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1PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCES
THE USE OF ART THERAPY IN WORKING WITH CHILDREN WITH COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT
Lysenkova I.P.
Mykolayiv institute of human development of institution of higher education "Open international university
of human development «Ukraine»", head of department ofpsychology and special education, Ph.D. in correctional pedagogics, Associate Professor
Abstract
The features and possibilities of using such an innovative method as art therapy in the educational process of educational institutions are discussed in the article. Understanding of such a category as children with cognitive impairment is also extend. Own experience of using art therapy in working with children with cognitive impairments is offered. It is discussed, that art allows a child to feel and understand itself; to express freely their thoughts, emotions and feelings, dreams and hopes; being itself and getting rid of the negative experiences of the past. This is not only a reflection of the child's minds of the surrounding world and social reality, but also its modelling, the expression of the relation to it.
Keywords: art therapy, isotherapy, child, cognitive impairment, educational process, emotional sphere.
Introduction. The developed comprehension of art as a spiritual and practical phenomenon of culture opens up new perspectives for clarifying the ideological orientation of art, for specification the concrete relations of artistic creativity with the empirical forms of human existence, practical conscious. "Art creatively reflects the dynamic changes of being and thus able to deepen into the process of direct human relationships with the world, promptly identify undiscovered trends and symptoms. This point is very important in the artistic, spiritual and practical development of the world, although in this case the role of the artistic generalization plays an important role, the ability of art to overcome the limitations of empirical experience, its unconsciousness and non-selectivity", - wrote S. Hogan [3].
Analysis of previous works. The problem of the influence of art therapy on the state of health of a person is presented in various studies (A. Gotsdiner, E. Ivanchenko, M. Kiseleva, O. Semashko, M. Starcheus et al.); art therapy as an instrument of progressive psychological and pedagogical assistance (L. Yermolayev-Tomin, M. Kiseleva, A. Kopitin, M. Kostevich, A. Starovoitov, et al.); as a component of educational activity (O. Voznesenska, O. Derkach, I. Dmitrieva, L. Mova, O. Pletka, et al.); the features of application of art therapy in the process of working with children are researched.
As we see from the above, the literature describes a large number of art-therapeutic techniques, but one of the most used still remains a picture. Therefore, it is necessary in our work to base on the works of scientists who have described isotherapy. Isotherapy is a therapy of fine arts, first of all, drawing [2].
At the present stage of development, isotherapy is used for psychological and pedagogical correction of clients with neurotic, psychosomatic disorders in children and teenagers with learning difficulties and social adaptation, with intra-family conflicts. Fine art activity allows the client to feel and understand himself; to express freely their thoughts, emotions and feelings, dreams and hopes; be yourself, and get rid of the negative experiences of the past. This is not only a reflection of the client's minds of the surrounding world and social reality, but also its modelling, expression of the relation to it.
Drawing develops emotional and motor coordination, since it requires the concerted participation of many psychological functions. According to experts, drawing is involved in the unification of the relationship between the cerebral hemispheres, since in the process of drawing activated concrete-thinking thinking, mainly associated with the work of the right hemisphere, and abstract-logical, for which the left hemisphere corresponds [1].
Presentation of the material. Various types of art therapy provide both integral and isolated use of art as the main factor of influence, that is, as listening to musical or literary works, individual and group performances of visual activity, and complementing artistic accompaniment of other correction techniques to enhance their influence and increase efficiency. Their role in formation of the artistic and aesthetic culture and increasing the formation of socio-pedagogical support is specific, due to the peculiarity of art as a carrier of aesthetic values.
Describing the stages of encouraging children to universal values, modern pedagogue S. Hagan notes that "rationality and unilateral involvement of the child with the delay of mental development to culture, hyper-trophied transformation of the study of the fundamentals of science from the dominant is observed in children in the knowledge of the world" [3]. The shortage of humanitarian education generates in children with cognitive impairments lack of spirituality, a low level of aesthetic culture, general development of the child, in particular, low level of development of emotional sphere.
