Abstract
The importance of research in the field of children emotional development the author refers to dramatic changes in the system of Russian education, the idea of individualization of pre-school education, the study of the emotional growth as an important regulator of children behavior and a leading factor of their emotional well-being. The author claims that the activity supporting child's individual development is impossible without the organization of empirical research, including longitudinal one. The paper presents the results of the study of the longitudinal emotional development of children aged 4 to 7. The key criteria for diagnostic evaluation are: perception, understanding, identification of emotional states by the expression or emotional context of the situation, development of emotional decentration, and formation of social emotions. A brief presentation of experimental data, the correlation between the results of three diagnostic tests made in a year, comparing them with the results of previous studies made it possible to make some generalizations regarding the age variability of the analyzed indicators. In the conclusions, the author states progressive changes in indicators of the emotional development within the period from middle to senior preschool age, at the same time she points out unevenness, imbalance, cumulative changes and their dependence on environmental factors, which is consistent with the general laws of mental development at preschool age. The author expects the further use of the results of the study to be connected with the design of the psycho-pedagogical support system, development of methodological support taking into account the specifics of the emotional development of modern children.