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34ANALYSIS OF THE WORK OF SPECIAL PRESCHOOL EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS ON THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL COMPETENCE OF CHILDREN WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES
Kurienkova A.
postgraduate student of Chair of Special and Inclusive Education of Sumy State Pedagogical University named after A.S. Makarenko
ABSTRACT
The article reveals the urgency of the issue of social competence formation in children with intellectual disabilities at special preschool education institutions. The experimental institutions of special preschool education have been identified. The analysis of two educational programs for preschool children with intellectual disabilities ("Program for development of preschool children with mental retardation", developed by authors team (H. Blech, O. Vasylevska, I. Hladchenko, I. Dubrova, N. Korolko, V. Loshchenykh, S. Trykoz, L. Shmalko) in 2013 and "Formation of social skills" by A. Vysotska in 2015) was conducted. The peculiarities of social representations of children with intellectual disabilities are described. Surveys of defectologists, preschool teachers, practical psychologists, speech therapists and social pedagogues of the experimental institutions of special preschool education were conducted. The levels of their awareness of social competence formation in preschool children with intellectual disabilities were revealed. Thus, the low level was absent at all and constituted 0 %, the initial level was in 5.65 % of respondents, the medium level was in 69.18 %, and the high level was in 25.18 % of teaching staff. The authors have developed the "Diagnostic card for the formation of social competence components" for preschoolers with intellectual disabilities. The important, in our opinion, components of social competence of preschool children with intellectual disabilities are identified by such blocks: I block - "social-motivational", which indicates the level of interest of preschool children with intellectual disabilities in activity; II block - "social-cognitive" - levels of basic social knowledge; III block - "social-activity" - levels of basic social skills; IV block - "social-personality" - levels of formation of the necessary social qualities of the individual.
Keywords: special preschool education, social competence, children with intellectual disabilities.
Introduction. Socio-cultural changes in education lead to the transformation of special education in the direction of forming a socially competent personality of a child with violations of psychophysical development.
At the present stage of special education development actualizes the issue of social competence formation in children with impaired psychophysical development, namely: with impaired vision (Yu. Bondarenko, V. Kobylchenko, L. Nafikova, Ye. Sinyova, O. Taran, O. Telna and others), hearing impairment (O. Vovchenko, A. Dobrova, I. Kolesnyk, S. Lytovchenko, O. Melnychuko, O. Fedorenko, L. Fomichova and others), speech disorders (I. Halych, N. Huk, L. Dolzhenko, V. Kovaleva, M. Sheremet and others), disorders of the musculoskeletal system (O. Nahorna, A. Shevtsov, H. Shyshkovska and others), autism spectrum disorders (V. Tarasun, T. Kutsenko, K. Ostrovska, I. Rynder and others), intellectual development disorders (V. Bondar, A. Vysotska, S. My-ronova, V. Syniov and others).
However, in preschool oligophrenia pedagogy the issue of social competence formation in children with intellectual disabilities was not subject to holistic study. Some of its aspects are revealed in the works of A. Vysotska, S. Myronova, V. Syniov and others.
Insufficient consideration of this issue within the framework of special education confirmed the relevance of the selected problem and the aim of our arti-cal, which envisaged the analysis of the work of preschool education institutions on the formation of social competence of children with intellectual disabilities.
Research results. Special preschool institutions for children with intellectual disabilities direct their activities towards formation of the necessary knowledge and skills for future school education, socialization and integration not only in the school education system, but also in the environment of normally developing peers.
One of the main requirements of the State Standard of Primary General Education for Children with
Special Educational Needs is vital competences formation in persons with intellectual disabilities, one of which is social competence.
One of the main tasks of the ascertaining stage of the study was to analyze the practice of work of special preschool education institutions, concerning formation of social competence components in children with intellectual disabilities.
Our study was conducted at four special preschool education institutions, namely:
- Communal Establishment Sumy Special Rehabilitation Educational Complex: "Secondary School of the I Stage - Preschool Education Institution № 34", Sumy;
- Communal organization (institution, establishment) "Shostka preschool education institution (nursery school) № 9 "Desnianochka" of Shostka city council of Sumy region of Shostka;
- Poltava preschool education institution (nursery school) of combined type № 41 "Hnizdechko", Poltava;
- Communal Establishment "Pryluky Educational and Rehabilitation Center" of Chernihiv Regional State Administration of Pryluky.
