From the very first days after the birth of a child, communication plays a vital role, because it stimulates the development of such functions as attention, memory, perception, imagination, and logic. The process of communication itself provides the child with intellectual and psycho-emotional development. With normal mental development, the child quickly increases his active and passive vocabulary and enjoys talking with adults and peers. Communication is an important element of the socialization process, one of the conditions for a comprehensively developed personality. One of the highest mental functions is speech, which stimulates brain development.

By developing communication skills, a child gains the ability to realize his needs, understand the speech of another person, learn emotional reactions, and rules of behavior in society.

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State government institution of the city of Moscow

Orphanage-boarding school for mentally retarded children "Yuzhnoye Butovo"

Department of Social Protection of the Population of Moscow

Article

MENTALLY RETURNED CHILDREN: FORMATION OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS

Compiled by the teacher of the State Institution of Children's Orphanage "Yuzhnoye Butovo"

Glebov Ilya Sergeevich

Moscow 2013

From the very first days after the birth of a child, communication plays a vital role, because it stimulates the development of such functions as attention, memory, perception, imagination, and logic. The process of communication itself provides the child with intellectual and psycho-emotional development. With normal mental development, the child quickly increases his active and passive vocabulary and enjoys talking with adults and peers. Communication is an important element of the socialization process, one of the conditions for a comprehensively developed personality.One of the highest mental functions is speech, whichstimulates brain development.

By developing communication skills, a child gains the ability to realize his needs, understand the speech of another person, learn emotional reactions, and rules of behavior in society.

The concept of “mental retardation” unites various and numerous forms of pathologies that are caused by underdevelopment of the cognitive sphere. The cause is damage to the brain during the period of its most intensive development: during intrauterine development, during unsuccessful childbirth, during injuries or serious illnesses of early or younger age. Underdevelopment of the cognitive sphere is a consequence of the general pathological development of the psyche, and, as accompanying it, underdevelopment of a number of other higher mental functions.

Mentally retarded children, due to their defect, experience difficulties in emotional communication and speech formation, and the acquisition of communication skills becomes a priority task for parents and educators. Research by many scientists (Yu.F. Garkushi, O.E. Gribova, B.M. Grinshpun, G.S. Gumennaya, L.N. Efimenkova, N.S. Zhukova, V.A. Kovshikova, R.E. Levina, E.M. Mastyukova, T.B. Filicheva, S.N. Shakhovskory, A.V. Yastrebova, who devoted their research to this topic, prove that peculiar features of the speech-language mechanism.

Mentally retarded children begin to master speech in preschool age. They come to school talking, communicating with the teacher and with each other through spoken language, although they often resort to gestures and movements. And, although their speech manifests itself slowly and peculiarly, its presence opens up opportunities for correcting deviations and acquiring skills, abilities and knowledge.

Mentally retarded children differ from each other in the level of speech development, which can be explained by the depth and qualitative uniqueness of the structure of the defect. Most of them hardly understand the questions asked and speak little and indistinctly. Some use verbal means of communication. The noted differences are due to the degree of impairment of special language abilities: a tendency to onomatopoeia, emotional and volitional characteristics. The more pronounced the mental retardation, the slower and with greater difficulty, as a rule, mastery of speech occurs.

Children classified as inhibited and excitable oligophrenic children differ significantly from each other. The first of them are silent, extremely laconic, speaking in a quiet voice, at a slow pace. The second one speaks quickly, often inappropriately loud. They easily enter into communication, but usually do not listen to the interlocutor. You can hear the most unexpected statements from them, which are just mechanically reproduced speech cliches.

The social environment of a child in preschool years is very important. Attention to him from parents and loved ones, a friendly, calm attitude, gradual inclusion in feasible practical household chores, a correct daily routine - all this creates an emotionally positive background and contributes to the general and speech development of the mentally retarded, the formation of useful habits and skills, interest in the world around us, desire to communicate.

The specificity of communication in mentally retarded children is that only a limited part of verbal means of communication is available to the child; they experience great difficulties in the transition to communication using words.

Based on these premises, the level of communication in mentally retarded children is noticeably reduced. Children with mental retardation do not want to communicate verbally and show timidity, shyness, indecisiveness, and self-consciousness. Long-term communication contacts do not work out, since a mental defect provokes irritability and negativism. The need for communication is reduced due to the fact that verbal means of communication are not formed, and there is a lack of ability to navigate the semantics of a communication situation. Research by V.A. Kovshikov shows that mentally retarded children have a violation of internal programming and underdevelopment of the operations of choosing words and phrases. This is called “the unformed stage of lexico-grammatical structuring of the utterance with the relative preservation of the semantic and motor level of speech production.”

Research by T.B. Filicheva and G.V. Chirkina prove that without receiving special training, mentally retarded children cannot independently master the operations of comparison, generalization, synthesis and analysis. Such children often have apraxia of the lips and tongue, which is why the sensory side of speech is impaired. Despite their fairly developed hearing, children cannot distinguish phonemes (close-sounding sounds: “b-p”, “v-f”, etc.), and isolating individual sounds from smooth speech is difficult. All this provokes a violation of sound-letter analysis.

E.N. Vinarskaya, studying children with mental retardation, came to the conclusion that not all functions of the nerve cells of the projection fields of the cerebral cortex are impaired: the emotional aspect is minimally formed. This makes it possible to communicate with the child using non-verbal methods of communication. This conclusion is extremely significant for the process of raising and teaching mentally retarded children due to the fact that they do not develop the need for communication acts on their own. By encouraging communication with gestures and pantomimes, you can teach a child to pay attention to himself and turn to an adult for help - creating the need first for non-verbal and then for verbal communication.

