Communication is one of the most important factors in the overall mental development of a child. Only in contact with adults is it possible for children to assimilate the socio-historical experience of humanity and realize their innate ability to become representatives of the human race.

We understand communication as the interaction of people participating in this process, aimed at coordinating and uniting their efforts in order to achieve a common result. The main and starting point in the current understanding of communication should be considered its interpretation as an activity. Applying the general concept of activity developed by A.N. Leontiev (1976) to analyze communication as one of the types of activity, we came to the following conclusions.

Communication, like any activity, is objective. The subject or the object of communication activity is another person, a partner in joint activity. The specific subject of communication activity is each time those qualities and properties of the partner that manifest themselves during interaction. Reflected in the child's consciousness, they then become products communication. At the same time, the child gets to know himself. The idea of ​​oneself (about some of one’s qualities and properties revealed in interaction) is also included in the product of communication.

Like any other activity, communication is aimed at satisfying a specific human need. We believe that a person has an independent need for communication those. not reducible to other needs (for example, the need for food and warmth, for impressions and activity, for the desire for safety), ... the need for communication consists of the desire to know oneself and other people. Since such knowledge is closely intertwined with the attitude towards other people, we can say that the need for communication is a desire for evaluation and self-esteem: to evaluate another person, to find out how this other person evaluates a given person, and to self-esteem. According to our data, by 2.5 months the need for communication can be established in children.

Under the motive activity, we understand, according to the concept of A.N. Leontyev, what the activity is undertaken for. This means that the motive for the communication activity is the communication partner. Consequently, for a child, the motive for communication activities is an adult. Man as a motive for communication is a complex, multifaceted object. During the first seven years of life, the child gradually becomes familiar with its various qualities and properties. An adult always remains the motive of communication for a child, but what naturally changes in this person all the time is what most motivates the child to activity.

Communication with an adult in most cases is only part of a broader interaction between a child and an adult, prompted by other needs of children. Therefore, the development of communication motives occurs in close connection with the basic needs of the child, to which we include the need for new impressions, active activity, recognition and support. On this basis, we identify three main categories of motives for communication - cognitive, business and personal.

Cognitive motives for communication arise in children in the process of satisfying the need for new impressions, at the same time the child has reasons to turn to an adult. Business motives for communication are born in children in the course of satisfying the need for active activity as a result of the need for help from adults. And finally personal motives for communication are specific to that sphere of interaction between a child and an adult, which constitutes the activity of communication itself. If cognitive and business motives of communication play a service role and mediate the achievement of more distant, final motives, then personal motives receive their ultimate satisfaction in the activity of communication.

Communication takes place in the form of actions that constitute a unit of an integral process. An action is characterized by the goal it is aimed at achieving and the task it solves. The action is a rather complex formation, which includes several even smaller units, which we call means of communication. The latter, apparently, are equivalent to operations, according to the terminology of A.N. Leontyev. The study of communication between children and adults led us to the identification of three main categories of means of communication: 1) expressive-facial, 2) object-active and 3) speech operations. The first express, the second depict, and the third indicate the content that the child seeks to convey to an adult and receive from him.

The analysis showed that the lines of development of different aspects of communication give rise to several stages, or levels, that naturally replace each other, at each of which the activity of communication appears in a holistic, qualitatively unique form. Thus, the development of communication with adults in children from birth to seven years old occurs as a change in several integral forms of communication.

So, form of communication we call the activity of communication at a certain stage of its development, taken as a whole set of features and characterized by several parameters. The main five parameters for us were: 1) time the emergence of this form of communication throughout preschool childhood; 2) place, occupied by this form of communication in the system of the child’s wider life activity; 3) basic content of need, satisfied by children during this form of communication; 4) leading motives, encouraging a child at a certain stage of development to communicate with surrounding adults; 5) basic means of communication, with the help of which, within this form of communication, the child’s communications with adults are carried out. ...

We have identified four forms of communication that replace each other during the first seven years of a child’s life.

Situational-personal communication child with an adult (first half of life). This form of communication can be observed when children have not yet mastered grasping movements of a purposeful nature. ... Interaction with adults unfolds in the first months of children’s lives against the backdrop of a peculiar general life activity: the baby does not yet have any adaptive types of behavior, all his relationships with the outside world are mediated by relationships with close adults who ensure the child’s survival and the satisfaction of all his primary organic needs .

In its developed form, situational-personal communication in an infant has the form of a “revival complex” - complex behavior that includes concentration, looking into the face of another person, smiling, vocalizations and motor animation as components.

Communication between an infant and adults occurs independently, outside of any other activity, and constitutes the leading activity of a child of this age. The operations through which communication is carried out within the first form of this activity belong to the category of expressive-facial means of communication.

Situational and personal communication is of great importance for the overall mental development of the child. The attention and goodwill of adults evoke bright, joyful experiences in children, and positive emotions increase the child’s vitality and activate all his functions. In addition to this nonspecific influence of communication in the laboratory, the direct impact of this activity on the development of the psyche of children has been established. For the purposes of communication, children need to learn to perceive the influences of adults, and this stimulates the formation of perceptual actions in infants in the visual, auditory and other analyzers. Mastered in the “social” sphere, these acquisitions then begin to be used to get acquainted with the objective world, which leads to an overall significant progress in children’s cognitive processes.

Situational business form of communication children with adults (6 months - 2 years). The main feature of this second form of communication in ontogenesis should be considered the flow of communication against the background of practical interaction between a child and an adult and the connection of communicative activity with such interaction.

Research has shown that in addition to attention and kindness, a young child also begins to need the cooperation of an adult. Such cooperation is not limited to simple assistance. Children require the participation of an adult and simultaneous practical activities next to them. Only this kind of cooperation ensures that the child achieves practical results with the limited opportunities that he currently has. In the course of such cooperation, the child simultaneously receives the attention of an adult and experiences his goodwill. The combination of... attention, goodwill and cooperation - the complicity of an adult - characterizes the essence of the child's new need for communication.

Business motives of communication, which are closely combined with cognitive and personal motives, become leading at an early age. The main means of communication are objective-active operations: functionally transformed objective actions, postures and locomotion.

The most important acquisition for young children should be understanding the speech of people around them and mastering active speech. Research has shown that the emergence of speech is closely related to the activity of communication: being the most advanced means of communication, it appears for the purposes of communication and in its context.

We see the significance of situational business communication in the process of joint activity of a child and an adult mainly in the fact that it leads to further development and qualitative transformation of children’s objective activity (from individual actions to procedural games), to the emergence and development of speech. But mastering speech allows children to overcome the limitations of situational communication and move from purely practical cooperation with adults to, so to speak, “theoretical” cooperation. Thus, again the framework of communication becomes tight and breaks down, and children move on to a higher form of communicative activity.

Extra-situational-cognitive form of communication(3-5 years). The third form of communication between a child and an adult unfolds against the background of children’s cognitive activity, aimed at establishing sensory, non-perceptible relationships in the physical world. The obtained facts showed that with the expansion of their capabilities, children strive for a kind of “theoretical” cooperation with adults, replacing practical cooperation and consisting in a joint discussion of events, phenomena and relationships in the objective world.

An undoubted sign of the third form of communication can be the appearance of the child’s first questions about objects and their various relationships. This form of communication can be considered most typical for primary and secondary preschoolers. For many children, it remains the highest achievement until the very end of preschool childhood.

The child's need for respect from an adult determines the special sensitivity of children of primary and secondary preschool age to the assessment that adults give them. Children's sensitivity to evaluation is most clearly manifested in their increased sensitivity, disruption and even complete cessation of activities after comments or reprimands, as well as in children's excitement and delight after praise.

Speech becomes the most important means of communication at the level of the third form of communication, because it alone opens up the opportunity to go beyond the limits of one particular situation and carry out that “theoretical” cooperation, which is the essence of the described form of communication.

