Theories of intrauterine mental development. prenatal education
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Psychology Mother-child relationship during prenatal and early postnatal development
In the psychological literature, communication and interaction with the child is considered as the most important determinant for the formation and development of the maternal sphere during pregnancy. However, after the birth of a child, researchers pay most attention to the consideration of maternal attitudes as the most important source of child development.
The study of the mother's influence on the health and mental usefulness of the child at the stage of infancy is associated with an understanding of the importance of early communication between mother and child. It is during this period that in communication with the mother, the child develops a basic trust in the world, which cannot be replenished in later life. “Sufficient physical and emotional satisfaction on the part of the mother forms that layer of primary trust in the world that colors the rest of life. On the contrary, due to the inferiority of the mother or the hostility of the environment, the child develops a feeling of distrust of the world and personal instability.”
The importance of the maternal relationship in the early stages of a child's development, its complex structure, and the multiplicity of cultural and individual variants prompted researchers from various fields to make this period of motherhood the subject of their study. The structure of the parental relationship is described quite broadly and fully; models and types of maternal relationships, determinants of parental relationships, internal mechanisms and conditions for the development of child-parent relationships at the stage of infancy.
Several factors have been identified in the structure of the parental relationship: emotional, cognitive and behavioral. Moreover, each of these aspects has a rather complex content. The emotional factor falls into three axes: acceptance - rejection, sympathy - antipathy, closeness - remoteness. Behavioral - dominance - partnership, indulgence - autonomy. The cognitive one contains an adequate representation of the child and various types of attribution.
The varying degrees of severity of these factors make it possible to create a large typology of parental relationships. The following 6 types of parental relationship are most often described in the literature:
1. rejection- rejection of the child as a specific person, the relationship is cold, humiliating. The purpose of prohibitions is to limit contact with the child.
2. indifference- cold attitude, but without hostility. Parents pay attention to the child only in a situation of persistent demands from the child. Parental care extends mainly to meet the physical needs of the child.
3. overprotection or anxious attitude - the desire to protect the child from difficulties and troubles. Self-reliance and independence are punished. At the same time, the child occupies a central, privileged place in the family. Relations with him are emotionally saturated.
4. overdemanding- parental attitude is distinguished by dominance. The main means of education is the introduction of prohibitions and restrictions. The main task of the parent is the formation in the child of certain qualities and abilities that are important for the parent.
5. stability- perception of the child as part of a common life situation. Parents willingly take care of the child, but do not make much effort to educate him. The emotional attitude is stable and positive.
6. active love or a helping attitude - parents devote a lot of time to the child, try to help the child's striving for independence and independence. Take a partnership position.
Various determinants influence the formation of one or another type of parental relationship. As such, the following are identified in the literature:
1. Features of the personality of the parent.
2. Personal and clinical and psychological characteristics of the child as a factor in the formation of parental relationships.
3. Ethological factor in the formation of parental relationships.
4. Features of family communication of adult family members.
5. Sociocultural and family traditions of parental behavior.
The most complete coverage of the internal mechanisms of dyadic relations, the most important aspects of interaction with the child and the dynamics of the maternal relationship at the stage of infancy, we find in the works of psychoanalytically oriented authors: D.V. Winnicott, R. Spitz, E Erickson, M. Klein, A. Adler, A. Freud, F. Dolto. In their works, they proved that all aspects (cognitive, emotional, behavioral) of the relationship in the mother-child dyad during this period are most important. Another line of consideration of the early interaction of mother and infant proceeded from both psychoanalytic and ethological ideas, and the assumption of the existence of instinctive programs of behavior in infants that cause the care necessary for survival and development on the part of adults. Ideas developed in attachment theory. However, E. Erickson refutes their assertions, believing that the drives with which a person is born are not instincts, just as the complementary drives of his mother cannot be considered entirely instinctive in nature, considering them as prosocial abilities of the child. “Neither one nor the other carry the patterns of completion, self-preservation, interaction with any segment of nature, like an animal”, they still “should be organized by tradition and conscience”. It makes no sense to talk about the child as an animal in the process of learning. Child education through the assimilation of the modalities of the physical approach should contribute to the assimilation of the modalities of social life, teaching the child to live in the space and time of his culture.
In these conclusions, there is a clear analogy with the interpsychic form of action according to L.S. Vygotsky, who argued that every mental function appears on the stage twice - first as distributed between the child and the adult in its interpsychic form, and only then as an individual property of the child himself, i.e. in an intrapsychic form. Of particular note are the conclusions characteristic of all these studies that interaction with the mother during this period has an impact on the origin, nature and functioning of intrapsychic structures in the child's personality.
From the literature devoted to the analysis of the laws of development of the child, it can be seen that the period of infancy is divided into stages that differ in the content of the tasks solved in the dyad and the forms of interaction between the child and the mother.
The first stage, which is the subject of our consideration, within the framework of empirical research - the stage of primary interaction in psychoanalysis is defined as a physiological prelude to object relations, but it is here that the foundation of future social relationships is laid. Its duration is approximately equal to two months. The main task for mother and baby is to stabilize physiological cycles to maintain homeostatic balance. It seems that at this stage the mother can easily be replaced by another person; However, it is not. The data indicate that the child is prepared to interact with the mother. In this interaction, various physiological systems are used in both the mother and the infant (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, gustatory and olfactory). The refined biological abilities of the infant and the ability of the mother to “mirror” (Winnicott) the affective experiences of the child lead to the formation of a feedback system. In the term "mirroring", Winnicott describes the mechanism of mother-child interaction, in which the mother's attitude towards her child, reflected on her face, is "read" by the child. By feeling what he sees in the mother, the infant develops a basic sense of well-being and security. Affective interactions between mother and child, including visual, tactile and kinesthetic experiences, provide the background against which the child begins to build a sense of self and a perception of the other, different from itself, whole and separate. This decisive contribution of the mother was also emphasized by Kohut, who noted that child survival requires a specific psychological environment - the presence of responsive, expressive I - objects that confirm the child's natural energy and vitality. In this way, a special private form of relationship between mother and infant develops, providing the basis for proper psychological functioning in subsequent periods of development. This two-way relationship, which provides the necessary conditions for the development of the child, is possible only with a certain change in the ways of interacting with others on the part of the mother. A mother during this period can be a “good enough mother” provided that she is in a special state of consciousness that allows her to feel the needs of her child as if they were her own, i.e. in a state of complete sensual merging with it. “It cannot be taught. The mother feels: the baby must be picked up or laid down, not touched or turned over. And only with certain external interference, a woman cannot be a “good enough mother” after the birth of a child. Summarizing the statements of D.V. Winnicot, characterizing a “good enough mother”, we can say that the main condition for such an attitude towards a child is the mother’s trust in her inner feelings associated with the child, i.e. self-confidence as a parent; weak expression of the cognitive component of the attitude, resulting in the meaning characteristics of the child's individual qualities, and the predominance of the affective and behavioral component in the mother's attitude at this stage: the mother acts in response to affective experiences. That is why any intervention from the outside, aimed at reflecting the processes taking place in the dyad, can destroy the established relationship. As soon as the relationship to the child is drawn to the objective pole of the relationship, it ceases to be a condition for the full development of the child.
Describing the phenomena characteristic of this stage of development, Ya.L. Moreno calls it the first universe. Mother and child form an interactional unity, which is the prototype of all subsequent interactions of the child with other people, i.e. is the matrix of human social development or "social placenta". Just as the organic placenta provides the infant with the nutrients it needs for its organic development, the social placenta provides the substantive basis for social development. The child does not yet perceive the mother as "You" and her self-care as her actions. As part of his first experience of the world, in which there is still no differentiation between "I" and "You" and in which the child feels identity with the world around him, he perceives the mother as a part or extension of himself. The mother, on her part, guesses and understands all the needs of the child, performs all the actions that he himself cannot yet perform, but which are necessary to satisfy his vital needs. The possibility of such a maternal relationship to a child is associated with the very process of forming relationships with others in early ontogenesis, when the initial unity of “I” and “You”, remaining as the basis of all subsequent human relationships, allows you to feel into the inner world of another. To carry out such interaction with the child, the mother must have the ability for deep empathic empathy with the child while maintaining an adult position, which will allow her to take care of the child, show a stable attitude towards him, regardless of the child’s behavior at the moment, that is, maintain her mature self-identity without dissolving in the child.
It is with this attitude of the mother in this matrix of social development that the experience of being together, feeling and acting together between mother and baby becomes a deep experience of the identity of the newborn with the world and forms the basis for further trust in one's own being. It corresponds to the basic trust described by Erickson. At this time, the relationship between the child and the adult is not mediated by anything - this form of communication does not carry any objectivity and no other content, except for the merged “I and You”. The infant is entirely focused on the "You" of the adult, which is inseparable from his "I". Although caring for a child is associated with numerous objective actions, this objectivity is not yet included in the relationship with the child. The love that S.L. Rubinstein defined it as a feeling "it's good that you exist in the world" and in which the affirmation of human existence takes place, is carried out here in its purest form. It is at this stage, according to a number of researchers, that the subjective relationship to the other is laid in the child's self-consciousness.
At the next stage, the main task of the infant is to form a firm attachment to the mother. The actions, affects, and perceptions of the infant increasingly focus on interpersonal interaction with the mother, in which both participants are active. The experience of repeated staring at the mother, who constantly interacts with the child and provides him with a sense of security, leads to the laying of feelings of permanence of the object and permanence of the self - the source of self-consciousness. The most important aspect of the mother-infant relationship during this period is the affective climate. It is affectively conditioned and mutually stimulating dialogue that generates the environment from which object relations and intrapsychic structures arise.
Moreno. describing the mechanisms of the further development of the primary universe, he spoke of the separation of the mother as a special part of the child's world, and then of the primary separation from her by imitating her as an external, different object. He calls this stage the stage of “knowing You”, since the child first singles out the Other as an object of knowledge, and through this selection the process of identification of the “I” takes place. However, the author stipulates that this is a process of interactional cognition, cognition through external action. Awareness of one's actions is a later stage in the development of the child.
