ZPR intellectual development of younger schoolchildren. Students with mental retardation. What are they? Recommendations for teaching children with mental retardation. consultation on the topic. Characteristic features of children with mental retardation

Children with mental retardation come to school with the same characteristics that are characteristic of older preschoolers. In general, this is expressed in the lack of school readiness: their knowledge and ideas about the surrounding reality are incomplete, fragmentary, the basic mental operations are not sufficiently formed, and the existing ones are unstable, cognitive interests are expressed extremely poorly, there is no educational motivation, their desire to go to school is associated only with external paraphernalia (purchase of a backpack, pencils, notebooks, etc.), speech is not formed to the required level, in particular, even elements of monologue speech are absent, voluntary regulation of behavior is absent. Special psychology // Ed. V.I. Lubovsky. M., 2006. pp. 110-134

Due to these characteristics, it is extremely difficult for children with mental retardation to comply with the school regime and obey clear rules of behavior, i.e. Difficulties in school adaptation are revealed. During lessons, they cannot sit still, they spin around, stand up, move objects on the table and in their bag, and crawl under the table. During recess they run aimlessly, shout, and often start meaningless fuss. Hyperactivity, which is characteristic of most of them, also plays a significant role in this behavior. Their educational activity is characterized by low productivity: they often do not master the tasks given by the teacher, cannot concentrate on completing them for a relatively long time, and are distracted by any extraneous stimuli.

This behavior is especially typical for children with mental retardation who have not undergone preschool training in a special kindergarten. Children who have spent at least a year in a special kindergarten or worked with a special education teacher in a correctional group are usually relatively prepared for school, and the longer the period of correctional work with them, the better. However, even in these cases, lack of attention, hyperactivity, defects in motor coordination, delays in speech development, and difficulties in regulating behavior often appear.

Despite significant differences in the manifestations of emotions, no significant difference in understanding emotional states from the facial expressions of another person was found between schoolchildren with mental retardation and normally developing ones. Difficulties in performing this type of task were noted only in children with developmental delays and severe emotional disturbances (emotional scarcity, decreased need for communication). These data were established by E.Z. Sternina (1988), who at the same time showed that younger schoolchildren with mental retardation are worse than their normally developing peers in determining the emotional states of characters in plot films.

While determining more or less successfully the emotions of other people by the external expression, children with mental retardation often find it difficult to characterize their own emotional state in a given situation. This indicates a certain underdevelopment of the emotional sphere, which turns out to be quite persistent.

Based on the first chapter, I can conclude that such children are characterized by immaturity of the emotional-volitional sphere and underdevelopment of cognitive activity, which have their own qualitative characteristics, compensated under the influence of temporary, therapeutic and pedagogical factors. Characteristic impulsiveness of actions, insufficient expression of the indicative stage, focus, and low productivity of activity are noted. There are shortcomings in the motivational and target basis of organizing activities, and the lack of development of methods of self-control and planning. Their play activity is not fully formed and is characterized by a lack of imagination and creativity, a certain monotony and sameness, and a predominance of the component of motor disinhibition. The very desire to play often looks more like a way of escaping difficulties in tasks than a primary need: the desire to play often arises precisely in situations of the need for purposeful intellectual activity, preparing lessons; lack of school readiness: their knowledge and ideas about the surrounding reality are incomplete, fragmentary, the basic mental operations are not sufficiently formed, and the existing ones are unstable, cognitive interests are expressed extremely poorly, there is no educational motivation, their desire to go to school is associated only with external attributes (purchase of a backpack , pencils, notebooks, etc.), speech is not formed to the required level, in particular, even elements of monologue speech are absent, voluntary regulation of behavior is absent.

Characterizing the behavior of children with mental retardation at primary school age, it can be noted that their behavior often includes lack of attention, hyperactivity, defects in motor coordination, delays in speech development, and difficulties in regulating behavior.

Mental retardation is a mild and reversible impairment of cognitive activity and the emotional-volitional sphere of a child. The difference between mental retardation and other severe pathologies of the nervous system is that this disorder is caused mainly by the too slow rate of its maturation. According to statistics, mental retardation occurs in 16% of preschoolers over 4 years of age and younger schoolchildren.

Many parents consider the diagnosis of mental retardation to be a death sentence, but this is the wrong position. With timely diagnosis and correction, children with mental retardation gradually catch up with their peers and are no different from them.

Features of children with mental retardation

Diagnosis of mental retardation is based on an objective assessment of the state of the emotional-volitional sphere, the degree of intellectual and interpersonal development.

Children with mental retardation do not feel responsible for their actions and do not control them, do not see themselves from the outside, do not obey established rules, and in most cases they cannot establish good relationships with adults and peers. Their main activity is gaming. They show no interest in studying, do not ask questions about the world around them, etc.

The weak point of children with mental retardation is perseverance and attention. They quickly lose interest, are impatient, and find it difficult to sit in one place for more than 20 minutes. In terms of speech development and cognitive activity, they are noticeably behind other children, since they have poor memory, reduced attention, poorly developed abstract thinking, they confuse concepts, cannot identify the main features of objects, phenomena, etc. Their main goal is to have fun, so as soon as they get bored with something, they immediately switch to another activity or subject.
Children with mental retardation have few friends, both among their peers and among teachers and adults. They are often very lonely, playing alone or with adults because they have difficulty learning rules and need someone to constantly guide them. Their behavior is characterized by fear, aggression, delayed reactions, and inability to conduct a normal dialogue.

A complete diagnosis always includes a conversation with the child, tests of perception, memory, ability to analyze information, and also assesses the level of development of the emotional-volitional sphere and the ability to communicate interpersonally. The diagnosis of mental retardation is always made only by a psychological, medical and pedagogical commission.

Types of ZPR

The correction program is selected depending on the type of mental retardation diagnosed in the child. It is customary to distinguish 4 types of this violation.

ZPR of constitutional origin

Such children are small in weight and height. At school and kindergarten they are very curious and quickly make friends, as their character is usually soft and cheerful. Teachers constantly reprimand them for restlessness, talking in class, and being late. Their thinking and memory are poorly developed, so their academic performance leaves much to be desired.
With this type of mental retardation, the prognosis is generally favorable. When teaching, it is necessary to use more the visual-effective principle. Classes are useful for developing attention, memory, and thinking; they should be conducted under the guidance of a psychologist and speech pathologist.

ZPR of somatogenic origin

This type of mental retardation occurs as a result of severe infections or traumatic brain injuries in early childhood. Intelligence is preserved, but mental infantilism and asthenia are present. Children are attached to their parents, without them they are very bored, cry, and become helpless. In lessons they do not show any initiative, get tired quickly, are extremely disorganized, study is uninteresting to them, and often refuse to answer the teacher’s questions; nevertheless, they have a hard time dealing with failures and low grades.
Children with a somatogenic form of mental retardation need to attend a sanatorium-type school, where they can receive round-the-clock medical and pedagogical assistance. If somatic causes are eliminated, then further correction of mental development will take place quickly and successfully.

3. Mental retardation of psychogenic origin

Children with this type of mental retardation experience a lack of attention and warmth from close relatives, especially their mother. They often grow up in a dysfunctional family, surrounded by scandals, and their social contacts are monotonous. Children experience constant anxiety, are downtrodden, and find it difficult to make independent decisions. The ability to analyze is poorly developed, they live in their own world, often do not distinguish between good and bad, and have a small vocabulary. Children with a psychogenic form of mental retardation respond well to correctional classes and quickly catch up with their peers.

4. ZPR of cerebral-organic origin

The disorder is caused by organic brain damage that occurs during pregnancy, difficult childbirth, or due to previous illnesses. As a result of asthenia, children quickly get tired, do not remember information well, and have difficulty concentrating on one activity. Primitive thinking, inhibited emotional reactions, suggestibility, rapid loss of interest, inability to build relationships with people, manifestation of aggression and fear, confusion of the concepts of “want” and “need” - these are the characteristic features of children with mental retardation of this type. The prognosis for this form of mental retardation is not very favorable; the condition cannot be completely corrected. In the absence of correction, the child begins to regress.

How to help a child with mental retardation?

