Lecture 5. Theories about compensation. Vygotsky's views of rejection and compensation.

The dual role of a physical disability, first in the developmental process and then in the formation of the child’s personality, is a fundamental fact with which we must deal when development is complicated by a defect. On the one hand, the defect means a minus, a limitation, a weakness, a delay in development; on the other, it stimulates a heightened, intensified advancement, precisely because it creates difficulties. The position of modem defectology is the following: Any defect creates stimuli for compensatory process. Therefore, defectologists cannot limit their dynamic study of a handicapped child to determining the degree and severity of the deficiency. Without fail, they must take into account the compensatory processes in a child’s development and behavior, which substitute for, supersede, and overarch the defect. Just as the patient-and not the disease is important for modem medicine, so the child burdened with the defect-not the defect in and of itself-becomes the focus of concern for defectology. Tuberculosis*, for example, is diagnosed not only by the stage and severity of the illness, but also by the physical reaction to the disease, by the degree to which the process is or is not compensated for. Thus, the child’s physical and psychological reaction to the handicap is the central and basic problem-indeed, the sole reality-with which defectology deals.

A long time ago, W. Stem pointed out the dual role played by a defect. Thus, the blind child compensates with an increased ability to distinguish through touch-not only by actually increasing the stimulability of his nerves, but by exercising his ability to observe, estimate, and ponder differences. So, too, in the area of psychological functions, the decreased value of one faculty may be fully or partially compensated for by the stronger development of another. For example, the cultivation of comprehension may replace keenness of observation and recollection, compensating for a poor memory. Impressionability, the tendency to imitate, and so forth compensate for weakness of motivation and inadequate initiative. The functions of personality are not so exclusive that, given the abnormally weak development of one characteristic, the task performed by it necessarily and in all circumstances suffers. Thanks to the organic unity of personality, another faculty undertakes to accomplish the task (W. Stem, 1921).

In this way we can apply the law of compensation equally to normal and abnormal development. T. Lipps saw in this a fundamental law of mental life: if a mental event is interrupted or impeded, then an “overflow” (that is, an increase of psychological energy) occurs at the point of interruption or obstruction. The obstruction plays the role of a dam. This law Lipps named the law of psychological damming up or stowage (Stauung). Energy is concentrated at that point where the process met with delay, and it may overcome the delay or proceed by roundabout ways. Thus, in place of delayed developmental processes, new processes are generated due to the blockage (T. Lipps, 1907).

A. Adler I and his school posit as the basis of their psychological system the study of abnormal organs and functions, the inadequacy of which constantly stimulates an intensified (higher) development. According to Adler, awareness of a physically handicapped condition is, for the individual, a constant stimulation of mental development. If any organ, because of a morphological or functional deficiency, does not fully cope with its task, then the central human nervous and mental apparatus compensates for the organ’s deficient operation by creating a psychological superstructure which shores up the entire deficient organism at its weakened, threatened point. Conflict arises from contact with the exterior milieu; conflict is caused by the incompatibility of the deficient organ or function and the task before it. This conflict, in turn, leads to an increased possibility of illness and fatality. The same conflict may also create greater potentialities and stimuli for compensation and even for over-compensation. Thus, defect becomes the starting point and the principal motivating force in the psychological development of personality. It establishes the target point, toward which the development of all psychological forces strive. It gives direction to the process of growth and to the formation of personality. A handicap creates a higher developmental tendency; it enhances such mental phenomena as foresight and presentiment, as well as their operational elements (memory, attention, intuition, sensibility, interest)-in a word, all supporting psychological features (A. Adler, 1928).

