Psychological and pedagogical diagnostics and correction of perceptual characteristics in preschool children with mental retardation. Features of the development of visual forms of perception in preschool children with mental retardation Characteristics of perception in children with mental retardation
Sections: Working with preschoolers
Many psychological studies and guidelines for teaching children with delayed psychological development note that complications in recognizing colors and their verbal expression create difficulties when school-age children master the basics of some disciplines: mathematics, Russian language, natural science, geography, visual arts. All this hinders the further education of children with mental retardation.
It has been established that with mental retardation (hereinafter referred to as DSD), the idea of sensory standards in preschool children is formed only in the conditions of special work. It has also been established that 30-40% of children attending a correctional institution cannot independently distinguish colors. The reason for this is an organic lesion of the central nervous system, which underlies the mental retardation (except for the mental retardation, which is due to pedagogical neglect). Organic lesions can involve the central and peripheral parts of the visual analyzer, which leads to a decrease in visual acuity and the manifestation of some features of visual perception of such children - slowness, narrowness, undifferentiation, inactivity, and impaired color discrimination. Consequently, color abnormalities in children with mental retardation are more common than in children with an intact central nervous system.
The pace of visual perception in children with mental retardation is slower. Apparently, the longer duration of perception of objects in these children is explained by the slowness of the processes of analysis and synthesis in the cerebral cortex.
As noted above, the reflection of the totality of perceived information plays an important role in perception. A quick glance, which in an instant runs over several objects and lingers on only a few, as well as a “look around”, which allows you to familiarize yourself with the situation in order to then fix your gaze on the essential, is possible only on the condition that the child does not perceive more or less vague spots, but correctly recognize objects. This is possible thanks to the child’s extraordinary speed of perception of objects, which he achieves with normal development by the age of 2.5-3 years.
Children with mental retardation, due to the slowness of their perception, do not have the same capabilities as their normally developing peers. Since children with mental retardation develop less varied sensations, when viewing their surroundings, these children do not single out objects that differ little in color from those on which or in front of which they are located.
Inactivity of perception is the most pronounced feature of children with mental retardation. Looking at any object, such a child does not show the desire to examine it in all details, to understand all its properties. He is content with the most general recognition of the subject. The inactive nature of perception is also evidenced by the inability of children with mental retardation to peer, search and find any objects, selectively examine any part of the surrounding world, distracting from the bright and attractive aspects of what they perceive that are unnecessary at the moment.
The above-mentioned features of perception are taken into account in the process of training and education of preschool children with mental retardation. By developing the process of perception in my pupils, I not only teach them to identify a group of sensations, but also teach them to comprehend this image, understand it, drawing on the children’s past experience, even though it is not rich. In other words, the development of perception does not occur without the development of memory and thinking.
By enriching a child’s experience, it is very important to teach him to look and see, listen and hear, feel and perceive with all his analyzers and their totality. Enriching the life experience of children, expanding the range of their knowledge (in classes to familiarize themselves with the environment and develop speech, on excursions, musical evenings) are the main means of improving the quality of perception. The organization and conduct of classes on the correction and development of color perception in children with mental retardation is carried out taking into account the medical and psychological-pedagogical characteristics, as well as taking into account the results of the ascertaining (primary) diagnosis. The classes I have developed are built taking into account the psychological characteristics of children, namely: passivity of perception, narrowness and instability of attention, poverty of vocabulary, inferiority of sensory experience caused by intellectual deficiency, etc. Classes are based on a synthesis of painting, music, words, which includes the main range of educational, educational and correctional development tasks.
The main ones of these tasks are:
1. Introducing children to primary and secondary colors.
2. Learning to distinguish primary and secondary colors, selecting the desired color from many other colors.
3. Formation of skills to name primary and secondary colors, analyze the color of an object, differentiate and compare objects by color.
4. Select and convey in the drawing the colors of real-life objects.
5. Formation of interest in working with color.
6. Formation of the concepts “Warm colors”, “Cool colors”.
7. Formation in children of ideas about the colorful world around us. These ideas are clarified during classes, concretized in the process of observations, excursions, and conversations.
8. Acquaintance with the peculiarities of the influence of color on emotional mood.
Correction and development tasks:
1. Development and correction of perception in children with mental retardation.
2. Development and correction of fine motor skills.
3. Enrichment of vocabulary and expansion of horizons.
4. Activation of mental processes.
In classes on the correction and development of color perception, children are offered various games and exercises with primary and secondary colors, making crafts from multi-colored materials, as well as making drawings using various visual media (colored pencils, crayons, gouache, watercolors). The knowledge acquired in classes is reinforced in everyday life, that is, throughout the day, as well as in individual lessons.
Each subgroup lesson is based on the idea of a “journey” of children into a colored fairy tale, where children get acquainted with different colors, perform tasks on discrimination, naming, systematization, differentiation, analysis of colored objects and pictures. Colored fairy tales are told to children calmly, smoothly, and the most significant moments are intoned. The journey into a fairy tale has musical accompaniment, which acts as a background in various situations of the lesson. Phonograms of the sound of the surf, birdsong, the sound of rain, and the murmur of a stream are used as musical accompaniment. As is known, children with mental retardation do not acquire new knowledge and skills immediately, but over a long period of time. Therefore, all classes on the topic “Color” are aimed at children learning the same skill, that is, the ability to distinguish and name colors.
It is very important that during classes on the topic “Color” children work together with the teacher, explanation and work proceeds in stages. When conducting classes this way, children, listening to the teacher’s explanations, sequentially move from one stage to another. Thanks to the explanation, imitation is not mechanical in nature: the child understands what he is going for and tries to complete the task assigned to him as best as possible.
Each specific lesson uses its own colorfully designed material, united by a common color - the basis of the stimulus material. For example, getting into a purple fairy tale, children encounter purple objects: violet, grapes, eggplant, plum, performing different actions with them: drawing these objects, coloring outline images with colored materials; distribute objects according to their colors into groups, which helps the child feel the idea of classifying objects by color. Considering that the sensory experience of these children is not fixed by them in words for a long time, it is necessary to choose some image that is consonant with the name of a particular color, for example: in a purple fairy tale, Princess Fi lives, purple violets grow:
“The Violet Tale”.
Goal: to introduce children to the color purple.
1. Consolidate knowledge of the name of the color purple.
2. Teach children to identify a purple object from a variety of multi-colored objects.
3. Strengthen children's interest in working with color.
4. Develop children's imagination.
5. Develop fine motor skills.
I. In a purple country, in a purple palace, there lived a little princess. And her name was Princess Fi. Everything in this country was purple: houses, trees, and even food was purple.
In the mornings, purple birds flew to the windows of the purple palace and woke up Princess Fi with their gentle singing. The princess woke up, opened the window and fed the purple birds with pistachios. Fi was a kind, but very capricious girl - everything was wrong for her: they would bring her a purple dress - the princess stomps her feet: “I don’t want it!” They put purple porridge for breakfast - the princess cries, sobs: “Oh, I don’t like it!”
There was only one thing that made the little princess happy - the garden in the courtyard of the purple palace. Fi loved to walk through her purple garden. There were purple eggplants growing in the beds, purple violets blooming in the flower beds, purple plums and bunches of purple grapes hanging from the trees. Little Princess Fi took a purple watering can and watered her garden.
II. Would you guys like to go to the purple kingdom?
– Do you remember what the little princess’s name was?
– What color was her palace?
– What else was purple in this kingdom?
– What grew in the garden?
– What color is eggplant, grape, violet, plum?
III. Games and tasks for consolidation. Game: “Confusion.”
Equipment: pictures with images of animals, plants, etc., which are painted in colors that are uncharacteristic for them.
Progress of the game: children are shown a picture - “Confusion”. They need to look at it carefully and cross out the objects colored incorrectly.
Exercise:I will tell you an object and its color, if an object of that color exists, clap your hands:
– purple apple
– red fox
– blue cucumber
– purple eggplant
The teacher gives the children cards with outline images of objects.
Exercise: Choose a purple pencil from the set and color only those objects that are purple. The drawing is pasted into the workbook as a keepsake of the purple fairy tale.
Insufficient understanding of color by children with mental retardation as a constant (conventional) feature of many surrounding objects requires increased attention to working with natural objects in the classroom. At the same time, the color of objects is shown in comparison so that children can name objects by color and find similarities and differences. As classes progress, color in children’s understanding becomes inherent not only to individual objects, but is also generalized. Such knowledge about color in the classroom is acquired visually, which corresponds to the thinking characteristics of preschoolers with mental retardation.
This methodological complex does not exclude work using other methods, but complements and develops them, contributing to the formation of color perception in the visual activities of children with mental retardation.
The implementation of this material requires the maximum efforts of all teachers who need to consistently implement interdisciplinary connections in various areas of work - both general developmental and correctional. This, in my opinion, should help to reveal the potential color perception of children with mental retardation.
Correctional and developmental training was carried out with children of the correctional group aged 5-6 years, numbering 10 people. In the course of the work, it was possible to find out that the process of color perception correction in preschool children with mental retardation is very complex and differs from the process of color perception in intellectually intact children.
Additional colors cause great difficulty in recognizing and naming: orange, purple, brown, pink, blue, gray;
In low-saturated shades, children do not distinguish between their primary color tones and cannot find similarities between saturated and low-saturated shades of the same tone. This is due to the insufficient differentiation of the perception of children with mental retardation, the inability to note subtle differences and nuances of color tone saturation;
When naming colors, preschoolers with mental retardation have a high percentage of replacing some names with others. There are three types of “name transfer”:
a) the name of the primary colors is transferred to additional colors (orange is called yellow or red);
b) combine low-saturated and light shades of various colors under the name “white color”;
c) the name of the color can be derived from the name of the object to which this color belongs (orange - carrot, green - grass).
Preschoolers with mental retardation develop the ability to distinguish and correctly name colors much faster than to use them in their visual activities, in accordance with the actual color of an object.
After a series of formative classes (see Appendix), a control test was carried out. The data obtained during the control section were compared with the data of the ascertaining diagnostics to identify the dynamics of color discrimination in children with mental retardation.
Dynamics of color discrimination (in percent) n = 10.
Name of flowers |
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orange |
violet |
brown |
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The data presented in the table show that after experimental training, the number of children who know the names of primary and secondary colors approached 100%.
Thus, the results of the control section allow us to assert that the goal of the classes has been realized, and the system of work, built on the basis of the author’s fairy tale, the synthesis of painting, words and music, forms the perception of color in preschoolers with mental retardation in general and color discrimination in particular.
The work I have done has shown that the process of developing color perception in preschoolers with mental retardation occurs slowly, with great difficulty. But based on the results of the control section, a conclusion was drawn: in preschoolers with mental retardation, with age and under the influence of specially organized training and upbringing, it is possible to develop and increase the efficiency of color perception. Consequently, spontaneous (without training intervention) development of color perception is unacceptable for children with mental retardation. From the youngest preschool age, it is necessary to specifically guide and manage the process of development of color perception in order to correct the shortcomings of their color discrimination and develop children’s skills in working with color (distinguish, name, differentiate and correctly use them in practical activities).
GAMES TO CONSOLIDATE YOUR KNOWLEDGE ABOUT COLOR AND ITS PROPERTIES.
Game: "What color is the ball?"
Equipment: real balloons of different colors or a flat image of them.
