Lecture 21. Memory of children with developmental disabilities.

Memory as mental function

Our psychic world is diverse and versatile. Due to the high level of development of our psyche, we can much more know how. In turn, the mental development is possible because we maintain the acquired experience and knowledge. All that we know our every experience, impression or movement left in our memory the famous trail that can be stored for quite a long time and under appropriate conditions occur again and become the subject of consciousness.

 

Memory from the psychological point of view - is the process of preservation of past experience, making it possible to reuse in the operation and return to the sphere of consciousness. Memory links the past with the subject of his present and future, and is a critical cognitive function that underlies the development and training. Renewable images of individual objects and processes perceived in the past, learned early movement and action, experienced feelings and desires before finally emerged once thought up the past experience of the person, the content of what is remembered.

Memory is one of the human higher mental functions that are closely related to the others. In the most general memory psychological category can be defined as a set of mental processes of the organization and preservation of past experience, allowing to use this experience in the future. These processes, called in psychology mnemic (from the Greek "mnemos." - "Memory"), are remembering (or sledoobrazovaniya), preservation, recognition, recall (play), forgetting.

Memory, as well as any other cognitive mental process has a mnemonic processes:

1. Memory - this is the process of capturing and maintain the perceived information. According to the degree of activity of this process it is accepted to allocate two types of memory: unintentional (or involuntary) and intentional (or random). Unintentional remembering - remembering is no pre-set targets, without the use of any methods and manifestations of volitional effort. This simple imprint that affect us and to retain some trace of the excitation in the cerebral cortex. Unlike involuntary memorizing random (or intentional) storage characterized by the fact that the person poses a definite purpose - to remember some information - and uses a special memory techniques. Arbitrary memorization is a special and complex mental activity, subordinate task to remember. In addition, voluntary memorization includes a variety of actions to be taken in order to better achieve this goal. Such actions include memorization, the essence of which is repeated many times to complete the training material and its infallible memory.

The main feature of intentional memorization - is a manifestation of willpower in the form of a statement of the problem on memorization. Repetition allows you to securely and firmly remember the material, many times greater than the volume of individual short-term memory. According to another feature - the nature of links (associations) that underlie memory - remembering divided into mechanical and meaningful.

Rote memorization - is memorizing without understanding the logical connection between the various parts of the perceived material. The basis of rote are contiguity association. Semantic memory type occurs when the mnemonic material associated with thinking. The main value in this type have a logical train of thought and associative structure of the material. Often used simultaneously both types of memory - in memorizing any material, such as lectures or teachings by heart the text of the role. The more involved in the process of memorizing meaningful education, the longer the object is stored.

2. Storage - accumulation of material in the memory structure, including its processing and assimilation. Saving the experience provides an opportunity for human learning, the development of his perceptual (internal assessments, perception of the world), of processes of thought and speech. Storing installation also depends upon the person. Relevant material will not be forgotten for the individual. Forgetting is uneven: immediately after learning more forgetting, then it goes slower. That's why repetition can not be delayed, it is necessary to repeat soon after learning, while the material has not been forgotten.

Sometimes, when you save, the phenomenon of reminiscence. The gist of it is that the reproduction, delayed for 2-3 days is better than immediately after learning. Reminiscence is particularly bright, if the initial play was not sufficiently meaningful. From a physiological point of view reminiscent explained by the fact that immediately after learning, by the law of negative induction, inhibition occurs, and then it is removed. It is established that can preserve the dynamic and static. Dynamic saving seen in RAM, and static - in the long term. Dynamic preservation material changes little, if static, on the contrary, it necessarily undergoes reconstruction and specific processing. Durability is ensured preservation of repetition, which reinforces and protects against forgetting, ie, by extinction of temporary connections in the cerebral cortex.

3. Playing and learning - the process of updating the elements of past experience (images, thoughts, feelings, movements). A simple form of reproduction is the recognition - recognition of the perceived object or phenomenon as already known from past experience, the establishment of similarities between the object and its image in the memory. The difference between them lies in the fact that learning occurs at the second meeting with the object, with its repeated perception, reproduction of same - in the absence of the object.

Playback can be involuntary and voluntary. Involuntary - is involuntary reproduction, without a goal to remember when images float by themselves, often by association. Random play - a purposeful process of recovery in the mind past thoughts, feelings, desires, and actions. Conscious reproduction associated with overcoming the known difficulties, requiring willpower, called recollection.

Memory as the most clearly detected during playback. It is the result and the memory, and storage. The physiological basis for the recognition and playback - a revival of traces of previous excitation in the cerebral cortex. In recognition of animated trace of excitement, which has been trodden in memorizing.

