Domestic and world experience indicates that the number of small patients with various developmental disabilities is steadily increasing. Society as a whole and individual families are destabilized, in some cases there are no normal economic, hygienic and environmental conditions for mothers and children of different ages. Adverse factors lead to various developmental disorders and diseases.
The concept of "abnormal child"
Children whose abnormalities lead to impaired normal development are abnormal. Deviations can be physical or mental. A defect disrupts development only under certain conditions. Despite the fact that upbringing, training, introduction to professional activity and normal social life of abnormal children is a difficult pedagogical task, development is really seriously disrupted by no means in all cases.
The concept implies the presence of deviations in development caused, as a rule, by the influence of the disease and necessitating the creation of special conditions for training and education. In the process, some defects can be fully corrected, while others are only subject to partial rehabilitation. There are general patterns in the development of abnormal children that are characteristic of all children, as well as a number of special patterns.
The group of abnormal is made up of complex and diverse patients. Anomalies have different effects on social development, cognitive abilities and learning opportunities. The complexity and nature of the violations is determined by specialists during psychological and pedagogical work.
It is important to consider that not every child with a defect is abnormal. This group includes only those children whose health conditions lead to a number of deviations. This is an important difference from a defect in an adult and a child.
This means that, for example, a child who has lost hearing in one ear or has lost one eye, most often does not have developmental disabilities, and therefore is not abnormal. To the category of abnormal can be attributed patients who have a disturbed normal development process due to a defect. That is, it is not a separate defect, but the general mental development of abnormal children.
Primary and secondary defects
The difficulty of raising abnormal children lies in the presence of an initial defect caused by some factor, and additional (secondary) disorders. Secondary disorders occur under the influence of the primary defect in the process of further development. This is a general pattern of development of abnormal children.
So, intellectual deficiency, which arose as a result of organic brain damage, usually causes a violation of higher processes that determine the development and interaction in society. Secondary underdevelopment is manifested in the primitivism of the simplest psychological reactions, negativity, excessive self-esteem, insufficient formation of volitional qualities.
Not only primary abnormalities affect secondary symptoms. In certain cases, secondary deviations affect the primary factor. For example, with the interaction of inferior hearing and negative speech consequences arising from this, the following situation is possible. The child does not use the residual hearing function if he does not develop speech. Only under the condition of overcoming the secondary defect (that is, complex correction and the formation of oral speech) are the possibilities of the remaining hearing optimally used.
An important regularity of the abnormal development of children is the following ratio of the initial defect and violations that occurred in the future: the further the symptom is from the root cause, the more it can be corrected. It turns out that the underdevelopment of higher mental functions is more amenable to impact than the underdevelopment of elementary processes.
Causes of Anomalies
The abnormal development is based on organic or functional disorders of the nervous system, peripheral disorders of a particular analyzer. Causes are divided into congenital and acquired. The primary defects are visual or auditory perception disorders resulting from damage to the child’s visual or auditory apparatus, respectively, violations of the simplest intellectual operations resulting from central nervous system damage, and so on.
Violations can be caused by various factors. Adverse effects are possible during intrauterine development (prenatal disorders), labor (natal), after birth (postnatal). The combination of intrauterine pathology and birth disorders is called perinatal damage.
Various factors affecting the prenatal period can cause abnormalities: burdened heredity, genetic code abnormalities, chronic diseases of the parents or the acute state of the mother during pregnancy, parental abuse of drugs, alcohol and smoking, physical injuries and mental disorders in a woman during pregnancy, conflict Rhesus factor, adverse environmental conditions, professional harm.
Hereditary burden is manifested through the structure of the reproductive cells of the parents. Chromosomes transmit information about the signs of developmental abnormalities, which leads to mental retardation, impaired speech, hearing, vision, musculoskeletal system in a child and so on. According to medical statistics, for one thousand newborns, there are five to seven children with chromosomal abnormalities.
The pathology of labor is another group of causes: rapid labor, weak labor, prolonged labor with stimulation, entwining the baby with the umbilical cord provided that asphyxiation develops, untimely obstetric care, and natural injuries. Intravital factors of the disorder: infectious diseases with complications on the brain, skull injuries, concussion, concussion, tumors, neuroinfection, and so on. In some cases, the influence of several pathological factors is noted - polyetiology.
Categories of children with anomalies
Defectology classifies the abnormal development of the child:
- Children with severe speech abnormalities.
- Children with severe impairment of auditory function (hearing impaired, late deaf, deaf).
- Children with developmental disorders based on damage to the central nervous system (mentally retarded).
- Children with severe visual impairment (visually impaired, blind).
- Children with complex developmental disorders (deaf-blind, blind, mentally retarded).
- Children with disorders of the musculoskeletal system.
- Children with psychopathic behavior.
Some researchers identify other groups of anomalies: children with sensory inferiority (this includes impaired musculoskeletal function, vision, speech, hearing, sensorimotorism), with an asthenic or reactive state and conflicting experiences, with psychopathic behaviors, with mental retardation, mentally retarded (idiocytes, idiots, oligophrenics in the degree of moronity), children with initial manifestations of mental illness (epilepsy, hysteria, schizophrenia) or with developmental disorders.
Early damage to the hearing aid
The secondary disorder is the result of abnormal development. So, for example, a child may lose hearing at an early age due to past meningitis. With inflammation of the meninges, the cranial nerves are usually involved in the process. If the inflammation affects the auditory nerve, the child is hearing impaired. In difficult cases, hearing loss can be observed. Deafness disrupts the normal developmental process of a small patient.
