As the world's population increases, people are increasingly at risk of various pathologies.
A person is born with some of them, others he acquires throughout his life. In addition to physical illnesses, there are also mental disorders of varying severity. For example, mild mental retardation in children is a deviation of the psyche, or rather, its underdevelopment, which can be lived with without isolation from society. This diagnosis is not a death sentence. Such children have the opportunity to feel like full-fledged members of society.
Mental disorders have always caused fear and misunderstanding. Let's try to understand the history of this disease and its nuances. Is everything really as terrible as it might seem at first glance?
General characteristics
Mild mental retardation in children or mental retardation is the most common pathological mental disorder among such diseases. This form of underdevelopment is also known in medical circles as debility. But this name has lost its relevance due to social unacceptability. Children who have been diagnosed with this condition, despite the prejudices imposed by the public, have every chance of leading an independent life in the future.
Qualities and skills that are usually inherent in identifying mental retardation:
- perception of basic abilities in a special education program;
- mastering writing, reading and counting skills at a basic level;
- fairly good mechanical memory;
- concrete visual methods of comprehending information;
- acquisition of certain labor skills;
- gradual progress in mental development.
Mental retardation affects the formation of cognitive processes, logical thinking and motivational influence. A mild form of deviation allows over time, although not to reach the level of one’s peers, at least to master the skills necessary for life.
Underdevelopment of the psyche and intellect can be formed due to the following reasons:
- Heredity or genetic predisposition.
- Intrauterine disruption of fetal development due to infection or injury. The effects of toxic drugs taken during pregnancy.
- Trauma sustained during childbirth, pathologies of the central nervous system during premature pregnancy.
- Acquired infections, the action of which is aimed at destroying brain cells. These may be the consequences of meningitis, syphilis, encephalitis.
Retardation can also be observed in the physical development of the child in the form of impaired motor functions, deformation of the skull, or changes in the size of the arms and legs. Although these factors are more consistent with moderate and severe mental retardation in children, in some cases they may also be present in a state of mild debility.
In other words, oligophrenia is a condition of a child’s body in which it is difficult for him to maintain the pace of mastering new skills and abilities that are age-appropriate. The child needs a correctional program, after which he will be able to feel like a full-fledged member of society.
Causes of mental retardation
Mental retardation in children is largely determined by genetics. However, heredity alone is rarely the only cause of mental retardation. Unfavorable environmental factors can also have a great influence on the formation of higher mental activity.
It is customary to highlight several reasons:
- Chromosomal abnormalities, burdened heredity.
- Damage to the fetus during intrauterine development (severe infectious diseases suffered by the mother, exposure to toxins, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, drugs, alcohol).
- Brain hypoxia during gestation or childbirth.
- Difficult labor (with asphyxia, forceps, etc.)
- Significant prematurity of the child.
- Social factors (deprivation, deep pedagogical neglect.
- At an early age - TBI, infections affecting the central nervous system.
Features of behavior
Since all children differ from each other in temperament, manner of communication and behavior, it is difficult to visually determine the mental retardation of a child, and even more so to do this at an early age. But still, with a more detailed study of children's relationships, one can notice signs of mental underdevelopment. These include:
- lack of interest in animals, new, colorful objects or toys;
- weak contact with peers;
- misunderstanding of the requirements of the game;
- lack of incentives for intellectual development, characteristic of children at an early age;
- increased desire for physical activity, unfocused games;
- expression of emotions only through primitive reactions, instability of mental state;
- problems with mastering self-care skills.
Children with mild mental retardation develop weakened attention over time and have difficulty concentrating thoughts in a certain direction. Mental performance slows down, and it is difficult for the child to navigate in society. The baby gets tired quickly and doesn’t know what to do next.
The connection of a little person with reality occurs through auditory, visual, visual and other processes. Since their processing is not fully accessible to the brain, the perception of the surrounding world is distorted.
International magazine
One of the main characteristics of a child’s overall development is the formation and development of speech. Children who develop normally have good language acquisition abilities. Speech is an important means of communication between a child and the world around him, the most perfect form of communication that is inherent only to humans. Speech is a special higher mental function that is provided by the brain; any deviations in the development of speech must be noticed in time. For speech to function normally, it is necessary for the cerebral cortex to reach a certain maturity, for the articulation apparatus to be formed and for hearing to be preserved [1].
For a long time, science was not interested in the problems of studying the characteristics of the development of children's speech.
The first work that describes the psychological development of one boy was the book of the German philosopher Tiedemann, “Observation of the Development of the Mental Abilities of a Child,” published in 1787 and provoked a wave of interest in the topic of children and the study of the characteristics of the language and speech of children. After “Observations,” a number of publications were published that describe researchers’ observations of the speech development of their children.
At the beginning of the 20th century in Russia, state interest in the study of children's speech arose: institutions were organized that deal with the study of speech ontogenesis, special literature was published, and methodological approaches to conducting research were improved.
However, in 1936, the Decree of the Central Committee “On pedagogical perversions in the Narkompros system” suspended the development of the scientific direction for studying the development of children's speech. And only in 1950, with the flourishing of psycholinguistics, the following significant works in this direction will appear.
Currently, a lot of research is being carried out in this direction, which has received great development in our country and abroad.
The reasons for the delay in speech development are the pathology of pregnancy and childbirth, the general lag in the mental development of the child, the influence of heredity and genetics.
Some features of the formation of speech skills at different stages of the development of a child’s speech, which are reflected in the works of psycholinguists, give us the opportunity to trace the uniqueness of deviations and anomalies characteristic of the speech development of children with intellectual disabilities [2].
Mental retardation is a persistent, irreversible impairment of cognitive activity, as well as emotional-volitional and behavioral spheres. Among people with intellectual disabilities, the majority are people diagnosed with mental retardation.
Depending on the lack of intelligence in children diagnosed with oligophrenia, three groups are distinguished: idiocy - severe; imbecility – less severe; debility is relatively mild [3].
When diagnosed with idiocy, a sharp disturbance in mental and physical development is observed, endocrine disorders and deformities in the structure of the skull and skeleton appear. Speech development in deep forms of idiocy consists of pronouncing individual sounds or pronouncing a limited number of words with distortion. The behavior of idiots shows sharp deviations from the norm.
In a less severe form, with imbecility, disturbances in mental and physical development are quite clearly observed. Imbeciles master the elements of speech, but their vocabulary is small and their pronunciation is incorrect.
Moronic children, who make up the bulk of students in auxiliary schools, have a much milder degree of mental underdevelopment and minor deviations in physical development. Children with this intellectual disability can speak, and their motor impairments are so compensated that they do not interfere with their future involvement in work. The peculiarity of morons is manifested in the underdevelopment of thinking, but it is expressed to a lesser extent in them than in imbeciles.
In a child with an intellectual disability, by the time he or she enters school by the age of seven, the practice of verbal communication takes a short period of time - about 3-4 years. All these years, the rate of development of his speech has been slow, and his speech activity is insufficient. The child turns out to have underdeveloped spoken and everyday speech, which makes it difficult for him to communicate with adults. The child rarely takes part in conversations; he answers questions asked in monosyllables and often incorrectly.
When explaining the reasons that cause delayed speech development in children with intellectual disabilities, it should be understood that, first of all, they are characterized by a general underdevelopment of the entire psyche as a whole, leading to significant changes and delays in mental development [3].
The speech of children with intellectual disabilities is often monotonous, inexpressive, devoid of complex and subtle emotional nuances, in some cases it is slow, in others it is accelerated.
