THEORETICAL AND APPLIED MODEL OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSISTANCE TO PRESCHOOLERS WITH MENTAL RETARDATION

Abstract

The relevance of the research is determined by the need to develop a theoretical and applied model of psychological assistance to preschoolers with mental retardation in an inclusive education. The article is aimed at implementing the methodology of the communicative approach in the study and comprehensive support of children with mental retardation at the stage of preschool childhood. The presented research uses a communicative approach to the study of older preschoolers with mental retardation and the organization of psychological assistance to those children in the context of educational integration. The methodological platform of the research is a subject-activity approach to the diagnosis of the communicative development of children, their subjective characteristics in interaction with society, to the creation of an event child-adult community. The theoretical analysis of the problem has made it possible to state the current contradiction between the real need to optimize the communicative development of children with mental retardation on the threshold of school education and the insufficiently developed systematic approach to understanding the mechanisms of their socialization, the search for technologies for their communicative development. The experimental research data indicate the generality of the patterns of the communicative development of preschoolers under conditions of normative development and with mental retardation, and the qualitative uniqueness of the subjective characteristics of the communicative sphere of preschoolers with mental retardation. The implementation of the psychological assistance programme based on the 1971 Journal of Positive School Psychology methodology of the communicative approach has made it possible to state positive changes in the communicative development of older preschoolers with mental retardation, in the activation of their adaptive capabilities during the transition to school education. In the research the socio-cultural (personal) approach to the implementation of psychological assistance to children with mental retardation at the stage of preschool childhood has been used.