Background. The paper focuses upon L.F. Obukhova's ideas about creativity in children, the search for objective mechanisms for the development of child thinking in solving creative problems. The paper is prepared in connection with the conference “Scientific Readings in Memory of L.F. Obukhova (1938-2016), Professor of Moscow State Lomonosov University” on the occasion of her 80th birthday.

The Objective of the analytical and theoretical research is rethinking the basic ideas of L.F. Obukhova in the study of key aspects of child creativity and systematic study of thinking based on ‘open-end’ type problems that allow multiple solutions.    

Design. The psychological characteristics of creativity in children and its relationship with other mental processes are consistently considered. The mental processes are perception, emotions, intelligence, imagination; age peaks and declines in the development of creativity of preschoolers. The paper presents a critical analysis of measuring creativity, the impact of learning on the development of children on the basis of popular programs and trainings of creative thinking. The paper highlights the prospects of Obukhova's scientific approach to the vital issues in understanding mental development of the child, the ‘intersection of ideas’ of representatives of cultural-historical and natural-scientific paradigms.

Results. The heuristic possibilities of the analysis of the general and divergences of representatives of two main scientific paradigms in modern psychology are shown. According to L.F. Obukhova, the Torrence's Picture Construction Test shows the convergent strategies of solution, which contradicts Guilford's understanding of the phenomena of creativity. The cultural-historical paradigm highlights the artificial approach to the process of thinking though the prism of multiple factors.

Findings. The analysis showed that underestimating the role of adults in the teaching creativity brings about a partial solution to the problem articulated by E.P. Torrence: «Can we Teach Children To Think Creatively?» Building a comprehensive view of the mechanisms that induce creative processes brings closer to a deeper understanding of the issues of development and learning. 

Introduction. Interest in the issues of spirituality, moral background is objectively determined by the transformations in all spheres of life and human activity in recent decades, including fundamental changes in the value-based system.

The Objective is to describe an experimental program of studying the level of spiritual and moral education in children of preschool age. Based on the analysis of the data and considering the spirituality and morality in children as a complicated integrative education, we identify intellectual, cognitive, value-based, motivational and behavioural components. The main hypothesis of the study is the assumption of the dependence of the spiritual and moral level on the determined systematic work of the spiritual and moral potential of the person, their culture and valued at each age stage. The basic levels of ontogenesis are emphasized.

Procedure. The first stage of the research included analysis of the works in the field of «spirituality» and «morality», which allowed us to determine the specific features of spiritual and moral education of the 5-year-old children and to design a program of experimental study. The second stage was based on the comprehensive program of experimental research, i.e. a system of test methods aimed at studying the selected components of the spiritual and moral education. The population consisted of 90 five-year-old children.

Findings. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the experimental data obtained at the third stage of our study showed that a high level of spiritual and moral education is recorded only in 21% of the respondents. The majority of respondents (57%) scored the average level of spiritual and moral education. 22% of the respondents score a low level of spiritual and moral education.

Conclusion. The study showed that less than one third of the respondents demonstrated a high level of spiritual and moral education. The majority of preschool children did not know about the spiritual and moral norms of social behaviour, and also they lacked regular rules of behaviour, which suggests that the majority of the research participants did not correspond to age-related opportunities and require targeted psychological and pedagogical assistance.

Background. The widely discussed issue of developing creative thinking in childhood is the massive decline in creativity in many children in countries according to Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT). The methodological restrictions of the test approach and descriptive methods make it difficult to find an answer to the question of different aspects of creativity development in childhood, so this problem does not receive sufficient consideration in modern developmental psychology.

The Objective of the theoretical and analytical research is to study the status quo and modern approaches to the issue of child's creative thinking, to substantiate the methodology of the "gradual development" trend that reveals the line of functional development of logical and creative actions in the development of human psyche, the discussion of applied issues related to overcoming the crisis situations when dealing with creativity in modern children.

Design. The theoretical-analytical research consistently substantiates the methodology of "gradual development" as a system of objective requirements for the mental process ("ideal form") and conditions ensuring the fulfillment of these requirements (appropriation of the tool of activity in the orienting function); the idea of ​​functional development of the child's psyche is revealed. The restrictions of the psychometric test method in resolving the problem of creativity development in children throughout the 20th century and at the present time are discussed.

Research Results. The analysis of the "gradual development" methodology showed how the conditions for mediation and growth of productivity indicators in the solution of the divergent tasks of the Picture Construction Test (Torrance, 1966) in preschool children is approaching the pre-established "ideal form". In the course of the task management, the qualitatively different types of child behaviour of enhancing the properties of their actions are identified: proactivity, reflexivity, control. The results showed that qualitative discrepancies in the productivity types of solving various tasks by preschool children are significantly associated with their intellectual level.

Conclusion. The prospects of ​​the functional and age development of the child's psyche is shown to explore the theoretical and applied problems of the development of creative thinking in ontogeny. The application of the P.Ya. Galperin’s concept of orientation to non-standard (divergent) problems allowed to consider the most renowned tests of creative talent proposed by E.P. Torrance in identifying the creative potential of a normally developing child.

Most modern psychologists who deal with preschool age emphasize the development of executive functions as one of the most important factors in this age. The paper compares two most important and common approaches to disclosing and diagnosing voluntariness in the preschool age: the model of executive functions «unity with diversity» of A. Miyake and the skills theory of L.A. Venger. The model of the executive functions considers three main components of executive functions: working memory; flexibility of attention or switching; restraining control. The basis of cognitive abilities theory is the concept of cultural facilities (sensory standards, visual models, etc.) that are being developed throughout the preschool period. In accordance with these two diagnostic complexes were drawn up, aimed at diagnosing voluntariness in preschool years. The study involved 48 children aged 5-6 years, kindergarten students (24 girls and 24 boys) conducted in Moscow, Russia. The results showed that despite a variety of theoretical approaches to early childhood and voluntariness they reverberate the same reality. 

The most revealing methods (the results of which you can predict the eventual consequences) were elaborated: the method of «Inhibition» (subtest of neuropsychological diagnostic complex techniques NEPSY-II, Korkman et al, 2007) in the case of A. Miyake model, and methods of «Schematization» in the abilities theory of L.A. Venger (Venger, Kholmovskaya, 1978).

The article analyzes the attitude of parents of preschool children to the primary school education. Special attention is paid to a choice of the optimal age for children to enter school. Furthermore criteria on which parents rely in choosing a school for their children are also reviewed as well as the views of parents on the basic functions of school and their requirements for professional and personal qualities of a school teacher. The article continues a series of works on the sociology of preschool children, conducted by researchers of the Institute for Sociology of Education RAE and is based on the materials of a sociological poll of parents whose children attend Moscow kindergartens.