The significance of the third form of communication between children and adults is, in our opinion, that it helps children immeasurably expand the scope of the world accessible to their knowledge and allows them to discover the interconnection of phenomena. At the same time, knowledge of the world of objects and physical phenomena soon ceases to exhaust the interests of children; they are increasingly attracted to events occurring in the social sphere. The development of thinking and cognitive interests of preschoolers goes beyond the third genetic form of communication, where it received support and incentive, and transforms the general life activity of children, restructuring the activity of communication with adults.

Extra-situational-personal form of communication children with adults (6-7 years old). The highest form of communicative activity observed in preschool childhood is the non-situational-personal communication of the child with adults.

Unlike the previous one, it serves the purpose of understanding the social, not the objective, world, the world of people, not things. Therefore, non-situational-personal communication exists independently and represents a communicative activity, so to speak, in its “pure form.” This last feature brings non-situational-personal communication closer to that primitive personal (but situational) communication, which constitutes the first genetic form of this activity and is observed in infants in the first half of life. It is this circumstance that made us call the first and fourth forms of communication personal.

Extra-situational-personal communication is formed on the basis of personal motives that encourage children to communicate, and against the background of various activities: play, work, cognitive. But now it has independent meaning for the child and is not an aspect of his cooperation with an adult.

Such communication is of great vital importance for preschool children, as it allows them to satisfy the need to know themselves, other people and relationships between people. The child’s older partner serves as a source of knowledge about social phenomena for him and at the same time he himself becomes an object of knowledge as a member of society, as a special person with all his properties and relationships. In this process, the adult acts as the highest competent judge. Finally, adults serve as a standard for the child, an example of what and how to do in different conditions.

In contrast to what took place within the framework of previous forms of communication, the child strives to achieve mutual understanding with the adult and empathy as the emotional equivalent of mutual understanding.

Over the years, the number of children who have mastered non-situational-personal communication increases and reaches the largest number in the senior preschool group, and here it appears in its most perfect form. On this basis, we consider extra-situational-personal communication as characteristic of older preschool age.

The leading motives at the level of the fourth form of communication are personal motives. An adult as a special human personality is the main thing that encourages a child to seek contacts with him. The diversity and complexity of relationships that preschoolers develop with different adults leads to a hierarchization of the child’s social world and to a differentiated understanding of the different properties of one individual person. This attitude towards an adult is conducive to memorizing and assimilating information received from the teacher, and, apparently, serves as an important condition for the psychological preparation of children for school. Among the various means of communication at the fourth level, as well as at the third, the main place is occupied by speech.

Thanks to the successes of children in the framework of extra-situational personal communication, they reach a state of readiness for school education, an important part of which is the child’s ability to perceive an adult as a teacher and take the position of a student in relation to him with all the ensuing consequences.

The transition from lower forms of communication to higher ones is carried out according to the principle of interaction between form and content: the content of mental activity achieved within the framework of the previous form of communication ceases to correspond to the old form, which ensured the progress of the psyche for some time, breaks it down and causes the emergence of a new, more advanced form of communication.

Of utmost importance in the emergence and development of communication are the influences of an adult, whose proactive initiative constantly “pushes” the child’s activity to a new, higher level according to the “zone of proximal development” principle. The practice of interaction with children organized by adults contributes to the enrichment and transformation of their social needs.

State Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education Pomeranian State University

Named after M. V. Lomonosov

Job

Discipline: Developmental psychology.

Abstract of the monograph by M.I. Lisina

"Problems of the ontogeny of communication"

Performed:

2nd year students of 21 groups

Faculty of Psychology

Ermolina Yulia

Checked:

Postnikova M.I.

Arkhangelsk, 2010

^ Lisina M.I. Problems of the ontogeny of communication

By observing children, the psychologist gets the opportunity to see the features of their self-knowledge and the conditions in which it develops: the child’s individual practice and his communication with other people. Lisina’s book “Problems of the Ontogenesis of Communication” tells us about how a child, having been born, enters into his first contacts with the people around him, how his connections with them become more and more complex and deepen.

Chapter 1

Communication concept

Communication

From an activity point of view, communication is a communicative activity.

In the theory of activity A.N. Leontiev, the following stand out: structural components of communicative activity:

• 
  Subject of communication (communication partner as subject)
• 
  The need for communication (the desire to know other people, and through this, to know oneself)
• 
  Communicative motives (that is, for the sake of which communication is accepted)
• 
  The action of communication (a holistic act aimed at another person as one’s object)
• 
  Objectives of communication (the goal towards which communication actions are aimed)
• 
  Means of communication (those operations through which communication actions are carried out)
• 
  Products of communication (“general result” of communication)

1. 
   Organization of joint activities (coordination and unification of efforts to achieve a common result)
2. 
   Formation and development of interpersonal relationships (interaction to build relationships)
3. 
   People getting to know each other

• 
  Allows you to reveal the social essence of a person, the determination of his inner world and personality

• 
  Helps to understand the development of a child’s psyche as a process that occurs through children’s appropriation of socio-historical humanity in the context of real communication with an adult, a living bearer of this experience

^ The influence of communication on a child’s mental development occurs as follows:

1) due to the favorable “object” qualities of an adult, combined with his properties as a subject of communication;

2) thanks to the enrichment of children’s experience by adults;

3) by direct setting by adults tasks that require the child to acquire new knowledge, skills and abilities;

4) based on the reinforcing effect of the opinions and assessments of an adult;

5) thanks to the opportunity for the child to draw from communication examples of actions and behavior of adults;

6) due to favorable conditions for children to reveal their creative, original beginnings when communicating with each other.

Chapter 2

The emergence of communication in a child

Result: immediately after birth, the child does not communicate in any way with an adult; Only after two months do infants engage in interactions with adults that can be considered communication.

Communication appears in a child at the age of 2 months

4 criteria for the emergence of a child’s need for communication:

• 
  Child's attention and interest in adults
• 
  Emotional manifestations of a child towards an adult
• 
  Initiative actions of a child aimed at an adult
• 
  Child's sensitivity to adult's attitude

The main groups of motives for children’s communication with people around them:

• 
  Cognitive (the need for impressions is realized)
• 
  Business (need to be active)
• 
  Personal (need for recognition and support)

All three groups of motives exist and are closely related to each other. But in different periods of childhood, their relative role changes: first one, then the other takes the position of leader.

WITH child's means of communication

^ Development in ontogenesis:

Expressive - facial - objective - effective speech

Chapter 3

Development of communication in children in the first 7 years of life

Stages of ontogenesis = forms of communication

^ Form of communication– communicative activity at a certain stage of its development, taken as a whole set of features and characterized by several parameters.

Options for highlighting forms of communication:

1. 
   Time the emergence of this form of communication throughout preschool childhood
2. 
   Place occupied by it in the system of the child’s broader life activity
3. 
   Basics content of need satisfied by children with this form of communication
4. 
   Leading motives encouraging the child to communicate with people around him
5. 
   Basic means of communication, with the help of which, within this form of communication, communication between a child and an adult is carried out

^ Development of forms of communication in children from birth to 7 years

^ Mechanism for changing forms of communication:

Enriching the content of children’s activities and their relationships with others leads to the replacement of outdated forms of communication with new ones, and the latter provide scope for the child’s further mental progress.

Chapter 4

Communication Products

The products of communication are varied and numerous. Lisina M.I. is considering 2 main products of communication:

• 
  relationships between the child and other people
• 
  the image of himself that he develops as a result of communicative activities.

1. 
   The child’s relationships with people around him

The foundation of a good relationship in communication with both partners lies in satisfying the child’s need for the friendly attention of people around him; it is “objectified” in personal communicative motives.

1. 
   ^ The image of yourself.