Children with mental retardation need comprehensive help from a psychologist, neurologist, and speech therapist-speech pathologist. The correction process is long, complex, and interrupting it is highly undesirable.

An obligatory part of the correction of mental retardation is medical care: taking medications according to a certain regimen, physiotherapy, massage, physical therapy, hydrotherapy. This is done by a pediatric neurologist.

The development of the emotional-volitional sphere is beneficially influenced by art therapy, fairy tale therapy, and play therapy, which is carried out by a psychologist. A speech therapist-defectologist deals with the development of intellectual abilities - memory, attention, thinking, as well as speech.

Experts recommend sending children with severe forms of mental retardation not to regular kindergartens and schools, but to specialized ones - type VII. A good option is training in a correctional class at a regular school, where training takes place according to certain principles:

new material is explained to the child in small portions and repeated many times so that he can assimilate it well;
a large amount of visual material is used;
frequent change of different activities so that the child can concentrate as much as possible and does not lose interest.

Why will a child be better off in a correctional class? The fact is that in a regular class, a child with mental retardation will lag far behind the rest of the students and suffer from ridicule and the status of a loser.

Be prepared for the fact that the correction will take a lot of time, but most children with mental retardation have a favorable prognosis, so there is no need to despair.

Children are increasingly coming to kindergartens and schools who are developmentally lagging behind their peers. Observations of children and studying the history of their development allow us to make a diagnosis: Mental retardation (MDD). This concept often sounds like a life sentence, but this is far from true.

Mental retardation is a violation of the rate of mental development of a child. Medicine and psychology have determined standards according to which a person at different stages of development must master a certain set of social and intellectual skills, master leading types of activity, and correspond in terms of the level of development of mental processes. Children with mental retardation progress through their development slower than their peers, not corresponding to the generally accepted age periodization.

Thus, children with the characteristic features of preschoolers come to primary school. Such children are not able to engage in educational activities, because their gaming interests predominate.

Causes of mental retardation

genetically determined slow pace of development;
somatic failure: chronic diseases and infections; congenital malformations of physical development (for example, heart), deep allergic reactions, childhood neuroses, asthenia;
unfavorable conditions of upbringing, which have a traumatic effect on the development of the psyche;
focal lesions of the central nervous system, which do not cause persistent impairment of cognitive activity as a result of: asphyxia, intoxication, birth and postpartum injuries, prematurity.

Depending on the causes of the delay, different types of delays are subject to correction in different ways. The most persistent is ZPR of cerebral-organic origin, which is based on damage to the central nervous system. Statistics show the highest prevalence of this type of mental retardation due to birth injuries or complicated pregnancy.

Characteristic features of children with mental retardation

Despite the difference in the etiology of delays, children with mental retardation have typical mental characteristics:

Discrepancy between a child’s intellectual abilities and calendar age. Diagnosing a child’s readiness for school allows us to identify a number of indicators of readiness: intellectual, motivational. A child with mental retardation does not meet these indicators in all or the absolute majority of parameters.
A special condition of the nervous system: fatigue, headaches from strenuous activity.
Poor attention span, easy distractibility, low performance.
Insufficient level of development of perception: difficulties in recognizing objects, typification of the environment (children do not understand the functions of objects of unusual shape, inability to abstraction).
Weak productivity of voluntary memory: difficulty memorizing and small volume.
Low cognitive activity.
Lack of formation of basic mental operations: synthesis, analysis, comparison, generalization.
Speech impairment and underdevelopment, including dyslalia.
Characteristic behavioral features:

good nature, pliability, obedience;
slowness in new actions;
diligence in performing duties (for example, watering flowers);
accuracy in handling things;
the ability to listen for a long time, but remain passive.

For children with mental retardation, there are special correctional schools of the seventh type, compensatory education classes in public schools, where training takes place according to special programs.

Practice demonstrates cases of children transitioning from specific educational conditions to mass classes and schools after completing the initial stage of education. Children with mental retardation often study in regular classes.

Regardless of the place of education, all children with mental retardation need special educational conditions:

Implementation of an individual approach both in class and outside of class time.
Prevent fatigue by alternating between different activities.
Use of general developmental methods and techniques.
Enriching children's knowledge about the world around them.
Special correctional and preparatory classes.
Slow pace of studying educational material.
Repeated repetition of important provisions and concepts;
Portionality of new educational material.
Active work on the development and correction of speech.

Mental retardation is a temporary phenomenon. The difference in development is obvious in childhood, but not so noticeable in adulthood. Subject to correct correction of mental retardation, children in the future will master certain types of professional activities and fit into society.

At the elementary school stage, it is very important to instill in children confidence in their own strengths, encouraging the slightest successes of children in cognitive activity. It is better to entrust the education of children with mental retardation to specialists in the field of special education. But it is possible to overcome mental retardation only with constant corrective influences both during and after school hours. Psychological, pedagogical and correctional support for children with mental retardation should only be entrusted to specialists: psychologists and defectologists.

Children with mental retardation come to school with the same characteristics that are characteristic of older preschoolers. In general, this is expressed in the lack of school readiness: their knowledge and ideas about the surrounding reality are incomplete, fragmentary, the basic mental operations are not sufficiently formed, and the existing ones are unstable, cognitive interests are expressed extremely poorly, there is no educational motivation, the desire they demonstrate to go to school is associated only with external paraphernalia (purchase of a backpack, pencils, notebooks, etc.), speech is not formed to the required level, in particular, even elements of monologue speech are absent, voluntary regulation of behavior is absent.

Their educational activity is characterized by low productivity: they often do not master the tasks given by the teacher, cannot concentrate on completing them for a relatively long time, and are distracted by any extraneous stimuli.

Next, we will characterize the characteristics of younger schoolchildren with mental retardation, with whom correctional work was not carried out in preschool age. They either attended regular kindergartens or were raised at home.

From the above general characteristics of their activity and behavior, let us move on to a more detailed description of the uniqueness of mental processes.

Features of attention

In younger schoolchildren with mental retardation, attention is unstable. This instability manifests itself in different ways. Some children, at the beginning of completing a task, experience maximum concentration for them, which steadily decreases as the activity continues, and the student begins to make mistakes or completely stops completing the task. For others, the greatest concentration of attention occurs after a certain period of performing given actions, and then gradually decreases. There are children who exhibit periodic fluctuations in attention (G.I. Zharenkova). Typically, sustained performance of any activity is limited to 5-7 minutes in grade I.

Instability of attention is combined with increased distractibility. The noise of a car outside the window, a flying bird - any extraneous stimuli attracts the attention of children, and they stop doing tasks or listening to the teacher.

The influence of various extraneous factors distracting from a given activity was studied comparatively by L. I. Peresleni. In her study, children with normal development and mental retardation were required to respond by pressing a button to tactile-vibration stimuli presented at different intervals on the forearm. At the same time, continuously acting extraneous stimuli were presented to the headphones worn by the children: either white noise, or music (children's songs), or a fairy tale performed by a professional reader. It turned out that noise does not affect the activities of children, music slows down the responses of children with developmental delays, and speech interference (reading a fairy tale) causes an increase in reaction time in both normally developing children (by 7%) and in children with developmental delays (by 7%). 17%). Omissions of responses and erroneous reactions also appear: in normally developing children - on average 2 omissions, in children with mental retardation - six omissions and erroneous reactions of mental development until the end of the initial stage of education. Correction is more successful the faster stable learning motivation is formed. This requires some time, since play motives predominate among children in this category.

At the same time, as was shown by L.V. Kuznetsova, it is possible to use game motivation to develop the sustainability of purposeful activity.

Children who could concentrate on a task for only a few minutes in class were asked to “play school.” One of them played the role of a teacher, the other - a student. The children filled the game with the content of the educational process: they solved examples and wrote letters. The “teachers” gave the “students” tasks that were feasible for themselves. The game also included the “teacher’s” assessment of his “student’s” work. Often the “teachers” took notebooks and completed the same tasks as the “students”. It is significant that such a game could last more than two hours on a positive emotional background and contributed not only to the consolidation of learning skills, but also to the formation of learning motivation.

In younger schoolchildren who have undergone preschool training in a special kindergarten, gross attention deficits are not observed, but manifestations of hyperactivity and attention deficit syndrome are also found in them, especially in conditions of fatigue and increased tension.

