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Articles from the scientific journal children with mental retardation. Pedagogical work with children with mental retardation

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

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

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

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

Children with mental retardation have decreased interest in cognitive tasks. Children try to “get away” from tasks and start talking about another topic. Children with mental retardation have no or incomplete preliminary orientation in the context of cognitive tasks of all types, and there is no plan for completing the task. Such children cannot foresee the results of their activities.

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

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

The role of a psychologist in correcting the mental development of children with combined disorders (speech and intellectual) is very important. Both educators and speech therapists place their hope in him, expecting specific help in correcting the mental and emotional-volitional spheres of a preschooler’s personality. The psychologist often initiates the unification of the efforts of all participants in the correctional process (within the framework of a medical-psychological-pedagogical consultation or other form of interaction between specialists).

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Children with mental retardation.

Psychological support for children

with ZPR.

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

FEATURES OF MEMORY DEVELOPMENT IN PRESCHOOL CHILDREN WITH MENTAL DELAY

In modern society, the problem of children with disabilities, and in particular children with mental retardation, remains one of the main ones, since the number of such children is not decreasing, but rather growing. This is due not only to unfavorable environmental conditions, but also to social factors. When it comes to children with developmental problems, the problem of memory development becomes particularly important. Memory underlies human abilities and is a condition for learning, acquiring knowledge, and developing skills. Without memory, normal functioning of either the individual or society is impossible. If memory is so important for a person and all of humanity, then it is necessary to take greater responsibility for the development of this ability in children with mental retardation.

Delayed mental development is characterized by uneven formation of processes of cognitive activity and the emotional-volitional sphere. In such children, play activity predominates. In most cases, psychological and pedagogical assistance to children with mental retardation is delayed, favorable periods of correction are missed, which leads to more pronounced disorders during schooling and an increase in the terms of correctional and developmental work.

Scientists T.A. Vlasova, L.S. studied the problem of studying the memory characteristics of preschool children with mental retardation. Vygotsky, M.S. Pevzner, V.I. Lubovsky and other psychologists and teachers.

Memory- this is the process of organizing and preserving past experience, making it possible to reuse it in activity or return to the sphere of consciousness.

Children with mental retardation experience the same new memory formations as normally developing preschoolers, but with a delay of two or three years. So, if in normally developing children the self-regulation of memorization and reproduction processes is already formed by the age of five or six, then in children with mental retardation, insufficient voluntary regulation of memorization processes is found even at primary school age.

Thus, in the studies of L.S. Vygotsky noted that in children with mental retardation, the rate of memorization of new information offered to them slows down, the retention and inaccurate reproduction of material is fragile.

In his works T.V. Egorova says that in children, involuntary, mechanical and direct memory prevails over indirect, voluntary, logical.

It is very important that the child understands what it means to remember. This is a special task, a specific type of mental activity. But not all even normally developing children understand the specifics of such tasks by the time they enter school. Not understanding the task assigned to them, children with mental retardation cannot use special learning techniques (speaking out loud, repeat naming, grouping material); the productivity of such memorization is very low and is almost equal to involuntary memorization.

Based on a theoretical analysis of scientific theoretical literature on the problem, we organized and conducted an experimental study, the purpose of which was to study the characteristics of the memory of children of senior preschool age with mental retardation.

The experimental study was carried out on the basis of the child development center - kindergarten No. 56 "Guselki" in the city of Tambov. 5 children took part in the study. According to the protocol of the city psychological-medical-pedagogical commission, all children were diagnosed with mental retardation. Children study in the senior group. A set of techniques was adapted to study memory in preschoolers with mental retardation. The purpose of the study was to study the characteristics of memory development in children with mental retardation of older preschool age.

The “Five Pictures” technique is aimed at studying the formation of figurative memory - recognizing object images, as well as studying verbal memory - memorizing words written on cards.

Having analyzed the results of the ascertaining experiment, we found that memory in children with mental retardation has its own characteristics.

Figure 1. Results of studying the characteristics of the development of figurative memory of children with mental retardation using the “Five Pictures” method

17% of children received 1 point using the “Five Pictures” method.

33% of children received 2 points using the “Five Pictures” method;

50% of children received 3 points using the “Five Pictures” method.

Thus, using the “Five Pictures” method, we found that children with mental retardation have special needs. The slow speed of information processing during visual perception prevents children with mental retardation from storing visual material less accurately and for a long time. They have difficulties with verbal mediation and meaningful memorization in relation to visual and verbal materials. In addition, such children experience a slowdown in the process of concept formation, severely distorted pronunciation, and a limited vocabulary.

Figure 2. Results of studying the characteristics of the development of auditory memory of children with mental retardation using the “10 words” method

14% received 2 points using the “10 words” method;
43% received 3 points using the “10 words” method;

43%% received 4 points using the “10 words” method.

Thus, using the “10 words” method, we found that children with mental retardation do not memorize words by ear very well. They often call words synonyms without noticing mistakes. Reproducing words in order is also difficult for them.

Children with mental retardation have a number of characteristics. Insufficient voluntary regulation of the memorization process is revealed; children with mental retardation spend more time completing the assigned task than typically developing children.

Thus, in children with mental retardation, various memory impairments are observed: the volume and accuracy of voluntary memorization are reduced in comparison with the norm, insufficient voluntary regulation of the memorization process is detected, children with mental retardation spend more time on completing the task than normally developing children , deviations are observed in both the areas of visual and auditory memory. But visual memory is impaired to a lesser extent.

1. Boryakova N.Yu. Psychological and pedagogical study of children with mental retardation // Correctional pedagogy 2003.

2. Vygotsky L.S. Memory and its development in childhood // Reader on general psychology. - M.: 1979.

3. Egorova T.V. Peculiarities of memory and thinking in children with developmental delays. - M.: “Pedagogy” 1973.

4. Egorova T.V. Some features of memory and thinking of children with learning disabilities. - M.: “Pedagogy” 1971.

Introduction

Chapter I Psychological and pedagogical characteristics of preschool children with mental retardation

1.1 The concept of mental retardation

Chapter II Cognitive activity of preschool children

2.1 Cognitive development in preschool age of children with normal mental development

Conclusion

The development of a child’s psyche in domestic and foreign psychology is understood as an extremely complex, contradictory process, subject to the interaction of many factors. The degree of disruption of the rate of maturation of brain structures, and consequently the rate of mental development, may be due to a peculiar combination of unfavorable biological, social and psychological-pedagogical factors.

Within the framework of psychological and pedagogical research, significant material has been accumulated indicating the specific characteristics of children with mental retardation, distinguishing them, on the one hand, from children with normal mental development, and on the other hand, from mentally retarded children.

Purpose of the work: To analyze the features of cognitive activity of children with mental retardation.

1. To study the psychological and pedagogical characteristics of preschool children with mental retardation.

2. Consider the cognitive development in preschool age of children with normal mental development.

3. Analyze the cognitive activity of children with mental retardation.

1.2 Classifications of mental retardation

M.S. Pevzner and T.A. Vlasova (1966, 1971) identified two main forms of mental retardation: 1) mental retardation caused by psychophysical and mental infantilism; 2) mental retardation, caused by long-term asthenic conditions that arose in the early stages of the child’s development.

S.S. Mnukhin (1968) proposed defining such conditions with the term “residual cerebrovascular disease with relapse of school skills.”

K.S. Lebedinskaya (1982), based on the etiological principle, described 4 main variants of mental retardation: constitutional, somatogenic, psychogenic and cerebral-organic origin.

International classifications of diseases of the 9th and 10th revisions give more general definitions of these conditions: “specific mental retardation” and “specific psychological development delay”, including partial (partial) underdevelopment of certain prerequisites of intelligence with subsequent difficulties in the formation of school skills ( reading, writing, counting).

Mental retardation associated with sensory deprivation in congenital or early acquired disorders of vision, hearing, speech (alalia), cerebral palsy, autism, is considered separately in the structure of the corresponding developmental disorders.

1.3 Diagnosis of mental retardation

Parents mostly turn to a doctor or psychologist when their children are 7-9 years old, with problems of school failure and maladjustment, with an exacerbation of previous or the emergence of new neuropsychic disorders. However, diagnosing mental retardation and identifying children at risk is possible much earlier due to the slow pace of development of motor skills, speech, untimely change of phases of play activity, increased emotional and motor excitability, attention and memory disorders, and difficulties in mastering the kindergarten preparatory group program.

The main diagnostic signs of mental retardation (clinical and psychological syndromes):

A. Immaturity of the emotional-volitional sphere - mental infantilism syndrome: 1) the predominance of gaming interests over cognitive ones; 2) emotional instability, short temper, conflict, or inadequate cheerfulness and foolishness; 3) inability to control one’s actions and actions, uncriticality, selfishness; 4) a negative attitude towards tasks requiring mental effort, unwillingness to obey the rules.

B. Impaired intellectual performance due to dysfunction of vegetative-vascular regulation - cerebral asthenia syndrome (cerebrasthenic syndrome): 1) increased fatigue; 2) as fatigue increases, mental slowness or impulsiveness increases; deterioration in concentration and memory; unmotivated mood disorders, tearfulness, moodiness, etc.; lethargy, drowsiness or motor disinhibition and talkativeness, deterioration of handwriting; 3) increased sensitivity to noise, bright light, stuffiness, headaches; 4) uneven educational achievements.

B. Encephalopathic disorders: 1) neurosis-like syndrome (fears, tics, stuttering, sleep disturbance, enuresis, etc.); 2) persistent behavioral disorders - syndrome of increased affective and motor excitability; psychopath-like syndrome (emotional explosiveness combined with aggressiveness; deceit, disinhibition of drives, etc.); 3) epileptiform syndrome (convulsive seizures, specific features of the affective sphere, etc.); 4) apathetic-adynamic syndrome (lethargy, indifference, lethargy, etc.).

