The expansion of the variability of educational routes for students with disabilities determines the high demand for specialists in the field of correctional and pedagogical support. The purpose of the article is based on the analysis of the results of monitoring the views of students studying in the field of “Special (defectological) education” to identify the state of the current system of training specialists, to formulate current directions for its modernization. The methods of analysis of literary sources, survey, comparative, mathematical, statistical (Spearman correlation coefficient) and content analysis of data were used. The study involved 6,153 people studying in the field of “Special (defectological) education. The criteria that determine the choice of applicants and students of this field of study and profiles within it are disclosed and systematized. The following are determined: the readiness of students to implement work functions and act in accordance with the orientation of the educational program, their expectations in the process of employment, the initial stage of independent professional activity. The problem areas of the existing personnel training system for working with people with disabilities have been identified. Practical solutions aimed at its modernization are proposed.
Keyword(s) : educational program
Possibilities and Limitations of the Content of Programs Aimed at Developing Preschoolers’ Understanding of Emotions
There are many studies about the values and ways to develop a child’s understanding of emotions. This led to the design of a number of programs aimed at developing an understanding of emotions. Such programs have different content, often contradictory in comparison with each other. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to identify the possibilities and limitations of the content of programs aimed at developing an understanding of emotions. The method in this study was a comparative analysis of programs. The programs were compared using the components of understanding emotions highlighted in the F. model. Pons and P.L. Harris. Eight educational programs for developing preschoolers’ understanding of emotions presented in peer-reviewed publications were selected. As a result of the conducted research, the possibilities of the content of programs based on various approaches to the child’s understanding of emotion were highlighted. The limitations of programs determined by such approaches were also highlighted. In addition, the features of the topic of understanding emotions were highlighted, which make it possible to deepen the content of programs when designing.
Designing New Educational Programs in Special Education
The growing number of children with disabilities studying in various institutional settings has made
it necessary to analyze educational programs for special needs teachers in terms of their relevance.
In the field of special psychology and correctional pedagogy, traditional specializations (speechlanguage
therapy, oligophrenopedagogy, surdopedagogy) cannot adequately meet society’s needs
for psychological and pedagogical support for all types of students with mental and physical health
disorders. The authors identified general trends in the training of special education teachers while
studying educational programs for bachelor’s and master’s degrees in special education offered by
higher education institutions under the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation. Persons
with disabilities, whose education and psycho-pedagogical assistance are not given by professional
workers, were identified. The factors that influence the development of new educational programs,
as well as their validity and importance for providing correctional and pedagogical aid to students
with special educational needs, are investigated.
A Competence Model for Training Programs in Inclusive Education
The implementation of inclusion poses fundamentally new requirements for the professional
competencies of teachers, which in turn determines the need for an empirically based competence
model of a teacher of an inclusive educational organization. A complex of university programs for
teacher training specifying the inclusive competencies could be used as an appropriate empirical base
of the study. However, this research logic has not yet been implemented and the study was devised
to fill this gap. Its purpose was to build a structural and meaningful model of an inclusive teacher
based on an analysis of inclusive competencies presented in the teachers’ educational programs
of universities. Content analysis was used to study the texts of 59 basic educational programs.
Frequency and factor analysis of the matrix of representation of competency indicators in educational
programs was also carried out. It was found that the semantic core of the inclusive competencies
of the teacher reflects the need to take into account the special psychological and pedagogical status of children in terms of their personal position in learning, the originality of their development,
health status and their specific educational needs. The integral inclusive competences of the teacher
are the readiness to: organize an inclusive educational process as a whole; organize an individually
oriented educational route; individual / collaborative support; and organize psychological and
pedagogical support; substantive / instrumental knowledge related to working with students with
disabilities. The competence profiles of teachers, set by university educational programs, are not
fully consistent with both the existing theoretical models of the inclusive teacher competencies
and the conditions for the implementation of inclusive practice. The research results include ideas
about five-component structure of teacher’s inclusive competence. The practical significance is in
the identification of the essence of the contradictions in the content of the university training of
teachers for work in inclusive education, the elimination of which will contribute to improving the
quality staffing of the inclusive education system.