Perception

The peculiar features of perception observed in older preschoolers are also characteristic of younger schoolchildren with mental retardation. In the absence of primary defects in vision, hearing and other types of sensitivity, they experience slowness and fragmentation of perception, difficulties in identifying a figure against the background and details in complex images.

At the same time, there are no difficulties in children recognizing familiar objects in realistic images, which further indicates the absence of primary deficiency of sensory functions.

Inaccuracy and slowness of perception manifest themselves to the greatest extent at primary school age, when errors associated with shortcomings in perception are discovered when copying text, reproducing figures based on visually presented samples, etc. These shortcomings manifest themselves to the greatest extent when the conditions of perception become more complex and deteriorate, when, for example, images are displayed rotated or when their brightness and clarity are reduced. In these cases, as was shown in the study of P. B. Shoshin, the latent period of object recognition increases significantly.

Of course, changes in the conditions of perception also affect normally developed children, but the quantitative differences in these changes are extremely large.

Thus, when an object is rotated by 45°, the time required to identify an image increases by 2.2% in normally developing 8-year-old schoolchildren, and by 31% in their peers with mental retardation; with a decrease in image brightness and clarity - by 12 and 47%, respectively. Consequently, the influence of various complicating factors on the perception of younger schoolchildren with mental retardation is several times more pronounced than that of their normally developing peers. These studies gave rise to the conclusion that many even well-known objects in the environment may not be perceived by a child with mental retardation when they are seen from an unusual angle, poorly lit or significantly removed. Moreover, in a normally developing child, the same conditions do not cause any significant difficulties in perception.

With age, the perception of children with mental retardation improves, especially the reaction time indicators, which reflect the speed of perception, improve significantly.

According to L.I. Peresleni, the dynamics of the reaction time of choice to tactile signals in children with mental retardation from 8 to 13 years old indicates a gradual approaching of the speed of their perception to that observed in normally developing peers. The reaction time of choice in 8-year-old schoolchildren with mental retardation is 477 ms, which is 64 ms more than in normally developing children, and in 13-14 year olds it is 320 ms, which is only 22 ms more than in normally developing children. Let us note that the choice reaction time of mentally retarded children under the same conditions is significantly longer and exceeds the indicators of normally developing children at 8 years of age by 133 ms, and at 13-14 years of age by 137 ms.

A significant increase in the time of the choice reaction based on stimulus recognition, compared to the time of a simple reaction, which occurs already upon detection of a signal, indicates that the slowness of perception in children with mental retardation is associated with slower processing than in normally developing children. information (i.e. with slower analytical-synthetic activity at the level of secondary and tertiary zones of the cortex). This is directly confirmed by research conducted by L.I. Peresleni and M.N. Fishman. Using the method of recording evoked potentials, they found that the time it takes for excitation to travel from peripheral receptors to the projection zone of the cortex in children with mental retardation is the same as in normally developing children.

It should be thought that the slowdown in information processing in the process of perception is also influenced by factors such as shortcomings in orienting activity, low speed of perceptual operations and insufficient formation of image-representations - their vagueness and incompleteness. Poverty and insufficient differentiation of visual images in children with mental retardation of primary and secondary school age were established in a study by S. K. Sivolapov.

Researchers also note the dependence of perception on the level of attention. The varying degrees of pronounced influence of several of these factors on the process of perception leads to large variability in indicators of its effectiveness, in particular the spread of reaction times in children with mental retardation. At the same time, a comparison of reaction time with the success of schoolchildren’s learning shows that greater slowness of perception is characteristic of children with more pronounced developmental delays.

Deficiencies in visual and auditory perception in children, which we attribute to mental retardation, are also noted by foreign authors (V. Cruickshank, 1961; M. Frostig, 1969; S. Blakesley, 1991; S. Curtis and R. Tallal, 1991; etc. .).

The considered shortcomings of perception can be overcome through special correctional activities, which should include the development of orienting activities, the formation of perceptual operations, the active verbalization of the perception process and the comprehension of images.

With age, the perception of children with mental retardation improves, and this is manifested both in its qualitative characteristics, primarily in the completeness of perception of objects, and in quantitative indicators, which include the speed of perception, the dynamics of which in the range from 8 to 13 years were traced by L. I. Peresleni and P.B. Shoshin (1984). However, these studies do not provide sufficient grounds to consider it possible to fully achieve indicators that would correspond to normal development by the end of schooling.

At the same time, undoubtedly, in the process of learning and development, perceptual operations, purposeful perception (observation) are formed and improved in children of this category, and images and representations develop.

Memory

With the beginning of schooling, the importance of memory in a child’s activities increases significantly, since imprinting, storing and reproducing information are necessary conditions for mastering a knowledge system.

According to generally accepted ideas and opinions of teachers, schoolchildren with mental retardation remember and reproduce educational material much worse than their normally developing peers. Data from comparative studies reveal a complex picture of these differences.

Let us first consider the features of involuntary memorization, which is usually studied by assessing the results of memorizing objects of some mental activity, for example, images of some objects, or the results of memorizing the content of a listened story.

According to N.G. Poddubnaya (1976), the productivity of reproducing involuntarily imprinted material in first-graders with mental retardation is, on average, 1.6 times lower than that of their normally developing peers, and turns out to be even worse than that of normally developing preschoolers, who are 2 - 3 years younger. At the same time, significant individual differences are noted among children with mental retardation. Those who were more active with the material showed better results.

As with normally developing primary schoolchildren, the rates of memorization of visual material were higher than that of verbal material.

Lower indices of involuntary memory productivity in younger schoolchildren with mental retardation compared to normally developing peers were also obtained in a study by T.V. Egorova (1968). In terms of the “absolute” indicator (the amount of material reproduced), the results of children with mental retardation were even slightly lower than those of their mentally retarded peers. However, the differences are not statistically significant. The complex indicator used in this study (the ratio of the “absolute” indicator to the time spent on reproduction) made it possible to establish that with such an assessment the results of children with mental retardation are statistically significantly worse than those of normally developing children and better than those of mentally retarded children, although in the latter case the differences are insignificant.

At school age, voluntary memorization begins to play an increasingly important role. In the process of learning, the child is faced with a variety of mnemonic tasks that differ in the requirements for time, volume and accuracy of memorization.

In response to these demands, normally developing primary schoolchildren intensively develop memorization and mediation techniques. Voluntary memorization in children with mental retardation is formed at a much slower pace. Thus, according to data obtained by G.B. Shaumarovsh, in terms of the volume of memorization at the beginning of the first year of education, 38.4% of children with mental retardation entered the range of indicators of normally developing first-graders, and at the beginning of the second year of education for such schoolchildren with mental retardation turns out to be only 23%.

Detailed studies of short-term memory in schoolchildren with mental retardation in comparison with normally developing and mentally retarded children were carried out by V.L. Podobed. The memory capacity for numbers and words was assessed in 8-year-old and 10-year-old children (Table 1).

The data obtained by V.L. Podobed for each of the groups indicate significant differences between them.

A comparison of the age-related dynamics of indicators of the volume of short-term verbal memory, according to G.B. Shaumarov and V.L. Podobed, reveals that not only a year after the start of training, but also two years later, the same pattern is noted: an increase in the volume of temporary verbal memory in There are approximately half as many children with mental retardation as their typically developing peers.

Comparatively better performance is observed with voluntary memorization of visual material.

When memorizing sets of 20 pictures with images of well-known objects, primary schoolchildren with mental retardation reproduced after the first presentation only 4.5% fewer pictures than their normally developing peers.

Table 1

Average group indicators of memorization by schoolchildren after a single presentation

10 objects

However, upon repeated presentation of the pictures, significant differences were noted between the children of these two groups. According to the results of the fifth reproduction, they amounted to 18% (Table 2).

T.V. Egorova explains these differences by the fact that improvement in results in normally developing children from the first to the fifth reproduction depends on the ability to retain all the initially reproduced material throughout all repeated presentations and add to it after each subsequent presentation something not previously imprinted . But children with mental retardation remember less after each presentation and “lose” more.

A clear confirmation of this explanation is the indicator of the percentage of objects named in all five reproductions to the results of the first reproduction: for children with mental retardation it is 31%, and for normally developing children -59%.