Progress of the game: Look who meets us at the entrance. It's a monkey with a big bunch of balloons. Please note that the monkey does not have two identical balls. Name all the colors of the balls.
Game: "Name the color of the object."
Equipment: Outline, images of objects that have a constant color.
Progress of the game: Any color in nature has its own name - name. Many familiar things are easily recognized by their color. The teacher shows outline images of objects, children must name its color. For example, an orange is orange, a tomato is red, a Christmas tree is green, etc.
Game: "Find an object of the right color."
Equipment: Signal cards of different colors, objects and toys of different colors.
Progress of the game: The teacher shows a signal card of some color, the children say: “I’ll go in all directions and find everything red (green, blue, white, etc.),” they look for, show and name objects of the same color as signal card shown by the teacher.
Game: "Guess what color the clothes are?"
How to play: Children sit in a circle on chairs, one seat is free. The presenter says: “The place next to me on the right is free. I want a girl in a red dress (a boy in a blue shirt, etc.) to take it.” The child who takes the empty seat becomes the leader.
Game: “What color is the missing flower?”
Equipment: Flowers cut out of paper in different colors.
Progress of the game: The teacher places flowers of different colors on the floor. Asks the children to look at them carefully and remember. On command, the children turn away, and the teacher removes one (two, three, etc.) flower and asks: “What color is the flower gone?”
Game: "Forbidden word"
Progress of the game: The teacher asks questions, and the children answer them. Answers may vary, but you should not say the names of the colors of the objects. You need to be extremely careful, as the teacher is trying in every possible way to catch the players. Questions might include: “Is snow white?”, “What color is a fire truck?”, “What is your favorite color?” etc. The child must find such a form of answers in order to comply with the rules of the game. An error is considered if a forbidden word is named or the question is not answered. The child who makes a mistake leaves the game. The winner is the one who answered all the questions correctly, without errors, and stayed.
Game: " Determine the color of the object."
Equipment: signal cards with images of multi-colored blots, object pictures of different colors.
Progress of the game: The teacher lays out multi-colored blots and object pictures face down on the table. Children sit around the table, take turns taking one picture at a time, name the object, determine its color and place it next to the blot of the corresponding color.
Game: "Who can find all the colors first?"
Equipment: drawings made in the form of appliqué from colored paper of different shades, multi-colored squares of the same colors and shades that were used in the appliqué of the drawings.
Progress of the game: Children receive one drawing each. All colored squares are mixed and placed in the middle of the table. At the teacher’s signal, the children begin to match their drawing with squares of the colors and shades that were used in the application of this picture. The winner is the one who is the first to correctly select all the colors and shades for his drawing, and then correctly name all the colors and shades.
Game: "Colored cards".
Equipment: Small rectangular cards of different colors.
How to play: Shuffle the colored cards and deal 6 cards to each player. The rest are stacked. Each player takes turns taking one card from the deck. If the card matches one of those in his hands, he puts these two cards aside, if not, then he takes it for himself. The first one to get rid of all the cards in his hand wins.
Game: "Colored Domino"
Equipment: rectangular cards divided in half and painted in different colors (chips).
How to play: The chips are laid out on the table with the colored side down. Each player gets 6 chips. The player who has two identical colors on his chip, a “double,” starts the game. To the “double”, the participants of the game take turns placing other chips so that the fields match each other in color. You can only place one chip at a time. If the player’s chip does not have a single color that matches the colors on the stake, the player takes one chip from the general pile “at the bazaar” and skips the move. The turn passes to the next player. The first one to lay out all his chips wins.
Game: "Color the picture using the diagram."
Equipment: Outline drawings with coloring schemes and colored pencils.
Progress of the game: The child is given a contour drawing with a diagram according to which he colors it with colored pencils.
Features of the cognitive sphere of children with mental retardation are widely covered in the psychological and pedagogical literature (V. I. Lubovsky, T. P. Artemyeva, S. G. Shevchenko, M. S. Pevzner, etc.). Despite the large number of classifications that have been proposed by various specialists working in this field, they all highlight the general structure of the mental retardation defect, based on the origin of the disorder. With mental retardation, children experience deviations in the intellectual, emotional and personal spheres.
With mental retardation, the main violations of the child’s intellectual level of development are due to insufficient cognitive processes.
Also, with mental retardation in children, violations of all aspects of speech activity are detected: most children suffer from defects in sound pronunciation; have a limited vocabulary; have poor command of grammatical generalizations.
Speech impairments in mental retardation are systemic in nature, as there are difficulties in understanding lexical connections, developing the lexico-grammatical structure of speech, phonemic hearing and phonemic perception, and in the formation of coherent speech. These peculiarities of speech lead to difficulties in the process of mastering reading and writing. Conducted research by V.V. Voronkova and V.G. Petrova showed that with mental retardation, underdevelopment of speech activity directly affects the level of intellectual development. We can distinguish three levels of cognitive prerequisites for speech development:
· the level of intellectual development of the child is reflected in the structure of the semantic field;
· the level of formation of operations of mental activity affects the level of linguistic competence;
· speech activity correlates with the processes of cognitive activity.
The perception of children with mental retardation is superficial; they often miss the essential characteristics of things and objects, while the specificity of perception in children with mental retardation is manifested in its limitation, fragmentation and constancy. In children with mental retardation, the process of formation of interanalyzer connections is slowed down: deficiencies in auditory-visual-motor coordination are noted. Due to the inferiority of visual and auditory perception, children with mental retardation have insufficiently formed spatial-temporal representations. According to a number of foreign psychologists, this lag in the development of perception is one of the reasons for learning difficulties.
Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
Cherepovets State University
Institute of Pedagogy and Psychology
Coursework
“Features of the development of visual forms of perception in preschool children with mental retardation”
Completed
student of group 4KP-22
Elizarova L.G.
I checked
Pepik L.A
Cherepovets 2006
Introduction
The period of preschool childhood is a period of intensive sensory development of the child - improving his orientation in the external properties and relationships of objects and phenomena, in space and time.
Visual perception is especially important. This is a complex work, during which the analysis of a huge number of stimuli acting on the eye is carried out.
The problem of developing and improving visual forms of perception in preschool age, especially in children with mental retardation (MDD), was, is and will always be relevant, because visual perception is closely interconnected with such mental processes as attention, memory and thinking. The more “quality” the process of visual cognition of reality occurs, the more attentive the observer, the more memory he has, the faster and better all types of thinking develop. The accumulated experience of sensory cognition allows you to easily navigate the surrounding reality, quickly and correctly respond to changes in it, i.e. serves as the key to timely and successful socialization of the individual.
On the basis of visual perception, a person’s sensory intellectual and social experience is formed. The shortcomings in his development essentially unify the space of his essential experience.
A low level of development of visual forms of perception sharply reduces the possibility of a child’s successful learning. Correct perception of shape, size, and color is necessary for the effective mastery of many academic subjects at school; the formation of abilities for many types of creative activities also depends on this.
All of the above allows us to judge that the development of visual forms of perception is one of the main components of preschool education, because its insufficient formation will entail serious consequences: underdevelopment of all higher mental functions, and, consequently, a decrease in intellectual and social activity in general. Preventing this is also one of the pressing problems of the modern world, requiring an effective solution, which is what scientists from all countries are working on.
So, the problem of the development of visual perception in children of preschool age was also dealt with by scientists such as F. Frebel, M. Montessori, S.V. Zaporozhets, A.P. Usova, Z.M. Istomina, N.P. Sakkulina, S.V. Mukhina, L.A. Wenger et al., and in children with mental retardation: I.I. Mamaichuk, M.N. Ilyina, M.S. Pevzner, B.N. Bely, T.A. Vlasov, etc.
They made a great contribution to the development of child psychology and defectology. Our research will also be based on the work of these scientists.
So, in order to study the features of the development of visual forms of perception in preschoolers with mental retardation, we conducted a study. It was held on the basis of the MDOU “Kindergarten of compensatory type No. 85 “Iskorka”. Ten children took part in the experiment: eight boys, two girls. All study participants were five to six years old.
The purpose of our work was: to study the features of the development of visual forms of perception in preschool children.
The object of the study was: the development of visual forms of perception in preschool children.
Subject: features of the development of visual forms of perception in preschool children with mental retardation.
During the work, the following tasks were set:
1.analyze literary sources on the issue raised;
2.study the psychological and pedagogical cards of the children participating in the experiment;
.identify features of the development of visual forms of perception in normal preschool children;
.to identify features of the development of visual forms of perception in preschool children with mental retardation;
.compare the features of the development of visual forms of perception in preschool children in normal conditions and with mental retardation;
.select the necessary methods for conducting the experiment;
.draw the necessary conclusions from the work performed.
Working methods:
1.literature analysis;
2.analysis of psychological and pedagogical cards of children with mental retardation;
.monitoring children of this category;
.selection and analysis of methods for the experiment;
.conducting a confirmatory experiment.
The structure of the work is divided into: title page, contents, introduction, in the main part there are two chapters: theoretical and experimental, conclusion, list of references, appendix.
Chapter 1. Features of the development of visual forms of perception in preschool children
1 Features of the development of visual forms of perception in normal preschool children
Already in early childhood, the child accumulates a certain stock of ideas about the various properties of objects, and some of these ideas begin to play the role of images with which the child compares the properties of new objects in the process of their perception.
Sensory abilities develop especially actively in preschool age - the functional capabilities of the body, providing a person with a sense and perception of the world around him and himself. In the development of these abilities, an important place is occupied by the assimilation of sensory standards - generally accepted examples of the external properties of objects. The seven colors of the spectrum and their shades of lightness and saturation are used as sensory standards of color; geometric shapes are used as the standard of form; the metric system of measurements is used as a standard of size.
The assimilation of sensory standards by preschoolers begins with the fact that children become familiar with individual geometric shapes and colors in accordance with the kindergarten program. Such familiarization occurs mainly in the process of mastering various types of productive activities: drawing, designing, modeling, etc. It is necessary for the child to identify those main types of properties that are used as standards from all the others, and begin to compare the properties of various objects with them.
So, below we will give a more detailed description of the main forms of visual perception, i.e. perception of such sensory standards as color, shape, size, and also characterize the features of the development of spatial orientation in children.
1.1 Color perception
During childhood, color discrimination actively develops: its accuracy and subtlety increases. A study conducted by Z.M. Istomina, showed that by the age of two, normally developing children, with direct perception, can clearly distinguish four primary colors - red, blue, green, yellow. Differentiation of intermediate backgrounds - orange, blue and violet - causes difficulties for them. Even three-year-old preschoolers in many cases select only yellow objects using the yellow sample, and both orange and yellow objects using the orange sample; according to the blue sample only blue ones are selected, according to the blue one - both blue and dark blue ones; Children classify both violet and blue objects as the color violet. This is especially evident if the sample is first shown and then hidden and the choice must be made from memory. These facts cannot be explained by the fact that children do not distinguish between yellow and orange, blue and cyan, and do not distinguish purple well. Based on a sample of a familiar color, the choice is made correctly, but based on a sample of an unfamiliar color, it is made incorrectly. The reason is that, having received, for example, a yellow sample, children immediately relate it to the standard they have and recognize it as yellow. After that, they select yellow objects, and the rest, without a detailed examination of their colors, are simply discarded as “not the same.” The orange pattern puts the child in a difficult position. He has no idea about this color, and he uses instead the most suitable available standard - yellow. Therefore, the child selects both orange objects that match the sample and yellow objects that do not match it, but coincide with the familiar standard.