The auditory analyzer is extremely important in the development of speech. This is the closest function that depends on the auditory analyzer. With early deafness, speech does not develop. Silence in this case is a secondary defect that arose as a result of impaired development. Mastering a speech is possible only with special training. The pronunciation is often inadequate, vocabulary accumulates slowly, lexical meanings are not accurately acquired.
The defeat of the visual analyzer
Previously, visual damage also leads to a number of deviations arising in the development process. A blind child has different (different from normal) ideas about the world, ways and forms of psychological activity. The most famous secondary manifestation of abnormal development is the lack of orientation in space. Even more characteristic is the presence of a limited circle of objective representations.
A secondary manifestation in children who have lost their eyesight early is a change in motility, and especially gait. This is due to the need for orientation in space using kinesthetic sensitivity and touch. The blind are also characterized by a weak expression of facial expressions. All this is a developmental pattern for abnormal children.
Intellectual defects
The greatest number of secondary defects develops with mental retardation caused by organic brain damage. This category of abnormal children is characterized by underdevelopment of memory, and thinking that occurs with growth and with attempts at social interaction with peers.
Most often, among various types of backwardness, oligophrenia or general mental underdevelopment occurs. Oligophrenia is a group of various pathological conditions, a common sign of which is acquired in early childhood or a congenital defect in the development of the psyche with intellectual deficiency. With such anomalies, not only intelligence is violated, but also the emotional-volitional sphere, the process of character formation.
Depth of mental retardation
The abnormal development of a child with mental retardation is divided into three degrees by the depth of the defect. The deepest is idiocy. At the same time, speech is practically absent, the patient does not recognize others, the face does not express any emotions, and attention is almost impossible to attract. There is a decrease in sensitivity.
Imbecility is easier in depth of backwardness than idiocy. Such children have some learning opportunities, with considerable difficulty and subject to special training, but they master the speech, learn individual labor skills and self-service skills, the speech supply is very poor.
The easiest degree of retardation is debility. Reduced intelligence in combination with the lag of the psyche as a whole does not allow children with moronicity to master the general educational program of an ordinary school. Speech defects like agrammatism, lisping, sigmatism are often observed.
Developmental Disorders in Children
Separate isolated delayed mental development. Delayed development presupposes the presence of syndromes of a temporary lag in the psyche in general or in its individual parts, and the slowed down rate of realization of the body's properties encoded in the genotype. In an abnormal child, the delay can be of constitutional origin, somatogenic, psychogenic or cerebral-organic.
Distorted mental development is represented mainly by childhood autism syndrome, which differs from all other abnormalities in the most pronounced psychological structure of disorders and clinical disharmony. Autism is manifested in an immersion in the inner world, the absence or significant reduction in contacts with relatives and peers.
The disharmonious development of abnormal children has the following laws: impaired development, which is characterized by disharmony in the volitional and emotional spheres, anomalies of character. The main signs of psychopathy are uncontrollability of personality, pathological change in character, aggressiveness, conflict, unmotivated cruelty, refusal of help and treatment. During a period of vivid manifestations, this can be dangerous both for the child himself and for others.
Classifications of Psychopathies
Currently, the following systematics of psychopathies are considered generally accepted: epileptoid, hysteroid, schizoid, psychasthenic, cycloid psychopathies. A child with schizoid psychopathy is similar to autism, the emotional sphere is characterized by a lack of harmony between sensitivity and vulnerability in relation to one’s inner world, coldness and indifference in relation to the feelings of others.
With cycloid psychopathy, it is prone to mood swings. At an early age, such a deviation is rarely diagnosed. Epileptic psychopathy has many features in common with epilepsy, but differs in the absence of seizures and dementia. We are talking about persistent features in the form of tension drives and emotions, unmotivated mood swings.
Psychasthenic psychopathy is characterized by the presence in the abnormal child of fears and anxious fears arising for any reason. Other symptoms: fear of everything new, unfamiliar, extreme indecision, difficult adaptation. Hysteroid psychopathy is characterized by egocentrism, that is, the child’s desire to attract attention and always be in the center of events.
Psychopathies are usually associated with damage to the nervous system at an early age or with intrauterine development. Unfavorable external factors influence: alcoholism or parental addiction, prolonged conflict situations, aggressiveness and domestic violence, quarrels. The impact of traumatic factors can lead to irreversible restructuring of the personality as a whole.
Training and education
The end result of the development of cognitive activity of an abnormal child is affected by the nature of the violation of mental and physical development. Educational level can vary dramatically. Some children acquire only basic knowledge and self-service skills, while others have great opportunities.
The psychology of abnormal development of children is currently being studied by many specialists (doctors, defectologists, psychologists, educators). This is facilitated by the development of medicine and psychology. Today, there are special institutions for mentally retarded children and children with hearing, speech, and visual impairments, where specialists strive to harmonize the abnormal and normal development of the child.
The organization of special educational and upbringing institutions initially evolved from charities and private foundations. Today, the process has already come to the state system of education and training of abnormal children. In ordinary schools, mixed classes are even open, where children with minor deviations can study together with the children without any deviations.
Pedagogical principles
When working with patients, it is important to search for optimal correctional and educational tools and defect compensation options. But it should be borne in mind that the pedagogical impact on the development of an abnormal child is more successful, the smaller the biological disturbance.
A defect should be detected in the early stages of development. Immediately organized for the specific case of educational work and correction. A blind child must be taught self-mobility, self-care, for deaf children it is important to learn speech earlier, which allows the normal development of psychological functions.
For a mentally retarded child, the main conditions that ensure more or less normal further development will be feasible tasks and reasonable requirements that stimulate labor activity, cognitive interests, develop independence, form character, emotional-volitional sphere and mental processes. The main objective of the training is the consistent and gradual expansion of the zone of proximal development and the zone of actual development.