From the pedagogical press of an article about Impaired mental function. Features of the mental activity of children with mental retardation

Mental retardation is observed in children who have suffered mild organic damage to the central nervous system (in utero, during childbirth or in early childhood) or who have genetically determined brain failure.

One of the main features of children with mental retardation is low cognitive activity, which manifests itself, although unevenly, in all types of mental activity. This is due to the peculiarities of perception, attention, memory, thinking and emotional-volitional sphere of activity of these children.

The effectiveness of perception in children with mental retardation is reduced compared to normally developing children. They cannot fully embrace an object with many features and perceive it fragmentarily. These children may not even recognize familiar objects if they are seen from an unusual angle or poorly lit. This limits the possibilities of visual-figurative thinking, which can be seen when using such techniques as: "Perceptual modeling", "Fish".

The memory of children with mental retardation is characterized by reduced productivity of involuntary and especially voluntary memorization and a small amount of short-term and long-term memory (method "10 words").

Children with mental retardation have reduced interest in cognitive tasks. Children try to "get away" from tasks, talking about another topic. Children with mental retardation have no or incomplete preliminary orientation in terms of cognitive tasks of all types, there is no plan for completing the task. Such children cannot foresee the results of their actions.

Another distinctive feature of the mental activity of children with mental retardation is inertia. They switch with great difficulty from one activity to another, from one solution to another.

ZPR occurs much more often than other, more severe violations of ontogeny. As a result of numerous studies, several types of ZPR have been identified, each of which has its own structure and features. The degree of delay also varies. The sooner it is detected, the more opportunities there are to correct the shortcomings, to determine the measures and types of assistance to these children, and for each child this assistance is purely individual.

The role of a psychologist in correcting the mental development of children with combined disorders (speech and intellectual) is very large. Both educators and speech therapists put their hopes on him, expecting concrete help in correcting the mental and emotional-volitional spheres of the personality of a preschooler. A psychologist often acts as the initiator of combining the efforts of all participants in the correctional process (within the framework of a medical-psychological-pedagogical consultation or other form of interaction between specialists).

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Children with mental retardation.

Psychological support for children

with ZPR.

Another distinctive feature of the mental activity of children with mental retardation is inertia. They switch with great difficulty from one activity to another, from one solution to another.

Organization and content of correctional pedagogical work with children with mental retardation

1. Purposeful systematic preschool education and training is essential for the development of the child's psyche and subsequent success in school. The full assimilation of the school curriculum by children is largely due to the level of their intellectual development. mental development violation pedagogical

It is no coincidence that the closest attention of psychologists, teachers, speech pathologists, doctors is directed to an in-depth study of children who are noticeably behind their peers in intellectual development both at preschool age and at the subsequent stage of schooling.

A differentiated in-depth study of children with various developmental disabilities allowed domestic clinicians and speech pathologists to single out a category of children whose mental development features do not allow them to master the educational programs of kindergarten and mass school without specially created conditions, but, at the same time, significantly distinguish them from mentally retarded children.

In domestic defectology, mental retardation is considered as a lag in the development of a child's mental activity caused by minimal organic damage to the brain (or a violation of the central nervous system of another origin). The term “mental retardation” refers to syndromes of a temporary lag in the development of the psyche as a whole or its individual functions (motor, sensory, speech, emotional-volitional), a slow pace of implementation of the properties of the body encoded in the genotype. The delay in the rate of development in mental retardation (as opposed to intellectual disabilities) is reversible. In the etiology of mental retardation, constitutional factors, chronic somatic diseases, organic insufficiency of the nervous system, more often of a residual (residual) nature, play a role.

Children with mental retardation are traditionally defined as a polymorphic group characterized by slow and uneven maturation of higher mental functions, lack of cognitive activity, decreased performance, and underdevelopment of the emotional and personal sphere. The causes of such conditions are varied: organic insufficiency of the central nervous system, constitutional features, adverse social factors (M.S. Pevzner, T.A. Vlasova, V.I. Lubovsky, K.S. Lebedinskaya, M.N. Fishman, etc.).

The currently existing classification of types of mental retardation, developed in the ICP RAO, is based on the further differentiation of the two main groups of children with mental retardation, proposed in the classification by M. S. Pevzner and T. A. Vlasova. Using the predominant underdevelopment of the emotional-volitional sphere or cognitive activity as an initial criterion, T. A. Vlasova and K.S.

* Among domestic scientists and practitioners who have made a significant contribution to the study and solution of the problem of delays in cognitive and psychophysical development, the names of G.E. Sukhareva, T.A. Vlasova and M.S. Pevzner, V.I. Lubovsky, K.S. Lebedinskaya, U.V. Ul'enkova, I.Yu. Levchenko.160

Lebedinskaya identified four main clinical types of mental retardation:

? ZPR of constitutional origin;
? ZPR of somatogenic origin;
? ZPR of psychogenic origin;
? ZPR of cerebro-organic genesis.

The duration of mental retardation is largely determined by the time of initiation and the adequacy of special education. In the conditions of a mass school, children with mental retardation experience great difficulties in learning, which cannot be overcome without special medical and pedagogical influence and lead to persistent underachievement of the child. Children with mental retardation make up the main contingent of underachieving students in a mass school (T.A. Vlasova, 1983, E.M. Mastyukova, 2000, etc.).

A special mass examination of children in preparatory groups for school in kindergartens, carried out at the time, showed that children with temporary delays in psychophysical development account for up to 10% of the surveyed contingent of children (U.V. Ul'enkova, 1998).

The erroneous classification of such children as mentally retarded and sending them to a special school of the 8th type cannot contribute to their further optimal development, since the educational material of the program of auxiliary schools is significantly lower than the cognitive capabilities of children with mental retardation.

The allocation of children with mental retardation into a special category of children with disabilities (late 60s - early 70s of the last century) was of great practical importance. A deep study of the characteristics of their psyche and - on this basis - the determination of the appropriate conditions for training and education allows you to most effectively correct the process of their cognitive development and

the formation of personality.

2. Among the causes of ZPR, there are maternal diseases during pregnancy (infections, cardiovascular pathology, severe toxicosis), prematurity, birth injuries and asphyxia of the newborn; traumatic brain injury, severe infectious diseases suffered by a child at an early age, etc.).