Children with intellectual disabilities have a poor vocabulary, inaccurate use of words, difficulties in updating the dictionary, the passive vocabulary predominates over the active one, and the process of organizing semantic fields is disrupted. Children with intellectual disabilities do not know the names of many objects, parts of objects; their vocabulary is dominated by nouns with specific meanings, there are no words of a general nature, few adjectives, adverbs, and substitutions of words based on semantic similarity are observed.
The passive vocabulary is much wider than the active one, but it is difficult to update; to activate it you need to ask a leading question; many words never become concepts [4].
Already in the first year of life in a child with an intellectual disability, there is an absence or later appearance of babbling. This occurs due to underdevelopment of phonemic hearing, which is a consequence of an anomaly in the general development of children with intellectual disabilities.
Let us consider the features of speech development in children with intellectual disabilities in more detail.
Among children with intellectual disabilities, 40-60% of violations of the phonetic aspect of speech are observed.
In such children, as in normal children, articulatory-complex sounds are more often disturbed - these are whistling, hissing, [r] and [l]. Along with the distorted pronunciation of sounds, a large number are noted. Replacements are often variable, i.e. A child with an intellectual disability can pronounce the same sound correctly in one case, but distort it or miss it completely in another [4].
Children with Down syndrome have a slow rate of speech and sometimes scanned speech. Voice disorders are also often observed in children with intellectual disabilities.
The immaturity of the grammatical aspect of speech in children with disorders is manifested in agrammatism, distortion of the use of cases, confusion of prepositions, and incorrect agreement of nouns with adjectives and numerals.
Children's statements are characterized by simple and uncommon sentences, with the main members omitted. Increasing the length of a sentence occurs by listing events and combining sentences using conjunctions and intonation.
Also, children with intellectual disabilities exhibit impairments in dialogic and monologue speech. Children have difficulty starting a conversation, may react inadequately to spoken remarks, do not switch from the position of a listener to the position of a speaker, and are not interested in receiving new information [5].
During monologue speech in children with intellectual disabilities, distortion of the logic and sequence of statements, fragmentation, slippage from the topic, which leads to the formation of side associations, poverty and stereotyped lexical structure, and the presence of features that are inherent in situational speech can be observed [6].
Thus, difficulties in a child’s speech development are directly related to intellectual impairments in the use of speech as a verbal function and a regulator of behavior.
This is explained by the fact that children with intellectual development disorders are not always able to complete speech tasks, especially if they have several tasks. For this category of children, activities generally become complex and are controlled by their verbal generalizations.
Summarizing the above about the uniqueness of the speech development of children with intellectual disabilities, we summarize that a number of researchers (A.K. Aksenova, V.I. Lubovsky, V.G. Petrova and others) identify a number of specific deviations and anomalies of speech ontogenesis that are characteristic of this group of children.
Scientists have demonstrated a discrepancy with the norm of speech development in a child with an intellectual disability already in the first year of life (absence of babbling, humming, etc.) and the impossibility of overcoming the signs of speech pathology until he reaches school age. Speech development in children of this category is delayed and is characterized by a number of deviations that manifest themselves in the phonetic, lexical, syntactic and grammatical aspects of speech.
Types of diagnostics
Some experts believe that determining a child’s mental retardation as a diagnosis before the age of seven is impossible. Only after this period can we talk about any developmental deviations, since the child’s psyche can be formed in a completely unpredictable way.
Periods of active development are followed by long pauses, and these cycles can be repeated regularly. You should seek help from specialists when violations are noticeable in areas such as:
- memory;
- intelligence;
- thinking;
- emotional sphere;
- cognitive functions;
- volitional manifestations;
- coordination and plasticity of movements;
- ability to fix attention.
The degree of mental retardation is diagnosed according to three criteria:
- Clinical picture indicated by damage to brain centers.
- Persistent psychological disturbance of the desire for cognitive activity.
- Low level of learning ability.
A very important factor when performing diagnostic procedures to determine oligophrenia is an ophthalmological examination and X-ray computed tomography of the brain. An eye examination allows you to recognize at the early stages of development such concomitant diseases as:
- retinal pigment degeneration;
- glaucoma;
- cataract;
- microdisturbances of visual nerve endings;
- intracranial hypertension.
A tomograph helps to determine hidden deviations in the structure of the skull, the presence of intracranial pressure, and brain pathologies.
Determining the level of development
Children diagnosed with retardation are able to adapt quite quickly to those around them. It is possible for them to attend kindergarten or primary school on general terms, without a special program. Of course, they are not able to achieve any special success, but mastering the necessary minimum of knowledge is quite possible.
However, psychiatrists still recommend training children with mild retardation in specialized educational institutions. Now they are called schools of the eighth type, and their program fully corresponds to this intellectual level.
A child with a slight mental retardation commits actions that lack any purpose or motivation. His behavior is dominated by:
- the desire to imitate, copy actions;
- lack of independence, naivety and suggestibility;
- depending on the situation or circumstances.
Many parents are afraid to send a child with such disabilities to a special school, explaining that the child will be better off in a calm family environment. By expressing such judgments, they reassure themselves, while depriving the child of a chance for a full existence in society.
Work with mentally retarded children should be carried out by specialists together with parents and be aimed at activating the main lines of intellectual development. To do this, parents need to thoroughly study the baby’s behavior in various situations, his habits and characteristics. Based on these observations, the level of development is established.
Formation of speech communication in children with mental retardation
Novikova Olesya Vladimirovna
Formation of speech communication in children with mental retardation
Introduction
Speech is a channel of development. The sooner the language is mastered, the easier and more completely the knowledge will be mastered.” N. I. Zhinkin
The development of speech and its social function begins from the moment when it becomes a means of communication, that is, when the child begins to understand the speech addressed to him and uses it to express his thoughts.
The development of communicative competence of pupils is an urgent task of the educational process. Communicative competence belongs to the group of key competencies, i.e. those that have special significance in a person’s life, so close attention should be paid to its formation .
Speech, acting in its functional purpose as a means of cognition and communication, serves as the most important tool for the socialization of children with intellectual disabilities. Personality is formed in activity and communication with other people and itself determines the nature of these processes. Speech is of great importance for the formation of mental processes, the entire personality of the child, the formation of thinking and will, therefore the development of verbal (
speech ) communication in children with mental retardation is one of the pressing problems of speech therapy and oligophrenopedagogy.
1. Skills necessary for personal communication.
Communication is an important element of the socialization process, one of the conditions for a comprehensively developed personality. communication skills , the ability to realize his needs, learns to understand the speech of another person, emotional reactions and rules of behavior in society.
Communication as a skill is a complex phenomenon, since it represents a whole system of skills of different order and nature. These are speech skills speech in communication , the ability to communicate in various organizational and communicative forms of activity .
The skills necessary for personal communication can be divided into seven groups:
1) speech skills are associated with the mastery of speech activity and speech means of communication . This is the ability to competently and clearly formulate your thoughts ; achieve the desired communication goal ;
2) socio-psychological skills are associated with mastering the processes of interconnection, mutual expression, mutual understanding, relationships, mutual manifestations and mutual influences. These are the skills to enter into communication psychologically correctly and in accordance with the situation;
3) psychological skills are associated with mastering the processes of self-mobilization, self-tuning, and self-regulation. These are the skills to overcome psychological barriers in communication; relieve excess tension; mobilize the psychophysical apparatus to master the initiative in communication;
of speech in communication in accordance with a specific communicative situation - these are the skills to implement situational norms of addressing and attracting attention; organize acquaintance with partners;
5) skills to use non-verbal means of communication – these are the skills to use paralinguistic means of communication (intonation, pausing, breathing, diction, tempo, volume, rhythm, tonality, melody); extralinguistic means (laughter, noise, applause, etc.)
