Readiness Of Future Special Educators (Defectologists)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of training at higher educational institutions of the Republic of Kazakhstan of special educators (disability specialists) for the psychological and pedagogical support of inclusive education. At present, the traditional training of specialists for working with children with special educational needs is mainly focused on special boarding schools. Therefore, it seems important to modernize their training for work in inclusive schools due to the active spread of inclusive education in the country. There are presented the results of a sociological survey of practicing special educators (disability specialists) working with children with special educational needs in inclusive schools. It was revealed that a significant part of special educators working in inclusive schools does not fully represent the purpose and content of their functional responsibilities in a comprehensive school and has difficulty in developing and implementing an individual educational program for a child with developmental disorders. Practicing specialists have the greatest difficulties in the process of counseling teachers and parents, in organizing interdisciplinary interaction and coordinating the psychological and pedagogical support of a child with special educational needs at school. In order to prevent possible similar difficulties for future special educators (disability specialists), there was conducted a survey among students studying defectological specialties as a part of the study. The aim of the survey was to identify the motivational, informative and operational readiness of future educators and existing special educators (disability specialists) to work in conditions of an inclusive education. Mainly positive attitude of students to inclusive education, positive motivation to improve their own professional qualifications in the field of inclusive education were revealed. At the same time, students note the insufficient formation of professional knowledge about the content, methods and techniques of psychological and pedagogical support of inclusive education, not fully developed motivational, communicative and emotional components of psychological readiness to work in an inclusive school. The identified disadvantages in the preparation of special educators to work with children with special educational needs in inclusive schools allowed the authors to offer some recommendations for implementing this process.