Mental developmental disorders in childhood. Psychological characteristics of children with developmental disabilities

Mental developmental disorders in childhood

Where did the concept of "children with developmental disabilities" come from? At the household level, we understand that this is a category of children who are limited in their abilities: the opportunity to live fully on a par with normal people... These are the children who have a defect.

Defectology is a science that studies the shortcomings that lead to a violation, and therefore the child has its own characteristics in learning, upbringing and development. The defect itself may not be noticeable if we are talking about minimal violations.

Types of deviations, Vygotsky's theory

There are specifications of defects in children in terms of time and locality.

There is primary defects- these are private and general disorders of the central nervous system (central nervous system) at birth. For example, a child is blind or deaf (violation of analyzer systems). IL trauma or brain damage, or perinatal (postnatal) defects in development.
Secondary defects- are observed later, when the child is not compensated in his development. For example, a baby is blind from birth, and the parents do not compensate him for this violation in any way (tactile games, tell more and let all objects feel with their hands, talk about their shape, etc.) In this case, the child has additional secondary psychological deviations on top of the primary ones. , up to severe mental disorders.

L.S. Vygotsky put forward his theory of the complex structure of the defect.

Hearing impairment (primary defect) distorts perception, disrupts the entire process of CDF (higher mental functions), which leads to a secondary defect. Because the child did not compensate for the defect, he does not have further adequate socialization and, ultimately, this leads to deformation of the personality as a whole.

In turn, there is a relation to the norm... How to count: normal development or not? The concept of a norm as a whole does not exist. In any science, the norm has a convention. In our understanding, the norm:

The average, when we take a certain sample of the surveyed and compare it with a specific child.
The functional norm is exclusively for the individual.

Conditions for the normal development of the child. Dysontogenesis

Normal brain function.
Normal physical development of the child.
Preservation of the senses: sight, hearing, movement, touch, smell.
Consistency and consistency in teaching a child. Because only in the process of learning does the baby develop.

These conditions must exist for a child to develop normally. If something is disturbed, abnormal development occurs.

Sukhareva and Lebedinsky highlight 6 types of mental dysontogenesis(developmental disorder):

General persistent underdevelopment.
Delayed development. These are children with mental retardation (mental retardation).
Damaged development in the early stages of a toddler's life. These are children with organic dementia.
Deficient development. It is associated with severe disorders of some individual analytical systems (vision, hearing).
Distorted development. This hereditary diseases, incl. and autism.
Disharmonious personality development. When a child has persistent defects in character.

Causes of abnormal child development

Biological factors:

Chromosomal and genetic abnormalities. Revealed on early date pregnancy. But here the question is for the parents: continue the pregnancy or terminate.
Infectious and viral diseases that the mother carries during pregnancy (hepatitis, rubella, flu).
Incompatibility of the Rh factor.
Endocrine diseases of the mother (diabetes).
Alcoholism and drug addiction.
Biochemical harmful substances affecting the mother in early pregnancy: poisoning, antibiotic treatment.
Toxicosis, especially at an early stage of development.
Birth and postnatal traumas of the child: asphyxia during childbirth (leading to infantile cerebral palsy, brain damage), hypoxia, fetal strokes, low weight of the baby.
Chronic diseases of the mother.

Social factors.

It's all unfavourable conditions in which the expectant mother is located ..
Those conditions in which the child himself is for a long time: in a family of alcoholics and drug addicts, violation of parent-child relations, constant conflicts between parents, violence from adults (physical and psychological).
Children with deprivation, when a child is deprived of vital needs.

All these factors lead to deformation of the child's personality. Plus, additional developmental disorders are superimposed here, up to developmental abnormalities.

"Special" children

Abnormal children are those children who do not fit into the environment of a normal child. There are several categories of such children:

Children with hearing impairment (deaf, hard of hearing and deaf, deaf). Those. any violation of the auditory analyzer.
Children with visual impairments (blind, visually impaired, color blind).
Children with intellectual disabilities. These are echoes of damage to the central nervous system, brain, etc. Mentally retarded children.
Children with speech impairments (speech pathologists). Speech therapists work well with this category of children.
Children with several disorders of psychophysical development (deaf-mute, blind-mute, deaf, mentally retarded and other combinations, children with cerebral palsy are dumb).
Children with musculoskeletal disorders (musculoskeletal system). These are muscular dystrophies, meopathies, dwarfism, severe scoliosis.
Children with psychopathy.

Visual impairment

Let's talk about impaired sensory perception.

In general, how do we perceive information? These are sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch (tactility).

A person receives a greater percentage of information through sight. There are visual illusions that distort the information that we perceive with our eyes. This is the norm. At certain times, our eyes can perceive images distortedly (see picture).

Sometimes there are visual illusions, when something seems to be, when we imagine one thing, but in fact this thing is of a different form. All this is situational and due to some reason. This is the norm.

Another thing is when there is a persistent visual impairment (underdevelopment, loss, weakening).

