The mental development challenge its aspects in all the variety and the diversity, as of the right is being related to the most complex, the most complicated, and also the most contradictory sections category of the psychological and the pedagogical sciences. Such scientists and the scholars, as A. Klapared, G. Folkelt, K. Koffka, R. Arnheim, K. Goldstein, M. Shirer, H. Whitkin in the framework of the psychology - Gestalt, L.S. Vygotsky, A.R. Luriya - in the framework of the cultural and the historic conception, J. Piage - in the framework of the cognitive theory, A. Arikson, A. Adler - in the framework of the psychoanalytical direction, N.E. Chuprikov, J. Gilford, B.M. Teplov, V.D. Nebyliczyn, A.A. Golubeva, V.M. Rusalov - in the framework of the psychophysiological direction, R. Sternberg, A. Torndike, J. Watson, D. Gartly, J. Pristly, E.A. Tan, G. Abbinhause, V. Vundt - in the framework of the associative psychology and etc. have been engaging in this challenge study. Then, A.V. Ushakova, N.N. Poddyakov, L.F. Tikhomirova, A.F. Govorkova, N.P. Batisheva, A.L. Venger, A.Z. Zak, N.A. Menchinskaya and etc. have investigated the mental development challenge in the framework of the pedagogical science.

And only few notions in the psychological and the pedagogical sciences are being attracted the more scrupulous and the more fixed attention, and few, moreover, are not being their way to the explanation so persistently, as the «mental development» notion. So, its meanings are being left, which are closely connected with the methods, having developed for its instrumentation, in spite of the numerous efforts, having undertaken for the last years, in order to be developed some independent the «mental development» term definition. Binet, the individual mental abilities test inventor, has considered, that the intellectual behavior and the conduct are quite able to be revealed in such abilities, as the reasoning and the ratiocination, the imagination, the insight, the judgment and the assertion, and also the adaptability. Therefore, he has developed his tests (e.g. the Binet tests) in such way, in order to evaluate only these functions. The other theorists have insisted upon the fact, that it should to be emphasized and also to be singled out only three fundamental cognitive processes (e.g. the abstracting, the learning activity, and the handling with the new one). The third ones have already confirmed, that all these abilities are only the single basic factor manifestation (e.g. so called, the general factor), which, as it has been supposed, is being lied in the basis of all the intellectual functions.

Spirman, who is the great specialist and the expert in the field of the psychometrics, has been in despair to be defined this notion, on the whole, and he has named the mental development simply by the sound, by the word, which has so many meanings, that, in the final analysis, it has not any one. However, such deep pessimism has not decreased the psychological science necessity just in such notion. So, it is interesting, that until the movement for the tests and the instrumentation was began, this term had been meant «to make a good thing of the experience ability», that, first of all, had been implied the ability to behave oneself adaptively, and also to functionate successfully in the specific environment. Consequently, the every «mental development test», which is being considered the valid one, will be, exactly, predicted as the adaptive, well as the successful functioning in the defined and the specified environment. Thus, the intellectual development tests application has been predominated, as the school successes foretellers, since their appearance moment, and, therefore, certainly, it is not surprisingly, that the reasoning, and the ratiocination, the judgment and the assertion, the learning activity, the handling with the new one, the abstracting, and etc. have been considered the «adaptive and the successful» behavior patterns and the models. All such mental development tests always will be the socially and the culturally determined. So, they will be reflected the culture´s ideals and the values, to which all these tests creators are being belonged to, and, moreover, the «adaptive and the successful» functioning always will be meant the «adaptive and the successful» functioning inside this culture. On the large scale, there is nothing bad in this. The fact, that this circumstances set is being promoted their irregular application, is not denied the society right to try to be distinguished, who from its citizens, with the most probably, will get a benefit from the fact, that the society has to be suggested to them. In the final analysis, the mental development, conceptually, will be the thing, that it has been always, that is, the ability to get the benefit from the experience, and,pragmatically, what it has already become, and that the mental development tests are being measured.

