Special education in russia

The percentage of handicapped children in Russia at present is the lowest in the world. However, there are still many causes which contribute to abnormal develop­ment in children that have not yet been eliminated, There are injuries at birth, illnesses of the pregnant woman, serious illness in early childhood, congenital defects, etc. This makes it necessary to create special conditions, a network of special schools, for the education of handicapped children.

The education of handicapped children in Russia is a part of the state educational system. A few months after the Great October Socialist Revolution, the state took upon it­self the care of handicapped children, which, in pre-revolutionary Russia, had been chiefly the domain or private or philanthropic establishments, and transferred them to the People Commissariat of Education.

On December 10, 1919 in a decree signed by Lenin, the Council of People Commissars determined the functions of the various People Commissariats in regard to the educa­tion and medical care of physically and mentally handicapped children. In accordance with this decision, retarded children were to be cared for and educated in the co-called auxiliary schools, while blind, deaf and physically handicapped children were to attend corresponding special schools of the People Commissariat of Education. Children with nervous and mental disorders were to be cared for in sanatoria-schools, convalescent schools and other special establish­ments of the People Commissariat of Health. Severely re­tarded children were to be cared for by the establishments of the People Commissariat of Social Security.

In time, a unified system for bringing up and educating handicapped children was created. This network of special establishments has been under constant improvement.

The special school system includes the following schools:

1. special schools for the blind and partially sighted,

2. special schools for the deaf and hard of hearing,

3. auxiliary schools for the mentally retarded,

4. special speech schools for school the speech defective,

5. special schools for children with disturbances of motor function

6. special schools for children who are multiply handicapped,

7. preschool establishments for the deaf end hard of hearing, the blind the mentally retarded and children with speech defects,

8. special evening secondary schools for working adults who are blind, partially sighted, or deaf or hard of hearing. At present blind children and those with severely impaired eyesight receive a complete secondary education in the course of 12 years of study.

Auxiliary schools for mentally retarded children with an eight-year term of study provide an elementary education and give the children vocational training.

In the late 1940s speech therapy rooms were opened in many normal secondary schools as an aid to their pupils with speech defects. Beginning with 1962, special schools were established for children with severe speech defects (alalia, aphasia, complicated tongue-tie, etc.).

Prior to entering school all children who have reached 6 years of age must have a thorough medical examination by a team of specialists at their district children’s polyclinic. This examination is compulsory for every child entering school. Children who have serious defects of vision, hearing or speech and who will find studying in a normal school too difficult are referred to a special school. This team has it’s own admission boards and consists of a children’s psycho-neurologist, a speech therapist a number of the administration of the special school and, when necessary, an ear, nose and throat or an eye specialist. These specialists do not only examine the child carefully, they analyze his entire case history. On the basis of this study the board de­termines the degree of his disability and the type of estab­lishment he is to be referred to.

Talking points

Characterize different periods of educating handicapped children in Russia.

TERMS

Philanthropic –филантропический, благотворительный

Establishment – создание, образование, учреждение

Decree – директива,постановление, решение

Convalescent school – специальная школа

Convalescent –выздоравливающий

Alalia- алалия (неспособность говорить вследствие патологии мышц речевого аппарата)

Aphasia- афазия

Tongue-tie -косноязычие

A REPORT OF THE VISIT TO MOSCOW OF A DELEGATION OF THE GUILD OF TEACHERS OF BACKWAKD CHILDREN. (In June 1965).

THE FACULTY OF DEFECTOLOGY OF THE MOSCOW LENIN STATE PEDAGOGICAL INSTITUTE.

J.C. Uncles, City of Leeds College of Education

(from Backward Children in the USSR. E.J.Arnold & Son limited leeds England)

At the Faculty of Defectology, the delegation had an interesting interview with Professor U.S. Zumski, whose main concern is with the training of "defectologists", by which is meant teachers who specialize in work with handicapped children.

He explained that the training of defectologists began in 1920, but since then the use of such trained personnel has changed. Originally, a defectologist was expected to deal with every type of handicap, but nowadays there is more specialization. Moreover, when there were few special schools, most defectologists worked in ordinary schools, but now the position has been reached that there are not a sufficient number of staff in the recently built special schools.

Training is now given at Moscow, Kiev, Leningrad, Gorki, Siauliai, Sverdlovsk, Irkutsk and Minsk, but this Faculty at Moscow is the oldest training department, the others (apart from Leningrad, 1920) have been established only recently.

The work of a defectologist is as follows: he may be concerned with teaching the deaf, in which case he would work in special schools for the deaf and partially deaf, teaching all subjects in Junior schools but only one subject together with the native language and literature at the Senior stage.

He may be concerned with oligophrenics, in which case he is also a qualified logoped (speech therapist who is a brained teacher). Four different types of qualification are available:

1. For teachers who may teach any subject at any level in schools for debiles.

2. For teachers who attend to children's speech in such schools.

3. For teachers of blind and partially sighted children. They may teach all subjects to these children in Junior classes, but only native language and literature in Senior forms.

