A clinical and neuropsychological analysis of mental functions in 6- to 7-year-old children

The neuropsychological analysis of the state of higher mental functions (HMF) in children aged 6-7-years entering the first class of the school providing general education showed that the HMF of 52-73% of the future schoolchildren are underdeveloped with respect to their age. The underdevelopment of the emotional-volitional sphere, of the dynamic organization of object activity, audio-speech memory, sphere of images-representations, visually-image and verbally-logical forms of thinking has been revealed. The experimental data suggest the absence of the primary (structural) derangements of the studied HMF in the examined children and dependence of the extent of their formation on the extent of readiness of the voluntary organization of activity. Insufficient formation of the HMF with respect to age is manifested in the lag of the formation of the internal structure of the psychic process, i.e., the absence of interiorization of the psychic processes and formation of the internal mental act. The neuropsychological assessment of underdevelopment of the HMF in reference to age suggests an insufficient age-related maturity of subcortical structures and subcortical corticopetal pathways as well as a dysfunction of the frontal neocortex and a secondary dysfunction of the posterofrontal and TPO areas, non-auditory cortical temporal regions of the left hemisphere due to underdevelopment of connections of these areas with the frontal structures.