Blind children- these are those who are blind from birth, or in the first years lose their sight (due to injury or illness) and they have not yet formed a visual representation.

According to the degree of impairment, these are children with absolute blindness (in both eyes) and visually impaired (visual acuity from 0.05 to 0.2 with correction or glasses).

What are causes of visual impairment?

viral, infectious diseases... Pets can be carriers. For example, if a pregnant mother becomes infected with toxoplasmosis from a cat, the baby will be born blind;
hereditary transmission of visual impairment from parents (cataracts, reduction in the size of the eyes). Sometimes these are benign tumors associated with disorders of the retina;
benign brain tumors that are not detected immediately, but may appear after a certain period of time;
head trauma during childbirth and at an early age of the child, cerebral hemorrhage;
increased intraocular pressure;
premature baby.

Blind children- these are children with complete absence visual sensation or who have some residual vision at a distance of up to 2 meters. There is totally blind children who do not even have a sense of light, because blind people sometimes have some percentage of light perception.

Partially blind children have a sense of light, are able to see and highlight the figures of people, large objects against the general background without detailing. They have a visual retardation of 0.005 to 0.04.

Visually impaired children whose visual acuity varies from 0.05 to 0.2. There are many such children today, especially in elementary school, many spoil their eyesight.

Any child who is born with a violation of any cognitive function, it does not matter if it is sight or hearing, he has a layer of a secondary defect, incl. in the emotional, mental sphere. A blind child is compensated by hearing and tactility. Even a child may not immediately realize his congenital blindness (up to the age of 6 months). school age the child begins to clearly realize that he is impaired: he does not see objects, forms, loved ones, nothing and no one.

But if you organize a correction space for a baby in a timely manner, then he will be able to quite adapt and adequately feel.

How does a blind child develop?

He begins to manipulate objects later, because he does not develop coordination, he does not see the form. The child begins to crawl later, and crawls forward with his feet. He sits on his ass, stretches his legs forward and slowly begins to explore the surrounding space.

Blind children are often injured. Naturally, already in the first year of life, they begin to lag behind their peers. Due to the disturbance of the visual analyzer, spatial-photographic representations are also disturbed. Even if the child develops through speech and tactile, it does not matter fine motor skills lags behind children with the norm. Hence the lagging behind the higher mental functions - perception, attention, memory, thinking, speech, imagination.

Which Attention maybe a child with impaired vision? This attention is only to the sound stimulus. And it is not always fixed: children are often switched and distracted, they cannot be attracted to constantly and monotonous work.

Memory... Children have poor coordination, poorly developed motor skills, so memory also suffers. There is no visual-figurative memory at all, tk. children have no visual example. The image of an object is formed only through tactile sensation. Verbal-logical thinking is formed and develops, but also with a delay.

Imagination practically absent, because it is difficult to visualize the object, especially if the baby does not see from birth. The form of the object is formed by him due to some kind of internal, intuitive ideas.

Blind children may have exceptional auditory memory and ear for music.

If we talk about psychological characteristics, emotional and volitional sphere, this is a violation and disorder of the psyche, a manifestation of aggression (the child cannot fully feel himself and understand his "deficiency"). Many children are generally incapable of showing independence, so parents need to constantly teach them to be independent, the only thing is that it does not harm the health and does not threaten the life of the child.

If the parents are able to adapt and asocialize the child, a blind person may well be active, find their own business, fully compensate for their loss of vision and experience the fullness of life, including in adulthood.

Today, many parents adapt their child through art. For example, visiting exhibitions and a museum, where a child can touch a sculpture or object with his hands.

Teaching blind children should be based on other analyzers: auditory, skin, vibration, olfactory, heat.

Hearing impairment

Children with hearing impairments are studied by deaf psychology and deaf pedagogy.

The child's education, adaptation and compensation are carried out through the dactyl alphabet and sign language. Each letter in the alphabet reflects a different emotional language.

Sign speech replaces the verbal form of communication. Children master it very well.

During the rapid exchange of information, either the dactyl alphabet or sign language is used, at the child's choice. Some may even have gestural hypermobility, when such a flow of information comes from you that the other person does not have time to read your gestures ..

Allocate 3 groups of children with hearing impairments:

Deaf. Even very loud sounds over 60-70 dB are not heard. These babies are born without an auditory analyzer.
Hearing impaired (deaf) - have partial compensation, they have a lack of perception of sounds. As a result, this leads to speech underdevelopment. Such children begin to hear sounds with a volume of 20-50 dB or more.
Late deaf. These are children who have lost their hearing due to some kind of illness or injury.

Modern headphones and high volume music, which most teenagers love today, can lead to complete deafness.

The main causes of hearing impairment in children: childhood viral and infectious diseases, antibiotics, exposure to a strong sound source, contusion trauma, middle ear damage, otitis media, meningitis.

Speech, as we know, is formed through auditory perception. Therefore, if the child does not hear, he cannot learn to speak. Speech is taught by specialists, focusing on the child's visual analyzer. The sooner you start teaching your child to speak, the better his adaptation to future life will be.

