The role of generative AI in facilitating children's creative thinking and cognitive development: a systematic scoping review.

Background: Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) has reshaped STEAM education, with growing interest in its use to enhance children's creative thinking a key cognitive development component. However, systematic synthesis of GenAI's application in child-centered creative learning remains limited. This scoping review explores GenAI's roles, effects, challenges, and future directions. Methods: This study follows JBI guidance and is reported in accordance with PRISMA-ScR. Searches were conducted in July 2025 and updated in May 2026 across Web of Science, Scopus, ERIC, APA PsycInfo, ACM Digital Library, ProQuest, and Google Scholar. Publication status and evidence-source type were charted explicitly. Results: Twenty-four evidence sources were included: 22 primary empirical studies and two secondary syntheses used only for contextual interpretation. Text-based LLMs and multimodal text/image tools predominated. The primary studies reported possible benefits for divergent thinking, narrative creativity, and creative self-efficacy, but the heterogeneous designs, absence of formal critical appraisal, and inclusion of preprints preclude conclusions about confirmed efficacy. Conclusion: The emerging evidence suggests that carefully facilitated GenAI may support some forms of children's creative activity, but the evidence base is small, methodologically heterogeneous, geographically concentrated, and partly non-peer-reviewed. Claims about effectiveness, scalability, and equity therefore remain provisional. Future research should use stronger comparative and longitudinal designs and directly include rural, underserved, and low-resource communities before GenAI is presented as a democratizing intervention.