It is speech that is organizational in the process of social interaction between a mentally retarded child and a teacher and contributes to the development of adaptation. Mastery of verbal communication requires the ability to:

1. use lexical, grammatical and phonetic means,
2. build a coherent text,
3. be in a dialogical interaction with partners, which should contain emotional and intellectual components, as well as have practical interaction.

Based on the fact that in mentally retarded children, as a result of an intellectual defect, both components of communicative-cognitive activity are damaged, namely: operational-technical and motivational-need, then correctional speech therapy work should be organized individually and differentiated. An indispensable condition for the effectiveness of this work is compliance with consistency and stages in the formation of the need for communication and cognition. The need for knowledge should begin to be formed through subject study: naming objects and observed phenomena using stable sound forms. These can be specific vocalizations - pseudowords or expressive paralinguistic units.

When carrying out correctional work on the formation of communication needs in mentally retarded children, it is necessary to take into account the compensatory capabilities of the brain, as well as the localization, area of ​​distribution of brain disorders, as well as the age at which they arose. If organic brain damage occurs at an early age, then the percentage of speech disorders is very high. The most serious and pronounced speech disorders are observed if the left hemisphere is affected: the frontal, parietal or temporal lobes. Many authors insist on starting speech therapy correction classes precisely during the period of intensive brain development - since the compensatory capabilities of the child’s brain will force various brain systems to engage in activity, accelerating their maturation and thereby compensating for speech disorders. If we talk about the periods of the most intensive development of the brain, then the following data exist:

1. from three to ten months;

2. from two to four years;

3. from six to eight years;

4. from fourteen to sixteen years old.

It is also necessary to take into account the very structure of the speech defect, the personal characteristics of the child and observe as much as possible the interaction of all four components of the functional speech system: syntax, morphology, vocabulary and phonemes. It should be taken into account that in children with mental retardation, expressive speech appears only after understanding speech in general. When working with such children, the teacher must consciously accompany with speech the actions he demonstrates to the child with emotion and expressiveness. Any verbal attempt to communicate between a child and an adult should be encouraged, as this regulates behavior and activity and stimulates the need for communication. Constant stimulation of the child’s activity through approval, praise, and demonstration of the child’s success in front of peers is very effective.

The main task of the teacher and parents of a mentally retarded child when teaching communication skills is to provide a systematic approach to correcting this disorder. It is necessary to accurately and clearly observe and control everything that the child has learned to do, and plan what he should master next. The teacher is obliged to inform the child’s parents what specific situations, activities or games encourage the desire to communicate, how much adults’ own speech contributes to this process, their attention to how the child tries to communicate, and their reaction to these attempts. Mentally retarded children are very vulnerable, and inattention and negligence can forever discourage a child from seeking help from an adult, getting a response from him, and trying to establish contacts with the outside world.

Classes to develop speech function, as well as communication needs, should become natural, as an obligatory addition to the daily care of the child. The main rule is to show the child confidence that he can give you an answer - no matter how - paralinguistically, non-verbally, etc. Don't rush him to answer. But if the child switches his attention to something else, ask him the same question again. In addition, you need to try to give the child the opportunity to start communication: after all, if an adult always starts the conversation, then the child will not be able to understand his role in the communication process. To allow the child to respond, you should constantly pause in your speech. The choice of topic for conversation is determined by the direction of the child’s gaze; during the game, commenting on his actions and his reaction to them. In order not to distract the child’s attention, classes should be conducted in the same room with a limited number of objects that attract attention - this will allow concentration and concentration on what exactly you want to convey to the child. Any attempt to communicate with an adult should be accompanied by natural encouragement: a smile, a gesture, etc., which will convince the child that his attempts are important and noted. It is advisable to comment on your actions: both in the present tense and planned ones - this will enable the child to understand what you want to do. It is advisable to accompany the same events with the same words - this will enable the child to remember the sound and will be the beginning of an association with a certain action, the basis for the further development of the ability to follow instructions and carry them out.

Teaching the communication needs of a mentally retarded child is a long and complex process that must occur if:

1. close connection between parents and speech therapist,
2. specially developed taking into account the individual psychological characteristics of the correction program.

The effectiveness of correction itself can be assessed in two ways: from the point of view of resolving the problem itself and from the point of view of the tasks and goals of the correction program. In any case, correcting the development of the communication needs of mentally retarded children takes a long time and it is impossible to count on quick results.

In Russia, mentally retarded children began to be separated from the mentally ill, trying to educate and educate, study and correct their shortcomings in the middle of the 19th century. The concept of “mentally retarded child,” adopted in Russian correctional pedagogy and special psychology, covers a very diverse group of children, who are united by the presence of organic damage to the cerebral cortex, which is diffuse in nature. Morphological changes, although not with the same intensity, affect many areas of the child’s cerebral cortex, disrupting their structure and functions. Cases cannot be excluded when diffuse damage to the cortex is combined with individual, more pronounced local disorders, sometimes including subcortical structures. All this causes the child to develop various, with varying distinctness, pronounced deviations that are revealed in all types of his mental activity, especially sharply in cognitive activity.

The overwhelming majority of mentally retarded children are oligophrenic children. Damage to the brain systems (mainly the most complex and late-forming ones), which underlies mental underdevelopment, occurs in this category of children in the early stages of development - in the prenatal period, at birth or during the first year and a half of life. In oligophrenia, organic brain failure is residual and not aggravated. The child is capable of mental development, which, however, occurs abnormally, since its biological basis is pathological.

Mental retardation that occurs in a child after the age of 2 years is relatively rare. In this case, it is included in a number of concepts, among which there is such as “dementia”. In contrast to oligophrenia, in dementia, disorders of the cerebral cortex occur after a fairly long period of normal development of the child, for 2-5 years or more. Dementia can result from organic brain disease or injury. As a rule, the intellectual defect in dementia is irreversible. In this case, progression of the disease is usually observed.