Theoretical constructions concerning early relations between mother and child postulate the following conclusions: the mechanisms of formation of relations in the process of early interaction between mother and child are the basis for the subsequent development of all types of human relations to oneself, others, and the world. Relationships in the mother-child dyad are dynamic and go through two stages in their development: primary interactional and emotional unity and subsequent differentiation between "I" and "You".
The stages of the development of relations in ontogenesis are reflected in the dual structure of the subjective relationship to the other, which simultaneously contains the “other” as the internal content of consciousness and the “other” as an externally perceived object.
The movement of two differently directed intentions towards the Other creates the conditions for the development of individual consciousness. This is precisely the mechanism of development of maternal attitude towards the child at the stage of pregnancy.
All of the patterns we have outlined are reflected in the study of attitudes towards the child being born at the stage of pregnancy. This aspect of the psychology of pregnancy is the most fully researched. It was revealed that the attitude towards the child to be born is dynamic and goes through certain stages corresponding to the trimesters of pregnancy. In the first trimester of pregnancy, there is a weak differentiation of the woman's own I from the child she is carrying. This is characterized by affective and interactional unity, a weak representation of the cognitive component. This attitude itself is the result of the actualization in the woman's self-consciousness of the "ideal representation" of the child, as another already living in the mind before a real meeting with him. Moreover, this inner other is devoid of its concrete definiteness and is a generalized representative of the genus: "In this subject, the individual feature of this or that I is extinguished." It is fundamentally not reducible to some final specific characteristics, it is involved in the subject and merged with it from the inside. It is this ideal form of being of the Other in the inner space of the subject that is the condition for the transfer of the already existing inner content to a particular child in the future and the establishment of relations with him. The content of this primary relationship is the experiences derived from the woman's ontogenetic experience and the culturally conditioned content of the child's image. In some cases, a woman's attitude towards a child may be limited to a sense of physical symbiosis, in which the fetus is perceived only as a part of her own body, which, if desired, can be easily disposed of. In other cases, already at this stage, the perception of the child as the subject of the relationship is observed.
Second trimester Pregnancy, according to researchers, is accompanied by qualitative changes in the attitude of the mother towards the child she is carrying. This is due to such a phenomenon as the movement of the child, which, in the second trimester, makes the intrauterine life of the fetus available to the perception of the mother. A child begins to be perceived by a woman as something already existing, different from her, but at the same time vitally inseparable from her. A kind of "double I" appears, where the child is no longer "my I", but at the same time not yet an independent "I".
It is at this moment that ambivalent feelings become more acute, connected with the fact that two differently directed identifications are actualized in the woman's subconscious. The baby's movements force her to identify with the mother's role, and at the same time she continues to identify with the baby herself, reliving her early prenatal and infancy. The child to be separated from is the inner content of the woman's self-consciousness, an introjected object appropriated in the past. Awareness of the fact of the child's movements as manifestations of his subjectivity contributes to the process of separation from the introject.
So, for the attitude towards the child in women of the second trimester of pregnancy, it is characteristic: the beginning of differentiation of the I of the mother and the child to be born.
The third trimester is characterized by the fact that the attention of women is transferred from the present to the future - to childbirth and subsequent interaction with the child. According to some authors, a woman communicates not with the image of a child that develops inside her body, but sees her child after birth.
Thus, in the third trimester of pregnancy, the processes started earlier are further developed: the image of the child is differentiated from the mother's ideas about herself and others, and a predictive model of relations with the child after childbirth is built on the basis of the experience gained and the mother's ideas about herself and her child. These studies indicate the existence of a relationship between a woman's attitude and perception of her child at the stage of pregnancy and subsequent parent-child relationships.
The features of the dynamics of the maternal relationship at the stage of pregnancy are generally very similar to the features of the dynamics of early child-parent relationships. However, a number of studies indicate that there may be no dynamics of this relationship at the stage of pregnancy, and the main characteristics of a woman's perception of her child remain unchanged throughout pregnancy, giving rise to certain difficulties in interacting with the child after childbirth.
Variants of styles of experiencing pregnancy are described according to the criterion of a woman's attitude to the child she is bearing, consistent with the most common styles of parental attitude found in the literature: adequate, anxious, euphoric, ignoring, ambivalent rejecting.
The specificity of studies of the mother-child dyad at the stage of pregnancy does not allow us to state with a greater degree of certainty which elements of the structure of the maternal relationship are the most important for the full development of the intrauterine child. The nature of the connection between the experiences of the mother and the fate of the unborn child is so complex that even a simple typology of the content of the child's expectation and, even more so, the study of the internal structure of this phenomenon require a thorough and lengthy study. However, most researchers point out that the condition for the development of a child's specifically human abilities and the maturation of the maternal sphere in a woman's personality is the socio-psychological processes that unfold between a woman and a child.
According to the concept of the formation of a prenatal community, in the second trimester of pregnancy, communication can be established between the mother and the child: now the woman gets the opportunity to give meaning to the movements of the fetus, respond to them, and cause them. The subjectivity of the unborn child is already being formed in the subjective space of the mother. It is emphasized that if there is no communication between mother and child, then a formal community arises, where the child is perceived as an object "for the application of educational techniques and other people's advice." Those. there is no identification of the child as the Other, and his image remains merged with the image of the infant "I" of the mother.
In the works of French psychoanalysts, the intrauterine child is understood as a linguistic being in its essence, and the main mechanism for the development of the human psyche and specifically human abilities is the relationship between mother and child mediated by the symbolism of language. The vitality of the fetus needs language processing, which must be carried out by the mother and do this even before birth. Language appears here as an artificial form of human self-creation, constituting those specifically human abilities that a newborn child possesses.
An intrauterine child in the humanities is understood as a human being, he has an autonomous subjectivity, capable of spontaneous self-expression, which, in turn, affects the emotional state of the pregnant woman. From this point of view, traumatic influences on the fetus occur because the intrauterine infant has no means of communication, he was not heard and understood by the mother. A practice based on this model seeks to establish communication between the prenatal infant and the mother, which is replaced by a psychotherapy group and/or a psychotherapist who helps to translate bodily and visual experiences into words. The main intention of such practices is to form or actualize the pole of personification in relation to the child, which implies the selection of him as a subject, another, present in the internal dialogue of the mother. child. It is from this point of view that the analysis of the processes occurring during pregnancy in the concept of Yu Shmurak takes place. She claims that in the process of pregnancy, the formation of a child-parent community takes place, which she called the “prenatal community”. The prenatal community is limited in time by conception and birth and includes all connections and relationships with the world, real and imagined, in which there is a woman who is expecting a child. To analyze existing ideas about the development of prenatal community, the author uses concepts from the concept of the development of subjectivity in psychological anthropology. This or that form of subjectivity is the result of the development of a co-existential community at a certain time period of life. The general age-related task of a person at the stage of prenatal development is to become a co-participant in communication in the consciousness, experiences and activities of the mother by the time of birth. The process of becoming a prenatal community coordinates and streamlines the prenatal abilities of the intrauterine infant, creating the basis for the mother's program of postnatal communication. In this approach, the author assumes the possibility of interiorization of the maternal relationship and its transformation into the socio-psychological abilities of the child being born already in the period of intrauterine development due to the organization of the prenatal community as a single semantic space for the existence of mother and child, and allows him to form as a human being, the subject of communication and relationship . At the same time, the formation and development of the maternal attitude towards the child is associated with the peculiarities of their interaction, which is realized in the form of specific cultural models already at the stage of pregnancy. Namely, the alternation in the mother's consciousness of two poles of attitude towards the child as to that “other”, which is part of her self-consciousness and with which she needs to separate, and as to the “other”, externally opposing object, to which she needs to build certain semantic relations. According to the author, the alternation of these two strategies is the condition for the development of a constructive child-parent community.
A prerequisite for considering the socio-psychological processes between the mother and the child to be born were discoveries in the field of embryology, perinatology and psychology. In the early 70s, experimental observations were made of the interaction of a newborn child and mother, which turned out to be revolutionary in terms of understanding the socio-emotional development of the child. Babies were found to have the innate "ability to establish human relationships" so necessary for interaction with the mother and further development. It was found that a newborn child has not only bioinstinctive abilities, but also prosocial ones, which provide the possibility of early interaction with an adult. Representatives of the British school of object relations and American researchers close to them believed that human social relations exist from birth and are not based on physiological needs. It was argued that the main influence on the development of the child is not the satisfaction of biological needs, but early social experience. This is facilitated by the recently discovered laws of prenatal development of the psyche. In the process of development of prenatology and prenatal psychology, it was found that the great importance of the mother's attitude towards the child to be born for the development, survival and formation of mental health even at the stage of intrauterine development. “... true education begins before birth, only it is powerful and effective and cannot be destroyed.” The main paradigm of this approach is based on the fact that the relationship between the content of the child's expectation and his subsequent development and learning has been proven. The mechanisms of transmission of information from mother to child and its memorization during pregnancy are currently only beginning to be studied by scientists, however, modern perinatology relies on other paradigmatic settings. The paradigm of the 20th century was that development proceeds from simple to complex, from a single cell to a complex organism. At the same time, organs and systems grow and develop in order to start functioning after birth.
Reality destroyed these ideas: the emerging structure immediately manifests its function. All systems: blood circulation, respiration, digestion, urination, etc. - as they form and mature, they begin to function with different intensity and in different volumes. The same applies to the sense organs: skin sensitivity is detected already from 7 weeks from the moment of conception, the function of the vestibular apparatus - from 12, the taste buds - from 14, the organs of vision and hearing - from 16-18 weeks, that is, long before the birth of the sense organs a person is already able to perceive information from the outside world. Scientists have found that the structure of the brain of an infant at 24-28 weeks from conception corresponds to its structure in a full-term baby and an adult. Scientific research conducted in the field of embryology, psychoneuroendocrinology led to the conclusion that from the moment of its formation, the nervous system, the brain are involved in the regulation of the functions of all organs and systems of the unborn child. The sense organs closely connected with the brain, as they form, begin to function and perceive stimuli, which is accompanied by corresponding reactions from other organs, for example, musical impact on the hearing organ of an unborn child causes a change in his heartbeat. From the second trimester of pregnancy, an intrauterine child is able to see, smell, taste, hear and remember the events of fetal life, i.e. it is from this period that the true mental life of the fetus begins. Objections about incomplete myelination of the nerve fiber, as a result of which the fetus does not receive signals from its sense organs, are not valid: today it has already been proven that a high organization of brain activity is possible even with incomplete myelination .