^ Factors and sources of self-image construction in preschoolers

Body functioning

Subject activity

Communication with adults

Communication with peers

Individual activity experience

Communication experience

Self image

Self-image is an affective-cognitive complex: the affective part is represented by self-esteem, and the cognitive part is represented by the child’s idea of ​​himself. Children's ideas about themselves become more and more accurate with age, but their persistent distortions under the influence of self-esteem are also possible.

Conclusions:

1. 
   Communication- this is the interaction of two (or more) people aimed at coordinating and combining their efforts in order to establish relationships and achieve the future.
2. 
   Communication occurs in children aged 2 – 3 months.
3. 
   The main motives for communication are cognitive, business personal.
4. 
   The child’s main means of communication are: expressive - facial, objective - effective, speech.
5. 
   Forms of communication between a child and an adult under 7 years of age: situational - personal, situational - business, extra-situational - cognitive, extra-situational - personal.
6. 
   Changes in the social situation of a child's development lead to the development of mental functions.
7. 
   The main products of communication are: relationships and self-image.

Completed: Dementyanova T.K., Shcheglova M.S., group 2083.

Abstract on the article: Lisina M.I. Problems of ontogenesis of communication. M.: Pedagogy, 1986. P. 31–57 (abbreviated)

In search of an answer to the question of how and when the need for communication appears in children, systematic observation of children was carried out starting from the 16th day of life. thus, the need for communication appears after 2 months, when infants begin to interact with adults, which can be considered communication; they develop a special activity, the object of which is an adult, and strive to attract the attention of an adult in order to themselves become the object of the same activity on his part. But how can we more accurately determine whether a baby already has a communicative need, and if not, at what stage of development is it at?

4 criteria for a child to have a need for communication:

1-the child’s attention and interest in the adult;

2- emotional manifestations of a child towards an adult;

3- initiative actions of the child, aimed at attracting the interest of an adult, to prove himself to the senior partner;

4- the child’s sensitivity to the attitude of an adult, which reveals the children’s perception of the assessment that the adult gives them and their self-esteem. In accordance with the appearance of these 4 criteria, 4 stages of development of the need for communication in children are distinguished, which ends by 2 months.

The need for a promise is formed in interaction with the outside world, i.e. it is not hereditary. The matter began with the awakening of a child's cognitive interest in an adult. A little later, the child developed an affective attitude towards people and objects. And in conclusion, the children developed proactive behavior aimed at self-discovery and receiving evaluation from the people around them. The need for communication can only be built on the basis of other needs that begin to function earlier. The basis of communicative needs is the child’s organic vital needs (for food, warmth) and many, many others. However, life practice ultimately helps the child discover the existence of an adult as the single source of all goods coming to him, and the interests of effective “management” of such a source create the child’s need to isolate and explore it. It is also important for the child’s desire for new experiences, and an adult is the most information-rich object in the baby’s world. However, this is only the basis that forces the child to pay special attention to the adult. This is not yet communication: the adult’s behavior and his position in relation to the child are decisive for the emergence of the latter. The fact is that from the very beginning the adult treats the baby as a subject and behaves with him as a communication partner. Moreover, the adult often “plays” for the child as a second participant in communication, in advance endowing his actions with meaning and meaning that they do not yet have. Such behavior of an adult in the course of practical interaction with an infant creates an additional need and opportunity for the child to distinguish him as an object, but it allows him, over time, to perceive the adult also as a subject, and gradually, with his help, discover new - subjective - qualities in himself. The specificity of the communicative need consists, as mentioned above, in the child’s desire to understand and evaluate himself and other people - those with whom he communicates. Emerging in a child with the discovery of a fundamental property - subjectivity, “personality” of an adult and himself, the need for communication continues to constantly encourage children to identify more and more new qualities in themselves and in the people around them, their capabilities and abilities that are important for the success of joint activities . In the first weeks of life, the child has precisely a new, previously absent need for communication - to understand himself and others, equally gifted with activity, but infinitely diverse subjects, contacts with which bring the child a completely special, incomparable satisfaction. The need for communication has the same nature, regardless of the age of the partner: the main thing is to learn about yourself and evaluate yourself through and with the help of another. And who is the mirror in which you look is determined only by how exactly you can use your partner for the purposes of self-knowledge and self-esteem. BASIC MOTIVES OF COMMUNICATION Before moving on to the question of the emergence of motives for communication, it is necessary to briefly dwell on how we understand what a “motive” is in general. The motive of the activity coincides with its subject. Consequently, for each participant in the interaction, the motive for communication is another person, his communication partner. In the case of communication with an adult, the motive for communication that encourages the child to turn to an adult by performing an initiative act of communication, or to respond to him by performing a reactive action, is the adult himself. When communicating with a peer, the motive for communication is another child. But both the peer and the adult are very complex and diverse. In addition, they are constantly changing under the influence of various events and circumstances. At different periods of childhood, a child is able to see in his partner only part of his actual qualities. Growing up, the child comprehends other people in their increasingly essential and profound properties. At the same time, what motivates the social acts of children at various stages of preschool childhood also changes in the partner. This is how different categories of communication motives arise and each of them develops. In the process of communication, all participants in the interaction are active: not only the adult turns out to be the motive for the child’s social behavior: the child also necessarily becomes the object - and therefore the motive - of the adult’s communication activities. These two motives belong to different people: one to the child, and the other to his partner, but they function in the single interaction of these people and therefore mutually determine each other. While studying the motives of children’s communication with adults and peers, we were faced with the interweaving of their counter motives, so close that in most cases they can only be separated through complex analysis. We are constantly forced to talk not only about what attracts a child to a partner, but also about what he receives from him, becoming the motive (object) of the latter’s active communicative activity. The motives that encourage a child to communicate are associated with three main needs:

1) in impressions,

2) in active work

3) in recognition and support. After birth, the child discovers a craving for new experiences. Over time, the need for impressions constantly increases and increases. But the child’s ability to independently satisfy this need is small. Thus, the need for new experiences gives rise to children’s desire to come into contact with adults - the first group “COGNITIVE MOTIVES”

The need for active activity is inherent in children as obviously as the need for impressions. During the first 7 years, the activity exhibited by children reaches a high level of development both in form and content. But to achieve maximum effectiveness, children always need the participation and help of an adult. This leads to the fact that in the activities of children, interaction with adults appears, and among different types of interaction, a permanent place is occupied by the type that we call communication. The second group is “BUSINESS MOTIVES”. According to the developed ideas, the business motive of communication is an adult in his special capacity - as a partner in joint practical activities, an assistant and an example of correct actions. Upon closer examination, it turns out that children’s need for recognition and support is their desire for communication, because only as a result of this activity can they receive an assessment of their personality from others and realize the desire for community with other people. A characteristic feature of the described type of communication should be recognized as its focus on the personality of people - on the personality of the child himself, who is looking for support; on the personality of an adult, who acts as a bearer of the rules of moral behavior, and other people, whose knowledge ultimately serves the cause of self-knowledge of children and their knowledge of the social world. Third group – “PERSONAL MOTIVES” Leading motives of communication. Cognitive, business and personal motives appear during the formation of communicative activity almost simultaneously. In a child’s real life practice, all three groups of motives coexist and are closely intertwined. But in different periods of childhood, their relative role changes: first one, then the other of them occupy the position of leader.

The obtained facts showed that in the first half of life the leading motive for communication between children and adults is the personal motive. He is personified in the person of an adult as an affectionate well-wisher, who at the same time serves as the central object of cognition and activity of children. Starting from the second half of life and later, up to 2.5 years, the business motive of communication becomes the leading one. In preschool age, three periods are observed in the development of motives for communication: first, the leading place is occupied by business motives of communication, then cognitive ones and, finally, as in infants, personal ones.