But if the baby is deprived, deprived of training, he may develop secondary defects associated with mental and physical development(for example, visual impairment, kidney function, etc.)

Deaf children can learn through facial expressions and gestures.

Hearing impaired children combine a poverty of vocabulary with incorrect use and memorization of new words, distortion and under-articulation of speech, impairment grammatical structure speech, lack of expression, incorrect composition of sentences and their agreement, limited understanding of oral speech.

If blind children learn using a special Braille method, hear all sounds and make many mistakes, then what about deaf children? They generally cannot hear sounds and imitate what they hear. They are only capable of empirical empirically achieve the desired pronunciation.

Hearing correction in children occurs through:

Cochlear implantation (prosthetics) - when the implant takes over the functions of the congenital inner ear. The implant must be changed periodically.
Classes with a deaf teacher. The specialist helps the child master communication up to sound speech: perceive, distinguish and recognize surrounding sounds, understand their meaning and use in their speech.

How does a deaf child develop?

In mental development, children with hearing impairments lag behind their peers in development. Such children use their motor skills worse, and later begin to walk. They are not always coordinatively stable, i.e. they may have poor coordination.

In the emotional-volitional sphere, these are bouts of aggression, negativism, loss of independence (when the child is too taken care of and the parents themselves limit his development), various forms of psychopathy develop.

Parents in no way need to restrict their child, socialize him more, involve him more in the general environment, in communication with peers.

Musculoskeletal disorders

There are several forms of disorders in children:

Lightweight form. A person moves independently, has self-service skills, uses public transport.
Medium form. Such people need help, have self-care skills, but they cannot always do it.
Severe form. A person is completely dependent on other people.

Children with disabilities are divided into 4 groups:

Damage to the nervous system, brain (children cerebral paralysis), tumors, disturbances in the pathways: paralysis of the hands, torticollis. Spinal cord lesions after polio or a consequence of trauma.
Violation of the central nervous system + NODA ( central nervous system and disorders of the musculoskeletal system) due to birth injuries.
With disorders of the musculoskeletal system with preserved intelligence. These are scoliosis, arthrogryposis.
Have inherited NODA + muscle atrophy.

Children's cerebral palsy

Children's cerebral palsy has several forms. Today there are:

Double hemiplegia is the most severe form. These are called "plant children" + mentally retarded. They are completely immobilized, there is no intelligence (IQ below 20), impaired vision and hearing, no speech, sometimes they show aggression when they are uncomfortable. Such children do not live much, a maximum of 16-17 years, more often up to 10 years.
Hyperkinetic form. This is the most common form, including at the birth of a child. These are sharp lunges with hands, it is impossible to keep an object in a static position, children are very difficult to learn (even writing is difficult to teach). Such children may have mental retardation, mental retardation, but in general they are learnable, can adapt and socialize. They need to be trained in special. schools.
Spastic diplegia is very common. The lower extremities are more often affected. Children with a mild form may well study in a regular school, they move around, learn, there are some speech disorders.
Hemiparesis. This is a lesion of one-sided arms and legs. For example, if the lesion is in the right hemisphere, then hemiparesis will be on the left side ( left hand, left leg). If the left hemisphere is affected, then the right side (arm and leg) suffers. There is a combination of mental retardation, speech impairment, mental retardation.
Anatonic-astatic form. Violation of tone, speech, intellectual development, mental development. It all depends on the form of flow, easy / medium / difficult.

Due to the fact that children with cerebral palsy are limited in movements from childhood, initially their sucking reflex is weakened (in the first year of life) or is absent altogether, respectively, speech also suffers (atrophy of the facial muscles).

The visual analyzer is also impaired in children. This is also a muscle and a nerve ending, which leads to the full functioning of the eyes and hearing. Therefore, many children have vision problems (strabismus, hearing loss). If the form of cerebral palsy is mild, such children are learnable, completely socialized and adapted to life. The main thing is that mental retardation is not observed, so that the intellect is normal.

But if there is a very strong decrease in intelligence, here the child is introduced only to the skills of self-service, to elementary objective actions, and so that someone is always there.

In general, children with minor disabilities suffer greatly emotionally. They recognize their defect, that they are different from other children. Higher mental functions, visual-figurative perception, spatial representation, the scheme of the body is broken.

Ask a child with cerebral palsy to draw a person, he will draw a separate head, a separate torso, arms and legs. Those. there is no general, integral perception of your body.

Hyperexcitability, developmental delay, communication problems of the child do not always cause anxiety in parents. Many consider violations to be individual characteristics and wait for the baby to "grow out". Is this tactic always justified, and what can it turn out to be when it comes time to go to school? How to help a future first grader?

The expert of the Sibmed portal is Lyudmila Kozhevnikova, director of the Olesya Center for the Rehabilitation of Children and Adolescents with Disabilities.

