Longitudinal study of the development of higher mental functions in primary school children

The article presents the results of a longitudinal population-based neuropsychological study of the development of higher mental functions (HMF) in primary school children from Grades 1 through 3 of Moscow secondary school (n=84). The dynamics of HMF components in the sample in general and in groups of children with different (measured in the 1st grade) level of HMF (high, medium, low) was followed with the help of seven indexes that reflect the status of the individual components of HMF, such as executive functions (voluntary regulation of activity), serial organization of movements and actions, processing of kinesthetic, auditory, visual and visual-spatial information, regulation of activation. The study showed a positive dynamics in the overall state of structural-functional components of HMF in the examinees. Groups of children with different baseline levels of HMF steadily kept the differences in the degree of development of HMF components in each evaluation, despite the fact that the highest dynamics of HMF components was found in children with initially low, and the lowest — in children with initially high levels of HMF components. Among the components the lowest dynamics was found in the development of voluntary regulation, that is, the functions of programming, regulation and control of activity. No significant dynamics of these functions from the first to the third grade in children with high baseline functioning may be related to the fall of their learning motivation as their learning proceeds in the Zone of actual and not proximal development.