Association between cognitive and emotional development in preschool age

A total of 18 empirical studies were reviewed. Participants in the research included children aged 3 to 11 attending kindergarten and primary school in different countries. The maximum sample size in the analyzed works was 1066 children, the minimum - 36 children. All of the works presented in the review could be divided into two groups, depending on the objectives. The first group includes studies showing a link between the recognition and understanding of emotions and children's academic achievements. The second group consists of studies on the connection between the success of recognition and understanding the emotions and children's cognitive development. The results systematization of foreign and Russian works made it possible to identify stable positive links between the indicators of cognitive and emotional development in preschool and primary school age. As a result of the review, we identified a steady positive connection between the indicators of cognitive development in children and the recognition and understanding the emotions. Recognition and understanding the emotions are positively related to the coefficient of non-verbal intelligence, the ability to decentralize, the distinction between the real and apparent properties of objects and, finally, the initial literacy and academic success of children. In contrast to the recognition of emotions, understanding the emotions was also related to the ability to solve mathematical problems and mathematical thinking. Thus, it can be concluded that emotional development is an important prerequisite for the cognitive development of preschoolers and primary schoolers. In the context of works by L. Vygotsky and J. Piaget, we turned to the dialectical thinking in preschool age. Our research showed that dialectical thinking does not stand out as a special form of thinking activity in preschool children and, accordingly, does not take into account its impact on the development of children's affects. Nevertheless, in a number of works the authors actually speak about the dialectical structure of mediation, the units of which are "child's behavior", "child's emotional development", "child's academic success", "academic progress" or "attention development". In all of these cases, the key role of the connection between emotional and cognitive development lies in the mediating links in the dialectical structure, such as attention, behavior, self-regulation, and interpersonal relationships. In other words, the results show that preschool children represent reality through dialectical structures and apply dialectical thinking in real life. But the authors do not analyze or associate these mediating links of emotional and cognitive development with the development of children's dialectical thinking. The reason for this may be the methodological limitation associated with the fact that in the tradition of intellectual development of J. Piaget, dialectical thinking is considered only as a form of thinking activity, typical of the post-formal stage of intellectual development in adults (Rigel 1975, Bessetches 2018).

Keywords

Authors

References