4. For "universal logopeds" who may correct the speech of children at all kinds of school and institutions, at pre­school establishments or at polyclinics, and it is important to stress that in Russia the logoped is a speech therapist who has had full training as a teacher.

When the system becomes more differentiated, it may be that other specialists will develop. There may, for example, be a need for a specialist to work with physically handicap­ped children with maladjusted or delinquent children.

This Faculty at Moscow has been mainly concerned, since its inception, with the training of logopeds, of teachers of the deaf and of oligophrenics. The newer departments in other cities also have specialists, but teachers of oligophrenics are trained at all centres, this group being by far the largest. (About 500 are required annually in the R.S.F.S.R., and in addition there is a need for some 300 logopeds and 30 teachers of the blind.) Professor Zamski commented that the placing of teachers of the blind and deaf is becoming more difficult since, with more exact diagnostic techniques and improved aids, some children previously classed as blind and deaf are being transferred to schools for the partially deaf of partially sighted.

There are two ways in which a student may become a qualified defectologist. He may take a four-year course at an Institute or Faculty, or when already qualified as a teacher, he may take a part-time course which includes a correspondence course. Students who take the full four-year course are not qualified teachers, but have normally attended, from age sixteen to twenty, a secondary-medical or se­condary-pedagogical school.

About 200 students are admitted annually to this Faculty, the number being adjusted to suit the requirements of the area. At the other centres, numbers are smaller, e.g. at Leningrad there are 150, at Irkutsk 50 and at Minsk 25.

The curriculum has six main aspects:

1. The history of Russia and a study of social theory. (This is common to all courses of further education.)

2. General educational theory, including psychology, the history of education in Russia, and health education.

3. Special educational theory and treatment. Subjects studied in this third category include general and educational phy­siology, neuro-pathology and psycho-pathology. A special study is made of the normal and pathological physiology of the organs of speech, hearing and sight, and this section is obligatory for all defectologists, regardless of their specialism.

4. In addition, to these three main aspects, the student also continues his own personal education, a study of the native language and literature. He takes part in physical education and undertakes to learn one foreign language - usually German, English or French. (240 hours are devoted annually to this).

5. The specialism. The defectologist specializes, later in his course, on a particular aspect of special educational treatment. Teachers of the deaf, for instance, concentrate on the physiology and the psychology of deafness, teachers of oligophrenics pay special attention to the diagnosis of oligofrenia and its neuro-physiological basis. In addition, every specialist will learn about one of the particular handicaps; thus a specialist in oligofrenia will do a brief course on work with the deaf, and all specialists will examine the history of the treatment of these handicaps in all countries. Emphasis is, of course, placed on suitable teaching approaches for each handicap, and the students will examine methods of teaching mathematics, language and the natural sciences to the children with whom they will be con­cerned.

6. Speech therapy. A previously mentioned, all defectologists study speech therapy and speech development.

There are also certain subsidiary courses, such as han­dicrafts, eurhythmics and visual aids.

Theory is closely linked at all stages with practical work in schools, and can be described as a concurrent course. During his second year, a student will spend two weeks at a summer camp where he will make studies of children while taking an active share in caring for their welfare. In his third year he will spend three weeks on teaching practice at a Junior special school, and in his fourth year eighteen weeks at a school are similar to that in which he intends to teach.

His final exanimations will consist of three main parts:

1. The basic of scientific communism.

2. Theory and methods of special education.

3. Speech therapy for teachers of oligophrenics and others, but "universal” speech therapists will make an intensive study of the Russian language.

At the special school which was visited, the delegation met a student who was completing his eighteen weeks’ teach­ing practice at the end of his fourth year, and was at that time taking his final exanimation. He described the exanimation method, which had a considerable oral content. He had to choose three questions from a selection handed to him on cards, and after a brief preliminary inspection of the questions he was required to speak about them for some one and a half hour to a panel of examiners which included his own tutor. Before admission to the examination he had to pass satisfactorily a test of spelling and punctuation pre­sented through the medium of a dictation exercise.

Having passed his examinations, a student will be allowed to choose an appointment from a limited number of special schools, but normally students will wish to return to their home area, where they will have to teach satisfactorily for a year before they receive the diploma. Although there is no supervisions during this probationary year, the headmaster of the school is asked to submit a report on each student, and if this should be adverse, a further year "on probation" will be necessary. This system was adopted only a year ago.

The part-time course which is open to qualified teachers in ordinary schools, or to teachers without special training in a special school, consists of a correspondence course supplied by attendance at the Faculty twice a year. This course gives the opportunities to get a diploma of the same standing as that granted for the four-year course.

When asked about the most important principles in the work with oligophrenics, Professor Zamski replied; "There are three important points. First, must be particularly careful in our diagnosis and selection; we must not be faulty in our estimate of the degrees of retardation.¹ Second, we must correct all the defects which we find in the child, and third, we must prepare them as far as we can for practical life and useful work so that they may make a satisfactory contribution to society.” It is important, he stressed, to start early, and the Faculty has a special course on the theory of preschool education, e.g. the value of handicraft, of eurhythmics and of sensory training is emphasized, and students observe the diagnosis procedures used by experts working under clinical conditions.