The First Year Developmental Crisis: Origin of Cultural Action

Abstract

According to the conception of cultural historical psychology, introduced by L. S. Vigotsky, the first year of a child’s life represents a specific period of development or the first psychological age. Psychological development should be differentiated from biological development and have proper objective indicators. Psychological development starts with the possibility of initial cultural communication between an adult and child, within a unique kind of social situation of development. The goal of the article is to describe the content of the crisis of the first year of life as a psychological phenomenon and to propose psychological and neuropsychological indicators for qualitative assessment of the progress of psychological development at the end of the first year of life. The article opens the discussion about guiding the activity of the first age, new psychological formations of the crisis of the first year, and qualitative changes in the social situation of development. The content of the first psychological age and crisis is presented in the article, according to proposals of cultural historical psychology. Future interdisciplinary research should be continued in order to establish optimal strategies for adult and child interaction during a stable period of development and the crisis of the first year.

Early triadic interactions in the first year of life: a systematic review on object-mediated shared encounters

“…It enables children to progressively internalise their learning and, consequently, to develop in the world in an increasingly autonomous way (Vygotsky, 1934(Vygotsky, /1986. Throughout the first year, infants' relationship with their environment is modified by the intervention of the adult (Vygotsky, 1932(Vygotsky, /1996McCune and Zlatev, 2015), who responds to their first signals and attempts to communicate while sharing bouts of attention and action on specific objects or events (Bakeman and Adamson, 1984;Solovieva and Quintanar, 2021). This process does not, therefore, occur in a vacuum, but within the framework of early interactions that take place in a given socio-material context.…”

Intellectual actions online as preparation for learning of mathematics: cultural historical methodology (Acciones intelectuales en línea como preparación para el aprendizaje matemático: metodología histórico-cultural)

“…Secondly, the described methodology might serve as an example of organization of teaching and the learning process in all kinds of pre-school institutions as an initial contribution to overcoming huge obstacles, which exist in countries in Latin America for the successful learning of mathematics in primary school. Our future efforts will be directed to continued implementation of the principles of activity theory for the other grades of primary school together with detailed description of the methodology for teachers and psychologists in publications in Spanish (Solovieva & Quintanar, 2021c).…”

“…En segundo lugar, la metodología descrita puede servir de ejemplo de organización del proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje en cualquier tipo de centro preescolar a modo de contribución inicial para superar los enormes obstáculos que existen en países latinoamericanos en el aprendizaje efectivo de las matemáticas en la educación primaria. Futuros esfuerzos estarán dirigidos a proseguir la puesta en práctica de los principios de la teoría de la actividad en otros grados de educación primaria así como una descripción detallada de la metodología para docentes y psicólogos en publicaciones españolas (Solovieva & Quintanar, 2021c).…”