Children suffering from progressively ongoing, aggravated diseases caused by hereditary metabolic disorders are also not classified as oligophrenics. These children are weak-minded and gradually deteriorate. If they do not receive the necessary medical care, then their mental retardation becomes more pronounced with age.

Special cases are in which the child’s existing dementia is combined with the presence of current mental illnesses - epilepsy, schizophrenia and others, which significantly complicates his upbringing and education. It should be emphasized that in recent years, mental retardation has increasingly manifested itself in very unique, complicated forms. The number of mentally retarded children with various additional developmental disabilities has increased significantly - with decreased hearing, vision, with residual effects of cerebral palsy, with severe underdevelopment of speech, etc.

Currently, in Russia they use the international classification of mentally retarded people, on the basis of which children are divided into four groups according to the severity of the defect: with mild, moderate, severe and profound mental retardation.

Among the classification of oligophrenia based on clinical and pathogenetic principles, the most common in our country is the classification proposed by M.S. Pevzner, according to which five forms are distinguished.

An uncomplicated form of oligophrenia. Characterized by the balance of nervous processes. Deviations in cognitive activity are not accompanied by gross disturbances of the analyzers. The emotional-volitional sphere has not changed dramatically. A child is capable of purposeful activity in cases where the task is clear and accessible to him. In a usual situation, his behavior does not have sharp deviations.

Oligophrenia, characterized by imbalance of nervous processes with a predominance of excitation or inhibition. Violations are clearly manifested in changes in behavior and decreased performance.

Oligophrenia with dysfunction of analyzers. Here, diffuse damage to the cortex is combined with deeper damage to one or another brain system. Additionally, there are local defects in speech, hearing, vision, and musculoskeletal system.

Oligophrenia with psychopathic behavior. The child has a sharp disturbance in the emotional-volitional sphere. In the foreground he has underdevelopment of personal components, decreased criticality of himself and the people around him, and disinhibition of drives. The child is prone to unjustified emotions.

Oligophrenia with severe frontal insufficiency. In this form, cognitive impairment is combined in the child with frontal-type personality changes with severe motor impairment. Children are lethargic, lacking initiative and helpless. Their speech is verbose, meaningless, and imitative. Children are not capable of mental stress, focus, activity, and have little regard for the situation.

Thinking plays a big role in the formation and development of a child’s cognitive activity. Mentally retarded children of preschool age have a deficiency at all levels of mental activity. They find it difficult to solve even the simplest, visually effective problems, such as combining an image of a familiar object cut into 2-3 parts, choosing a geometric figure that is identical in shape and size to the corresponding depression on the plane, etc. Children complete such tasks with a large number of errors after a number of attempts. Moreover, the same mistakes are repeated many times, since mentally retarded children, without achieving success, usually do not change their method of action. Carrying out practical actions in itself makes it difficult for children in this group, since their motor and sensory cognition is defective. Their movements are awkward and stereotyped, often impulsive, excessively fast or, on the contrary, too slow.

Tasks that require visual-figurative thinking cause even greater difficulties for preschoolers. They cannot remember the object shown to them and act erroneously.

The most difficult tasks for preschoolers are those whose implementation is based on verbal and logical thinking. Many of them, which are not essentially complex, turn out to be inaccessible even to those children who have attended a special kindergarten for two or three years. If some tasks are performed by children, then their activity is not so much a process of thinking, but rather remembering. In other words, children remember certain verbal expressions and definitions, and then reproduce them with greater or less accuracy.

Visually effective forms of thinking are most accessible to mentally retarded schoolchildren. However, children experience difficulties when completing tasks. So, like preschoolers, it is difficult for them to put together a simple cut-out picture or fill out the Seguin board correctly. Mentally retarded students have insufficiently developed practical actions, which is associated with certain difficulties caused by inferior sensory cognition and motor impairments. At primary school age, children's actions with objects are often impulsive, not related to a mental task, and have no cognitive significance.

Particularly difficult are tasks that require children to use verbal and logical thinking. Thus, having in front of them a color picture depicting a certain time of year, schoolchildren are not always able to correctly establish the cause-and-effect relationships reflected on it and, on this basis, determine which season the picture conveys. They often do not understand even simple texts intended for normally developing preschoolers that contain temporal, causal and other relationships. Mentally retarded students reproduce the material in a simplified manner, omit many, sometimes the most significant parts of it, change the sequence of semantic links in the text, and do not establish the necessary relationships between them.

The thinking processes of mentally retarded primary schoolchildren proceed in a very unique way. Thus, the mental analysis they perform of a visually perceived real object or its image is characterized by poverty, inconsistency, and fragmentation. Looking at an object, the student does not name all its constituent parts, even in those cases when he knows their names well, and also does not note many essential properties, although they have long been known to him. Usually he talks about those parts that protrude from the general contour of the figure, without observing any order.

Comparing two, and even more so several, objects presents even greater difficulties for elementary school students. Comparison involves the comparative establishment of similarities and differences between objects or phenomena, in some cases - the identification of their identity. Students in grades I and II usually pay attention only to those features that distinguish one object from another, and do not notice that these objects also have similarities.

Comparison requires a consistent comparison of similar parts or properties of objects. Children often assert differences between objects by referring to incomparable features.

In a number of cases, schoolchildren replace a task that is difficult for them with an easier, more familiar one and, instead of comparing two or more objects, begin to analyze one of them. In Russian special psychology, this phenomenon is designated by the term “slipping.”