It has been noted that children with mental retardation, in contrast to normally developing ones, often name the same object repeatedly during reproduction.

Table 2. Results of assessing voluntary memorization of visual objects, %

The reviewed study by T.V. Egorova indicates that in children with mental retardation, the differences between visual (figurative) and verbal memory (in favor of visual) are significantly greater than among normally developing peers. It also speaks of a weakness of self-control, manifested in repeated reproductions of the same imprinted elements by children with mental retardation.

Characterizing the general features of short-term memory of children with mental retardation in comparison with the memory of normally developing ones, V.L. Podobed notes a small volume, a slow increase in productivity with repeated presentations, increased inhibition of traces as a result of interference from side effects, disturbances in the order of reproduction, low selectivity (the latter is revealed when there are requirements for selective reproduction of individual parts of the captured material).

American psychologists believe that the lower efficiency of short-term memory of children with learning difficulties is the result of a slower reception and processing of information. as a result of which a situation arises of a lack of time for this information to enter short-term memory (S. Curtis and R. Tallal, 1991). What is not included in short-term memory cannot be transferred to long-term memory, and this limits the volume of the latter (F. Vellutino, 1987; R. Tallal, S. Miller and R. Fitch, 1993).

The differences between children with mental retardation and normally developing children turn out to be significantly greater in the amount of long-term memory. Taking into account this feature of memory, in schools and classes for children with mental retardation, much more frequent repetition of the material covered in a variety of forms of presentation is organized compared to a regular school.

In the development of memory as a higher mental function, an important place is occupied by the formation of mediation techniques. In studies by N.G. Poddubnaya and T.V. Egorova, it was shown that normally developing children, not only primary schoolchildren, but also older preschoolers, can quite freely use the technique of mediation (for example, in the form of matching pictures to words that are offered for memorization).

Younger schoolchildren with mental retardation accept the task of using pictures as a support for memorizing words, but their efficiency of indirect memorization is much lower than that of their normally developing schoolchildren. The greatest differences between children with mental retardation and normally developing children are noted precisely in terms of indirect memorization.

Table 3. Results of the study of indirect memorization, %

Table 3 presents the results of a study conducted by T.V. Egorova with normally developing students, with mental retardation and mentally retarded students of the fourth year of study.

As can be seen from the table, the results of children with mental retardation differ significantly from the indicators of normally developing schoolchildren. In terms of the number of correctly reproduced words, as well as the number of unreproduced ones, they are closer to the mentally retarded.

Analysis of the results of all experimental studies and observations of children in the process of memorization and reproduction, including in the process of educational activities, made it possible to identify a number of qualitative features of memory that distinguish them from normally developing primary schoolchildren.

These features include:

Underdevelopment of self-control, which manifests itself most clearly in additions during reproduction and in changes in words proposed for memorization;

Weak selectivity of memory, as shown in experiments on indirect memorization, when instead of the word for which a certain picture was chosen to remember, the name of the object depicted in it was reproduced;

Inability to deliberately apply rational methods of memorization (for example, to use a plan when memorizing a coherent text or to correlate and comprehend the memorized material in a certain way);

Low mental activity during the reproduction process.

In the process of learning from class to class, the memory of children with mental retardation improves, however, as studies by V.L. Podobed have shown, up to grades V - VI, their memorization rates are 10-15% lower than those of normally developing peers.

Moreover, the data from a study by G.B. Shaumarov, conducted using Wechsler tests, indicate that the difference between the indicators of second-graders with mental retardation and the results of normally developing peers turns out to be greater (in favor of normally developing) than the difference in the same indicators among first-graders.

This does not mean that second-graders remember the material of the corresponding subtest worse than first-graders. This relative deterioration in indicators is due to the fact that in normally developing schoolchildren, from the very beginning of education, voluntary memory and various mediation techniques begin to develop at a rapid pace, while in children with mental retardation this happens at a much slower pace, which leads to an increase in the gap between indicators norms and developmental delays.

Thinking

Thinking as a mental activity, regardless of its type, always represents a solution to some problem. This task can be set by the subject of mental activity. That is, in relation to the solver, the formulation of the problem can be either passive or active.

Normally developing primary schoolchildren are already characterized by the ability to independently pose questions and find their solutions. This formulation of tasks is one of the manifestations of cognitive activity. In younger schoolchildren with mental retardation, cognitive activity is extremely low, which is the most pronounced manifestation of the low level of their mental activity in general and extremely weak cognitive motivation. In turn, a low level of cognitive motivation leads to the fact that younger schoolchildren in this category, unlike normally developing ones, rarely show readiness to solve mental problems.

At the beginning of schooling, they are found to be unformed even in basic mental operations and actions, which normally developing children already master in older preschool age. This lack of formation is manifested both in the complete inability to use some mental operations, and in the instability, depending on the complexity of the task, of those operations and mental actions that they seem to already know how to use.

In a study by G.B. Shaumarov (1980), it was shown that only 20.5% of first-graders with mental retardation perform simple mathematical operations at a level corresponding to the low performance of their normally developing peers.

Due to low cognitive activity in preschool age, the experience of solving various mental problems, and, consequently, the experience of using mental operations and actions in these children is very limited. To a large extent, this is the reason for the inability to use even formed mental operations. Insufficient selectivity is also revealed, i.e. the ability to select from the available “arsenal” the operation necessary in a given particular case.

The use of mental operations, i.e. The actual solution of the problem is preceded by a very important stage - orientation in the conditions of the problem. This stage also turns out to be defective; it is formed in younger schoolchildren of the group under consideration with a significant lag from what happens in normally developing children who have a preliminary orientation in a task already at an older preschool age.

Experimental study of all three types of thinking using different methods, including tasks of varying degrees of complexity, carried out by T.V. Egorova and other researchers (O. P. Monkyavichene, K. Novakova, M. M. Mamedov) in junior, middle and senior school age, gives reason to believe that by the end of primary school age, visual-effective thinking turns out to be closest to the level of formation corresponding to the average norm. Young schoolchildren with mental retardation cope with solving simple problems of the appropriate type just as successfully as their normally developing peers, and more complex problems are solved if they are provided with one or two types of assistance (for example, after additional stimulation and demonstration of a detailed model).

Solving problems of a visual-figurative nature, although significantly improved compared to older preschool age, the level of success differs significantly from what happens with normally developing peers.

As for verbal-logical thinking, in general, its level remains significantly lower than that typical for normally developing schoolchildren.

At the same time, despite the improvement in test performance indicators, some lag of children with mental retardation from normally developing children in terms of average indicators persists until they graduate from basic school. This lag is unevenly expressed when solving mental problems of various types.

According to O.P. Monkevičienė (1988), who traced the dynamics of mental activity in children with mental retardation from the fifth to the ninth year of study (i.e., from the beginning to the end of middle school age), at the beginning of middle school age there is a lag in development mental activity is manifested to the greatest extent when performing verbal-logical tasks, less - when solving visual-figurative ones, and least significantly - when solving visual-effective problems.

By the end of middle school age, performance indicators for tasks of all types approach the results of normally developing peers, but an unevenly manifested lag in the formation of all three types of thinking remains.

Visual-effective thinking in children with mental retardation develops most intensively in preschool age, which also occurs during normal development, but lags somewhat behind, and this is revealed when solving relatively complex tasks of the visual-effective type. At primary school age, the development of this type of thinking is normally completed, and within the limits of the test tasks used, normally developing schoolchildren, on average, make 92% of independent decisions. Accordingly, by the beginning of middle school age, children with mental retardation solve only 86% of such problems independently.

The differences are not statistically significant, but qualitative analysis gives a different picture of problem solving by children with mental retardation than the norm: they need much more help, in particular, the presentation of a detailed drawing of the sample; they do not use mental analysis of the sample and comparison with it the figure they form, often act chaotically.

By the end of middle school age, normally developing schoolchildren solved problems of a visual-effective nature independently in 100% of cases, and schoolchildren with mental retardation gave about 89% of independent solutions. Thus, in terms of the rate of progress in development, they lag behind normally developing children, and, moreover, the gap in indicators even increases, reaching a significant value. At the same time, statistically significant differences from mentally retarded schoolchildren of the same age remain (the average rate of independent solution of such problems is about 78%). Even at this age, mentally retarded people act primarily through “trial and error,” which is no longer observed among schoolchildren with mental retardation.