According to the PP Blonsky, in the course of development, the child masters the four successive stages of memory: motor (memory-habit), affective, imaginative and verbal. At the same time it highlights the main types of memory, as genetically different "levels": motor memory in the form of conditioned motor reflexes characteristic of the first month of life; then about 6 months appears affective memory; in the second year of life comes the next stage - shaped memory and much later with 3-4 years begins to form logical memory and its development continues for a long time. It is expected that various types of memory, emerging one after the other, belong to different levels of consciousness. And memory, getting up in the development of all the higher level of consciousness, more and more close to the thought, based on verbal processes.

The fact that memory in children begins to appear only at the age of 3-4 years, allowed P. Janet suggest that memory is a sophisticated form of derivative speech. It is believed that meaningful memorizing begins to develop in children with the advent of speech and their subsequent increasingly improved, both in connection with the further development of speech and the accumulation of experience, and therefore affects the speech memory failure development.

Clean, right speech - one of the most important conditions for normal mental development of man. memory processes, which are based on verbal material flow peculiar, since the whole process is basically the audio-visual and sound based on the active speech. With the help of speech, communication, child easily and unwittingly enters the world around him, learns a lot of new, interesting, can express their desires, thoughts and needs. The general underdevelopment of speech refers to a form of speech pathology in children with normal hearing and intellect intact primary in which all components of the disrupted formation of the speech system: vocabulary, grammatical structure, connected speech, sound pronunciation, syllable structure of words, phonemic hearing and perception. Speech Understanding reversed just enough.

The first theoretical justification of general underdevelopment of speech was formulated by a team of scientists of the Research Institute of Defectology: NA Nikashina, GA Kas, LF Spirovo, GI Zharenkovoy led by RE Levine, which are based on the method of system analysis of violations, developed into periods of general underdevelopment of speech. Deviations in the formation of speech came to be regarded as a violation of proceeding according to the laws of the structure of higher mental functions.

Features memory and the laws of its development can not take place without taking into account peculiarities of speech development.

According to the scientists developed periodization of the general underdevelopment of speech, the first level is characterized by the following features.

The active dictionary is in its infancy. It consists of onomatopoeia, babble, and only a small number of common words, the values ​​of which are unstable and undifferentiated.

Passive vocabulary wider active, but the understanding of the situation is very limited. Phrase it is almost entirely absent;

The ability to reproduce sound and syllable structure of the word has not yet been formed. Children are at lepetnoy speech, need a lot of preparatory work: to establish contact with the child, the development of visual and auditory perception and memory, ability to navigate in space, fine motor skills of hands.

For this category of children is typical of a low level of formation acoustic perception (not even play simple rhythms, full of rhythm disruption); verbal memory (can not play back the full amount of words and memory retention in a given order of words, the rejection of the job after the impact of interference); attention (chaotic Retrieving a reference, in assisting the job quality is not improved).

The second level is characterized by the following features.

- Speech capabilities of children are increasing significantly. Communication is carried out not only with gestures, accompanied lepetnymi scraps of words, but also through quite regular, though very distorted in the phonemic and grammatical point of speech means.

- Active vocabulary is expanded not only by nouns and verbs, but also enriched with some adjectives (good quality) and adverbs.

- It replenishes some forms of inflection. There are attempts to change children nouns by gender, number and case, verb - at times, but it is not always possible.

- Children are beginning to use the phrase.

- Improves speech understanding, expanding the active and passive vocabulary, there is a simple understanding of some grammatical forms.

- The pronunciation of sounds and words are very disturbed. Children are not yet prepared to master the sound analysis and synthesis.

For this category of children is typical of the average level of formation of visual memory (direct violation of play associated with the narrowing of the scope of visual memory, the most frequent replacement of reference images close in semantic characteristics rarer replacing images on the optical similarity); visual perception (difficulty in identifying objects in imposing conditions, noise pollution); attention (slowdown in the job, an increase of errors at the end of the work). Low level rechesluhovoy memory is also characterized by a category of children: uneven playing with a tendency to reduce the number of words, the most frequent slippage error on the side of association, reduced volume and strength, as well as the slowness of memory with a tendency to reduce the number of errors in the process of learning [29].

Inaccuracies in the use of everyday vocabulary observed in children with the third level of the general underdevelopment of speech. The active vocabulary of children is dominated by nouns and verbs. Few words that characterize the quality, features, state of objects and actions, as well as ways of action. A large number of errors observed in the use of simple prepositions on the background of the absence in the speech of their complex species. Lack of Maturity of grammatical forms of the language: errors in the case endings, mixing time and specific forms of verbs, mistake in negotiating and managing also characterize this group of children.

The active speech this category of children uses mostly simple sentences without secondary members. There are great difficulties in building slozhnosochinennogo and complex sentences, the pronunciation of sounds and disadvantages violation word structures are preserved, which creates great difficulties in mastering sound analysis and synthesis.

Understanding everyday speech generally good, but sometimes reveals ignorance of certain words and phrases, mixing meanings of words similar in sound, unsteady mastering many grammatical forms.

For this category of children is typical of a high level of formation of the components of the functional development of speech, as the visual perception and visual-objective memory, no gross violations of the auditory-verbal memory.