The factors contributing to a child's mental retardation, researchers involved in the problem of mental development, include: a lack of communication with others, which causes a delay in the child's assimilation of social experience, as well as a deficit of activity appropriate for the child's age, which prevents the timely formation of mental functions, necessary mental operations and action. Mental retardation can also be caused by the interaction of various adverse factors.161

3. The nosological group of children with mental retardation is heterogeneous in composition. The main clinical forms of mental retardation include mental retardation of constitutional genesis (mental and psychophysical infantilism), mental retardation of psychogenic genesis, cerebrasthenic conditions, and mental retardation of somatic origin. Let's take a look at their characteristics.

Psychophysical infantilism (from Latin infantile - childish) is characterized by the fact that a child who has reached a certain age is at an earlier age level in terms of mental and physical development. As a rule, such children begin to walk and talk later. According to the main anthropometric indicators of physical development (length, body weight, chest circumference, etc.), they lag behind the average norms for the corresponding age. Often, these children not only have a lag in height and weight, but the proportions of the body, facial expressions, gestures and psychomotor features that are characteristic of an earlier age period are preserved.

In psychic infantilism (as opposed to psychophysical) the disruption of the rate of development concerns mainly the psychic sphere.

ZPR of constitutional genesis is a variant of harmonic infantilism (delayed development), in which asynchrony ("uneven", disproportionate) development of various mental and physical functions is not observed. The average indicators ("parameters") of mental and physical development correspond to the age norm, but only for an earlier age. At the same time, the time frame of the lag in psychophysical development, as a rule, is quite large and amounts to 2-3 years.

The peculiarity of the mental development of infantile children is manifested in the following. In children, the ability to intellectual tension and concentration of attention is poorly expressed; fatigue occurs when performing tasks that require volitional effort; characterized by instability of interests, lack of independence, self-service skills are slowly formed.

When entering school, such children do not reach the required level of readiness for schooling. They are poorly included in educational activities, are not able to concentrate on a learning task, and cannot organize themselves in accordance with the requirements of school discipline. Children lack school interests and understanding of school duties, they hardly master the skills of reading and writing, as they have an underdevelopment of the ability to consciously analyze the sound side of speech.

According to M.S. Pevzner and I.A. Yurkova (1978) and others, in some children with harmonic infantilism, mental retardation is expressed to a milder degree and concerns, first of all, underdevelopment of the emotional-volitional sphere (inability to concentrate on a task, weakening of the ability to volitional effort,162 a clear preference for playing with other activities).

Such children do not listen to the teacher's explanations, during the lesson they can get up and walk around the class, start a game or start crying, asking to go home, etc.

Deviations in the development of the emotional sphere in children with mental retardation are manifested in such phenomena of mental instability as emotional lability, rapid satiety, superficiality of experiences, pronounced immediacy characteristic of younger children, the predominance of game motives over others, frequent mood changes, the predominance of one of the backgrounds. moods.

Either impulsiveness, affective excitability, or increased sensitivity to comments, a tendency to timidity are noted. In some cases, with the predominance of psychoorganic signs of developmental disorders, in children with mental retardation, affective disorders of an excitable, dysphoric type are observed: pronounced and prolonged affective reactions, monotony, rigidity of experiences, disinhibition of drives, persistence in their satisfaction, negativism, aggressiveness.

Problems in the behavior of children with mental retardation, arising from the peculiarity of the development of their emotional sphere, appear most often in a learning situation, during the period of adaptation to kindergarten or school.

In other children, a delay in the development of cognitive activity, underdevelopment of mental operations, impaired memory and attention, and rapid exhaustion of nervous processes are more pronounced. In these children, in comparison with normally developing children, it is difficult to memorize educational material, comprehend the information received, master analysis, comparison, and generalization. In educational tasks, children make a large number of mistakes, do not notice and do not correct them, since these children are characterized by: violation of purposeful activity, lack of self-control, inability to keep in mind the instructions for the task.

The mental retardation of organic genesis is one of the most complex variants of mental retardation.

The main clinical form in mental retardation of organic origin is cerebral asthenia.

The term asthenia (from the Greek a - a particle meaning denial, absence; stenos - strength) - means weakness, impotence.

With cerebroasthenia (from the Latin cerebrum - brain), neuropsychic weakness is caused by diseases of the brain (traumas, infections). Usually these are relatively mild brain lesions that do not lead to a permanent impairment of intellectual activity, characteristic of mental retardation.

In cerebrasthenic conditions, such manifestations as increased exhaustion of neuropsychic processes, rapid fatigue during training loads, headaches, impaired performance, weakening of memory and attention come to the fore. As a result, children cannot concentrate on the task at hand and are quickly distracted. With an increase in fatigue (especially in the absence of a calm environment), the productivity of cognitive (learning) activity drops sharply; behavioral reactions change: children become restless, irritable or, on the contrary, lethargic, slow, inhibited.

The low level of development of memory and attention, the inertia of mental processes, their slowness and reduced switchability cause significant impairment of cognitive activity. The unproductiveness of thinking, the underdevelopment of individual intellectual operations can lead to the establishment of an erroneous diagnosis of "oligophrenia".

Children with mental retardation of organic origin are characterized by a sharp decrease in cognitive activity, which leads to a narrowing of the circle of knowledge and ideas about the world around them, poor vocabulary, and underdevelopment of intellectual processes of memory and thinking. This creates significant difficulties in the learning process, in particular in mastering reading, writing, and counting.

So, in order to master the native language, it is necessary that the child, even before entering school, has formed elementary phonemic representations, the ability to perform a simple sound analysis, and practically use the methods of word formation. At the same time, studies show that the speech of children with mental retardation is characterized by poor vocabulary, primitive grammatical structures; a weak orientation in the sound and syllabic composition of the word is found (R.D. Triger, N.A. Tsypina, etc.).