The level of development of visual-figurative thinking was assessed using Raven's matrices (color version of series A, Av and B) and the “Visual Analogies” technique developed by T.V. Egorova and T.V. Rozanova. O.P. Monkevičienė argues that the most significant progress in the development of visual-figurative thinking in children with mental retardation occurs at primary school age. At the beginning of middle school age, they correctly solve on average 84.4% of the problems of the Raven matrices and 80.6% of the problems of the second method, while the corresponding average indicators of their normally developing peers are 92.9 and 93.9%, respectively. The differences are significant and are associated with shortcomings in visual analysis of images, low mobility of image representations and insufficient ability to operate with them.

By the end of middle school age, children with mental retardation cope with an average of 90.4% of Raven's matrix problems and 85.4% of "visual analogy" problems, while their peers from a regular school solve 99.6 and 98.9% of the problems used, respectively. techniques. Thus, despite the significant progress of schoolchildren with mental retardation, the gap between them and normally developing children remains the same.

The development of verbal-logical thinking was assessed by O. P. Monkevičienė using Theremin-Merrill intelligence tests (subtests “Opposites by analogy”, “Understanding”, “Similarities and differences”, “Find the reason”, “Abstract words”, “Simple analogies” , “Verbal absurdities”), as well as tasks to establish similar relationships proposed by T. V. Egorova (“Simple analogies”, 1973).

It has been established that at the beginning of middle school age, children with mental retardation have a significant amount of knowledge about the world around them, are able to operate with it, using mental operations of analysis, synthesis, generalization, abstraction, and are able to make judgments about the properties of familiar objects and simple life situations. As a result, they differ very little from their typically developing peers in terms of performance on the “Contrasts by Analogy” and “Similarities and Differences” subtests.

Difficulties are caused by establishing the causes of phenomena, isolating the basic, categorical qualities of objects, isolating more abstract (cause-and-effect, functional) connections in the tasks of the “Simple Analogies” technique, abstract judgments (the “Abstract Words” subtest), judgments regarding the logicality of the combination of certain provisions ( subtest “Verbal absurdities”). It must be said that the most complex tasks of the three listed methods also cause some difficulties for normally developing schoolchildren of this age, but their performance is statistically significantly better.

Mentally retarded peers turned out to be practically unable to solve problems requiring the use of more abstract forms of verbal and logical thinking.

By the end of middle school age, significant shifts in the level of development of verbal and logical thinking are noted. This is manifested in an improvement in the performance of tasks on all subtests used and in the convergence of the indicators of adolescents with mental retardation and normally developing ones. However, solving problems of the most complex, abstract nature (tasks of the “Abstract Words”, “Verbal Absurdities” subtests, “Simple Analogies” methods) still causes them significant difficulties.

This led O.P. Monkevičienė to the conclusion that children with mental retardation by the end of middle school age are mainly at the stage of concrete conceptual thinking, while their normally developing peers have already reached the stage of abstract conceptual thinking.

T. V. Egorova (1984) revealed a number of qualitative differences in the characteristics of the mental activity of children in the category under consideration and their normally developing peers. In the most pronounced cases, they manifest themselves in the absence of the orientation stage, lack of understanding of the hierarchical relationship between the whole and its parts (when solving problems of visual-effective and visual-figurative types), difficulty in mentally operating with images, impulsiveness, low level of analytical-synthetic activity, insufficient formation of mental operations, insufficient focus of activities.

The study involved children in the middle of primary school age, but some of the identified characteristics appear later.

Based on a number of indicators, T.V. Egorova identified four levels of solving problems of a visual-effective nature and showed that normally developing children perform tasks at the fourth (31.2%), the highest, and third (68.8%) levels. Among children with mental retardation, only 6% were assigned to the fourth level, 24% to the third level, 46% to the second level and 24% to the lowest, first level.

Among the mentally retarded children participating in the study, there was not a single one whose task performance would correspond to the high levels - the fourth and third levels. 52.2% of them corresponded to the second level in terms of features and results of problem solving, and 47.8% to the first level.

An analysis of the qualitative features of solving mental problems indicates significant differences between children with mental retardation both from normally developing children and from mentally retarded children.

It should be noted that the studies described were conducted on children with mental retardation, who in the vast majority of cases did not attend special preschool educational institutions for children of this category. Recent studies, which require further verification, suggest that children who have undergone such preparation for school may achieve greater improvements in performance in typically developing children.

Studying the mental activity of children with mental retardation makes it possible to see the most important component of their general characteristics - significant potential. Thus, studying the abilities of primary schoolchildren with mental retardation to analyze a visually presented object (a color image of a cherry twig was offered) in comparison with how their normally developing and mentally retarded peers do it, T.V. Egorova showed that the actual capabilities of children with retardation mental development is quite limited and closer to the current level of development of mentally retarded people than of normally developing people. However, after short-term training in another image as to which features can be highlighted, children with mental retardation significantly approach the indicators of normally developing children and move away from the indicators of mentally retarded children.

Table 4 presents the average indicators of each group of examined children.

Table 4. Results of analysis of a visually presented object

It is important to note that the relative magnitude of advancement (i.e., the magnitude of the zone of proximal development as a percentage relative to the indicator of the current level of development) is greatest in children with mental retardation, although the absolute value (6 signs) is greater in normally developing schoolchildren.

Features of speech development

Speech is of extreme importance and versatility in the development of a child’s psyche. First of all, it is a means of communication in all its diversity of forms.

At the same time, it plays a crucial role in cognitive activity, acting both as a means (in particular, as an instrument of mental activity), and as a material (words, concepts) of cognition, and as a material basis for consolidating and preserving the information received. Thus, speech serves as a means of introducing the child to the experience accumulated by humanity.

No less important is the regulating function of speech, which is important both in controlling the child’s activities by the people around him (primarily adults), and in the formation of self-regulation of behavior.

Simple observations show that children with mental retardation at the beginning of school age do not experience difficulties at the level of basic everyday communication with adults and peers. They know the everyday vocabulary and grammatical forms necessary for this. However, the expansion of the vocabulary of addressed speech beyond the framework of repeatedly repeated everyday topics leads to a misunderstanding of some questions and instructions asked to the child, containing words whose meaning is unknown or not clear enough to the child, or grammatical forms that he has not mastered. Difficulties in understanding may also be associated with pronunciation deficiencies, which are quite often observed in children with mental retardation. These shortcomings are usually not significant, mainly boiling down to vagueness, “blurredness” of speech, but they lead to defects in the analysis of the perceived speech material, which in turn leads to a lag in the formation of linguistic generalizations. As a result, children often, even knowing the right word, cannot use it or use it incorrectly. This is associated with a significant number of errors and agrammatisms in their speech.

Naturally, speech deficiencies affect not only communication, but also the cognitive activity of children, which, being impaired to some extent initially, is further weakened (secondarily) by speech deficiencies.

Secondary difficulties in cognitive activity associated with speech impairments slow down the intellectual development of children in preschool age, but are especially noticeable at the beginning of schooling: they manifest themselves both directly in a lack of understanding of educational material and in difficulties in mastering reading and writing. There are also difficulties in mastering new forms of speech: narration, reasoning.

Let us characterize separately different aspects of speech development.

Pronunciation and phonemic awareness

Neither teachers working with children with mental retardation nor researchers detect gross violations of pronunciation and phonemic hearing in them. For most children, the pronunciation of individual sounds is correct, but in general it is not clear enough, which creates “blurred” speech, the presence of which has already been noted above. Pronunciation defects can be caused by various reasons: they may reflect insufficient differentiation of connections within the speech motor analyzer, but they may also be a consequence of insufficient feedback, i.e., they may be determined by defects in phonemic hearing.

Data obtained by V.I. Nasonova (1979) indicate that manifestations of some deficiency of phonemic hearing are observed in approximately 63% of children with mental retardation studying in grades 1-3 of a special school. Moreover, in 50% of children they turn out to be very mildly expressed, and only in 13% of those examined there are more significant difficulties in isolating and pronouncing acoustically and articulatory similar sounds.

