In the diagnostic classification, observation refers to unstructured methods. In turn, observation can be cross-sectional or longitudinal, included or passive, selective or continuous.
Let's talk today about screening integrative observation of preschool and junior children school age: with such observation, it is possible to record various parameters and characteristics of the activity of a group of children (or one child), depending on the tasks set by the psychologist. Such observation can be carried out in various educational and extracurricular situations, for example, during a lesson or during a break, at different times of the day - in the first or last lessons, in classes of the main cycle or in physical education, labor lessons, etc.
The main task of such observation can be considered the following - to identify children whose behavior or individual characteristics development differ from the behavior of the majority of children, in particular, the identification of children at risk for school maladjustment.
To do this, it is necessary to determine those parameters that should pay special attention during the observation process.
From our point of view, these parameters are the following:
Operational characteristics of activity (pace of activity, performance, characteristics of attention parameters);
- the nature of the child’s behavior, his purposefulness (regulatory maturity);
- peculiarities speech development;
- affective and emotional characteristics child;
- interaction of the child with children and adults (communicative aspect);
- motor harmony, child’s dexterity, lateral motor and sensory preferences.
CONDITIONS
Before we talk in detail about each of these parameters, I would like to offer you the one we use in practice school work technology for such observation and conditions for its implementation.
The conditions in this case include a mandatory agreement with the teacher or educator on the time and purpose of the psychologist’s visit to the class or group of children.
The teacher should be well aware that you will come to class not for the purpose of testing the children’s knowledge or (God forbid) testing the teacher’s readiness, but for a completely different reason. This requires the psychologist to conduct preliminary work (at least a conversation) with the teacher.
The most convenient way to do this is at a school council. You can talk with the teacher in a more informal setting. However, it makes sense to talk about your visits to lessons and at the teacher’s council, so that the school administration is aware of your plans. In this case, it is not necessary for the teacher to warn the children: for them, it is as if you just came to visit the lesson.
The next condition for carrying out such an observation is your “invisibility” - to achieve this goal, it is best to sit on one of the last desks and not show a lively and emotional interest in what is happening in the class.
If you don't know the children, it's best to come to class during recess in advance, say the day before, and chat a little with the kids. This way you will remove the “stranger” effect. This is quite important, because otherwise the children’s behavior may be unnatural, they may mistake you for an inspector, which will certainly affect their behavior and reactions. Experience shows that children quickly get used to the fact that a psychologist sometimes sits in class and simply stop noticing his presence.
Another condition for carrying out such observation are pre-prepared diagram sheets and sheets for recording observations.
To do this, you need to know how many rows of desks there are in the classroom, how many desks are in each row, and whether they are single desks or for two. If all children have their own permanent place, you can sign the desks in advance and then number them, as shown below on the diagram sheet.
Sheet diagram of the placement of children in the classroom. X is a place where a psychologist can be located.
If the teacher allows the children to sit at their discretion or the children sit on different desks during each lesson, then you will have to write names in the already “numbered” places during the lesson. This is quite realistic even if the class is large, because the teacher asks the children, calling them by their first or last names, makes targeted comments, praises the children personally, etc.
It is important that your first meeting with unfamiliar children does not coincide with the test. Such Kind of activity children is very informative for screening purposes, but in this case it may be difficult to identify your observations.
Another condition for screening observation can be considered its “non-disposable” nature. Although, of course, a single observation of a small number of children can be quite informative, a single observation will clearly not be enough to identify certain characteristics of children that lead to problems in learning and/or behavior.
In this case, the risk group may not include children who are simply not physically in the class, but a completely normal, but easily ill child, indirect signs(fatigue, irritability, low level mental activity), may fall under the radar of a psychologist.
Observation should take place in various educational (life) situations. You can even describe these situations.
Beginning of the school day: first, second lessons. At the same time, the psychologist must be present at lessons that implement different educational tasks and require different types of activity from the child.
End of the school day: fourth, fifth lessons.
Beginning of the week (quarter).
End of the week (quarter).
A physical education lesson, a labor lesson (the information obtained from observing children in these lessons is extremely important).
The beginning of the school day (first, second lessons) - test or independent work.
The end of the school day (fourth, fifth lessons) - test or independent work.