It is important that it is in the second trimester that the most important changes begin to occur in the mother's mind regarding her attitude towards the child, awareness of herself as a mother. One of the most studied factors is the mother's emotions affecting the psyche and physical health of the prenatal child. The discovery of neurohormones allows us to talk about the mechanism of transmission of mother's emotions to the fetus. Studies of domestic and foreign scientists, conducted on large samples, suggest that strong emotional stress during pregnancy is 100% correlated with fetal disorders. At present, there is a mass of direct statistical evidence that maternal fears, tension, depression, and similar mental conditions can harm the developing fetus.
Numerous studies by psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists have established that the information received by an unborn child is recorded in his memory. This information, combined with genetic information, determines the psychological and behavioral characteristics of a person. If it has a negative content, then the emerging features can complicate the life of an individual, disrupt his relationships in the social environment, and contribute to his involvement in conflicts of a greater or lesser degree. However, due to the high correlation between the observed attitude towards the child and the behavior of the mother at the stage of gestation and the characteristics of this attitude after birth, it is unreasonable to assert that it is the prenatal period that is the base for the formation of these personality structures. Much more significant is the study of factors influencing the very formation of maternal attitudes during pregnancy. This aspect of the mother's attitude towards the child she is carrying at the stage of pregnancy is the least studied. In this area, one can refer to a small number of works that focus on the determinants of the formation of a mother's attitude towards a child at the stage of pregnancy.
Within the framework of this direction, the most significant characteristics of the perception of the child, due to the somatic status of the mother and her personal characteristics, and their relationship with the emerging maternal attitude are identified and described. The most important for the formation of maternal attitudes are subjectivity - objectivity and positivity - the negativity of the image of the unborn child, which is due to the personal characteristics of the mother. It is these characteristics that have the greatest impact on the course of pregnancy, the clinical characteristics of the perinatal period, and most of all correlate with those features of child-parent interaction that are observed after childbirth.
Another determinant is the family history of the future mother, which influenced the formation of one or another model of maternal attitude. So, in particular, it is stated that the majority of pregnant women with a deviant style of experiencing pregnancy were brought up in families where there were cases of abandonment of children.
Thus, at present, the influence of family communication and the characteristics of the relationship of a woman with a partner - the father of a child, their influence on the formed maternal attitude towards a child are not studied. This will be analyzed by us in the following parts of the work.
PhD, perinatal psychologist
Mogilevskaya Elena Viktorovna
Prenatal and perinatal periods of development
prenatal period
Starting with the works of L. S. Vygotsky, in Russian developmental psychology, the period of a child’s embryonic development is usually excluded from age periodization schemes, since it is “a completely special type of development, subject to other patterns than the development of a child’s personality that begins from the moment of birth” [Vygotsky, 1984, p. 256]. However, the origins of mental development are laid precisely in the prenatal period, the course of which affects the subsequent postnatal development of the child, therefore modern developmental psychology refers to the characteristics of prenatal development and the process of childbirth.
Prenatal , or intrauterine development, is a classic example of the process of maturation, during which, in a rigidly defined and genetically fixed sequence, the transformation of a fertilized egg into a newborn baby occurs. The period of prenatal development, lasting an average of 38 weeks, is traditionally divided into three stages : zygote stage (about two weeks), embryonic stage (from 2nd to 8th week) and fetal stage (from 9th week to birth). Let's briefly consider each of them.
Zygote stage (germinal period). The first period of intrauterine development begins with the fertilization of the egg and ends when the fertilized egg, called zygote , or embryo, is implanted in the wall of the uterus. A few hours after fertilization (usually within 36 hours), the first cleavage of the zygote occurs: first it divides into two cells, then every 12 hours a new cell division occurs, which gradually accelerates, and by the end of the first week the zygote consists of about 100 cells and represents a hollow ball ( blastocyst) filled with liquid. Sometimes the zygote splits into two groups of cells, and this leads to the development of monozygotic (identical) twins. Dizygotic (fraternal) twins develop when two eggs mature at the same time and are fertilized by different sperm.
Reaching the uterus, on the 7-9th day, the zygote begins to sink into the wall of the uterus and join the maternal blood vessels. This process is called implantation. At the same time, there is a process differentiation cells: from the internal cells of the zygote is formed germinal disk from which the fetus develops. From cells directly adjacent to the wall of the uterus (outer protective layer - trophoblast), structures that provide protection and nutrition for the developing organism develop. The trophoblast begins to grow intensively. It shapes amnion, a shell filled amniotic fluid, surrounding the developing organism. The amnion helps to keep the temperature of the prenatal world at a constant level, acts as a protection against any shocks caused by the movements of the mother. In addition, it appears amniotic sac, which produces blood cells until the developing liver, spleen, and bone marrow mature enough to take over this function [Burk, 2006]. By the end of the second week after conception, trophoblast cells form another protective membrane, chorion that surrounds the amnion. From the chorion grow thin villi that act as blood vessels. After these villi are implanted in the wall of the uterus, a special organ begins to develop that ensures the exchange of substances between the mother's body and the embryo, called placenta . The placenta is connected to the developing organism through umbilical cord(umbilical cord), containing two arteries and one vein, delivering nutrients to it and removing waste products.
Embryonic stage (embryonic period). A zygote that has completely invaded the uterine wall is called embryo. In the embryonic period, the most rapid prenatal changes occur: the foundations of all body structures and internal organs are laid. Immediately after implantation, embryonic cells begin to differentiate into three separate layers: from the outer layer, ectoderm, the skin and nervous system subsequently develop; from the middle layer mesoderm, muscle and bone tissue, circulatory and excretory systems are formed; from the inner layer endoderm, subsequently formed the digestive system, lungs, urinary canal and tonsils. These three layers are the foundation for the formation of all parts of the body.
First, the nervous system is characterized by the most rapid development: neural tube or a primitive spinal cord, and by 3.5 weeks the brain begins to form. In the fourth week, the heart begins to function, muscles, spine, ribs appear, the digestive and excretory systems, lungs are formed, but so far they do not work. During the second month, the eyes, nose, jaw and neck, limbs, fingers and toes are formed; internal organs become more visible: various chambers form in the heart, the liver and spleen take over the production of blood cells.
If an embryo at the age of 3 weeks reaches no more than 2 mm in length, then by the end of the 8th week its size is already 2.5 cm, and its weight is approximately 4–6 g. The embryo can already move, although due to its small the size of the mother still does not feel the weak movements of the embryo.
Fetal stage (fetal period). Starting from the 9th week and until the birth of the child continues fetal period, sometimes called the "growth and completion phase" [Burke, 2006]. At this stage, the size of the body of the fetus increases significantly and the systems of its body begin to function.
Prenatal development is often divided into trimesters , or three equal periods of time. The first trimester ends by the end of the 3rd month. By this age, the size of the fetus is about 8 cm, and the weight is about 28 g. The fetus develops the thyroid and pancreas glands, kidneys, the liver begins to function, the final differentiation of the reproductive organs occurs, i.e., the external genitalia are formed so that they it is easy to determine the sex of the fetus using ultrasound. Other “finishing touches” appear, such as fingernails and toenails, the rudiments of teeth and eyelids that open and close, the heart rate increases, it can already be heard with a stethoscope.
In the second trimester, the fetus is covered with a white substance called primordial lubricant, which protects the baby's skin from cracking due to a long stay in the amniotic fluid. In addition, the entire body of the fetus is covered with white fluffy hair ( lanugo), helping the original lubricant to attach to the skin. By the end of the second trimester (24th week), many organs are characterized by good development. The development of the brain reaches the main stage: by the 24th week all the neurons of the brain are formed. The development of the brain entails new possibilities. Starting at 20 weeks of age, the fetus can respond to sound and light. For example, if a doctor examines the contents of the uterus using fetoscopy, the fetus tries to close its eyes with its hands.
At the fetal stage, there is behavior- fetal activity, expressed in well-coordinated patterns of movements, the main of which are presented in Table. 3.1.
Table 3.1
Development of movement patterns in the fetus
Source: [Butterworth, Harris, 2000, p. 72].
The active behavior of the fetus contributes to the normal development of joints, sensory organs, prevents “sticking” to the uterine wall, and allows you to take a more comfortable position in the womb [Butterworth, Harris, 2000]. As can be seen from Table. 3.1, from the 17th to the 24th week, the activity of the fetus decreases, which, apparently, is due to the formation during this period of those higher centers of the brain that coordinate the behavior previously controlled by the midbrain structures. After the 24th week, more subtle movements are observed, including expressive facial expressions.
By the last, third trimester, most of the fetal systems function quite reliably, which gives a chance for survival outside the mother's body to a prematurely born child. The age at which a child is able to survive is called viability age , it occurs between the 22nd and 26th weeks of pregnancy [Burk, 2006]. However, a child born this early can only survive with intensive support and special care, and in the future he will most likely face serious problems in physical and mental development.
Over the past three months, the brain continues to develop rapidly: the cerebral cortex grows in size, neurological organization improves, and the fetus spends more time in a waking state. By week 20, heart rate variations indicate that the fetus is asleep all the time, but by week 28, the fetus is awake about 11% of the time, and shortly before birth, 16% (Ibid.). During the transition to the 9th month of prenatal development in the fetus, cycles of sleep and wakefulness are established. At 30 weeks, rapid eye movements are recorded in the fetus, this is the phase of sleep that is accompanied by dreams in adults.