We may not and ought not agree with Adler when he ascribes to the compensatory process a universal significance for all mental development. But there is no contemporary defectologist, it seems, who would not ascribe paramount importance to the effect of personality on a defect or to the adaptive developmental processes, i.e., to that extremely complex picture of a defect’s positive effects, including the roundabout course of development with its complicated zigzags. This is a picture which we observe in every child with a defect. Most important is the fact that along with a physical handicap come strengths and attempts both to overcome and to equalize the handicap. These tendencies toward higher development were not formerly recognized by defectology. Meanwhile, precisely these tendencies give uniqueness to the development of the handicapped child; they foster creative, unendingly diverse, sometimes profoundly eccentric forms of development, which we do not observe in the typical development of the normal child. It is not necessary to be an Adlerite and to share the principles of his school in order to recognize the correctness of this position.

“He will want to see everything,” Adler says about a child, “if he is nearsighted; to hear everything, if he is hearing impaired; he will want to say everything, if he has an obvious speech defect or a stutter. ... The desire to fly will be most apparent in those children who experience great difficulty even in jumping. The contrast between the physical disability and the desires, fantasies, dreams, i.e., psychological drives to compensate, are so universal that one may base upon this a fundamental law: Via subjective feelings of inadequacy, a physical handicap dialectically transforms itself into psychological drives toward compensation and overcompensation” (1927, p. 57). Formerly, it was believed that the entire life and development of a blind child would be framed by blindness. The new law states that development will go against this course. If blindness exists, then mental development will be directed away from blindness, against blindness. Goal-oriented reflexes, according to I. P. Pavlov, need a certain tension to achieve full, proper, fruitful development. The existence of obstacles is a principal condition for goal achievement (1951, p. 302). Modem psychotechnics is inclined to consider control [or self-direction] to be a function so central to the educational process and to the formation of personality as a special case of the phenomena of overcompensation (J. N. Spielrein, 1924).

The study of compensation reveals the creative character of development directed along this course. It is not in vain that such psychologists as Stern and Adler partly based the origins of giftedness on this understanding. Stem formulates the idea as follows: “What does not destroy me, makes me stronger; thanks to adaptation, strength arises from weakness, ability from deficiencies” (W. Stern, 1923, p. 145).

It would be a mistake to assume that the process of compensation always, without fail, ends in success, that it always leads from the defect to the formation of a new capability. As with every process of overcoming and struggle, compensation may also have two extreme outcomes-victory and failure- and between these two are all possible transitional points. The outcome depends on many things, but basically, it depends on the relationship between (1) the severity of the defect and (2) the wealth of compensatory reserves. But whatever the anticipated outcome, always and in all circumstances, development, complicated by a defect, represents a creative (physical and psychological) process. It represents the creation and re-creation of a child’s personality based on the restructuring of all the adaptive functions and on the formation of new processes--overarching, substituting, equalizing-generated by the handicap, and creating new, roundabout paths for development. Defectology is faced with a world of new, infinitely diverse forms and courses of development. The course created by a defect-that of compensation-is the major course of development for a child with a physical handicap or functional disability.

The positive uniqueness of the handicapped child is created not by the failure of one or another function observed in a normal child but by the new formations caused by this lapse. This uniquely individual reaction to a defect represents a continually evolving adaptive process. If a blind or deaf child achieves the same level of development as a normal child, then the child with a defect achieves this in another way, by another course, by other means. And, for the pedagogue, it is particularly important to know the uniqueness of the course, along which he must lead the child. The key to originality transforms the minus of the handicap into the plus of compensation.

Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896-1934) is key role in establishing the discipline of abnormal child psychology in the USSR. His text appeared in Russian in 1983 under the title, The Fundamentals of Defectology. The term “decfectology” has no real parallel in the English language and sounds rather degrading. As once noted by an American scholar, this term would not survive for three minutes in a discussion of the "handicapped" in the Western world today because it carries too much negative connotation towards the "disabled". In fact, the word "defectologia" (or "defectology" in the English transliteration) literally means "study of defect". In Russia, for more than a century, this term has referred to the study of the children with disabilities and the methods of their evaluation, education, and upbringing. This is the current Soviet term for the discipline which studies the handicapped, their development, teacher training and methods.