The increasing complexity of productive activities leads to the fact that the child gradually assimilates more and more new color standards and, by about four to five years, masters a relatively complete set of them.
During childhood, not only color discrimination improves in direct perception, but also in terms of words and names.
Thus, from the age of four, a strong connection is established between color and name in relation to the main tones, and from the age of five, in relation to the intermediate ones. According to Cook, the accuracy of color discrimination approximately doubles by the age of six. From middle childhood, children begin to distinguish between lightness and saturation. Lightness is the degree of proximity of a given color (shade) to white, and saturation is the degree of its purity. Children visually differentiate and name, distinguishing by lightness and saturation, such shades as dark green, light yellow, etc., meaning brightness. The development of this process throughout childhood is also facilitated by the designation of these relationships with the words “dark” and “light.”
1.2 Visual perception of shape
Along with the development of color discrimination, the process of assimilation of shape also takes place. Geometric shapes are considered to be standards of form. Mastering form standards presupposes the ability to recognize the corresponding form, name it, act with it, and not analyze it in terms of the number and size of angles, sides, etc.
At the age of two to three years, it is still very difficult for a child to visually determine the shape. At first he does this insufficiently, checking using another method - trying on.
Only through the use of methods of testing and trying on in a variety of situations and on a variety of objects does the child develop a full visual perception of form, the ability to determine the shape of an object and correlate it with the forms of other objects.
At five years old, a child already differentiates and names five basic shapes - square, triangle, circle, rectangle and oval; at the age of six, this also occurs for figures that are more difficult to perceive: trapezoid, rhombus and pentagon. In addition, from the age of six years, children distinguish quite well by shape and name the following geometric bodies: cone, cylinder, sphere, cube, triangular prism.
1.3 Visual perception of magnitude
Mastering standards of size is somewhat more difficult than mastering standards of color and shape. The quantity does not have an “absolute” meaning, therefore its determination is made through conditional measures. Mastering these measures is quite a complex task, requiring certain mathematical preparation, so preschoolers have difficulty mastering it. However, for perception, the use of such a metric system is not at all necessary. An item may be judged to be "large" in comparison to another item, which in this case is "small". Thus, ideas about the relationships in magnitude between objects act as standards of magnitude. These representations can be denoted by words indicating the place of the object among others (“big”; “small”, “smallest”). It can also be attributed to other parameters of size: height, length, width.
At three to four years old, a child normally already knows how to correlate objects by length, height and width. At five to seven years old, he can compare at least two, three or even more objects that form a series of decreasing or increasing values. At the same age, the child successfully composes serration series, focusing on the size of the object; learns to compare objects by length (long - short, longer - shorter); by width (wide - narrow, wider - narrower); in height (high - low, higher - lower).
1.4 Features of the development of orientation in space
Already in early childhood, a child masters the ability to take into account the spatial arrangement of objects. However, it does not separate the directions of space and spatial relationships between objects from the objects themselves. The formation of ideas about objects and their properties occurs earlier than the formation of ideas about space, and serves as their basis.
The initial ideas about the directions of space that a three- to four-year-old child learns are connected with his own body. It is a center for him, a “reference point,” in relation to which only the child can determine directions. Under the guidance of adults, children begin to identify and correctly name their right hand. It acts as a hand that performs basic actions: “With this hand I eat, draw, etc. That means she's right." (If the child is “left-handed”, then he is given individual attention and approach). The child is able to determine the position of other parts of the body as “right” or “left” only by the position of the right hand. For example, when asked to show his right eye, a junior preschooler first looks for his right hand and only after that points to the eye. But the peculiarity of this age is that the child cannot orient himself in the sides of the interlocutor’s body, because “right” and “left” seem to him to be something constant, and he cannot understand how what is on the right for him can be on the left for someone else.
A child begins to understand this, and, consequently, to navigate the sides of his interlocutor at approximately five to six years of age. Also at this age, children begin to identify relationships between objects (one object after another, in front of another, to the left of it, between them, near, behind, etc.). Orient yourself in the space of the sheet (in the upper right corner, in the lower left corner, in the middle, etc.).
The formation of ideas about spatial relationships is closely related to the assimilation of their verbal designations, which help the child to identify and record each type of these relationships. The ability to do this in children is formed in the fifth or sixth years of life. Moreover, in each of the relationships (“above - below”, “behind - in front”), the child first learns the idea of one member of the pair (for example, “above”, “in front”), and then, relying on it, masters the second one.
So, taking into account everything discussed above, we can conclude that by the end of preschool age, children normally, in the absence of pathology of the visual analyzer, have developed all forms of visual perception. What is one of the main things in the comprehensive development of a child during both preschool and school age. It especially affects the formation of productive and educational activities.
All of the above described features of the development of visual forms of perception are characteristic of normally developing children. We will consider further what the manifestation of these features is in children with mental retardation.
2 Features of the development of visual forms of perception in preschool children with mental retardation
Repeated studies of visual perception in children with mental retardation have shown that, despite the absence of sensory impairments (i.e., decreased acuity and loss of visual fields), they perform many receptive visual operations more slowly than their normally developing peers. According to T.B. Tomin, a decrease in the efficiency of perception should inevitably lead to relative poverty and insufficient differentiation of visual images - ideas, which is very often observed in children with mental retardation (in the absence of correctional and developmental work with them).
In addition, the results of research by B.I. Bely, as well as other scientists, suggested that the disorder in the development of forms of visual perception, determined in children with mental retardation, is caused by both the immaturity of the right frontal lobe and the delayed maturation of the left hemisphere structures that ensure activity and voluntariness perception.
Recently, electrophysiological observations have made it possible to confirm the hypothesis about the underdevelopment of the functions of the left hemisphere in children with mental retardation.
This is one of the main reasons that the processes of formation of color discrimination, spatial orientation and size discrimination, which occur quite spontaneously in normally developing children, are formed later in children with mental retardation, and work on their development cannot also take place spontaneously, but requires significant effort teachers.
What are the features of the development of visual forms in children with mental retardation?
2.1 Color perception
One of the features of the visual perception of preschoolers with mental retardation is its lack of differentiation: they do not always accurately recognize the color and color shades inherent in surrounding objects. Their color discrimination processes, compared to the norm, lag behind in their development.
So, by the age of two, children with mental retardation distinguish mainly only two colors: red and blue, and some do not even do this. Only by the age of three to four years do they develop the ability to correctly recognize four saturated colors: red, blue, yellow, green. At five and six years old, children begin to distinguish not only these colors, but (when carrying out special work) also white and black. However, they have difficulty naming weakly saturated colors. To designate color shades, preschoolers sometimes use names derived from the names of objects (lemon, brick, etc.). Most often they are replaced by the names of primary colors (for example, pink - red, blue - blue). The ability to differentiate primary colors and their shades in children appears only by the age of seven, and for some even later.
In addition, preschoolers with mental retardation for a long time, compared with the norm, are not able to properly navigate the names of objects for which a certain color is a constant, typical feature. For example, normally developing children at five to six years old correctly understand tasks and list objects that are red (red traffic light, fire), green (Christmas tree, grass in summer, etc.), yellow (sun, egg yolk). In contrast, children with mental retardation at the same age name many objects for which this color is not a characteristic, permanent feature: clothes, toys, i.e. those objects that make up the immediate environment or accidentally fall into the field of view.
Inaccurate recognition by preschoolers with mental retardation of the colors and color shades inherent in objects reduces their ability to understand the world around them, and this, in turn, negatively affects further educational activities.
In order to help a child with mental retardation, timely special qualified pedagogical assistance is needed. Only in this case will it be possible to increase the level of development of such a child.
2.2 Visual perception of shape
Children with mental retardation have a different ability to distinguish shapes (based on planar and three-dimensional geometric shapes). But here it is also necessary to note that this ability is formed relatively later than in normally developing children. Thus, at five years old, children with mental retardation are poorly able to differentiate and name basic geometric shapes. They especially find it difficult to distinguish between a circle and an oval, a square and a rectangle. The triangle is easier for them than all of the above. Shape discrimination of such geometric figures as rhombus, cube, sphere, cone, cylinder occurs only at school age.
But the situation can change significantly if corrective and developmental work is started on time with the child. The result is that in most cases children catch up with their typically developing peers. One of the striking examples of the development of the function of visual perception of form is a game. For example, such games as “Find your match”, “Find the key for the bear”, “Loto” (geometric), etc.
Game development is acceptable at home, but it is better if this and much more takes place under the strict guidance of specialists.
2.3 Visual perception of magnitude
Magnitude is a relative concept. The idea of it is formed much more labor than the concept of color and shape. Therefore, the perception of size is least developed in preschool children with mental retardation. But at the same time, the visual ratio is at a fairly high level. Difficulties arise when identifying a feature by name and when naming it independently. In life situations, children with mental retardation operate only with the concepts of “big” and “small”, and any other concepts: “long - short”, “wide - narrow”, etc. are used only undifferentiated or likened. Children find it difficult to compile serration series. At six - seven years old they can compare the size of a small number of objects: two - three.
All of the above allows us to judge the lag in the development of visual perception of size in preschool children with mental retardation in relation to the norm. This makes it necessary to carry out correctional and pedagogical work with them on the development and formation of this ability.
2.4 Features of the development of orientation in space
Spatial orientation is one of the important types of human activity. It is necessary for many areas of activity. Scientists who studied children with mental retardation noted their poor orientation in the surrounding space. Spatial impairments are considered by many researchers to be one of the most common defects encountered in mental retardation. Psychologists distinguish three main stages in the development of space cognition in normally developing children. The first of them presupposes the child’s ability to move, actively move in space and thus take a comfortable position for viewing the surroundings. The second is associated with mastering objective actions, which allow one to expand the practical experience of knowing the properties of objects and their spatial relationships. The third stage begins with the development of speech, i.e. with the emergence of the ability to reflect and generalize spatial categories in words. Mastering prepositions that express spatial relationships and adverbs that indicate directions is of great importance. Children with mental retardation also go through three main stages of spatial cognition, but at a later date and with some originality. Clumsiness and lack of coordination of movements, usually characteristic of this group of children, have a negative impact on the formation of the ability to visually familiarize themselves with what is in relative proximity to the child. Also, children with mental retardation are characterized by delays and deficiencies in the formation of objective actions and associated voluntary movements, which, in turn, negatively affects the development of the ability of this category of children to navigate in the surrounding space.
Defective development of verbal and logical thinking does not provide the basis for a full understanding of the spatial situation in which the child, for one reason or another, must navigate.
Children with mental retardation for a long time do not orient themselves in terms of their own body and the body of their interlocutor. They have difficulty identifying relationships between objects. They find it difficult to navigate in the space of a sheet, as well as in a large space - in a group, a gym, in the yard.
This suggests the conclusion that in children with mental retardation it is necessary to purposefully develop the ability to spatial orientation by carrying out correctional and pedagogical work with them.
So, summing up all of the above, we can conclude that the development of visual forms of perception in children with mental retardation differs in its originality compared to normally developing children: different temporal characteristics, qualitatively different content, inferiority and unevenness of content. Obviously, such deficiencies cannot be eliminated by themselves; a clear, thoughtful, and most importantly timely strategy for the development and correction of visual perception in children is necessary. Only in this case is a favorable outcome in the development of the child possible. Most children with mental retardation who undergo correctional pedagogical work subsequently reach the normal level.