Significant difficulties are noted in children with mental retardation and in mastering writing. Automation of writing processes comes with a big delay. When writing, children make numerous mistakes: they do not finish the elements of letters and words; they mix letters that are similar in outline, skip or rearrange letters in a word, double vowels, combine several words into one, etc. This is due not only to a delay in the formation of sound-letter analysis skills, but also to the peculiarities of the attention of children with mental retardation (impaired distribution of attention, rapid distractibility, etc.).

It has been established that in children with mental retardation ideas about subject-quantitative relations are formed with great difficulty (I.V. Ippolitova, D.N. Chuchalina). When teaching mathematics at school, they often do not master the concept of number, mental counting techniques, experience difficulties in compiling and solving simple oral problems, including using picture material). When performing written work, there are violations of the sequence of actions, omissions of the constituent components of the task. This may be due to the inability of children to concentrate and to the weakening of self-control over the task.

Mental retardation of somatic origin is associated with a violation of "general" health, leading to a violation of the functions of the central nervous system and a state of minimal brain dysfunction. Somatogenic ZPR can be caused by chronic diseases of the main functional systems of the body, violations of constitutional somatic development (rickets, dystrophy, metabolic disorders in the body), complications of post-somatic diseases, etc. This form of ZPR, not associated with organic lesions of the central nervous system, usually has a mild or an average degree of severity and is overcome in a relatively short time. This variant of the ZPR manifests itself mainly in the underdevelopment of cognitive activity, the lack of formation of the personal, emotional-volitional sphere. Underdevelopment of mental intellectual activity also takes place, but most often it does not have a pronounced character.

Thus, the entire group of children with mental retardation is characterized by insufficient readiness for learning under normal conditions, which is determined by a delay in the development of cognitive activity. In children with mental retardation, there is a decrease in cognitive activity, a delay in the formation of mental operations (analysis, synthesis, generalization), immaturity of verbal regulation, and a decrease in memory and attention functions.

The volume of knowledge and ideas about the world around them is limited, which negatively affects speech development.

Children often do not know the species names of trees, flowers, birds, etc. common in their area; can't name baby animals. Many of these children cannot tell about the properties of objects and phenomena that they have encountered many times, they almost never use words with a generalizing meaning. The stories they compose (on questions, according to the model) are primitive in form and content, the sequence of presentation is broken,

The stock of specific concepts is noticeably limited in children with mental retardation. Often they designate with the same word a number of subject generic groups (for example, they call “rose” such flowers as aster, tulip, etc.). In a number of cases, there is no distinct concrete representation behind the word name (the child names flowers - “tulip”, “aster”, “dahlia”, etc., but does not recognize the named flowers upon presentation). Often children with mental retardation do not know how to talk about the signs of an object, on which they actually rely on when recognizing it (for example, having correctly named a flower - “chamomile”, a child cannot name the signs by which he recognized it, therefore, these signs are not recognized by the child) .The indicated features are taken into account in the process of correctional education of children with mental retardation.

Memory loss is considered as one of the most important causes of learning difficulties in children with 3RD (T.A. Vlasova, M.S. Pevzner, 1973; E.M. Mastyukova, 2001, etc.).

It was revealed that many children with mental retardation do not memorize texts, poems well, do not retain the goal and condition of the task in memory. Both long-term and short-term memory of children with mental retardation are characterized by lower rates compared to normally developing children. In children with mental retardation, there is a decrease in the volume of short-term memory, a slow increase in memorization productivity with repeated presentations (V.L. Podobed, 1981), and the amount of memorized material in children with mental retardation decreases significantly by the end of the school week (V.I. Pecherskaya et al. ).

Children with mental retardation often from the very beginning of schooling are among the persistently underachieving students and are often mistakenly sent to a special school (7th type). When deciding on the issue of special education for children with mental retardation, it is necessary to distinguish them from children with mental retardation. Differential diagnostic criteria for distinguishing mental retardation and intellectual disabilities (mental retardation) are presented in the teaching aid "Fundamentals of Correctional Pedagogy and Special Psychology".

Organization and content of correctional pedagogical work with children and adolescents with mental retardation

Educational questions.

1. An integrated approach to overcoming the delay in the cognitive development of children and adolescents.
2. Organization and main directions of correctional pedagogical work with children with mental retardation.
3. Organization of education of children with mental retardation in a mass general education school.
1. Comprehensive medical and pedagogical measures aimed at preventing and correcting deviations in the psychophysical development of children with mental retardation include:
- * early diagnosis of mental retardation in a child,
- * a thorough study of the state of cognitive abilities of children with mental retardation, their general state of health and potential for their development (taking into account the "zone of proximal development" of the child);
- * carrying out correctional and educational work aimed at maximizing the development of the cognitive abilities of children and enriching their practical experience;
- * V.P. Glukhov. "Fundamentals of Correctional Pedagogy and Special Psychology". - M.: Correctional pedagogy, 2007.166
- * medical and recreational activities.
2. For children with severe mental retardation in the system of special education, special boarding schools (schools of the 7th type) and special classes (“leveling classes”, classes of compensatory education) have been created at mass general education schools. These forms of organization of training solve common tasks, have the same structure and content of training, operate on the basis of a single documentation. The tasks of a special school (correctional classes) of this type are correctional education and upbringing of students, and qualified education in the amount of (at least) an incomplete secondary general education school. The initial training period has been extended by one year. The curriculum includes special lessons of great correctional value on familiarization with the outside world and the development of speech, as well as individual correctional classes.

In kindergartens of a general and combined type, correctional groups are created for children with mental retardation; There are also special kindergartens for this category of children. A correctional institution of the VII type is created for the education and upbringing of children with mental retardation, who, with potentially preserved opportunities for intellectual development, have weakness of memory, attention, lack of pace and mobility of mental processes, increased fatigue, exhaustion, unformed voluntary regulation of activity, emotional instability, for ensuring the correction of their mental development and emotional-volitional sphere, the activation of cognitive activity, the formation of skills and abilities of educational activity.

Type VII correctional institution carries out the educational process in accordance with the levels of general educational programs of two levels of general education:

1st step? primary general education (normative period of development is 4-5 years).
2nd stage? basic general education (normative period of development is 5 years).

Admission of children to a correctional institution of type VII is carried out only in preparatory, 1st and 2nd grades (groups); in 3rd grade? as an exception.