D. Violations of the prerequisites of intelligence: 1) insufficiency of fine motor skills of the hands; violations of articulatory and grapho-motor coordination (violation of calligraphy); 2) visual-spatial disorders: instability of the graphic image of numbers and letters, mirroring and rearrangement of them when reading and writing; difficulties in orientation within the notebook sheet; 3) violation of sound-letter analysis and sound structure of words; 4) difficulties in mastering logical and grammatical structures of the language, limited vocabulary; 5) violation of visual, auditory, auditory-speech memory; 6) difficulties in concentrating and distributing attention, fragmented perception.

Difference from oligophrenia: mental retardation is characterized not by totality, but by mosaic disturbances of brain functions, i.e. insufficiency of some functions while maintaining others, discrepancy between potential cognitive abilities and actual school achievements.

An important diagnostic sign for distinguishing from mental retardation is the ability to accept and use help, to assimilate the principle of solving a given intellectual operation and transfer it to similar tasks.

Types of correctional assistance: updating the motive of action, creating emotional game situations; organization of attention and strengthening of speech control; reducing the volume and pace of work. Long-term types of assistance: formation of voluntary forms of activity, training of functionally immature and weakened functions (fine motor skills, visual-spatial and auditory perception, auditory-speech memory, auditory-motor and visual-motor coordination, etc.).

The prognosis of mental development and the success of children's education are largely determined by the early diagnosis of mental retardation, timely treatment of neuropsychic disorders, the organization of appropriate correctional and developmental activities in preschool and school age, and a favorable psychological climate in the family.

1.4 Personality characteristics of children with mental retardation

Children with mental retardation have a reduced need to communicate with both peers and adults. Most of them exhibit increased anxiety towards the adults on whom they depend. Children almost do not strive to receive from adults an assessment of their qualities in a detailed form; they are usually satisfied with assessments in the form of undifferentiated definitions (“good boy”, “well done”), as well as direct emotional approval (smile, stroking, etc.).

It should be noted that although children extremely rarely seek approval on their own initiative, for the most part they are very sensitive to affection, sympathy, and friendly attitude. Among the personal contacts of children with mental retardation, the simplest ones predominate. Children in this category have a decreased need to communicate with peers, as well as low efficiency of their communication with each other in all types of activities.

Preschoolers with mental retardation have weak emotional stability, impaired self-control in all types of activities, aggressive behavior and its provocative nature, difficulties adapting to the children's group during play and activities, fussiness, frequent mood swings, uncertainty, feelings of fear, mannerisms, familiarity with to an adult. There is a large number of reactions directed against the will of the parents, a frequent lack of correct understanding of one’s social role and position, insufficient differentiation of persons and things, and pronounced difficulties in distinguishing the most important features of interpersonal relationships. All this indicates underdevelopment of this category of social maturity in children.

One of the diagnostic signs of mental retardation in children of the group under consideration is the immaturity of play activities. In children, all components of a role-playing game turn out to be unformed: the plot of the game usually does not go beyond the boundaries of everyday topics; The content of games, methods of communication and actions, and the game roles themselves are poor.

The range of moral norms and rules of communication reflected by children in games is very small, poor in content, and therefore insufficient in terms of preparing them for school.

Chapter II Cognitive activity of preschool children

2.1 Cognitive development in preschool age children with normal mental development

2.1.1 Subject activity and play

Play is the main activity of a preschooler. Children of this age spend most of their time in games, and during the years of preschool childhood, from three to six to seven years, children's games go through a fairly significant development path: from object-manipulative and symbolic to plot-role-playing games with rules. In older preschool age, you can find almost all types of games that are found in children before entering school. The beginning of two other important types of activity for development is associated with the same age: work and learning. Certain stages of consistent improvement in the games, work and learning of children at this age can be traced by conditionally dividing preschool childhood into three periods for analytical purposes:

1. junior preschool age (3-4 years),

2. middle preschool age (4-5 years),

3. senior preschool age (5-6 years).

This division is sometimes carried out in developmental psychology in order to emphasize those rapid, qualitative changes in the psychology and behavior of children that occur every one to two years in preschool childhood.

Younger preschoolers usually play alone. In their object and construction games, they improve perception, memory, imagination, thinking and motor abilities. The role-playing games of children of this age usually reproduce the actions of those adults whom they observe in everyday life.

Gradually, by the middle period of preschool childhood, games become joint, and more and more children are included in them. The main thing in these games is not the reproduction of the behavior of adults in relation to the objective world, but the imitation of certain relationships between people, in particular role-playing ones. Children identify the roles and rules on which these relationships are built, strictly monitor their observance in the game and try to follow them themselves. Children's role-playing games have various themes that the child is quite familiar with from his own life experience. The roles that children play in play are, as a rule, either family roles (mom, dad, grandmother, grandfather, son, daughter, etc.), or educational roles (nanny, kindergarten teacher), or professional ( doctor, commander, pilot), or fabulous (goat, wolf, hare, snake). The role players in the game can be people, adults or children, or toys that replace them, such as dolls. In middle and senior preschool age, role-playing games develop, but at this time they are distinguished by a much greater variety of themes, roles, game actions, and rules introduced and implemented in the game than in younger preschool age. Many natural objects used in the play of younger preschoolers are here replaced by conventional ones, and so-called symbolic play arises. For example, a simple cube, depending on the game and its assigned role, can symbolically represent various pieces of furniture, a car, people, and animals. A number of play actions in middle and older preschoolers are only implied and performed symbolically, abbreviated, or only indicated in words.

A special role in the game is given to strict adherence to rules and relationships, for example subordination. Here leadership appears for the first time, and children begin to develop organizational skills and abilities.

In addition to games that include real practical actions with imaginary objects and roles, a symbolic form of individual play activity is drawing. It gradually includes ideas and thinking more and more actively. From depicting what he sees, the child eventually moves on to drawing what he knows, remembers and comes up with himself.

A special class includes competitive games in which the most attractive moment for children is winning or success. It is assumed that it is in such games that the motivation to achieve success is formed and consolidated in preschool children.

In older preschool age, design play begins to turn into work activity, during which the child designs, creates, builds something useful and needed in everyday life. In such games, children learn basic labor skills, learn the physical properties of objects, and actively develop practical thinking. In the game, the child learns to use many tools and household items. He acquires and develops the ability to plan his actions, improves manual movements and mental operations, imagination and ideas.

Among the various types of creative activities that preschool children love to engage in, fine art, in particular children's drawing, occupies a large place. By the nature of what and how a child portrays, one can judge his perception of the surrounding reality, the characteristics of memory, imagination and thinking. In drawings, children strive to convey their impressions and knowledge received from the outside world. Drawings can vary significantly depending on the physical or psychological state of the child (illness, mood, etc.). It has been established that the drawings made by sick children differ in many ways from the drawings of healthy children.

Music occupies an important place in the artistic and creative activities of preschool children. Children enjoy listening to music and repeating musical lines and sounds on various instruments. At this age, interest in serious music studies first arises, which can later develop into a real passion and contribute to the development of musical talent. Children learn to sing and perform various rhythmic movements to music, in particular dance movements. Singing develops musical ear and vocal abilities.

None of the children's ages requires such a variety of forms of interpersonal cooperation as preschool, since it is associated with the need to develop the most diverse aspects of the child's personality. This is cooperation with peers, with adults, games, communication and joint work. Throughout preschool childhood, the following main types of children's activities are consistently improved: play-manipulation with objects, individual object-based play of a constructive type, collective role-playing game, individual and group creativity, competition games, communication games, homework. About a year or two before entering school, another one is added to the named types of activity - educational activity, and a child of 5-6 years practically finds himself involved in at least seven to eight different types of activities, each of which specifically develops him intellectually and morally.

2.1.2 Perception, attention and memory of a preschooler

The process of development of children's perception in preschool age was studied in detail by L. A. Wenger and described as follows. 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 dissect a visible object into parts and then combine them into a single whole before such operations are carried out 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. At the first stage, the process of their formation 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 orienting 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 that interest them, distinguish some objects from others, and find out the connections and relationships that exist between them. As a result of all this, external perceptual action turns into mental action.

According to L. A. Wenger, the basis of abilities associated with perception are perceptual actions. Their quality depends on the child’s assimilation of special systems of perceptual standards. Such standards for the perception of, for example, shapes are geometric figures, for the perception of color - the spectral range, for the perception of sizes - the physical quantities adopted for their assessment. Improving perceptual actions and mastering new types of such actions ensures a progressive change in perception with age, that is, it acquires greater accuracy, dissection and other important qualities. The assimilation of perceptual actions leads to the development of other abilities. Among the various perceptual actions, there are those on which the improvement of children’s general cognitive abilities depends, as well as those, the formation and assimilation of which helps the development of children’s artistic and creative abilities.

Along with the development of perception in preschool age, there is a process of improving attention. A characteristic feature of the attention of a child of early preschool age is that it is caused by externally attractive objects, events and people and remains focused as long as the child retains a direct interest in the perceived objects. Attention at this age, as a rule, rarely arises under the influence of an internally set task or reflection, i.e., in fact, it is not voluntary. It can be assumed that internally regulated perception and active speech proficiency are associated with the beginning of the formation of voluntary attention. Usually in ontogenesis, the formation of voluntary attention in its elementary forms precedes the appearance of the phenomenon of egocentric speech. At the first stages of the transition from externally determined to internally determined attention, that is, the transition from involuntary to voluntary attention, the means that control the child’s attention are important. An early preschooler is able to voluntarily control his attention if there are signals in his field of vision that indicate to him what needs to be kept in his field of attention. Reasoning out loud helps a child develop voluntary attention. If a 4-5 year old preschooler is asked to constantly speak or name out loud what he must keep in the sphere of his attention, then the child will be quite capable of voluntarily and for quite a long time maintaining his attention on certain objects or their details.

From younger to older preschool age, children's attention progresses simultaneously along many different characteristics. Younger preschoolers usually look at pictures that are attractive to them for no more than 6-8 s, while older preschoolers are able to focus on the same image two to two and a half times longer, from 12 to 20 s. The same applies to the time spent doing the same activity for children of different ages. In preschool childhood, significant individual differences are already observed in the degree of stability of attention in different children, which probably depends on the type of their nervous activity, physical condition and living conditions. Nervous and sick children are more often distracted than calm and healthy children, and the difference in the stability of their attention can reach one and a half to two times.