Deficiencies in children's articulation, making children's speech insufficiently understandable, can have a negative impact on the development of their activity in communication and slow it down. The possibility of such a reverse influence is indicated by A. Hayden et al. (A. Hayden, R. Smith & C. SaarvonHippel, 1978).

It should be noted, however, that in most cases these defects are eliminated during the learning process in the primary grades.

Such dynamics of defects in pronunciation and phonemic hearing are indicated both by the just mentioned American authors and by V.I. Nasonova (1979), who received a certain quantitative characteristic of this dynamics. Offering schoolchildren with mental retardation tasks for the auditory analysis of sound rhythmic complexes, she found that if among first-graders the number of children experiencing severe difficulties in auditory analysis is 23.5%, then in the second grade there are 20% of them, and in the third - only 13.3% of the number of children examined. This dynamics is the result of all the correctional work in a special school.

Dictionary

The shortcomings of the vocabulary of children with mental retardation, its poverty, are manifested both in the small number of words they use (the active vocabulary is especially narrow), and in the fact that the words used by children have either too limited a meaning, or, on the contrary, an overly broad and undifferentiated meaning. . Sometimes words are used in a completely inadequate meaning.

The stock of words denoting the properties and characteristics of objects is especially limited. A special study conducted by E.S. Slepovich (1978) showed that, despite the general limited number of adjectives in the speech of children with mental retardation, the number of different semantic groups of adjectives is especially small. In children's speech there are mainly adjectives denoting the color, size and shape of objects, and less often - the material from which they are made. Often, instead of adjectives of the latter type, children use nouns with a preposition (“a fence made of boards” instead of “a board fence”). There are very few evaluative adjectives, and mainly children use, often unreasonably, a small number of adjectives with a broad, undifferentiated meaning (“beautiful”, “good”, etc.).

A study conducted by O.N. Kovalenko (2002) also indicates the poverty of the semantic fields of lexical units in the vocabulary of primary schoolchildren with mental retardation. An essential feature of the active vocabulary of children with mental retardation is the almost complete absence of words that are used relatively rarely, but give originality to the individual vocabulary. Such words, in particular, include most evaluative adjectives.

One of the most common categories of words in children's speech are nouns. Their use by children with mental retardation also has a certain originality. S.G. Shevchenko (1972, 1978) found that their speech lacks a number of nouns denoting specific objects from the immediate environment (some food products, educational subjects, animals, etc.). The content of the concepts denoted by the available words also differs significantly from that characteristic of normally developing children. Often it includes unimportant features in the absence of defining ones. This leads to significant difficulties and errors in the classification and grouping of objects. At the same time, it is discovered that in some cases the stock of words denoting generic concepts is especially poor, in others there are no words (or few of them) denoting generic concepts and classes of objects and phenomena. All these features often lead to the erroneous use of nouns and their incorrect correlation with objects in the surrounding world. Undoubtedly, speech understanding may be defective for the same reasons.

Similar shortcomings are observed in the use and understanding of verbs. Some researchers have noted that children may have difficulty understanding frequently used words such as “put,” “jump,” “sit,” “run,” and “peep” that occur in context (A. Hayden et al., 1978). The authors attribute this observation to children defined as having learning difficulties, but it is known that this concept, accepted in the West, primarily includes children with mental retardation.

A study by R.D. Triger (1984) showed that the majority of students with mental retardation do not separate verbs from words denoting objects and their attributes (“cooked fish soup,” “gave it to my sister,” “snow came”). Such syncretism is observed in normally developing children only in preschool age.

Significant difficulties are noted in the use and understanding of prepositions, especially those denoting spatial and temporal relationships - “due to”, “through”, “from under”, “behind”, “between”, “before”, “after”, etc. d. To a large extent, this is due to the shortcomings of cognitive activity and the limited experience of children, the consequence of which is the underdevelopment or extreme limitation of their spatial and temporal concepts and ideas. In children's spontaneous speech, many of these prepositions are completely absent.

The poverty of the vocabulary of children with mental retardation convincingly appears and receives a certain quantitative characteristic when examined using standardized Wechsler children's tests, where one of the subtests is aimed directly at assessing the volume of vocabulary. A study by G. B. Shaumarov (1979) showed that the scores on the “Vocabulary” subtest are the lowest among both the entire group of “verbal” subtests and among all subtests in general. Their relative level on this subtest turns out to be lower than on tests that include mental tasks (“Ingenuity”, “Analogies - similarities”, etc.). The average score on this subtest for both first-graders and second-grade students with mental retardation is in the range of indicators characteristic of mental retardation (83.8% of first-graders and 51.3% of second-graders received scores on this subtest that were in the range of mental retardation ).

These data indicate both that limited vocabulary is one of the weakest aspects of the mental development of children in the category under consideration, and that special training for these children has a very noticeable effect: in one year of training, more than 30% of children have vocabulary indicators increased enough to leave the range of mental retardation.

These results also indicate the need to further strengthen work on the development of vocabulary in children of this category. Such work is of utmost importance not only directly for enriching children’s speech, but also for the development of their logical thinking, for which words-concepts serve as material.

Grammatical structure of speech

Let us dwell, first of all, on word formation and inflection, the mastery of which is of utmost importance for the development of grammatical structure, the development of speech in general, as well as for mastering the rules of grammar and spelling.

Methods of word formation in children of this category, as shown by studies by E.S. Slepovich and R.D. Triger, coincide with those observed in normally developing children: the use of suffixes to transform words. This is how they differ from mentally retarded children. Among the independently transformed words, as in normal children, nouns predominate. However, if normally developing children are characterized by approximately twice as frequent formation of nouns with an independent meaning (sea-sailor) than nouns with one or another connotation (bridge - bridge), then in children with mental retardation both of these forms of word formation appear approximately in equally. They form adjectives significantly less than normally developing children, and only in the formation of cognate verbs are they approximately at the same level as normally developing schoolchildren.

When studying word formation in schoolchildren with mental retardation, a fairly significant number of words were revealed that are not found when normally developing children perform such tasks. Particular attention should be paid to the formation of neologisms - words that are not usually used in speech, created by the children themselves. In some cases, such words are formed when a child, transforming a word, identifies a root morpheme (jump - jump, paint - kras), in others, neologisms arise as a result of an unusual combination of morphemes. For example, having correctly formed the diminutive form “bridge” from the word “bridge,” the child then uses this suffix, illegally forming the derivatives “grozik” and “solik” from the words “thunderstorm” and “salt.” The roots of words are easily combined by children with other suffixes that are usually not combined with them, resulting in such neologisms as “grozaki”, “grozilka”, “groznik” (from the word “thunderstorm”), “krasnik” (from the word “to paint” "), etc.

The period of word creation (including the formation of neologisms) is a normal phenomenon in the process of speech development in preschool childhood (“from two to five”) and usually ends in older preschool age. In children with mental retardation, this phenomenon is observed even in the second year of school.

The insufficient development of the grammatical structure of the speech of children with mental retardation may not be detected in spontaneous speech and therefore is often noticed only when the child begins schooling. It manifests itself in difficulties in mastering new forms of speech - narration and reasoning and appears in situations that require detailed speech statements. As A.R. Luria (1963) notes in relation to speech disorders in adults, it is the inability to move on to a coherent, detailed statement that indicates serious defects in the grammatical structure of the patient’s speech.

A number of features of the acquisition of the grammatical structure of the native language are considered in a special study by L. V. Yassman (1976). It has been shown that errors in the grammatical construction of independent speech are observed in children with mental retardation more often than in normally developing primary schoolchildren. If the latter had errors in a third of the sentences they composed, then in children with mental retardation - in half.

Children had to independently construct sentences from words given in the original form, which required preliminary comprehension of a set of words followed by grammatical formation into a sentence. Naturally, in some cases, shortcomings in sentence construction could be associated with difficulties in comprehending a set of words (see Table 5).

The differences between children with mental retardation and those who are normally developing become even more significant when composing sentences is facilitated by the ability to rely on the story picture offered to the child when comprehending a set of words. Under these conditions, normally developing children constructed 83% of sentences grammatically correctly, in That while children with mental retardation are only 63% (see Table 6).