- Children who started their education in a general education institution from the age of 7 are accepted into the 2nd grade (group) of a correctional institution.
- Children who started their studies in a general education institution from the age of 6 are accepted into the 1st grade (group) of a correctional institution.
- Children who have not previously studied in a general education institution and have shown insufficient readiness to master general education programs are accepted

from the age of 7 to the 1st grade (group) of a correctional institution (the standard period of study is 4 years); from the age of 6 - in the preparatory class (the standard period of study is 5 years).

Occupancy of the class (group), extended day group? up to 12 people.

The transfer of pupils to mass educational institutions is carried out as deviations in their development are corrected after receiving primary general education.

In order to clarify the diagnosis, the pupil may be in a correctional institution of the 7th type for one year.

In order to correct deviations in the development of pupils, to eliminate gaps in knowledge, individual and group (no more than 3 pupils) remedial classes are held.

Pupils with speech disorders receive speech therapy assistance at specially organized speech therapy classes (individually or in a group of 2-4 people).

The position of a speech therapist is introduced into the staff of a correctional institution (at the rate of at least one unit for 15-20 pupils).

3. The main directions of correctional and pedagogical work with children with mental retardation in educational institutions of a general type

As the results of a comprehensive medical and psychological-pedagogical study of children, conducted at the Institute of Correctional Pedagogy (Research Institute of Defectology) of the Russian Academy of Education, show, children with severe mental retardation (MPD) are unable to successfully acquire knowledge in a mass school.

When working with underachieving students in a public school, teachers usually provide an individual approach. They try to identify gaps in the child’s educational knowledge and fill them in one way or another: they repeat the explanation of the material and give additional exercises, use visual didactic aids and various cards relatively more often, organize the attention of such children in different ways, actively involve them in the collective work of the class, etc. .

Such measures at certain stages of training, as a rule, give positive results. However, in children with mental retardation, the slight learning success achieved in this way in most cases turns out to be only temporary; in the future, children inevitably accumulate more and more gaps in knowledge.

This necessitates the use of specific corrective and pedagogical influences, combined with therapeutic and recreational measures, when teaching children with mental retardation. At the same time, it is necessary to carry out an individual approach to children, taking into account the difficulties characteristic of each child. Educational material should be presented to children in doses, in small cognitive "blocks"; its complication should be carried out gradually. It is necessary to specifically teach children to use previously acquired knowledge.

It is known that children with mental retardation quickly get tired. In this regard, it is advisable to switch students from one type of activity to another. In addition, different types of activities should be used. It is very important that the proposed types of work are performed by children with interest and emotional uplift. This is facilitated by the use of colorful visual and didactic material and game moments in the classroom. The teacher is encouraged to talk to the child in a soft, friendly tone and encourage him for the smallest successes. The same should be the general pedagogical approach to children with mental retardation - students of the general education class, tk. the temporary nature of this state makes it possible to predict the leveling of the rate of development of this category of students in 1-2 years and their successful learning.

However, this general pedagogical approach alone is not enough.

Special correctional work is also needed, which is expressed in the systematic filling of gaps in elementary knowledge and practical experience of children, as well as in the formation of their readiness to master the basics of scientific knowledge in the process of studying certain academic subjects. Relevant work is included in the content of the initial teaching of specific subjects in the form of children mastering the preparatory sections for various topics.

During the assimilation of the content of these preparatory sections, children with mental retardation master the knowledge and skills that are formed by their normally developing peers in the process of acquiring life experience. So, for example, in the lessons of the native language, before starting to study the name of the adjective, a child with mental retardation must learn to identify and correctly name the signs of objects; in connection with the latter, he needs to replenish his vocabulary with words that indicate the signs of objects; during these additional preparatory activities, children should learn to use different grammatical forms of words.

The preparatory work cannot be limited to some small period of time at the beginning of the child's school life; it will be necessary over several years of study, as the study of each new section of the curriculum must be based on practical knowledge and experience, which, as studies have shown, children with mental retardation usually lack.

Those educational practical actions with subjects that are provided for by teaching methods in a general education school are in most cases insufficient for children with mental retardation, since they cannot fill gaps in their practical knowledge. In this regard, the formation, expansion and refinement of elementary knowledge is organically included in the program for each of the subjects studied in an educational institution.

Such a clarifying and clarifying "detailing" of the educational material and preliminary preparation for its assimilation should be carried out, first of all, in relation to the most difficult topics for mastering.

The methods of work used are directly dependent on the specific content of the classes. The constant task of the teacher is to select such methods that ensure the development of observation in children, attention and interest in the objects and phenomena being studied, etc.

But even such preparatory work for the study of cognitive material and the formation of subject-practical actions in individual academic subjects is often not enough. Special corrective work is needed to enrich children with a variety of knowledge about the world around them, develop their skills of “analyzing observation”, form intellectual operations of comparison, comparison, analysis and generalization, and accumulate experience in practical generalizations. All this creates the necessary prerequisites for the formation in children of the ability to independently acquire knowledge and use it.

4. Organization and functioning of compensatory education classes

Compensatory classes can be organized in all types of general education institutions that have the necessary personnel for work, and are opened by a general education institution at the suggestion of the council of this institution.

Compensatory classes are sent or transferred with the consent of the parents (persons replacing them) who, as a result of the clinical examination conducted before entering a general educational institution, do not have contraindications to studying in basic general education programs, but who find a low level of readiness for learning or experience persistent difficulties in their development .

Compensatory classes are created, as a rule, for students at the stage of primary general education. It is advisable that compensatory classes work in the extended day mode. The terms for the development of programs in general education subjects in compensatory classes correspond to the terms provided for the development of programs of primary general education.

The selection of children in compensatory classes on the basis of psychological and pedagogical diagnosis is carried out by the psychological and pedagogical council and is formalized by its decision. A psychological and pedagogical council is created in an educational institution by order of the director. The composition of the psychological and pedagogical council includes the deputy director for educational work, teachers of compensatory classes, other experienced teachers, a pediatrician, a speech therapist teacher, a psychologist and other specialists. Specialists who are not employees of this institution are recruited to work in the psychological and pedagogical council on a contractual basis.