;
kinetic means of communication (gesture, facial expressions)
;
proxemic means of communication (postures, movements, communication distance)
, etc.
6) the ability to communicate in various organizational and communicative forms of political activity - this is the ability to use organizational and communicative forms of establishing relationships;
7) the ability to interact at the level of dialogue - with an individual or a group;
From the very first days after the birth of a child, communication plays the most important role, because it stimulates the development of such functions as attention, memory, perception, imagination, logic. of communication itself provides the child with intellectual and psycho-emotional development. With normal mental development, the child quickly increases his active and passive vocabulary and enjoys talking with adults and peers.
The lack of communication skills contains the danger of forced loneliness of a person. This is a kind of psychological dead end, a person develops a feeling of inferiority , inferiority, embitters him, creates a streak of “alienation”
between him and those around him.
2. Features of speech development in mentally retarded children
The speech of mentally retarded children develops on a pathological basis from the very beginning. There is a slow pace of speech acquisition and difficulty in developing pronunciation skills. The reason for this is the underdevelopment of the entire psyche as a whole: general motor underdevelopment, insufficient coordination of movements of the speech organs, poor development of phonemic hearing.
The presence of pronunciation defects in mentally retarded child has a sharply negative impact on the further development of thinking and speech. Not perceiving words as a whole clearly enough, he cannot distinguish the shades of meaning of many words. This inhibits the overall development of speech, slowing down the acquisition of vocabulary and grammatical structure of the language.
Phonetic speech deficiencies entail great difficulties in mastering literacy. Pronunciation defects significantly aggravate the disturbances in the intellectual and emotional development mentally retarded child and create obstacles to communication with others. If there are pronunciation defects, there may be a lack of confidence in one’s abilities and knowledge, shyness, indecisiveness, and speech reticence , which in turn reduces curiosity and interest in the environment.
The next feature of the oral speech of mentally retarded children is its lack of expressiveness. Their speech is poor in intonation, monotonous, with unnecessary pauses and incorrect stress. The insufficiency of the vocabulary mentally retarded schoolchildren is easily observed when naming objects, phenomena, and actions performed. Their vocabulary is poor. Sometimes even high school students find it difficult to name constantly occurring objects.
Generalizing concepts are difficult for them. The inability to generalize objects based on a basic feature makes it difficult to understand words such as “tools”
,
“clothing”
,
“transport”,
etc. But words that have abstract meanings are even more difficult for students.
They use such words extremely rarely. One of the features of the dictionary of children with intellectual disabilities is the presence of “empty”
words in speech, that is, words that do not have specific content. Often, a child, naming an object, cannot recognize it among other objects or images, which confirms the lack of correspondence between the word denoting the object and its specific image.
Speaking about the limitations of the vocabulary of children in a boarding home, it should be noted the non-use of action words, words characterizing the properties and qualities of objects, as well as adverbs and prepositions. As a result of using the same group of words, their speech becomes inaccurate and monotonous. Although the passive dictionary includes all parts of speech stored in the memory of mentally retarded schoolchildren , the active dictionary is much poorer. They may understand the meaning of a word, but never use it on their own initiative. During the learning process, students' vocabulary increases significantly. However, a largely passive vocabulary is accumulated, and the transition of words to the active vocabulary occurs very slowly. Poor vocabulary prevents mentally retarded students from adequately expressing their thoughts, feelings, desires, and makes it difficult to understand speech addressed to them.
The dialogical speech of mentally retarded children is defective in various ways. They do not know how to listen sufficiently to what is asked of them. Therefore, in some cases they are silent, in others they answer out of place, echolically repeat part of the question asked, or the answers consist of one or two common sentences. Children find it difficult to concentrate on a conversation, especially when there are visual and auditory stimuli that distract them. Students forget what they just talked about and stop listening to their interlocutor.
Mastering monologue speech is an extremely difficult task children Children do not always understand even simple texts containing temporal, causal and other dependencies. are not sufficiently formed - instructions from an adult are perceived inaccurately by children and do not always determine the content and sequence of the activity being performed. Particularly difficult are complex instructions consisting of several successive links, as well as containing generalizations. They skip many actions or talk about them in very general terms. It is extremely difficult for them to independently plan upcoming activities.
3. Features of speech development in children with moderate and severe mental retardation ( “ non-speech ”
children)
Children with a moderate degree of mental retardation due to severe underdevelopment of cognitive activity, as well as quite clearly expressed physical and mental disorders, were considered unteachable. Recently, has been formed regarding disabled children as people who have equal rights and opportunities with other people for development, but who need certain care and individual assistance. Modern experimental studies have confirmed that the inclusion of a child with profound intellectual disabilities in the learning process is possible and necessary if certain conditions are provided to reveal the potential of mental, physical, emotional and social development (L. V. Baryaeva, S. M. Vinogradov, M. L . Rabinovich)
.
When socializing persons with moderate and severe mental retardation, intractable problems are: lack of interpersonal communication skills, undeveloped need for such communication due to the narrowness of social contacts, inadequate self-esteem and inadequate perception of other people.
Communication disorders affect personality development. Children’s self- image is distorted , the child’s awareness of himself as an individual is difficult, which leads to difficulties in establishing interpersonal relationships and complicates the process of such a child’s adaptation to school and his assimilation of program material (O. A. Bazhukova, I. T. Dmitrov, M. I. Lisina D. M. Mallaev, P. O. Omarova E. N. Vinarskaya, A. G. Ruzskaya, L. M. Shipitsina).
Children with moderate to severe mental retardation are characterized by the following features:
•
• in close connection with severe intellectual impairment in severely mentally retarded children is profound underdevelopment of speech. These children slowly , with a delay of 3-5 years, develop the understanding and use of speech, and its final formation is limited . They are characterized by deep underdevelopment of all aspects of speech: phonetic-phonemic, lexical, grammatical. At the same time, the child understands the interlocutor’s speech very limitedly, satisfactorily capturing intonations, gestures and facial movements. In the future, especially under the influence of teachers, speech develops, but its understanding is ultimately determined by personal experience. Expressive speech is limited to single words or short sentences. The vocabulary is poor, it consists of the most frequently used words and expressions in everyday life. After several years of training, they learn the names of household items, vegetables, etc. The pronunciation side of speech is defective, speech is almost devoid of modulations, there is pronounced tongue-tiedness, violations of the structure of many words and agrammatisms. Using the most common prepositions, children confuse and replace them. They manage to develop the ability to use their speech for communication purposes . In the process of communication, they know how to ask peers or adults for the items they need and dare to ask questions.
3. Contents of correctional and speech therapy work with mentally retarded students .
The main objectives of correctional speech therapy work are:
• practical mastery of lexical and grammatical connections of the language;
• formation of correct pronunciation;
• development of coherent speech.
Speech therapy classes are one of the main forms of correctional training, in which the development of all components of speech is systematically carried out. Speech therapy classes, depending on the specific tasks and stages of speech correction, are divided into the following types:
• classes on the formation of lexical and grammatical means of the language:
• classes on the formation of vocabulary ;
• classes on the formation of grammatical structure.