Timeliness is key

The fact that the condition of children with any developmental disorders at an early age can be corrected is an indisputable fact for specialists today. True, the results may be different - it all depends on the structure of the disorder and the age at which the system began to work. And yet, timely, or rather, as early as possible, intervention with the adoption of comprehensive measures today gives a significant effect, experts say. Alas, for many parents this is not always obvious.

“Regardless of the complexity of the defect, while providing systematic work with a child under 7 years of age, today you can achieve a lot, - tells Lyudmila Kozhevnikova ... - Nevertheless, in the Novosibirsk region, as well as throughout the country, there are a lot of families in which, when a child is found to have any violation, they say: “if it grows up, it will grow,” “I started talking myself at the age of 5,” and so on. This, say, not entirely serious approach to the development of children leads to negative results. You don't need to be either a doctor or a teacher to understand: if a child has a developmental lag behind the age norm at certain times, you need to urgently contact a specialist. "

It is known that there are so-called sensitive periods in the development of a child, when, with the help of psychological, medical and pedagogical influence, any developmental disorder is most effectively corrected. In difficult cases, the child's condition during this period is able to simply reach a higher level.

The most successful in this respect is the period that Lyudmila Kozhevnikova calls "golden" - from zero to 3 years. Much can be done in the so-called "silver" period - from 3 to 7 years. The thing is that it is at this time that the body's ability to turn on compensatory capabilities, as well as adapt to new conditions and mobilize all vital resources, is especially great.

Today, experts are increasingly using the term "habilitation", although the usual "rehabilitation" is still in use. The difference between "habilitation" and "rehabilitation" is that if in the second case the specialist helps the patient (in this case, the child) to regain the lost functions (for example, as a result of an accident), then in the first case we are talking about the development of functions that are absent from birth.

Habilitation up to the age of 7 is also extremely important because during this period of time, new learning tasks are set for the child who begins to study at school. The child must be prepared for these tasks psychologically and emotionally. In turn, they are difficult, if not impossible, to solve without going through the previous stages of development.

Today, as Lyudmila Alekseevna noted, there are a lot of children with developmental problems in the first grade. Often among the manifestations of such problems are hyperexcitability, social and physical unpreparedness, communication problems, restlessness, difficulty concentrating, and so on. And these are not the most sad symptoms.

“There is a lot of social immaturity, and neurological pathology, and neuropsychiatry due to the lack of full diagnosis up to 7 years, and as a result, timely systematic correction The parent expects the child to do the same when they come to school, but it doesn't work that way. And at this stage, a run in a circle of specialists begins with the expectation of a quick fix for all the problems in the child. And already at 10-12 years of age, there can be no colossal dynamics, and parents who do not take care of the child in a timely manner are disappointed and often give up. "

And yet, how not to miss the alarm bells? For this, there are special screening tests, which spell out the mandatory skills and abilities of a child at a given age. It is not difficult to find them: at the services of parents are bookstores and newsagents, and, of course, the Internet. If you find a discrepancy between the skills of the child and his age, you need to contact the pediatrician, who, in turn, will refer the parent with the child to narrow specialists.

Habilitation therapy: classical methods

Today, many methods of habilitation are available to families in need. Many of them can be obtained free of charge from municipal and state institutions, and some are quite applicable at home.

The main trend in modern habilitation therapy is an integrated approach. If earlier child with developmental disorders was left at the mercy of only doctors, but now the medical component of children's rehabilitation is only a part of complex therapy. In addition to a doctor, psychologists and educators work with the child today (and in some cases, a doctor is needed only if the child has a somatic illness).

While the child's brain receives additional nutrition with the help of drugs, psychological and pedagogical specialists help the child to form and automate new skills, to integrate them into their life. Thus, the child not only activates physiological capabilities, but also stimulates the ability to different types activities - cerebral, cognitive, play, speech, and so on.

Experts already call some new directions of children's habilitation classics. We are talking, for example, about positional therapy, which began to be used in our country about 20 years ago. The essence of positional therapy is to level the child's pathological postures from the point of view of physiology and form the correct ones. According to Lyudmila Kozhevnikova, today it is simply impossible to do without such therapy at a very early age, especially if the musculoskeletal system is impaired. Today, there are all sorts of technical tools for positional therapy.

Motivating habilitation technologies have also demonstrated their effectiveness. Their use also requires special equipment, in this case, special exercise machines and bicycles. A child, fixed on such a bicycle, pedals and realizes that he likes it and is captivated by this process. According to experts, this helps the child to cope not only with disorders vestibular apparatus, but also with neuropsychiatric disorders. Equipment for such therapy was initially produced only in the USA, today "motivating" bicycles are made in our country, including Novosibirsk.

Dolphin therapy: good, but not enough

With regard to such "exotic" methods of rehabilitation, such as hippotherapy, dolphin therapy and canistherapy (contact with dogs in medicinal purposes), then, despite the fact that, according to Lyudmila Kozhevnikova, they deserve no less serious treatment than the "classics", such non-traditional therapy is still secondary.

