No abstract

The article reviews Lev Vygotsky’s published works to trace the evolution of his understanding of child development. The authors believe that his assumption that one step in learning may mean one hundred steps in development, is as important as the two other key postulates of the cultural-historical theory: the principle that learning precedes development and the concept of zone of proximal development. The authors provide a rationale for utilization of these assumptions in the practice of development-facilitating psychological and educational assistance. A mechanism of this learning-development relationship is hypothesized. The article outlines a multidimensional model of the zone of proximal development illustrating the above mechanism. This model is one of the conceptual tools of the Reflection and Activity Approach helping children overcome learning difficulties and promoting their development. Having given the account of how they proceeded “from the idea to the problem” and “from the idea to the mechanism”, the authors provide case studies showing how this mechanism allows working with learning difficulties to trigger simultaneous improvement in multiple developmental dimensions. The article reports on the experience of running special Summer Schools for children with learning difficulties, implementing the “Chess for General Development” Project, and assisting orphaned children with severe somatic conditions. A case study of a female college student displaying signs of the learned helplessness syndrome is presented. The authors infer that Vygotsky’s idea of a specific relationship between learning and development may be of fundamental theoretical and practical value, especially for working with children with special needs.

The paper discusses theoretical foundations for organising the work and interaction of various specialists who help children with learning difficulties (teachers, counsellors, therapists). The multidimensional model of the zone of proximal development based on cultural-historical psychology and developed in the theoretical framework of the Reflection and Activity Approach is proposed to be such a basic value. We connect different types of help to various developmental dimensions and consider them as technologies to enhancing the client’s development. We elaborate on the essence of such concepts as collaboration, zone of proximal development, agency, reflection, and problem’s epicentre. We present different ways of operational use of these concepts as applied to helping children with learning difficulties. The concept of double resource that we propose is important for developing new techniques of working within the zone of proximal development; it is this basis that certain technologies of organising the client’s reflection are relying on. We provide examples of counselling children using this approach.

ПреамбулаС точки зрения «тайны развития», в словах Л.С. Выготского, вынесенных в название статьи, за ключена основная интрига. Это самое интересное, что может быть сказано про развитие. Если принять слова Л.С. Выготского всерьез, а не видеть в них про сто красивую метафору, то из них следует: обучать можно так, что ребенок будет развиваться семимиль ными шагами. Ведь если один шаг в обучении будет давать сто шагов в развитии, то снимается сразу мно жество проблем: задержки, отставания, отклонения и т. п. Проблемы развития превращаются в «техни ческие» задачи поиска того, как выстроить обучение, чтобы обеспечить необходимый темп движения.Статья посвящена поиску этого гипотетического механизма и является попыткой предложить вари ант его описания.

The article presents an analysis of L.S. Vygotsky’s concept of a zone of proximal development (ZPD); considers various ZPD definitions; provides a critical review of the most popular definition of ZPD as adopted from L.S. Vygotsky’s 1935 work and used as basic by English-speaking authors. Taking into account the fact that L.S. Vygotsky’s general methodological intention was to establish psychology as a practice and that his developmental theory as well as the ZPD concept development remained incomplete due to the known life circumstances, we analyze L.S. Vygotsky’s writings that allow for another ZPD conceptualization, which differs from the one implied by the 1935 definition, so as to attempt at reconstructing the concept. In reviewing L.S. Vygotsky’s assumptions regarding the learning-development relationship; ZPD; its relevance for diagnostic assessment and teaching; feasibility of extrapolating the ZPD concept onto different personality aspects, the authors identify substantive aspects of the ZPD concept that the "canonical" definition lacks. The article describes a multidimensional model of ZPD, which has taken shape within the Reflection-Activity Approach to assisting students with overcoming learning difficulties and which integrates Vygotsky's key ZPD-related ideas. E.G. Yudin’s conceptualization of methodological functions of conceptual schemes is used to reconstruct the methodological status of the ZPD concept. The authors demonstrate that, since its inception, the ZPD concept has passed through the stages of an explanatory principle, a research subject, and a methodological tool for constructing new subjects of research and development.