For the analysis we have selected such objects as: educational programs for children with intellectual disabilities and working documentation of preschool teachers and teachers-defectologists. Analyzing educational programs for preschoolers with intellectual disabilities, we have found out that two programs meet the requirements of our study: "Program for development of preschool children with mental retardation", developed by authors team (H. Blech, O. Vasylevska, I. Hladchenko, I. Dubrova, N. Korolko, V. Loshchenykh, S. Trykoz, L. Shmalko) in 2013 and "Formation of social skills" developed by A. Vysotska in 2015.
Until 2015, teachers-defectologists and special preschool education institutions in general used only the "Program for development of preschool children
with mental retardation" [7], which reflects certain components of social competence, but does not trace the purpose and integrity of its formation. There is no separate section in this program on the social competence development, although there are some topics that contribute to the formation of its components. Unfortunately, the program does not reflect the necessary holistic process of social competence formation. In addition, the program almost does not trace the plasticity that would contribute to the consideration of individual characteristics and facilitate a differentiated approach to preschoolers.
The second developmental program, "Formation of social skills" [10] was created in 2015 by A. Vysotska. It is part of the new series "Surrounding World" with the emergence of which educators have been given the opportunity to choose developmental programs. The analysis of the program for the formation of social skills has revealed that it is designed for 4 years and consists of 3 sections: "Myself', "I and others", "I and environment". The program clearly distinguishes the content of the work of a social pedagogue, a teacher-defectologist and a preschool teacher. In our opinion, according to the explanatory note, the social pedagogue is the first person to direct his/her activity towards development of social skills of senior preschool children with intellectual disabilities. It is he who should conduct special classes on emotional, social and moral development, which are aimed at enhancing emotional and social experience of children. And the process of expanding and consolidating the knowledge that is being formed by the social pedagogue should be conducted by the teacher-defectolo-gist. In turn, the teacher of the group should provide the children with the necessary level of support and assistance in the automation and consolidation of knowledge during the regime moments.
According to the program of A. Vysotska, special classes should be aimed at forming in the child the ability to recognize the emotions of people and constructively interact with them, to regulate their own behavior independently, to instill different ways of interaction with others. That is, formation of basic social competences within this program is entrusted to the social pedagogue [10].
The teacher-defectologist, in turn, should teach children to survey objects of their immediate surroundings, to combine and summarize the life experiences of children and to enrich their vocabulary. The preschool teacher is assigned the role of an organizer of children's practical activity for consolidation and development of social skills during regime moments, didactic and role-playing games.
In our opinion, this approach to the organization of special classes on the formation of social competence components need to be somewhat adjusted, because, as practice shows, the social pedagogue is not able to devote much time to individual work with each pupil. Unlike a social pedagogue, a teacher-defectolo-gist and a preschool teacher have much greater opportunity to form the components of social competence, because they spend much more time with children, so they can better understand the individual characteristics of children and can more successfully select and conduct correctional-developmental classes on the formation of social skills in the individual, subgroup and group forms, in addition, their knowledge helps to more successfully select techniques and methods of work.
After analyzing the programs, we turned our attention to the perspective and daily plans of the defectolo-gists and preschool teachers. The perspective plans of preschool teachers and defectologists of special preschool education institutions, according to the content of the programs, fully and consistently reflect the topics of the weeks and everyday classes. However, unfortunately, the social component in them does not have clear coverage. The daily plans of the teachers, along with the general ones, did not define tasks for purposeful formation of social competence. In addition, as a result of the analysis of the calendar and daily plans of the teachers-defectologists and preschool teachers, we have found that they do not always reflect the individual characteristics of each particular child.
We have found out that in the process of forming social skills, teachers-defectologists and preschool teachers did not identify this corrective task in their daily plans. Also, we did not find out the evidence of the rational use of methods and techniques for the formation of the phenomenon under study in children.
Having analyzed the working documentation of defectologists and preschool teachers, we carried out observations on the practice of organizing and conducting classes with senior preschoolers with intellectual disabilities. As a result of the pedagogical observation of the lessons, we have found out that they have more educational than social orientation.