“Canistherapy, hippotherapy are very good, any animal gives a child a positive, - says Lyudmila Alekseevna. - But such therapy should also be systemic. It is not worth counting on the fact that you have worked out for 2-3 weeks and you will have changes. Some parents say: we will go to dolphin therapy in the summer, and that's the limit. Of course, this is not enough, and only these methods should not be pinned hopes, they will only help in combination with other methods. "

Music therapy is also referred to as auxiliary methods of children's habilitation. According to experts, if used correctly when working with a child musical accompaniment, therapy gives very good results. Today, there are even various methods of this direction.

But water treatments, although they do not belong to the first-order methods of habilitation, they invariably remain the best help on the way to positive change. According to the specialist, if a child is engaged in the pool at least twice a week, this will benefit not only the habilitation process, but also the general condition of the child.

Habilitation centers: where to get help?

Today in any city there are municipal rehabilitation centers, where beneficiaries are provided with places at the expense of the budget, health care and education institutions. Benefits for receiving rehabilitation services are received by all children with developmental disabilities who have been assigned the status of a psychological, medical and pedagogical commission or in a bureau. medical and social expertise(for disabled children).

Today there are many private centers providing habilitation services. As usual, there are pluses and minuses everywhere. What should parents choose?

To get in government agency, sometimes it is necessary to wait in line, which can take months. However, there is a way out of this situation: according to Lyudmila Kozhevnikova, specialists can and should teach parents the necessary methods of habilitating children at home.

As for private centers and specialists, their "minus" is the absence of systematic work. Usually, commercial centers provide parents with the opportunity to attend any classes and procedures at any time, which can contribute to overloading the child with all sorts of manipulations. And this, according to experts, does not affect the child in the best way.

“Parents often make the following mistake: as soon as they see a positive trend, they try to increase the impact on the child, not realizing that this can aggravate the child's condition and get regression., - says Lyudmila Kozhevnikova. - This can go as far as stimulating the pathological activity of the brain, which in some cases can stimulate epic activity and even epileptic seizures. "

The way out of this situation is increased attentiveness to the child. Lyudmila Kozhevnikova advises parents to be sensitive to the state of their child, to take into account the age of the child (than younger child, the less the load should be) and not overload it in pursuit of results.

Topic 2. Children with developmental disabilities

The concept of the average rate of development. Functional

norm as a general strategy for special assistance to children with

in development. The concept of a factor of deviating development. Biological

and social causes of developmental disorders. Understand-

tia "abnormal child", "children with special needs", "children with disabilities

advanced health opportunities ”,“ children with developmental disabilities ”.

The ideas of L.S. Vygotsky on the primary defect and secondary deviations in

child development. The concepts of "defect", "structure of a defect", "organic

and functional disorders "," correction "," compensation "," social

zation "and" integration ". The relationship of development, training and education in

work with children with developmental disabilities.

Special psychology arose and developed as a borderline society

a field of knowledge focused on practical activity and theory

defectology. The concept of impaired development is included in the circle of

concepts, united by the term dysontogenia, which denotes a

personal forms of ontogenetic disorders. Depending on the leading modal

of the primary disorder, the classification of persons with disabilities has been adopted

in development: children with mental retardation, children with mental retardation

development, children with speech impairments, children with hearing impairments, children with

visual impairment, children with musculoskeletal disorders,

children with behavioral disorders, children with emotional disabilities

vitya, children with complex disabilities. Under violation (obsolete

"Defect") in special psychology is understood as the lack of one of

functions that disrupt mental development only when certain

circumstances. L.S. Vygotsky writes that at the initial stages the development

the development of the "problem" child is the main obstacle to his education and

upbringing is a "primary defect." In the absence of correctional

in the future, the leading role begins to acquire

secondary deviations, and it is they that interfere with the social adaptation of the

benka. There are pedagogical neglect, emotional disorders

nal-volitional sphere and behavior, which is due to emotional

personal characteristics against the background of a lack of communication, comfort and

feelings of failure. These concepts include the "structure of the

sheniya ". Thus, L.S. Vygotsky singled out the primary and

secondary violation, and his followers, relying on his description

difficulties in socialization of a child with developmental disabilities, identified and

tertiary violation. Special meaning for a complete mental

development of a child with special needs is played by targeted learning

and education, i.e. a specially organized external environment that

is designed to promptly correct and compensate for violations in

development. The developmental process of a child with one or another impairment is twofold

socially conditioned: the social realization of a violation with one

hand, the social orientation of compensation to adapt to

the environmental conditions that have been created and developed with the expectation of a normal

type of development, constitute its second side. According to L.S. Vygotsky,

the line "defect-compensation" is the central line of the child's development with

developmental features. The positive uniqueness of the child with either

another violation is created primarily not by the fact that he has a

certain functions, but the fact that the loss of a function brings to life

new formations, representing in their unity the reaction of the individual

for violation, compensation in the development process.

Lecture 2. The main categories of special psychology and pedagogy.

2.1. Children with developmental disabilities.

2.2. Assistance systems for people with disabilities.

Children with developmental disabilities.

