Abstract:

The relevance of the research. Today, there is a sharp question of giving up writing diagnoses to identify existing violations of mental development in children. Instead, scientists are working at the formation of characteristics based on the neuropsychological aspect of the vision of the problem. On the basis of the analysis of the specificity of psychological tests implementation, the research in the field of neuropsychology gives information about the location of the defeat of the cerebral cortex; allows to define and describe the structure of the violation of the mental sphere and the impact of its underdevelopment on the state of assimilation of various kinds of educational information.

The purpose of the research was to identify and characterize the structural types of violation of the cognitive sphere in children with systemic speech disorders and determine their difficulties in learning educational information.

The study covered 386 junior pupils aged 6-10 years with typical development, systemic speech disorders, normal hearing, vision, and intelligence.

Two methods have been developed for the research: one for studying the peculiarities of the cognitive sphere in children aged 6-10 years, and second for studying the specifics of the learning of the educational material of basic disciplines in elementary school.

The methodology for studying the cognitive sphere was based on the neuropsychological approach. It included 38 tests and tasks from the neuropsychological method of O.R. Luria, the album of Y.Z. Gilbukh, the methods of N.M. Stadnenko and R. Atmhauer.

To study the condition and peculiarities of mastering math knowledge by junior schoolchildren, we used the methods of N.S. Gavrylova, V.V. Tarasun. To study the same in writing and reading, we used the methods of M.V. Shevchenko and V.V. Tarasun.
To verify the results of the study, we applied Pearson's consistency criterion.

The analysis of the materials of the study showed that all the children with systemic speech disorders and normal intelligence demonstrated selective underdevelopment of processes and functions of the cognitive activity. The level of underdevelopment in their cognitive activity was not directly correlated with the severeness of their speech disorder.

As a result, we identified 3 structural types of violation of the cognitive sphere that are most commonly encountered in junior pupils studying in a comprehensive school: kinetic, which arises in case of violation in the area of frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex; kinesthetic - with a defeat of the anterior part of the parietal lobe of the cerebral cortex; mnemonic - with the defeat of the posterior border parietal-occipital parts of the brain. We also formed cross-sectional characteristics of these types of violation from the gnostic-praxis level to the mnestic and intellectual ones.

In the comparative analysis, we determined that every group of children has distinct types of difficulties in mastering educational information. The conducted multi-level analysis has allowed to state that the presence of specific difficulties of mastering educational information in children is caused by selective violations of the cognitive sphere.

Our study does not solve all aspects of the problem and may be the basis for further creation of individually directed correction and teaching methods to increase the efficiency of children’s mastering educational information.

Keywords:

Structure of mental disorders, location of the cerebral cortex lesion, types of difficulties when mastering the teaching material, systemic speech disorders.