Chapter 2. Experimental study of the features of the development of visual forms of perception in children with mental retardation of preschool age.
1 Purpose, objectives, organization of the study
The goal is to obtain experimental material on the characteristics of visual forms of perception of preschoolers with mental retardation.
1.study the psychological maps of the children participating in the experiment;
2.adapt the methods chosen for the experiment to children with mental retardation, give their descriptions;
.conduct a confirmatory experiment;
.select the obtained data and analyze it;
.draw the necessary conclusions from the study.
As for the organization of the experimental study, ten children participated in it: eight boys and two girls. All children aged five to six years, with the conclusion of a PMPC - ZPR.
Brief information about children:
No.NameAgeYear of study in preschool Conclusion PMPC1Vanya B.6 years2 years ZPR2Vanya S.5 years2 years ZPR3Gosha A.5 years2 yearsZPR4Danil G.6 years2 yearsZPR5Dima G.6 years2 yearsZPR6Zhenya M.6 years2 yearsZPR7Liza A.6 years2 yearsZPR8Liza M.6 years2 yearsZPR9Maxim L. 5 years 2 years ZPR10Nikita S.6 years 2 years ZPR
2.2 Experimental research methodology
Our research was based on the methods developed by Uruntaeva G.A. and Afonkina Yu.A.
2.1 Method No. 1 “Find out what color the circle is”
Purpose: to study the characteristics of color perception in preschool children with mental retardation.
Preparation of the study: make circles with a diameter of 3 cm, painted in primary colors and their shades. We took the following colors: red, yellow, blue, green, white, black, purple, pink, orange and blue. Boxes of the same colors and shades.
Conducting the study: the experiment is carried out individually with children five to six years old and consists of three series.
First episode. Boxes are placed in front of the child, they are given a set of circles (three of each color) and they are asked to arrange the circles into boxes according to their color. However, the color is not named.
Second series. The child is given ten circles of different colors. Then they name the color and ask the child to find a circle of the same color.
Third series. The child is given ten circles of different colors. Then they are asked to name the color of each.
Data processing: based on the results of the study, the subject is assigned to one of the following levels:
high - the child copes with all tasks regarding all primary colors and three to four shades.
average - the child copes with all tasks regarding only primary colors (see Appendix Table No. 1).
low - the child copes with all tasks regarding only primary colors (see Appendix Table No. 1).
2.2.2 Method No. 2 “What kind of geometric figure is this?”
Purpose: to study the features of shape perception in preschool children with mental retardation.
Preparation of the study: prepare cards depicting the following planar geometric shapes: circle, oval, triangle, square, rectangle, rhombus, and also select volumetric geometric shapes: ball, cube, cylinder, cone.
Conducting the study: the experiment is carried out individually with children five to six years old and consists of two series.
First episode. Cards with flat and three-dimensional geometric shapes are laid out in front of the child. Then they name one of these figures and ask the child to find the same one using the cards.
Second series. Cards with the same geometric shapes as in the previous series are laid out in front of the child and asked to name each of them.
tall - the child differentiates and names all planar and three-four volumetric geometric figures.
middle - the child differentiates and names all planar and one or two volumetric geometric figures.
low - the child differentiates and names only plane geometric figures (see Appendix Table No. 2).
2.3 Method No. 3 “Assemble a pyramid.”
Purpose: to study the features of size perception in preschool children with mental retardation.
Preparation of the study: prepare a one-color pyramid of six rings.
Conducting the study: the experiment is carried out individually with children five to six years old. The child is sitting at the table. They show him a pyramid, then before his eyes they remove one ring after another, laying them out sequentially. After this, they break the order and invite the child to assemble the pyramid on his own. The instructions can be repeated twice.
Data processing: in accordance with the results of the study, the subject is assigned to one of the following levels:
tall - the child correctly assembles the pyramid, taking into account the size of all six rings.
average - the child correctly assembles the pyramid, taking into account the size of all four to five rings.
low - the child correctly assembles the pyramid, taking into account the size of less than four rings (see Appendix Table No. 3).
2.4 Method No. 4 “Get your bearings correctly.”
Purpose: to study the features of spatial representations in preschool children with mental retardation.
Preparing the study: pick up five toys. For example, a doll, a bunny, a bear, a duck, a fox. A picture of five objects, a sheet of checkered paper and a pencil.
Conducting the study: the experiment is carried out individually with children five to six years old. The child is asked to complete the following tasks:
1.show right hand, leg, ear, left hand.
2.the child is shown a picture and asked about the location of objects: “Which toy is drawn in the middle, in the upper right corner, in the upper left corner, in the lower right corner, in the lower left corner?”
.The child is asked to draw on a piece of checkered paper a circle in the center, a square on the left, a triangle above the circle, a rectangle below, two small circles above the triangle, one small circle below the triangle, a small triangle between the circle and the square.
Data processing: in accordance with the results of the study, the subject is assigned to one of the following levels:
high - the child copes with the first and second tasks, but makes up to two mistakes in the third.
average - the child copes with the first and second tasks, but makes three to four mistakes in the third.
low - the child copes with the first and second tasks, but makes five or more mistakes in the third. (see Appendix Table No. 4).
So, in order to find out what the level of development of visual forms of perception is in preschool children with mental retardation in general, the following system was developed: when performing each technique, the subject is assigned to one of three levels: high, medium, low. Each level has its own number of points: high level - 10 points, average level - 8 points, low level - 6 points. After all the methods have been completed, the total number of points they earned is calculated for each child. And then, in accordance with this total number of points, the subject is assigned to one of the following levels:
high - 35 - 40 points;
average - 29 - 34 points;
low - less than 29 points.
3 Analysis of the results of the experimental study
In the course of the experimental study we conducted on the problem of developmental characteristics in preschool children with mental retardation, we also obtained data that allows us to judge that these processes are quite well formed in the category of children under consideration (thanks to the timely correctional assistance provided to them).
The results of the study showed that out of ten subjects: two (Lisa A. and Lisa M.) have a high level of development of visual perception. Overall they received 38 and 36 points respectively. Five subjects (Vanya S., Gosha A., Dima T., Zhenya M., Nikita S.), according to the experiment, have an average level of development of the process we are studying. And only three (Vanya B., Danil G., Maxim L.) showed a low development result. In general, they received less than 29 points (see Appendix Table No. 5). This concerns the results of the study as a whole. In addition, we need to analyze the data obtained for each visual process.
Let's start with the perception of color. The results of the study showed that only one subject, Lisa A., had a high level of development of this process, but even she had difficulty distinguishing the color purple and called it blue. Other children who took the middle “pedestal level” (Vanya S., Gosha A., Dima T., Zhenya M., Lisa M., Nikita S.) - six people - had more difficulty distinguishing colors such as purple and orange, confusing them with blue and yellow, respectively. Difficulties in differentiating blue and pink colors appeared to a lesser extent. Children with a low level of color perception (Vanya B., Danil G., Maxim L.) were unable to distinguish colors such as purple, pink, orange, and blue. They either did not try to compare and name the color offered to them at all, or they did it incorrectly. They confused purple and blue colors with blue, pink with red, orange with yellow. In addition, it should be noted that none of the children participating in the experiment was able to differentiate the purple color offered to them. Its correlation with blue is a typical mistake of all subjects. This suggests that it is necessary to pay more attention to teaching preschoolers with mental retardation differentiating the violet color (see Appendix Table No. 1).
Having talked about the perception of color, we move on to the perception of shape. This process also has its own characteristics. The results of the experiment showed the following: four out of ten subjects (Gosha A., Lisa M., Lisa A., Nikita S.) have a high level of shape discrimination. They easily differentiate planar (circle, square, triangle, rectangle, oval, rhombus) and volumetric (ball, cylinder, cone) geometric shapes. Moreover, they do this both at the word of an adult and call them themselves. The subjects who took the average level (Vanya B., Vanya S., Dima T., Zhenya M., Maxim L.) mostly made mistakes in differentiating such volumetric geometric figures as a cone and a cylinder. In only one case did Dima G. find it difficult to name and show the cube, confusing it with a square. Danil G. showed a low level of shape discrimination. He was unable to differentiate a single three-dimensional figure. According to the results of other methods carried out, Danil G. also shows a low level of development. Perhaps this is due to the fact that he was absent from the group for a long time, and accordingly, he missed the educational material due to illness (see Appendix Table No. 2.)
The next thing we'll look at is the perception of magnitude. This process is more difficult for children with mental retardation than others. But according to the experiment we conducted, which involved assembling a pyramid of six rings, preschoolers with mental retardation showed pretty good results. Two subjects (Lisa A. and Lisa M.) completed the task at a high level, assembling a pyramid of six rings using visual correlation. Six (Vanya B., Gosha A., Dima G., Zhenya M., Maxim L., Nikita S.) showed an average level of task completion. They were also able to assemble a pyramid by visual correlation, but only from four to five rings. And finally, two subjects (Vanya S., Danil G.) coped with the task at a low level. They assembled a pyramid, taking into account the size of less than four rings (see Appendix Table No. 3).
And finally, the last thing we will consider is the features of spatial orientation of preschoolers with mental retardation. To identify these features, according to some parameters, we also conducted a study and obtained the following results: none of the subjects completed the task at a high level, six people completed the task at an average level (Vanya S., Gosha A., Dima G. , Lisa A., Lisa M., Nikita S.), at a low level - four (Vanya B., Danil G., Zhenya M., Maxim L.). Moreover, all children coped with the task of orientation in parts of their own body and the plane of the sheet. The difficulty was caused by the last task aimed at studying the understanding of prepositions and adverbs, especially such as below (not singled out by any child), above (highlighted only by Lisa M.), between (highlighted by Gosha A. and Dima G.), under (highlighted Lisa A.), above (six were identified - Vanya S., Gosha A., Dima G., Lisa A., Lisa M., Nikita S.). All the children were able to understand the adverbs on the left and in the center (see Appendix Table No. 4). From all this it follows that children need even more training to develop the ability to navigate in space than was previously the case.
4 Conclusions from the study
Thus, based on the study, the following conclusions can be drawn:
1.If timely correctional work on the development of visual forms of perception is carried out with a child with mental retardation, this helps to increase the level of formation of this process. Children often catch up with their normally developing peers.
2.Most children aged five to six years differentiate and name primary colors and two to three shades.
.Also, children of this age (most of them) successfully distinguish such flat geometric shapes as a square, circle, triangle, rectangle, oval, rhombus, and among three-dimensional ones, mainly a ball and a cube.
.The perception of size based on the concepts of “big - small”, “more - less” is also formed in the majority of children.
.Most have well-developed spatial concepts, especially orientation in parts of their own body and on the plane of a sheet.
These conclusions cannot be applied to all children with mental retardation, because the success of their education also depends on many factors: the degree of damage to the central nervous system, the timeliness of diagnosis and the provision of corrective pedagogical assistance, the period of education of the child in a specialized kindergarten, etc.
The data we obtained during the study are typical only for the group of children with whom it was conducted. If you take another group, then the results will be different.
Work on the development of visual forms of perception in children with mental retardation includes the following stages:
1.Formation and consolidation of sensory standards: stable ideas about colors, geometric shapes and relationships in size between several objects, fixed in speech.
2.Training in methods of examining objects, as well as the ability to distinguish their shape, color, size and perform increasingly complex visual actions.
.Development of analytical perception: the ability to understand the combination of colors, dissect the shape of objects, highlight individual dimensions of quantities.
