In order to gain insight into the genesis of the cognitive mechanisms of creative thinking, it is necessary to consider empirical data from studies of preschool age subjects. For this purpose, we constructed a special technique, which can be conducted with respondents starting at age five in the form of an oral interview.

The method of diagnosing preschoolers ?A Gift for All? is made in such a way that the child is asked to propose a solution for one problem, where the hero is in a contradictory situation and the content of the proposed problem situations is age-relevant.

The study involved 102 preschoolers from different regions of Russia (mean age 5 years 9 months).

We formulated the following hypotheses: the success of preschoolers in solving conflicting problem tasks is significantly associated with:

- the level of dialectical thinking;

- the ability to symbolize;

- reversibility, as a key characteristic of formal-logical thinking in preschool age.

The respondents who were diagnosed using the ?Gift for All? method were divided into two contrasting groups: group A included children who did not give a single productive answer (62 people). Group B included respondents who proposed two or more productive solutions (41 people). The statistical significance of differences between groups was tested using Student's t- test and Wilcoxon's t-test. Next, we compared what scores the children from group A and group B received on the methods of diagnosing dialectical thinking, symbolization, and formal intelligence. We formed cohorts for pairwise testing of the significance of differences using the Student's and Wilcoxon's tests for a given trait.

The hypothesis about the relationship between the ability of preschoolers to resolve problem-contradictory situations and dialectical thinking, as well as the ability to symbolize and the level of formation of formal operations, was confirmed in this sample.