In the third trimester, the fetal susceptibility to external stimulation also increases. Around the 24th week, the fetus first feels pain. Therefore, after this time, anesthetics should be used for any prenatal surgery. By the 25th week, the fetus reacts to nearby sounds through body movements. In the last weeks of pregnancy, the fetus begins to distinguish the tone and rhythm of the mother's voice. In one study [Kyle, 2002], pregnant women were asked to read Dr. Seuss's story "The Cat in the Hood" twice a day during the last month and a half of pregnancy. By the time of birth, each child, while in the fetal stage, had listened to this story for at least 3 hours in total. The newborns were then allowed to suck on a pacifier connected to a tape recorder so that the sucking infant could turn the recording on or off. The researchers found that newborns sucked on a pacifier to play a recording of their mother's reading of "The Cat in the Hood" but did not want to listen to tapes of other stories read by their mother. Apparently, newborns recognized the rhythmic structure of the story that they remembered before birth.
Studies that have examined fetal responses have shown that fetal activity patterns predict infant temperament between 3 and 6 months after birth. Those fetuses that alternated between calm and active behavior tended to become calm babies with predictable sleep-wake rhythms. Conversely, those fetuses that were prone to long periods of activity in infancy were more likely to become children with a difficult temperament, demonstrating fussiness, rejection of new experience, irregular feeding and sleeping cycles, and high activity [Burk, 2006].
During the last month of pregnancy, a subcutaneous fat layer forms in the fetus, which helps to carry out temperature regulation; antibodies begin to be transferred from the mother's body to protect the fetus from disease and support its own developing immune system. By the end of the 9th month, the fetus reaches a weight usually exceeding 3 kg and grows to just over 50 cm. As it fills the uterus, its movements gradually become less frequent, which is also facilitated by the development of the brain, which allows the body to slow down its impulses. . The rate of weight gain in the fetus decreases, in recent weeks, most fetuses take a position upside down, placental cells begin to degenerate - the baby is ready for birth.
In table. 3.2 presents the main milestones of prenatal development.
During prenatal development, the following general trends [Craig, 2000, p. 165–166]:
cephalocaudal developmental trend - the course of development, in which the growth process occurs in the direction "from the head to the feet";
proximodistal development trend - the course of development, in which the growth process occurs in the direction from the center of the body to the periphery;
from general to specific - the tendency of development, which consists in the transition from generalized reactions covering the whole body to more local and specific reactions;
differentiation - in prenatal biological development, this is the process during which undifferentiated cells become more and more specialized;
integration organization of differentiated cells into organs and systems.
The prenatal development of a child fascinates with its speed and global changes. During this crucial period, which lasts from the moment of fertilization of the egg to childbirth, the baby from two cells turns into a little person. Few people know that prenatal development is not only the laying and development of internal organs. Even before birth, the child has fully developed hearing, smell, taste buds, vision and skin sensitivity. Using his senses, the baby receives information about the world that is outside the uterus, and tries to prepare as much as possible for the surrounding conditions.
How did the methods of prenatal development
Scientists have done a lot of research in the field of prenatal development of the child, and here are the results of some of them.
- Children whose mothers experienced hunger during pregnancy for some reason become obese in adulthood. The body remembers the situation of lack of nutrients and broadcasts it for the rest of life.
- Children remember their mother's food preferences. If the mother loved carrots during pregnancy, then after birth, children prefer to eat cereals and juices with the addition of carrots.
- From 16 weeks, the child hears everything that happens around him. Of course, this is the voice of the mother, the beating of her heart and the noise from the movement of blood through the vessels. Loud environmental sounds also reach the baby, but the reaction to them may be different. So, when listening to classical music, children calm down, and at concerts of rock musicians they “blow” and push painfully. After birth, children prefer the voice of an adult whose voice they already know.
- Children whose mothers experienced severe stress during pregnancy are born with signs of post-traumatic syndrome.
- The emotions that the mother feels are also experienced by the child, since the hormones that are produced by the mother enter the child through the umbilical cord. The child is preparing for the fact that when he is born, he will experience the same emotions. If during pregnancy the child received a lot of the hormone of happiness, then he expects that the environment is safe and friendly. Having been born, the baby will be calmer, more relaxed, will sleep and eat well. If the hormones of stress and fear were delivered to the baby in utero, then at birth he will expect that the world around him is hostile and dangerous. When born, the child will be restless, agitated, sleep poorly and cry a lot.
Knowing all this, scientists thought about how to positively influence the unborn baby. This is where the various methods prenatal development child, which we will consider.
Thomas Verney Method
Thomas Verney is the world's leading specialist in the field of prenatal development.
T. Verni says: "Nothing gives a child a more solid foundation in life than the experience of being loved and desired in the womb." He also adds that an important part of the program is peace and harmony in the family. The methodology itself consists of several key points.
Mother. The whole program is aimed at improving the emotional well-being of the child by calming and relaxing the mother. This is done to reduce the flow of stress hormones - adrenaline and norepinephrine - to the child.
Exercises. Throughout the program, the mother is encouraged to perform various exercises to relieve stress and communicate with the child through sound, emotions and touch.
Sound. Thomas Verny uses music in his exercises to relieve stress on mom and unborn baby. According to his research, listening to relaxing music for an hour at least 2 times a week throughout pregnancy is optimal. From the fifth month, singing, talking with the baby and reading aloud to him is recommended. All this contributes to the development of the baby's hearing. And the steady pulse of the mother means for the child peace, security and love for him.
Touch. From the sixth month, touches are added to the exercises. Because of the deep connection between movement and emotion, dance is a great way to communicate your feelings to your little one. Massage and stroking of the abdomen are also recommended.
Emotions. From the age of seven months, the child becomes receptive to his inner emotional state, and the author recommends communicating with the baby through thoughts and dreams. It also teaches you to breathe deeply and rhythmically to deepen the psychological connection with your baby.
Method "Sonatal"
Method "Sonatal" exists since 1984 and is developed Mikhail Lazarev, professor, doctor of medical sciences. This is a musical method of prenatal development of a child, in many respects it is similar in essence to the method of Thomas Verney. The Sonatal technique has a different focus depending on the gestational age.
1st trimester - biorhythms. The technique forms biorhythms, according to which the baby will live after birth.
2nd trimester - movement. When the child begins to move, the mother's motor activity is added: dancing, moving to the rhythm of the music, patting on the tummy.
3rd trimester - "educational". Mothers read fairy tales to babies, sing specially selected lullabies, pestles, children's songs. During classes, the mother can influence the baby with sound or depict geometric shapes on her stomach. Also, expectant mothers are engaged in creativity and breathing exercises.
According to the author himself, the effectiveness of the technique is based on the preservation of a greater number of neurons in the baby's brain due to the constant stimulation with light, sound, movement and touch. Such a complex effect is called the "birth matrix". It helps the baby hear basic sounds before birth and connect them to events after birth. Therefore, it is not advisable to quit classes after birth. The technique has a postpartum continuation, programs for preschool and school development of the child have been created. Thus, at the moment, the Sonatal method is an integral program for the development of a child from conception to 18 years.
Tired of the mess in the nursery? Tired of endlessly collecting toys for the child?
Over the years of using the technique, many positive reviews have accumulated. It is important to note that this technique is approved by the Russian Ministry of Health for widespread use.
More about method "Sonatal" you can learn from this video:
Methodology "babyplus»
Methodology Brent Logan, Director of the Perinatal Institute of Washington, USA, consists of 16 lessons, each of which is played twice a day for several days. Lessons consist of heart sounds, which are played to the baby for an hour and automatically stop. The rhythm gets faster with each successive lesson. The player is located on a wide belt, which is attached to the tummy of the expectant mother.
What can this exercise teach a child? The mother's heartbeat is a constant companion of the child while he is in the stomach, and then another similar sound comes from the outside world. This sound becomes familiar, but then disappears. The child learns to distinguish these sounds and notices that the new rhythm increases gradually. Parents of more than 100,000 children BabyPlus program note the calmness of babies and good concentration of attention after birth.
Which method of prenatal development to choose
Each of the techniques has followers around the world. Studies of children with whom prenatal development classes were conducted showed the following results. They are calmer, sleep better, are more attentive to the environment and the situation, the average indicators of their physical and emotional development are higher than those of their peers. These babies begin to hold their heads, sit and walk earlier, the first words appear already at the 9th month of life. Their intellectual level is higher than that of their peers, in the future they do not suffer from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
But most importantly, during all these activities, the expectant mother develops dominance of motherhood, she becomes more attentive to herself and the unborn baby, is constantly in contact with him. And this, in turn, contributes to easy pregnancy, gentle delivery and prolonged breastfeeding.
Love your babies and happy motherhood!
If you are thinking about how to develop your child after birth, the materials from the section will help you:
You can also learn about the development of the child after birth by months:
Lecture No. 3. Development: stages, theories, laws and patterns. Prenatal and perinatal development
Human life begins from the moment of fertilization. This is confirmed by numerous studies. From the moment of fertilization in the body of a woman, the embryo lives its own life, reacts to voices, to the mood of the mother, to external stimuli. There is a hypothesis that the fetus begins to react even before the central nervous system is formed, because the cells of a living organism can detect changes in the chemical composition of the mother's blood. And such changes inevitably appear in connection with any positive or negative emotions of a woman.
Almost immediately after fertilization, i.e., after 30 hours, the human embryo becomes two-celled. After another 10 hours, the embryo consists of 4 cells, after 3 days - of 12 cells. The first cells (blastomeres) are in close contact with each other, they are larger than ordinary somatic cells of the human body. At this time, the embryo is called "morula" (from lat. morum- "mulberry"). This name arose because the embryo looks like a berry.
The nervous system of the embryo is formed from the 3-4th week of intrauterine life, develops throughout the subsequent intrauterine period. Although the nervous system develops very early, the brain will develop many years after the birth of a child. But the central nervous system begins to function already in the mother's body. American scientist T. Verni states that a person's personality is formed before he is born. The child feels the thoughts, experiences, emotions of the mother, it is these impressions that will subsequently form his character, behavior, psyche. The 28-week-old fetus already has mimic reactions. The fetus expresses its relationship to the taste of the food the mother eats. Grimaces of displeasure arise at salty and bitter, and, conversely, sweet causes an expression of pleasure in the fetus. The fetus reacts with a special facial expression to the mother's crying, screaming, anger.