The psychological and pedagogical council determines the directions of compensatory and developmental work with students.

In the presence of appropriate conditions, the functions of psychological and pedagogical consultations can be carried out by district (city) psychological services, rehabilitation centers for children and adolescents, and psychological, medical and pedagogical consultations.

Psychological and pedagogical diagnosis of children is carried out in the following order:

a) organizing the collection of information about children entering school, analyzing this information and identifying children with a low level of readiness for learning;
b) special diagnosis of children with a low level of readiness for learning, focused on determining the degree and structure of school immaturity and its probable causes;
c) carrying out, if necessary, the collection of additional diagnostic information about children during their primary adaptation in an educational institution (during the first half of the year) on the basis of an in-depth experimental psychological study conducted by a psychologist.

The occupancy of compensatory education classes is 9-12 people.

The daily routine for students in compensatory classes is established taking into account their increased fatigue. Suitable: organization of daytime sleep, two meals a day, necessary medical and recreational activities.

Students who have mastered the programs of general education subjects in compensatory classes, by decision of the psychological and pedagogical council, are transferred to the appropriate class of a general education institution working on basic general education programs.

In the absence of positive dynamics of development, in the conditions of compensatory education, students are sent in the prescribed manner to the psychological-medical-pedagogical commission to resolve the issue of the forms of their further education. The specified differentiation of the contingent of students is carried out during the first year of study.

Organization of the educational process in the classes of compensatory education Programs in general education subjects in compensatory classes are developed on the basis of the main general education programs, taking into account the characteristics of students. An integral part of the program in compensatory classes is special training for work on the relevant correctional programs.

For self-training and individual work with students in the extended day mode, along with educators, teachers can be involved on the basis of additional payment. The expediency of such classes, their forms and duration are determined by the psychological and pedagogical council.

For the work of compensatory classes in the extended day mode, a room adapted for classes, rest and daytime sleep is equipped.

Corrective pedagogical work, carried out with the aim of forming knowledge and ideas about the environment, serves as one of the means of enhancing the cognitive activity of students and increasing the level of their general development.

In addition, it is important for the development of coherent speech of students with mental retardation. Such work contributes, first of all, to the clarification of the content (semantic) side of speech in connection with the improvement and expansion of ideas and concepts and the assimilation by children of lexical and grammatical language means of their verbal designation. During oral statements about understandable, easily perceived life phenomena, children master various forms and components of speech (correct pronunciation, vocabulary of the native language, grammatical structure, etc.).

Teachers should take into account that the speech of children with mental retardation is not sufficiently developed. This is primarily due to the underdevelopment of speech expressed to one degree or another, observed in most children with mental retardation. Children do not understand many words and expressions (or interpret them incorrectly), which, of course, makes it difficult to master the educational material. Program requirements suggest that students' answers in the classroom should be correct not only in substance, but also in form. This, in turn, implies that students should use words in their exact meanings, construct sentences grammatically correctly, clearly pronounce sounds, words and phrases, and express their thoughts logically and expressively. It is necessary to provide the child with the opportunity to speak daily about the work done, the observations made, the books read, etc., as well as answer the teacher's questions on educational material in compliance with all the basic requirements for verbal communication.

Main literature

1. Topical issues in the diagnosis of mental retardation / Ed. K.S. Lebedinskaya. - M., 1982.
2. Children with mental retardation / Ed. T.A. Vlasova, V.I. Lubovsky, N.A. Tsypina. - M., 1993.
3. Children with disabilities: problems and innovative trends in education and upbringing. Reader on the course "Correctional Pedagogy and Special Psychology" / Comp. N.D. Sokolova, L.V. Kalinnikov. - M., 2001. Section V. Ch.1.
4. Correctional pedagogy in primary education / Ed. G.F. Kumarina. - M., 2001.
5. Markovskaya I.F. Mental retardation (clinical-neuro-psychological characteristics). - M., 1993.
6. Teaching children with mental retardation / Ed. IN AND. Lubovsky and others - Smolensk, 1994.
7. Ul'enkova O.N. Children with mental retardation. - N.Novgorod.

additional literature

1. Boryakova N.Yu. Steps of development. Teaching aid. - M., 2000.
2. Luskanova N.G. Diagnosis of the intellectual development of children 6-8 years of age. A modified version of the Veksler technique // Workshop on pathopsychology. - M., 1987, p. 157-167.
3. Shevchenko S.G. Correction-developing training. Organizational and pedagogical aspects. - M., 1999.174
4. Shevchenko S. G. Variable forms of education for children with learning difficulties in mass schools// Defectology. - 1996. - No. 1.
5. Ul'enkova U. V. Six-year-old children with mental retardation. - M., 1990.

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T. G. Gadzhilshgomedova

PROBLEMS OF COGNITIVE ACTIVITY OF CHILDREN WITH CR

The reasons for the failure of students in a mass general education school were considered by many teachers and psychologists (M. A. Danilov, V. I. Zykova, N. A. Menchinskaya, T. A. Vlasova, M. S. Pevzner. A. N. Leontiev, A. (R. Luria, A. A. Smirnov, L. S. Slavina, Yu. K. Babansky, etc.). As such, they named: unpreparedness for schooling, in its extreme form acting as social and pedagogical neglect; somatic weakness of the child as a result of long-term illnesses in the preschool period; speech defects not corrected at preschool age, visual and hearing impairments; mental retardation (since a significant part of mentally retarded children enter the first grade of a mass school and only after a year of unsuccessful study there are sent through medical and pedagogical commissions to special auxiliary schools); negative relationships with classmates and teachers. However, each of the listed causes of learning difficulties is associated with the lag of a relatively small number of children in relation to all obviously or covertly poor schoolchildren, which is significant.

the majority of which (about half) are children with mental retardation (MPD).