Rehearsal for an event.
Holiday or any event.
Turn.
Dining room.
Walk.
This list can be expanded or narrowed; the main thing here is to decide on the purpose of observation and take the first step.
The reader may have a completely fair question: why doesn’t the teacher himself engage in such observation? An experienced, attentive teacher can quickly identify children who, from his point of view, will experience problems. But the teacher has a completely different task, a purely pedagogical one. He is in able to understand, which children will have difficulty in the future, but it is not his task to determine why this or that child will have difficulty.
The teacher can help the psychologist identify children at risk: fill out a questionnaire or questionnaire to assess children's behavior.
It should be clearly understood that identifying the causes and mechanisms of problems (developmental features) of a child discovered during observation is no longer a task of screening, but of an in-depth psychological examination.
It is convenient to enter the primary observation results in a table (see Table 1). If there are problems in a particular area, a cross or a tick is placed in the corresponding column. It should be borne in mind that in a situation of significant severity of features (problems) in any area there may be several such marks. In the future, if the task of observation includes clarification or qualitative specificity of problems, it is more convenient to use additional forms (see the corresponding section).
TABLE 1. General scheme for monitoring children
Serial number |
Last name, first name of the child |
Desk no. |
Availability of features in the field |
|||||
Operational characteristics |
Purposeful activity (regulatory maturity) |
Speech development |
Affective-emotional sphere |
Communication features |
Motor sphere (motility) |
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OPERATING CHARACTERISTICS
These parameters are closely related to the general level of mental activity of the child and are dynamic, that is, changing during the activity itself.
The operational characteristics of the activity primarily include:
Performance;
- pace of activity.
Performance
Efficiency is, in our opinion, a basic characteristic that largely determines the child’s ability to adapt to the conditions of regular education.
It can be viewed as “the potential ability of an individual to perform a purposeful activity at a given level of performance for a specified time” (Brief psychological dictionary, 1985).
Performance, of course, depends both on the external conditions of activity and on the psychophysiological resources of the child. In the process of activity, there is a change in performance, its decrease.
For the same type or long-term activity, certain periods can be distinguished: the period of getting used to one or another type of activity (varies in duration for different children), the period of optimal performance, and fatigue. The latter may be uncompensated (in this situation, no motivational, gaming or other factors are able to return performance to more high level) and compensated.
We can also talk about satiety as one of the performance characteristics. Saturation is not directly related to fatigue, especially uncompensated fatigue; it rather characterizes the motivational aspect of performance. In this case, we can say that the child is simply tired of this or that activity. He was fed up with her. In this case, an external or internal change in motivation most often removes the satiety factor. However, satiety can also be observed in combination with fatigue.
Fatigue can be assessed not only by the effectiveness of the activity (changes in handwriting, an increase in the number of errors, missed assignments, incomplete completion), but also by external signs. To the latter (objective from the point of view physiological mechanisms manifestations of fatigue) should include the appearance of motor discomfort, manifested in fussiness, frequent changes postures, sitting, bending your legs under you, supporting your head with your hands. The student begins to yawn, take frequent and deep breaths, rub his eyes, etc.
Fatigue will also affect the characteristics of attention: such as a narrowing of the scope of attention, a decrease in the time of concentration on a task, and distractibility to external stimuli.
Manifestations of fatigue can also include the appearance of stereotypical motor reactions: chewing a pen, twirling hair on a finger, rubbing, crumpling the edges of clothes, including the appearance of true autostimulation movements, such as rocking, rhythmic patting of the foot, fingers on the desk.
It is extremely important that this kind of psychological manifestations of fatigue will not always be indicators of high anxiety and a tendency to intropunitive personal reactions, indicating a disharmonious variant mental development. Quite often, such motor stereotypic reactions, in accordance with the theory of affective basic regulation of O.S. Nikolskaya has just a way of toning mental activity when tired.
In the case when we are dealing with a truly disharmonious variant of development, we will see such manifestations not so much in a situation of fatigue under prolonged stress, but in situations that are psychotraumatic and emotionally significant for the child (for example, when a teacher glances at a class magazine, choosing a “victim” to call to the board).
