Aleksander N. Veraksa

Background. In recent years, preschoolers have increasingly become using digital devices, which undoubtedly has an impact on their development, including the development of executive functions. Direct involvement of parents in children’s digital activities can have both positive and negative effects on preschoolers’ executive functions development, as well as on the parental burnout.

Objectives. To investigate the relationship between children’s use of digital devices and their level of executive functions, considering the level of parental burnout and parental involvement in their children’s digital use.

Sample. The study involved 115 children (61.7% boys, 38.3% girls) aged 5–6 years (M = 5.8 years; SD = 3.628). They were all attending preparatory groups in kindergartens in Moscow. Their parents also participated in the study.

Methods. To diagnose the development of executive functions (working memory, inhibition and cognitive flexibility), the NEPSY-II battery (subtests “Sentences Repetition”; “Memory for Designs”; “Inhibition” and “Statue”) (Korkman et al., 2007) and the “Dimensional Change Card Sort” (Zelazo, 2006) technique were used. To study the use of digital devices among preschoolers, we developed a questionnaire for parents that asked about frequency of use and rules regarding digital device use. The Parental Burnout Assessment (Roskam et al., 2018, adapted by Egorova & Starchenkova, 2019) was used to assess parental burnout.

Results. Children who have rules in their family about limiting the time they use digital devices have better visual working memory. Parental burnout does not contribute to any of the links between sharing digital devices with adults and executive functions, or between screen time and executive functions.

Conclusions. It has been shown rules regarding practice of digital device usage correspond to higher level of executive functions of children.

 

It is commonly accepted that art is labor of imagination rather than objective reality and reflects no more than one’s personal experience. This belief sets apart art and science, for the first is subjective, and at the basis of the latter lies a process of understanding the world through the work of cognition by objective and precise scientific methods. However, similarities in the history of art and science help to better understand the role of art in formation of preschooler’s mind.

The article, from psychoanalytical viewpoint, examines benefits of fairytales and demonstrates their importance as one of the means of child’s socialization. Using psychoanalytical approach and well-known fairytales as examples, the author illustrates why a fairytale fascinates children, is open and clear to them and fosters their development. A close look is also given to common mistakes that grownups make when reading a fairytale to a child.

The article views major ways of a preschooler imagination’s development, describes functions of imagination and its role in preschool age. Particular attention was drawn to a child play in its connection with development of imagination. The author also explains “imaginary friends” phenomenon within a context of play activities.

The author analyzes major aspects of speech formation in preschool age with regard to the latest advancements in the psychological science. The article evaluates and compares theories of N. Chomsky and J. Bruner and analyzes a parent’s contribution to the process of child’s speech development.

IQ, or intelligence quotient, is widely used in modern psychological diagnostics as an index that assesses intellectual development. We often hear parents talking about other and their own children’s IQ scores, however, we hardly ever wonder about the meaning behind these numbers. The article looks into history of IQ as child’s cognitive development index and discusses restrictions of its scope followed by respective recommendations on its use. Furthermore, the author explains the increase of children’s average IQ for the past 30 years.

Preschool education is becoming of increased importance for the general educational system. This poses questions of its effective management and instruments for improvement and assessment of its quality. The article analyses modern approaches to quality assessment of preschool education, like evaluation of educational programs, diagnostics of children’s cognitive development, and other complex scales. Special attention is paid to comparison of authentic and traditional approaches to assessment of child’s development. The authors provide with pros and cons of tests in preschool educational system, describe research aimed at studying authentic assessment.

Practical psychologists and preschool teachers often face parents’ questions about what to do if a child has imaginary friend. It is surprising that negative attitude towards this phenomenon of child life can be found as among protagonists of the materialist approach (for example, associative psychology), so among the protagonists of idealistic approach (for example, religious associations).

In this article causes of imaginary friends appearance are considered, as well as the functions they perform in the mental development of children are analyzed. The data showing no differences between children who have imaginary friends, and children who do nor have imaginary companions is provided.

The study addressed play activity and symbolization as means of teaching new content to preschool children with comparison of their effectiveness to the traditional teaching process. The study experiment was designed to teach preschoolers the concept of rainbow by means of traditional learning (by explanations and application of schemes in control group) and symbolization (by play activity in experimental group).

The study included 23 5-6 year-old children divided into control and experimental groups. Children in the two groups were equalized by means of psychological diagnostics. Before the experiment, most children, although familiar with, could not explain the phenomenon of rainbow.

The changes in children’s representation of a rainbow were assessed by their drawings made before and two weeks after the experiment. Comparative analysis of the drawings showed that drawings from control group (before and after the experiment) were focused solely on external signs of this phenomenon (the shape and the colors of rainbow). On the other hand, drawings by the children of the experimental group made after the experiment, in various ways demonstrated the conditions under which rainbows commonly occur (rain, sun, etc.). However, none of the children could answer the question of what is depicted in the drawing – no verbal explanation was given. We assume that the drawings by children from the experimental group depicted the structure they caught “intuitively” (in the words of Jean Piaget) with a symbol, whereas the deficiency in the conceptual (abstract) tools accounted for the children’s inability to explain it verbally.