In their work, the teaching staff adhere to a clear structure of the lesson, but sometimes do not take into account some individual characteristics of children, do not always pay attention to the lack of words used by adults in the active vocabulary of children. In turn, this leads to a certain speech barrier between teaching staff and children. In our opinion, the level of the use of visual aids, games, creativity is insufficient, there is lack of connection between the word and its verbalization, the violations of semantic connections impede the process of holistic formation of social competence of children with impaired intellectual development. Classes on social development were carried out in the form of theoretical discussions. The children received certain socially necessary knowledge, but their transfer to the level of practical skills did not occur due to the lack of sufficient permanent practice, that had to take into account their individual characteristics. The basic models of social behavior in children with intellectual disabilities have not been worked out enough.
In addition, technical aids were rarely used in the classroom. Thus, the model of appropriate social behavior in a particular situation was carried out by the teacher, but this process could be replaced by viewing a cartoon fragment with the appropriate behavior model for comment, explanation and discussion. Then you could reproduce the situation shown. In our opinion, this could simplify the process of familiarizing children with intellectual disabilities with different social situations and behavioral characteristics. Also, we consider it advisable to use commented audio presentations when acquiring different social knowledge, e.g. "Emotions", "I and My Body", "My Family" and so on.
Only in some cases the defectologist allocated some time to the formation of some components of social competence, as evidenced by the results of the children's examination.
In practice, little attention was paid to the formation of children's socially necessary knowledge and skills during classes. Didactic games were rarely used
to form basic social knowledge, as well as games with a mirror to study their appearance, features of expression of basic emotions, etc. Unfortunately, this makes inaccurate knowledge of children with intellectual disabilities about emotions and hinders their differentiation process. Insufficient attention was paid to the process of purposeful ability to behave in public places, the attention of children was not drawn to the fact that kindergarten is also a public place where there are generally accepted rules that must be followed. Insufficient attention was also paid to the formation of behavioral regulation, training to interact with others, which in turn caused conflicts in groups and insufficiently disclosed the correctional-developmental potential of game activity. Gender studies have also received insufficient attention, which negatively influenced formation of gender-specific behaviors. For example, teachers rarely told children about their gender and role selection with clear definitions of related activities. After all, children with intellectual disabilities need to be taught the stereotypes of sexual and social behavior that their peers with a standard development can learn on their own
Due to a certain speech barrier that exists between adults and children, children's ability to perform social (game) roles was reduced. Children with intellectual disabilities had difficulty playing role games that were associated not only with the content of the role and its language, but also with the characteristics and behavior of the role-model.
An important step in the formation of social competence is the ability to participate in and prepare for celebrations. We have found out a sufficient level of preparedness for the holidays and participation of preschoolers with intellectual disabilities. In addition, children did not experience significant difficulty in naming or pointing out holiday attributes.
During observation, we have found a reduced interest of preschoolers in cooperative activities. In the individual activity, manipulative character dominated, which in turn reduced collectivism and prevented children from adopting the experience of adults and learning to apply it in practice. Children rarely expressed their desire to work in pairs. Such an interaction was always organized by a defectologist during his/her classes. In addition, preschoolers rarely expressed interest in adult work, they were sometimes attracted by vivid objects of their activity, but this interest was extremely fleeting.
Teaching staff paid much attention to the development of sanitary and hygienic skills, knowledge about children's family, independence and activity of preschoolers with intellectual disabilities, which in our opinion are important components of the process of gaining their social competence.
It should be noted that an important stage of special education for children with intellectual disabilities is acquisition of holistic knowledge and its transition into skills. The main way to ensure a defined process at preschool age is game activity. Formation of social competence components in the role-playing game is logical and expected. But having conducted observations, we found out that the process of purposeful and consistent formation of social knowledge, skills, and qualities was insufficient. Most attention was paid to the formation of social knowledge through didactic
games, but their transfer into skills was not always successful. The role-playing games did not fully reflect their potential in developing socially important knowledge, skills, and qualities in work with children with intellectual disabilities. We attribute this to the lack of a fully-fledged system of socially directed role-playing games for preschoolers with intellectual disabilities.
It should be noted that some teachers-defectolo-gists in their practice try to form in children with intellectual disabilities some components of social competence. Unfortunately, sometimes they do not take into account the peculiarities of social perceptions of children with intellectual disabilities, such as:
- low level of social knowledge and skills;
- lack of differentiation of social knowledge by gender, type of their activity, etc.;
- limited social-conceptual apparatus;
- inability to interact and understand people according to social rules;
- tendency to perceive people more in the negative than in the positive plane, which is increasing with age;
- high level of self-centeredness that hinders interpersonal interactions.