Obukhova L.F. , Doctor of Psychology, Head of the Department of Developmental Psychology, Faculty of Educational Psychology, Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education MSUPE, Moscow, Russia, [email protected]
Pavlova M.K. , Candidate of Psychological Sciences, Moscow State University of Psychology and Education, teacher of the Department of Developmental Psychology, Moscow, Russia, [email protected]

Full text

"M. I. Lisina was a bright phenomenon in psychological
science and an event in the life of everyone whom fate brought together
her... Anyone who fell into the orbit of one or another contact
with her, not only was he enriched significantly in some way, but also
rose in his own eyes... She left
students and colleagues for development, clarification and development
your thoughts, ideas, hypotheses. Until now, it is underway
and many years later their scientific testing will be carried out, and not
only by its closest collaborators, but by an increasingly wider
circle of scientists"

A. G. Ruzskaya

The contribution of M. I. Lisina to child psychology and developmental psychology is extensive. Fundamental achievements of cultural-historical psychology in the second half of the twentieth century are associated with her name. Her contribution to the theory of activity is associated with the enrichment of this theory with new facts that record significant changes and turning points in the mental development of a child in the early stages of ontogenesis. As a child psychologist, M. I. Lisina had the rare ability to see and understand signs of a child’s behavior that indicate his hidden mental states and needs, his emotional experiences in the process of interacting with close and unfamiliar people or in the course of actions with things. This ability allowed M.I. Lisina to describe in detail for the first time the specific features of early forms of communication that arise at the pre-speech stage of a child’s mental development. If there are micropediatricians, then there must also be micropsychologists who can see not only large periods or stages of development, but also microphases that are distinguished by qualitative originality within one age stage. One of these specialists was M. I. Lisina.

She studied child development not in a laboratory, but in the real life conditions of children in a family, in an orphanage, in a kindergarten. Her work makes a significant contribution to the ecological approach in the field of developmental psychology, which today is associated only with the names of J. Bruner and W. Bronfenbrenner.

In many branches of modern psychology, she was the first. Her works form the foundation of personality psychology. At the time when M.I. Lisina studied the formation of personality in the first months and years of a child’s life, there was no such branch of psychology in Russian science. Today in our country there are departments and even institutes with this name.

Tracing the development of self-awareness in a child in the first seven years of life from the perspective of the concept of communication as a communicative activity developed by her and analyzing the role of communication in the formation of a child’s self-image constituted another, new page in the theory of personality development. Isolating the periphery (knowledge about oneself) and the core (the experience of constancy, identity and continuity with oneself) in the image of the Self and identifying complex relationships between them is another step in building a theory of personality. The views of M. I. Lisina are close to the concept of identity in the concept of E. Erikson. Let us note that they were expressed when no one in our country had heard the name of E. Erikson.

Child psychology owes M.I. Lisina the development of many particular problems that remain relevant today. These include the formation and development of speech, the origins of the child’s worldview, readiness for schooling, the formation of an internal plan of activity, mental development in conditions of deprivation, features of the child’s relationships with parents and with other children, and many others. However, the main, core line of her scientific developments is communicative activity and its role in the overall mental development of the child.

In communication, the child’s attitude towards himself, towards other people, and towards the objective world is formed. M.I. Lisina emphasized the role of communication as the most important factor in the development of cognitive activity in childhood. Analyzing the role of communication in the cognitive development of a child, M. I. Lisina carried out such a detailed analysis of concepts (activity, activation, mental activity, mental activity, intellectual activity, cognitive activity, cognitive activity, creativity, initiative, curiosity, curiosity), which is not in one scientific system, including the theory of intellectual development according to J. Piaget. She showed that cognitive activity is not identical to cognitive activity. Cognitive activity has a specific subject and result: its subject is the information contained in the object to which the child’s attention is directed, and its result is a reflection of the properties of the object, its image. M.I. Lisina believed that cognitive activity is a component of the structure of activity, similar in level to cognitive need. Activity is readiness for activity; it is a state that precedes activity and gives rise to it. Activity is fraught with activity. It includes states that are not yet activity, but already indicate readiness for it (signs of interest, attention), and these states can be empirically recorded, in contrast to cognitive need, which was very important for M. I. Lisina as an experimenter. So, cognitive activity for M. I. Lisina was a kind of indicator of the presence of an effective cognitive need. The definitions of concepts proposed by M. I. Lisina should be included in the psychological dictionary. And the ability to differentiate concepts and construct them into a system can be used as a diagnostic tool to characterize the mind of a scientist.

M.I. Lisina believed that at different stages of childhood the mechanisms of the influence of communication on cognitive activity are not the same. Communication with surrounding people decisively determines the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of a child’s cognitive activity, the more the younger the child’s age and the stronger the relationship with elders mediates his relationship with the entire world around him. As children develop, the influence of communication on cognitive activity is increasingly mediated by personal formations and emerging self-awareness, which are influenced by contacts with other people.

The experiments of M.I. Lisina and her colleagues are widely known, showing the enriching influence of communication on the cognitive activity of a child under 7 years of age. This includes, first of all, experiments with infants (M. I. Lisina, S. Yu. Meshcheryakova), young children (M. I. Lisina, L. N. Galiguzova), preschoolers (M. I. Lisina, E. O. Smirnova), confirming the positive role of communication with adults. M. I. Lisina and T. D. Sartorius showed that for orphanage pupils, specially organized role-playing games with peers, taking place under the guidance of an adult, increase the level of communication with adults, the child’s general cognitive activity and his self-confidence.

M.I. Lisina assumed that communication with peers is important primarily as an equal interaction that promotes the child’s self-knowledge in relating himself to others and the disclosure of his creative potential. The development of forms of communication with peers lags behind communication with adults: the very need to communicate with peers (its components: attention to other children, emotional response to their actions, the desire to attract their attention, sensitivity to their affective attitude) is fully formed only by the beginning of preschool age. In communication with a peer throughout preschool age, the third and fourth components of the need for communication dominate, i.e. the child is not interested in the peer as a person, but “uses” him as a “mirror.” Probably, communication with a peer in preschool age remains at the level of situational-personal and situational-business, despite the fact that it is already verbal, since the peer does not satisfy the child’s need for knowledge about the wide social world and does not interest him as an individual. As the experiments of M.I. Lisina and her colleagues show, already in preschool age, communication with peers is necessary for the full cognitive development of a child, although the form of this communication may be of a lower level than the form of communication with an adult.

The ideas of M. I. Lisina about the role of communication in the cognitive development of a child can be correlated with the works of Piaget’s followers, who develop similar problems. In the concept of J. Piaget, the social factor in the development of intelligence begins to “work” only upon reaching the stage of concrete operations, when coordination of points of view (co-operation) becomes possible and the child becomes able to perceive the differences between his position and the position of others, including peers. At the same time, J. Piaget recognized that interaction with peers can play a special role in the development of intelligence, since it is based on the ethics of cooperation, and not coercion, as in relationships with adults. Communication with a peer, in which coordination of equal points of view occurs, should contribute to intellectual and moral development, but only at the operational stages of development, i.e., starting from primary school age.

In Russian psychology, such a radical denial of the role of communication in the cognitive development of young children, as is known, caused sharp criticism, confirmed by experimental data, mainly concerning communication with adults. The experiments of D. B. Elkonin, V. A. Nedospasova and E. V. Filippova showed the fundamental possibility of coordinating mental positions (overcoming cognitive egocentrism) already in preschool age, and such coordination, according to these researchers, is facilitated by role-playing play with peers . This echoes the idea of ​​M.I. Lisina that communication with peers is, by definition, reflexive, since a child, when communicating with a peer, constantly compares and relates himself to him. Perhaps this correlation of oneself with another is an important factor in cognitive development?