Students' progress in mastering the comparison process is detected approximately in fourth grade, i.e. by 11-12 years. It manifests itself in fewer cases of deviation from the task being performed, in the involvement in comparison of a larger number of properties of objects, in attempts to identify not only differences between them, but also similarities. As for the use of the results of a practically completed comparison, it becomes to some extent possible only at the very end of schooling. However, with the help of the teacher’s leading questions, children cope with the relevant tasks much earlier.

An even more difficult task for mentally retarded students is generalizing observations, for example, combining objects or phenomena based on an identified common feature that is essential for this number of objects. When performing a similar task, children of all ages suffering from mental retardation often take into account random signs, i.e. act unreasonably, contrary to logic. Thus, generalizations of such children turn out to be too broad and insufficiently differentiated. It is especially difficult for students to change the principle of generalization once identified, i.e. combining objects on a new basis. Their way of performing a task reveals the pathological inertia of nervous processes characteristic of oligophrenics.

Pupils of even the senior classes of a correctional general education school of the VIII type are not critical enough of the results of their activities, and do not always notice even obvious contradictions. They rarely have doubts or desire to test themselves. They are completely satisfied with the successes they have achieved and do not express a desire to improve them on their own. Probably, the limited knowledge and interests of schoolchildren, as well as intellectual passivity, decreased motivation for activity, and indifference to what is happening, play a certain role in this.

When characterizing the thinking of mentally retarded children, one should once again emphasize the stereotyping, rigidity of this process, and its completely insufficient flexibility. That is why applying existing knowledge in new conditions causes difficulties for schoolchildren and often leads to erroneous completion of the task.

Mentally retarded children are characterized by late and defective development of all types of activities. Voluntary activity especially suffers in preschoolers. This is due to the fact that its implementation requires a certain level of development of thinking and speech, sustained attention, as well as the ability to purposefully make volitional efforts. Performing various types of activities that involve practical actions is difficult due to deviations in the development of the motor sphere.

The simplest objective-practical activity, which includes elements of self-care, eating food and does not pose much difficulty for normally developing preschoolers, causes serious difficulties for mentally retarded children and is not always carried out properly. In order to master certain actions, they need to undergo a long period of directed training. They are awkward, inattentive, easily distracted, quickly forget the sequence of actions, and do not sufficiently understand the importance of what they are being taught. All practiced actions must be performed daily under the guidance of an adult and with his active assistance in the form of joint activity, demonstration, accompanied by speech. The regularity of such repetitions and the positive emotional background created by approving and emphasizing the importance and success of the child’s activities are of decisive importance.

Particular difficulties are caused by the formation of correct behavior in preschool children. Their inherent intellectual deficiency and meager life experience make it difficult to understand and adequately assess the situations in which they find themselves. The inertia of nervous processes contributes to stereotypic reactions, which often do not at all correspond to the created situation.

For normally developing children in preschool age, the leading activity is play. Play does not occupy its due place in the spontaneous development of mentally retarded children. This is due to the fact that at preschool age they are still far from mastering the game.

The most complex and at the same time the most significant for the development of a child is role-playing game. Mentally retarded preschoolers cannot master it on their own. Only at the end of preschool childhood can pupils of special kindergartens observe individual elements of role-playing games, which are formed by the teacher in the classroom. Usually, in mentally retarded preschoolers, individual play actions can be observed; they have no semantic content. Thus, a boy repeatedly rolls an empty toy car, making sounds that should indicate the noise of the motor. His movements and sound are stereotypical and do not realize any intention.

The visual activity of mentally retarded children is formed slowly and in a unique way. Their drawings contain characteristic features that are diagnostic in nature. The skills of children deprived of special education in kindergarten or family remain for a long time at the level of simple scribbles, and only towards the end of preschool childhood can one see subject and, to some extent, plot drawings, executed very imperfectly, with gross errors and inaccuracies. These drawings reflect the undifferentiation of visual perception, the low level of thinking and memory and, of course, the imperfection of the motor sphere. Children draw people - cephalopods, birds with four legs, “transparent houses” and do all this with fuzzy, crooked lines. However, they treat the results of their activities very emotionally, value them highly and demonstrate them with pleasure.

A completely different picture is observed in cases where preschoolers are specially taught drawing. Most of them find success. Evidence of both the potential they have and the importance of corrective influence on a mentally retarded child.

Among the mentally retarded there are children who have two or more developmental deviations. These are children with complex developmental disabilities: oligophrenics with damage to the analyzers (hearing, vision), with specific speech deviations, disorders of the musculoskeletal system, and autism. Currently, these children are not well studied. Children with such a complex defect require specialized programs and methods of correctional education to a greater extent than ordinary mentally retarded children. For them, acquaintance with the surrounding social world, objects and phenomena around them is greatly complicated, understanding life situations and solving them is extremely difficult. Such children are taught in a group of 4-5 people at special children's institutions, where they are taught according to simplified, often individual programs. The main time is devoted to developing in them the necessary, vital practical and hygienic skills. In general, the prognosis for the development of mentally retarded children with a complex defect is less favorable than the prognosis for the development of children with only intellectual disability.

The group consisted of 11 people, and the control group consisted of 16. The following points were entered: I category (satisfactory-

athletes, which was then reduced to 14 points) - 3 points, candidate master of sports of Russia

catcher due to non-participation in competitions for various (good) - 4 points, Master of Sports of Russia (excellent reasons for two wrestlers. After weighing but) - 5 points.