The development of the psyche of children with developmental disabilities obeys the same basic laws that are found in the development of a normal child:

♦ cyclical nature of mental development;

♦ uneven mental development;

♦ development of individual mental functions on the basis of those formed earlier;

♦ plasticity of the nervous system;

♦ the ratio of biological and social factors in the process of mental development.

Knowing them, one can productively look for ways, factors and directions of development of various categories of children with disabilities.

It is necessary to distinguish between and general patterns deviant development:

♦ decrease in the ability to receive, process, store and use information;

♦ difficulty of verbal mediation;

♦ slowing down the process of forming ideas and concepts about the surrounding reality;

♦ the risk of developing states of social and psychological maladjustment (according to V.I. Lubovsky).

V.V. Lebedinsky, on the basis of the ideas of domestic and foreign scientists (L. S. Vygotsky, G. E. Sukhareva, V. V. Kovalev, L. Kanner, etc.) proposed his own classification of the types of mental dysontogenesis ( different forms violations of normal ontogenesis):

1. Mental underdevelopment. An example is mental retardation. Early damage to the brain structures is characteristic. Underdevelopment, which is understood as a general persistent lag in the development of all functions due to early organic damage to the brain (primarily the cerebral cortex). The defeat can be hereditary (endogenous) or be the result of external (exogenous) factors acting in the prenatal, natal periods or early childhood. With underdevelopment, there is a diffuse (ubiquitous) brain damage. All brain structures are underdeveloped, but thinking and speech are the most affected. The most typical example of underdevelopment is mental retardation. At the heart of the pathogenesis of underdevelopment is the mechanism of retardation of functions.

2. Delayed mental development (retardation)... It is characterized by a slower pace of formation of the cognitive and emotional spheres. Delayed development is a slowdown in the rate of all mental development, which occurs most often as a result of weakly expressed organic lesions of the cerebral cortex (usually of a partial nature) or prolonged and severe somatic diseases. With delayed development, there is a "mosaic" brain damage, when, along with damaged structures, there are also intact ones. Greater preservation of brain structures provides better compensation for impaired functions. The mechanism of retardation of functions lies at the heart of the pathogenesis of delayed development.

3. Damaged mental development. Local damage to any analyzer or structures of the brain. The pathological effects on the brain occurred at a time when their morphological and functional maturation was almost complete. Impaired mental development, represented by organic dementia - a developmental disorder at the end early age or after three years as a result of massive brain injuries, neuroinfections, hereditary degenerative diseases. In many cases, organic dementia is progressive. The mechanism of function retardation lies at the heart of the pathogenesis of damaged development.

4. Distorted development (asynchrony). The pathologically accelerated asynchronous development of individual mental functions is characteristic. Distorted mental development - different options for complex combinations general underdevelopment, delayed, accelerated and damaged development. The reasons for the distorted development are some procedural hereditary diseases, for example, schizophrenia, congenital insufficiency of metabolic processes. Early childhood autism is the most prominent example of this type of impaired mental development. The pathogenesis of distorted development is often based on the mechanism of acceleration (accelerated development of function). When one or several mental functions (as a rule, thinking, or speech) are sharply pulled forward, ahead of ontogenetic periods and at the same time not pulling up all the others. With distorted development, a combination of acceleration and retardation mechanisms is also possible.

5. Disharmonious development this is a form of developmental disorder, in which there is a lack of development of the emotional-volitional and motivational spheres of the personality, with the relative safety of the remaining structures. Examples are psychopathies and cases of pathological personality development.

6. Deficient development... It is characterized by severe underdevelopment or damage to individual analytic systems: hearing, vision, musculoskeletal system, etc. The most vividly it is represented by mental development disorders with insufficient analyzer sensory systems - vision, hearing and musculoskeletal system. Children with severe speech impairments are also susceptible to developmental deficiency.

Among representatives of each type of impaired development, there are significant individual-group differences, which depend on the causes of the impairment, the period of action and the intensity of the factor that caused the impairment. Knowledge of the types of impaired development enables the psychologist to more deeply understand the typology of these impairments and conduct adequate psychocorrection.

The type of dysontogenia that a child has is affected by the so-called parameters of dysontogenesis. In accordance with the ideas of M.S.Pevzner, V.V. Lebedinsky, E.G. Simernitskaya, such parameters are called:

♦ time and duration of exposure to damage (age-related dysontogenia). The earlier the defeat occurred, the more likely the underdevelopment of mental functions is;

♦ etiology (causes and conditions for the occurrence of violations);

♦ localization, intensity and prevalence of the pathological process. Local forms: defects of individual analyzer systems. Systemic disorders: intellectual defects (UO, ZPR);

♦ the degree of violation of inter-functional connections and hierarchical coordination. With general damage to the nervous system, those functions that are in the sensitive period of development are primarily affected.

Mental disorders can be private and general character. Private violations- these are disturbances in the activity of analyzers: vision, hearing, speech, movements.

General violations functions of the brain are associated with the activity of regulatory systems.