Numerous studies have shown that the activity of the nervous system is of great importance in the development of the fetus. If for some reason the brain is damaged in the fetus, the length and weight decrease, then the fetus may die during childbirth. The movements of the fetus in the mother's body are determined by the activity of the developing nervous system. Swallowing and grasping movements are expressed, limbs are mobile. The grasping effect first appears at the age of 11.5 weeks of intrauterine life.
Experts in the problems of early brain development, the environment and mental health have proven that the child feels the negative emotions of the mother, and they affect him in the strongest way. The main characteristics of the brain depend not only on heredity, but also on the quality of the contacts of the fetus with the environment. If the unborn child was not desirable for the mother, during pregnancy she was embittered or irritated, then the fetus felt all this. The hormones produced in the woman's body had the most negative effect on the child.
The act of birth is accompanied by great stress, both for the mother and for the newborn. After the baby is born, the nervous system is deeply shaken by everything that has happened. This gives reason to talk about the psychological trauma of birth.
Understanding the fact that the child feels and is aware even before birth makes it possible for a pregnant woman to realize that she can influence the personality of the child, can direct his development in one direction or another with the help of her thoughts and feelings. This does not mean that any fleeting worries or anxieties can harm the child and qualitatively affect his character, in some cases it can even play a positive role in the development of the child. This means that the mother of the child has the opportunity to qualitatively improve his emotional development.
The discovery of the fact of intrauterine personality formation was facilitated by a number of discoveries, including the discovery of the existence of a system of communication between a mother and a newborn child, called " affection".
Importantly, the findings provide a new insight into the role of a loving husband's presence next to a pregnant woman. For her, communication with him is a constant source of emotional support and a sense of security, which, in turn, is transmitted to the child.
Returning to the topic of the psychological trauma of birth from the point of view of these discoveries, it becomes obvious that it is very important for a child to be born in a warm, sincere environment that gives rise to feelings of safety and security.
However, all these discoveries do not mean that the child in the womb has a fully formed emotional and mental base. He cannot understand the intricacies of adult conversation, however he understands this conversation in terms of emotions, picking up on the slightest changes, not limited to strong and pronounced ones, such as love or hate, but also recognizing emotions such as insecurity or duality of feelings.
The child in the womb is a very capable student. One of the main sources of information for him is his feelings. So, for example, if the mother of a child smokes, he experiences negative emotions (presumably this is due to the fact that he lacks oxygen during smoking). And even if the mother just thinks about smoking, the child will experience excitement (rapid heartbeat, increased activity) - the so-called conditioned reflex to a negative event.
Another source of information for the child is speech. It is no secret that each person has an individual rhythm of speech. And it has been proved that the source of the drawing of a person's speech is the speech of his mother, the sound of which he copied. Moreover, the learning process begins even in the womb, this is proved by the fact that the child moves to the rhythm of her speech. An infant at the age of 4–5 months has a well-developed hearing and can distinguish not only the voices of its parents, but also music. If you turn on calm music, then even a rather restless child will calm down, in the case of fast and loud music, there will be a sharp change in the behavior of the fetus in the direction of increasing its activity.
Doctor Dominique Purple , professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who is head of the brain research section of the National Institutes of Health, the exact time of the formation of the personality of the child in the womb was indicated as the period between the 28th and 32nd weeks of pregnancy. Starting from this period, information enters the brain and is transmitted to individual parts of the body. A few weeks later, the baby's brain signals become more pronounced and can be picked up by devices that tell when the baby is sleeping and awake.
The birth of a child dramatically introduces new emotions, new impressions, often not always pleasant, into his worldview. And the way the child behaves in the first minutes after birth, in most cases, will show what his behavior will be like in later life. So, a child who was born and ended up in the hands of an obstetrician can turn around, or can remain in the position of the embryo, familiar to him in the womb. In the first case, the child will be active and active, and in the second case, he will psychologically withdraw and withdraw. To ease the crisis of the transition from the prenatal to the perinatal period of development, it is necessary to create conditions at birth and immediately after it close to those that the child had in the last nine months: put him immediately after birth on the mother’s stomach, then in a bath with warm water, etc. d.
Psychology of age development is a branch of knowledge that considers the dynamics of age-related changes. In the psychology of age development, 2 types of development are distinguished: preformed,unpreformed.
Preformed type of development - development in which the stages that the body will go through for some time are predetermined and fixed, for example, embryonic development.
unpreformed type is a type of development when the process is set not from within, but from outside.
Development occurs due to the influence of the environment on the body.
Evolutionary change in the psyche- this is a long and rather slow development, as a result of which stable changes in the body occur, the vocabulary of a person is enriched.
Revolutionary changes- these are fast, deep transformations of the psyche and human behavior. Occur during age-related crises, accompany them.
Situational changes- these are quick, but not sufficiently stable changes in the psyche and behavior that require reinforcement. There are organized and unorganized.
Organized- involve the development of the provision of a teaching influence on a person, are carried out in the system and are purposeful.
unorganized situational changes are, as a rule, random in nature and do not imply systematic work on training and education.
In situational changes, psychotraumatic circumstances play a special role, leaving a significant imprint on personality change.
child development- unpreformed type of development. This is a qualitatively unique process, which is determined by the form of development of society and the society directly surrounding the child in which the child is.
Driving forces of mental development These are the factors that determine the progressive development of the child. These factors are the causes and contain motivating energy sources of development.
Conditions for mental development- these are internal and external constantly operating factors that influence the development process, directing its course and shaping the dynamics and the final result.
Laws of mental development- these are general and particular patterns with which you can describe mental development and based on which you can control the course of mental development.
L. S. Vygotsky noted that different aspects of the mental activity of the child develop unevenly. For example, speech development occurs rapidly in early childhood, and logical thinking develops in adolescence.
The law of the metamorphosis of child development is that development is not limited to quantitative changes in the psyche, it is a chain of qualitative changes.
Law of cyclicity is that age as a stage of development is a certain cycle, each cycle has its own content and its own pace.
On the problem of development, the opinions of most foreign and domestic psychologists differ. Many foreign psychologists, for example, J. Piaget , believe that learning is development-oriented, that is, when learning, it is necessary to proceed from the fact that the child masters information in accordance with the level of development of cognitive processes in a given period of time. Accordingly, it is necessary to give the child what he can "take".
In Russian psychology, the view on the problem of the relationship between training and development is fundamentally different. L. S. Vygotsky spoke of the leading role of learning in the development process, i.e., he noted that learning should not trail behind development. It should be somewhat ahead of him.
Vygotsky characterized learning as a social moment of development, which has a universal character.
He also put forward a theory (idea) about the existence of a level of actual development and a zone of proximal development.
L. S. Vygotsky understood the concept of development as the process of the formation of a person or personality and the emergence at each stage of development of new qualities specific to a person and prepared by the course of previous development. It should be noted that these qualities exist in finished form at the previous stages of development, there are prerequisites for them.
The founder of the study of the evolutionary development of all living things and specifically man is C. Darwin . Based on his teachings, a law was developed that ontogeny is a brief repetition of phylogenesis. J. Hall transferred this law to a person, to his psyche. Man during his life repeats all stages of human development. As part of this work F. Getcheson ,W. Stern and other scientists.
F. Getcheson used the method of obtaining food as the main criterion. He believed that a child throughout his life goes through all stages of human development: gathering, farming, domestication of animals, housing construction and the trade and economic stage.
W. Stern focused on the mastery of a person a certain cultural level. He noted that a person at the initial stage of his development resembles mammals, at the next stage - a monkey, then he masters cultural skills and by the beginning of training becomes a cultured person. This theory was criticized for the fact that it is inhumane to force a person to repeat all stages of the development of human society. She was also criticized for being speculative, that is, based on external resemblance. However, the theory recapitulation This is the first attempt to create an evolutionary theory.
Representatives normative approach were N. Geizell and U. Termel .
On the basis of a long-term study of the features of social adaptation of children, their speech development and a number of other indicators using special equipment, cinema, video, and an impenetrable Geizell mirror, psychological portraits of individual age groups were compiled and normative indicators of mental development were determined.
Termel researched child prodigies. Supporters normative approach laid the foundation for the development of child psychology as a normative discipline. They traced the dynamics of the development of a child's mental functions from early childhood to adolescence, to the onset of adulthood.
Of great interest is theory of three stages of child developmentK. Buhler . In fact, Bueller's theory is a kind of hierarchy of individual components of child development. On the first step is instinct, at the second stage training (skills), the third step intelligence. Within the framework of this theory, a combination of internal biological factors (inclinations) and external conditions is found.
K. Buhler He believed that the defining factors for human development are:
1) complication of interaction with the environment;
2) development of affective processes;
3) brain maturation.
Under development of affective processes Buhler understood the emergence and experience of pleasure by a person.
At the first stage, pleasure comes from the completed activity. For example, a baby gets pleasure after feeding.
At the second stage (training), the child enjoys the process of activity. For example, a child enjoys a role-playing game.
At the third stage (intelligence), a person enjoys the anticipation of activity. The main trend: in the process of development, there is a transition of pleasure from the end to the beginning of the action.
Buhler's theory was criticized for the groundlessness of the described steps and the criterion for their selection. In fact, studying development within the framework of zoopsychology, Buhler transferred it and characterized child development on the same principle.
Gradually, in the process of development, the socialization of the individual occurs. This process has been experimentally studied by many psychologists.
Socialization - the process and result of the assimilation and active reproduction of social experience by an individual, carried out in communication and activity. Socialization can occur both under conditions of spontaneous impact on the personality of various circumstances of life, sometimes having the nature of multidirectional factors, and in the conditions of education and upbringing of a purposeful, pedagogically organized, systematic process and result of a person’s development, carried out in the interests of him and (or) society, to to which it belongs. Education is the leading and defining beginning of socialization.