At the end of the last century, the role of communication in the development of intelligence began to be studied by the followers of Piaget himself. In the works of A.N. Perret-Clermont made a fundamental turn - it is assumed that social interactions and the associated coordination of points of view precede the emergence of specific operations and prepare them. A.N. Perret-Clermont introduces the concept of sociocognitive conflict, which can be defined as a contradiction between different centers (points of view) that prevents the solution of a collective problem. According to A.-N. Perret-Clermont, resolving such a conflict is possible only through the coordination of points of view, which implies the construction of a new, more complex cognitive structure for one or more parties to the conflict. Conflict (contradiction) can be a source of cognitive development. A. N. Perret-Clermont believes that in order to resolve the conflict, i.e., to coordinate points of view, a dialogue between the parties to the conflict is necessary, during which they will put forward more and more new arguments, challenge the opponent’s arguments and nevertheless bring their positions closer together . Argumentation in the course of solving a collective problem is a means of coordinating points of view, a means of resolving sociocognitive conflict, building new knowledge and a new level of cognitive development.

This hypothesis has received empirical confirmation. A number of experiments with preschoolers and primary schoolchildren who are at different stages of the formation of specific operations (according to the criterion of understanding the conservation of quantity, substance, liquid, length, etc.) showed that even a single placement of children in a situation of interaction with a peer in which they must argue their position and come to a common solution to the problem posed by adults, which leads to a subsequent improvement in children’s results in conservation tasks compared to control groups. During the interaction, children solved a “serious” problem for them “here-and-now”, therefore the form of such communication can be called situational-business with speech mediation, which corresponds to the ideas of M. I. Lisina about the delay in the development of communication with peers compared to communication with adults. However, it is communication based on a genetically earlier form that leads to surprising results: children benefit not only from interaction with a peer of a higher level of cognitive development, but also from interaction with less advanced peers. A.N. Perret-Clermont comes to the conclusion that the very need to voice (i.e. reflect) one’s point of view and correlate it with the position of a peer leads to progress in intellectual development. Of course, for such progress it turns out that a certain basic level of development is necessary, which will allow the child to notice the contradiction between his point of view and the position of another.

A.N. Perret-Clermont explains the specifics of the post-Piagitian approach to the study of the mental development of a child. When presenting a child with a problem of conservation of quantity, Piaget told him: “Do and think.” He studied what happens “in the mind” of a child, his logic. But thinking is not limited to logic. From the point of view of A.N. Perret-Clermont and her colleagues, in order to understand how a child thinks, it is necessary to analyze the argumentation during the solution of the problem, and this can only be done through constructive dialogue. Organizing such a dialogue is a difficult psychological and pedagogical task. Scientists in different countries (Israel, Portugal, Italy, etc.) are currently developing the problem of how to help the teacher organize dialogue in the process of solving problems in the field of mathematics, history, biology, geography, etc.

B. Schwartz, an Israeli researcher and teacher, understands argumentation in the spirit of L. S. Vygotsky as a mediating link between internal and external dialogue, which serves to disseminate knowledge between the participants in the discussion and to build new collective knowledge, creating collective meanings. Methods of argumentation developed in a team are internalized, becoming individual means of thinking. B. Schwartz is one of the authors of a special program (Kishurim), which has been implemented since 1998 and which is aimed at improving the school teaching process. This program can also be used in the education of students and adults. It should contribute to the development of argumentation and dialogical thinking among students. This program is built on the following principles:

• cooperation(tasks are given to small groups of students with the assumption that they are united by a common goal and everyone’s contribution is important);
• unobtrusive mediation(the teacher, as a mediator of the learning process, provides students with non-instructional assistance that supports cooperation: “Try to relate different opinions,” “Try to come to a common understanding.” Thus, the teacher tries to provoke a discussion between students without imposing his authoritative opinion);
• critical dialogue(teachers encourage students to make sound arguments, consider an issue from new perspectives, openly challenge the arguments of others if they disagree, and reconsider their own argumentation if the arguments of opponents are compelling or the facts contradict the original point of view);
• ethical communication(respect for each participant in the discussion, regardless of the truth of the opinion expressed; assessment of the quality of the judgment, not its author);
• autonomy(recognition of the value of personal opinion; everyone is given the opportunity to develop their own ideas, albeit in interaction with peers; since the mental level of students is different, an individual approach is required, more support for those lagging behind);
• active role of the teacher in lesson planning(the teacher selects means of presenting arguments (for example, computer), plans his intervention in the discussion, transforms educational material presented in a traditional didactic form into the basis for dialectical interaction among students);
• using resources to encourage dialogue(the teacher provides students with additional sources of information that they can use to find arguments, and also uses special interaction tools, for example, a computer chat program designed for virtual discussions, where different participants and different forms of arguments are presented clearly).

Compliance with these principles is necessary to develop students' creative and critical thinking. These principles are implemented in the collective solution by students of ambiguous problems, for which there is no single correct solution and for which schoolchildren have only preliminary everyday knowledge. The teacher presents children with a problem (e.g., “How does war affect children?” “Can drugs be tested on animals?”) and provides a variety of information resources that they can use to develop a solution. The decision must be reached in a collective discussion, i.e. in a discussion. The main idea of ​​the Kishurim program is to visualize the discussion, putting it into a visual (material) plan, which facilitates student reflection; They must classify their own statements - is it just a statement, its justification, new information or a question? Does this statement support, oppose, or have nothing to do with the other person's point of view?

For this purpose, the graphical computer environment Digalo is used. Digalo is a map on which the statements of participants are recorded in a visual form, and the connections between them are indicated by arrows. Thus, the map can represent “goal”, “argument”, “information” and “question”. Arrows can represent “support,” “opposition,” and “connection.” The map also shows teacher interventions in the discussion. If the teacher wants to achieve a common understanding, then he turns to the student with the words: “Try to relate your point of view with others,” “Do you agree with ...?” If the teacher wants to change the dialogical situation, he can say: “Try to change this point of view ...” or “Are you sure that your conclusion necessarily follows from the data that you have?” This creates a critical dialogue in which the discussant retains autonomy and the teacher plays the role of facilitator of the discussion. Written statements make it possible to trace their dynamics, form and content of the discussion (initial hypothesis, fact, reason, change in hypothesis). Thanks to Digalo, the discussion space is presented visually and simultaneously, which, in turn, allows the teacher to analyze the activity of each student.

The Digalo computer program can be used not only during classroom discussions, but also in distance learning settings. Digalo helps the teacher to show creative ingenuity in organizing the educational process, and children, in practice, acquire the ability to construct arguments in the process of resolving specific contradictions. Currently, Digalo is used to research cognitive development and create modern learning tools not only in Israel, but also in Switzerland, Colombia and other countries.

The main psychological and pedagogical results of this approach are an increase in the cognitive activity of students, the quality of the argumentation they use and the level of reflection. Thus, the specific functions of communication with peers, which M. I. Lisina pointed out, are also manifested here - the functions of self-knowledge and revealing the child’s creative potential. At the same time, at school age, communication with peers apparently occurs at the level of extra-situational-cognitive and extra-situational-personal, which makes possible the widespread use of collective discussions in education. An example is not only the described developments of B. Schwartz, a follower of A.-N. Perret-Clermont, but also in many ways similar systems of problem-based and developmental education according to the programs of D. B. Elkonin, V. V. Davydov, G. A. Tsukerman and other domestic scientists.

At one of the conferences, M. I. Lisina unexpectedly intrigued the audience by saying that in addition to the four forms of communication she identified - situational-personal, situational-business, extra-situational-cognitive and extra-situational-personal, there is also a fifth form. Her thoughts on this apparently higher form of communication remained unknown. We dare to express the bold idea that a specially organized discussion between peers, in which the limitations of individual points of view are overcome and a shift in cognitive development occurs, can also claim to be a fifth, higher form of communication.