We determined the amount of weight loss for each person. Before the tournament in the control group, mastery

(from 2 to 3 kg) - on average 2.7 (2.680±0.095) kg and was slightly higher than in the experimental -

built graphs of weight loss with individual 3.57 and 3.36, respectively (the differences are not significant for each participant in the experiment, but no). Performance at competitions revealed the following:

but not more than 0.5 kg/day. Composition experimental results - sportsmanship of the participants

ny group: 7 wrestlers of the 1st category and 4 candidates for champions of the experimental group reliably (R

Master of Sports of Russia, and the control test - 8 candidates< 0.001) повысилось от 3.360±0.095 до 3.910±0.050

comrade to master of sports and 6 wrestlers of the 1st category. and reliably (R< 0.05) стал выше, чем в контроль-

After the official weigh-in before the competition group (3.71±0.07).

innovations to each of the participants in the experiment. In a special experiment it was proven that

a 15-minute recovery session was carried out using working methods of weight loss and recovery

procedure. assessing the performance of wrestlers in preparation for

Based on the results of the competition protocols, the participants in the competition are effective.

Do the places occupied by the experimental participants contribute to the formation of the fighters’ readiness?

and control groups. In the control group, there was a decrease in competition within the chosen weight class.

The average weight loss was 2.5 (2.460±0.063) kg. categories.

To determine the skill of athletes, we Received 08/06/2008

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UDC 159.923.+159

G.N. Popov

PROBLEMS OF TEACHING CHILDREN WITH MENTAL RETARDATION

Tomsk State Pedagogical University

Mentally retarded (feeble-minded) children - the most - includes a very heterogeneous mass of children, and there is also a large category of abnormal children. which are united by the presence of brain damage, having

They make up approximately 1-3% of the total childhood pain, diffuse, i.e. widespread,

populations. The concept of a “mentally retarded child” is, as it were, a “spilled” character. Morphological

the changes, although with unequal intensity, affect many areas of the cerebral cortex, disrupting their structure and functions. Of course, cases cannot be excluded when diffuse damage to the cortex is combined with individual, more pronounced local (limited, local) disturbances, with varying degrees of pronounced deviations in all types of mental activity.

The overwhelming majority of all mentally retarded children - students of auxiliary schools - are oligophrenic (from the Greek “low-minded”). Damage to the brain systems, mainly the most complex and late-forming structures that cause underdevelopment and mental disorders, occurs in the early stages of development - in the prenatal period, at birth or in the first years of life, i.e. until speech is fully developed. In oligophrenia, organic brain failure is residual (residual), non-progressive (non-worsening) in nature, which gives grounds for an optimistic prognosis.

Already in the preschool period of life, the painful processes that took place in the brain of an oligophrenic child cease. The child becomes practically healthy, capable of mental development. However, this development is carried out abnormally, since its biological basis is pathological.

Oligophrenic children are characterized by persistent disturbances in all mental activity, especially clearly manifested in the sphere of cognitive processes. Moreover, there is not only a lag from the norm, but also a deep originality of both personal manifestations and cognition. Thus, the mentally retarded cannot in any way be equated with normally developing children of a younger age; they are different in many of their manifestations.

Oligophrenic children are capable of development, which essentially distinguishes them from feeble-minded children of all progressive forms of mental retardation, and although the development of oligophrenics is slow, atypical, with many, sometimes sharp deviations, nevertheless, it represents a progressive process that introduces qualitative changes in the mental activity of children, in their personal sphere.

The structure of the psyche of a mentally retarded child is extremely complex. The primary defect gives rise to many other secondary and tertiary defects. Disturbances in the cognitive activity and personality of an oligophrenic child are clearly detected in its most varied manifestations. Defects in cognition and behavior involuntarily attract the attention of others.

However, along with shortcomings, these children also have some positive capabilities, the presence of which serves as a support for the development process.

The position on the unity of the patterns of normal and abnormal development, emphasized by L.S. Vygotsky gives reason to believe that the concept of the development of a normal child in general can be used in interpreting the development of mentally retarded children. This allows us to talk about the identity of factors affecting the development of a normal and mentally retarded child.

The development of oligophrenics is determined by biological and social factors. Biological factors include the severity of the defect, the qualitative uniqueness of its structure, and the time of its occurrence. They must be taken into account when organizing special pedagogical interventions.

Social factors are the child’s immediate environment: the family in which he lives, the adults and children with whom he communicates and spends time, and, of course, school. Domestic psychology affirms provisions on the leading role in the development of all children, including the mentally retarded, the child’s cooperation with adults and children around him, and learning in the broad sense of this term. Properly organized training and education, adequate to the child’s capabilities and based on the child’s zone of proximal development, is especially important. It is this that stimulates children's progress in overall development.

Special psychology suggests that upbringing, education and labor training are even more important for mentally retarded children than for normally developing children. This is due to the much lower ability of oligophrenics to independently accept, comprehend, store and process information received from the environment, i.e. less than normal development of various aspects of cognitive activity. The reduced activity of a mentally retarded child, a much narrower range of their interests, as well as other peculiar manifestations of the emotional-volitional sphere are also of certain importance.

For the advancement of an oligophrenic child in general development, for his assimilation of knowledge, skills and abilities, specially organized training and education are essential. Staying in an ordinary public school often does not bring him any benefit, and in some cases leads to serious consequences, to persistent, sharply negative changes in his personality. Special training, on-

aimed at the development of mentally retarded children, it primarily involves the formation of higher mental processes in them, especially thinking. Defective thinking in oligophrenics is revealed especially sharply and, in turn, inhibits and complicates knowledge of the surrounding world. At the same time, it has been proven that the thinking of an oligophrenic undoubtedly develops. The formation of mental activity contributes to the advancement of a mentally retarded child in general development and thereby creates a real basis for the social and labor adaptation of graduates of a auxiliary school.