Speech therapy work with speechless children is based on the data of general pedagogy, defectology and speech therapy, which is motivated by the common trends in the speech development of children of different categories , identified by the studies of L. S. Vygotsky, A. A. Leontiev, A. M. Shakhnarovich, D. B. Elkonin. The results of studies devoted to the formation of communicative activity in ontogenesis are taken into account (L. I. Bozhovich, A. V. Zaporozhets, M. I. Lisina, patterns of the formation of higher mental functions in ontogenesis (V. I. Beltyukov, A. D. Salakhova, L S. Tsvetkova, N. Kh. Shvachkin, as well as the opinion of L. S. Vygotsky that at the first stages of development, complex mental processes are formed on the basis of elementary ones. Speech therapy work is carried out in the general context of the works of B. M. Grinshpun, R. I. Lalaeva, R. E. Levina, E. F. Sobotovich, N. N. Traugott and others, who determined approaches to the development of speech in preschool children with developmental disabilities.
Work with speechless children is based on the following didactic principles:
• complexity, the impact is carried out on the entire complex of speech and non-speech disorders , not only a speech therapist, but also a doctor, psychologist, teacher and parents take part in the work;
• maximum reliance on multimodal afferentations, on various analyzers, since the formation of higher mental functions is a complex process of organizing functional systems: visual, kinesthetic, motor;
• supports on intact (intact)
links of impaired function, since reliance on unaffected links of activity is carried out on new, compensatory principles;
• stage-by-stage formation of mental actions (according to P. Ya. Galperin, in which work on each type of task is carried out in a certain sequence;
• taking into account the zone of proximal development (according to L. S. Vygotsky, in which task completion is possible with dosed assistance from a speech therapist;
• complicating the material, with the gradual inclusion of difficulties in speech therapy work;
• ontogenetic, the sequence of formation of communicative activity and its components in ontogenesis is taken into account;
• functional-semantic, from the standpoint of which, in language learning, the commonality of emotional reactions of partners acts as an orientation to the communicative situation , and the consistency of the subject and speech actions of the speech therapist and the child - in the role of complex cognitive and linguistic orientations.
Based on the principles of experimental learning, language, speech , game and didactic materials are selected and systematized.
To achieve our goals, we (me and Tatyana Valerievna)
We use the following technologies.
• Technologies of differentiated learning. correctional groups of students taking into account general speech impairment . For each group, a separate plan of correctional and developmental work for the year is developed. Group lessons are combined with individual lessons aimed at correcting sound pronunciation defects. This technology makes it possible to make the correction process more effective, to see the student’s individuality and preserve it, to help the child believe in himself, and to ensure his maximum development.
• Speech therapy examination technologies make it possible to conduct high-quality functional diagnostics and identify violations or immaturity of functional systems and thereby approach the cause of difficulties, and on the other hand, develop a strategy for effective, targeted correction, identify special correctional teaching methods that can help in overcoming these difficulties .
• Sound pronunciation correction technologies make it possible to speed up the process of staging and introducing impaired sounds into speech, develop the necessary muscle movements for free use and control of parts of the articulatory apparatus, accuracy, purity, volume, smoothness of movements, the ability to hold a given pose while performing articulatory gymnastics exercises.
• Technologies for the formation of speech breathing for various disorders of the pronunciation side of speech allow children to learn the rules of using the fluency of speech utterances , children with dysarthria to normalize their voice, intonation expressiveness of speech in general, and contribute to the correct programming of speech utterances .
• Speech therapy massage technologies. Differentiated speech therapy massage is used in cases where there are disturbances in the tone of the articulatory muscles. By changing the state of the muscles of the peripheral articulatory apparatus, massage ultimately indirectly helps to improve the pronunciation aspect of speech.
• Technologies for the development of the lexical and grammatical aspects of speech. Work on the development and enrichment of vocabulary is carried out in every lesson, individual or group, this helps to overcome formalism in knowledge and the correct development of students’ speech.
• Technologies for the development of coherent speech. Entertaining speech material , a variety of exercises, tasks with oral and written forms help in developing students' practical speech skills , developing attention, memory and thinking.
• Technologies for correcting writing impairments. Written language disorders in children are a common speech disorder with a varied and complex pathogenesis. Speech therapy work on writing correction has a differentiated nature, taking into account the mechanism of the disorder, its symptoms, the structure of the defect, and the psychological characteristics of the child.
• Information technologies (computer educational games for speech development, correction of speech development aimed at developing cognitive processes, multimedia presentations on lexical topics and familiarization with the outside world, etc.). Digital educational resources (DER) used in the classroom contribute to the development of auditory perception, correct pronunciation skills, the ability to speak coherently, independently construct phrases and sentences, enrich vocabulary, develop logical thinking, visual and auditory memory, and intelligence. Use of ICT ( information and communication technologies )
makes work easier, allows you to keep up with the times, makes it possible to significantly enrich and qualitatively update the correctional and developmental process in speech therapy classes and increase its effectiveness.
• Game technologies (didactic games, printed board games, plot-didactic dramatization games, games with didactic toys, didactic games with objects, word games, dramatization games, role-playing dialogues, imitation games, conjugate gymnastics - theater of fingers and tongue, finger theater, etc.). They stimulate children to engage in educational activities, help broaden their horizons, develop cognitive activity, form certain skills and abilities necessary in practical activities, arouse interest and the need for communication, and develop cognitive processes.
• Health-saving technologies (massage and self-massage of the tongue, ears, face, hands, eye gymnastics, physical education, psycho-gymnastics, game exercises with alternating muscle tension and relaxation, logarithmics, etc.) allow you to alternate mental activity with dynamic pauses, evenly distribute various types of tasks, normative use of TSO (technical teaching aids, which helps to form , maintain and strengthen the health of students.
Correcting speech deficiencies requires systematic training and takes a lot of effort and time from children . Hence the decrease in cognitive interest, reluctance to attend additional classes, and increased fatigue. In order to interest students and make their learning conscious, when carrying out correctional work, new non-traditional techniques and technologies (or rather, elements of technology)
:
• Music therapy (listening, logo-rhythmics, relaxation games, as a supplement to visual images and games) helps create a positive emotional state in children .
• Fairytale therapy. In the atmosphere of a fairy tale, children relax, become open to the perception of reality, and show interest in performing various tasks.
• Su Jok massagers (balls and rings)
.
Regular and indirect stimulation of correspondence systems according to Su Jok has a therapeutic and preventive effect on the speech areas of the cerebral cortex and has a positive effect on the correction of children's .
• Kinesiological exercises increase resistance to stress, synchronize the work of the hemispheres, improve mental activity, help improve memory and attention, and facilitate the process of reading and writing.
• Plasticineography (drawing letters with plasticine)
.
• Modeling letters from plasticine
• Drawing and coloring (decoration)
letters, drawing in a package, monotype.
• Using a magnetic marker board (drawing, writing, playing with magnets)
.
• Games with cereals (semolina, rice, millet, peas)
• Application and collage (decoration of letters, selection of pictures for the letter.
Correcting pronunciation disorders in mentally retarded students is a long and complex process. The work of developing correct sound pronunciation is significantly complicated by the weakness of the closure function of the cerebral cortex, mentally retarded children In mentally retarded children, the longest period of time is the introduction of sound into speech, i.e., the stage of sound automation.
When correcting sound pronunciation disorders in mentally retarded children, the peculiarities of their mental processes are taken into account (slowing down the pace and narrowing the field of perception, instability of attention, qualitative originality of memory, thinking, weakness of motivation and interests). Much attention is paid to the development of speech as the main means of communication.