M.I. Lisina agreed that communication is a leading activity in the proper sense of the word only at two ages - infancy and adolescence. Despite this, she emphasized that at every childhood age, communication plays a key role in development, and this role has age specificity, which is manifested in forms of communication that naturally replace each other during ontogenesis. The works of M. I. Lisina and her colleagues outlined ways to study the role of communication with peers in the development of the child’s psyche and personality. It has been shown that the specific need for communication with peers is formed in ontogenesis later than the need for communication with adults, from which it follows that the main forms of communication with peers inevitably develop later than the corresponding forms of communication with adults. M.I. Lisina suggested that equal communication with a peer, in addition to the natural function of establishing relationships in a children's group and with friends, contributes to the emancipation of the child, increased cognitive activity and self-knowledge. It is important that these functions appear in ontogenesis already in preschool age, being reflected in their own way in situational-business, extra-situational-cognitive and extra-situational-personal forms of communication with peers, which is confirmed in empirical studies of domestic and foreign scientists. The cited studies of foreign psychologists, our contemporaries, showed that communication with a peer in the form of a discussion organized by an adult not only increases the cognitive activity of children, but also leads to a qualitative change in the level of cognitive development, and this effect can also be caused already in preschool age. Thus, M. I. Lisina’s ideas about the fundamental role of communication in the development of a child of any age, about the unique functions of communication with peers, and about age-specific forms of communication with adults and peers continue to be confirmed in the works of researchers in various fields.

PsyJournalsID: 19427

1929 — 5.8.1983

Doctor of Psychology, Professor, USSR

Outstanding child psychologist, founder of an original scientific school, author of the concept of the genesis of communication between a child and an adult. Specialist in the field of developmental and educational psychology. Her scientific work is inextricably linked with the Psychological Institute, where she was a graduate student, a researcher, and from 1962 until the end of her life she headed the laboratory of psychology of early and preschool children. Since 1976, she has headed the department of developmental psychology at the Institute. Member of the editorial board of the journal “Questions of Psychology”

EN In English

Other publications by the author

1. Lisina M.I. An approach to studying a child in the first year of life in foreign psychology // Questions of psychology. – 1961.
2. Lisina M.I. The influence of relationships with close adults on the development of an early child // Questions of psychology. – 1961. – No. 3. – P. 117–124.
3. Lisina M.I. Features of practically effective communication with adults in young children / Materials of the III All-Union Congress of the Society of Psychologists of the USSR. T. 2. – M., 1968.
4. Lisina M.I. Age and individual characteristics of communication with adults in children from birth to seven years. – Dr. diss., 1974.
5. Lisina M.I.(ed.). Communication and its influence on the development of the psyche of a preschool child. – M., 1974. – 231 p.
6. Lisina M.I. On the mechanisms of change of leading activity in children of the first 7 years of life // Questions of psychology. – 1978. – No. 5. – P. 72–78.
7. Lisina M.I. Communication with adults in children of the first seven years of life / Problems of general developmental and educational psychology. Ed. Davydova V.V. – M., 1978.
8. Lisina M.I. Development of cognitive activity of children in the course of communication with adults and peers // Questions of psychology. – 1982. – No. 4. – P. 18–35.
9. Lisina M.I.(ed.). Communication and speech: speech development in children in communication with adults. – M., 1985.
10. Lisina M.I. Problems of the ontogenesis of communication / Research Institute of General and Pedagogical Psychology of the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences. – M., Pedagogy, 1986. – 143 p.
11. Lisina M.I. Communication, personality and psyche of the child. / Ed. Ruzskoy A.G. – M.: Publishing house “Institute of Practical Psychology”, Voronezh, NPO “Modek”, 1997. – 384 p.
12. Lisina M.I. Communication with adults in children of the first 7 years of life / In the book: Reader on child psychology: from baby to teenager. – M.: MPSI, 2005. – P. 148–168.
13. Lisina Maya. Formation of a child’s personality in communication. – St. Petersburg: Peter, 2009. – 318 p.
14. Lisina M.I., Galiguzova L.N. The formation of children’s need to communicate with adults and peers / Research on problems of developmental and educational psychology. Ed. Lisina M.I. – M., 1980.
15. Lisina M.I., Kapchelya G.I. Communication with adults and psychological preparation of children for school. – Chisinau, 1987. – 136 p.
16. Lisina M.I., Sartorius T.D. The influence of communication with peers on the cognitive activity of preschool children / Psychology of personality formation and learning problems. Ed. Elkonina D.B., Dubrovina I.V. – M., 1980.
17. Lisina M.I., Silvestru A.I. Psychology of self-knowledge in preschool children. – Chisinau: Shtiintsa, 1983.
18. Lisina M.I., Smirnova R.A. Needs and motives for communication between preschoolers / Genetic problems of social psychology. Ed. Kolominsky Ya.Ya. – Minsk, 1985.
19. Lisina M.I., Sheryazdanova Kh.T. Specifics of perception and communication in preschool children. – Alma-Ata: Mektep, 1989. – 134 p.
20. Communication, personality and mental development of the child / ed. Lisina M.I., Ruzskaya

Biography

Maya Ivanovna Lisina (1929–1983)

When we hear the name of Maya Ivanovna Lisina, the first thing that comes to mind is the powerful magnetism of her personality and her enormous charm. Everyone who met this woman experienced an irresistible desire to get closer to her, to touch that special “radiation” that emanated from her, to earn her approval, affection, to become needed by her. This was experienced not only by people of her generation, but especially by those who were younger than her. And although communication with Maya Ivanovna, primarily scientific, was not always simple and easy, no one ever repented of striving for it. Apparently, this happened because everyone who fell into the orbit of one or another contact with her not only became significantly enriched in some way, but also rose in their own eyes. She had the rare ability to see the best in a person, to make him feel (or understand) that he has unique characteristics, to elevate him in her own eyes. At the same time, Maya Ivanovna was very demanding of people and uncompromising in her assessments of their actions and achievements. And these two features were harmoniously combined in her and in her attitude towards people, generally expressing her respect for them.

We can say that meeting this person became an event in the life of everyone whom fate brought together with her.

Maya Ivanovna Lisina, Doctor of Science, professor, known not only in her homeland as a prominent scientist, was born on April 20, 1929 in Kharkov, in the family of an engineer. My father was the director of the Kharkov Electric Tube Plant. In 1937, he was repressed due to a slanderous denunciation by the chief engineer of the plant. However, despite the torture, he did not sign the charges against him and was released in 1938 at the time of the change in the leadership of the NKVD. He was appointed director of a plant in the Urals. Later, after the war of 1941–1945, he was transferred to Moscow, and he became the head of the headquarters of one of the country's ministries.

Life threw the girl Maya, one of the three children of Ivan Ivanovich and Maria Zakharovna Lisin, from the large separate apartment of the plant director in Kharkov to the doors of the apartment, sealed by the NKVD; from Kharkov to the Urals, to a large family of not very friendly relatives; then to Moscow, again to a separate apartment, etc.

During the Patriotic War, her dearly beloved nineteen-year-old brother died, burned in a tank.

After graduating from school with a gold medal, Maya Ivanovna entered Moscow University in the psychological department of the Faculty of Philosophy. In 1951, she graduated with honors and was accepted into graduate school at the Institute of Psychology of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the RSFSR under Professor Alexander Vladimirovich Zaporozhets.

In the early 50s, while still young, Maya Ivanovna’s father died, and the 22-year-old graduate student’s shoulders fell to caring for her blind mother and younger sister. Maya Ivanovna worthily fulfilled her duty as a daughter and sister, the head and support of the family.

Having defended her PhD thesis in 1955 on the topic “On some conditions for the transformation of reactions from involuntary to voluntary,” she began working at the Institute of Psychology, where she worked her way up from a laboratory assistant to the head of the laboratory and the department of developmental psychology.