After a focused pedagogical observation, we decided to conduct a survey of pedagogical staff in order to identify their level of awareness of the social competence formation in preschool children with intellectual disabilities. The study involved 85 members of pedagogical staff of the experimental institutions, including 17 teachers-defectologists, 58 preschool teachers, 4 speech therapists, 4 practical psychologists and 2 social pedagogues.
The questionnaire included the following questions:
1. What is the essence of the concept of "social competence"?
2. What are the components of a person's social competence?
3. Is it important to build social competence in children with intellectual disabilities, especially in preschool age?
4. What conditions should be created for the formation of social competence in preschoolers with intellectual disabilities?
5. What methods and techniques of influence can be used to build social competence?
Respondents' answers were recorded. For this purpose, we identified 4 levels (low, initial, medium, high) and developed evaluation criteria for them:
- low level (0 points) was characterized by complete lack of knowledge on social competence;
- initial level (1 point), which characterized limited representations of pedagogical staff about the phenomenon under study. They answered the question with considerable difficulty and gross errors;
- medium level (2 points), characterized insufficient awareness of the question; the respondents answered incompletely, with some errors;
- high level (3 points) characterized the respondents who answered the question correctly, the answer was full, with examples of practical activities.
We summarized these data with the help of the Mathematical Statistics program (Statistica 10) and found out the percentages of answers to each question and generalized levels of pedagogical staff awareness of social competence (Table 1).
Table 1
Generalized indicators of the level of pedagogical staff awareness of the social competence formation in preschool children with intellectual disabilities
Question number Pedagogical staff Low level Initial level Medium level High level
% a Teachers-defectologists 0,00% 0,00% 14,12% 5,88%
Preschool teachers 0,00% 4,71% 48,24% 15,29%
o Practical psychologists 0,00% 1,18% 2,35% 1,18%
<D S Speech therapists 0,00% 1,18% 3,53% 0,00%
a Social pedagogues 0,00% 1,18% 0,00% 1,18%
% a Teachers-defectologists 0,00% 0,00% 15,29% 4,71%
Preschool teachers 0,00% 5,88% 45,88% 16,47%
o \£3 <N Practical psychologists 0,00% 0,00% 2,35% 2,35%
<D S Speech therapists 0,00% 0,00% 4,71% 0,00%
a Social pedagogues 0,00% 0,00% 0,00% 2,35%
% a Teachers-defectologists 0,00% 1,18% 12,94% 5,88%
Preschool teachers 0,00% 3,53% 49,41% 15,29%
o cn Practical psychologists 0,00% 0,00% 2,35% 2,35%
<D S Speech therapists 0,00% 0,00% 4,71% 0,00%
a Social pedagogues 0,00% 0,00% 0,00% 2,35%
% a Teachers-defectologists 0,00% 0,00% 12,94% 7,06%
Preschool teachers 0,00% 4,71% 48,24% 15,29%
o •■S t Practical psychologists 0,00% 0,00% 2,35% 2,35%
<D S Speech therapists 0,00% 0,00% 4,71% 0,00%
a Social pedagogues 0,00% 0,00% 1,18% 1,18%
% a Teachers-defectologists 0,00% 0,00% 15,29% 4,71%
Preschool teachers 0,00% 3,53% 48,24% 16,47%
o Practical psychologists 0,00% 1,18% 1,18% 2,35%
<D S Speech therapists 0,00% 0,00% 4,71% 0,00%
a Social pedagogues 0,00% 0,00% 1,18% 1,18%
Generalized indicator of levels 0,00% 5,65% 69,18% 25,18%
According to the results of the questionnaire, we obtained the following distribution of general indicators of the levels of experimental special preschool education institutions pedagogical staff awareness of the formation of social competence in preschool children with intellectual disabilities. Thus, low level was absent at all and constituted 0 %, initial level was traced in 5.65 % of the respondents, medium - in 69.18 % and high - in 25.18 %.
In addition to the methodological and practical gaps that we found out during the analysis of the practice of forming the social competence of preschool children with intellectual disabilities, we also faced problems of a diagnostic nature. At the beginning of the school year, teachers-defectologists and preschool teachers do not find out the level of social competence in preschoolers with intellectual disabilities and do not monitor their dynamics, and therefore it is difficult for them to indicate in their work plans for appropriate classes, which require taking into account the psychological and pedagogical features of children and reliance on their stored systems.
