The Readiness of Visually Impaired Pupils to Take Courses in the Correctional and Developmental Field in Elementary School: a Typological Approach
Authors:   Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Kantor V.Z. , Nikulina G.V. ,   Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Proekt Yu.L. ,   Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia
Published: January 2025

Introduction. The formation by now of an integral normative and methodological base for primary education of children with disabilities, marked, among other things, by the definition of a specific educational area - correctional and developmental, actualizes the tasks associated with the empirical assessment of the readiness of such children to overcome courses in this area. And of fundamental importance in this context is the diagnostics of the initial level of desired readiness that children have reached by the time they start school. This is particularly relevant for visually impaired children. However, they were not initially targeted for appropriate input diagnostics at the initial stage of primary education. This would also reflect the scale and nature of the mediating influence of socio-demographic and atypical typological factors, in their unique combination, on the readiness of these students to master the correctional and developmental courses specific to their educational level. The goals and objectives of the conducted empirical research were aimed at filling this gap.

Materials and methods. The study involved 82 visually impaired children who started studying in the 1st grade of special (correctional) and secondary schools in St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, Vladimir, Ivanovo, Leningrad and Murmansk regions, as well as in the republics of Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Karelia, and the Udmurt Republic. Comprehensive indicators of the readiness of visually impaired children to study in correctional and developmental field were studied. These indicators were obtained as a result of a special diagnostic procedure, which included several stages and assumed an expert assessment of the child’s readiness level by typhlopedagogues. The assessment was carried out on the basis of a set of complementary methods, such as observation, conversation and pedagogical experiment. At the same time, the study collected data on the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants and their diseases. To solve diagnostic and evaluation problems, a mathematical and statistical modeling scheme was developed and implemented. It included cluster, comparative and factor analysis.

Results. During the study, six groups of visually impaired children were identified, which differ from each other significantly in a number of socio-demographic, and clinical characteristics that affect their ability to learn in the correctional and developmental field. Within the framework of the correctional and developmental course “Spatial orientation” - the most successful are children who study in specialized schools in the regions Children who study in secondary schools in large cities show higher results in initial readiness to master the course “Development of visual perception”. In the context of the correctional and developmental program “Development of communicative activity”, children studying in large cities, act as a kind of leading group, both in general education and in specialized schools, and in relation to the courses “Adaptive physical culture” and “Rhythmics”- children studying in ordinary schools in large cities. During the analysis of the results of the study of the readiness of visually impaired children to master correctional and developmental courses, four main aspects were identified, which together explain 73,89 % of the total variance. These aspects can be called “motor activity”, “spatial orientation”, “social and household orientation at the basis of orientation” and “development of communication skills”. However, these aspects manifest themselves in varying degrees in visually impaired primary school children, belonging to different topological groups. Discussion and conclusion. The study showed that in children with visual impairments, readiness to master correctional and developmental courses in primary school, can develop in different ways, when against the background of the mediating influence of socio-demographic and abnormal (nosological) typological factors in the continent of these children, corresponding intergroup differences are clearly found in relation to each of such courses.