The development of memory in preschool age is also characterized by a gradual transition from involuntary and immediate to voluntary and indirect memorization and recollection. 3. M. Istomina analyzed the process of formation of voluntary and mediated memorization in preschool children, and came to the following conclusions. In primary and middle preschool age, in children three to four years old, memorization and reproduction under natural conditions of memory development, that is, without special training in mnemonic operations, are involuntary. In older preschool age, under the same conditions, there is a gradual transition from involuntary to voluntary memorization and reproduction of material. At the same time, in the corresponding processes, special perceptual actions are identified and begin to develop relatively independently, mediating mnemonic processes and aimed at better remembering, more fully and more accurately reproducing the material retained in memory.

Children's memory productivity in play is much higher than outside of it. However, the youngest children, three-year-olds, have relatively low memory productivity even in play. The first special perceptual actions aimed at consciously remembering or remembering something are clearly visible in the activities of a 5-6 year old child, and most often they use simple repetition for memorization. By the end of preschool age, i.e. by 6-7 years, the process of voluntary memorization can be considered formed. Its internal, psychological sign is the child’s desire to discover and use logical connections in the material for memorization.

Various memory processes develop differently with age in children, and some of them may be ahead of others. For example, voluntary reproduction occurs earlier than voluntary memorization, and in its development seems to overtake it. The development of his memory processes depends on the child’s interest in the activity he performs and the motivation for this activity.

The transition from involuntary to voluntary memory includes two stages. At the first stage, the necessary motivation is formed, i.e. the desire to remember or remember something. At the second stage, the mnemonic actions and operations necessary for this arise and are improved.

It is believed that with age, the speed at which information is retrieved from long-term memory and transferred to working memory, as well as the volume and duration of working memory, increases. It has been established that a three-year-old child can operate with only one unit of information currently located in RAM, and a fifteen-year-old child can operate with seven such units.

With age, the child’s ability to evaluate the capabilities of his own memory develops, and the older the children, the better they can do this. Over time, the strategies for memorizing and reproducing material that the child uses become more diverse and flexible. Of 12 pictures presented, a 4-year-old child, for example, recognizes all 12, but is able to reproduce only two or three, while a 10-year-old child, having recognized all the pictures, is able to reproduce 8 of them.

The first recollection of impressions received in early childhood usually occurs around the age of three years (meaning adult memories associated with childhood). It has been found that almost 75% of children's first recalls occur between the ages of three and four years. This means that by this age, i.e., by the beginning of early preschool childhood, the child has developed long-term memory and its basic mechanisms. One of them is the associative connection of the memorized material with emotional experiences. The imprinting role of emotions in long-term memory begins to manifest itself, apparently, already at the beginning of preschool age.

In children of early preschool age, involuntary, visual-emotional memory dominates. In some cases, linguistically or musically gifted children also have well-developed auditory memory. Improving voluntary memory in preschoolers is closely related to setting them special mnemonic tasks for memorizing, preserving and reproducing material. Many such tasks naturally arise in play activities, so a variety of children's games provide the child with rich opportunities for developing his memory. Children as young as 3-4 years old can voluntarily memorize, remember and recall material in games.

Most normally developing children of primary and secondary preschool age have well-developed immediate and mechanical memory. These children remember relatively easily and without much effort reproduce what they saw and heard, but only if it aroused their interest and the children themselves were interested in remembering or remembering something. Thanks to such memory, preschoolers quickly improve their speech, learn to use household items, orientate themselves well in their surroundings, and recognize what they see or hear.

It has been shown that the development of memory is closely related to the development of thinking in children. It has been established, for example, that the progress of the operational structures of intelligence has a positive effect on the child’s mnemonic processes. In one experiment, children aged 3 to 8 years old were shown 10 different pieces of wood laid out in a row along their length, and were asked to simply look at this row. A week, and then a month later, they were asked to lay out the same row from memory. The first interesting result of this experiment was that after a week the younger preschoolers actually could not remember the sequence of the bars, but nevertheless tried to restore it by choosing one of the following options for the arrangement of the elements of the row:

a) selection of several equal bars,

b) selection of long and short bars,

c) making groups of short, medium and long bars,

d) reproduction of a logically correct, but too short sequence,

e) compiling a complete initial ordered series.

The next result was that after six months without any new presentations of memorized material, the children’s memory spontaneously improved in 75% of cases. Those children who were at level (a) moved on to constructing a series of type (b). Many moved from level (b) to (c) or even to (d). From level (c) children moved to the next, etc.

With the help of mechanical repetitions of information, children of older preschool age can remember it well. They show the first signs of semantic memorization. With active mental work, children remember material better than without such work. Eidetic memory is well developed in children of this age.

2.1.3 Imagination, thinking and speech of preschoolers

The beginning of the development of children's imagination is associated with the end of early childhood, when the child first demonstrates the ability to replace some objects with others and use some objects in the role of others (symbolic function). Imagination is further developed in games, where symbolic substitutions are made quite often and using a variety of means and techniques.

The development of children's imagination in preschool age is judged not only by the ideas and roles that children take on in games, but also on the basis of an analysis of the material products of their creativity, in particular crafts and drawings.

In the first half of preschool childhood, the child’s reproductive imagination predominates, mechanically reproducing received impressions in the form of images. These can be impressions received by the child as a result of direct perception of reality, listening to stories, fairy tales, watching videos and films. In this type of imagination there is still little exact resemblance to reality and there is no proactive, creative attitude towards the figuratively reproduced material. The very images-imaginations of this type restore reality not on an intellectual, but mainly on an emotional basis. The images usually reproduce something that made an emotional impression on the child, caused him to have very specific emotional reactions, and turned out to be especially interesting. In general, the imagination of preschool children is still quite weak. A small child, for example a three-year-old, is not yet able to completely restore a picture from memory, creatively transform it, dismember it and then use individual parts of what he perceived as fragments from which something new can be put together. Younger preschool children are characterized by the inability to see and imagine things from a point of view different from their own, from a different angle. If you ask a six-year-old child to arrange objects on one part of the plane in the same way as they are located on another part of it, turned to the first at an angle of 90°, this usually causes great difficulties for children of this age. It is difficult for them to mentally transform not only spatial, but also simple planar images. In older preschool age, when arbitrariness in memorization appears, the imagination turns from reproductive, mechanically reproducing reality into creatively transforming it. It connects with thinking and is included in the process of planning actions. As a result, children’s activities acquire a conscious, purposeful character. The main type of activity where children’s creative imagination is manifested, all cognitive processes are improved, and role-playing games become.

Imagination, like any other mental activity, goes through a certain development path in human ontogenesis. O. M. Dyachenko showed that children's imagination in its development is subject to the same laws that other mental processes follow. Just like perception, memory and attention, imagination from involuntary (passive) becomes voluntary (active), gradually turns from direct to mediated, and the main tool for mastering it on the part of the child is sensory standards. By the end of the preschool period of childhood, in a child whose creative imagination has developed quite quickly (and such children make up approximately one fifth of children of this age), imagination is presented in two main forms: a) the arbitrary, independent generation of a certain idea by the child and b) the emergence of an imaginary plan for its implementation.

In addition to its cognitive-intellectual function, imagination in children plays another, affective-protective role. It protects the growing, easily vulnerable and weakly protected soul of a child from excessively difficult experiences and traumas. Thanks to the cognitive function of imagination, the child learns better about the world around him and solves the problems that arise before him more easily and successfully. The emotional-protective role of imagination is that through an imaginary situation, tension can be discharged and a unique, symbolic resolution of conflicts can occur, which is difficult to achieve with the help of real practical actions.

In preschool children, both important functions of imagination develop in parallel, but in slightly different ways. The initial stage in the development of imagination can be attributed to 2.5-3 years. It is at this time that imagination, as a direct and involuntary reaction to a situation, begins to turn into an arbitrary, sign-mediated process and is divided into cognitive and affective. Cognitive imagination is formed by separating the image from the object and designating the image using a word. Affective imagination develops as a result of the child’s education and awareness of his “I”, the psychological separation of himself from other people and from the actions he performs.

At the first stage of development, imagination is associated with the process of “objectification” of an image through action. Through this process, the child learns to manage his images, change, clarify and improve them, and therefore, regulate his own imagination. However, he is not yet able to plan it, to draw up a program of upcoming actions in his mind in advance. This ability appears in children only at 4-5 years of age.

Children's affective imagination from the age of 2.5-3 years to 4-5 years develops according to a slightly different logic. At first, negative emotional experiences in children are symbolically expressed in the characters of the fairy tales they hear or see. Following this, the child begins to build imaginary situations that remove threats to his “I”. Finally, at the third stage of development of this function of imagination, substitute actions arise, which, as a result of their implementation, are able to relieve the emotional tension that has arisen; a projection mechanism is formed and begins to operate practically, thanks to which unpleasant knowledge about oneself, one’s own negative, morally and emotionally unacceptable qualities and actions begin to be attributed by the child to other people, surrounding objects and animals. By the age of about 6-7 years, the development of affective imagination in children reaches a level where many of them are able to imagine and live in an imaginary world.

Role-playing games, especially games with rules, also stimulate the development of thinking, primarily visual and figurative. Its formation and improvement depend on the development of the child’s imagination. First, the child acquires the ability to simply mechanically replace some objects with others in the game, giving the substitute objects new functions that are not inherent to them by nature, but are determined by the rules of the game. At the second stage, objects are directly replaced by their images and the need for practical action with them disappears. The main lines of development of thinking in preschool childhood can be outlined as follows: further improvement of visual and effective thinking on the basis of the developing imagination; improvement of visual-figurative thinking based on voluntary and indirect memory; the beginning of the active formation of verbal-logical thinking through the use of speech as a means of setting and solving intellectual problems.