Thus, using the observation method, we can identify the following performance parameters:
Too rapid uncompensated fatigue (low performance);
- relatively slow, but persistent, uncompensated fatigue (low performance);
- rapid but compensated fatigue, associated primarily with motivation of activity;
- satiety with activity, associated primarily with motivation of activity.
It is quite obvious that the appearance of signs of fatigue and the onset of fatigue itself (that is, a decrease in performance) affects not only the nature of activity and parameters of attention, but also the pace of activity.
Pace of activity
A uniform, steady pace of activity should be considered normative: the child manages to do everything that the teacher has planned. By observing children's behavior in class or in other situations, several categories of children can be identified.
Some children begin to work quite quickly and actively, but as the tasks get tired or become more complicated, the pace of their activity decreases (often in accordance with a decrease in interest in the tasks). They can't keep track general direction lesson, which further affects the loss of interest in it. Anxiety may appear like: “I don’t understand what we’re talking about, what’s happening here.” The child begins to get distracted, fidget and try to peek at the neighbor. Such distractions can be mistaken for the child's difficulty concentrating. However, this is associated with a decrease in the pace of activity due to fatigue. Such phenomena can most often be observed either in children who are extremely exhausted already in the first lessons, or in children with reduced performance at the end of the “working” day.
In other children, one can note not so much a decrease in the pace of activity as its pronounced unevenness. Teachers say about such children that they “work on batteries” (turned on and off). Some tasks cause them to sharply slow down the pace of activity, while others, on the contrary, cause them to speed up.
Most often, this type of tempo fluctuation is observed in boys with speech development problems (partial immaturity of the verbal component of activity). At the same time, non-verbal tasks (in particular, in mathematics lessons: solving examples, not problems) are completed by the child at an adequate pace, and analysis of verbal material (in this case, the conditions of the tasks) is difficult. It is clear that such a child will look like a “turtle” in Russian language lessons.
We can also highlight the difficulties of entering and including a child in work. Such children “swing” very slowly at the beginning of the lesson: they can take a long time to get ready, slowly and as if reluctantly begin to work (that is, show pronounced signs inertia of mental activity), but gradually, getting involved in a task or in certain type activity, such a child begins to work at an adequate pace. But when the activity changes (for example, in the next lesson, if they are not doubled), he will have the same pacing problems when included in the new activity.
You can also highlight a simply slow pace in all types of child activity. Not only does he not work fast enough in class, but he also writes slowly, takes out his textbooks slowly, and turns the pages. This inherent pace of activity in a child will manifest itself in everything, even in speech and eating. In this case, we cannot talk about some kind of pathology, but we can talk about the discrepancy between the capabilities (in this case, the pace) and the requirements imposed on the child by the educational environment (in this case, the program).
Sometimes the pace of activity slows down in traumatic and expert situations: during tests and independent work, as well as when answering at the board in various conditions.
The most typical situations: anxious child and directive teacher, anxious child and time pressure. However, other situations are also possible: the teacher’s rejection of the child, his (the teacher’s) confidence in the child’s incompetence.
Situational can be called a decrease in the pace of a somatically weakened or ill child.
Thus, the following parameters of the pace of activity can be distinguished:
A sharp decline pace due to fatigue (physical or mental);
- unevenness or fluctuations in the pace of activity;
- low individual pace of activity, manifested in all spheres of mental activity (as a rule, associated with a general low level of mental activity, mental tone);
- situational (psychologically determined) decrease in the pace of activity, up to stupor;
- situational, somatically determined decrease in the pace of activity.
It is quite obvious that the pace of activity normatively decreases against the background of fatigue after responsible and difficult tasks (independent or tests), and is also often associated with such characteristics of modern children as weather sensitivity, somatic weakness, and often insufficient or irrational nutrition.
For example, it was noticed that in the fifth and sixth grades, when children stop (for various reasons) carrying breakfast with them or eating in the school cafeteria, the pace of their activity and the general level of mental activity, especially in the last lessons, decrease markedly.
Observing a child’s behavior in class and outside of it (on a walk, in the cafeteria), you can notice that he behaves differently. Namely: a child who has “withered” by the middle of the lesson, unable to keep up not only with the general pace, but even with himself, suddenly turns into a “perpetual motion machine” during recess. He rushes around, pushes, shows unprecedented activity. But this activity can be characterized as follows: unproductive and unfocused, that is, chaotic. In this case, the child shows us the same fatigue as before, but here he has the possibility of motor discharge.