.Development of the eye and the ability to spatial orientation, first in the diagram of one’s own body, then on the plane of the sheet, then in the surrounding space on the basis of adverbial and prepositional case constructions.
.Consolidation in speech of color, size, geometric, as well as spatial names and the ability to describe an object of a holistic nature.
These stages of work on the development of visual perception are implemented not only in preschool childhood, but also during school age, and are improved throughout life.
The most acceptable form of work in this direction in preschool age is a game: plot-role-playing, didactic, psychological. Such games can be used as an element of a lesson or lesson, as an element of competition in the free activity of children, as homework. This increases children’s motivation to learn, creates a lot of additional situations of success for them, serves as a means of stimulating cognitive activity, and helps diversify learning activities.
However, it must be remembered that in ordinary, non-educational life, there are a lot of situations that can be used as a means of developing visual forms of perception in children: travel situations, going to the store, visiting a clinic, walking. All of them create excellent opportunities for the development of a child. For example, during a walk you can count how many steps there are to a tall tree and how many to a low one, list which objects we see on the right and which on the left, count only red or only blue cars, find and name all round-shaped objects, etc. .
In this regard, it is important to remember that such work should be carried out not only by the teacher of the special institution that the child attends, but also by his parents. It is important that the teacher promptly informs parents about the characteristics and ways of developing certain abilities in the child.
Only if all these rules are observed is a favorable prognosis for the child’s development in the direction we are considering possible.
visual perception preschool
Conclusion
Based on our work, we can conclude that preschool children with mental retardation exhibit the ability to perceive and distinguish such sensory standards as color, shape, and size. They also learn to navigate in space. But all this is formed in them much later than in normally developing children and does not have the necessary completeness, integrity, and quality. It should be noted that with modern, clear, competent work on the development of visual forms of perception in children with mental retardation, significant progress in this direction is possible (children often reach the normal level), and this, in turn, serves as the basis for a child’s high-quality, complete knowledge of the world , successful learning, and therefore its modern successful socialization and integration into society.
Literature
1.Bashaeva T.V. Development of perception. Children 3 - 7 years old. Yaroslavl: Academy of Development, 2001.
2.Bely B.I. Insufficiency of higher forms of visual perception in children with mental retardation // Defectology, 1989 No. 4.
.Wenger L.A. Development of perception and sensory education in preschool age. - M, 1968.
.Development of perception in preschool children / Ed. A.V. Zaporozhets and L.V. Wenger. - M, 1968.
.Istomina Z.M. On the relationship between perception and color naming in preschool children // Izv. APNRSFSR, 1960. Issue. 113.
.Kataeva A.A., Strebeleva E.A. Didactic games in teaching preschoolers with developmental disabilities - M.: Vlados, 2001.
.Kolomensky Ya.L., Panko E.A., Igushnov S.A. Psychological development in normal and pathological conditions: psychological diagnosis, prevention and correction. St. Petersburg: Peter, 2004.
.Mukhina V.S. perception of color and shape of objects by preschool children // Uch. zap. Moscow State Pedagogical Institute named after. Lenin issue 2. M, 1941.
.Mukhina V.S. Child psychology. - M: Education, 1985.
.Mukhina V.S., Wenger L.A. Psychology. - M: Education, 1985.
.Mukhina V.S. developmental psychology. - M, 2000.
.Mamaichuk I.N., Ilyina M.N. Help from a psychologist for a child with mental retardation - St. Petersburg: Rech, 2004.
.Education of children with mental retardation / Ed. M.S. Vlasova.
.Cognitive processes: sensation, perception. / Ed. A.V. Zaparozhets, B.F. Lomova, V.P. Zimchenko. - M, 1982.
.Development of perception in early and preschool childhood / Ed. A.V. Zaporozhets and M.I. Lisina. - M, 1966.
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Insufficient development of cognitive processes is often the main reason for the difficulties that children with mental retardation experience when learning at school. As numerous clinical and psychological-pedagogical studies show, memory impairments play a significant role in the structure of mental activity defects in this developmental anomaly.
Observations of teachers and parents of children with mental retardation, as well as special psychological studies indicate shortcomings in the development of their involuntary memory. Much of what normally developing children remember easily, as if by themselves, causes significant effort in their lagging peers and requires specially organized work with them.
One of the main reasons for the insufficient productivity of involuntary memory in children with mental retardation is a decrease in their cognitive activity. In the study by T.V. Egorova (1969) this problem was subjected to special study. One of the experimental methods used in the work involved the use of a task, the purpose of which was to arrange pictures with images of objects into groups in accordance with the initial letter of the name of these objects. It was found that children with developmental delays not only reproduced verbal material worse, but also spent significantly more time recalling it than their typically developing peers. The main difference was not so much in the extraordinary productivity of the answers, but in the different attitude towards the goal. Children with mental retardation made almost no attempts on their own to achieve more complete recall and rarely used auxiliary techniques for this. In cases where this did happen, a substitution of the purpose of the action was often observed. The auxiliary method was used not to remember the necessary words starting with a certain letter, but to invent new (extraneous) words starting with the same letter.
In the study by N.G. Poddubnaya studied the dependence of the productivity of involuntary memorization on the nature of the material and the characteristics of activities with it in primary schoolchildren with mental retardation. The subjects had to establish semantic connections between units of the main and additional sets of words and pictures (in different combinations). Children with mental retardation showed difficulties in assimilating instructions for series that required independent selection of nouns that matched the meaning of the pictures or words presented by the experimenter. Many children did not understand the task, but were eager to quickly receive the experimental material and begin to act. At the same time, they, unlike normally developing preschoolers, could not adequately assess their capabilities and were confident that they knew how to complete the task. Clear differences were revealed both in productivity and in the accuracy and stability of involuntary memorization. The amount of correctly reproduced material was normally 1.2 times higher.
N.G. Poddubnaya notes that visual material is remembered better than verbal material and is a more effective support in the process of reproduction. The author points out that involuntary memory in children with mental retardation does not suffer to the same extent as voluntary memory, so it is advisable to widely use it in their education.
T.A. Vlasova, M.S. Pevzner point to a decrease in voluntary memory in students with mental retardation as one of the main reasons for their difficulties in school learning. These children do not remember texts or multiplication tables well, and do not keep the goal and conditions of the task in mind. They are characterized by fluctuations in memory productivity and rapid forgetting of what they have learned.
- · Specific features of the memory of children with mental retardation:
- Reduced memory capacity and memorization speed,
- · Involuntary memorization is less productive than normal,
The memory mechanism is characterized by a decrease in the productivity of the first attempts at memorization, but the time required for complete memorization is close to normal,
The predominance of visual memory over verbal memory,
Reduced random memory.
Mechanical memory impairment.
Attention
Causes of impaired attention:
- 1) The child’s existing asthenic phenomena have an influence.
- 2) The mechanism of voluntariness in children is not fully formed.
- 3) Lack of motivation, the child shows a good concentration of attention when it is interesting, and when it is necessary to show a different level of motivation - a violation of interest.
Researcher of children with mental retardation Zharenkova L.M. notes the following features of attention characteristic of this disorder:
Low concentration: the child’s inability to concentrate on a task, on any activity, rapid distractibility. In the study by N.G. Poddubnaya clearly demonstrated the peculiarities of attention in children with mental retardation: in the process of performing the entire experimental task, cases of fluctuations in attention, a large number of distractions, rapid exhaustion and fatigue were observed.
Low level of attention stability. Children cannot engage in the same activity for a long time.
Narrow attention span.
Voluntary attention is more severely impaired. In correctional work with these children, it is necessary to attach great importance to the development of voluntary attention. To do this, use special games and exercises (“Who is more attentive?”, “What’s missing on the table?” and so on). In the process of individual work, use techniques such as: drawing flags, houses, working according to a model, etc.
Perception
Causes of impaired perception in children with mental retardation:
- 1) With mental retardation, the integrative activity of the cerebral cortex and cerebral hemispheres is disrupted and, as a result, the coordinated work of various analyzer systems is disrupted: hearing, vision, motor system, which leads to a disruption of systemic mechanisms of perception.
- 2) Lack of attention in children with mental retardation.
- 3) Underdevelopment of orientation-research activity in the first years of life and, as a result, the child does not receive enough full-fledged practical experience necessary for the development of his perception.
Peculiarities of perception
Insufficient completeness and accuracy of perception is associated with a violation of attention and voluntary mechanisms.
Lack of focus and organization of attention.
Slowness of perception and processing of information for full perception. A child with mental retardation needs more time than a normal child.
Low level of analytical perception. The child does not think about the information he perceives (“I see, but I don’t think.”).
Decreased perceptual activity. In the process of perception, the search function is impaired, the child does not try to look closely, the material is perceived superficially.
The most grossly impaired are more complex forms of perception, requiring the participation of several analyzers and having a complex nature - visual perception, hand-eye coordination.
The task of a defectologist is to help a child with mental retardation organize his perception processes and teach him to reproduce an object purposefully. In the first academic year of study, an adult guides the child’s perception in class; at an older age, children are offered a plan for their actions. To develop perception, children are offered material in the form of diagrams and colored chips.
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Patterns and features of the development of perception in children with mental retardation
1. Psychological and pedagogical characteristics of children with mental retardation
1.1 Concept and reasonsmental retardation
Mental retardation (MDD) is a violation of normal development in which a child who has reached school age continues to remain in the circle of preschool and play interests. The concept of “delay” emphasizes the temporary (discrepancy between the level of development and age) and at the same time temporary nature of the lag, which is overcome with age the more successfully the earlier adequate conditions for the learning and development of children of this category are created.
In the psychological-pedagogical, as well as medical literature, other approaches to the category of students under consideration are used: “children with learning disabilities”, “lagging behind in learning”, “nervous children”. However, the criteria on the basis of which these groups are distinguished do not contradict the understanding of the nature of mental retardation. In accordance with one socio-pedagogical approach, such children are called “children at risk.”
The problem of mild deviations in mental development arose and acquired particular importance, both in foreign and domestic science, only in the middle of the 20th century, when, due to the rapid development of various fields of science and technology and the complication of the programs of secondary schools, a large number of children appeared experiencing difficulties in training. Educators and psychologists attached great importance to analyzing the causes of this failure. Quite often it was explained by mental retardation, which was accompanied by the sending of such children to auxiliary schools that appeared in Russia in 1908-1910.
However, clinical examination increasingly failed to detect specific features inherent in mental retardation in many of the children who did not master the general education curriculum well. In the 50-60s. this problem has acquired particular significance, as a result of which, under the leadership of M.S. Pevzner, students L.S. Vygotsky, a specialist in the field of mental retardation, began a comprehensive study of the causes of academic failure. The sharp increase in academic failure against the backdrop of increasingly complex educational programs led her to assume the existence of some form of mental deficiency that manifests itself in conditions of increased educational demands. A comprehensive clinical, psychological and pedagogical examination of persistently underperforming students from schools in various regions of the country and analysis of a huge array of data formed the basis for the formulated ideas about children with mental retardation (MDD).
Children with mental retardation include children who do not have pronounced developmental disabilities (mental retardation, severe speech underdevelopment, severe primary deficiencies in the functioning of individual analytical systems - hearing, vision, motor system). Children in this category experience adaptation difficulties, including school adaptation, due to various biosocial reasons. The difficulties experienced by children with mental retardation can be caused not only by lack of attention, immaturity of the motivational sphere, general cognitive passivity and reduced self-control, but also by the underdevelopment of certain mental processes, motor disorders, and performance disorders. The characteristics listed above do not prevent children from mastering general education programs, but they necessitate a certain adaptation to the psychophysical characteristics of the child.