General condition of the child
Unexpressed mental retardation may have virtually no effect on physical development. Children with intellectual pathologies are able to achieve success in many sports disciplines. By directing their efforts in the right direction and not focusing on shortcomings, they will be able to take their place in society.
The emotional background in mental retardation is very unstable; it is difficult for a child to control his feelings, or rather, the transitions from one state to another. According to his age, he experiences different sensations:
- joy;
- delight;
- sadness;
- irritation;
- anger, etc.
Such children lack a sense of compassion and spiritual understanding of the emotions of others. They cannot think about events or their consequences in the future. The life of a child with mild mental retardation happens here and now. He doesn't worry about what will happen tomorrow.
Such a child has weak manifestations of volitional efforts. In other words, it is as if he agreed to some action, but cannot bring himself to do it, while he himself cannot explain the reason for his behavior.
Speech development in mentally retarded children
In the course of general psychology, speech is considered as a tool of thinking and a means of communication. Both in phylogenesis and ontogenesis, speech first acts as a means of communication, as well as designation, and later acquires the property of a tool with the help of which a person thinks and expresses his thoughts. “In a word, a thought is not only expressed, but also accomplished” (L. S. Vygotsky). Many extremely interesting monographs are devoted to the issues of the relationship between thinking and language (L. S. Vygotsky, A, G. Spirkin). Interesting reviews of the extensive literature on the development of children's speech are contained in the books of B. L. Rubinstein and D. B. Elkonin.
However, another approach to speech is possible - as a certain motor (as well as sound discrimination) skill or ability that arises as a result of the joint activity of analyzers. Of course, this is only one aspect of speech analysis, which should not be considered in isolation from the others. However, this aspect is especially relevant when considering the development of speech in mentally retarded children.
A healthy child of 3-4 years old already has a large vocabulary, his active speech is almost correct grammatically, and phonetic pronunciation errors remain only in the form of minor exceptions.
At the same time, in an oligophrenic child, both auditory discrimination and pronunciation of words and phrases arise much later. His speech is poor and incorrect. The main reasons that determined this state of speech are the weakness of the closure function of the cortex, the slow development of new differentiated conditioned connections in all analyzers, and sometimes mainly in any one. A significant negative role is also played by a general disturbance in the dynamics of nervous processes, which makes it difficult to establish dynamic stereotypes - connections between analyzers.
Underdevelopment of speech may be due primarily to slowly developing and unstable differentiated conditioned connections in the area of the auditory analyzer. Because of this, the child does not differentiate the speech sounds of the people around him for a long time, and does not learn new words and phrases for a long time. He is not deaf, he even hears a quiet rustle or an isolated sound uttered by his parents, but the sounds of coherent conversational speech addressed to him are perceived by him indiscriminately. (This is somewhat similar to how adults hear the speech of foreigners.) Such a child selects and distinguishes only a few words. The process of isolating these adequately perceived words from the speech of others occurs at a completely different, slower pace than normal. This is the first, main reason for the delayed and defective development of speech. But even further, when these words are already highlighted and recognized as familiar, well-known, they are still perceived unclearly.
Mentally retarded children have difficulty distinguishing similar sounds, especially consonants; therefore, if the teacher tells them, for example, that buds have appeared on a tree, they can hear in this consonance barrels, boskos, buds, etc. In preschool age, children’s mistakes, observed when they repeat new words, are usually regarded by others as only as pronunciation defects, of which, by the way, there really are a lot.
However, at school, in the process of teaching a child to write, it becomes possible to establish that many of his mistakes are due precisely to the insufficient development of the auditory analyzer.
The reason for this state of phonemic hearing is the same slow formation of differentiated conditional connections in the auditory analyzer. As students progress through school, these connections are more or less successfully formed. But the consequences of such delayed speech acquisition for the general mental development of children are very serious.
Deficiencies in phonemic hearing are aggravated by the slow pace of development of articulation, i.e., the set of movements necessary to pronounce words.
The development of all movements of a child, including the motor skills of his speech-motor apparatus, also depends on the peculiarities of the formation of differential conditioned reflex connections in the area of the motor analyzer. The motor impulses necessary to clearly pronounce certain sounds must be very accurate. The accuracy of these motor impulses can be ensured by a combination of two types of corrections: correction with the help of hearing (the child hears that he pronounces Be the way adults do, not the way it should be) and correction with the muscle sense (normally the child feels that the muscles of his speech motor apparatus make the wrong movement that is needed, that with such and such a movement the sound is not the same as needed). In an oligophrenic, both types of correction are imperfect.
Correct discrimination of sounds by ear usually contributes to correct pronunciation; the correctness of one’s own pronunciation, in turn, contributes to better differentiation of sounds by ear. With pathology of cortical activity and delayed formation of interanalyzer connections, the opposite relationship arises: insufficiency of auditory perceptions inhibits the improvement of pronunciation, and unclear pronunciation prevents the improvement of the quality of auditory perceptions.
Thus, the slow, defective development of analyzers leads to the fact that in mental retardation, as a rule, the development of speech is sharply delayed. By the time speech should be a means of communication, designation and an instrument of thinking, it finds itself in an extremely undeveloped state. Very often, with oligophrenia, the first individual words appear at 2-3 years, and short, meager and agrammatic phrases - at 5-6 years. Children enter their school years with severe underdevelopment of speech.
The speech deficiencies of mentally retarded schoolchildren have been studied very thoroughly by many Soviet psychologists (A. R. Luria, M. F. Gnezdilov, G. M. Dulnev, M. P. Kononova, V. G. Petrova). The great importance of speech defects for the general mental underdevelopment of children is shown in a special chapter of the book “Peculiarities of mental development of students in auxiliary schools.” This chapter provides a detailed summary of studies of a variety of indicators of speech development.
First of all, it turns out, as one would expect, that the vocabulary of students in the junior classes of the auxiliary school is significantly smaller than the vocabulary of their healthy peers. The difference between passive and active vocabulary, which exists normally, is especially great in oligophrenics. Their active vocabulary is particularly poor. Oligophrenic children use adjectives, verbs, and conjunctions very little.
Even the vocabulary that a auxiliary school student has already mastered remains incomplete for a long time, since the meaning of the words he uses for the most part does not correspond to the actual meaning of the word. This fact also occurs in every normal child. So, for example, a healthy small child can use the word pussy for a domestic cat, a fluffy teddy bear, or the collar of his mother’s coat. At first, uncle is every man except dad; Only gradually does the child learn the exact meaning of the word uncle, which expresses a certain degree of kinship. According to I.M. Sechenov, a word remains for a certain time not a concept for a child, but only a “nickname”, the name of several objects. Then there is a gradual clarification of its meaning.
The grammatical structure of speech among students in the first grades of the auxiliary school is extremely imperfect. Their phrases are monosyllabic. Children very rarely use subordinate sentences and find it very difficult to choose words to express shades of thought. During school years, mentally retarded children retain forms of speech that healthy children use at the age of 3-4, in particular situational speech, which does not fully reveal the content of thought and is therefore understandable only to those who know the situation. Children widely use pronouns, instead of naming the characters, they say that they “went there” or “we were there”, instead of explaining the location of the events or identifying the characters.
Violations of agreement in sentences are noteworthy. So, for example, V.G. Petrova gives the following examples of statements from auxiliary school students. He has no head. The boys made a snowman. I saw a squirrel in the forest. There are two possible reasons for such agrammatism in speech.
Firstly, it may be due to the fact that children do not learn to practically use different grammatical forms, since they do not hear differences in the endings of words due to undifferentiated speech perception.