The causes of this form of developmental disorders were analyzed by such researchers as M. S. Pevzner (1966). G. E. Sukhareva (1974). M. G. Reidyboym (1977), T. A. Vlasova, K. S. Lebedinskaya (1975). All of them ascertain the relationship between mental retardation and residual (residual) conditions after mild organic damage to the central nervous system suffered in utero or during childbirth, or in early childhood, as well as genetically determined brain failure. Mild organic insufficiency of the brain leads to a significant slowdown in the rate of development, which especially affects the mental development of children. As a result, by the beginning of schooling, such children have an unformed readiness for schooling. The latter concept includes the physical, physiological and psychological readiness of children to carry out new activities in relation to the period of preschool childhood,

The psychological aspect of readiness for learning implies the formation of a certain level:

\. knowledge and ideas about the world around;

2. mental operations, actions and skills;

3. speech development, which involves the possession of a fairly extensive vocabulary, the basics of the grammatical structure of speech, a coherent statement and elements of monologue speech;

4. cognitive activity, manifested in the relevant interests and motivation;

5. regulation of behavior.

Insufficient knowledge of this category of children and a lack of understanding of their characteristics by teachers in a mass school (even now, when schools for children with mental retardation are included as a special type in the system of special schools), the inability to cope with them often leads to a negative attitude of teachers towards them and, as a result, classmates who consider such children "stupid", "stupid". All this leads to the emergence of a negative attitude towards school and learning in children with mental retardation and stimulates their attempts at personal compensation in other areas of activity, which finds expression in violations of discipline, up to antisocial behavior. As a result, such a child not only does not receive anything from school, but also has a negative impact on his classmates.

In foreign studies, the causes of cognitive impairment are determined by the environment that affects the human brain, and unfavorable conditions for the birth of a child: premature birth, low weight or oxygen deficiency during childbirth, etc., which were regarded as factors that increase the risk of brain damage, and, subsequently, cognitive activity (F. Bloom, S. Curtis and

etc.). At the same time, F. Bloom notes that the environment contains a stimulating effect and contributes to the intellectual development of the child, can compensate for the physiological damage caused in early childhood. To the poor conditions that determine the mental development of children with mental retardation, scientists include malnutrition, lack of medical care, mistreatment of children and inattention to their physical needs (the child is poorly dressed, untidy, no one cares about his safety), psychological neglect (parents do not talk with the child, do not show warm feelings for him, do not stimulate his development). In our opinion, such an environment can be the pedagogical environment of the school, which is modeled by the teacher himself as a correctional psychological and pedagogical environment for supporting the student. A special role is occupied by the word of the teacher - communication with the student. According to the fair remark of S. Curtis, if speech was not mastered at the right time, which acts as a trigger for the formation of cortical functions, then the cortical tissue, normally intended for speech and related abilities, may undergo functional atrophy. This relationship must be taken into account by each teacher in the process of developing the cognitive activity of children with mental retardation.

The data of psychological and neuropsychological studies made it possible to identify a certain hierarchy of cognitive impairments in children with mental retardation. In milder cases, it is based on neurodynamic insufficiency, associated primarily with the exhaustion of mental functions, which leads to low activity in the framework of cognitive activity. The decrease in cognitive activity, in turn, indirectly affects the development and formation of higher mental functions. So, in the studies of T. V. Egorova (1969), the low cognitive activity of children with mental retardation is considered as one of the main reasons for the insufficient productivity of involuntary memory. According to A. N. Tsymbalyuk (1974), low cognitive activity of children with mental retardation is a source of low productivity in the performance of intellectual tasks, lack of interest, a decrease in the required level of mental stress, concentration, on which the success of intellectual activity largely depends. The inertia of the mental activity of children with mental retardation, low activity is considered in studies as one of the features that determine the originality of the cognitive activity of younger schoolchildren in this group.

The pedagogical study of children with mental retardation, carried out in conjunction with clinical, pathophysiological and psychological research, helps to reveal more deeply the patterns and peculiarities of their development and, on this basis, determine the principles, ways and means of corrective action. Specialists involved in this category of children, for example, T. A. Vlasova, M. S. Pevzner (1973), indicate that these children have a number of features that distinguish them from the mentally retarded. Many practical and

they solve intellectual problems at the level of their age, are able to use the help provided, are able to comprehend the plot of a picture, a story, understand the condition of a simple task, and perform many other tasks. At the same time, these students have insufficient cognitive activity, which, combined with rapid fatigue and exhaustion, can seriously hamper their learning and development. Rapidly onset fatigue leads to loss of efficiency, as a result of which students have difficulties in mastering the educational material: they do not keep in mind the conditions of the task, the dictated sentence, they forget words, they make ridiculous mistakes in written work, often instead of solving the problem they simply mechanically manipulate numbers, are unable to evaluate the results of their actions, their ideas about the world around them are not broad enough. Children with mental retardation cannot concentrate on the task, they do not know how to obey the school rules, many of them are dominated by game motives.

Cognitive activity and learning ability are personality traits that are inextricably linked with each other. Only with the activity of the student is it possible to successfully assimilate knowledge using effective methods of obtaining it and applying it to solving new problems. The processes of perception, memory, thinking are involved in the assimilation of knowledge. The possession of these mental processes again presupposes, as a necessary condition, the manifestation of the activity of the personality of that property (inextricably linked with activity), which is usually called self-regulation. In other words, to master mental activity means to learn to control it voluntarily. In studies of defectologists and specialists in the field of educational psychology, reduced productivity of children with developmental delay was stated, which manifests itself in various types of mental activity - in the processes of perception, memorization, thinking (both verbal and non-verbal). As shown by the study of children with stable school failure, most of whom belong to the category of children with developmental delay, in the process of learning, the inertia of thinking manifests itself in them in different forms. When learning, such children form sedentary, inert associations that they reproduce in an unchanged order. Such associations are not amenable to restructuring. When moving from one system of knowledge and skills to another, children with mental retardation tend to apply old, already proven methods without modifying them. And even if they have mastered various systems of knowledge and ways of working with them, then it is enough to repeat the solution of some tasks so that the children of this category, having received new tasks, continue to repeat the methods used (despite the fact that new ones are well known to them). Such cases testify to the difficulty of switching from one mode of action to another and can be considered as symptoms of inertia of thinking.