With the timely provision of a system of correctional and pedagogical, and in some cases, medical care, it is possible to partially and sometimes completely overcome this developmental deviation.
Mental retardation in children is a complex polymorphic disorder in which different children suffer from different components of their mental, psychological and physical activity.
Causes of mental retardation.
The causes of mental retardation are varied. Risk factors for the development of mental retardation in a child can be divided into main groups: biological and social.
Among biological factors, two groups are distinguished: medical-biological and hereditary.
Medical and biological causes include early organic lesions of the central nervous system. Most children have a history of a burdened perinatal period, associated primarily with an unfavorable course of pregnancy and childbirth.
According to neurophysiologists, active growth and maturation of the human brain is formed in the second half of pregnancy and the first 20 weeks after birth. This same period is critical, since the structures of the central nervous system become most sensitive to pathogenic influences that retard growth and prevent the active development of the brain.
Risk factors for intrauterine pathology include:
Old or very young age of the mother,
The mother is burdened with chronic somatic or obstetric pathology before or during pregnancy.
All this can manifest itself in a child’s low body weight at birth, in syndromes of increased neuro-reflex excitability, in sleep and wakefulness disorders, in increased muscle tone in the first weeks of life.
Often, mental retardation can be caused by infectious diseases in infancy, traumatic brain injuries, and severe somatic diseases.
A number of authors identify hereditary factors of mental retardation, which include congenital and, among other things, hereditary inferiority of the child’s central nervous system. It is often observed in children with a delay of cerebral-organic genesis, with minimal brain dysfunction. The literature emphasizes the predominance of boys among patients with mental retardation, which can be explained by a number of reasons:
Higher vulnerability of the male fetus to pathological influences during pregnancy and childbirth;
A relatively lower degree of functional interhemispheric asymmetry in girls compared to boys, which determines a greater reserve of compensatory capabilities in case of damage to brain systems that provide higher mental activity.
Most often in the literature there are indications of the following unfavorable psychosocial conditions that aggravate mental retardation in children. This:
Unwanted pregnancy;
Single mother or growing up in single-parent families;
Frequent conflicts and inconsistency of approaches to education;
Presence of a criminal environment;
Low level of education of parents;
Living in conditions of insufficient material security and poor living conditions;
Big city factors: noise, long commute to work and home, unfavorable environmental factors.
Features and types of family education;
Early mental and social deprivation of the child;
Stressful situations in which the child is, etc.
However, a combination of biological and social factors plays an important role in the development of mental retardation. For example, an unfavorable social environment (extra- and intrafamily) provokes and aggravates the influence of organic and hereditary factors on the intellectual and emotional development of a child.
1.2 Classification of mental retardation
Several classifications of mental retardation are presented in the clinical and psychological-pedagogical literature.
Outstanding child psychiatrist G.E. Sukhareva, studying children suffering from persistent school failure, emphasized that the disorders diagnosed in them must be distinguished from mild forms of mental retardation. In addition, as the author noted, mental retardation should not be equated with a retarded rate of mental development. Mental retardation is a more persistent intellectual disability, while mental retardation is a reversible condition. Based on the etiological criterion, that is, the reasons for the occurrence of mental retardation, G.E. Sukhareva identified the following forms:
Intellectual disability due to unfavorable environmental conditions, upbringing or behavioral pathology;
Intellectual impairments in long-term asthenic conditions caused by somatic diseases;
Intellectual impairments in various forms of infantilism;
Secondary intellectual disability due to hearing, vision, speech, reading and writing defects;
Functional-dynamic intellectual disorders in children in the residual stage and long-term period of infections and injuries of the central nervous system.
Research by M.S. Pevzner and T.A. Vlasova allowed us to identify two main forms of mental retardation:
V.V. Kovalev identifies four main forms of ZPR:
b dysontogenetic form of mental retardation, in which the deficiency is caused by mechanisms of delayed or distorted mental development of the child;
b encephalopathic form of mental retardation, which is based on organic damage to brain mechanisms in the early stages of ontogenesis;
b mental retardation due to underdevelopment of analyzers (blindness, deafness, underdevelopment of speech, etc.), caused by the action of the mechanism of sensory deprivation;
Classification V.V. Kovaleva is of great importance in the diagnosis of children and adolescents with mental retardation. However, it is necessary to take into account that the author considers the problem of mental retardation not as an independent nosological group, but as a syndrome with various forms of dysontogenesis (cerebral palsy, speech impairment, etc.).
The most informative for psychologists and teachers is the classification of K.S. Lebedinskaya. Based on a comprehensive clinical, psychological and pedagogical study of underachieving primary schoolchildren, the author developed a clinical taxonomy of mental retardation.
Just like the classification of V.V. Kovalev, classification by K.S. Lebedinskaya is based on the etiological principle and includes four main options for mental retardation:
Delayed mental development of constitutional origin;
It is diagnosed in children with manifestations of mental and psychophysical infantilism. In the psychological literature, it means developmental retardation, manifested by the preservation in adulthood of the physical structure or character traits inherent in childhood.
The prevalence of mental infantilism, according to some authors, is 1.6% among the child population.
Its causes are most often relatively mild brain lesions: infectious, toxic and others, including trauma and fetal asphyxia.
In clinical practice, two forms of mental infantilism are distinguished: simple and complicated. In further studies, four main variants were identified: harmonic (simple), disharmonic, organic and psychogenic infantilism.
Harmonic (simple) infantilism manifests itself in a uniform delay in the pace of physical and mental development of the individual, expressed in the immaturity of the emotional-volitional sphere, affecting the child’s behavior and his social adaptation. The name “harmonic infantilism” was proposed by G.E. Sukhareva.
His clinical picture is characterized by features of immaturity, “childishness” in somatic and mental appearance. Children are 1.5-2 years behind their peers in terms of height and physical development; they are characterized by lively facial expressions, expressive gestures, and fast, impetuous movements. Tirelessness in the game and rapid fatigue when performing practical tasks come to the fore. They especially quickly get bored with monotonous tasks that require maintaining focused attention for quite a long time (drawing, counting, reading, writing). With full intelligence, insufficiently expressed interests in writing, reading, and arithmetic are noted.
Children are characterized by a weak ability for mental stress, increased imitation, and suggestibility. However, by the age of 6-7 years, the child already understands quite well and regulates his behavior depending on the need to perform this or that work.
Disharmonic infantilism may be associated with endocrine diseases. Thus, with insufficient production of adrenal hormones and gonadal hormones at the age of 12-13 years, there may be a delay in puberty in both boys and girls. At the same time, peculiar features of the adolescent’s psyche are formed, characteristic of the so-called hypogenital infantilism. More often, traits of immaturity appear in boys. Teenagers are slow, get tired quickly, and their performance is very uneven - higher in the first half of the day. Memory loss is detected. Attention quickly dissipates, so the student makes many mistakes. The interests of adolescents with the hypogenital form of infantilism are unique: for example, boys are more interested in quiet activities. Motor skills and abilities are not sufficiently developed, they are clumsy, slow and clumsy. These children have good intelligence and are distinguished by great erudition, but they cannot always use their knowledge in class, as they are very absent-minded and inattentive. They are prone to fruitless discussions on any topic. They are very touchy and painfully experience their failures in school and difficulties in communicating with peers. I feel better in the company of adults, where they are considered erudites. Signs of hypogenital infantilism in the appearance of a teenager are short stature, plumpness, a “moon-shaped” face, and a squeaky voice.
The neuropathic variant of complicated infantilism is characterized by the presence of weak mental traits. Usually these children are very timid, fearful, dependent, overly attached to their mother, and difficult to adapt to child care institutions. From birth, such children fall asleep with great difficulty and have restless sleep. Timid and shy in nature, they find it difficult to get used to children's groups. They are very passive in class and do not answer questions in front of strangers. In their intellectual abilities they are sometimes ahead of their peers, but they do not know how to demonstrate their knowledge - uncertainty is felt in the answers, which worsens the teacher’s understanding of their true knowledge. Such children often have a fear of giving an oral answer. Their performance is quickly depleted. Infantility also manifests itself in complete practical inability. Motor skills are marked by angularity and slowness.
Against the background of these mental traits, so-called school neuroses may arise. The child is very reluctant to attend school. Any physical illness is greeted with joy, as it gives the opportunity to stay at home. This is not laziness, but a fear of separation from the usual environment, the mother. The difficulty of adapting to school leads to a decrease in the assimilation of educational material, memory and attention deteriorate. The child becomes lethargic and distracted.
Psychogenic infantilism, as a special variant of infantilism, has not been studied enough in Russian psychiatry and psychology. This option is considered as an expression of abnormal personality formation under conditions of improper upbringing. It usually happens in families where there is one child who is cared for by several adults. This often prevents the child from developing independence, will, ability, and then the desire to overcome the slightest difficulties.
With normal intellectual development, such a child learns unevenly, because he is not accustomed to work and does not want to independently complete and check assignments.
Adaptation in a group of this category of children is difficult due to character traits such as selfishness and opposition to the class, which leads not only to conflict situations, but also to the development of a neurotic state in the child.
Particular attention should be paid to children with so-called microsocial neglect. These children have an insufficient level of development of skills, abilities and knowledge against the background of a full-fledged nervous system due to prolonged exposure to a lack of information, not only intellectual, but also very often emotional. Unfavorable upbringing conditions (with chronic alcoholism of parents, in conditions of neglect, etc.) cause a slow formation of the communicative and cognitive activity of children at an early age. L.S. Vygotsky repeatedly emphasized that the process of formation of a child’s psyche is determined by the social situation of development, which is understood as the relationship between the child and the social reality around him.
In dysfunctional families, the child experiences a lack of communication. This problem arises with all its severity at school age in connection with school adaptation. With intact intelligence, these children cannot independently organize their activities: they experience difficulties in planning and identifying its stages, and they are unable to adequately evaluate the results. There is a pronounced lack of attention, impulsiveness, and lack of interest in improving one’s performance. Tasks are especially difficult when they need to be completed according to verbal instructions. On the one hand, they experience increased fatigue, and on the other, they are very irritable, prone to affective outbursts and conflicts.
With appropriate training, children with infantilism are able to receive secondary or incomplete secondary education; they have access to vocational education, secondary specialized education and even higher education. However, in the presence of unfavorable factors, negative dynamics are possible, especially with complicated infantilism, which can manifest itself in mental and social maladaptation of children and adolescents.
So, if we evaluate the dynamics of the mental development of children with infantilism in general, then it is predominantly favorable. As experience shows, the manifestation of pronounced personal emotional-volitional immaturity tends to decrease with age.
Delayed mental development of somatogenic origin;
The causes of this type of mental development delay are various chronic diseases, infections, childhood neuroses, congenital and acquired malformations of the somatic system. With this form of mental retardation, children may have a persistent asthenic manifestation, which reduces not only the physical status, but also the psychological balance of the child. Children are characterized by fearfulness, shyness, and lack of self-confidence. Children in this category of mental retardation have little contact with their peers due to the guardianship of their parents, who try to protect their children from what they think is unnecessary communication, so they have a low threshold for interpersonal connections. With this type of mental retardation, children need treatment in special sanatoriums. The further development and education of these children depends on their state of health.