Secondly, this may be due to the stiffness of nervous processes and their inhibition. The child begins a sentence with one thing in mind, but then, distracted by another thought, skips the end of what he started and moves on to the middle of the next thought. Phrase elements are skipped. Then the child’s ungrammatical phrase should be read like this: Squirrel... (jumped... I saw her) ... saw her in the forest. Another could mean the following: The boys made (...a skating rink... they put a lot of snow there...) snow... (they blinded...) a woman.
It may also be that, when starting to speak, the child did not have time to think through the end and on the go came up with a thought that turned out to be inconsistent with the beginning, but was put into the beginning grammatical form.
The auxiliary school helps students correct pronunciation deficiencies, contributes to a significant increase in vocabulary, and improves the grammatical structure of speech.
A auxiliary school teacher has to face considerable difficulties in teaching children to read and write.
Insufficient development of phonemic hearing, pronunciation defects, difficulty dividing words into sounds - all this leads to the fact that almost every word is spelled with errors. It is very difficult for a mentally retarded child to give letters the desired shape, which naturally causes difficulties in the formation of handwriting. When learning to write and read, defects in the visual analyzer and spatial orientation are detected. Children have difficulty distinguishing between the shapes of the letters p and n, etc. When writing, they write the letter c as the letter e or the letter w as the letter g, etc. In addition to mixing similar, but differently spatially located letters, children sometimes write in mirror images , i.e. from right to left, they lose lines when writing and reading.
All these difficulties, caused by the slow development of analyzers, are gradually being overcome.
However, among the mentally retarded there are children in whom, for one reason or another (local hemorrhage, bruise, locally limited meningoencephalitis), one of the analyzers is particularly retarded in its development. This can be detected exclusively when teaching children oral speech, writing, reading - sometimes also counting). In such cases, while continuing individual correctional work with the student, the teacher is forced to put up with his poor performance in a particular subject. From the course of oligophrenopedagogy it is known that children who do not perform well in one or another subject due to local brain defects must be transferred to the next class. Underdevelopment of speech and concrete thinking of mentally retarded children are interconnected and interdependent. Both of these phenomena arise as a consequence of disturbances in nervous processes. At the same time, being both consequences, these two phenomena are interdependent: underdevelopment of speech limits the further mental development of the child, and the difficulty of generalizations interferes with the correct assimilation of the meanings of words and the formation of speech as a whole. In other words, defects in thinking and speech mutually aggravate each other.
So far, a schematic description of the speech of oligophrenics has been given. Now let us briefly dwell on the speech characteristics of other categories of mentally retarded children.
With hydrocephalus (by no means in all cases, but only sometimes) there is a deceptive, apparently very good development of speech, which creates the illusion of premature good mental development of the child. The vocabulary is amazing in its abundance. These children sometimes use many very complex words and even scientific terms. The grammatical structure of speech is extensive and overly complete. The reasoning of these children is sometimes of a resonant, moralizing nature. The speech of these children is “empty”; they delve little into the meaning of what they say; in inappropriate situations they repeat everything that they have heard from others or read themselves. Their speech, while developing well as a skill, at the same time does not become either an instrument of thought or a means of genuine communication. This kind of speech development in mental retardation is a rare exception.
The speech of some children with schizophrenia can be just as unique, but somewhat different in form. The skill of correct understanding and pronunciation of words itself can be formed in them easily and sometimes even earlier than in healthy children. They master a sufficient vocabulary and can easily use complex grammatical structures of phrases. However, the speech of these children is impaired due to a changed personal position. For example, their speech is often distinguished by a special mannerism: statements are accompanied by peculiar antics, the voice is distorted, children speak squeaky or extremely quietly. In the speech of children with schizophrenia, unexpected distortions of ordinary words are sometimes encountered, as well as neologism words (newly composed or unlawfully transformed, merged, etc.).
With mental retardation resulting from rheumatism or brain injury, as a rule, there are no special difficulties in mastering oral speech, but mastering written speech, especially during the period of learning to write, can be very difficult. The fluctuations in attention characteristic of such children and the uneven pace of actions (a combination of impetuosity and slowness) lead to the fact that they have a large number of random errors: omissions and rearrangements of letters, words, unnecessary repetitions of syllables, accidental typos, etc.
Such children develop very poorly in handwriting: sweeping, uneven movements lead to handwriting remaining unsteady and careless for a very long time.
And finally, the speech of epileptic children is very peculiar. At first it is similar to the speech of oligophrenics. Gradually their speech becomes more and more viscous, viscous. These children tend to repeat the same words and figures of speech. Their stories are replete with unnecessary details. Epileptics inappropriately use diminutive endings (little pen, etc.)
Under the influence of schooling, the speech of all mentally retarded children begins to develop successfully. The vocabulary increases, pronunciation improves, the grammatical structure of speech becomes richer, more developed, and the need for verbal communication increases. Children listen to the teacher’s speech, strive to understand it, talk with each other, try to find precise wording in order to answer the lesson more successfully. But still, we must not forget that the tool of thinking, which in healthy children turns out to be formed long before entering school, in mentally retarded children emerges and improves only after entering a auxiliary school.
METHODS FOR STUDYING SPEECH Methods for examining the speech of children in order to identify various defects in the perception and pronunciation of speech sounds have been developed in detail in speech therapy. Therefore, it is inappropriate to present them here.
It should only be emphasized that, in addition to peculiarities or defects in perception and pronunciation, a psychological analysis of children’s speech should also reveal more complex indicators of its development.
These include the following:
- lexicon;
- grammatical structure;
- completeness and adequacy of the meanings of the words used
- the need for speech as a means of communication and an instrument of thought.
Vocabulary assessment can be done in a variety of ways. Passive vocabulary can be approximately determined by showing the child a large number of objects or objects (including people performing certain actions) and counting the number or percentage of names they name correctly.
Active vocabulary is more difficult to establish. For this purpose, conversations are held with the child based on pictures or on certain topics; then the words that were spoken during the conversation are counted (of course, identical, i.e., repeated words are excluded from this count).
Analysis of the grammatical structure of speech is usually carried out on the material of recordings of the child’s statements, that is, very approximately. Such features of speech are taken into account that are considered typical for situational speech (abundance of pronouns, vagueness of phrases in a conversation with people who do not know the situation in which the conversation is going on) or for contextual speech (completeness of phrases and clarity of names).
You should also pay attention to whether the child willingly maintains a conversation, whether he himself initiates the discussion of various topics or only answers questions, whether his answers are complete or monosyllabic, stingy. Monosyllabic, sparse answers do not necessarily indicate poor development of the student’s speech; sometimes this can be a manifestation of depression or a negative attitude towards the interlocutor.
Literature 1. Vygotsky L. S. Thinking and speech - In the book - Selected psychological studies M, 1956 2. Petrova V. G. Speech of mentally retarded schoolchildren. - In the book: Features of mental development of students in auxiliary schools M, 1965, ch. V.
Formation of the speech apparatus
It is by speech disorders that the degree of mental retardation in children can be determined. The easy form assumes a fairly large vocabulary, although it is used with a violation of the semantic load. The conversation consists of short, monosyllabic phrases that the child hears most often in his environment. It is possible to use individual words and expressions only out of habit, at random.
Memorizing new words and definitions must be accompanied by visual or tactile confirmation. But still, this happens slowly and not fully.
Speech development directly depends on the degree of mental retardation of the child. The mild form is characterized by incorrect pronunciation of some letters of the alphabet. The presence of speech defects such as:
- dysarthria;
- stuttering;
- tongue-tied.