As can be seen from a comparison of the number of correctly composed sentences by children with normal development and with mental retardation, with and without support from a picture (Tables 5 and 6), assistance in comprehending a set of words leads to an increase in the number of correctly composed sentences by children with mental retardation in to a lesser extent than normally developing ones (by 12% compared to 18.3%). This quite convincingly indicates that it is not so much comprehension, i.e. It is not intellectual difficulties, but rather insufficient knowledge of the grammatical structure of the language and its patterns that is the cause of a large number of errors in statements in children of the described category.

Table 5. Results of the task of composing a sentence from a set of words, %

The lag in speech development, as shown by the studies of G.B. Shaumarov, K.K. Mamedov and others, persists throughout the school education of children with mental retardation.

Table 6. Results of the task of composing sentences from a set of words based on a picture, %

Completing the task	Distribution of answers among children
Completing the task	normally developing	with mental retardation	mentally retarded
Correct
Incorrect
Refusal to compile

Features of the emotional-volitional sphere and personality

Giving the most general characteristics of younger schoolchildren with mental retardation, one should highlight emotional lability, weakness of volitional efforts, lack of independence and suggestibility, and personal immaturity in general.

Emotional lability is manifested in instability of moods and emotions, their rapid change, easy occurrence of emotional excitement or crying, and sometimes unmotivated manifestations of affect. Children often experience anxiety.

Inappropriate cheerfulness and cheerfulness appear, rather, as a manifestation of excitability, inability to assess the situation and the mood of others.

Among children with mental retardation of cerebral-organic origin, I.F. Markovskaya (1994) identifies groups with manifestations of mental instability and mental inhibition.

Children of the first group are noisy and active: during breaks and walks they climb trees, ride on railings, scream loudly, try to participate in the games of other children, but, not knowing how to follow the rules, they quarrel and interfere with others. With adults they can be affectionate and even annoying, but they easily come into conflict, being rude and loud. Their feelings of remorse and resentment are shallow and short-lived.

With mental retardation, along with personal immaturity, lack of independence, indecision, timidity, and slowness are especially manifested. Symbiotic attachment to parents leads to difficulties adjusting to school. Such children often cry, miss home, avoid active games, get lost at the board and often do not answer, even if they know the correct answer. Low grades and comments can make them cry.

All younger schoolchildren with mental retardation are characterized by frequent manifestations of restlessness and anxiety. At school there is a state of tension, constraint, passivity, and lack of self-confidence (O.V. Frolova, 2001).

Examining former graduates of schools for children with mental retardation, G.B. Shaumarov discovered some rigidity of feelings and underdevelopment of their emotional sphere in general (1990). This manifests itself in the relationships of such children with loved ones.

Younger schoolchildren with mental retardation lag behind normally developing children in terms of the development of voluntary behavior. Much more often than their typically developing peers, they exhibit impulsive behavior.

According to L.V. Kuznetsova (1986), the level of voluntary regulation of behavior in them depends on the complexity of the activity, especially on the complexity of the programming link and the presence of a conflict situation (for example, if it is necessary to act in accordance with a mental plan, contrary to the external conditions of the activity).

The greatest difficulties in the process of developing voluntary activity while studying in a special school are caused by the formation of control over one’s own activity. An important role in this is played by manual labor in primary school, and especially labor in school workshops (E.N. Khokhlina, 2001).

The personality development of children in this category is distinguished by significant originality. They are characterized by low self-esteem and lack of self-confidence (especially among schoolchildren who studied at a general school for some time before special school).

At high school age, schoolchildren with mental retardation exhibit a number of personality traits that are common to those observed in normally developing adolescents. This is weakness, vulnerability of the individual, high extrapunitive reactions with aggression to the environment, leading to conflict;

incorrectness in relationships with others; severity of self-protective reactions; presence of signs of character accentuation. But unlike their normally developing peers, their reactions of self-affirmation and self-determination, characteristic of this age, are weakly expressed. There is no urgent need to unite with peers; adults remain more significant for them.

These features were established in the study of E.G. Dzugkoeva (1999), who also notes that in a favorable situation, in particular in a special school, adolescents with mental retardation are quite obedient, controllable and obey the general rules of behavior. This applies to the greatest extent to adolescents who studied in a special school from the very beginning. This is explained by their satisfaction with their position.

The beneficial effect of teaching children with mental retardation in differentiated conditions (i.e. in a special school) is confirmed by the study of I.A. Koneva (2002), who, comparing the formation of the image I in younger adolescents with mental retardation studying in a special school and classes of correctional and developmental education at a regular school, showed that, despite the delay in the formation of the image I and its infantility, adolescents studying in a special school do not show a tendency to negative self-characteristics, do not develop attitudes towards addictive forms of behavior, thoughts about death, and do not have an orientation towards the use of force, which is found in adolescents studying in classes of correctional and developmental education.

Test questions and assignments

1. Define the concept of “mental retardation” and explain the reasons for this phenomenon.

2. How is the clinical classification of mental retardation constructed?

3. Describe the manifestations of mental retardation at an early age and the problems of early diagnosis.

4. What are the general features of behavior and activity of preschool children with mental retardation?

5. Tell us about the features of preschoolers’ motor skills.

6. How do the perception and attention of preschoolers with mental retardation differ?

7. Describe the memory features of preschool children with developmental delays.

8. What are the features of the development of mental activity of children with mental retardation in preschool age?

9. Tell us about the speech development of preschool children with developmental delays.

10. How does the play activity of children with mental retardation develop?

11. What are the features of the emotional-volitional sphere of preschoolers with developmental delays?

12. What is the problem of school readiness with mental retardation?

13. What is the specificity of the perception of schoolchildren with developmental delays?

14. Describe the uniqueness of the memory of schoolchildren with developmental delays.

15. What are the dynamics of the development of thinking at school age?

16. Tell us about the speech characteristics of younger schoolchildren with mental retardation.

17. Describe the characteristics of emotions and personality of schoolchildren.

18. Describe the main features of the dynamics of the development of mental activity during mental retardation.

Literature

Main

Children with mental retardation. - M., 1984.

Egorova T.V. Peculiarities of memory and thinking of younger schoolchildren with developmental delays. - M., 1973.

Markovskaya I. F. Mental retardation: clinical and neuropsychiatric diagnosis. -M., 1993.

Teaching children with mental retardation. - M., 1981.

Teaching children with intellectual disabilities: (oligophrenopedagogy): Proc. manual // B. P. Puzanov, N. P. Konyaeva, B. B. Gorsky and others; Ed. B. P. Puzanova. - M., 2000.

Slepovich E. S. Play activity of preschool children with mental retardation. - M., 1990.

Ulienkova U.V. Six-year-old children with mental retardation. - M., 1990.

Additional

Current problems in diagnosing mental retardation.-M., 1982.

Boryakova N. Yu. On some features of the construction of speech utterances of 6-year-old children with mental retardation // Defectology. - 1983.-No. 3.

Dzugkoeva E. T. Communication as a condition for social adaptation of adolescents with mental retardation and without developmental disabilities // Defectology. - 1999. - No. 2.

Domishkevich S. A. Productivity and dynamic features of mental activity of children with mental retardation // Defectology. - 1972. - No. 4.

Zharenkova G. I. Actions of children with mental retardation based on models and verbal instructions // Defectology. - 1972. - No. 4.

Kalmykova 3. I. Features of the genesis of productive thinking in children with mental retardation // Defectology. - 1978. - No. 3.

Nasonova V.I. Features of interanalyzer connections and their role in the acquisition of reading and writing skills by children with mental retardation // Defectology. - 1979. - No. 2.

Teaching children with mental retardation in the preparatory class. - M., 1987.

Poddubnaya N. G. The originality of involuntary memory processes in first-graders with mental retardation // Defectology. - 1980. - No. 4.

Strekalova T. A. Features of logical thinking of preschoolers with mental retardation // Defectology. - 1982. - No. 4.

Slepovich E.S. Speech formation in preschool children with mental retardation. - Minsk, 1983.

Triger R.D. Orientation in children with mental retardation in grammatical material // Defectology. - 1981. - No. 2.