Another option is possible: an active child who works at a reasonable pace in class sits indifferently during recess, not joining in the general bustle. And this also should not confuse the psychologist, since in both cases we see only different reactions for fatigue. Moreover, the first of the described cases reflects the specifics of the performance of a child at risk for school failure, and the second reflects the specifics of the pace of a child at risk for communication problems.
Thus, we see the influence of fatigue both on tempo characteristics and on changes in the nature of behavior in various children.
It is convenient to enter the results of monitoring the features of the operational characteristics of activities in a table (see Table 2).
TABLE 2. Features of operational characteristics of activities
Serial number |
Last name, first name of the child |
Desk no. |
Performance |
Pace of activity |
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Performance fluctuations |
Performance is reduced |
Performance is markedly reduced |
Uneven pace of activity |
Reduced pace of activity * |
The pace of activity is situationally reduced** |
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* In the case of a pronounced decrease in the tempo characteristics of the activity, several marks are placed in the corresponding column (for example, ++ or +++).
** If there is a situational decrease in the pace of activity, it is necessary to clarify what the likely nature of this decrease is: somatic or psychological.
Natalya SEMAGO,
candidate of psychological sciences,
PPMS-center SAO,
Moscow
Full mastery of all components educational activities which include:
1)
learning motives, 2) learning goal, 3) learning task, 4) learning actions and operations
(orientation, material transformation, control and evaluation).
A significant place in the teaching of school disciplines is occupied by the so-called
meta-subject learning activities. By “meta-subject” actions we mean
mental actions of students aimed at analyzing and managing their cognitive activity.
Students' mastery of universal learning activities occurs in the context of academic subjects.
Requirements for the development of universal learning activities
are reflected in the planned results of mastering educational programs
subjects of different teaching materials in different ways. Each academic subject, depending on its
the content and methods of organizing students’ educational activities reveals
certain opportunities for the formation of universal educational actions.
The connection between universal educational activities and the content of basic academic subjects
stage is determined by the following statements:
1.UUD represent an integral system in which it is possible to distinguish
interconnected and mutually determining types of actions.
2. Formation of UUD is a purposeful, systematic process that
implemented through all subject areas and extracurricular activities.
3. The UUDs specified by the standard determine the emphasis in content selection, planning and
The principle of completeness of coverage of the control object, consisting in the requirement to include into consideration all available information about the characteristics of the internal economic space and external environment of the enterprise. This requirement is also explained by the fact that risk factors, having arisen in one place, can manifest themselves in any other area of the enterprise.
The principle of temporary deployment description of the management system is the need to take into account that the time intervals between the beginning of the analysis of the risk situation, the beginning of the development of anti-risk control action, between the point of implementation of the control action and the moment of discovery of the results of risk management can be very noticeable.
The principle of soft coercion to the execution of risk management institutions ( methodological recommendations) declares that a society interested in stable work manufacturing enterprises, should encourage the development of economic risk management institutions and adherence to proven methodological instructions on economic risk management.
A distinctive feature of the problem statement formulated below, based on the above set of principles, will be the understanding of the enterprise as an economic system of the “object” type, that is, an economic system that functions indefinitely long time, but limited in space (Kleiner, 2006).
2.2. Operational principles of economic risk management
Problems of economic risk management are associated, first of all, with the fact that risk is not perceived directly by the senses or by some traditional measuring means. Risk is present only in the form of hypothetical knowledge of its existence, in the form of an assumption that some unknown yet, but very real obstacles may arise that will not allow achieving the intended goals of economic activity, for example, expressed in the form of achieving specified (specific and habitual) values of economic activity indicators.
In order, however, to achieve, to one degree or another, the desired result and not allow an economic entity to deviate from the goal of its activity, it is necessary to make explicit and specific, presented as measurable or assessable risk characteristics. Such characteristics are usually called operational, and the process of their isolation and description is operationalized.