In our opinion, it is expedient to introduce in the joint work of preschool teachers and teachers-defectol-ogists the "Diagnostic card of social competence formation in preschool children with intellectual disabilities", which would cover the levels of its components in each child at the beginning and the end of the school year. Therefore, we have developed the "Diagnostic card of social competence formation in preschool children with intellectual disabilities", which structural-tabular form includes the following sections: "Name and surname of the child", "Components of social competence" by blocks, namely:
Block I - "social-motivational", which reflects the level of interest of preschoolers with impaired intelligence in the activity;
Block II - "social-cognitive", which reflects the levels of required basic social knowledge;
Block III - "social-activity", which highlights the necessary basic social skills;
Block IV - "social-personal", reveals the levels of the necessary social qualities formation.
These components became the basis for the methods of diagnostics at the ascertaining and molding stages of our study. The results of an individual examination of a child with intellectual disabilities are the basis for designing a perspective plan of work on the formation and development of his/her social competence components.
In addition, the practice of social competence formation is complicated by the lack of its structured components, criteria, levels, diagnostic techniques and targeted scientific research that would confirm the effectiveness of this process. Besides, in analyzing the scientific and methodological literature, we have not come across a sufficient number of classified games on the subject, but in the light of nationalization and patri-otization of education, we consider the use of folk studies material an integral part of the process of social competence formation. That is, the process of forming the social competence components is complicated by the lack of versatile program-methodological and diagnostic materials.
Given the current demands of education, the important question is the lack of staff who would understand the issue of social competence of children with intellectual disabilities. The effectiveness of the social
competence formation in children with intellectual disabilities depends more on the professionalism and preparedness of teaching staff. It can be noted that special preschool education institutions for children with intellectual disabilities do not have qualified specialists who would understand the process of social competence formation in preschool children with intellectual disabilities. Unfortunately, most educators do not know the basic social competences of senior preschool children. In our opinion, this problem is also due to the fact that the subject matter is not taught in a higher education institution and is not the subject of purposeful training of future specialists. And since this aspect is not taken into account in the preparation of future defectologists, in their practical activity there are difficulties in the purposeful social competence formation in children with intellectual disabilities. In view of all of the above mentioned, we think that the process of forming the social competence of children with intellectual disabilities is simplified, which leads to a loss of time in the sensitive period, and as a result, to a decrease in the quality of correctional-developmental work on the formation of social competence components, that in turn, complicate future socialization of children and their integration into society.
Conducted analysis has revealed the following shortcomings in the educational process: the lack of developed classes for the formation of social competence; insufficient number of methodological and practical developments; lack of diagnostic tools to study the levels and features of social competence of senior preschoolers with intellectual disabilities; the lack of use of role-playing games of social orientation and absence of their consistent system.
In our opinion, an educational course should be introduced into the educational process of higher education institutions, which will be aimed at forming future teachers' knowledge about social competence and ways of its formation. The pedagogical staff of special preschool education institutions require advanced training courses on the subject of the study, which will help them to get acquainted with the advanced trends of correctional-developmental work with children with intellectual disabilities.
Deficiency of the purposeful diagnostic material and developed diagnostic methodology for children of the specified nosology requires urgent elaboration taking into account the peculiarities of psychophysical development of senior preschool children with intellectual disabilities. The lack of a developmental methodology of social competence components complicates the process of its formation and development when working with children of this nosology, which in turn reduces the effectiveness of educational and correctional-developmental work of the institutions.
Conclusions. Thus, the analysis of the practice of organizing the educational process of special institutions of preschool education confirmed the need for creation of a model of social competence formation in children with intellectual disabilities of senior preschool age, development of the diagnostic methodology, testing its effectiveness and a certain level of reconstruction of the educational process in preschool education institutions for children with violations. To the basic representations that should be formed in the preschooler for the future acquisition of social competence, we refer knowledge about the social world in such aspects:
- social and everyday skills;
- knowledge about oneself;
- representations about peers;
- representations about relatives and other adults surrounding the child;
- socially significant phenomena, etc.
The above-mentioned basic representations should form the grounds for the future socialization of preschoolers with intellectual disabilities and their integration into the modern society.
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