Children are the flowers of life! It is with their children that the most cherished dreams of each parent are connected. And the first thing that parents should provide the child with is proper growth and development, therefore, when identifying the slightest deviations, one should immediately seek help from specialists.
Who is a defectologist?
There is a profession that combines medicine and pedagogy. This is a defectology. A specialist in the field of defectology should become the best friend and adviser for special children and their parents.
A defectologist is a teacher who specializes in activities with children who are lagging behind in physical or mental development.
What qualities should a defectologist have?
A defectologist is primarily a person who has received the appropriate education. The teacher should be able to diagnose existing deviations in children and look for ways to compensate them, as well as conduct a certain course of classes aimed at developing a problem child. There should be no age barrier between the child and the specialist. The latter should be able to enter into confidence in the younger generation and become a friend for the child.
Among the personal qualities that a defectologist must have, the following are distinguished:
- High level of intelligence. It is a necessity when mastering the profession of a defectologist. The teacher should have a competent and clearly delivered speech, he should have an excellent memory, be able to properly build and structure classes.
- Intuitive abilities. Intuition is necessary to identify a technique that is suitable for a particular case.
- Observation and attentiveness. These two qualities will help establish contact with the child, determine the specifics of his behavior and give this a logical explanation.
- Sociability. A specialist should be able to find a common language with children and be sociable with them, always be able to talk a child and provoke a two-way dialogue.
- Emotional unwaveringness and patience. A strong nervous system is the key to the effectiveness and productivity of a defectologist with children with physical or mental disabilities. You need to understand that working as a defectologist is a difficult job.
- Responsiveness. A defectologist is the first person who should come to the aid of those in need, he should not be indifferent to other people's problems.
- Tact. The specialist should show maximum courtesy and caution in communicating with special children and their parents.
Defectology specialties
Defectology science includes several main areas:
- sign language education - teaching children who have both obvious and minor deviations in the functioning of the hearing aid;
- oligophrenopedagogy - teaching the younger generation with mental deficiencies;
- typhlopedagogy - teaching kids who have impaired visual function;
- speech therapy - teaching children whose developmental indications are within the normal range, but there are speech disorders detected in pronunciation.
Defectologist profession: goals and objectives
The goals that the defectologist sets for himself:
- Make you want to learn through motivation.
- Compensate for the lack of general knowledge, make up for the development of the speech apparatus, teach literacy, reading, modeling, and playing.
Focusing on goals, a specialist for working with special children solves the following tasks:
- Conducts corrective work on the existing deviations in the development of students.
- Carries out a survey of children in order to identify the structure and severity of their defects.
- It unites students with an identical psychophysical state in groups.
- Conducts classes (in a group or individually) that are aimed at correcting developmental abnormalities and restoring functional features. Classes with problem children are based on the application of certain methods and techniques. The choice of one or another methodological program depends on the specifics of the deviations among students.
- Conducts consultations and discussions with parents of children who are at his rehabilitation.
In addition, a pediatric defectologist should systematically improve his professional qualifications.
Functions of the teacher-defectologist
- Conducts a detailed examination of the child, based on which it diagnoses his learning abilities. If deviations in development are identified, work is organized to maximize the completion and restoration of developmental deficiencies.
- Conducts classes, the purpose of which is the development of basic mental processes (perception, attention, memory, thought processes, etc.).
- Develops communication skills of children.
- Develops a climactic activity for children of a certain age category. So, to compensate for the development of preschool children, a defectologist in kindergarten focuses on playing activities, for schoolchildren - on reading, writing, etc.
The work of the pathologist: organizational principles
A comprehensive approach is used to diagnose developmental disorders, their correction and recovery, which is based on the principle of the unity of diagnosis and correction. Diagnostic work is an integral part of a comprehensive study of the baby by a specialist. The situation during the examination should be supportive, friendly, without extraneous noise and third parties, the dialogue - in a calm tone.
Analysis of developmental disorders is carried out using the etiopathogenetic approach. Each special child is affected by the central nervous system, the nature of such lesions is different, which leads to the emergence of heterogeneous disorders in mental and physical development. Therefore, classes with a defectologist are differentiated. For each individual student or preschooler, a list of priority areas in correctional work is compiled.
When drawing up a lesson plan, you need to consider age categories and characteristics of the individual nature of children. The task that a specialist poses for a child should be very clear to him.
If a child needs the help of two or more specialists at the same time, there is an interdisciplinary interaction between medical teachers.
For each problematic little man, a teacher-defectologist performs dynamic monitoring, according to the results of which we can draw conclusions regarding the effectiveness of corrective work on one or another methodological technique.
In addition, a systematic comparative analysis of the state of the formed educational knowledge, mental and physical development of the crumbs is carried out systematically.
Myths about the work of a defectologist
- Myth 1 . For inexplicable reasons, people are of the opinion that the defectologist specializes in working exclusively with children who have significant deviations in mental and physical functions. This is not true. He can help any child with learning disabilities. A defectologist is a wide-profile teacher who knows how to choose the right teaching methodology for a particular child.
- Myth 2 . Classes with a specialist in the field of defectology will last forever. This is far from true, or rather, it is not at all true. If the teacher works with a student who has problems with academic performance and does not have mental and physical deviations, then a clear deadline is characteristic of such classes. He comes when the teacher helps the child fill gaps in knowledge.
Speech therapist and defectologist: what are the main differences
The main differences between a speech pathologist and a speech therapist are as follows:
- The target audience. A defectologist works with special children who have certain deviations in mental and physical development, and a speech therapist with absolutely developed children who have problems with speech and pronunciation.
- The purpose of classes. A defectologist at school or kindergarten seeks to help the baby learn how to express their thoughts, restore gaps in knowledge, and apply measures to correct mental development. Speech therapist only works on the development of the speech apparatus and speech correction.
- Restrictions in the age category of children. A specialist in defectology can conduct classes with very young children (starting from 1 year), but you should not hurry with classes with a speech therapist before the baby is three years old. In addition, an adult can contact a speech therapist.
- A defectologist is a wide-field specialist, which a speech therapist cannot boast of, whose field of activity is much smaller.
Related professions
The profession of a defectologist is close, in its essence, to that of a teacher, psychologist, doctor, speech therapist, and kindergarten teacher.
Well-known defectologists
A considerable number of children of preschool and school ages need special education. Outstanding scientists of the Russian Federation devoted their works to numerous studies on this problem. The gold fund of defectologists includes: V. M. Bekhterev (Russian neurologist, psychiatrist and psychologist, founder of a scientific school), A. N. Graborov (founder of the sensory culture education system), L. V. Zankov (Russian psychologist, defectologist and teacher, student of L. S. Vygogsky), M. S. Pevzner (Russian scientist, psychiatrist, psychologist, defectologist and teacher), F. A. Rau, J. I. Shif, E. K. Gracheva (first Russian defectologist teacher), V. P. Kashchenko (head of the first sanatorium school for special children), I. V. Malyarevsky, L. S. Vygotsky (defectologist-experiment torus, defectology researcher), M. F. Gnezdilov (domestic oligophrenopedagogue, methodologist), G. E. Sukhareva (author of the evolutionary-biological concept of mental illness), G. M. Dulnev.
Thanks to the above-mentioned scientists, special education in Russia received not only approval, but also proper development.