[Methodological approaches to the evaluation of neuropsychological development of children living in regions contaminated with ecological toxins].

A prevalence of some neurotoxicants, the salts of the heavy metals in particular, in the environment of many Russian towns is threatening. The aim of this paper was to work out the separate epidemiologic tests for the estimation of neuro-psychic development in children of 2-5 years old on the basis of the native elaborations as well as the determination of their reproductivity and informativity in terms of neurotoxic influence. There were examined 155 children which lived in the region of a tractor plant with intensive polymetallic contamination or in a relatively "clean" central part of a town (Lypetsk). There was estimated a reproductivity of the methods used. Good and satisfactory indices of the reproductivity were obtained about questionnaire concerning the level of intellectual and social-psychologic maturity (85%), about the test concerning the behavorial-emotional peculiarities (76.9%), a transitory memory. A test concerning a reciprocal coordination of the movements revealed low reproductivity, but it was informative in the comparative study of the regions investigated. The following approbation of the tests is necessary, especially of those, characterising cognitive peculiarities of children, their validity by means of the analysis of contents of metals in biological fluids of the children examined.