Speech is an instrument of human thinking, a means of communication and regulation of activity. All mentally retarded children, without exception, have more or less pronounced deviations in speech development, which are detected at various levels of speech activity. Some of them can be corrected relatively quickly, others are smoothed out only to some extent, appearing under complicated conditions. Oligophrenics are characterized by a delay in the development of speech, which is revealed in a later than normal understanding of speech addressed to them and in defects in the independent use of it. Speech underdevelopment can be observed at various levels of speech utterance. It is revealed in the difficulties that occur in mastering pronunciation, which are widely represented in the lower grades. This gives grounds to talk about the later and defective, compared to the norm, development of phonemic hearing in oligophrenic children, which is so important for learning to read and write, and about the difficulties that arise when it is necessary to precisely coordinate the movements of the speech organs.

Deviations from the norm also occur when mastering the vocabulary of the native language. The vocabulary is poor, the meanings of words are not sufficiently differentiated. The sentences used by oligophrenic children are often constructed in a primitive manner and are not always correct. They contain various deviations from the norms of the native language - violations of coordination, control, omissions of sentence members, in some cases - even the main ones. Complex, especially complex sentences, begin to be used late, which indicates difficulties in understanding and reflecting various interactions between objects and phenomena of the surrounding reality, suggesting underdevelopment of children’s thinking.

For a person’s social adaptation, it is very important to communicate with other people, the ability to enter into a conversation and support it, i.e. a certain level of dialogue formation is required

chesical speech. The education of mentally retarded children relies more on memory processes, which have many unique features. The amount of material memorized by auxiliary school students is significantly less than that of their typically developing peers. Moreover, the more abstract this material is, the less children remember it. The accuracy and strength of memorization of both verbal and visual material is low. Memorizing texts, even simple ones, suffers from imperfection in schoolchildren, since they do not know enough how to use mnemonic techniques - divide the material into paragraphs, highlight the main idea, identify key words and expressions, establish semantic connections between parts, etc.

Significant deviations from the norm can be seen by studying how mentally retarded children perceive the objects around them. Currently, the most studied is the visual perception of oligophrenics, with the help of which they receive a significant part of information about the environment. It has been established that the visual perception of students in the auxiliary school is inhibited. This means that in order to see and recognize a familiar object, students need more time than their typically developing peers. This is an important feature that has a certain influence on children’s orientation in space and, probably, on the process of learning to read.

It is especially difficult for oligophrenics to actively adapt perception to changing conditions. Because of this, they incorrectly recognize inverted images of well-known objects, mistaking them for other objects in their usual position.

Significant deviations occur not only in cognitive activity, but also in the personal manifestations of mentally retarded children. Human personality is a product of socio-historical development. It is formed in the course of diverse interactions with the environment. Since the interaction of an oligophrenic child with the environment is changed due to intellectual inferiority, his personality is formed in unique conditions, which is revealed in various aspects.

In the totality of diverse mental personality traits, a significant place belongs to the will. Will is a person’s ability to act in the direction of a consciously set goal, overcoming obstacles that arise. Often an act of will includes a struggle between multidirectional tendencies. The decisive role in volitional processes is played by the mental construction of

the current situation, the activity of the internal plan, which determines the result of the struggle of motives and decision-making in favor of a volitional act. In mentally retarded children, who are characterized by severe disturbances in thinking, volitional processes are significantly affected. This feature has attracted the attention of psychologists for a long time and was included as one of the characteristic features for this category of abnormal children in their general characteristics.

Directly related to the problem of will is the problem of emotions. Emotions reflect the meaning of phenomena and situations and manifest themselves in the form of direct experiences - pleasure, joy, anger, fear, etc. Our attitude towards other people, as well as the assessment of our own actions, the degree of activity of thinking, features of motor skills and movements largely depend on emotions. Emotions can in some cases motivate a person to take action, while in others they can hinder the achievement of goals.

The formation of emotions is one of the most important conditions for the formation of a person’s personality. The development of the emotional sphere is facilitated by the family, all life that surrounds the child and constantly influences him, and especially schooling. Emotions are directly related to intelligence. L.S. Vygotsky emphasized the idea that thinking and affect represent different aspects of a single human consciousness, that the course of a child’s development is based on changes occurring in the relationship between his intellect and affect.

Mentally retarded children have significant difficulties understanding the facial expressions and expressive movements of the characters depicted in the pictures. Children often give distorted interpretations; complex and subtle experiences are reduced to more

simple and elementary. This phenomenon is to a certain extent connected with the poverty of the vocabulary of oligophrenics, but is not limited to it. Adult help offered in the form of questions is not effective in all cases.

A study of the emotional sphere of mentally retarded adolescents with behavioral difficulties has shown that the main cause of such conditions is a painful experience of feelings of inferiority, often complicated by infantilism, an unfavorable environment and other circumstances. Children have little control over their emotional manifestations and often do not even try to do so.

The formation of the personality of a mentally retarded child is directly related to the formation of his correct awareness of his social status, self-esteem and level of aspirations. The most important role is played by the child’s relationships with others, his own activities, as well as biological characteristics. The self-esteem and level of aspirations of mentally retarded children are often not entirely adequate. Many children overestimate their capabilities: they are confident that they have a good command of knowledge, skills and abilities, that they are capable of various, sometimes quite complex tasks.

By the senior years of education, significant positive changes occur in children's self-awareness. They more correctly evaluate themselves, their actions, character traits, academic achievements; to confirm the correctness of their judgments, they give specific, often adequate examples, while revealing a certain self-criticism. Children are less independent in assessing their intelligence. They usually equate it with school success.