Brain lesions at the subcortical level lead to a decrease in the level of wakefulness, a constant decrease in performance. At the same level of defeat, there are violations of elementary emotions - unreasonable outbursts of rage, a feeling of general melancholy, anxiety, etc.

With lesions of the brain at the level of the cortex occurs specific violation intellectual activity: insufficient functions of goal setting, programming and control. The defeat of the frontal parts of the brain leads to a violation of the arbitrariness of purposeful activity. The child experiences difficulties in planning the fulfillment of a number of tasks, the instability of voluntary attention is noted, the function of control and critical attitude to the results of the activity is lost.

The earlier the defeat occurred, the more likely there will be manifestations of mental underdevelopment. With later lesions, damage and decay of previously formed functions are characteristic. Each function in the course of its development goes through a sensitive period with the highest development intensity, but during the same period this function is the most vulnerable.

So, the period of formation phrasal speech the age is from 2 to 3 years: there is a rapid accumulation of vocabulary, the assimilation of lexical and grammatical structures. At the same time, mental trauma, somatic diseases suffered during this period can lead to stuttering. At the age of 5 to 7, basic moral and ethical feelings are formed. During this period, the child develops the skill of voluntary regulation of emotions, and damaging influences during this period can contribute to the emergence of organic psychopathy. Therefore, at the same age, psychopathic character traits often arise and appear: malice, irritability, a tendency to sudden mood swings. In early school age, there is a formation logical thinking... The child develops concepts about the preservation of number, mass, volume, reading and writing skills are automated.

Underdevelopment of any particular function, which does not allow mastering a given amount of information, social and pedagogical neglect, etc., can lead to inadequacy or delay in the formation of logical thinking.

In childhood, mental functions have not yet stabilized. Insufficient stability of mental functions can cause the phenomenon of regression - return of function to an earlier one. age level... Various events that cause stress and the mobilization of the body's efforts to fight for survival lead to the phenomena of temporary regression, that is, a temporary loss of previously formed skills.

For example, with severe somatic diseases, children in the first years of life may lose their walking skills, neatness, and stop pronouncing words. In older children, schoolchildren, the phenomena of temporary regression affect primarily the intellectual and motivational sphere of the individual. Thus, in children who have experienced shock mental trauma (after earthquakes, railway accidents), there was a return to more primitive forms of drawing, a loss of needs and interests inherent in age, and the emergence of emotional forms of response and needs characteristic of more younger age: fear of darkness, loneliness, the need for physical contact, etc. Persistent regression is a steady return to an earlier age level associated with significant damage to function. This condition is most often associated with severe mental illness- early childhood schizophrenia. More often, less mature, recently emerged functions undergo regression. Thus, it is more likely that reading and writing skills are lost than walking and eating skills.

The main factors influencing the progress in the development of a child with disabilities are:

1) biological: the nature and severity of the disorder, depending on the time of its acquisition, the state of health of the child;

2) social: spontaneous learning (the impact of the social environment: family influence, the impact of the peer group, relationships with adults); organized training by non-specialists - the child's stay in kindergarten or school, systematic parenting that has little impact; specially organized upbringing and education at home, in a closed institution, as well as integration into the environment of normally developing peers, as a result of which there is a correction and compensation for developmental disorders of the child; own mental activity (interests, inclinations, emotions, the ability to volitional effort, the formation of voluntary processes).

As the world and domestic experience shows, the number of persons with developmental disabilities tends to increase. There are a number of reasons for this: the destabilization of society and individual families, the lack of normal hygienic, economic, and environmental conditions for expectant mothers and children of different age groups. Many people develop mental, cognitive deprivation, insufficient satisfaction of sensory and emotional contacts and needs. These pathological factors lead to various diseases and developmental disabilities.

The Draft Law on Special Education for Persons with Disabilities in Health provides a definition of the concepts of physical and mental disabilities.

Physical disability is a duly confirmed temporary or permanent deficiency in the development and (or) functioning of a human organ, or a chronic somatic or infectious disease.

Mental disability is a duly confirmed temporary or permanent deficiency in a person's mental development, including impaired speech, emotional-volitional sphere, including autism, the consequences of brain damage, including mental retardation, mental retardation, creating learning difficulties.

Deviant development is always based on organic or functional disorders of the nervous system or peripheral disorders of a particular analyzer. However, in some cases, deviations from normal development can be caused by the influences of the social environment that are not associated with a violation of the analytic systems or the central nervous system. Thus, an unfavorable upbringing of a child in a family can lead to "pedagogical neglect."

Deviations arise in the process of intrauterine, postnatal development or as a result of hereditary factors. Depending on the causes of anomalies and developmental disorders, they are divided into congenital and acquired.

The group of intrauterine disorders includes factors that cause diseases of the mother during pregnancy: toxicosis, intoxication, metabolic disorders, immunopathological conditions and diverse obstetric pathology (narrow pelvis, prolonged or rapid labor, entanglement with the umbilical cord, abnormal presentation of the fetus, etc.). In addition to these factors, some chemicals and radioactive radiation play a negative role. The consequences of intrauterine infections of the nervous system include microcephaly (a decrease in the size of the skull (brain)), hydrocephalus (accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid due to an imbalance in its secretion and absorption), spastic paralysis and paresis, involuntary obsessive movements (hyperkinesis).