A child’s verbal and logical thinking, which begins to develop at the end of preschool age, already presupposes the ability to operate with words and understand the logic of reasoning. The ability to use verbal reasoning when a child solves problems can be detected already in middle preschool age, but it is most clearly manifested in the phenomenon of egocentric speech described by J. Piaget. Another phenomenon, discovered by him and related to children of this age, is the illogicality of children’s reasoning when comparing, for example, the size and number of objects, indicating that even by the end of preschool childhood, i.e., by the age of about 6 years, many children are still They have absolutely no command of logic.

The development of verbal and logical thinking in children goes through at least two stages. At the first stage, the child learns the meanings of words related to objects and actions, learns to use them when solving problems, and at the second stage, he learns a system of concepts denoting relationships, and learns the rules of logical reasoning. The latter usually refers to the beginning of schooling.

N. N. Poddyakov specifically studied how preschool children develop an internal plan of action characteristic of logical thinking, and identified six stages in the development of this process from junior to senior preschool age. These steps are as follows:

1. The child is not yet able to act in his mind, but is already capable of using his hands, manipulating things, to solve problems in a visually effective way, transforming the problem situation accordingly.

2. Speech is already included in the process of solving a problem by the child, but he uses it only to name objects with which he manipulates in a visually effective manner. Basically, the child still solves problems “with his hands and eyes,” although he can already express and formulate the result of the performed practical action in verbal form.

3. The problem is solved figuratively through the manipulation of object representations. Here, methods of performing actions aimed at transforming the situation in order to find a solution to the task are probably realized and can be verbally indicated. At the same time, differentiation occurs in the internal plan of the final (theoretical) and intermediate (practical) goals of action. An elementary form of reasoning aloud arises, not yet separated from the implementation of a real practical action, but already aimed at theoretically clarifying the method of transforming the situation or the conditions of the task.

4. The child solves the problem according to a pre-compiled, thoughtful and internally presented plan. It is based on memory and experience accumulated in the process of previous attempts to solve similar problems.

5. The problem is solved in terms of actions in the mind, followed by the implementation of the same task in a visually-effective plan in order to reinforce the answer found in the mind and then formulate it in words.

6. The solution to the problem is carried out only in the internal plan with the issuance of a ready-made verbal solution without subsequent recourse to real, practical actions with objects.

An important conclusion that was made by N.N. Poddyakov from studies of the development of children's thinking is that in children the stages and achievements in improving mental actions and operations that have been completed do not completely disappear, but are transformed and replaced by new, more perfect ones. They are transformed into “structural levels of organization of the thinking process” and “act as functional stages in solving creative problems.” When a new problem situation or task arises, all these levels can again be included in the search for the process of solving it as relatively independent and at the same time as components of the logical links of the holistic process of searching for its solution. In other words, children's intelligence already at this age functions on the basis of the principle of systematicity. It presents and, if necessary, simultaneously includes in the work all types and levels of thinking: visual-effective, visual-figurative and verbal-logical.

In preschool age, the development of concepts begins, as a result of which, around adolescence, verbal-logical, conceptual or abstract thinking (sometimes called theoretical) is fully formed in children. How does this specific process take place?

A three- to four-year-old child can use words that we, adults, analyzing the semantic structure of language and speech, call concepts. However, he uses them differently than an adult, often without fully understanding their meaning. The child uses them as labels that replace an action or object. J. Piaget called this stage of speech and mental development of children, limiting it to 2-7 years, pre-operational for the reason that here the child does not yet actually know and practically does not apply direct and inverse operations, which, in turn, are functionally related to the use concepts, at least in their initial, concrete form.

The development of concepts goes in parallel with the development of the processes of thinking and speech and is stimulated when they begin to connect with each other. In order to better understand the dynamics of the development of concepts, along with knowledge of the development of thinking, it is necessary to have an idea of the corresponding line of independent speech development. In preschool childhood (3-7 years), the child’s speech becomes more coherent and takes the form of dialogue. The situational nature of speech, characteristic of young children, here gives way to contextual speech, the understanding of which by the listener does not require correlation of the statement with the situation. In comparison with a young child, a preschooler appears and develops a more complex, independent form of speech - an extended monologue utterance. In preschool age, the development of speech “to oneself” and internal speech is noted.

Of particular interest for understanding how the process of development of inner speech proceeds - it is the “carrier” of concepts - is the analysis of the appearance, dynamics of transformation and disappearance of the so-called egocentric speech. At first, this speech, which serves the child’s autonomous activity in solving practical problems in a visually effective or visually figurative manner, is organically woven into the process of activity throughout its entire duration. This speech in external, verbal form records the result of the activity, helps to concentrate and maintain the child’s attention on its individual moments and serves as a means of managing short-term and operative memory. Then, gradually, the child’s egocentric speech utterances are transferred to the beginning of the activity and acquire a planning function. When the planning stage becomes internal (this usually happens towards the end of preschool childhood), egocentric speech gradually disappears and is replaced by internal speech.

At the time when egocentric speech appears, the child, by the level of his intellectual development, is not yet capable of mastering the rules of speech behavior in dialogue that are accessible to any adult. Preschoolers of 4-5 years of age - the age at which J. Piaget identified and studied the phenomenon of egocentric speech - do not yet have the ability to carry out “reflection in communication” and decenter their position, that is, to expand their cognitive perspective to the boundaries of understanding and consideration the position of another person in dialogical communication. A child of this age does not yet have the skills to use pragmatics; he has mastered only the upper layers of socialized speech - grammar and vocabulary. “The child, as the bearer of “innate grammar,” does not know how to communicate in real situations, despite all his knowledge of syntax, morphology, vocabulary and the speed of their acquisition that amazes the imagination of psycholinguists.” Language, as the author of this quote believes, with the rules of its functioning, is acquired by the child in ontogenesis even somewhat earlier than speech, which acts as the ability to practically use language. In relation to vocabulary, morphology, and grammar, the formation of pragmatics - the rules of communicative, socio-psychological behavior in dialogue - is delayed. Hence the egocentricity of speech, which is practically already formed in its basic linguistic properties. The child does not know how to psychologically influence the interlocutor with the help of speech, and it seems to the adult that he is not trying to do this. Using speech and knowing many words, the child does not recognize words for a long time as words that mean something, but exist separately as systems of symbols.

The next step in children’s awareness and dissection of the speech flow is associated with the isolation of the subject and predicate in the sentence with all the words related to them and the undivided perception of what is inside them. For example, to the question: “How many words are in the sentence “A little girl eats candy”?” A preschool child can answer: “Two.” When asked to name the first word, he says: “Little girl.” When asked to name the second word, he answers: “He eats sweet candy.”

Next, children begin to gradually identify the remaining members of the sentence and parts of speech, except for conjunctions and prepositions, and, finally, by the end of preschool childhood, many of them are able to identify and name all parts of speech and parts of the sentence.

By the age of 4-5, children master the rules of grammar of their native language without much difficulty and without special training. By age 6, a child's vocabulary consists of approximately 14,000 words. He already knows inflection, the formation of tenses, and the rules for composing sentences. A four-year-old child's speech already includes complex sentences.

The first developed forms of dialogic speech appear. When talking with each other, children address their statements to each other. Between three and five years of age, the frequency of correct answers to specific questions increases. Children begin to use the words “this”, “that”, “there” in the second year of life. However, a full understanding of these words comes to them only after a few years. Preschool children have difficulty understanding the difference between the words “this” and “that” if there is no constant point of reference. Many seven-year-old children also do not distinguish between these words if their own position in space does not coincide with the position of the speaker.

At the age of about 4-5 years, language becomes a subject of analysis for the child himself, he tries to understand it and talk about it. Children of senior preschool age distinguish real words found in the language from invented, artificially created words. Children under 7 years old usually believe that a word has only one meaning and do not see anything funny in jokes based on puns. Only from the age of 11-12 are they able to understand jokes based on the ambiguity of grammatical structures or different semantic interpretations.

The following can be identified as general patterns of child speech development in preschool age:

1. the appearance of a word as a component of a situation, adjacent to its other properties. Here we cannot yet talk about the formation of a semiotic function;

2. separation of the word from the situation, the beginning of its functioning according to the laws inherent in sign-symbolic systems. Objective emergence and development of the semiotic function while maintaining orientation to the objective content of the word (symbolic function);

3. the emergence of reflection on the separation of plans, which subsequently extends to all other components of the sign situation that make up the semiotic function.

Of particular psychological interest is the question of the prerequisites and conditions for the formation of the most complex type of speech in preschool children - written speech. L. S. Vygotsky once expressed certain positions on this matter. “The history of a child’s writing,” he wrote, “begins much earlier than the moment when the teacher first puts a pencil in his hands and shows him how to write letters.”

The origins of the formation of this ability go back to the beginning of preschool childhood and are associated with the emergence of graphic symbolism. If a 3-4 year old child is given the task of writing down and remembering a phrase (children at this age, naturally, do not yet know how to read or write), then at first the child seems to be “writing down”, drawing something completely meaningless on paper, leaving There are meaningless lines and scribbles on it. However, later, when the child is given the task of “reading” what has been written down, as a result of observing the child’s actions, it seems that he is reading his images, pointing to very specific lines or scribbles, as if for him they really mean something specific. For a child of this age, the drawn lines apparently mean something and have already turned into mnemotechnical signs - primitive pointers for semantic memory. With good reason, notes L. S. Vygotsky, we can see in this mnemotechnical stage the first harbinger of future writing. A simple child’s drawing is, in essence, a kind of symbolic-graphic prerequisite for a child’s written speech.

2.2 Cognitive activity of children with mental retardation

2.2.1 Features of memory, attention, perception in mental retardation

Children with mental retardation are characterized by significant heterogeneity of impaired and intact parts of mental activity, as well as pronounced unevenness in the formation of different aspects of mental activity.

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 activity with it in preschool children 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, therefore it is advisable to widely use it in their education.