Received by the editor 05/16/2008

Literature

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1

The article is devoted to determining the status of education for children (and adolescents) with mental retardation in the institutional field. The analysis of this social practice proved the presence of: a) functional specificity; b) specific organizational structure; c) status-role structure with subjects/institutional agents and individual objects of activity; d) multi-level legal regulation (institutions) and e) specifically stable reproduction for almost two centuries. The theoretical material is confirmed by statistical data concerning the epidemiology of mental retardation in children in the world, the Russian Federation and the Volgograd region. The above indicates that the education of children with mental retardation has institutional characteristics, but is included in the context of the general institutional practice of the social institution of education, therefore it is its sub-institute.

sub-institute

social institute of education

education

children with mental retardation

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Introduction

The need to ensure civil rights and provide quality services to people with disabilities in recent years has increasingly become one of the declared priority vectors of social development of Russian society in the social sphere. In this regard, there is no doubt, in particular, the relevance of increasing the efficiency of socialization of this category of people, including those with mental and behavioral disorders. Among the latter, a special place is occupied by mental retardation, which is one of the most common developmental disorders, occurring in no less than 3-5% of the population and having a significant negative impact on the quality of life of the person himself, his family and society as a whole. The number of children suffering from mental retardation backwardness, reached 166,400 people by 2011, or 764.4 per 100 thousand children. Of the total number of sick children, children suffering from mental retardation accounted for 24.5% (close to one quarter). In 2011, compared to 2008, the absolute number of children suffering from mental retardation increased by 312 people, or 0.2%. The overall incidence of mental retardation in children decreased by 3.6% from 2008 to 2011.

Mental retardation is detected in childhood and is often the basis for determining disability. In particular, according to form No. 19, in 2011 in the Volgograd region there were 675 disabled children aged 0-17 years due to mental retardation (which amounted to 51.2% in the structure of disability due to mental disorders and behavioral disorders and 10.1% in structure of disability due to all registered diseases); including 22 children aged 0-4 years (41.5% and 1.6%, respectively), aged 5-9 years - 143 (37.2% and 7.2%), aged 10-14 years - 243 (51.7% and 12.8%) and at the age of 15-17 years - 267 (65.0% and 18.9%, respectively).

The problem of socialization of persons with mental retardation, conditionally, includes two fundamental aspects: the need to solve a number of theoretical and methodological issues and the practical implementation of effective socializing measures. One of the key theoretical and methodological issues, which largely determines practical approaches, is determining the educational status of this category of children, i.e. “what is it”: a social practice (one of the extremely numerous ones existing in Russian society, which a priori implies the uncertainty of its future prospects), or is it a sub-institution, or a “full-fledged” social institution (especially if one adheres to the understanding of the institutional nature of public life and its institutional determinants , according to which a social institution is the main component of the social structure, coordinating many actions of people and streamlining social relations in important spheres of public life).

Purpose of the study

Explicitly in the institutional field the status of education for children with mental retardation.

Material and research methods

The work is based on a systems approach, with an emphasis on institutionalism (structural and functional analysis of the methodology for studying social institutions; statistical data on the epidemiology of mental retardation in children in the world, the Russian Federation and the Volgograd region).

Research results and discussion

Social institutions perform a variety of functions, the most important of which are traditionally recognized as: integration, regulatory, communicative, broadcasting, the function of consolidating and reproducing social relations. The development and functioning of a social institution is a process of identifying and resolving contradictions of various kinds; Among such contradictions, the most significant is the contradiction between the needs of individuals and social groups, on the one hand, and the possibilities of satisfying them, on the other (it manifests itself both within the framework of individual social institutions and at the level of the system of institutions in society as a whole). Therefore, the education of children (and adolescents) with mental retardation can be interpreted as a subinstitution of the social institution of education due to the presence of the following conditions.

1. Functional specificity. There are a variety of approaches (actually institutional, structural-functional within the framework of classical functionalism and neo-functionalism, sociocultural, activity-based, systemic, procedural, social-constructivist edition, interpretive sociology, etc.) to the meaningful interpretation of the concept of “social institution” (including including, both in the sociology of education and in the sociology of medicine), within which the need for specific norms and rules of behavior is emphasized; symbolic cultural signs; utilitarian cultural traits; oral and written codes; means and conditions for the successful implementation of the activities of a social institution. Or it stands out: a certain circle of subjects who, in the process of activity, enter into relationships that acquire a stable character; more or less formalized organization; the presence of specific norms and regulations governing the behavior of people within a social institution; the presence of socially significant functions of the institution that integrate it into the social system and ensure its participation in the process of integration of the latter. Or signs are determined that characterize not so much the internal content as the external form: objectivity (the existence of an institution regardless of the wishes of people); directiveness, coercion (institutions not only depend on the will of people, but also impose behavior that is undesirable for many); moral authority and legitimacy; historicity (any institution has a history during which it was born and transformed). Or, an institution is a normative regulator of human actions, defining a role set, and includes such concepts as social goals, social norms, social roles, social expectations, social functions, social exchange (and, according to T. Parsons, the primary function of a role in social system is adaptation).

However, one of the main, if not the main (and, in fact, most authors recognize as the main) feature of a social institution is the specificity of the functions it performs. The specificity of teaching children with mental retardation is evidenced by the actual emergence almost two centuries ago, at the beginning of the 19th century, of oligophrenopedagogy as a specific field of interdisciplinary interaction between pedagogy and medicine, when special departments for mentally retarded children began to be created at psychiatric hospitals and special shelters, in which doctors began perform the functions of their educators. The first teachers of mentally retarded children in special departments at psychiatric hospitals and special shelters were doctors. In this context, first of all, it should be noted the French doctor and teacher E. Seguin, who in the middle of the 19th century developed a system of education and training for mentally retarded children, based on the development of their activity and capacity with the help of a special regime and special exercises.

