Boryak O. Theory and practice of forming speech activity of mentally retarded children of junior school age

The thesis is a comprehensive research of the problem of speech activity disorders caused by mental retardation of mild and moderate degrees of severity: causes, mechanisms of occurrence, specificity of the cognitive component. The strategy and tactics of the medical-logo-psycholinguistic and pedagogical stage of the study are determined; characteristics of the content, pedagogical conditions and criteria of differentiated assessment of speech activity of junior schoolchildren with mild and moderate degree of mental retardation are given; the indicators of speech disorders are substantiated. The theoretical-methodological foundations are scientifically substantiated and empirically investigated and complex differentiated system of formation and correction of speech activity of junior pupils with mild and moderate degree of mental retardation on the basis of systems, individual-differentiated, motivational-cognitive, corrective-developing, communicative-activity approaches is developed and experimentally verified. The directions of specialists' training and professional development to work on formation and correction of speech activity of junior schoolchildren with mild and moderate degree of mental retardation have been identified and substantiate. Materials of the research can be used in the system of higher, special and inclusive education for creation and modernization of educational and methodological materials on diagnostics, formation and correction of speech activity of junior schoolchildren with mild and moderate degree of mental retardation. Taking into account the hierarchy of the processes of formation, understanding of speech and the main components of the speech system and the tasks they solve, within the limits of this research, in the author's opinion, it is expedient to use both the logo-pedagogical and psycholinguistic approaches of language and speech study of the selected category of children. Their combination can give a specialist not only necessary theoretical knowledge, but also a complex differentiated methodology of experimental study of specific manifestations of speech activity violations of children with mild and moderate degree of mental retardation.