T.A. Vlasova, M.S. Pevzner point to a decrease in voluntary memory in children with mental retardation as one of the main reasons for their difficulties in school learning. These children do not remember texts 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:

1. Reduced memory capacity and memorization speed;

2. Involuntary memorization is less productive than normal;

3. 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;

4. The predominance of visual memory over verbal;

5. Reduced random memory;

6. Impaired mechanical memory.

Causes of impaired attention:

1. The child’s existing asthenic phenomena have an impact.

2. The mechanism of voluntariness in children is not fully formed.

3. Lack of motivation; the child shows good concentration when it’s interesting, but when a different level of motivation is required – 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.

Instability of attention and decreased performance in children of this category have individual forms of manifestation. Thus, in some children the maximum tension of attention and the highest performance are detected at the beginning of the task and steadily decrease as the work continues; in other children, the greatest concentration of attention occurs after a certain period of activity, that is, these children need an additional period of time to engage in activity; The third group of children showed periodic fluctuations in attention and uneven performance throughout the entire task.

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.

Children with mental retardation have a low (compared to normally developing peers) level of perception development. This is manifested in the need for a longer time to receive and process sensory information; in the insufficiency and fragmentation of these children’s knowledge about the world around them; in difficulties in recognizing objects in an unusual position, contour and schematic images. The similar qualities of these objects are usually perceived by them as the same. These children do not always recognize and often mix letters of similar design and their individual elements; combinations of letters are often mistakenly perceived, etc.

At the stage of beginning systematic learning in children with mental retardation, inferiority of subtle forms of visual and auditory perception, insufficiency of planning and execution of complex motor programs are revealed.

Children in this group also have insufficiently formed spatial concepts: orientation in spatial directions for a fairly long period is carried out at the level of practical actions; Difficulties often arise in spatial analysis and synthesis of the situation. Since the development of spatial concepts is closely related to the development of constructive thinking, the formation of concepts of this type in children with mental retardation also has its own characteristics. For example, when folding complex geometric shapes and patterns, children with mental retardation often cannot carry out a full analysis of the form, establish symmetry and identity of the parts of the constructed figures, arrange the structure on a plane, or connect it into a single whole. At the same time, unlike the mentally retarded, children in this category perform relatively simple patterns correctly.

All children with mental retardation can easily cope with the task of drawing up pictures that depict a single object (rooster, bear, dog). In this case, neither the number of parts nor the direction of the cut cause difficulties. However, when the plot becomes more complex, the unusual direction of the cut (diagonal) and an increase in the number of parts lead to the appearance of gross errors and to actions by trial and error, that is, children cannot draw up and think through a plan of action in advance. In all these cases, children have to be provided with various types of assistance: from organizing their activities to visually demonstrating how to perform them.

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 consequence, the child does not receive enough full-fledged practical experience necessary for the development of his perception.

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.

2.2.2 Features of the mental activity of children with mental retardation

This problem was studied by U.V. Ulienkova, T.V. Egorova, T.A. Strekalova and others. The thinking of children with mental retardation is more intact than that of mentally retarded children; the ability to generalize, abstract, accept help, and transfer skills to other situations is more preserved.

The development of thinking is influenced by all mental processes:

1. level of development of attention;

2. level of development of perception and ideas about the world around us (the richer the experience, the more complex conclusions the child can draw);

3. level of speech development;

4. level of formation of voluntary mechanisms (regulatory mechanisms).

The older the child, the more complex problems he can solve. By the age of 6, preschoolers are able to perform complex intellectual tasks, even if they are not interesting to him (the principle of “this is how it should be” and independence applies).

In children with mental retardation, all these prerequisites for the development of thinking are impaired to one degree or another. Children have difficulty concentrating on a task. These children have impaired perception, they have a rather meager experience in their arsenal - all this determines the thinking characteristics of a child with mental retardation.

That aspect of cognitive processes that is disrupted in a child is associated with a violation of one of the components of thinking.

Children with mental retardation suffer from coherent speech and the ability to plan their activities using speech is impaired; inner speech, an active means of the child’s logical thinking, is impaired.

General deficiencies in the mental activity of children with mental retardation:

1. Lack of formation of cognitive, search motivation (a peculiar attitude towards any intellectual tasks). Children tend to avoid any intellectual effort. For them, the moment of overcoming difficulties is unattractive (refusal to perform a difficult task, replacement of an intellectual task with a closer, playful task.). Such a child does not complete the task completely, but only a simpler part of it. Children are not interested in the outcome of the task. This feature of thinking manifests itself at school, when children very quickly lose interest in new subjects.

2. Lack of a pronounced orientation stage when solving mental problems. Children with mental retardation begin to act immediately, on the fly. This position was confirmed in the experiment of N.G. Poddubny. When presented with instructions for the task, many children did not understand the task, but sought to quickly obtain the experimental material and begin to act. It should be noted that children with mental retardation are more interested in finishing their work as quickly as possible, rather than in the quality of the task. The child does not know how to analyze conditions and does not understand the significance of the orientation stage, which leads to many errors. When a child begins to learn, it is very important to create conditions for him to initially think and analyze the task.

3. Low mental activity, “mindless” style of work (children, due to haste and disorganization, act at random, without fully taking into account the given conditions; there is no directed search for solutions or overcoming difficulties). Children solve a problem on an intuitive level, that is, the child seems to give the answer correctly, but cannot explain it.

4. Stereotypical thinking, its pattern.

Children with mental retardation find it difficult to act according to a visual model due to violations of analysis operations, violation of integrity, focus, activity of perception - all this leads to the fact that the child finds it difficult to analyze the model, identify the main parts, establish the relationship between parts and reproduce this structure in the process of his own activities.

Children can successfully classify objects according to such visual features as color and shape, but with great difficulty they identify the material and size of objects as general features, they find it difficult to abstract one feature and consciously contrast it with others, and to switch from one principle of classification to another. When analyzing an object or phenomenon, children name only superficial, unimportant qualities with insufficient completeness and accuracy. As a result, children with mental retardation identify almost half as many features in an image as their typically developing peers.

Children with mental retardation have impairments in the most important mental operations, which serve as components of logical thinking:

Analysis (gets carried away by small details, cannot highlight the main thing, highlights insignificant features);

Comparison (comparing objects based on incomparable, unimportant characteristics);

Classification (the child often makes the classification correctly, but cannot understand its principle, cannot explain why he did this).

In all children with mental retardation, the level of logical thinking lags significantly behind that of a normal preschooler. By the age of 6, children with normal mental development begin to reason, draw independent conclusions, and try to explain everything. Children independently master two types of inferences:

1. Induction (the child is able to draw a general conclusion using particular facts, that is, from the particular to the general).

2. Deduction (from general to specific).

Children with mental retardation experience great difficulty in forming the simplest conclusions. The stage in the development of logical thinking - drawing a conclusion from two premises - is still little accessible to children with mental retardation. In order for children to be able to draw a conclusion, they are greatly helped by an adult who indicates the direction of thought, highlighting those dependencies between which relationships should be established. According to U.V. Ulienkova, “children with mental retardation do not know how to reason or draw conclusions; try to avoid such situations. These children, due to their undeveloped logical thinking, give random, thoughtless answers and show an inability to analyze the conditions of the problem. When working with these children, it is necessary to pay special attention to the development of all forms of thinking in them.”

Clinical and neuropsychological studies have revealed a delay in the development of speech in children with mental retardation, low speech activity, and insufficient dynamic organization of speech. These children have a limited vocabulary, inferior concepts, a low level of practical generalizations, and insufficient verbal regulation of actions. There is a lag in the development of contextual speech; the development of internal speech is significantly delayed, which makes it difficult to form forecasts and self-regulation in activities.

Children with mental retardation have a poor, undifferentiated vocabulary.

When using even words found in the dictionary, children often make mistakes due to an inaccurate and sometimes incorrect understanding of their meaning.

In one word, children often denote not only similar, but also concepts belonging to different semantic groups. Insufficient vocabulary is associated with the lack of knowledge and ideas of these children about the world around them, about quantitative, spatial, cause-and-effect relationships, which in turn is determined by the characteristics of the cognitive activity of the individual with mental retardation.

A number of disturbances are also observed in the process of forming the sense of language. In children with mental retardation, the period of word creation begins later and lasts longer than normal. By the end of preschool age, children in this group may experience an “explosion” of word creation, but the use of neologisms differs in a number of features. For example, to form words of the same grammatical category, the same educational affix (“bridge - bridge”, “thunderstorm - thunderstorm”, “sol - solik”) can be used.

Conclusion

Thus, the study of patterns of abnormalities in mental development is a necessary task not only of pathopsychology, but also of defectology and child psychiatry; it is the search for these patterns, the study of the causes and mechanisms of formation of one or another defect in mental development that allows timely diagnosis of disorders and the search for ways to correct them.

The range of mental development disorders in children is quite wide, but mental retardation is much more common.

Delayed mental development manifests itself in a slow rate of maturation of the emotional-volitional sphere and in intellectual failure. The latter manifests itself in the fact that the child’s intellectual abilities do not correspond to his age.

A significant lag and originality is found in mental activity. All children with mental retardation have memory deficiencies, and this applies to all types of memorization: involuntary and voluntary, short-term and long-term. The lag in mental activity and memory characteristics are most clearly manifested in the process of solving problems associated with such components of mental activity as analysis, synthesis, generalization and abstraction.

Considering all of the above, these children need a special approach.

Training requirements that take into account the characteristics of children with mental retardation:

1. Compliance with certain hygienic requirements when organizing classes, that is, classes are held in a well-ventilated room, attention is paid to the level of illumination and the placement of children in classes.

2. Careful selection of visual material for classes and its placement in such a way that excess material does not distract the child’s attention.

3. Monitoring the organization of children’s activities in the classroom: it is important to consider the possibility of changing one type of activity to another in the classroom, and to include physical education minutes in the lesson plan.

