The study made it possible to determine the level and qualitative features of the emotional sphere development in socially deprived preschoolers with developmental delay. Experimental study of the components of the emotional sphere in socially deprived preschoolers revealed a number of its peculiarities. It’s perceptual component is characterized by a decreased level of emotional perception; superficiality of expressive features perception, obscurity of their representations; allocation of a separate, often single expressive element as meaningful; insufficient differentiation of the components of the emotional ethalon; difficulties in determining the difference between similar emotions (sadness and anger, surprise and fear, anger and aversion); the predominance of diffuse-local and analytical types of perception of expressive signs of emotion. Its cognitive component is characterized by a decrease in the level of understanding of emotions and emotional identification, which is manifested in selection of individual expressive signs of basic emotions by their graphic representation and photo standard; the difficulties of orientation in emotional features of different modalities; lack of understanding of social emotions and the content of moral action etc. Its verbal component is characterized by small volume of emotional vocabulary, inaccuracy of the use of words describing emotional content, lack of formation of generalizations and synonymous means of speech, the use of non-essential features during the description of emotions etc. Its expressive component is characterized by poverty and indistinctness of expressive reactions, narrowing of the range of experiences, instability and emotional lability of emotions, diminished emotional mood, inadequate behavior etc.
Three levels of emotional sphere formation were identified. Qualitative analysis shows that the emotional sphere in the majority of socially depressed pre-school children with developmental delay and their peers who were raised in a family and attended a special preschool educational institution have characteristic features of the 1st and 2nd levels. The underdevelopment of the emotional sphere is caused by the imperfections of the perceptual, cognitive, verbal and expressive components: the lack of adequate emotions, thir narrowed range, the low level of differentiation of emotions by the main modalities (joy, sadness, anger, fear), lack of recognition of emotional states by the expressive complex, inability to arbitrarily reproduce separate emotions in gaming and communicative activities, insufficient emotional vocabulary etc.
A program of emotional sphere formation in socially deprived pre-schoolers with developmental delay was structured in four blocks: theoretical and methodological, organizational-methodical, corrective-developmental and evaluational. Implementation of the program's tasks included two areas: correction of emotional sphere of and formation of expressive, perceptual, cognitive and verbal components of emotional sphere.