With such problems, classes with a speech therapist have a positive dynamic, but the recovery process is very difficult and lengthy.
Features of speech development in children with mental retardation
With this diagnosis, disturbances in speech formation are usually systemic in nature - that is, most often the child has not developed all aspects of speech to one degree or another. More or less pronounced may be:
- phonemic awareness disorders (more about phonemic speech disorder);
- ungrammatical speech;
- dysarthria;
- delayed speech development;
- formation of coherent speech.
Depending on the pronounced deviations, speech problems are divided into three levels:
- The passive vocabulary is limited; the active vocabulary contains only a small set of simple words. The child expresses himself mainly through gestures.
- Understanding speech is complicated; the child perceives only simple sentences. Active vocabulary has expanded to construct short phrases, but these phrases do not flow together into a coherent narrative.
- The child constructs complex sentences, but they are ungrammatical and often stereotypical. Vocabulary is limited. There are reading and writing skills, but reading text comprehension is reduced, and written text has a lot of impairments.
Intelligence level
The intellectual development quotient, as a rule, ranges from 69 to 50 points. This is quite high, whereas mild mental retardation in children allows them to have an IQ of 49 to 35.
Having a sense of humor is a big problem. Such children perceive everything concretely and literally. Metaphors and aphorisms used by the interlocutor in a conversation are just words without meaning for them.
The main sign of a child with mental retardation is the absence of abstract logical thinking. How is this expressed?
- inability to highlight the main thing and cut off the unnecessary;
- the impossibility of classification and generalization;
- primitiveness of thinking.
Quite simple questions drive the child into a dead end; there is practically no logic in the reasoning. By repeating actions many times, he can grasp the pattern and, by analogy, continue the thought. However, the slightest deviation from the pattern causes difficulties.
Attention and memory disorder
All healthy children have semantic and mechanical memory. In a state of mental retardation, a child simply does not have a semantic memory, while the mechanical one is well developed. Without semantic memory it is impossible to perform the following actions:
- remembering the essence;
- summarizing the information received;
- retelling the text in your own words.
At the same time, the formed mechanical memory allows you to remember large amounts of information, but since this is done unconsciously, the child cannot use it.
In order to somehow develop the semantic perception of information, you need to be patient and explain to your child several times what he cannot understand. Noticeable progress in memorization can be achieved by clearly showing the cause-and-effect relationships of objects and actions. It is much easier for a child with mild mental retardation to remember simple and understandable things than those whose meaning and purpose are unknown to him.
Specifics of education
It is very important to find the right approach to a child with such a disease. Usually this is not difficult to do, since such children are simple-minded and kind. The main task of parents is to correctly set priorities in raising a special child. The amount of acquired knowledge here fades into the background, and preference should be given to completely different values:
- creating a comfortable, favorable, calm environment in the family;
- the desire for love and understanding;
- devoting a large amount of time to communicating with the child;
- the formation of a socially adapted personality, ready for independent life outside the home.
In suitable conditions, such children successfully master the basics of reading, writing and counting, and learn basic work skills. They are happy to carry out simple tasks, help with household chores, and do handicrafts.
With mild retardation, good results are achieved by friendly conversations with the child, educational games, and reading books. Constant communication and systematic intellectual activities protect the brain from degradation and stimulate the development of intellectual activity. The baby enjoys such activities and over time takes the initiative.
The correct behavior of the mother plays a huge role in raising a child. Having discovered any abnormalities in their own child, any normal parent will be horrified and begin to panic. This, as you know, does not give any results, so the best solution would be to contact a specialist. Correcting the moral and psychological state of the mother is the key to a happy future child.
If parents are interested in the maximum development of their mentally retarded child, then they must make every effort to find the necessary methods and techniques for interacting with his psyche. In any case, you will need the help of specialists: both for training and for establishing contacts with others.
Formation of impressive and expressive speech of students with mental retardation
Corrective pedagogy (deaf pedagogy and typhlopedagogy, oligophrenopedagogy and speech therapy) | World of Pedagogy and Psychology No. 9 (38) September 2019
UDC 376.37
Publication date 09/30/2019
Bychkova Natalya Ivanovna 3rd year master's student of the Department of Correctional Pedagogy, Institute of Social and Humanitarian Technologies, Krasnoyarsk Pedagogical University. V.P. Astafieva; RF, Scientific supervisor Agaeva Indira Babaevna Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Correctional Pedagogy of the Krasnoyarsk State Pedagogical University named after. V.P. Astafieva;
Abstract: The article presents a review of the scientific literature on the problem of the formation of impressive and expressive speech in children with mental retardation, and also describes some features of speech disorders in such children - impairments in phonemic hearing, word differentiation, lexical and grammatical constructions, speech understanding, sound pronunciation and the overall sound of speech in general. The reasons for the underdevelopment of children's speech, as well as factors for avoiding verbal communication, are considered. Based on the results of the literature analysis, the need to organize early correctional and pedagogical support for students with disabilities in this category is noted. To improve communication skills and speech potential when working with such children, it is proposed to use alternative communication tools. Key words: impressive speech, expressive speech, mental retardation
The formation of impressive and expressive speech of students with moderate mental retardation
Bychkova Natalia Ivanovna 3rd year undergraduate of the Department of correctional pedagogy of the Institute of social and humanitarian technologies, Krasnoyarsk Pedagogical University. VP Astaf'eva; Russian Supervisor Agayeva Indira Babaevna candidate of pedagogical Sciences, associate Professor of the Department of correctional pedagogy of Krasnoyarsk state pedagogical University. VP Astafiev
Abstract: The article presents a review of the scientific literature on the formation of impressive and expressive speech in children with mental retardation, as well as describes some features of speech disorders in such children – phonemic hearing, word differentiation, lexical and grammatical structures, speech comprehension, utterance of sounds and the General sound of speech in General. The causes of underdevelopment of their speech, as well as factors of avoidance of speech communication by children are considered. According to the results of the literature analysis, the need for early correctional and pedagogical support of students with violations of this category is noted. To improve communication skills and speech potential, it is proposed to use alternative means of communication in working with such children. Keywords: impressive speech, expressive speech, mental retardation
Impressive speech is a necessary element in the speech formation of a child. The main deviations of speech formation include specific pathologies of speech operations - the creation of speech expression and representation in the variant of grammatical systems, which are observed in the difficulties of maintaining the multi-operational composition of speech operations due to the distinctive features of the operator side of thinking (memory, attention). [7].
Considering the mechanisms of impressive speech disorder Luria A.R. identifies disorders of phonemic hearing, which are a direct result of damage to the superior temporal parts of the left hemisphere (or Wernicke's area), understanding the meaning of a whole phrase or a whole coherent speech utterance. The phonetic structure of speech in almost all children with mental retardation is not formed at the beginning of the school period. Children with mental retardation only grasp the intonation and not the meaning of speech addressed to them. They do not respond to situational simple commands. Sound speech for a long time does not interest mentally retarded children enough. They don't listen to her much. Despite this, children gradually still master basic verbal communication, even in cases where the family does not provide them with adequate assistance and they do not attend preschool.
The author identifies the stages of understanding expanded speech: retention of elements of the expanded speech structure in speech memory; understanding expanded speech and decoding its meaning; the ability not only to retain all its elements in memory, but also to fit them into a simultaneously perceived semantic model [6].
Agayeva I.B. believes that due to the slow development of differentiation-conditional connections in the area of the speech-hearing analyzer, a mentally retarded child for a very long time does not differentiate the words spoken by others, does not distinguish the sounds of speech, and therefore does not accurately and clearly perceive the speech of others [1].