Mental retardation of psychogenic origin;
Its appearance is due to unfavorable conditions of upbringing and education, which prevent the correct formation of the child’s personality. We are talking about the so-called social genesis, when unfavorable conditions of the social environment arise very early, have a long-term effect, traumatizing the child’s psyche, accompanied by psychosomatic disorders and autonomic disorders. K.S. Lebedinskaya emphasizes that this type of mental development delay should be distinguished from pedagogical neglect, which is largely due to shortcomings in the child’s learning process in kindergarten or school.
The development of the personality of a child with mental retardation of psychogenic origin follows three main options.
The first option is mental instability, which arises as a consequence of hypoprotection. The child is brought up in conditions of neglect. Disadvantages of upbringing are manifested in the absence of a sense of duty, responsibility, and adequate forms of social behavior when, for example, in difficult situations he fails to cope with affect. The family as a whole does not stimulate the child’s mental development and does not support his cognitive interests. Against the background of insufficient knowledge and ideas about the surrounding reality, which prevents the assimilation of school knowledge, these children display features of pathological immaturity of the emotional and volitional spheres: affective lability, impulsiveness, increased suggestibility.
The second option - in which overprotection is expressed - pampering upbringing, when the child is not instilled with the traits of independence, initiative, responsibility, and conscientiousness. This often happens with late-born children. Against the background of psychogenic infantilism, in addition to the inability to exert volition, the child is characterized by egocentrism, reluctance to work systematically, an attitude of constant help, and a desire to always be looked after.
The third option is an unstable parenting style with elements of emotional and physical violence in the family. Its occurrence is provoked by the parents themselves, who rudely and cruelly treat the child. One or both parents may be oppressive and aggressive towards their own son or daughter. Against the background of such intrafamily relationships, pathological personality traits of a child with mental retardation are gradually formed: timidity, fearfulness, anxiety, indecisiveness, lack of independence, lack of initiative, deceit, resourcefulness and, often, insensitivity to the grief of others, which leads to significant problems of socialization.
Delayed mental development of cerebral-organic origin.
The last type of mental retardation among those considered occupies the main place within the boundaries of this deviation. It occurs most often in children and it also causes the most pronounced disturbances in children in their emotional-volitional and cognitive activity in general.
This type combines signs of immaturity of the child’s nervous system and signs of partial damage to a number of mental functions. She identifies two main clinical and psychological options for mental retardation of cerebral-organic origin.
In the first option, traits of immaturity in the emotional sphere, such as organic infantilism, predominate. If encephalopathic symptoms are noted, they are represented by mild cerebrasthenic and neurosis-like disorders. Higher mental functions are insufficiently formed, depleted and deficient in the control of voluntary activity.
In the second option, symptoms of damage dominate: “there are persistent encephalopathic disorders, partial disorders of cortical functions and severe neurodynamic disorders (inertia, tendency to perseveration). The regulation of the child’s mental activity is disrupted not only in the area of control, but also in the area of programming cognitive activity. This leads to a low level of mastery of all types of voluntary activities. The child’s development of object-manipulative, speech, play, productive and educational activities is delayed.
The prognosis of mental retardation of cerebral-organic origin largely depends on the state of higher cortical functions and the type of age-related dynamics of its development. As noted by I.F. Markovskaya, with the predominance of general neurodynamic disorders, the prognosis is quite favorable.
When they are combined with a pronounced deficiency of individual cortical functions, a massive psychological and pedagogical correction is required, carried out in a specialized kindergarten. Primary persistent and extensive disorders of programming, control and initiation of voluntary types of mental activity require distinguishing them from mental retardation and other serious mental disorders.
Each of these types of mental retardation has its own clinical and psychological structure, its own characteristics of emotional immaturity and cognitive impairment, and is often complicated by a number of painful symptoms - somatic, encephalopathic, neurological. In many cases, these painful signs cannot be regarded only as complicating ones, since they play a significant pathogenetic role in the formation of the ZPR itself.
The presented clinical types of the most persistent forms of mental retardation mainly differ from each other precisely in the peculiarities of the structure and the nature of the relationship between the two main components of this developmental anomaly: the structure of infantilism and the characteristics of the development of mental functions.
Unlike mental retardation, in which the mental functions themselves suffer - generalization, comparison, analysis, synthesis - with mental retardation, the prerequisites for intellectual activity suffer. These include such mental processes as attention, perception, the sphere of images and representations, visual-motor coordination, phonemic hearing and others.
When examining children with mental retardation in conditions that are comfortable for them and in the process of targeted education and training, children are capable of fruitful cooperation with adults. They accept the help of an adult and even the help of a more advanced peer well. This support is even more effective if it is in the form of play tasks and is focused on the child’s involuntary interest in the activities being carried out.
Playful presentation of tasks increases the productivity of children with mental retardation, while for mentally retarded preschoolers it can serve as a reason for the child to involuntarily slip from completing the task. This happens especially often if the proposed task is at the limit of the capabilities of a mentally retarded child.
Children with mental retardation have an interest in object-manipulative and play activities. The play activity of children with mental retardation, in contrast to that of mentally retarded preschoolers, is more emotional in nature. It lacks its own plan, imagination, and the ability to imagine the situation mentally. Unlike normally developing preschoolers, children with mental retardation do not move to the level of story-based role play without special training, but “get stuck” at the level of story-based play. At the same time, their mentally retarded peers remain at the level of object-game actions.
Children with mental retardation are characterized by greater intensity of emotions, which allows them to concentrate for a longer period of time on completing tasks that arouse their immediate interest. Moreover, the more the child is interested in completing the task, the higher the results of his activity. A similar phenomenon is not observed in mentally retarded children. The emotional sphere of mentally retarded preschoolers is not developed, and overly playful presentation of tasks, as already mentioned, often distracts the child from solving the task itself and makes it difficult to achieve the goal.
Most children with mental retardation of preschool age are proficient in visual arts to varying degrees. In mentally retarded preschoolers without special training, visual activity does not occur. Such a child stops at the level of prerequisites for object images, i.e. at the level of scribbling. At best, some children have graphic stamps - schematic images of houses, “cephalopod” images of a person, letters, numbers, randomly scattered across the plane of a sheet of paper.
Thus, we can conclude that mental retardation (MDD) is one of the most common forms of mental disorders. This is a violation of the normal pace of mental development. The term “delay” emphasizes the temporary nature of the disorder, that is, the level of psychophysical development as a whole may not correspond to the child’s passport age. Specific manifestations of mental retardation in a child depend on the causes and time of its occurrence, the degree of deformation of the affected function, and its significance in the overall system of mental development.
Thus, we can identify the following most important groups of reasons that can cause PPD:
Biological reasons that prevent normal and timely maturation of the brain;
A general lack of communication with others, causing a delay in the child’s assimilation of social experience;
Lack of full-fledged, age-appropriate activities that give the child the opportunity to effectively “appropriate” social experience and timely formation of internal mental actions;
Social deprivation that prevents timely mental development.
All deviations in such children from the nervous system are variable and diffuse and are temporary. Unlike mental retardation, with mental retardation, the intellectual defect is reversible.
This definition reflects both biological and social factors of the emergence and development of such a state in which the full development of the organism is hampered, the formation of a personally developed individual is delayed, and the formation of a socially mature personality is ambiguous.
There are several classifications of ZPR:
G.E. Sukhareva;
Research by M.S. Pevzner and T.A. Vlasova, who identified two main forms of mental retardation:
· delayed mental development caused by mental and psychophysical infantilism (uncomplicated and complicated underdevelopment of cognitive activity and speech, where the main place is occupied by underdevelopment of the emotional-volitional sphere);
· mental retardation caused by prolonged asthenic and cerebrasthenic conditions.
V.V. Kovalev identifies four main forms of ZPR:
b dysontogenetic form of mental retardation;
b encephalopathic form of mental retardation;
b mental retardation due to underdevelopment of analyzers (blindness, deafness, underdevelopment of speech, etc.);
ь mental retardation caused by defects in education and information deficit from early childhood (pedagogical neglect).
The most informative for psychologists and teachers is the classification of K.S. Lebedinskaya:
· mental retardation of constitutional origin;
· delayed mental development of somatogenic origin;
· mental retardation of psychogenic origin;
· mental retardation of cerebral-organic origin.
2. Features of the development of perception in children with mental retardation
2.1 Perception as a cognitive mental process. Formation and development of perception
The problem of perception has been widely studied in Russian psychology. (E.N. Sokolov, M.D. Dvoryashina, N.A. Kudryavtseva, N.P. Sorokun, P.A. Shevarev, R.I. Govorova, etc.). Their research is aimed at revealing the basic patterns of reality display and analyzing the peculiarities of perception in preschool children. They say that sensory abilities are the functional capabilities of the body that provide a person’s sensation and perception of the world around him and himself. In the development of sensory abilities, the assimilation of sensory standards plays an important role.
Sensory standards are generally accepted examples of the external properties of objects. The seven colors of the spectrum and their shades of lightness and saturation are used as sensory standards of color; geometric shapes are used as standards of shape, values are the metric system of measures, etc.
Perception is a holistic reflection of objects, situations, phenomena that arise from the direct impact of physical stimuli on the receptor surfaces of the sense organs.
Perception is the reflection of objects or phenomena with their direct impact on the senses.
Perception is a reflection in a person’s consciousness of objects and phenomena as a whole that directly affect his sense organs, and not their individual properties, as happens with sensation.
Perception is a form of holistic mental reflection of objects or phenomena with their direct impact on the senses.
Combining all the definitions into one, we can conclude that:
Perception is the result of the activity of a system of analyzers. The primary analysis, which takes place in the receptors, is complemented by the complex analytical and synthetic activity of the brain sections of the analyzers. Unlike sensations, in the processes of perception an image of a complete object is formed by reflecting the entire set of its properties. However, the image of perception is not reduced to a simple sum of sensations, although it includes them in its composition. In fact, the perception of entire objects or situations is much more complex. In addition to sensations, the process of perception involves previous experience, processes of comprehension of what is perceived, i.e. the process of perception includes mental processes of an even higher level, such as memory and thinking. Therefore, perception is often called the human perceptual system.
If sensations are located in ourselves, then the perceived properties of objects, their images, are localized in space. This process characteristic of perception is called objectification.
As a result of perception, an image is formed that includes a complex of various interrelated sensations attributed by human consciousness to an object, phenomenon, or process.
The possibility of perception presupposes the subject's ability not only to respond to a sensory stimulus, but also to recognize the corresponding sensory quality as a property of a certain object. To do this, the object must be distinguished as a relatively stable source of influences emanating from it on the subject and as a possible object of the subject’s actions directed at it. Therefore, the perception of an object presupposes on the part of the subject not only the presence of an image, but also a certain effective attitude that arises only as a result of a fairly highly developed tonic activity (cerebellum and cortex), regulating motor tone and providing a state of active rest necessary for observation. Perception therefore presupposes a fairly high development of not only the sensory, but also the motor apparatus.
So, in order for a certain object to be perceived, it is necessary to perform some kind of counter-activity in relation to it, aimed at studying it, constructing and clarifying the image. The image that emerges as a result of the perception process presupposes the interaction and coordinated work of several analyzers at once. Depending on which of them works more actively, processes more information, receives the most significant signs indicating the properties of the perceived object, types of perception are distinguished. Four analyzers - visual, auditory, skin and muscle - most often act as leaders in the process of perception. Accordingly, visual, auditory, and tactile perception are distinguished.
