The specifics of functioning of two channels for processing visual information, the magnocellular and parvocellular ones, in preschool children with normal and impaired cognitive development have been studied. Children with delayed psychological development have been found to have a diminished activity in the magnocellular channel due to weakening of the mechanism responsible for assessing the temporal parameters of the visual input. At the same time, children displaying a spectrum of infantile autism syndromes complicated by a delayed psychological development and mental retardation have a pronounced deficit in information processing in both channels of the visual system, manifested in an impaired ability to assess the direction of movement in terms of both temporal and spatial characteristics of the objects. The degree of this impairment is correlated with both the severity of the particular neurological disorder and the level of speech development of the child.