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The aim of the study was to reveal age changes in cognitive functions at preschool age and to determine risk factors contributing to learning dysadaptation resulting from individual cognitive development and brain functional state. There was held complex neuropsychological and encephalographic (EEG) research on 153 children at the age of 5-6 (М =5,71 и SD=0,43) and 6-7 (М =6,45 и SD=0,30) years old. According to teachers expert judgments children of each age group were divided into subgroups. This division depended on whether children had difficulty in knowledge acquisition (cognitive difficulties) and/or behavioral deviations (behavioral difficulties). Neuropsychological analysis with the use of A. Luria method (adapted for children) included qualitative and quantitative assessment of activity regulation processes (regulatory components) and verbal and nonverbal information processing (informational components). Neurophysiological analysis was based on qualitative assessment of EEG patterns which show functional status and the level of functional maturity of cortex and brain regulatory structures. It was proved statistically that children of control group (without cognitive and/or behavioral difficulties) at the turn of 5-6 – 6-7-years-old demonstrate higher indices of conditioned regulation of activity (first of all, use of instructions and algorithms of activity), and higher indices of integrative perception and exact word usage. The progressive changes of these components of cognitive activity are interrelated. It is in these components of cognitive activity that 6-7-year-old children with difficulty in learning adaptation demonstrate lower indices in comparison with their peers from the control group, while the same differences in 5-6-year-old children were not found. This fact means different developmental paths between children of control group and those with learning adaptation difficulties. At the age of 6-7 years old different types of difficulties are paired with both general and specific characteristics of cognitive activity. General characteristics are lower indices of algorithms acquisition and lower work efficiency. Apart from these deficiencies children with behavioral difficulties demonstrated problems in emotional regulation and lower indices of complex visual perception. Children with cognitive difficulties demonstrated lower accuracy of word usage and little vocabulary. Complex neuropsychological and neurophysiological analysis showed that in 6-7-year-old children the main factors of learning dysadaptation are not formed involuntary regulation and lower work efficiency which can result from immaturity or dysfunction of frontalthalamic system, and functional changes in the structures of the right hemisphere. Visual-spatial and verbal deficiencies depend more on “localization” of deviations in the brain and are connected with the functional changes in brain cortex of right and left hemispheres correspondingly. The comparison of this research results with those of an earlier study on 7-10-year-old children shows less specificity of brain organization of cognitive regulation in preschool children.
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