In the second half of the 19th century, many countries began to implement universal primary education, and, accordingly, attention to mild forms of mental retardation increased, which contributed to the creation of special classes and schools for children with this pathology. In Russia, the first medical and pedagogical institution for the mentally retarded, including patients with epilepsy, was organized in Riga in 1858 by Friedrich Platz. In 1882, the doctor, writer and teacher Ivan Vasilyevich Malerevsky opened a medical and pedagogical institution for mentally retarded children on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, the educational influences of which were aimed at adapting children to future life by instilling in them labor skills (the senior educational department studied according to the program of secondary educational institutions and got acquainted with some kind of craft, agricultural work; the junior section consisted of children with more pronounced forms of mental retardation, and they were engaged exclusively in physical labor).

In fact, more than 150 years ago, two key and specific aspects of the education of children with mental retardation were identified:

• Simplified provision of educational material with an emphasis on the formation of simple (and accessible) work skills that students can subsequently actually use in everyday life and, thereby, increase their ability to adapt to society. This methodology is being implemented at the present time (a simplified teaching program that excludes further acquisition of not only higher, but also secondary specialized education; mastering the simplest labor skills with the acquisition in the future through training in vocational schools of such specialties as builder, mason, plasterer). painter, mechanic/tiler for boys; seamstress, knitter, tailor - for girls).
• Close interaction with medicine (even the very origin of oligophrenopedagogy is inextricably linked with the names of doctors and psychiatric institutions in which they were created). At present, “psychiatry of mental retardation” in a number of countries has even been separated into an independent theoretical and practical field. Accordingly, “psychiatry of mental retardation” can be considered as a sub-institute of the social institute of health care, but proving this position is not the scope of this work.

2. The presence of a specific organizational structure. If at the beginning of the twentieth century there were about 2,000 children with mental retardation in Russia, then in the modern history of the country this is, first of all, a wide network of “Special (correctional) educational institutions of the VIII type” / “Special (correctional) general education boarding schools of the VIII type ”, in which the majority of children with mental retardation are educated (in particular, in the Volgograd region alone there are 10 such institutions).

This structure also includes:

• departments/faculties of universities specialized in defectology (mainly in pedagogical institutes and universities), training specialists both at the pre- and post-graduate stages;
• numerous scientific publications (not only the specialized journal “Defectology”, but also almost all printed publications with corresponding sections - magazines, collections of scientific works - pedagogical universities, as well as multi-level thematic conferences of pedagogical, medical, socio-legal, economic and other areas).

In this context, we can note the dynamic emergence of new, primarily public, organizations dealing with the problems of children with the disorders in question (organized, first of all, by parents and relatives of this category of children, with the passivity, in general, of federal/regional/municipal or educational / medical / social structures).

3. Status-role structure with subjects/institutional agents (specially trained defectologists, as well as social service workers, health care workers) and individual objects of activity (children with mental retardation). Naturally, the subjects and objects of interaction are depersonalized.

In principle, an institutional analysis of the education of children (and adolescents) in a functional aspect is possible only if there is a specificity of the object - a child / adolescent with mental retardation. However, if the analysis of the structural and organizational aspect of the institutionalization of education for this category of children/adolescents allows us to come to the conclusion that its potential structural components do not form systemic integrity and autonomy, but are components of the social institution of education, then in the functional aspect a definition as a social sub-institution is possible.

4. Legal regulation (institutions) of education for children with mental retardation. This includes international legal acts that are fundamental documents when working with mentally retarded children (“Declaration on the Rights of the Mentally Retarded,” 1971; “Declaration on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,” 1975; “UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,” 1989, etc. .); federal laws of the Russian Federation (for example, “On the social protection of disabled people in the Russian Federation”, 1995; “On the basic guarantees of the rights of the child in the Russian Federation”, 1998); federal target programs (in the “Children of Russia” program, in particular, the “Disabled Children” subprogram is highlighted); Decrees of the Government of the Russian Federation (primarily dated March 12, 1997 No. 288 “Model regulations on a special (correctional) educational institution for students with developmental disabilities”), as well as numerous departmental orders / instructions / recommendations, duplicated as usually by regional authorities. In particular, the Federal State Educational Standard for Primary General Education (as amended by orders of the Ministry of Education and Science dated November 26, 2010 No. 1241, dated September 22, 2011 No. 2357) specifically discusses a program of correctional work, which “should be aimed at ensuring the correction of deficiencies in. .. mental development of children with disabilities and providing assistance to children of this category in mastering the basic educational program of primary general education.”

5. Specifically, sustainably reproduced social practices that implement the education of children with mental retardation, which, as shown above, has been carried out for almost two centuries.

Conclusion

Thus, teaching children with mental retardation is a subinstitute of the social institution of education. In this capacity, it has some characteristics of an institution, but is inscribed in the context of general institutional practice, serves it and cannot exist outside its boundaries. The education of this contingent of children, as a sub-institute, corresponds to the general goal of the educational institution and contributes to their socialization, however, it is necessary to develop closer inter-institutional and intersectoral ties, especially since at present, the education of children / adolescents with mental retardation is characterized by insufficiently high positive quantitative and qualitative characteristics.

Reviewers:

Delarue V.V., Doctor of Social Sciences, Candidate of Medical Sciences, Professor, Professor of the Department of Philosophy, Sociology and Psychology of the Volgograd State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Volgograd.

Volchansky M.E., Doctor of Social Sciences, Professor, Dean of the Faculty of Social Work and Clinical Psychology of the Volgograd State Medical University, Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, Volgograd.

Bibliographic link

Khvastunova E.P. EDUCATION OF CHILDREN WITH MENTAL RETARDATION AS A SUB-INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION // Modern problems of science and education. – 2014. – No. 2.;
URL: http://science-education.ru/ru/article/view?id=12560 (access date: November 25, 2019). We bring to your attention magazines published by the publishing house "Academy of Natural Sciences"