Shevchenko S. G. Peculiarities of knowledge and ideas about the immediate environment in first-graders with mental retardation // Defectology. - 1979. - No. 6.

Shaumarov G. B. To assess the importance of intellectual tests in the diagnosis and study of children with intellectual disabilities // Defectology. - 1974. - No. 1.

Six-year-old children: Issues and research. - N. Novgorod, 1998

Mental retardation- an extreme variant of the norm, one of the types of dysontogenesis (disorders of ontogenetic development). Children with this diagnosis develop more slowly than their peers over several age periods. Developmental delays appear early. Its initial cause may be alcoholism of the parents, illness of the mother during pregnancy, birth injuries, infections suffered in the first months of life, and some other harmful factors that cause mild organic failure of the central nervous system. In Western psychology and neuropathology, this phenomenon is called minimal brain dysfunction.

Mental retardation does not apply to persistent and irreversible types of mental underdevelopment: This is a temporary slowdown in the rate of development. The lag is overcome with age, and the more successfully the earlier correctional work with the child begins. Timely diagnosis and the creation of special conditions for education and training are very important. The best results in correctional work can be obtained when the child has not yet reached primary school age; classes with preschoolers are most effective. Unfortunately, parents often do not notice or do not attach importance to developmental delays before the child enters school. It is only at the beginning of training that immaturity of thinking and the emotional sphere, limited ideas and knowledge, and insufficient intellectual activity are revealed. The young student is unable to master the curriculum and becomes a failure.

With mental retardation There are disturbances in both the emotional-need and intellectual spheres. But in some cases, emotional underdevelopment predominates, in others - disorders of cognitive activity. In general, the group of children with developmental delays is heterogeneous. Isolated most often two subgroups: children with mental retardation of constitutional origin (mental or psychophysical infantilism) and children with developmental retardation of cerebral-organic origin.

With developmental delay of constitutional origin younger schoolchildren even look similar to children of an earlier age - preschoolers. They are often physically less developed than their peers; they are distinguished by vivid emotional reactions, childlike spontaneity, greater suggestibility, lack of independence, and playful interests. The infantilism of the psyche does not give them the opportunity to adapt to the learning conditions - to engage in long-term intellectual activity in the classroom and obey school rules of behavior. In 1st grade, children try to play during classes and violate discipline. As an example, we give excerpts from the characteristics of a child with mental infantilism.

“Alyosha A., 7.5 years old, entered the diagnostic group of the Institute of Defectology from the 1st grade of a public school. The complaints noted a complete lack of interest in school activities, significant learning difficulties, general restlessness and indiscipline. According to information received from the mother, it is known that the boy was born premature (7.5 months), was artificially fed, suffered chickenpox and whooping cough at an early age, had a metabolic disorder (diathesis), and the development of motor skills and speech was somewhat delayed...

Alyosha went to school at the age of 7, where from the very first days his complete unpreparedness for schooling was revealed: he did not understand the school situation, walked around during class, played with school supplies, asked inappropriate questions, and showed no interest in school activities. did not assimilate the material... During his stay in the diagnostic group, a number of features emerged in Alyosha’s behavior and cognitive activity. He started his studies extremely reluctantly and could concentrate on them only for a very short period of time, and then only with the help of a teacher. During classes, he fidgeted, took out books, a pen, a pencil and played with them. During the lesson he chatted, asked a lot of questions, and did not listen to the answer. With childish spontaneity, he made comments to the students, asked for toys and permission to play. He was active in the game, but preferred active noisy games. In terms of his physical development, Alyosha lagged behind age norms and looked like a preschooler” (Vlasova T. A., Pevzner M. S., 1967, pp. 78-80).

Mental retardation of cerebral-organic origin turns out to be, as a rule, the most severe. Insufficient development of memory and attention, inertia of mental processes, their slowness and reduced switching ability cause significant impairments in cognitive activity. Unproductive thinking, lack of meaningful generalizations and underdevelopment of individual intellectual operations lead to the fact that sometimes children with developmental delays are incorrectly diagnosed with mental retardation.

“Nadya T., 8 years old, 2nd grade student at a auxiliary school. The girl comes from a family with a hereditary burden. The father is an alcoholic, the paternal grandfather died in a mental hospital, and the father's sister was mentally retarded. There is no inheritance on the mother's side...

At the age of 7, Nadya went to school, where from the very beginning she turned out to have difficult behavior. She did not obey school requirements, did not participate in classes, walked around the classroom during lessons, fought with children, went out into the corridor, had breakfast in class, and played with toys that she brought from home. During the entire first quarter, I did not learn a single letter or numerical order. The girl's range of ideas was extremely poor, her vocabulary was limited, although she had no speech defects. By the end of the first quarter, Nadya was sent for examination to a neuropsychiatrist. The latter noted that the girl had a decrease in mental abilities, insufficient orientation in her surroundings and a lack of basic school skills. Based on this, a diagnosis of mental retardation was made, and Nadya was sent to the 1st grade of a auxiliary school...

In the 1st grade, the teacher noticed that the girl was learning the material better than other students, and taught her according to an advanced individual plan. At the beginning of the second year of study, the teacher had doubts about Nadya’s mental retardation.

In this regard, the girl was sent for a medical and pedagogical examination...
The dynamics of development that emerged in Nadya show that the diagnosis of mental retardation and the subsequent transfer of the girl to a auxiliary school were erroneous. It is characterized only by a temporary delay in development” (Vlasova T. A., Pevzner M. S., 1967, pp. 83-85).

Children with developmental delay of cerebral-organic origin are often disinhibited and hyperexcitable; lethargy and emotional lethargy are less common. They may experience neurosis-like phenomena (fears, obsessive movements, stuttering, enuresis), unmotivated mood swings. Cerebroasthenic phenomena are common. This is increased exhaustion, a sharp decrease in performance, as well as vulnerability, tearfulness, and decreased mood. Let's give another example.

“Sasha A., 11 years old, a 3rd grade student at a public school, was sent to a children’s nervous sanatorium due to headaches, increased fatigue, stuttering and a sharp decline in school performance...

At pre-preschool age, the boy had a slight developmental delay. From 9 months to 2.5 years, Sasha suffered from a number of childhood infectious diseases - whooping cough, measles, chickenpox and diphtheria twice... From the age of 3, Sasha developed a stutter...

Sasha entered school at the age of 7.5... The boy did not remember letters well and for a long time could not master syllabic reading. Writing was especially difficult for him. Sasha was transferred to 2nd grade, although he did not have sufficient knowledge and skills. In the 2nd grade, at the end of the first quarter, Sasha fell from the third floor, receiving a serious injury - a fracture of both arms, a jaw and a concussion... Since he was very behind in his studies, he was returned to the 1st grade, from which he was transferred to the 2nd. In 2nd grade, Sasha performed poorly in all subjects except reading, which he was interested in, but he was nevertheless transferred to 3rd grade. Here Sasha...could not cope with the program material at all...

The boy, due to the rapid onset of fatigue during training sessions, does not retain in his mind the phrase dictated to him, makes absurd mistakes in writing, does not remember the terms of the tasks, mechanically manipulates digital data, poses questions that do not correspond to the actions performed, and does not analyze the results obtained.

Sasha spent 3 months in a psychoneurological sanatorium... It was not possible to achieve complete elimination of all symptoms of cerebral asthenia in such a short period of time. This is understandable, since Sasha had a slight developmental delay from early childhood; it was aggravated by the development of a stutter and then a concussion. Subsequently, this was accompanied by great pedagogical neglect” (Vlasova T. A., Pevzner M. S., 1967, pp. 98-100).

In addition to these two variants of developmental delay (constitutional and cerebral-organic origin), others are sometimes identified. K. S. Lebedinskaya considers also mental retardation of somatogenic origin(appearing with chronic infections and allergies, heart defects, etc.) and psychogenic origin (associated with unfavorable upbringing conditions). It should be emphasized that a slowdown in the rate of mental development and the occurrence of deviations in the development of a child’s personality are possible only with prolonged and serious somatic insufficiency and extremely unfavorable upbringing, leading to pathological personality formation. Usually in other, less severe cases, only pedagogical neglect is observed, which does not represent a pathological phenomenon.