The activity of an enterprise (company), considered from a systemic point of view, unfolds in a certain space and time, as illustrated by the diagram in Fig. 2.1 (Kleiner, 2010). In space, an enterprise is represented by the characteristics of the internal environment of the enterprise, as well as information about its external environment. To complete such a description, the boundaries of the enterprise as an object of economic interactions must be indicated. In a time perspective, the enterprise should be represented by its current state, as well as retrospective information and some predictive estimates about the future. It is natural that spatial characteristics should be tied to the corresponding time intervals.
Rice. 2.1. Components of the company's operating configuration
Thus, in this context operational means, firstly, the presentation of the phenomenon of economic risk as a set of operational characteristics and their meanings, and, secondly, the phenomenon itself is considered as a sequence of events, operations or actions unfolding over time. During the process of operationalization, the researcher or developer mentally transforms uncertainty into something that can be specified. economic analysis category of economic risk, while separating its operational characteristics from the phenomenon itself.
The operationalization of the phenomenon of economic risk in the activities of enterprises involves the identification of an ordered set of operational characteristics in the course of performing the following set of actions:
a) verbal setting of the boundaries of the risk management object;
b) determining the composition of operational characteristics of economic risk, etc.;
c) choosing a method for managing economic risk;
d) definition of the controlled variable and choice of level indicator economic risk;
e) identification of interfering influences - risk factors for the described situation of economic risk (by performing special procedure analysis of the economic activities of the enterprise and its environment);
f) synthesis, selection or formation possible ways management and rules for the formation or selection of relevant control anti-risk actions;
g) development of a set of control anti-risk actions;
h) putting forward hypotheses and constructing models of the dependence of level indicators and economic risk factors, as well as models of the relationship of risk level indicators and control anti-risk influences.
Since the description of the situation of economic risk is created to solve managerial management problems, and the area of existence of the phenomenon of economic risk is the purposeful activity of the enterprise, then in order to adequately describe this phenomenon it is necessary to fix the economic situation in which the study of the operational characteristics of this phenomenon will be carried out. This is all the more necessary if we take into account that a significant amount of time may pass from the stage of analyzing the risk situation to the stage of implementing the solution, and many characteristics of that initial risk situation may change significantly by the beginning of the next stage.
Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish between three different points on the time axis and develop descriptions of risk situations taking into account the following distinction:
a) the risk situation during the period t en conducting a study of economic risk in the activities of the enterprise;
b) the risk situation at the moment t etc deciding on the need to respond to risk;
c) the risk situation during the period t post after the implementation of the adopted anti-risk impact.
In the latter case, the situation at the enterprise is considered, which, according to the forecast of the developer (risk manager), should be expected as a result of the anti-risk impact.
In the diagram shown (Fig. 2.2), the phenomenon of economic risk is decomposed in accordance with general theory management into its constituent operational characteristics, which allows us to begin to formulate the formulation of the management problem. The control object is schematically designated as a “situation of economic (business) risk.”
For the task of managing economic risk in the activities of an enterprise, the operational characteristics can traditionally be: a controlled variable, control action(or control variable) and disturbances or interference. Naturally, when setting the task of managing economic risk, these variables will be specified, that is, named and described in terms of the corresponding subject area, so that they can be directly used in the processes of analysis (assessment) and management.
Rice. 2.2. Scheme of operational characteristics of the phenomenon of economic risk
Below are piled original definitions operational characteristics of the phenomenon of economic risk in the activities of enterprises. In some cases, manifestations of economic risk in the activities of enterprises are called “economic risk” (see, for example: Kachalov, 2002).
Risk situation can be defined as a set of qualitative and quantitative characteristics, conditions and circumstances in which the enterprise carries out its economic activities associated with economic risk. The concept of a risk situation may include not only the situation created specifically during the period of risk research, but also the reasons that led to the establishment of this situation, if they could be identified. The specific composition of characteristics that should be included in the description of the risk situation for any object and research option is difficult to determine in advance. Let us only emphasize that we must proceed from the formulation of the goal of economic activity, deviation from which will characterize the result of the manifestation of the risk phenomenon.
1. Diagnostics of the operational characteristics of the child’s activity
Operational characteristics of activity are understood as characteristics of performance and rate of mental activity.
Pieron-Ruzer technique
Target: study of attention parameters (sustainability, distribution, switchability), assessment of the characteristics of the pace of activity, manifestation of signs of fatigue and satiety.
