ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to consider dialectical thinking as a creative, productive way of thinking focused on the creation of something new. Children with the higher level of development of dialectical thinking were reflecting cyclic processes more successfully. Dialectical thinking acts as a mechanism of variative transformations of one's own position and, therefore, construction of the person's relation to the space of opportunities of the normative situation. Children's dialectical thinking, here viewed as a creative and productive way of thinking focused on the creation of something new, gives children the "space of opportunities" in the Zone of Proximal Development of the preschool child. Scientists within cognitive developmental psychology are, however, often doubtful as to the importance of play regarding preschool children's cognitive or intellectual development. In building on a sociocultural theory of learning and development, Katherine Nelson argues that language is a catalyst and the key to children's intellectual development.