Maya Ivanovna passed away at the height of her scientific powers, on August 5, 1983, having lived only 54 years.

Respect for her as a scientist and a Person has always been enormous: both her students and venerable scientists valued her opinion.

A complex and difficult life did not make Maya Ivanovna a gloomy, stern, unsociable person. The statement: “Man is created for happiness, like a bird is created for flight,” did not apply to anyone else more than to her. She lived with the attitude of a happy woman who valued life in all its manifestations, who loved the company of friends and fun. She was always surrounded by people, and she was always the center of any team, despite serious illnesses, which sometimes left her bedridden for a long time.

But the main things in the life of M. I. Lisina were science and work. Her extraordinary diligence and ability to work ensured the development of numerous talents that nature generously rewarded her with. Everything that Maya Ivanovna did, she did magnificently, brilliantly: whether it was a scientific article or a scientific report; whether it was pies for the feast or a dress she sewed for the holiday, or something else. She knew several languages ​​(English, French, Spanish, Italian, etc.), spoke them fluently, and constantly improved her knowledge in this area. Her native Russian language was unusually bright and rich. Her imagination, which could be the envy of science fiction writers, and her subtle sense of humor were amazing.

It is impossible to list all of Maya Ivanovna’s skills. The range of her interests was wide and varied. She was a good connoisseur of Russian and foreign literature, both classical and modern, classical and light music, played the piano well... etc. If we add to this Maya Ivanovna’s friendliness, affability and spiritual generosity, then it becomes clear why this is so everyone whom fate brought with her was drawn to her.

The significance of a person’s life is largely determined by how it continues after his death, by what he left to people. M.I. Lisina “tamed” many to herself and through herself to science. And she was always “responsible for those whom she tamed” both during her life and after leaving it. She left her thoughts, ideas, and hypotheses to her students and colleagues to develop, clarify and develop. Until now, and I am sure that many years later, their scientific testing will be carried out not only by its closest collaborators, but by an increasingly wider circle of scientists. The fruitfulness of M. I. Lisina’s scientific ideas is based on their genuine fundamentality and acute vital relevance.

The ideas and hypotheses of M. I. Lisina concern various aspects of human mental life: from the formation of voluntary regulation by vasomotor reactions to the origin and development of the spiritual world of the individual from the first days of life. The wide range of scientific interests of M. I. Lisina was always combined with her depth of penetration into the essence of the phenomena under study, with the originality of solving the problems facing psychological science. This far from exhaustive list of Maya Ivanovna’s merits as a scientist would be incomplete without noting her passionate attitude towards scientific research, both theoretical and experimental, and her complete absorption in it. In this regard, it could be compared to a blazing and never extinguishing fire, which ignited those approaching it with the excitement of scientific research. It was impossible to work half-heartedly next to and together with M.I. Lisina. She devoted herself entirely to science and steadily, even harshly, demanded the same from others. Colleagues who worked with her and under her leadership, admiring the beauty of her work, also became aflame with the joy of scientific work. Probably, to some extent, this is why almost all of her students are faithful not only to the memory of M. I. Lisina as a bright personality in science, but also, above all, to her ideas, her scientific heritage.

M. I. Lisina devoted almost her entire scientific life to the problems of childhood, the first seven years of a child’s life, from the moment he came into this world until he entered school. The foundation of scientific research and practical developments in this area of ​​psychology was her true and ardent love for children and the desire to help them master the complex world of people and objects, as well as the idea that only a kind attitude towards a child can lead to the formation of a humane personality and ensure the flourishing of all his creative potential. Therefore, the close attention of M. I. Lisina was to identify the scientific foundations of the most effective methods of raising children growing up in different conditions: in a family, kindergarten, orphanage, orphanage, boarding school. She considered the most important factor in a child’s successful advancement in mental development to be properly organized communication between an adult and him and to treat him from the very first days as a subject, a unique, unique personality.

In all her studies, M.I. Lisina proceeded from real life problems associated with child development, went from them to the formulation of generalized and fundamental scientific psychological questions caused by this, and from their solution to the formation of new approaches to organizing the education of children growing up in different conditions. These links of a single scientific and practical chain in all the research carried out by M. I. Lisina herself and under her leadership were closely linked with each other.

Many childhood problems, which have become especially acute in our society recently, were not only identified several years ago by M. I. Lisina, but also developed to a certain extent: she expressed hypotheses and ideas about approaches to solving them. This refers, for example, to the problem of developing an active, independent, creative and humane personality of a child from the first months and years of his life, forming the foundations of the worldview of the younger generation, etc.

M. I. Lisina enriched child psychology with a number of original and profound ideas. She created a new section in child psychology: the psychology of infancy with the identification of microphases in the development of children of this age, the definition of leading activity, the main psychological formations, with the disclosure of the formation of the foundations of personality in children of this age (the so-called nuclear personality formations), the formation of subjectivity in the child, with consideration of the main lines of development of infant competence and the role of infant experience in the further mental development of the child.

M. I. Lisina was one of the first in psychological science to approach the study of communication as a special communicative activity and was the first to consistently develop a conceptual scheme for this activity. The activity approach to communication made it possible to identify and trace individual lines of his age-related changes in relation to each other. With this approach, different aspects of communication turned out to be united by the fact that they constituted subordinate structural elements of a single psychological category - the category of activity. It became impossible to limit ourselves only to recording external behavioral activity; it was necessary to see in the child’s actions acts that constitute units of activity and have internal content, psychological content (needs, motives, goals, tasks, etc.). And this, in turn, opened up the possibility of directing research to identify, at each level of development, a holistic picture of communication in its meaningful qualitative features, and to focus on analyzing the need-motivational side of children’s communication with people around them.

Maya Ivanovna was the first among psychologists to conduct a systematic and in-depth analysis of the genesis of communication in children: its qualitative stages (forms), driving forces, relationship with the child’s general life activity, its influence on the overall development of children, as well as the ways of this influence.

The approach to communication as a communicative activity made it possible to determine its specific features in children of the first seven years of life in two areas of their contacts with people around them - with adults and peers, and also to see the special role of each of them in the mental state and development of the child’s personality.

Studying the influence of a child’s communication with people around him on his mental development, M. I. Lisina made a significant contribution to the development of a general theory of mental development, revealed its important mechanisms, and presented communication as its determining factor.

In connection with the study of the influence of communication on the general mental development of a child, Maya Ivanovna subjected an in-depth and detailed study to the self-awareness of a child in the first seven years of life: its content at different age stages of this period of childhood, dynamic characteristics, the role of the child’s individual experience in its development, as well as experience communication with adults and other children. In the course of the research she organized, the following hypotheses were tested: about self-image as a product of the child’s communicative activity, as a holistic effective-cognitive complex, the effective component of which, abstracted from the child’s knowledge of himself, in ontogenesis acts as the child’s self-esteem, and the cognitive component as his representation About Me; about the function of self-image that regulates the child’s activity and behavior; about his mediation of such aspects of the child’s development as his cognitive activity, etc.

Lisina introduced new and original points into understanding the child’s self-esteem and self-image. The child's self-esteem was interpreted, being separated from the cognitive component of self-image, more narrowly than is customary in psychology. The most important characteristic of self-esteem has become not its quantitative side (high–low) and its correspondence to the child’s real capabilities (adequate–inadequate), but qualitative features in terms of its composition and coloring (positive–negative, complete–incomplete, general–specific, absolute -relative). The idea of ​​oneself (that is, knowledge) was considered as more or less accurate, since its construction is based on specific facts, either correctly reflected by the individual, or distorted by him (overestimated or underestimated).