Form of conduct : individual, group
Material: method form with image geometric shapes(4 types) spaced equally apart in a 10/10 square matrix.
Age of subjects : children 5-8 years old.
Procedure:
A blank form of the methodology is placed in front of the child and the psychologist, filling out the empty sample figures (in the upper left part of the form), says
Instructions:“Look, in this square I’ll put a dot, in the triangle – like this dash (vertical), I’ll leave the circle blank, I won’t draw anything in it, and in the rhombus – like this dash (horizontal). You will fill in all the other figures yourself, just as I showed you.”
The sample on the sheet remains open until the child finishes his work.
Processing the results:
After the child starts working, the psychologist turns on the stopwatch and records the number of figures on the form filled out by the child every 30 seconds or 1 minute (marked with a dot or line directly on the form). It is advisable to record from what moment the child begins to work from memory, that is, without support by looking at the sample.
The protocol must note how the child fills out the figures: diligently, accurately or impulsively; how does this affect the pace of work; what motivation turned out to be most effective for the child.
Indicators:
Ability to hold instructions;
Parameters of attention (stability, distribution, switching);
The number of correctly filled figures in relation to their total number (correctness index);
The number of completed figures per minute (dynamics of changes in the pace of activity);
The nature of the necessary motivation for activity (motivation for achievement, play, competition)
5-5.5 years – it is possible to perform the method in its full presentation version (filling in 3 figures) with various errors, in particular omissions and fairly quickly onset of satiety (the child is “enough” for no more than 5-6 lines). The pace of activity is often uneven;
6-7 years – full implementation is available with gradual learning (by the end of the second line the child stops referring to the model) and possible isolated errors. The pace of activity either increases or, having reached a certain level, remains constant.
After 7 years, error-free implementation of the technique is available. Great importance begins to gain speed of execution and the number of “returns” to the pattern. Good results of the method are considered to be: filling out 100 figures on the form on average in up to 3 minutes, without errors, or with a single error, but rather with your own correction of the error, when focusing not so much on the sample, but on your own marks on the form.
2. Diagnosis of features of mnestic activity
Memorizing 10 words (according to A.R. Luria)
Target: diagnostics of the volume and speed of auditory-verbal memorization of a certain number of words, the volume of delayed reproduction.
Stimulus material : for memorization, 10 simple (monosyllabic), unrelated words in the singular nominative case are used.
Age of subjects: no earlier than 7.5-8 years.
Procedure:
Instruction A: “Now we will memorize the words. Listen carefully. After I say all the words, you will repeat them to me as you remember, in any order. Try to remember as many words as possible."
The words are read slowly (at intervals of 0.5-1 seconds) and clearly. After the child repeats words for the first time, the reproduced words are marked in the protocol table. It is advisable to note the sequence in which words are reproduced. No comments are made about the child’s activities.
Instruction B:“Now I will read the same words again, and you will repeat them again, both those that you said and new ones that you will remember.”
The memorization procedure is repeated. Depending on the purposes of the study, the number of repetitions can be limited to 5, or words are repeated until complete memorization (as a rule, this requires no more than 9-10 repetitions)
During the third and subsequent repetitions of words, the instruction in expanded form is not repeated. The psychologist simply says: “One more time.”
After stable memorization of all 10 words, they move on to other diagnostic methods. After 40-50 minutes, the psychologist asks the child to remember the words.
Instruction B:“Now let’s remember the words that we memorized”
The protocol records all the words that the child remembered and the sequence in which he reproduced them. Based on the results of the study, a memorization curve can be constructed.
Indicators:
Volume of direct auditory-verbal memorization;
Duration of memorization of a given volume of words;
Delayed playback volume;
Dynamics of material memorization
The technique can be used in full, starting from 7-8 years of age. Memorization of 9+2 words is available to healthy children. Delayed recall of 8+2 words is available to approximately 80% of children;
For children under 7 years of age, it is possible to use a smaller amount of vocabulary material (5-8 words) with appropriate standard performance.
Using a large number of healthy subjects, it was established that in healthy people, both adults and school-age children, the memory curve is as follows: 5, 7, 9, or 6,8,9 or 5,7, 10, i.e. By the third repetition, the subject reproduces 9 or 10 words and during subsequent repetitions remains on the numbers 9 or 10.