The concept of " socialization" was introduced into social psychology in the 1940s and 1950s. 20th century in works A. Bandura ,J. Kolman and others. In different scientific schools, this concept has received a different interpretation: in neobehaviorism, it is interpreted as a social doctrine; in the school of symbolic interactionism - as a result of social interaction; in humanistic psychology - as self-actualization.
The phenomenon of socialization is multidimensional, and each of these areas focuses on one of the sides of the phenomenon under study. In Russian psychology, the problem of socialization was developed within the framework of the dispositional concept of regulation of social behavior, which presents a hierarchy of dispositions synthesizing the system of regulation of social behavior depending on the degree of inclusion in society.
The formation of value orientations is also a complex process that depends on many factors, both internal and external. Value Orientations- a reflection in the mind of a person of the values recognized by him as vital strategic goals and general worldview guidelines. The concept of value orientations was introduced in post-war social psychology as an analogue of the philosophical concept of values, but there is still no clear conceptual distinction between these concepts. Although landmarks were considered as individual forms of representation of supra-individual values, the concepts of values and value orientations differed either in the “general-individual” parameter or in the “actually acting - reflexively conscious” parameter, depending on whether the existence of individual psychological forms of the existence of values was recognized. other than their presence in consciousness. Now, more accepted is ascending to K. Klackhonu definition of values as an aspect of motivation, and value orientations as subjective concepts of values or varieties attitudes(social attitudes).
The basis of mental development in early childhood is formed in the child by new types of actions of perception and mental actions. This period is full of impressions. The child actively learns the world, and the most vivid images are deposited in his memory. Therefore, the fantasy is very developed and rich. Children love to listen to fairy tales, they develop their imagination. A little later, they themselves try to compose them. They reproduce the once seen image themselves, without realizing it, while thinking that they are composing themselves. Children's compositions are entirely based on memory, but at the same time the child combines images, introduces new ones.
At this time, the child begins to form a character, that is, some character traits. In psychology, character is defined as follows.
In biology and medicine, a human being before birth is usually called a fetus, embryo, fetus (depending on the term). In psychology and a new direction of pedagogy, which was called "prenatal pedagogy" (that is, education before birth). Recently, more often they say "intrauterine child". This emphasizes the attitude towards the developing being as a real person, not only the future, but already existing, feeling, capable of interacting with the mother. When it comes to a child, it is easier for parents to imagine him, to understand what is happening to him, to feel it.
The prenatal period is the period from fertilization to birth. At this time, there is a rapid development of the whole organism of the child and his psyche. The pace of these changes is truly fantastic: 30 hours after fertilization, the egg divides into two cells, and by the fifth day the embryo has more than a hundred cells and is a hollow ball filled with liquid. After implantation, which occurs at the beginning of the second week, the growth and development of the unborn child accelerates even more: at two weeks, his body is only 2 mm, at three weeks - 4 mm, at 4 - already 8 mm, and by the end of the second month it reaches 8 cm ! In just a month and a half, a tiny creature is formed from a fertilized egg, which already has the rudiments of all internal and external organs and the main parts of the brain. By the end of the second month, an intrauterine child is already quite similar to a person: he has a large rounded head with a high convex forehead, clearly visible eyes, nose, mouth. The arms and legs are still a little short compared to the body, but they already have all the fingers. If the growth rate during pregnancy remained the same as in the second month, but the newborn would weigh about 14 tons - twice as much as a large elephant.
Consider the stages of prenatal development of the child.
First trimester. 1. The development of sensitivity and the nervous system during this period is unusually intense. The main structures of the brain are laid on the 5th week of development, the morphofunctional foundations of higher nervous functions - at 7 - 8 weeks. From 6 to 8 weeks, the formation of the central and peripheral nervous system occurs. Even earlier - from the end of the third week - the heart of the embryo begins to beat. The synthesis of hormones begins from the second month, when the peripheral organs of the endocrine system are laid and differentiated. However, there are still no connections between the peripheral and central parts of the endocrine system.
The development of the sense organs and the appearance of sensitivity are also noted very early. At 6 weeks the vestibular apparatus begins to function, at 7.5 weeks there is a response to touching the skin in the area of the lips, and at 8 weeks skin sensitivity appears on the entire surface of the body, and the embryo reacts to touch in any part of the body. This reaction is a local response, without generalization of excitation. A generalized reaction to touch in the form of withdrawal from the source of irritation occurs later. At 9 weeks, taste buds appear on the tongue, amniotic fluid is swallowed and enters the stomach. At the same age, the excretory system functions, urine is formed and excreted. At 10 weeks, muscle activity appears, mouth opening is observed, and at 10.5 weeks, flexion of the fingers. At this age, the embryo actively moves in the amniotic fluid, touches the wall of the fetal bladder, changes the trajectory of its movement. At 11 - 12 weeks there is already a grasping reflex, and at 13 - sucking. When a child touches his finger to the mouth area, the developing child grabs it with his mouth and sucks.
Thus, this period in development is characterized by the emergence of sensitivity and the ability to experience internal and external stimulation in subjective states. The regulation of the influx of stimulation into the brain begins almost even before the formation of the first brain structures: the fetal heart beat begins much earlier, from the 21st day. The very emergence of the first structures of the central and peripheral nervous system takes place against the background of the already existing rhythmic stimulation, which can serve as material for the first analyzer that appears in ontogenesis - the vestibular one. The presence of a response to skin irritation at 7.5 weeks is an indicator of skin sensitivity. The presence of subjective experiences from seismic stimuli that excite the vestibular apparatus has not yet become a special subject of scientific research, at least in relation to their representation in the child's subjective experience. However, it is known that seismic sensitivity in the form of seismotaxis is characteristic of the earliest levels of development of the psyche in phylogeny (the protozoa, which are at the stage of elementary sensory psyche). It was during the studies of this sensitivity that elementary forms of addiction and the formation of temporary connections in ciliary ciliates were revealed. The appearance of a clear sensitivity in a child at 7.5 weeks is a fact of presence, and not the moment the sensation occurs. The problem of the emergence of subjective experience, which is an internal criterion of the psyche, and its connection with sensitivity, as an external expression of this phenomenon, is quite complex and little developed in relation to the early ontogenesis of the child. However, to highlight maternal functions, it is quite enough that vestibular, skin, gustatory, and proprioceptive sensitivity occurs in a child long before the entire neurohumoral basis of emotional regulation is finally formed.
2nd, 3rd, 4th points at this stage should be considered interrelated. The emerging forms of sensitivity form a sufficiently rich, constantly present and discrete world for subjective experiences. Apparently, there are no grounds for the statement about the separation in the subjective experience of the child at this level of development of the “external and internal population”, that is, the experience of internal and external stimulation of different quality and the localization of external stimulation outside their own body. There are no sufficient grounds for the assertion of its ability to regulate the level of sensory stimulation due to its own activity. So far, we can only talk about the presence of stimulation, its discrete nature, both rhythmic and not subject to patterns of appearance and disappearance. The appearance of reactions of withdrawal from pressure in the area of the body and, on the contrary, approach, capture by the mouth and the implementation of sucking movements to stimulate the area of the mouth suggest two alternative subjective states, which serve as the basis for the emergence of two primary emotional states in the future - pleasure and displeasure. The presence of such states, which provide taxis behavior of protozoa to avoid negative stimulation and achieve and maintain positive stimulation in phylogenesis, is considered as the appearance of primary states similar in function to the emotions of pleasure and displeasure. It is equally difficult to talk about the subjective nature of these states both in relation to protozoa that do not have a nervous system and in relation to the first months of embryogenesis.
Thus, this period of development can be characterized as the appearance of stimulation necessary for the development of the brain and its maintenance in a sthenic state, and the subjective experience of this stimulation. The intensity of this stimulation is quite severely limited by the conditions of intrauterine development and the physiological development of the fetus. The development of the nervous system during this period is influenced by biochemical factors that enter directly into the child’s blood from the mother’s blood, that is, their presence is not experienced subjectively, but only changes the metabolic processes and only the consequences of their impact can be felt (a change in the functioning of physiological systems that affects the general state of the body; whether the fetus can subjectively experience these states in a given period, it is impossible to say for sure). Therefore, it is quite realistic to assume that the quality of the subjective experience of stimulation perceived by sensory systems, which does not depend in any way on the activity of the child and the behavior of the mother, should not be uncomfortable (since avoidance behavior in relation to it is impossible). This means that it is precisely this quality and intensity of stimulation, since they are necessary and sufficient for the development of the brain and maintaining its level of excitation, that are “mastered” by the developing nervous system, as the quality and intensity of the subjective state, which in the future will become a “marker” of the state that one must have. and support, that is, the somatic basis of sthenic positive emotion. As you know, it corresponds to the average level of density of nerve stimulation. An increase in its level with an increase in the level of stimulation due to the appearance of additional stimulation from the skin sensitivity of the surface of the body, possibly leads to an excess of the optimal level and the desire to reduce it - removal from touch. This reaction appears a second time, after a reaction positively directed to irritation - in the region of the mouth. The evolutionary need for the development of a positive emotional reaction to the act of sucking and its connection with the food dominant is provided by the early development of taste and proprioceptive sensitivity in the stomach (swallowing amniotic fluid from 9 weeks) against the background of the already existing positive reaction to tactile touch in the mouth area. The first reactions from skin touch are not yet avoidant in nature. However, under natural conditions of intrauterine development, this stimulation can only occur from the touch of the amniotic fluid, which is constant and not yet affected by uterine contractions, as well as from the contact of parts of the body of the embryo. This stimulation is quite homogeneous in intensity and also does not depend on the activity of the child and the mother. Therefore, it can also be included in the category of the one that sleeps the subjective basis of the somatic experience of the optimal state for brain development. Contact with the wall of the amniotic sac and a change in the trajectory of movement is noted from 10 weeks. Prior to this, under experimental exposure, which does not occur in natural conditions, the embryo exhibits a withdrawal reaction. Thus, it can be assumed that the intensity of stimulation, at least in skin sensitivity, acquires a level at which the subjective experience is divided into positive and negative. Perhaps this is the reason for the appearance of sensitivity in the mouth area earlier than on the rest of the body surface: after all, it must be “translated” into the mechanism of the sucking reflex, and it must definitely have a positive emotional experience. All other skin sensitivity should acquire the ability to differentiate the intensity of the impact, on the negative pole of which there is too much intensity (pain), and on the positive pole - low intensity, corresponding to a gentle touch. The intensity of stimulation and its role in the emergence of positive and negative coloring of sensations are analyzed in detail by W. Wundt and are a problem in the psychology of perception and the psychology of emotions. The emotional experience of all transitional states is a long and mysterious history of the development of cutaneous and proprioceptive sensitivity before and after birth.