Thus, in the broad sense, the mental development notion is being meant by itself all those progressive changes in the cognitive development, which are being happened in the individual in the course of time. So, the authors overwhelming majority (such as R. Sternberg, A. Binet, A. Wallon, J. Bruner, J. Gilford, R. Kettel, and etc.) are holding their opinions, that the «mental development» notion is quite identical with the «intellectual development» one.

The «intellect» notion characteristic, which rich in its content (in English «intelligence»; from Latin «intellectus» - the understanding, the comprehension, the cognition) is such as:

1) the general ability to the challenges cognition and solution, having defined the every activity successfulness;

2) all the individual´s informative and the educational (e.g. the cognitive) abilities system: the sensations, the perceptions, the memory, the presentations, the thinking, the imaginations;

3) the ability for the challenges solutions just without any tests and the mistakes «in one´s mind». The «intellect» notion, as the general mental ability is being applied, as the behavioral characteristics generalization, having connected with the successful adaptation to the new vital tasks. So, R. Sternberg has already singled out the 3 intellectual behavior, and the conduct forms:

1) the verbal intellect (e.g. the stock of the words, the erudition, the ability to be comprehended the reading one);

2) the challenges to be decided ability;

3) the practical intellect (e.g. the ability to be achieved the set goals and etc.).

In the beginning of the XX-th century, the intellectual development has been considered, as the achieved to the defined and the specified mental development level age, which is being revealed in the gnostic functions fully mature formation, and also in the mental abilities, the intellectual skills and the knowledge mastering degree. At present, the intellect dispositional interpretation and the treatment has been accepted in the testology, as the psychical and the mental quality (e.g. the abilities): the predispositions to be acted rationally in the quite new situation. So, the intellect operational interpretation and the treatment are also being met, having risen to A. Benet: the intellect - this is «that, what the tests are being measured».

Thus, the intellect is being studied in the various academic psychological and in the different academic pedagogical disciplines: for example, in the general, in the developmental, in the engineering, and in the differential psychology, in the pathopsychology and in the neuropsychology, in the psychogenetics and etc.; in the general, in the developmental pedagogics, and also in the teaching and the training theory and etc. In the domestic science, the «mental development» notion has been considered by the following scientists and the scholars: V.S. Mukhina, A.V. Shakov, V.A. Slastenin, E.F. Isaev and the others. V.S. Mukhina is being understood the «mental development», as the mental and the psychical processes development. The mental development is being considered, as the dynamical system, the main state of which is being depended on, as from the general experience and the learning mastering, well as from the organic basis maturing (e.g. nervous system). The individual level is strongly able to be distinguished from the age - related and the age - specific indices.

A.V. Ushakov is being comprehended the knowledge, the abilities, the skills and the mental and the intellectual actions, having fully mature formed at their mastering and the learning aggregate under the mental development. The mental and the intellectual development level is being permitted freely to be operated by all these knowledge, the skills, and the abilites in the mentation processes, having provided the quite new knowledge, the skills, and the abilities mastering and the learning. So, the mental and the intellectual development, by A.V. Ushakov, is being reflected the personality´s cognitive, the informative, the educational, and the creative possibilities state.

V.A. Slastenin, and E.F. Isaev are being comprehended - the personality´s intellectual abilities and the skills development under the mental development.

At the same time, some authors (such as: G. Abbinhause, O. Zeltz, K. Koffka, and etc.) are being comprehended the human mental and the thinking activity development under the mental development. Indeed, the thinking is being interpreted, as - the activity reflection psychical and the mental process, the human creative activity highest form.

Thus, the «mental development» notion in the contemporary literature is being considered from the both positions: on the one hand, the mental development is quite identically to the «intellect» notion, and it is being characterized, as the intellectual development; on the other hand, - this kind of the notion is quite equal to the «thinking activity development» notion. At present, the human mental development conceptions analysis, due to the «mental development» notion itself interpretation ambiguity and the different assessments, and also the fundamental and the basic components, having made up all these theories content, is the actual one. So, it is quite impossible to be noted this challenge consideration significance, in connection with its importance at the educational systems development, such as the developing teaching, the programmed learning, the challenge teaching and etc.

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The work was submitted to the international scientific conference «Fundamental Research», (Israel, Tel Aviv), 10-17 April, 2010. Came to the editorial office on 23.03.2010.