An experimental study of the genesis of self-image allowed M. I. Lisina, from the position of the concept of communication as a communicative activity, to outline a new plane of structural analysis of this complex psychological formation. She singled out, on the one hand, private, specific knowledge, the subject’s ideas about his capabilities and abilities, constituting, as it were, the periphery of his self-image, and on the other, a central, nuclear formation through which all the subject’s private ideas about himself are refracted. The central, nuclear education contains the direct experience of oneself as a subject, an individual, and general self-esteem originates in it. The core of the image provides a person with the experience of constancy, continuity and identity with himself. The periphery of the image is the areas closer or further away from the center, where new specific information about a person about himself comes. The center and the periphery are in constant and complex interaction with each other. The core determines the affective coloring of the periphery, and changes in the periphery lead to a restructuring of the center. This interaction ensures the resolution of emerging contradictions between the subject’s new knowledge about himself and his previous attitude towards himself and the dynamic birth of a new quality of self-image.

The problem of relationships also turned out to be in the field of scientific interests of M. I. Lisina. In the context of the activity approach to communication, she understood relationships (as well as self-image) as a product, or result, of communicative activity. Relationships and communication are inextricably linked: relationships arise in communication and reflect its characteristics, and then influence the flow of communication. In a number of studies carried out under the leadership of M. I. Lisina, it was convincingly shown that it is communication, where the subject of interaction between partners (the subject of communicative activity) is a person (and not the organization of productive activities or the productive activity itself), that acts as the psychological basis of selective relations between people, including between children.

The study of the influence of communication on the general mental development of a child led M. I. Lisina to clarify the role of communicative activity in the development of cognitive activity. She associated the concept of cognitive activity with the concept of activity: both cognitive, research, and communicative, communication. In the system of cognitive activity, cognitive activity occupies, according to M. I. Lisina, the structural place of need. Cognitive activity is not identical to cognitive activity: activity is readiness for activity, it is a state that precedes activity and gives rise to it, activity is fraught with activity. Initiative is a variant of activity, a manifestation of its high level. Cognitive activity is in a sense identical to cognitive need. Recognizing the undoubted importance of the natural basis of cognitive activity, M. I. Lisina emphasized the role of communication as the most important factor in the development of cognitive activity in childhood. She was convinced (and the basis for this was numerous observations and experimental data obtained by herself, as well as by her colleagues and students) that communication with people around her determines the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the child’s cognitive activity, the more so, the younger the child’s age and the stronger, therefore, the relationship with elders mediates the relationship of children with the entire world around them.

The ways in which communication influences cognitive activity are very complex. M.I. Lisina believed that at different stages of childhood the mechanisms of the influence of communication on cognitive activity are not the same. As children develop, the influence of communication on cognitive activity is increasingly mediated by personal formations and emerging self-awareness, which, first of all, is influenced by contacts with other people. But thanks to such mediation, the meaning of communication only intensifies, and its effect becomes more durable and long-lasting.

Research aimed at studying the influence of communication on the general mental development of a child also includes works devoted to the formation of an internal plan of action, the emergence and development of speech in children, their readiness for schooling, etc.

In works devoted to the internal plan of action, the hypothesis was tested that the ability to act in the mind has its origins at a very early age, that it is realized in a certain form already in the second year of life, and that an important factor in its development is the communication of children with adults, decisions the tasks of which require the child to improve perceptual skills and operate with images of people and objects. Mechanisms of action on the internal plane appear earlier in communication and only later extend to the child’s interaction with the objective world. The further development of children’s internal plan of action is also associated with their readiness for schooling in the broad sense of the word. The formation of non-situational forms of communication with adults in preschool age contributes to the formation in children of a fundamentally new level of internal action - logical operations with concepts and dynamic transformations of highly schematized images-models. The ability to act in the mind, increasing under the influence of extra-situational forms of communication, mediates the development of other aspects of the child’s psyche, such as, for example, the arbitrary regulation of behavior and activity, etc.

Original and unparalleled in world psychological science is a series of studies on the emergence and development of speech in children, carried out according to the plan and under the leadership of M. I. Lisina. Here, the basis was the consideration of speech as an integral element of the structure of communicative activity, occupying in it the position of an action, or operation (means of communication), associated with its other components, conditioned by them, and primarily by the content of the need for communication. This made it possible to assume that speech arises from the need for communication, for its needs and in the conditions of communication only when the child’s communicative activity becomes impossible without mastering this special means. Further enrichment and development of speech occurs in the context of complication and changes in the child’s communication with people around him, under the influence of the transformation of the communicative tasks facing him.

The study of communication as a factor in mental development entailed the study, in the context of a child’s communicative activity with people around him, of almost all aspects of his psyche: the development of pitch and phonemic hearing; selectivity of speech perception in comparison with physical sounds; sensitivity to phonemes of the native language in comparison with the phonemes of a foreign language; selectivity of perception of images of a person in comparison with images of objects; features of memorization and memory images of objects included and not included in the child’s communication with an adult; actions in the mind with images of objects and people; development of positive and negative emotions in children with different communication experiences; the formation of subjectivity in children growing up in different conditions; the nature of selectivity in the relationships of preschoolers, etc. Materials obtained in dozens of studies carried out by M.I. Lisina herself and her colleagues and students under her leadership made it possible to create a general picture of the mental development of a child from birth to 7 years of age in communication with adults and peers.

The study of communication as a factor in mental development also inevitably required a comparison of children who have contacts with close people who are full in quantity and content with children from orphanages and orphanages growing up in conditions of a lack of communication with adults. The data collected in comparative studies made it possible to establish facts of delays in the mental development of children raised in closed children's institutions, and to determine the most vulnerable “points” in this regard in the psyche of children of different ages: the absence of major neoplasms and emotional flatness in infants; delays in the development of cognitive activity and speech, as well as insensitivity to adult influences in young children, etc.

According to M. I. Lisina, “communication has the most direct relation to the development of personality in children, since already in its most primitive, direct emotional form it leads to the establishment of connections between the child and the people around him and becomes the first component of that “ensemble” , or “integrity” (A. N. Leontyev), social relationships, which constitutes the essence of personality.” The approach proposed by M. I. Lisina to the study of personality formation in the context of communication is based on the general methodological concept developed in Russian psychology by B. G. Ananyev, A. N. Leontyev, V. N. Myasishchev, S. L. Rubinstein. Its starting point is the idea of ​​personality “as a set of social relations.” On the psychological plane, in relation to an individual, this concept is interpreted “as a set of relationships to the surrounding world” (E.V. Ilyenkov). In relation to the problems of ontogenetic development of personality, this position is concretized in the idea of ​​personal formations as products that arise in a child: attitudes towards oneself, towards the people around him and the objective world. M.I. Lisina suggested that the age-related development of a child’s personality is determined by the types of these relationships that develop in his practical activities and communication. She believed that central personal new formations in ontogenesis arise at points of mutual intersection and transformation of all three lines of relationships simultaneously.

The listed aspects and directions of research carried out by M. I. Lisina during her relatively short scientific life would be enough to make a name for not one, but for several scientists, and of considerable scale. If we take into account that in almost all areas of the child’s psyche that she studied, Maya Ivanovna discovered facets and reserves of development unknown to her before, then it will become obvious that she was a striking phenomenon in psychological science and an event in the life of everyone whom fate brought together with her. Her brilliant and original mind, boundless diligence, absolute scientific honesty and selflessness, breadth of knowledge and tireless creative search were admired. Generously gifted by nature, she multiplied her talent with tireless work, recklessly giving people everything she had in science: ideas, research methods, time and labor. M.I. Lisina created a school in child psychology, whose representatives today continue, to the best of their ability and ability, the work she began.

Its ideas are being developed both in our country and abroad. This book does not present all of M. I. Lisina’s works. It contains only those that were devoted to the problems of the importance of a child’s communication with adults and peers for his mental and personal development. She devoted most of her scientific work to this problem of child psychology and was engaged in it until the last hour.