One of the trends of modern social psychology is connected with the study of the environment in which a person develops. The article deals with an understanding of the mental development of the child from the perspective of ecological approach of U.Bronfenbrenner. The examples that reveal the relationship between the components of the social situation of development in terms of the ecological approach are given. The structure of the ecological environment of the person represented by the built-in one another microsystem mesosistemoy, exosystem and macrosystem. On the material of the research the features of each of the structures of ecological environment are demonstrated. It has been shown that human development is due to the interaction of the four main factors: personal characteristics, ecological environment, the activities in which he a person is involved, and the time. The concept of ecological validity is discussed. The importance of incorporating environmental considerations in the construction of educational work with children, planning research and development activities is shown.

The presence of fears in preschoolers is a common problem any practicing psychologist faces in his or her work. In the present study we sought to determine whether a preschooler’s emotional ill-being reflects on the level of cognitive activities and the development of his social competence. The study involved 81 older age preschoolers from Moscow kindergartens. The average age of the girls is 69.2 months; the average age of the boys is 70.7 months. The analysis of the data obtained found no correlations between the amount of fears and the level of cognitive and social development. The data obtained suggests that the amount of fears as such do not affect the level of cognitive and social development, while increased levels of anxiety interfere with the successful cognitive activity of a child.

Methodology. The development of self-regulation in preschoolers is determined by the features of a cultural situation, which consists of a set of invariable normative rules. To abide by the cultural rules means that a child develops his/her “cultural congruence” (Bayanova). This process reflects the child’s evolution as an agent of a culture. The cognitive aspect of self-regulation was studied in the framework of the model of “executive functions” (Miyake). This model includes three related and simultaneously independent factors, such as Working Memory, Flexibility and Inhibitory Control.

The aim of the research is to explore how the assimilation of cultural rules of a “normative situation” (Veraksa) may influence the development of executive functions in preschoolers of different genders.

Method and structure of the research. 113 children aged 5-6 (58 boys and 55 girls) and 113 mothers (aged 24-44) took part in the research. All of the children attended kindergartens of Tatarstan. The assessment of cultural congruence was carried out using a questionnaire for parents, which included invariable rules for children 5-6 years old and allowed for assessing the extent to which children follow these rules. Diagnostics of executive functions was implemented with a set of techniques, which included the subtests of the test battery NEPSY-II (Korkman et al., 2007) and the DCCS (Zelazo, 2006).

Results. It was revealed that boys with a “higher” level of cultural congruence better develop verbal memory, whereas boys with a “low” level of congruence better switch from one task to another and better memorize visual images. The features of the development of executive functions in the group of girls on the whole do not depend on the level of their cultural congruence,

Conclusions. The data obtained indicate the gender specificity of the influence of cultural congruence on executive functions in preschoolers, which substantially clarifies the results obtained in other studies.

The paper is devoted to the role of fairy tales in the cognitive and personal development of children. The article reviews the dialectical approach to the analysis of fairy tales. On the example of folk tales of the world, the generality of structural transformations inherent in fairy tales is shown.

The conclusion is made about the importance of fairy tales for the development of children’s creative abilities. Particular attention is devoted to the approach of L.S. Vygotsky, on the basis of which the grounds for correlating fairy tales with the age of the child are distinguished.

Analysis of the social situation of development at each age makes it possible to determine the essential aspects of fairy tales and narratives that are necessary for productive interaction between a child and an adult. Examples are given and a conclusion is made about the importance of following the principles of cultural-historical psychology for creating and using fairy tales as a way for a child to enter culture.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly changed the conditions of life and in particular changed the way how adults and children use digital devices. Digitalization plays a big role in the development of preschool children. Therefore, it has become extremely relevant to study how preschoolers use digital devices in the new social conditions. This study aims to examine the use of digital devices before and during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown period by children aged 6-7. In this study we compared answers to the interview in 2019 and in 2021. The first wave of survey was conducted in 2019 involving 417 children aged 6–7 years. And the second wave with the same interview was conducted in 2021 involving 495 children aged 6–7 years. According to our results, children in 2021 named more options of digital devices usage and those options are more varied comparing to 2019. In addition, children became significantly more likely to say that digital devices could be used for work and learning, and they themselves became more likely to use them for educational purposes. However, many digital practices have remained unchanged over the past two years. For example, children still mostly use digital devices to play games. Among the answers about favorite digital activities in 2021 were more frequent answers not only from the category of entertainment, but also from the category of «psychological tools». In 2021, there are more kids using digital devices every day and fewer using them only on weekends. During the pandemic, children were more likely to use digital devices with parents, siblings, and friends. As a result of this work, recommendations for parents on the optimal use of digital devices by preschoolers were clarified.