Children with organic damage the brain reproduces a relatively smaller number of words. They may say unnecessary words and get stuck on this mistake. Many such “extra” words are produced by children in a state of disinhibition. The “memorization curve” may indicate a weakening of active attention and severe fatigue. For example, sometimes a child reproduces 8 or 9 words for the second time, and on subsequent trials he recalls fewer and fewer of them. Such a subject suffers from forgetfulness and absent-mindedness. The “memorization curve” can take the form of a “plateau,” i.e., children reproduce the same number of the same words every time. Such stability indicates emotional lethargy and lack of interest in remembering more.
An example of the technique
1. Analyze the protocol using the “10 words” method and draw up a “memorization curve.” To do this, repetition numbers are plotted along the horizontal axis, and the number of correctly reproduced words is plotted along the vertical axis. Draw conclusions regarding the memory characteristics of the subject.
| Forest | Bread | Window | Chair | Water | Brother | Horse | Needle | Mushroom | Honey |
|
| 1 | + | + | + | + | ||||||
| 2 | + | + | + | + | ||||||
| 3 | + | + | + | + | + | |||||
| 4 | + | + | + | |||||||
| 5 | + | + | + | + | + | + |
||||
| In one hour | + | + | + |
Methodology for studying indirect memorization (according to A.N. Leontiev)
Target: the study of arbitrary forms of memorization, the ability to indirectly memorize, the study of the characteristics of the child’s mental activity, the possibility of using an external means for memorization tasks, the amount of material memorized indirectly.
Stimulus material: 30 pictures depicting objects (towel, chair, bicycle, watch, etc.)
Age of subjects: from 4.5 to 8 years, for children over 8-9 years old it is more logical to use the “Pictogram” method.
Procedure:
Cards are laid out in random order on the table in front of the child. At the same time, it is necessary to clarify whether all of them are familiar to him. If any image is not clear to the child, it should be explained. To work with children from 4-4.5 years to 5-5.5 years, you can use not all cards, but the ones that are most understandable to the child. Accordingly, the simplest and most specific concepts are selected for memorization, but in any case, the number of cards should be at least 3 times greater than the number of words presented for memorization.
With children of this age, you should not use more than 5-7 words to memorize (rain, fire, day, lunch, fight, gift, answer, holiday, neighbor). With children of senior preschool and primary school age, you can use 7-8 words, words such as grief, friendship, strength.
Instructions1: “Now you will remember words, but in an unusual way. I will tell you a word, and to make it easier for you to remember it, you will choose a picture that will remind you of it and help you remember this word. The words that I will tell you are not drawn anywhere here, but for any word you can find a picture that will remind you of it. Then you will look at the picture and remember the word itself.”
If the child doubts whether he can do this, it is necessary to explain to the child that there is no right or wrong decision (choice), it is only important to choose some “suitable” picture and explain how it will resemble a specific word.
Instruction 2:“You need to remember the word “morning.” Look carefully which card can remind you of the morning.”
After selecting each card, you need to ask the child an explanation of the connection: “How will this card remind you of the word...?”
The protocol records all the child’s reactions and explanations.
The cards chosen by the child are put aside face down for later presentation during delayed playback. After 20-40 minutes, the child is presented with the images he has chosen in a random order.
Instruction 3:“Look at this picture. What word did you remember when you chose her? Remember this word."
The protocol records the words reproduced by the child, recording errors in reproduction and their features.
Indicators:
Availability of mediation as a logical operation;
Adequacy of selection of the intermediary link;
Adequacy of the child’s explanation of the logical connection;
The nature of reproduction (the stimulus word, the logical connection itself, or some other word is reproduced);
Number of words correctly reproduced
Age standards for fulfillment
Mediation as a process is available to children starting from 4.5-5 years of age with a little organizing help from an adult;
By the age of 6-7 years, a child is able to find mediating images with an adequate explanation of their choice for the majority specific words and individual abstract concepts (for example, “friendship”, “work”);
After 7-8 years, children have sufficient access to the mediation of abstract concepts.