This quality of mental activity is especially pronounced when working with problematic tasks that require an independent search for solutions. Instead of understanding the problem (analysis and synthesis of the initial data and the desired result), instead of searching for adequate solutions, the reproduction of the most familiar methods is carried out. In fact, there is a substitution of the task, and a clear awareness of the task and the subordination of the actions performed to it is a necessary prerequisite for self-regulation. The systematic substitution of tasks (more difficult by easy, habitual) testifies not only to the lack of regulation of the student's own actions, but also to the peculiarities of his motivation - the desire to avoid difficulties and mistakes. The inability to think is combined in these cases with an unwillingness to think. Departure from solving intellectual problems deprives the child of the opportunity to exercise his mind, and thereby negatively affects his development, intensifying the delay phenomenon.

The ability to exercise self-regulation, to subordinate one’s activity to the task set, to plan one’s actions to achieve results, to continuously exercise self-control, which allows one to correct mistakes in the course of work, and after its completion to check the correctness of the result obtained - all these are indicators of cognitive activity that have their own characteristics in children with ZPR. Children with developmental delay usually show deregulation in all parts of the learning process. Even if the task is “accepted”, then difficulties arise in solving it, since its conditions as a whole are not analyzed, possible solutions are not outlined mentally, the results obtained are not controlled, and the mistakes made are not corrected. Self-control is not carried out even after receiving the result. When required to perform a check, children with mental retardation perform certain external actions without correlating the result and methods of obtaining it with the requirements and data of the presented task.

As is known, the psychophysical characteristics and originality of the cognitive activity of children with mental retardation cause their insufficient readiness for schooling. The stock of knowledge and ideas of older preschoolers about the world around them is limited. They are poorly informed even in relation to those phenomena that they have repeatedly encountered in life: seasonal changes in nature, the composition of the family and the work of its members, various signs of specific objects, etc. Preschool children with mental retardation do not have many elementary mathematical knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to start learning. Ideas about subject-quantitative relations, experience of working with various sets and practical measuring skills are insufficiently formed in them. The speech of children with mental retardation, although it satisfies the needs of everyday communication and does not have gross violations of pronunciation, vocabulary and grammatical structure, however

differs in the poverty of the dictionary and syntactic constructions. They also have insufficiently developed phonemic hearing: they are characterized by difficulties in understanding works of art, causal and other relationships.

By the time they enter school, the overwhelming majority of students have a low level of elementary labor skills and abilities, for example, motor difficulties are noted in working with paper, a designer, and self-service. Children entering school are characterized by general physical weakness, rapid fatigue, which occurs as a result of not only physical, but also mental stress.

The cognitive activity of younger schoolchildren is based on a certain level of development of mental processes: perception, attention, memory, which in children with mental retardation have their own characteristics. Lack of perception is due to the lack of formation of the integrative activity of the brain and, above all, several sensory systems (visual, auditory, tactile). It is known that integrativity - this is the interaction of various functional systems - is the basis of the child's mental development. Due to the lack of integrative activity of the brain, children with mental retardation find it difficult to recognize unusually presented objects (inverted or underdrawn images, schematic or contour drawings), it is difficult for them to combine the individual details of the picture into a single semantic image. These specific perceptual disturbances in children with delayed development determine the limited and fragmentary nature of their ideas about the world around them.

The insufficiency of the integrative activity of the brain in mental retardation is also manifested in the so-called sensorimotor disorders, which finds expression in the drawings of children. When drawing according to the model of geometric figures, they cannot convey the shape and proportions, they incorrectly depict the angles and their connections. The disproportion of body parts is noticeable in the drawings, some important details are depicted primitively or completely absent. One of the main features in children with mental retardation is the lack of formation of connections between individual perceptual and motor functions.

With ZPR, there is a pronounced violation in most of them of the function of active attention. Distracted attention, which increases as the task is completed, indicates an increased mental exhaustion of the child. Many children are characterized by a limited amount of attention, its fragmentation. These disturbances in attention can delay the process of concept formation. One of the frequent features of impaired attention in children with mental retardation is its insufficient concentration on essential signs. In these cases, in the absence of appropriate corrective work, underdevelopment of mental operations may be noted. Attention disturbances are especially pronounced with motor dis-

inhibition, increased affective excitability, i.e., in children with hyperactive behavior.

For many children with mental retardation, a peculiar memory structure is characteristic. This is sometimes manifested in the great productivity of involuntary memorization. However, it is always lower than that of normally developing peers, which is associated with the lower cognitive activity of these children. The insufficiency of voluntary memory in children with mental retardation is largely associated with the weakness of the regulation of voluntary activity, its insufficient purposefulness, and the lack of formation of its self-control.

Children with developmental delay are usually characterized by emotional instability. They hardly adapt to the children's team, they are characterized by mood swings and increased fatigue. The group of children with mental retardation is extremely heterogeneous. In some of them, slowness in the formation of emotional and personal characteristics and arbitrary regulation of behavior comes to the fore, while violations in the intellectual sphere are not pronounced. These are children with various forms of infantilism. Infantilism is most clearly manifested towards the end of preschool age and in elementary school. In these children, the formation of personal readiness for learning is delayed, a sense of duty, responsibility, and criticism of their behavior is hardly formed. They are, as a rule, affable, sociable, often overly lively, extremely suggestible and imitative, but their emotions are usually superficial and unstable.

Thus, the analysis of studies has shown that, according to a number of qualitative and quantitative indicators, children with mental retardation (MPD) occupy an intermediate position between mentally retarded and normally developing children. Groups of children with mental retardation are not the same in terms of their mental manifestations. The degree and nature of their defect depend on the reasons that caused the delay from the presence or absence of an organic lesion of the central nervous system, from the combination of the primary defect and the later developmental abnormalities caused by it. In practice, students studying at a school for children with mental retardation have an organic CNS defect of varying severity and etiology. The development of mental functions in children with mental retardation is slow and distorted. The most disturbed were the general characteristics of activity (purposefulness, control, combination of speech and objective activity), affective-personal and intellectual spheres. The development of cognitive activity is a process in which the student independently learns the world around him, learns ways to obtain information about it, transform and redesign. When teaching children with mental retardation who have a weakened memory, unstable attention, impulsive, insufficiently focused activity, this issue becomes even more relevant.

TO THE PROBLEM OF SPIRITUAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF JUNIOR SCHOOLCHILDREN...

