Lev Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory emphasizes the role of historical and social contexts in psychological development. Vygotsky's interpretation of the development of pointing has been rediscovered in the current studies of social referencing in infants. The relationship between higher and lower mental functions in Vygotsky's theory was not strictly determined. Vygotsky's concept of lower mental functions (LMFs) shows the limitations of the infants' precocious abilities: the lack of conscious awareness, language mediation, executive ability, and systemic coordination. At the same time, the discoveries of infants' precocious abilities challenge Vygotsky's theory of LMFs and his general understanding of what cognitive development is. The purpose for future research is to evaluate the original Vygotsky-Luria model of Executive function (EF) as social skill of "tool mediated" self-regulation derived from interactive activities, and to examine it in relation to the contemporary accounts of executive functioning.

The notion of "developmental education" or the image of "education that leads development", as any other notion, has discriminative power only until it allows us to see something that otherwise would remain unnoticed. This chapter explores the levels of micro- and macro-analysis of the interrelation between learning, instruction, and development and interprets the development (of higher psychological functions) with the help of a conceptual toolkit of cultural-historical theory as simultaneous transition. It provides macro-analysis of developmental education on the scale of the system of education and discusses the types of interaction or pedagogical facilitation that every educational system uses in order to provoke and support children's independence in mastering and using various cultural tools. The type of interaction that is predominant in each specific system of education determines its developmental affordances and its limitations at the same time.

Consciousness is one of the most "inconvenient" objects of psychological research. This chapter outlines the basic challenges for a theory of consciousness in order to suggest a direction in which contemporary psychology may develop and discusses the scope of these challenges. It provides a reconstruction of Lev Vygotsky's conception of consciousness in its evolution throughout his scholarly life. The chapter gives the main definitions of consciousness in Vygotsky's works. It describes the different ideas on consciousness in the general context of Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory. The chapter presents a critical analysis of the theory of consciousness from the perspective of its own "zone of proximal development" and its contemporary relevance. The analysis of Vygotsky's theory of consciousness shows that the perspectives of this theory are enormous, but they remain mere perspectives to date because the theory is still at the initial stage of its development.