Various embryonic cerebral lesions are possible due to Rh - incompatibility of the blood of the mother and the fetus. In this case, subcortical formations, temporal cortex and auditory nerves are often affected. The earlier in embryogenesis the fetal brain is damaged, the more pronounced the disturbances.

The group of congenital disorders includes hereditary genetic lesions. They are characterized by a variety of hereditary metabolic abnormalities. Violation of the chromosomal set of the parents' genes can lead to the inheritance of some forms of mental retardation (Down's disease), deafness, visual analyzer defects.

They have an extremely negative effect on the offspring, causing congenital anomalies, alcoholism and drug addiction of the parents.

Acquired disorders include a variety of developmental abnormalities caused by birth and postpartum disorders of the child's body. The leading place in this group of pathologies is occupied by asphyxia (oxygen deficiency) and intracranial birth trauma. Intracranial birth trauma (changes in the central nervous system that occurred during childbirth) includes hemorrhages in the brain substance and in its membranes as a result of mechanical trauma to the fetal head and damage to its vessels, as well as disorders of cerebral circulation. Various types of obstetric pathology, as well as the wrong technique for performing delivery operations, contribute to the occurrence of injury.

A special group of developmental disorders is infantile cerebral palsy, which is a consequence of brain damage caused by chronic diseases of the expectant mother, infectious diseases, intoxications, blood incompatibility for the Rh factor, sometimes - newborn asphyxia and birth trauma, less often - encephalitis. Signs of cerebral palsy are: impaired motor development of the child, caused by an abnormal distribution of muscle tone and impaired coordination of movements. Cerebral palsy is often combined with sensory disorders, physical and speech development, convulsions.

Postpartum acquired anomalies of development are the consequences of diseases transferred in early childhood. These include neuroinfectious diseases: meningitis and encephalitis. Disease of meningitis (inflammation of the meninges) can lead to the development of hydrocephalus, deafness, movement disorders, and physical retardation. The consequences of the transferred encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) depends on the patient's age. In early childhood, it can cause deep delays in mental and motor development, affective outbursts, and unstable mood.

Acute infectious diseases of the nervous system include poliomyelitis - damage to the motor neurons of the brain and spinal cord. The disease leads to a sharp limitation of motor ability and is characterized by persistent paralysis of certain muscle groups. Infectious diseases such as influenza and measles also cause damage to the nervous system.

Traumatic brain injury in 25 - 45% of cases is the cause of developmental disorders in childhood. Traumatic brain injuries are divided into closed (concussion, contusion, compression of the brain) and open, in which there is a preservation (non-penetrating) and damage to the meninges (penetrating). Traumatic brain injuries can result in pathological changes in motor and physical functions (paralysis, hearing impairment, visual impairment, impaired memory and speech, decreased intellectual activity, etc.).

Developmental disorders can be caused by functional, and not organic reasons, then they talk about developmental deficiency. These include: socially - pedagogical neglect, emotional deprivation (lack of emotionally positive contact between a child and an adult), bilingualism (or multilingualism) in the family, speech disorders of others, limited speech contacts of the child, etc. Functional disorders are usually milder compared to organic , and with the elimination of unfavorable factors, development is intensified, and when carrying out special correctional work, the child can catch up in the development of his peers. Functional disorders are reversible and disappear with timely corrective measures, in connection with which the question arises of the need for habilitation or rehabilitation.

Currently in special psychology and correctional pedagogy there are various classifications of developmental disorders (M.A. Vlasova and M.S. Pevzner; V.V. Lebedinsky, V.A.Lapshin and B.P. Puzanov, O.N. Usanova). There are no uniform criteria for the classification of disorders in the development of the human body.

The most suitable for practical activity is the classification proposed by V.A. Lapshin and B.P. Puzanov:

Children with hearing and vision impairments

Hearing impaired children are divided into 2 groups:

Deaf (deaf) children - with total (complete) hearing loss or residual hearing, which cannot be independently used to accumulate speech reserves. Among deaf children are distinguished: a) deaf without speech (early deaf); b) those who are deaf, have preserved their speech to one degree or another (late deaf). Deaf children have a hearing loss of 75-80 dB;

Hearing impaired (deaf) children with partial auditory impairment, which impedes speech development, but the ability to independently accumulate speech stock using: the auditory analyzer. Hearing impairments have a hearing loss of 20-75 dB.

Children with visual impairments are divided into 2 groups:

Blind (blind) children - with a complete absence of visual sensations or preserved light perception or residual vision (with a maximum visual acuity of 0.04 units in the better seeing eye using conventional means of correction - glasses);

Visually impaired children - with visual acuity in the better seeing eye from 0.05-0.4 units. (with glasses).