4. The defectologist must monitor the reaction and behavior of each child and apply an individual approach.

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Oksana Aleksandrovna Makarova, senior lecturer at the Department of Psychology, Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University, Elabuga [email protected]

Aspect analysis of mental retardation in Russian psychology

Annotation. The article is devoted to the issue of studying in Russian psychology such a problem as mental retardation. The author analyzes the classifications of different authors, the features of the manifestation of various variants of this deviation in children. Key words: mental retardation, infantilism, deprivation, hyperactivity, asthenia.

Mental retardation (MDD) is a psychological and pedagogical definition for the most common deviation in psychophysical development among all children. According to various authors, in the pediatric population, from 6 to 11% of children with mental retardation of various genesis are detected. Delayed mental development refers to the “borderline” form of development and is expressed in a slow rate of maturation of various mental functions. In general, this condition is characterized by heterochronicity (multiple times) of manifestations of deviations and significant differences both in the degree of their severity and in the prognosis of consequences. Initially, the problem of mental retardation in domestic research was substantiated by clinicians. The term “mental retardation” was proposed by G.E. Sukhareva. The phenomenon under study is characterized, first of all, by a slow pace of mental development, personal immaturity, mild impairments of cognitive activity, different in structure and quantitative indicators from oligophrenia, with a tendency towards compensation and reverse development. For the mental sphere of a child with mental retardation, a combination of deficient functions and intact ones is typical. Partial (partial) deficiency of higher mental functions may be accompanied by infantile personality traits and behavior of the child. At the same time, in some cases, the child’s ability to work suffers, in other cases, voluntariness in organizing activities, in others, motivation for various types of cognitive activity, etc. In the dictionary N.V. Novotortseva “Correctional pedagogy and special psychology,” mental retardation is defined as “a disruption of the normal rate of mental development, manifested in a slow rate of maturation of the emotional-volitional sphere, in intellectual deficiency (the child’s mental abilities do not correspond to his age).” V.V. Lebedinsky speaks about this in his book “Disturbances of mental development in childhood.” With mental retardation, “in some cases, a delay in the development of the emotional sphere (various types of infantilism) will come to the fore, and disturbances in the intellectual sphere will not be clearly expressed. In other cases, on the contrary, a slowdown in the development of the intellectual sphere prevails.” In the book by L.G. Mustaeva “Correctional pedagogical and socio-psychological aspects of accompanying children with mental retardation”, the general term of mental retardation includes “states of mild intellectual disability, characterized by a slow rate of mental development, personal immaturity, mild impairments of cognitive activity and the emotional-volitional sphere.” The concept of “mental retardation” is used in relation to children with minimal organic damage or functional insufficiency of the central nervous system, as well as those who have been in conditions of social deprivation for a long time. This category was singled out due to a sharp increase in the number of persistently underachieving children caused by the school's transition to new, more complex training programs. A comprehensive and systematic study of mental retardation began in domestic defectology in the 60s of the twentieth century and continues to this day. One of the issues of paramount importance is the determination of criteria for differentiating mental retardation from mild variants of mental retardation. The following factors are fundamental in this regard: 1. Partiality of mental underdevelopment: in children with mental retardation, along with impaired or immature mental functions, preserved, while how mental retardation is characterized by the totality of mental underdevelopment. 2. Ability to learn according to general education programs: children with mental retardation can master educational material at the level of a general education secondary school, subject to reasonable distribution of the load, organization of a special training regime and taking into account individual characteristics. 3. Sufficiently high susceptibility for help: schoolchildren with mental retardation, as a rule, are able to take advantage of indirect help from the teacher in the form of leading questions, clarification of assignments, preliminary exercises, organization of educational activities, etc. 4. The ability to logically transfer acquired knowledge and acquired skills to new conditions : children with mental retardation can use the learned way of acting in changed conditions, which is very difficult to do for a mentally retarded child. Thus, children with mental retardation retain the prerequisites for mastering educational material in general education programs, subject to an individual and differentiated approach to them. However, it should be remembered that “mental retardation” is a concept that unites conditions that differ from each other in a number of ways. Next, we will separately dwell on the characteristics of the types of ZPR presented in the literature. Special studies have shown a clinical variety of variants of mental infantilism observed in almost 12% of observed children - primary school students in public schools. So M.S. Pevzner published a classification of mental retardation, including the following clinical variants: – psychophysical infantilism with underdevelopment of the emotional-volitional sphere in children with intact intelligence (uncomplicated harmonic infantilism); – psychophysical infantilism with underdevelopment of cognitive activity; – psychophysical infantilism with underdevelopment of cognitive activity, complicated by neurodynamic disorders; psychophysical infantilism with underdevelopment of cognitive activity, complicated by underdevelopment of speech function. In subsequent years, when examining children with learning difficulties and mild developmental disabilities, a clinical diagnosis of mental retardation was increasingly made in cases where emotional-volitional immaturity was combined with insufficient development of the cognitive sphere of non-oligophrenic origin. As causes leading to mental development delays M.S. Pevzner and T.A. Vlasova, the following were identified. Unfavorable course of pregnancy associated with: – maternal illnesses during pregnancy (rubella, mumps, influenza); – chronic somatic diseases of the mother that began before pregnancy (heart disease, diabetes, thyroid diseases); – toxicoses , especially in the second half of pregnancy; – toxoplasmosis; – intoxication of the mother’s body due to the use of alcohol, nicotine, drugs, chemicals and drugs, hormones; – incompatibility of the blood of mother and fetus according to the Rh factor. Pathology of childbirth: – injuries due to mechanical damage to the fetus when using various obstetric aids, such as forceps, for example; – asphyxia of newborns and its threat. Social factors: – pedagogical neglect as a result of limited emotional contact with the child both in the early stages of development (up to three years) and in later age stages. An important stage in the study of children with mental retardation was the research of K. WITH. Lebedinskaya and the staff of her laboratory in the 70–80s. Based on the etiological principle, they identified four main types of mental retardation: mental retardation of constitutional origin; delayed mental development of somatogenic origin; mental retardation of psychogenic origin; delayed mental development of cerebral-organic origin. With delayed mental development of constitutional origin (harmonic, uncomplicated mental and psychophysical infantilism), infantilism of appearance often corresponds to an infantile body type with childish plasticity of facial expressions and motor skills. The emotional sphere of these children is, as it were, at an earlier stage of development, corresponding to the mental makeup of a child of a younger age: brightness and liveliness of emotions, the predominance of emotional reactions in behavior, play interests, suggestibility and lack of independence. These children are tireless in play, in which they show a lot of creativity and invention, and at the same time quickly get fed up with intellectual activity. Therefore, in the first grade of school, they sometimes have difficulties associated with both a lack of focus on long-term intellectual activity (they prefer to play in class) and an inability to obey the rules of discipline. Such an “infantile” constitution can also be formed as a result of non-rude, more part of metabolic diseases suffered in the first year of life. In addition, according to the type of psychophysical infantilism (constitutional origin), a trivariate of ZPR is distinguished. 1. Harmonic infantilism is, as it were, a nuclear form of mental infantilism, in which the features of emotional-volitional immaturity appear in their purest form and are often combined with an infantile body type. Such a harmonious psychophysical appearance, the frequency of family cases, and the non-pathological nature of mental characteristics suggest a predominantly congenital constitutional etiology of this type of infantilism. However, often the origin of harmonious infantilism can be associated with mild metabolic disorders, intrauterine or in the first years of life. In these cases we are talking about an exogenous phenocopy of constitutional infantilism of genetic origin. In terms of their physical and psychological characteristics, children lag behind their peers by 2–3 years. They are, as a rule, short, fragile, somewhat pale, spontaneous, cheerful, curious, and tireless in play. They already have a fairly pronounced desire to know everything, but it manifests itself in a form that is more reminiscent of the period of “why” in children 4–5 years old, i.e. in fact, the child is still just mastering individual mental operations: he holds his attention on some object, phenomenon or process, asks a question and, possibly, comprehends the answer. At this stage of mental development, he forms ideas about the laws of the structure of the surrounding world, and higher mental processes begin to interact. And all this against the backdrop of the leading activity - a role-playing game. Properly goal-oriented, active cognition has not yet been formed. Psychologically, these children are not ready, and therefore are not capable of the long-term volitional efforts necessary to master complex educational material and obey school requirements. Sometimes they behave in the classroom the same way as in a kindergarten group or at home, they can be capricious, not respond to comments, and are not touchy. Significant disturbances in perception, attention, memory, imagination, speech, and thinking are not observed with harmonious infantilism. However, these processes function as if independently from each other, not yet interacting at the level necessary for the full assimilation of educational knowledge. It is extremely undesirable to send such a child to school early (6–6.5 years). It's better to leave him in kindergarten for another year. In this case, the popularly known expression “give the opportunity to play enough” is not without pedagogical meaning. If a child with harmonious infantilism is still studying in a school class, one should carefully consider the pedagogical tactics of an individual approach, taking into account the peculiarities of his intellectual activity and emotional-volitional sphere. 2. Disharmonic mental infantilism, as a rule, the cause of this variant of mental retardation is mild brain damage in the early stages of development. Some children experience a lag in physical status. The main characteristic is a slowdown in personal maturation, and the emotional-volitional sphere and behavior are characterized by mild pathological properties: instability, emotional excitability, deceit, a tendency to demonstrative behavior, lack of a sense of responsibility and stable attachments, decreased self-criticism and increased demands on others, conflict, pugnacity, greed , selfishness. All these traits have a very negative impact on relationships with others. It should be noted that correction of this variant of mental retardation is very difficult. Sometimes additional medication and competent psychological and pedagogical support are required. One should gradually develop the skills of voluntary behavior, volitional regulation of actions, independence, and responsibility. At the same time, it is necessary to monitor the completeness of the child’s assimilation of the studied material so that gaps in knowledge do not appear. It is important to maintain a warm and friendly attitude towards such children on the part of parents, teachers and peers. Then the negative character traits will gradually smooth out. Conversely, with constant negative attitudes from adults and peers, character and behavior disorders can become entrenched. 3. Psychophysical infantilism with endocrine insufficiency, this option is less common than others. Such children also lag behind in the pace of physical development, but, in addition, their physique is dysplastic, their psychomotor skills are not sufficiently formed: movements are often awkward, clumsy, their switchability, coordination, accuracy, and consistency are impaired. Peers often ridicule their external shortcomings; children experience this hard, but strive to communicate and do not avoid participating in events. As a rule, they are timid, fearful, and attached to loved ones. They are characterized by slow involvement in work, increased distractibility, lack of initiative, flexibility and vividness of imagination. The pace of mental activity is slow. All this causes difficulties in educational activities and rather complex interpersonal relationships, low social adaptation. Corrective work requires mandatory psychological support. It is highly desirable to include such a child in training groups. Pedagogical support involves instilling independence, responsibility, confidence, determination, etc. However, in no case should these children be required to intensify the pace of activity. Their slowness is due to the peculiarities of the biochemical organization of the brain, which cannot be changed. Your attempts to force your baby to act faster will lead to the fact that the child will find himself in a stressful situation, which can cause him various reactions - from hysteria to stupor.