Bibliographic list

1. Granitskaya, A. S. Teach to think and act / A. S. Granitskaya. - M., 1991.

2. Guzeev, V, V. Lectures on pedagogical technology / V. V. Guzeev. - M., Knowledge, 1992,

3. Donaldson, M. Mental activity of children / M. Donaldson, - M .: Pedagogy, 1985,

4. Zankov, L. V. Selected pedagogical works / L. V. Zankov, - M., 1990.

5. Istomina, 3. M. Development of memory in preschool age: Abstract of the thesis. doc. dis. / 3. M, Istomina. - M., 1975.

UDC 378,121.01

I. V. Shatokhina

TO THE PROBLEM OF SPIRITUAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF JUNIOR SCHOOLCHILDREN IN THE CONDITIONS OF EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY

Appeal to the issue of spiritual and psychological development of children of primary school age is connected with the development of the problem of building the process of preparing a primary school teacher on the basis of a spiritually oriented approach. This is explained by our conviction in the close methodological relationship between the spiritually oriented training of a teacher and the process of the spiritual development of a student. It seems to us that this issue is most acute in the field of training a primary school teacher due to a number of circumstances. It should be noted, firstly, that the enduring role played by the primary school age in the process of the formation of the human personality, when its foundations are laid, the core of the personality is formed in the form of basic spiritual and mental neoplasms. Secondly, this is the special significance of the primary school level as a starting point in the structure of school education. Thirdly, this is the specific nature of the relationship between the teacher and students, fanned by the "halo effect", the consequence of which is that the teacher acts as a role model for children and indisputable authority. The influence of a teacher on a primary school student is not limited only to external parameters, it penetrates deep into the child's soul, can be detected for many years, and sometimes for a lifetime. Therefore, an elementary school teacher, like no other, has no right to make a pedagogical mistake. And the probability of such a mistake is reduced under the condition of a good knowledge of the characteristics of the mental warehouse, the age development of a person at the stage of primary school childhood, the conditionality of these features by character

Defectology. Article on the topic: "The prevalence of children with mental retardation in modern times"

In modern times, the prevalence of children with disabilities is constantly increasing every year. Among children with developmental disorders, from the point of view of the analysis of medical literature, there are various categories of persons with developmental disorders: these are children with visual impairments, ODA, and children with hearing impairment. A large group consists of children with various mental disorders and children with intellectual disabilities. Great attention deserves children with a lag in the development of mental functions. This is nothing but mental retardation. Just think about this definition. Many parents are afraid of this word. What can be heard from the lips of a parent (let’s say a sobbing mother) who came to see a defectologist: “My child is a fool, and if I go to the commission, my child will be recognized as insane, a psychopath” Let's see what mental retardation is? By definition, scientists and specialists working in the field of defectology, ZPR is a delay in the pace of psychophysical development, i.e., attention, memory, thinking, perception. These are important mental functions, each of them performs its dominant role. Without the attention of the child, it is impossible to more productively assimilate the material, without thinking (logic) it is impossible to think and perceive the phenomena of the surrounding world more objectively, without perception it would be impossible to perceive objects in their integral state and be able to distinguish their parts.

Unfortunately, at present, many parents hide the presence of children with mental retardation from modern society. If many parents are aware of this, they do not talk about it, they “hush up”. Every parent wants to do the best for their child. In any case, the right to send their child to a special class or to a class with children with normal development remains with the parent. But because of his, so to speak, love for his child, no matter how it seems, the parent aggravates the situation of his child. Giving his child to a mass class, such a child cannot cope with the general education program. Perhaps this is still half the trouble, but what kind of attitude does he receive from his peers. Such a weak child (meaning not in terms of physical development), due to his characteristics, becomes a target in the class. Carping begins from not only teachers in a comprehensive school, but also ridicule from his peers. Everyone is well aware that such an exhausted child returns from school with ridicule, not without offense and tears. Here is an exemplary dialogue from peers: “Ha, ha, ha! And Sasha is stupid, he is a fool, ”etc.

I really hope that after reading this article, as teachers working in public schools, they will hear me and change their attitude towards such children. Dear parents, think about what kind of psychological trauma you can inflict on your child.

The psyche of children, not everyone can be stable and strong. And what we endured may not be able to endure our children on their shoulders. In certain situations, it is not we, but our children, and perhaps often the parent does not understand this.

Mental retardation can be prevented as early as preschool age. Many mental processes can reach the norm, that is, the average level of development. But, of course, mental functions themselves will not reach the level of development of the norm. The leading role is given to the parent, who will follow certain recommendations of the specialist.

How to understand that your child at preschool age has a lag in the development of mental functions. Observe your child and see if he is attentive, if he is often distracted, if he can follow one-step and two-step instructions. If your child attends a kindergarten of a general developmental type, the educators will receive recommendations for the child, for example, “Natalya Aleksandrovna, your Sasha, he hasn’t known for 5 years, he still has primary colors, pull yourself up!”

See this is also considered a deviation in the development of perception. After all, the mental process of perception includes color, shape, and size. Try to have your child put together a cut-out picture for his age. If there are no deviations, if not, then it is worth considering. But there are a lot of subtleties or nuances in diagnosing the development of children, so in any case it is better to contact a specialist who deals specifically with the development of mental functions. This specialist is called a teacher - defectologist. Such a specialist can stay in special children's homes, PMPK (psychological - medical - pedagogical commissions), in hospitals where these specialists stay. If you decide to go to an appointment with such a specialist, he will definitely ask you about your history (your family composition, social and living conditions, what diseases you and your child had). All this is a necessary condition for the survey.

Dear parents, it is better to go to a specialist at a preschool age in order to prevent developmental delays and correct mental functions. Do not be afraid of this word ZPR. Mental retardation is correctable, unlike disorders such as cerebral palsy (infantile cerebral palsy), mental retardation (where organic brain damage predominates), or visual impairment (glaucoma, various types of strabismus) But even with these various and other disorders, people do not lose hope. I sincerely wish you success in raising your children.

The article was prepared by the teacher - defectologist (speech therapist) Abramova V. G. MDOU of a general developmental type No. 120