. Thus, at this stage, the child performs purposeful and, moreover, coordinated actions. Already known schemes are coordinated by the child in order to obtain the desired result. Behavior is still random (accidentally hit the "tumbler"). But if the child liked the result (music), then the action is repeated, until the need is met (balance is established).

Another aspect of development at this stage. An 8-month-old baby can find his favorite toy hidden in front of his eyes. If you cover it with something, he will find it in this place. At this stage, the child can "guess" the location of moving objects. For example, if a moving toy is hidden behind some object, then the child stretches his hand to the place where it should appear, “anticipating” its appearance. Thus, the fundamental difference between behavior at this stage and the previous one is that if before that it arose in response only to the direct contact of objects with the child's body, now it is provoked by objects located in space and not directly in contact with the child's body. In addition, the child begins to develop an idea of ​​the constancy of objects, that is, the realization that objects exist even if they cannot be seen. In other words, these are the first steps towards the objectification of the world and the subjectivization of one's own "I". The most important acquisition at this stage is the development of a reaction of anticipation.

4. Stage of coordination of secondary schemes (beginning) (8-12 months).

Piaget gives the following example with his 8 month old daughter. “Jacqueline is trying to grab the pack of cigarettes that I showed her. Then I place the pack between the intersecting rods that secure the toys to the top rail of the crib. She wants to get a pack, but, having not succeeded, she immediately looks at the bars, between which the object of her dreams sticks out. The girl looks ahead, grabs the rods, shakes them (means). The tutu falls and the baby grabs it (target). When the experiment was repeated, the girl had the same reaction, but without trying to grab the pack directly with her hands.

As you can see, the girl has invented means (pulls out rods from a wicker bed) to achieve a specific goal (get a pack). She already had two schemes in hand - aimlessly pulling out the rods and trying to grab a pack of cigarettes. Coordinating them among themselves, she formed a new scheme (behavior).

Thus, at the 4th stage of development, there is a further improvement of purposeful and arbitrary actions.

5. Stage of tertiary circular reactions (appearance of new funds) (1 year - 1.5 years).

The child's behavior becomes inquisitive: he carefully examines each new object before accepting or rejecting it. Experimentation is, in fact, the emergence of new mental schemes, the beginning of the actual mental activity. If before this stage the child's behavior was predominantly reflex in nature, then thanks to the ability to find new ways of interacting with unknown objects, the child easily reconfigures to situations unfamiliar to him. At this stage, the child develops the ability to adapt to a new situation, most often through trial and error.

6. The stage of invention of new means (the beginning of the symbolic) (1.5-2 years).

At this stage, the thinking and behavior of children are completely dependent on new information received by them both through the senses and through motor activity. Symbolic thinking allows the child to repeatedly reproduce the imprinted images-symbols of objects. For example, many parents remember how their one and a half year old child repeatedly repeated the same scene he loved: imagining a cookie in his hands, which in reality was not there, he repeatedly gave it to your mouth, and in response to this you said to him thanks. At this stage, the baby does mental operations not so much with specific objects as with their images. The constant experimentation of trial and error that characterizes Stage 5 is giving way to the ability to solve the simplest problems in your mind, based on images of objects. However, the transition from concrete-sensual thinking to figurative thinking is a long process that develops for about 2 years.

So, the course of intellectual development during the first two years of life goes from to conditional, their training and development of skills, the establishment of coordinated relationships between them, which gives the child the opportunity to experiment, i.e. perform actions like trial and error, and the emerging opportunity to anticipate development in a new situation, coupled with the existing intellectual potential, creates the basis for symbolic or pre-conceptual intelligence.