With somatogenic mental retardation, emotional immaturity is caused by long-term, often chronic diseases, heart defects, chronic pneumonia, tonsillitis, sinusitis, severe allergic conditions, pathology of internal organs, etc. These diseases cause chronic intoxication (poisoning) of the body and lead to a decrease in physical and mental tone, activity, level of resistance to stress (including mental stress), and performance. In addition, metabolic disorders that occur during chronic intoxication of the body with harmful substances formed in the focus of chronic infection affect the rate of maturation of the nervous system and can lead to a slight delay in the development of the brain (primarily regulatory systems), to a delay in the maturation of the emotional-volitional sphere. Chronic physical and mental asthenia inhibits the development of active forms of activity, contributes to the formation of such personality traits as timidity, fearfulness, capriciousness, self-doubt associated with a feeling of physical inferiority. These same properties are largely determined by the creation of a regime of restrictions and prohibitions for the child. Thus, to the phenomena caused by the disease is added artificial infantilization caused by conditions of overprotection. Immaturity of the emotional-personal sphere in such children is noted even in preschool age, manifesting itself in the form of increased sensitivity, impressionability, fear of new things, excessive attachment to loved ones (especially to the mother ) and pronounced inhibition in contacts with strangers, up to the refusal of verbal communication. Parents, as a rule, correlate these manifestations of infantilism with the general painful state of the child, sympathize with him, feel sorry for him, take care of him, protect him from unnecessary stress, sometimes limit contacts with peers, and, if possible, try to follow his desires and whims. At the same time, they tend to believe that at school everything will change by itself, and the child, in the course of educational activities, will “catch up” with his peers, mature emotionally and personally, especially since the prerequisites for intelligence (memory, attention, perception, speech, thinking, imagination) such children usually fit within the age norm. However, already in the first months of school, somatically weakened children may be among the unsuccessful, maladapted for a number of reasons: systematic study load and long (almost daily for several hours in a row) stay in the children's group turn out to be too much for them; difficulties in adapting to school are directly related to the immaturity of the emotional and personal sphere: lack of independence, fearfulness, timidity, dependence on adults, increased impressionability, tearfulness, which significantly increase due to overwork; the actual educational activity of such children at the beginning of school turns out to be unformed; Frequent illness can also lead to quite serious knowledge gaps. Delayed mental development of psychogenic origin is typical for children who do not have any abnormalities in the functioning of the central nervous system or somatic sphere, but are brought up in conditions unfavorable for mental development, causing “mental deprivation.” Mental deprivation is a pronounced infringement (lack) of vital mental needs. The social genesis of this developmental anomaly does not exclude its pathological nature. As is known, with the early onset and long-term effect of a psychotraumatic factor, persistent shifts in the neuropsychic sphere of the child can occur, causing the pathological development of his personality. Thus, in conditions of neglect, pathological development of the personality can form with delayed mental development of the type of mental instability: inability to inhibit one’s emotions and desires, impulsiveness, lack of a sense of duty and responsibility. This type of mental retardation should be distinguished from the phenomena of pedagogical neglect, which do not represent a pathological phenomenon, but are limited by a deficit of knowledge and skills due to a lack of intellectual information. In conditions of overprotection (a variant of abnormal personality development according to the type of family idol) psychogenic delay emotional development is manifested in the formation of egocentric attitudes, inability to exert volition, work, and an attitude towards constant help and guardianship. The child is not instilled with the traits of independence, initiative, and responsibility in a situation of improper, pampering upbringing. In psychotraumatic conditions of upbringing, where cruelty or crude authoritarianism predominates, the formation of a personality of a neurotic type often occurs, in which delayed mental development will manifest itself in a lack of initiative and independence, in timidity , timidity. The specifics of the consequences of mental deprivation largely depend on the age stage of the child’s development, which occurred in unfavorable sociocultural conditions. During infancy, sensory (stimulus) deprivation can be observed. At this age, emotional and sensory stimulation literally causes the formation of mental new formations. It is important that the baby is surrounded by affection, attention, care from loved ones, that they communicate with him a lot, take him in your arms, bathe him, give him a massage, etc. A child who has not received enough sensory stimuli in infancy is not distinguished by plasticity and mental vivacity operations. Such children will have rather low cognitive activity. An independent option or a continuation of the previous one can be cognitive deprivation. In early and preschool childhood, the child feels the need for incentives for the development of the prerequisites for intellectual activity: perception, attention, memory, speech, thinking. To implement them, an appropriate sociocultural environment is required, in which a variety of subjects, objects, phenomena and actions of adults are concentrated. Children who grew up in conditions of an acute lack of stimuli for cognitive development are characterized by a poor vocabulary, violations of the grammatical structure of speech, and a paucity of ideas. They are characterized by difficulties concentrating attention, remembering, fragmented perception, weakening of mental activity. The impact of social deprivation on the developing psyche of the child is unique. Entering from the first weeks of life into sociocultural interaction with adults, the child more and more discovers the boundaries of the world, identifies and compares himself with others. In conditions of social deprivation, the child either does not see his life prospects, or the picture of the world seems very distorted to him. The prerequisites for social deprivation, as a rule, are conditions of hypoprotection or hyperprotection from the age of one year to 6–7 years. The majority of children experiencing hypoprotection are brought up in families of persons who abuse alcohol or drugs, mentally retarded or mentally ill parents, persons with unlawful behavior, etc. Delayed mental development of cerebral-organic origin is of the greatest importance for the clinic and special psychology due to the severity of the manifestations and the need, in most cases, for special measures of psychological and pedagogical correction. This type of mental retardation is more common than other described types. A study of the anamnesis of these children in most cases shows the presence of a mild organic deficiency of the nervous system, more often of a residual nature. Causes of cerebral-organic forms of mental retardation (pathology of pregnancy and childbirth: severe toxicosis, infections, intoxications, incompatibility of the blood of mother and fetus according to Rh, ABO and other factors, prematurity, asphyxia and trauma during childbirth, postnatal neuroinfections, toxic-dystrophic diseases and injuries of the nervous system in the first years of life), as can be seen, are to some extent similar to the causes of mental retardation. This similarity is determined by organic damage to the central nervous system in the early stages of ontogenesis. Whether we are talking about pronounced and irreversible mental underdevelopment in the form of mental retardation or only a slowdown in the rate of mental maturation will depend primarily on the massiveness of the lesion. Another factor is the timing of the lesion. Delayed mental development is much more often associated with later, exogenous brain damage, affecting a period when the differentiation of the main brain systems is already significantly advanced and there is no danger of their gross underdevelopment.

Such children often experience a delay in the formation of static functions, walking, speech, neatness skills, and stages of play activities. Signs of a slowdown in the rate of maturation are often detected already in early development and concern almost all areas. In the somatic state, along with frequent signs of delayed physical development (underdevelopment of growth, muscles, lack of muscle and vascular tone), general malnutrition is often observed, which does not allow excluding the pathogenetic role of disorders vegetative regulation of trophic and immunological functions; Various types of body dysplasticity may also be observed. In a neurological condition, disorders of cranial innervation and the phenomenon of vegetative-vascular dystonia often occur. In cases of delayed mental development due to postnatal harm (infections, intoxications and injuries) suffered in the first 3–4 years of life, it is possible observe the presence of a temporary regression of acquired skills and their subsequent instability. The predominance of later stages of damage determines, along with the phenomena of immaturity, the almost constant presence of signs of damage to the nervous system. Therefore, in contrast to oligophrenia, the structure of mental retardation of cerebral-organic origin almost always contains a set of encephalopathic disorders (cerebrasthenic, neurosis-like, psychopathic-like), indicating damage to the nervous system. The basis of cerebral-organic developmental delay are pronounced variants of the so-called minimal cerebral dysfunction (MMD) - relatively mild variants of pathology of the cerebral nervous system that arise as a result of damage to brain tissue, have a residual (residual) nature and are expressed in disruption of the formation of structural and functional systems of the brain. During early and preschool childhood, manifestations of MMD are expressed mainly in the form of motor, emotional and autonomic disorders. Along with this, scattered neurological symptoms are noted: mild stuttering, tics, asymmetry in the strength of movements, erased or severe dysarthria (blurredness, unclear speech). And this may subsequently lead to distortion of cognitive activity. Such children have instability of attention, insufficient development of visual and tactile perception, phonemic hearing, optical-spatial analysis and synthesis, motor and sensory aspects of speech, long-term and short-term memory, visual-motor coordination, mental activity , limited knowledge and insufficient differentiation of ideas, disruption of the organization of activities, difficulties in developing learning skills. At the same time, there is a certain partiality, a mosaic pattern of violations of individual cortical functions with the relative safety of others. This determines the significant heterogeneity of the category of children with mental retardation, which, in turn, requires the individualization of their education, correction and development.