Increasing the level of development of the emotional sphere of children with cognitive impairments depends on the consideration of the teacher and psychologist of the age and individual psychological peculiarities of this category of children and the mastery of the methodology for working with them. The preparation of this category of children for school life is determined by many factors: the peculiarities of cognitive impairments, the cultural level of the family, the social environment surrounding this child prior to entering school, and which will surround it during training, the development of mass media, the level of awareness of
parents, relatives, educators and teachers about the individual psychological peculiarities of this category of children, etc. At this age, the emotional life of children becomes richer, a certain life and artistic experience develops, a significant level reaches emotional development. Children must already feel the expressiveness of epithets and comparisons, be able to tell about their impressions, have some experience in communicating with art, their creative activity should become more diverse. Performing songs, dancing, playing musical instruments, listening and playing fairy tales, drawing their own emotions, and those emotions that are depicted in a musical or literary work must become expressive, indicating that children can convey their attitude to art, distinguish between emotional states that thereby enriching the emotional sphere of each child with cognitive impairment and increasing the level of development of each component of emotional sphere [4].
Children with cognitive impairment should become prominent manifestations of creative abilities; they begin to distinguish between a greater number of emotions, not only in their own manifestations, but also those emotions that are hidden in musical works, those who are worried by the main heroes of literary works, and learn to lose these emotional states. Children should begin to recognize the main types of emotions: intellectual, moral and aesthetic. However, the emotional sphere of children with cognitive impairments, which has not yet been formed, will require a thrifty and consistent development of the diversity of emotions and feelings, limiting negative emotions. It should also be remembered that this category of children is characterized by instability of attention and memory, fatigue, impulsive activity, aspiration for gaming activity, in contrast to their peers that normally develop.
These peculiarities of the general, psychological and emotional development of children with cognitive impairments at school will determine the specific content and methods of teaching and education in these lessons. The subject of the program should be designed in such a way as to enable children to be involved in artistic activities, direct their aesthetic education and emotional development during educational work. The sequence of topics in the program will be determined by the tasks of development in children with cognitive impairments of the emotional sphere, the ability to empathize with those feelings and thoughts that express one or another type of art, to comprehend the artistic-figurative essence of art in its simplest embodiments, the need to increase the level of development of the emotional sphere in of this category of children and increase their general development to the level of development of their coevals that are normally developing [5].
But the implementation of all these activities in the educational process is impossible without highly skilled personnel, who have not only knowledge, skills and ability to work with children with cognitive impairments, but also can combine traditional methods of teaching and art therapy. Teachers and psychologists who work with this group of children, should be prepared to organize the pupil's creative work as an educational activity, because with the help of creativity, children are able to express themselves more extensively,
express their emotions, and also participate in expressing emotions, feelings and thoughts of others children of the group, which will affect the level of development of the emotional sphere.
All the conditions that need to be created in the educational process to improve the level of development of the emotional sphere of children with cognitive impairments concern not only one discipline, but all in general. That is, in the process of teaching any discipline in elementary school, it is necessary to create an emotional and positive background of learning in order for the pupil to feel comfortable in the school environment, so that children can develop fully and do not feel that they are anything different from their coevals.
For the effective use of art therapy in the process of working with a client, it is necessary to use as many art-therapeutic directions in their combination as possible, that is, to apply a multimodal approach. With a large number of concepts currently used to justify the practice of art therapy with children of preschool age, the most justifiable are those that are oriented on the process of mental development (ontogenesis) and consider it in the context of the influence of a large number of diverse internal (constitutional-genetic, somato-or-ganic, personal, etc.) and external (micro- and macrosocial, cultural, ecological, etc.) factors, that is, systematically. Guided by such an understanding of the process of mental development, the concept of ontoge-netic-oriented systemic art therapy was proposed [6] .
Conclusions. Consequently, in modern psychological and pedagogical literature, a considerable amount of art-therapeutic techniques are described which can be used in work with children with cognitive impairments and carry a positive psychological-pedagogical effect. But in a modern educational institution the process of introducing innovative pedagogical technologies is quite long and energy-consuming. Therefore, further work will consist in the introduction into the educational process of this type of institutions of various types of art therapy.
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