Thus, it can be said that in the first trimester, a somatic basis appears for experiencing a positive emotional state, which provides an optimal level of brain excitation, corresponding to sthenic emotions in the future, and the appearance of a basis for a negative emotional state, which is necessary for regulating the optimal level of stimulation (reducing the too high gradient stimulation). An increase in stimulation, if it is too small, is still impossible, since motor activity is not subject to independent regulation, but is excited by seismic stimulation of heart contractions and fetal movements in the fetal bladder. Reducing it becomes possible from 10 weeks - a change in the trajectory of movement and the cessation of stimulation from touch. We can say that the first signs of regulation of the level of stimulation in a positive direction due to fetal movements are grasping and sucking reflexes. Their presence cannot cause discomfort, since the very occurrence of these reflexes prolongs stimulation (increases the total intensity of the density of nerve stimulation). In other words, by the end of the third month, one can state not only a variety of sensory experiences, but also emotional ones, which serve as the basis for the development of emotions that accompany a comfortable and uncomfortable state.
It is very difficult to talk about the structure of activity at this stage, since the very existence of activity is problematic, since activity in psychology is considered as the organization of the activity of the subject to satisfy the need and is distinguished according to the criterion of the need for which it is produced. During the period under review, only the formation of states and mechanisms that will ensure the organization of such activity and the very experience of tension and satisfaction of needs take place. We can only talk about the emergence of subjective experiences, which will later be built into the need for impressions and food, as well as about the foundations of emotional states that will accompany tension and satisfaction of the need. That is, separate components of both states and physiological mechanisms are formed that do not yet perform the functions of organizing the activity of the entire subject to change the subjective state. However, the appearance by 10 weeks of reactions similar to the taxis behavior of lower animals allows at least to assume that the negative state, the positive state and the time interval existing between them, filled with proprioceptive stimulation from their own movement, begin to bind into a single triad. All this is phenomenologically analogous to the lowest level of the elementary sensory psyche. However, we must not forget that in phylogenesis this is a stable organization that provides an effective solution to the problems of the subject's independent life, while in a child this is only a stage in the development of a completely different organization. Its tasks of vital activity consist in development and are solved due to the functioning of the mother's body. Thus, by analogy with the stages of development identified in the evolution of the psyche, this period of development of the structure of activity can be called elementary sensory. A feature of subjective experience is the experience of external and internal stimulation as a change in one's subjective state, orientation to the stimulation intensity gradient for its assessment, both positive and negative. A change in this gradient of one's own subjective state is experienced as something that needs to be preserved and continued, or something that needs to be reduced or increased. The optimum state corresponds to the optimum stimulation. This optimum can be defined as a state of comfort. All "activity" consists in changing the activity, as a result of which this optimum is reached. However, if in phylogenesis this optimum is genetically determined in the form of a taxis, then in ontogenesis it is “assimilated” by the developing brain on the “material” of the existing intrauterine stimulus environment.
This environment is fixed in relation to the qualitative and quantitative parameters of stimulation and can be assessed as an evolutionarily expected environment, which coincides with the boundaries of the subject's life and therefore absolutely unambiguously ensures the development of species-typical features of the human nervous system. As is known, the main feature of this development is the formation of the brain in the process and on the material of incoming stimulation. The experience of a certain quality and intensity of one's subjective state and endowing it with the status of "pleasure" (so far in a more general form of a state of comfort) and "displeasure" (a state of discomfort) is formed in the same way. Thus, this period of development is similar in terms of subjective experiences to the lowest level of the elementary sensory psyche, but differs in terms of the presence of activity as an integral unit of life activity. In this regard, it can be called "active". This is fundamentally different in the logic of development from phylogenesis, where the subjective experience itself arises simultaneously with the emergence of activity when the form of subject-object interaction changes and serves to regulate this activity. The child does not yet have interaction with a non-existent object necessary to satisfy needs and preserve the integrity of the subject. However, the need for an influx of stimulation for brain development is the beginning of the formation of a need for impressions, an inadequate level of which, firstly, causes discomfort, and secondly, encourages the subject to be active in order to change this level. In fact, it is very difficult to talk about the subject at this stage of development without additional comments. Without going into the false philosophical and psychological problem of defining the subject, let us explain that the subject and the organism are not identical. The subject at an early stage of development, before the appearance of the self-image, exists in the form and at the moment of subjective experience. At the first stages of development, all stimulation is experienced as a change in one's state, and it makes no difference where the source of this stimulation is. However, the property of this stimulation to change during the subject's motor activity makes it possible to regard it as external in relation to the subject himself, as a general subjective experience of his existence, being. Therefore, already at this stage of development, one can speak of the existence of conditions that the subject needs to maintain with the help of his activity. No other needs are subject to regulation by the child's activity: everything necessary comes from the mother's blood. But it becomes possible to change stimulation very early due to one's own, as yet involuntary, but still activity.
That is why the need for impressions is indeed the first real need, and the activity of the child, aimed at regulating this stimulation, can be considered as an elementary form of activity in which there are need states and their subjective experience as tension and satisfaction of this need. The first such need can be characterized as the need to maintain an optimal sthenic state of the brain, which is itself the physiological basis of the need for impressions. Giving the state of satisfaction of this need the status of emotion of pleasure occurs in the first trimester of pregnancy. In the future, it is transformed into a need for a positive (sthenic) emotional state, which is initially satisfied by the influx of impressions, and then by receiving completely specific stimuli that best provide this state. The inclusion of the mother in this process occurs later. Thus, we can talk about the differentiation of the need to provide an optimal level of arousal into the need for impressions and the need for a comfortable emotional state, which were originally two components of one need. The state of emotional comfort becomes valuable as such. Further development on its basis of the emotion of pleasure and its experience when any need is satisfied are associated with the development of neurohumoral mechanisms of emotions. The somatic state corresponding to emotional comfort also acquires the status of a need state, which leads to the formation of activity to achieve and maintain it as an independent activity. Thus, the basis for differentiating the need for impressions and the need for emotional comfort is laid already in the first trimester in the process of differentiation of one's subjective states and the development of sensitivity.
Second trimester. 1. The main features of the development of the nervous system during this period, which are of interest to us for the allocation of maternal functions, are two. The first is a strategic change in brain development compared to other primates. From 16 weeks, a specifically human spatial organization of the brain begins to form. Since from the same time a motor reaction to sound is noted, the entire specifically human sound environment (speech) becomes that external stimulation that participates in the development of anticipatory mechanisms necessary for the child to live in human society after birth. By five months, the brain functions as an integral system; at 20-22 weeks, spontaneous electrical activity of the brain can already be recorded using appropriate equipment. The second feature of this trimester is the formation and functioning of the neurohumoral system. In the fourth month, the pituitary gland synthesizes hormones, and the hypothalamus controls the functions of the pituitary gland. By five months, cortical structures are turned on and neuroendocrine connections are closed. The child's body not only provides its own hormonal regulation, but is included in the mother's endocrine system (when the mother develops diabetes, the insulin produced by the fetal endocrine system provides both the child and the mother). Thus, by five months, the pleasure-displeasure centers located in the hypothalamus are included in the general system and receive stimulation both from the somatic state of the child himself, and "directly" - from the mother's hormones that come with the blood, formed during her own emotional states. It is known that the placental barrier does not let adrenaline through, but it does let endorphins and catecholamines through. Therefore, a sharp release of adrenaline, characteristic of a stressful state, acts mainly on the muscles of the uterus, causing their tone. This indirectly affects the baby by changing the pressure of the amniotic fluid and blood supply, since when the tissues of the uterus contract, the blood vessels narrow and the blood flow to the umbilical cord decreases. Hormonal changes in the mother's blood when experiencing anxiety or joy directly affect the child's hypothalamus. There is not yet sufficient experimental data on the intensity with which this influx of hormones is experienced by the child, although this very fact is given great attention in some psychoanalytic directions. It is well known from obstetric-gynecological and everyday practice that in the second half of pregnancy the child reacts by changing motor activity to the emotional state of the mother. Modern studies of prenatal development and the psychology of pregnancy confirm the possibility of the child experiencing the emotional state of the mother by two sets of facts. Firstly, starting from 22 weeks, adequate motor and emotional-expressive reactions of the child to positive and negative stimuli in taste, tactile, auditory sensitivities are noted, and from 26-28 weeks, mimic expression of fundamental emotions (joy, surprise, fear, anger - - according to the data of intrauterine film and photography and in prematurely born children.Secondly, the development of the nervous system and the characteristics of the emotional sphere of the child is influenced by the emotional state of the mother in the second and third trimesters, primarily the presence of stress, a stable state of anxiety and depressive episodes All these data indicate that the nervous system and neurohumoral mechanisms of emotional regulation provide the possibility for the child to emotionally experience his states and the states of his mother.