An example of the technique
Examination protocol for mediated memorization of K. (8 years old)
| Word | Selectable card | Explanation of connection | Playable word | Explanation |
| Light | Lamp | The lamp is shining | Bulb | Like a sun |
| Dinner | Bread | When they eat, they take bread | Eat | - |
| Forest | Mushroom | Mushrooms grow in the forest | Forest | - |
| Teaching | Notebook | When you study, you write | Write | - |
| Hammer | Shovel | Similar | Scoop | - |
| Cloth | Bed | Also made of matter | Bed | Sleep |
| Field | Field | It is depicted | Field | - |
| A game | Cat with a ball | Plays with a ball | Playing | - |
| Bird | Cow | Also an animal | Animal | - |
| Horse | Crew | Carried by a horse | horse | - |
| Road | Automobile | Driving down the road | Sand | Riding on the sand |
| Night | House | Sleeping in the house at night | - | - |
| Mouse | Painting | It's like there's a mouse there | Hedgehog | Hedgehog |
| Milk | Cup | Pour into a glass | Milk | - |
| Chair | Sofa | They sit on them | Chair | - |
K. selected pictures for words at an average pace. For two words, when presented with a card, he cannot remember the corresponding word, but names the image on it. Such errors indicate a lack of ability to retain indirect connections in memory and the impossibility of remembering by association. Explanation of connections broken in 7 words. This means that the process of establishing indirect connections is difficult, and the connections themselves are fragile. The technique confirms that the processes of semantic memory (storage, and therefore reproduction) in the girl are disrupted.
3. Diagnostics of the perceptual-effective component of cognitive activity
Methodology “Cut pictures” (A.N. Bershtein)
Target: identification of the level of formation of constructive and spatial thinking in a visually effective manner, the specificity of the formation of spatial representations (the ability to correlate parts and the whole).
Stimulus material: Color images (drawings) consisting of a different number of parts with different configurations.
Images cut into 2 equal parts;
Images cut into 3 equal parts;
Images cut into 4 equal parts;
Images cut into 4 unequal parts;
4-piece images cut "at a 90-degree diagonal";
Images cut into 8 sectors;
Images cut into 5 unequal parts
Age range: from 2.5 to 6-7 years.
Procedure:
A reference image is placed on the table in front of the child and next to it, in a random order, the details of the same image, but cut up, are laid out.
Instructions: “Put the pieces together into a picture like this one.”
The technique allows us to identify not only the current level of development of the perceptual-effective component of thinking, but also to assess the child’s ability to learn new types of activity.
The time for the examination depends on the age of the child, the pace of his mental activity and the amount of assistance required from an adult.
Types of possible help
Stimulating assistance;
Organizing assistance;
Outlining the whole image with the child's hand;
Full training assistance with determination of the possibility of “transfer” to a similar task.
Indicators:
Not only the success of the task is analyzed, but also the child’s activity strategy. An inadequate method of action is expressed in the fact that the child chaotically places parts of the drawing next to each other, may “hang inertly” on any part, and stop manipulating the remaining parts. If a child cannot use the help of an adult even after several extensive trainings (in the absence of negativism or protest reactions), this is a sufficient differential diagnostic indicator for assessing the nature of the child’s cognitive activity.
Age standards for fulfillment:
Children 3-3.5 years old usually cope with the task of folding pictures cut in half both vertically and horizontally, but mirror versions of the “assembly” are often encountered;
Children aged 4-4.5 years usually cope with the task of folding pictures cut into three equal parts (along the picture or across it) into 4 equal rectangular parts;
Did he understand the task himself?
How much stimulating or organizing help does he need?
2. “Continue laying out as you did. Arrange all the cards into groups and give each group its own name - common to all the pictures.” It is necessary that the child give the name of each of the groups he has identified and explain his generalizations.
3.“You used to fold a card with a card. And now we need to unite group with group so that there are fewer groups. But in such a way that each such new group can be given a common name, as before.”
As the child combines groups, the psychologist asks clarifying questions about one or another new group.
Indicators:
Criticality and adequacy of implementation;
Job availability level;
The level of development of generalizations is the main type of generalizations;
The presence of specifics of mental activity (diversity of thinking, reliance on insignificant, latent signs, inconsistency of judgments, tendency to excessive detail);
Amount of assistance needed
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