About defectology, a part of Vygotsky's general theory is a notion of the social nature of the physical and mental disability. He mentions that the dual role of a physical disability, first in the developmental process and then in the formation of the child’s personality, is a fundamental fact with which we must deal when development is complicated by a defect. A “primary” defect is an organic impairment due to biological factors. A “secondary” defect refers to distortions of higher psychological functions due to social factors. An organic impairment prevents a child with disability from mastering some or most social skills and acquiring knowledge at a proper rate and in an acceptable form, but it is the child's social milieu that modifies his/her course of development and leads to distortions and delays. However, he also mentioned that On the one hand, the defect “stimulates a heightened, intensified advancement, precisely because it creates difficulties. Therefore, defectologists cannot limit their dynamic study of a handicapped child to determining the degree and severity of the deficiency. Without fail, they must take into account the compensatory processes in a child's development and behavior, which substitute for, supersede, and overarch the defect.” In the essay “Defect and Compensation”, Vygotsky discussed this very notion in details.

Defect and Compensation

In the essay “Defect and Compensation”, Vygotsky names higher psychological functions as the major compensatory devices for mental and sensory deficits. The focus of compensation should be the intensification of cultural enlightenment, strengthening of the higher psychological functions, the quantity and quality of communication, and social relationship with a “collective” (an organized group of peers). The main goal of special education, therefore, is to compensate for primary defects through facilitating and strengthening intact psychological functions and to prevent, correct, and rehabilitate secondary defects by psychological and pedagogical means.

The concept and function of overcompensation

Vygotsky advocates that “if these [learning disabilities] do not cause the child to lose his zeal or do not force him to flee from them, but activate them, then they will lead to a roundabout path of development.” Overcompensation is the idea about strength arises from weakness and ability from deficiencies. In order to demonstrate this concept, Vygotsky drew a number of examples: vaccine that transforms a child’s sickness into superior health; white blood cells which rushed to the infected area in greater quantity than is needed to combat the infection; the organ (a lung, a kidney) that takes over the function of another organ (an impeded/damaged lung/kidney) and develops into full function of both in a compensatory manner and etc. He relates the overcompensation of health to of defect, “overcompensation leads to the consciousness of superior health in a diseased organism, to the transformation of an inferiority complex into a superior complex, a defect into giftedness and ability.” He mentioned that the feeling or consciousness of one’s inferiority, caused by an individual’s defect becomes the primary driving force behind this psychological development. He cited the examples of Demosthenes, L. von Beethoven, A.S. Suvorov, K. Demulen and Helen Keller, as examples of deficient individuals who over-compensated their defects.

Overcompensation and Pedagogy

Vygotsky suggests that this doctrine is intrinsically tied to pedagogy in theory and practise. With Respect of this, he endorsed Adler’s future oriented individual psychological pedagogy and criticized the “conservative, backward-looking teachings of Freud and Kretschmer”. Vygotsky stated that pedagogy occupies the same place that medicine does for biological science, engineering for psychic etc, which is the highest category of truth that can be proved by application. Hence, this psychological movement helps to understand that child development and child rearing (the unsocialized and unadapted state of childhood) lay the very seed of compensation. He suggests that “a guarantee of superiority is given only in the presence of inferiority”. The doctrine of overcompensation is important to serve as a psychological basis for the theory and practice of educating deficient children. Therefore, it is important for the teachers to have known this, which the pedagogue should view defect as a plus, not only a minus. This fundamental law had been formulated with scientific accuracy then that is children try to do things that they are not able to physically, in consequent they emerged exemplary in an overcompensation manner. Hence, Vygotsky advocates “the concept of exemplary human personality which includes an understanding of its organic unity must serve as the basis for educating an abnormal child”. As to examine the structure of personality in great depth, he quoted W. Stern, “We have no right to conclude that a person with an established abnormality has a propensity for abnormality”. He suggested that this law should be applied to somatic and psychology, to medicine and pedagogy. If this law is applied to education, then it will be necessary to reject both the concept and the term “defective (handicapped) children”