All forms of sensitivity are developed by 16 weeks. At 14 weeks, the gustatory, proprioceptive, tactile, and vestibular systems are fully developed. At 16 weeks there is an inner ear and a motor reaction to sound is noted, the child hears not only the sounds that arise in the mother's body, but also from the external environment. The sound environment of the fetus is unusually rich: the mother’s heartbeat and the noise of blood in the vessels (this rhythmic, slightly rustling sound is unusually reminiscent of the rhythm and sound-altitude characteristics of the sea surf), the sounds of intestinal peristalsis, the voice of the mother transformed by the bone system and the aquatic intrauterine environment. In the second half of pregnancy, the child is in constant sound stimulation, and very intense. Already at this age, his auditory analyzer selectively responds to high and low sounds: sensitivity to low-frequency sounds is reduced, which protects the child from hyperstimulation of the intrauterine environment. Sensitivity to high-frequency sounds, which correspond to the height characteristics of human speech, on the contrary, is increased. The studies described by A. Bertin, as well as other data on the reactions of the child in the second half of pregnancy to musical and other sound stimulation, served as the basis for recommendations on the organization of "prenatal education": high-frequency structured stimulation is recommended (melodious song and classical music). Perhaps this selectivity creates a predisposition for the child's preference for the sound characteristics of female speech.
The visual analyzer also develops in utero. At 16 weeks, eye movement is noted, at 17 - a blinking reflex, from 26 weeks, a reaction to sharp illumination of the mother's abdominal wall (squinting, turning the head away).
By the middle of the intrauterine period, motor activity is well developed. Some reflexes are formed, the sucking reflex is already presented in the form of a holistic sensorimotor coordination. At 18 weeks, the child sorts through the umbilical cord with his hands, squeezes and unclenches his fingers, touches his face, and a little later even covers his face with his hands with unpleasant sound stimuli. A generalized response in the form of a reaction of removal or approach to tactile irritation is noted from 3 to 4 months. Observations of the child's reactions using ultrasound, intrauterine imaging, mothers' self-reports indicate that from about 20 weeks the child not only reacts to the touch of the mother's hands (stroking, lightly patting, pressing the palm to the stomach), but is also able to include such an impact in his motor reactions . After several weeks of "learning," the baby responds to a certain type of tactile stimulation (rhythmic tapping in a certain part of the abdomen) with a movement directed directly at the mother's hand. From 24 - 26 weeks it is possible to teach him a response to a complex stimulus: the mother singing a musical phrase and tactile impact. This method, introduced by the Danish physician Franz Veldman, is called the “haptonomy method” and is used in the practice of “prenatal education” to improve the interaction between mother and child. The data obtained in a pilot study conducted with pregnant female students as part of the theses under the guidance of the author made it possible to establish that with the help of such contact, the mother can not only call the child for contact, but also calm him down (with sharp external stimulation, under the influence of which the child behaves restlessly). Such mothers very subtly distinguish the nature of the child's motor activity and accurately determine his emotional state. In one such study, a mother "taught" a baby by 7 months to respond by tapping on her palm, first to singing a melody accompanied by tapping a beat with her hand, and then to only one of these stimuli, which she used both to initiate contact and to calm the baby when need. It is well known that pregnant women actively use tummy tucks and "coaxing" the baby if they think that he is behaving restlessly. Usually, mothers do not specifically analyze the nature of the child’s motor activity and their state at the same time, but when such a task is experimentally formulated, they quite clearly describe both the nature of the child’s movement and their experiences at the same time (author’s own data) .
The achievements of the last decades in the rearing of prematurely born children starting from 22 weeks show that from this period the child can successfully develop outside the mother's body, all forms of sensitivity and emotional experience of stimulation have already been formed in him. It is known that before the advent of special technologies for raising premature babies out of contact with the mother, born prematurely viable children (and this age began at about 7 months) were considered to have received an “early biostart” and subsequently become more capable than their peers born on time. Modern studies of premature babies, on the contrary, indicate significant problems in their development. Recently, this has been associated with early separation from the mother, adopted in the practice of rearing premature babies. This served as the basis for the introduction of mandatory contact of such children with their mother (or other adult), which significantly increases the success of their development.
According to the development of the structure of activity, this period can be characterized as a “sensory” one (by analogy with the corresponding stage in the development of the psyche in phylogenesis). Now, in terms of subjective experience and organization of motor activity, they are really similar. The child is guided by his subjective experiences and, with the help of his motor activity, regulates the intensity of the incoming stimulation: swallows more amniotic fluid or less, depending on its taste (sweet or bitter), turns away from the source of an unpleasant sound with a corresponding grimace of displeasure, an expression of fear, or approaches and responds motor response (touch) to the mother's touch and the sound of her voice, reacts differently to the intensity and style of the mother's motor activity. Apparently, the child can quite successfully regulate the total amount of stimulation necessary to maintain the nervous system in a certain state of excitation. His physical activity increases if the mother is not active enough (especially in the evening hours before the mother goes to bed). It is impossible to say whether a child during this period, and in general until the end of the intrauterine period, can experience stimulation in any sensory systems not as his own state, but as an existing state outside of it, it is impossible to say. At least in this respect, we can only talk about tactile sensitivity. Most likely, we can talk about the occurrence of localization of sensations in certain parts of the body, which is quite realistic for taste, skin and proprioceptive sensitivity. But if the taste sensitivity in this case covers the entire area of the peripheral end of the analyzer, then in the skin and proprioceptive sensitivity it is possible to localize the irritation in place and in the area occupied. This is evidenced by quite adequate motor reactions of parts of the child's body in response to irritation: "non-localized" stimulation (auditory, seismic, from the emotional state of the mother) causes a change in the general motor activity, and tactile stimulation is a completely differentiated response, up to the exact orientation of the movement ( reciprocal touch on the mother's hand, palpation of the umbilical cord, sucking a finger or fist). Continuing the analogy with phylogeny, we can compare this period of development with the highest level of the sensory stage, when a differentiated sensation from the surface of the body and a localized motor response to this irritation appear (for example, in an earthworm). The area of the irritated area and the complexity of the tactile analyzer make it possible to analyze not one quality of the stimulus, but their combination (surface structure, elasticity, somewhat later temperature, etc.). ) This is also a distinctive feature of the highest level of the sensory stage of the psyche in phylogenesis (orientation to the totality of the properties of the environment).
3. A serious change occurs in the development of emotional experiences of comfort and the results obtained from one’s own activity. The child’s ability to regulate the level of stimulation by changing his motor activity suggests that the state of emotional comfort, corresponding to the optimal level of stimulation to maintain the level of excitation of the nervous system, passes into the status needs. At the same time, there is an “information support” for the object of activity that satisfies this need. The constant presence of stimulation from the mother's body, perceived by the sensory systems and already "mastered" by the developing brain as providing the necessary level of arousal, is now represented by stable stimuli, familiar and constantly present, which provide a feeling of emotional comfort. Stimulation from their own activity is added to them. When there is an additional influx of stimulation to the "background" one, the child shows less activity, maintaining a certain level of it at the expense of a certain level of his activity. In the absence of this "additional" stimulation from the mother, he increases his own activity. Apparently, very early in the "background" stimulation, in addition to stimuli from the mother, there is an experience from one's own states (proprioceptive, skin, taste, etc.). His change during the motor activity of the child is also constant in him and forms the basis of the need for motor activity, which delivers this stimulation. The need for movement is singled out as one of the basic needs of the child by L. I. Bozhovich, K. Rogers, A. Maslow and others.
Third trimester. The development of the nervous system in the last trimester is characterized by the differentiation of phylogenetically new areas of the cortex, the growth of associative systems of the brain. It is believed that this period is sensitive for the formation of individual characteristics of the nervous system, mental characteristics of the child and even his abilities. Data from F.J. De-Casper and other researchers have shown the ability of the child in the last months of intrauterine development to form preferences for certain types of sound stimulation: the mother's voice, her heartbeat, the characteristics of the mother's native language, more specific stimulation: musical and speech phrases, whole melodies, poems, fairy tales. Studies of taste sensitivity suggest that selectivity to the cultural characteristics of the food sphere also arises already in this period (A. Bertin).
Regarding the structure of activity, there is no reason to assume any changes compared to the previous period, at least from the point of view of the subjective experience of need states and the possibilities of organizing one's activity to change them.
The functioning of a developed sensory apparatus and the formation of associative systems of the brain create the basis for the formation of a stable attitude to the information received. Based on the reactions of the child after birth to intrauterine stimuli (calming down upon contact with the mother until physiological needs are satisfied, selective attitude to maternal stimuli, as well as intrauterine noises), it can be concluded that at the end of the prenatal period, a stable sensory image of the world and anticipation of its changes are formed in the child. . The formation of an integrative anticipatory system in the cognitive sphere, which ensures the adaptation of the child to the postnatal environment, experimentally substantiated on the example of the development of vision according to E.A. Sergienko also confirms this position. Such a sensory image of the world is already divided on the basis of the subjective experience of the child into stimulation that depends on his own activity, and independently of it exists and changes. Regardless of the child’s activity, the existing sensory environment, which in itself was the “material” for the development of his brain, since it existed before and apart from the child’s body itself and did not change, namely, was “mastered” by the developing brain, acquires the meaning of the existence of the world in general. It is logical that the loss of this stimulation does not fit into the already existing anticipatory schemes and causes a state of emotional discomfort after birth. Under natural conditions, the immediate return of stimulation from the mother compensates for this discomfort. This serves as a condition for the formation of the need to restore emotional comfort as a restoration of this sensory world. In the prenatal period, there is no break with this environment, so it is premature to speak only about the formation of a need for emotional comfort provided by this particular stimulation. But, as mentioned above, the conditions for the need for a sthenic state and the provision of the necessary level of stimulation already exist. Since the level of stimulation is already regulated by the child's own activity, the "background sensory world" can already be shared in subjective experience with the stimulation that depends on its activity. This will give you a predisposition for the postnatal release of stimulation from the mother, providing a state of emotional comfort! However, the beneficial effect of contact with the mother on the development of preterm infants and the selectivity to maternal stimulation of newborns suggests that the "sensory world of maternal stimuli" is the basis for the formation of the need for emotional comfort and is formalized as separated from stimulation from one's own body by the end of the prenatal period. This world is completely determined not only in terms of the characteristics of the stimuli themselves, but also in terms of their variability, that is, predictable, because it is this world that forms the basis of formation; anticipation schemes. Thus, with regard to the need for emotional comfort, we can talk about the formation of the stimulus base of the object necessary to satisfy it.