Such manifestations rarely alarm adults or prompt them to take drastic measures to prepare the child for school - intensive training in the development of higher mental processes, the formation of volitional qualities, etc. However, such measures, as a rule, do not lead to the desired result, and in the worst cases cause an exacerbation of brain symptoms. insufficiency. However, children with MMD are not so clearly distinguished from their peers in preschool age. The “heyday” of manifestations of residual brain insufficiency occurs during the period of primary school education and is characterized by extremely rapid depletion of the tone of mental activity, expressed in a kind of “cyclicality” of brain function: i.e. Due to rapid fatigue in the process of mental activity, children periodically “disconnect” from the productive processing of educational material, which determines the “mosaic” nature of knowledge acquisition. Often this feature is combined with immaturity of cognitive functions, which further aggravates academic failure. As L.G. points out. Mustaeva, in older preschool age, weaknesses in volitional regulation, concentration and focus of attention, insufficient coordination of fine motor skills, underdevelopment of the lexicogrammatical structure of speech, and weak expression of intellectual interests are especially noticeable. In the absence of adequate pedagogical assistance, schoolchildren in this group with problems of school maladaptation and persistent academic failure often end up as students auxiliary school. Emotional-volitional immaturity in this form of mental retardation is presented in the form of organic infantilism, the manifestations of which correlate with two typological variants of MMD.1. Asthenic type of MMD (inhibited variant of organic infantilism). It includes children with severe mental fatigue. In this case, signs of physical fatigue may be absent. During one lesson, depending on the complexity and intensity of the presentation of educational material, “deviations” from its productive processing occur up to 6–8 times. Moreover, outwardly, the child can continue the activity he has started: reads without understanding the meaning of what he read, listens to the teacher without perceiving the essence of the presentation, etc. Signs of overwork can also appear externally. Such children are characterized by a rather meager vocabulary, weak associative processes, and a low level of attention switching. Therefore, it is difficult for them to follow the fast pace of presentation of educational material and maintain an informative conversation. If such difficulties arise, they tend to withdraw and “go into a stupor.” Due to their intact ability to criticize, these children are aware of their academic failure and the discrepancy between their achievements and their parents’ expectations. Therefore, they are characterized by low mood, inadequately low self-esteem, and even aversion to school and academic activities.2. Reactive (hyperactive) type of MMD (unstable variant of organic infantilism). Outwardly, these are extremely disorganized, impulsive children with painfully increased motor activity: the child is constantly on the move, cannot sit still, fusses, and is distracted. His actions are often unfocused and meaningless. It seems that everything that comes to the attention of such a child irresistibly attracts him: he constantly fiddles with something, touches it, takes it, touches it, and quite often manages to break, tear, smash, and dirty things that fall into his hands. Scientists associate this condition, first of all, with the insufficient development of those brain systems that provide targeted attention and are responsible for a certain level of wakefulness necessary for full inclusion in activities. The child cannot concentrate on something for a long time or do anything consistently and purposefully. These features are combined with impaired performance, insufficiency of higher mental processes. Thus, the cerebral-organic form of mental retardation is represented by two, quite different, variants of organic infantilism. At the same time, the following allows us to unite these children into one clinical group: – the commonality of the mechanisms underlying MMD (the organic nature of the disorder); – increased fatigue in the process of mental activity, expressed in cyclical periods of productive processing of educational information and leading to problems in mastering program material ;–high persistence of manifestations compared to previous forms of ZPR. Thus, we examined a number of classifications of ZPR. In the taxonomy of ZPR Vlasova T.A. and Pevzner M.S. There are two main forms: infantilism and asthenia.

The first clinical classification of mental retardation was proposed by M.S. Pevzner, it distinguished two main variants: mental retardation with a predominance of signs of mental infantilism and mental retardation due to persistent cerebroasthenia. M.S. Pevzner proposed a classification that includes four clinical variants of mental retardation: uncomplicated harmonic infantilism; psychophysical infantilism with underdevelopment of cognitive activity; psychophysical infantilism with underdevelopment of cognitive activity, complicated by neurodynamic disorders; psychophysical infantilism with underdevelopment of cognitive activity, complicated by underdevelopment of speech function. There is also a later version of the classification of mental retardation, it was proposed by K.S. Lebedinskaya, the causality of the mechanisms of mental development disorders based on the etiopathogenetic principle was taken as a basis. Here, as before, four forms of mental retardation are distinguished: constitutional origin, somatogenic, psychogenic, cerebral-organic. Analysis of psychological and pedagogical literature allows us to conclude that there is some relationship between the two classifications. Psychophysical infantilism with underdevelopment of the emotional-volitional sphere with intact intelligence, according to the classification of M.S. Pevzner, has similar features with ZPR of constitutional origin, one of the forms of which is harmonious infantilism. But with the first form of ZPR, according to the classification of K.S. Lebedinskaya, other forms of ZPR are similar, according to the classification of M.S. Pevzner. However, it should be remembered that the creation of these classifications was based on different principles.

Links to sources 1. Strebeleva E.A. Special preschool pedagogy. –M.: Academy, 2002.–312 pp. 2. Sukhareva G. E. Lectures on childhood psychiatry. Favorite chapters. –M.: Medicine, 1974. –320 p. 3. Correctional pedagogy and special psychology: Dictionary / Comp. N.V. Novotortseva. – St. Petersburg: KARO, 2006. – 144 p. 4. Lebedinsky V. V. Mental development disorders in childhood. – M.: Academy, 2003. – 144 p. 5. Ibid. 6. Mustaeva L.G. Correctional pedagogical and socio-psychological aspects of accompanying children with mental retardation. – M.: ARKTI, 2005. – 52 p. 7. Aksenova L.A., Arkhipov B.A., Belyakova L.I. and others. Special pedagogy. – M.: Academy, 2006. – 400 pp. 8. Mustaeva L.G. Decree. op. 9. Lebedinskaya K. S. Basic issues of the clinic and taxonomy of mental retardation // Defectology. – 2006. –No. 3.–S. 15–27.10. Pevzner M.S. Clinical characteristics of children with mental retardation // Defectology. –1972. –No. 3. –P.3–9.11. Vlasova T.A., Pevzner M.S. About children with developmental disabilities. – M.: Pedagogy, 1973. – 173 p. 12. Kuznetsova L.V., Peresleni L.I., Solntseva L.I. and others. Fundamentals of special psychology. –M.: Academy, 2003. –480 p. 13. Vilshanskaya A.D. Defectological support for students with mental retardation in the context of the correctional developmental education system // Defectology. – 2007. – No. 2. – P. 50–57.14. Mustaeva L.G. Decree. Op. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Lebedinsky V.V. Decree. op. 18. Ibid. 19. Mustaeva L.G. Decree. Op.20. Vilshanskaya A.D. Decree. op. 21. Mustaeva L.G. Decree. Op.22. Markovskaya I.F. Types of regulatory disorders in mental retardation (based on a report at a conference dedicated to the 80th anniversary of K.S. Lebedinskaya) // Defectology.–2006. – No. 3. – P. 28–34.23. Mustaeva L.G. Decree. op.

MakarovaOksana, Senior lecturer of the Department of psychology of the Kazan (Volga) Federal University, [email protected] analysis of delay of mental development in the national psychologyAbstract.The article is dedicated to the problem of studying in the national psychology of such a problem as the delay of mental development. The author analyzes the classification of the different authors, peculiarities of different variants of this deviations in children. Keywords: delay of mental development, infantilism, deprivation, hyperactivity, asthenia.

Gorev P. M., Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, editor-in-chief of the magazine “Concept”; Utemov V. V., Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences

Human mental development occurs at a certain pace. Even non-specialists in psychology and pedagogy can determine the age-related capabilities of a child. It is quite obvious that no one would think of demanding the first words from a child at 6 months, but the absence of active speech at 2-3 years will surprise the vast majority.

There are times when a child reaches certain developmental levels. But much slower than their peers. In this case, we are talking about delayed mental development.

Mental retardation (MDD) is a violation of the normal pace of mental development, as a result of which the child lags behind his peers in terms of mental development.

The ZPR is temporary and temporary in nature:

The temporary nature is determined by the fact that a certain level of development is achieved over time. For example, the fact that a child cannot read at the age of 7 is a temporary phenomenon; he will learn later.
The temporary nature of the ZPR is revealed in relation to development norms. A child who has reached the age of 7 may not show interest in educational activities and remain in the circle of interests of preschool age. Thus, his mental development does not correspond to age norms.

Mental retardation can be detected at any stage of childhood. Pediatrics clearly establishes standards that the development of children must comply with. Failure to meet the norm at any point is not grounds for a diagnosis of mental retardation. Since in most cases the development of children is characterized by spasmodic development, and isolated cases of lag are not a pattern.

However, such children come under the control of doctors, and if the lag worsens, the child can be referred for psychological, medical, and pedagogical consultation, where a diagnosis of mental retardation can be made.

Classification of mental retardation

Types of mental retardation are determined by etiology:

ZPR of constitutional origin characterizes immaturity in the development of the motivational sphere and the personality as a whole. The emotional-volitional sphere of children has features of an earlier age: increased background mood, easy suggestibility, brightness in the manifestation of emotions. In such children, gaming interests predominate.
ZPR of somatogenic origin is caused by somatic insufficiency of various origins: chronic diseases, developmental defects, asthenia, etc. The essence of this type of ZPR is that during an illness the child’s body struggles with the problem, and mental, and possibly physical development will be stopped until complete recovery. The child may be developmentally delayed during the illness. Accordingly, with a long-term illness, serious developmental delays can be observed.
Mental retardation of psychogenic origin is caused by unfavorable developmental (upbringing) conditions that interfere with the normal development of the child. In addition, some conditions of upbringing can have a traumatic effect on the psyche and can cause disturbances in the neuropsychic sphere.
ZPR of a cerebrasthenic nature is caused by focal organic damage to the central nervous system. This variant of ZPR is highly resistant and almost impossible to correct. The cause of this type of mental retardation can be pathologies during pregnancy and complications from infectious diseases.

Despite the differences in the reasons for the delay, children with mental retardation have a number of specific features:

Children with mental retardation are distinguished by their compliance and “easy” character, but at the same time they have an unstable nervous system. Such children need a special gentle regime and a special correctional development program.