Tamara G. Kuznetsova

Background. The study relevance is determined by the need for early diagnosis of the formation of the object image perception. 

Objective. The purpose of the work was to develop and test the created game methodology and the possibility of using it to assess the psycho-physiological maturity of children in the early preschool age. 

Methods. Images were presented on the monitor’s touch screen: a) one-color geometric figures of different sizes and b) multi-colored geometric figures of the same size. 

The children had to recognize either a large triangle among shapes of different sizes but the same color, or a red shape among different colored shapes of the same size. To assess children’s behavior, correctness of the problem solution and the time of recognizing the stimulus (msec), a video recording was made. Processing was carried out using the Student’s t-test with a significance of differences of at least p < 0.05. 

Sample consisted of 30 (13 girls and 17 boys) healthy kindergarten children with normal vision — 3.4±0.43. Results. When testing the developed methodology, it turned out that children of 3–4 years need more time to identify different-sizedsingle-color geometric shapes than to identify multi-colored one-size shapes. The technique allowed to reveal a group of children with a specific character of the formation of psychological functions, characterizing delay in psychological development. 

Conclusion. The proposed technique can be used as a method of early differential diagnostics of mental retardation in preschool childhood.