Exceptions are extremely rare. In impressive speech, children do not understand case constructions with the prepositions BEFORE, FOR, ABOUT, and mix the prepositions UNDER, ON, UNDER, AND, IN [4].
Expressive speech is the process of pronouncing sounds. It is formed as a result of active communication with others, imitating their actions [8].
The formation of the speech of mentally retarded children occurs with a great delay and is very different from the speech of children without pathologies. Children with mental retardation enter into emotional contact with their mother later than children with normative development. From the age of 1 year, you can notice a pathological reaction to the speech of loved ones. This manifests itself in the fact that in children with mental retardation the desire to imitate the speech of an adult is not sufficiently expressed. The sound complexes pronounced by children are poor and characterized by scanty emotional coloring.
According to Lalaeva R.I. mentally retarded children acquire speech relatively late. Their first babbling words appear at 2-3 years and even at 5 years. These are mainly nouns - names of objects in the immediate environment and verbs denoting frequently performed actions. Some preschoolers, even at 5 years old, pronounce only the first syllable of the desired word [5].
Children with mental retardation have underdevelopment of the lexico-grammatical structure of speech. The vocabulary of such children is poor; there is a significant difference between the volume of active and passive vocabulary. The active vocabulary of children is much smaller in volume than the passive one. The speech of younger schoolchildren consists mainly of nouns and everyday verbs. Less common are adjectives, conjunctions, and adverbs. Students with mental retardation perceive the similarities of objects more easily than their differences. Children do not catch the differences between objects, and the designations are not differentiated.
Many children with mental disabilities do not have words of a general nature (vegetables, fruits, furniture, dishes, clothes, shoes). In oral speech, distortions in the use of cases are observed; the most developed in these children are the forms of the nominative, genitive and accusative cases of nouns.
The function of word formation in children with mental retardation is even less developed than the function of word inflection. The lack of development of the word formation function is observed in the difficulties of forming adjectives from nouns and diminutive forms of nouns. Children more often use the suffixal method of word formation, but the number of suffixes is small.
Younger schoolchildren with mental retardation construct simple non-common sentences; common sentences are rarely found, which most often include a direct object. Imperfective verbs are used as predicates; perfective verbs are used extremely rarely.
In the coherent speech of mentally retarded students, nouns and also incomplete sentences are often found. Sentences lack either a subject or a predicate, or both a subject and a predicate [4].
Rubinshtein S. Ya. noted in his works that the main reasons for the underdevelopment of speech in mentally retarded children are “weakness of the closure function of the cerebral cortex, the slow development of new differentiation connections in all analyzers” [8].
Older preschoolers, although with difficulty, use verbal communication, but it is difficult for them to participate in a conversation. It is difficult for them to tell a story based on a picture, retell a simple text they heard, or verbally convey an event they experienced or saw. They manage to do this only with the help of leading questions and tips. However, such children watch any television programs with great pleasure. Despite the fact that not everyone understands, they like the characters moving on the screen and the musical accompaniment.
Lalaeva R.I. studying the expressive speech of children with mental disabilities revealed that children often omit the prepositions IN, FROM, do not use the prepositions OVER, ABOUT, BEHIND, BEFORE, THROUGH, BETWEEN, BECAUSE, FROM UNDER, mix ON and IN, replace the preposition ABOVE with the preposition ON, ON, UNDER, incorrectly agree between a noun and an adjective, a noun and a numeral, a noun in number, gender, and case.
There are deviations in the use of simple words, and there is no differentiation in the designation of similar objects. For example, some children call a fur coat, a coat, a raincoat with the word coat; a jacket, sweater, shirt is denoted by the word jacket. Lalaeva R.I. notes verbal substitutions in children's speech. Basically, such children replace similar words denoting objects of the same group. The names of several similar items are replaced by one most frequently used word. The reasons for the inaccuracy in the use of words in children with mental retardation are the difficulties of differentiation, distinguishing between the objects themselves.
Primary school students use only a small number of words denoting the characteristics of an object - these are primary colors (red, green, blue), the size of objects (big - small), taste (sweet - bitter). Contrasts such as “thick - thin”, “wide - narrow” are used extremely rarely.
Plural case endings are more difficult to learn than singular case endings. Mentally retarded students often incorrectly use nouns with the adverb “many” (“many boys”, “many cars”). For a long time, the types of declensions remain unlearned; in some cases, the endings of the genitive plural of different declensions (“many cars”, by analogy with “many houses”) are mixed [5].
According to Kataeva A.A., Strebeleva E.A. Children with moderate intellectual disability try to refrain from verbal communication. Speech contacts that occur with adults or between peers turn out to be incomplete and short-lived. This occurs due to limited motivation to make statements, the child’s lack of information necessary to answer, misunderstanding of the interlocutor, and a poor vocabulary that prevents the formation of statements. The researchers emphasized that the formation of speech in a child with moderate mental disability depends on his individual characteristics and the quality of the assistance provided to him [4].
In children with mental retardation, speech impairment is systemic. They have not developed all the operations of speech activity: weakness of motivation, reduced need for verbal communication, impaired programming of speech activity, etc. [2].
Thus, an analysis of literary sources showed that students with mental retardation are a rather heterogeneous group experiencing difficulties in understanding and reproducing speech, which confirms the need for organizing early correctional and pedagogical support for this category of students. Alternative communication tools could help develop communication skills, expand knowledge about the world around us, and develop the child’s independence [3]. When choosing means of alternative communication, one should take into account the individual developmental characteristics of children, their age, and the degree of pathology. Using alternative means of communication and teaching children with mental retardation, teachers compensate for the lack of full speech activity in speechless children, help this category of children express their needs, desires and requests, and create the basis for the development of speech and cognitive activity of children [2].
Bibliography
1. Agayeva I.B. Formation of speech in students with moderate intellectual disabilities by means of alternative communication: a practice-oriented monograph; Krasnoyarsk state ped. University named after V.P. Astafieva. - Krasnoyarsk, 2021. - 148 p. 2. Alternative and additional communication: a collection of methodological materials from a seminar within the framework of the educational forum “Modern approaches and technologies for supporting children with special educational needs” / comp. HE. Tverskaya, M.A. Shchepelina; release. ed. A.G. Gileva; Perm. state humanit.-ped. univ. - Perm. 2021. – 338 p. 3. Introduction to alternative and complementary communication: gestures and graphic symbols for people with motor and intellectual disabilities, as well as with ASD / Steven von Tetzchner, Harald Martinsen. - M.: Terevinf, 2014. - 432 p. 4. Kataeva A.A., Strebeleva E.A. Preschool oligophrenopedagogy. M., 2005. S. -208 p. 5. Lalaeva R.I. Violation of the process of mastering reading in schoolchildren: Textbook. manual for students of defectology department, faculty of pedagogical institute. –– M.: Education, 1983. – 136 p. 6. Luria A.R. Fundamentals of neuropsychology: textbook. aid for students higher textbook manager – 6th ed., erased. – M.: Publishing center “Academy”, 2008. – 300 p. 7. Nesterenko A.A. Development of impressive speech in preschool children with general speech underdevelopment / A.A. Nesterenko, V.A. Degaltseva // Modern trends in the development of the education system: collection of articles (Cheboksary, February 8, 2021) - Cheboksary: Publishing House "Sreda", 2021. - 239 p. 8. Rubinstein S. Ya. Psychology of a mentally retarded child. M., 1970. – 192 p.
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