Perception, thus, acts as a meaningful (including decision-making) and designated (associated with speech) synthesis of various sensations obtained from integral objects or complex phenomena perceived as a whole. Synthesis appears in the form of an image of a given object or phenomenon, which is formed during their active reflection.
Subjectivity, integrity, constancy and categoricality (meaningfulness and designation) are the main properties of the image that develop in the process and result of perception.
Objectivity is a person’s ability to perceive the world not in the form of a set of unrelated sensations, but in the form of objects separated from each other that have properties that cause these sensations.
The perception of objects occurs mainly due to the perception of shape, since it is the most reliable sign of a thing, remaining unchanged when the color, size, and position of the object changes. Shape refers to the characteristic outlines and relative positions of the parts of an object. The form can be difficult to discern, and not only due to the complex outlines of the thing itself. The perception of shape can be influenced by many other objects that are usually in the field of view and can form the most bizarre combinations. Sometimes it is not clear whether a given part belongs to this object or another, what object these parts form. Numerous illusions of perception are built on this, when an object is perceived not as it really is - according to objective characteristics (more or less, lighter or heavier).
The integrity of perception is expressed in the fact that the image of perceived objects is not given in a completely finished form with all the necessary elements, but is, as it were, mentally completed to some integral form based on a large set of elements. This also happens if some details of an object are not perceived by a person directly at a given moment in time by the senses.
Constancy is defined as the ability to perceive objects as relatively constant in shape, color and size, and a number of other parameters, regardless of the changing physical conditions of perception.
The categorical nature of human perception is manifested in the fact that it is of a generalized nature, and we designate each perceived object with a word-concept and assign it to a specific class. In accordance with this class, we look for signs in the perceived object that are characteristic of all objects of this class and are expressed in the volume and content of this concept.
The described properties of objectivity, integrity, constancy and categoriality of perception are not inherent in a person from birth, they gradually develop in life experience, and are partly a natural consequence of the work of analyzers and the synthetic activity of the brain. Observation and experimental studies indicate, for example, the effect of color on the apparent size of an object: white and generally light objects appear larger than equal black or dark objects, relative illumination affects the apparent distance of objects. The distance or viewing angle from which we perceive an image or object affects its apparent color.
Each perception includes a reproduced past experience, the thinking of the perceiver, and, in a certain sense, also his feelings and emotions. Reflecting objective reality, perception does not do so passively, because it simultaneously refracts the entire mental life of the specific personality of the perceiver.
If a coordinated action directed at an object, on the one hand, presupposes the perception of an object, then, in turn, the perception of awareness of objects of reality opposing the subject presupposes the ability not only to automatically respond to a sensory stimulus, but also to operate objects in coordinated actions. In particular, for example, the perception of the spatial arrangement of things is formed in the process of real motor acquisition through grasping movements and then movement.
Formation and development of perception.
In the first months of a child’s life, we can only speak with a fair degree of doubt about the existence of his perception as a complex form of a holistic reflection of the objects of reality.
Such a property of perception as objectivity, i.e. the attribution of sensations and images to objects of reality arises only at the beginning of early childhood, about one year.
When studying visual perception in children, it was found that stimuli that are close to each other in space are combined into complexes much more often than those that are distant from each other. This gives rise to typical mistakes that infants make. A child may, for example, grab a tower of cubes by the topmost cube and be very surprised to find that only one cube, and not the entire tower as a whole, is in his hand. A child of this age may also make numerous and assiduous attempts to take a flower from his mother's dress, not realizing that the flower forms part of a flat pattern.
Constancy of perception also appears only by 11-12 months, with the accumulation of experience in contemplative and practical activities with objects in different situations.
From the second year of life, in connection with the mastery of the simplest instrumental actions, the child’s perception changes. Having received the opportunity and learned to act with one object on another, the child is capable of anticipating the dynamic relationships between his own body and the object situation, as well as interactions between objects (for example, anticipating the possibility of pulling a ball through a hole, moving one object with the help of another, etc.) .
In the third year of life, a child can distinguish such simple shapes as a circle, oval, square, rectangle, triangle, polygon, as well as all the main colors of the spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet.
From about one year of age, the child begins the process of active cognition of the world around him on the basis of experimentation, during which the hidden properties of this world are revealed. From one to two years of age, the child uses different options for performing the same action, demonstrating the ability for operant learning; the child acquires the ability to solve a problem not only by trial and error, but also by guessing, i.e. sudden direct discretion to solve the problem that has arisen. This becomes possible, according to J. Piaget, thanks to the internal coordination of sensorimotor circuits and the internalization of action, i.e. its transfer from the external to the internal plane.
During the transition from early to preschool age, i.e. in the period from 3 to 7 years, under the influence of productive, design and artistic activities, the child develops complex types of perceptual analytical-synthetic activity, in particular the ability to mentally dismember a visible object into parts and then combine them into a single whole, before such operations will be implemented in practical terms. Perceptual images related to the shape of objects also acquire new content. In addition to the outline, the structure of objects, spatial features and relationships of its parts are also highlighted.
Perceptual actions are formed in learning, and their development goes through a number of stages. In the first stage, the formation process begins with practical, material actions performed with unfamiliar objects. At this stage, which poses new perceptual tasks for the child, the necessary corrections are made directly to material actions, which must be made to form an adequate image. The best results of perception are obtained when the child is offered so-called sensory standards for comparison, which also appear in external, material form. With them, the child has the opportunity to compare the perceived object in the process of working with it.
At the second stage, the sensory processes themselves, restructured under the influence of practical activity, become perceptual actions. These actions are now carried out with the help of appropriate movements of the receptor apparatus and anticipate the implementation of practical actions with perceived objects. At this stage, writes L.A. Wenger, children become familiar with the spatial properties of objects with the help of extensive indicative and exploratory movements of the hand and eye.
At the third stage, perceptual actions become even more hidden, collapsed, abbreviated, their external, effector links disappear, and perception from the outside begins to seem like a passive process. In fact, this process is still active, but it occurs internally, mainly only in the consciousness and on a subconscious level in the child. Children get the opportunity to quickly recognize the properties of objects of interest, distinguish some objects from others, and find out the connections and relationships that exist between them.
Thus, we can conclude that perception acts as a meaningful (including decision-making) and meaningful (associated with speech) synthesis of various sensations obtained from integral objects or complex phenomena perceived as a whole. Synthesis appears in the form of an image of a given object or phenomenon, which is formed during their active reflection.
At primary school age, those basic characteristics of perception, the need for which is associated with entering school, are consolidated and developed.
Indeed, children's acquisition of knowledge, skills and abilities begins with perception. Therefore, in order to help a child achieve success in learning, the teacher needs to study various aspects of his perception and ensure a high level of development of the main types of perception and such features as objectivity, integrity, awareness, and ingenuity of perception. Along with the development of perception, the child’s memory improves, which is expressed in its objectivity and arbitrariness.
2.2 Features of the development of perception in children with mental retardation
The prevalence of visual and hearing impairments among children with mental retardation is no higher than among normally developing children. You will see a child wearing glasses in a special kindergarten for children of this category no more often than among normally developing peers. This means that there are no primary sensory deficiencies in children of this category. At the same time, the presence of perception deficiencies is quite obvious. Even A. Strauss and L. Lehtinen, in their work on children with minimal brain damage, wrote that these children “listen, but do not hear, look, but do not see,” thus generally formulating the insufficient focus of perception found in children, leading to its fragmentation and lack of differentiation.
Causes of impaired perception in children with mental retardation:
With mental retardation, the integrative activity of the cerebral cortex and cerebral hemispheres is disrupted and, as a result, the coordinated work of various analyzer systems is disrupted: hearing, vision, and the motor system, which leads to a disruption of the systemic mechanisms of perception.
Attention deficits in children with mental retardation.
Underdevelopment of orientation-research activity in the first years of life and, as a consequence, the child does not receive enough full-fledged practical experience necessary for the development of his perception.
Features of perception:
Insufficient completeness and accuracy of perception is associated with a violation of attention and voluntary mechanisms.
Lack of focus and organization of attention.
Slowness of perception and processing of information for full perception. A child with mental retardation needs more time than a normal child.
Low level of analytical perception. The child does not think about the information he perceives (“I see, but I don’t think.”).
Decreased perceptual activity. In the process of perception, the search function is impaired, the child does not try to look closely, the material is perceived superficially.
The most grossly impaired are more complex forms of perception, requiring the participation of several analyzers and having a complex nature - visual perception, hand-eye coordination.
A number of authors note in children with mental retardation difficulties in distinguishing a figure from a background, difficulties in distinguishing figures that are close in shape and, if necessary, isolating the details of the object in question, deficiencies in the perception of the depth of space, which makes it difficult for children to determine the distance of objects, and in general, deficiencies in visual-spatial skills. orientation. Particular difficulties are found in the perception of the location of individual elements in complex images. There are difficulties in recognizing visually perceived real objects and images associated with these shortcomings. Later, when learning to read begins, perception deficiencies manifest themselves in the confusion of letters and their elements that are similar in outline.
The described deficiencies in perception are not associated with primary sensory defects, but appear at the level of complex sensory-perceptual functions, i.e. are a consequence of the immaturity of analytical-synthetic activity in the visual system, and especially in cases where other analyzers, primarily motor, are involved in visual perception. That is why the most significant lag is observed in preschoolers with mental retardation in the perception of space, which is based on the integration of visual and motor sensations.
An even greater lag can be seen in the formation of visual-auditory integration, which is of utmost importance in learning to read and write. This lag undoubtedly manifests itself in the difficulties these children have in learning to read and write.
There are no difficulties in the perception of simple auditory influences. There are some difficulties in differentiating speech sounds (which indicates deficiencies in phonemic hearing), which are most pronounced in difficult conditions: when pronouncing words quickly, in words that are polysyllabic and close in pronunciation. Children have difficulty identifying sounds in words. These difficulties, reflecting the insufficiency of analytical-synthetic activity in the sound analyzer, are revealed when teaching children to read and write.
Even before school, children accumulate a large number of ideas about the shape and size of various objects. These ideas are a necessary basis for the subsequent formation of important geometric concepts, and then concepts. When constructing various buildings from “cubes”, students pay attention to the comparative sizes of objects (expressing this with the words “more”, “smaller”, “wider”, “narrower”, “shorter”, “higher”, “lower”, etc. .).
In gaming and practical activities, familiarization with the shape of objects and their individual parts also occurs. For example, children immediately notice that a ball (ball) has the property of rolling, but a box (parallelepiped) does not have this property. Students intuitively associate these physical properties with the shape of bodies. But since the experience of students and the accumulation of terminology is random, an important task of teaching becomes the clarification of accumulated ideas and the assimilation of the corresponding terminology. To this end, it is necessary to systematically offer a variety of examples. The relationship between objects, expressed by the words “same”, “different”, “larger”, “smaller” and others, are established either on real objects (strips of paper, sticks, balls, etc.) or on their images (drawings, drawings). Each of the examples given for this purpose should clearly identify the main feature by which these relationships are clarified. For example, when figuring out which of two shelves is “larger,” it is important to ensure that both sticks are the same thickness (or the same length). In all cases, when making comparisons, it is necessary to select items for which the “sign of comparison” is clearly visible, unambiguous and can be easily identified by the student.
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