Thus, the general underdevelopment of speech hinders the formation of potentially intact mental abilities, preventing the formation of verbal intelligence. In children with the general underdevelopment of speech, marked lack of attention span, limited its distribution. At relatively intact semantic, logical memory in children with ONR significantly reduced verbal memory, productivity suffers memory compared with normal speaking children. Children often forget complex (three-step) instructions, lowered some of their elements, change the sequence of the proposed tasks. Often make duplication errors in the description of objects, images. A number of children have low memory activity. The child begins to speak later than peers, scant vocabulary, agrammatism, pronunciation defects

Storing in its various forms - meaningful and rote, voluntary and involuntary - is a crucial memory process, and the level of its development is directly dependent on the success of human activity.

It is well known that the physiological mechanism of remembering process is the formation of temporary nerve connections. The success of education nerve connections depends on the speed of development and differentiation between stimuli and the number of reinforcements.

Considering the features of the higher nervous activity of the Blind, we have noted that in violation of visual functions has slowed compared with the normal formation of temporary connections, and delayed development of differentiation, which results in the need for more reinforcements. This suggests that the visual disturbances adversely affect the analyzer memory speed.

Among the features of the process of memorization of a material blind and visually impaired preschoolers may be noted the lack of meaningful memorized material. Insufficient development of logical memory due to originality of perception and associated features of thinking. It is, in particular, of the difficulties that blind and visually impaired experience in the implementation of such mental operations as analysis, synthesis, comparison, classification, etc. However, it should be noted that despite the lack of development of logical memory, memorizing material having meaningful communication occur in children with impaired visual functions more successfully than the material not related semantically.

In addition, the blind and visually impaired preschoolers weaker than normal seeing manifested action "Law edge", according to which the more memorable beginning and end of the material. The most productive blind and visually impaired remember the beginning of the material, which is probably due to their fatigue.

Characteristic for blind and visually impaired is a great scope of individual variations in the amount of memory, memory speed, the ratio of mechanical and meaningful memory. Individual differences due to diverse reasons (typological features, sensual experience, the level of intellectual development, etc.), do not depend, as revealed in experiments on the state of visual functions. Such relationship is found only in cases where blindness is caused by lesions of the central nervous system. If you have a traumatic brain injury or disease, and caused them mental retardation and varying degrees of mental retardation in the general background of reducing memory suffers most meaningful memorization. This causes pathology, moreover, and attention disorders, which also adversely affects the amount of memory and speed.

Despite the presence of some specific features, the process of remembering the blind and visually impaired is subject to the same laws that take place normally. This, in particular, is confirmed by the increase in the volume and speed of memory with age, the prevalence of semantic memory of the mechanical, the best memorization of words that do not have meaningful ties in the early school years.

The psychological explanation for slow development process of remembering the blind and visually impaired, researchers are finding a lack of visual-motor experience, fatigue, and imperfection of methods of teaching children with visual impairments. Insufficient volume, low speed, and other shortcomings of remembering the blind and visually impaired children have a secondary nature, that is not caused by the visually impaired, and to cause abnormalities in their mental development. Early correction of mental activity blind and visually impaired is sufficiently reliable prevention of such deviations. Now there is a large amount of evidence of large, but, unfortunately, do not always use the opportunities of children with profound visual impairment to memory development, taking into account individual, age features.

Saving and Forgetting - memory process, reflecting the strength and dynamism of temporary neural connections - depending on the quality of learning material, its importance for the individual, the number of repetitions, the typological features of the person.

Just as when remembering the blind and visually impaired there is a large variation in individual performance. For example, along with a long persistence they can observe the rapid forgetting.

It is obvious that the uniqueness of the flow of processes in the memory of the blind and visually impaired in the first place is because they do not have sufficient capacity to re-perception of the material. A large number of experimental data characterizing the process of saving for violations of, obtained in the study of representations. There is ample evidence that the memory images of the blind to the visually impaired in the absence of reinforcements tend to extinction. Even short periods of time (1-3 months) between the reinforcements adversely affect their performances, which is manifested in a sharp decrease in the level of differentiation, standards adequately (objects of perception).

Quickly forgetting the acquired material is due not only to insufficient quantity or absence of repetition and lack of significant objects and designating their concepts about which the blind can get only verbal knowledge. It has been established that the safety of representations depends on visual acuity. However, it is not difficult to assume that the disadvantages of the saving process, arising as a result of violations in the field of sensory reflection, can be largely eliminated by differential that takes into account the state of the visual analyzer visual-teaching blind and visually impaired.

Learning and playback - memory processes, which manifests the quality remembering and preserving material - are also among the blind and visually impaired its features.

Learning as an activity in which the process is associated with the memory image with the object of perception, depending on how fully and accurately in the past and this was and is the perception of what - essential or non-essential - properties and characteristics have been identified and are now compared.

Emerging from the blind and visually impaired poorly differentiated, fragmented images, as well as the difficulties experienced by the allocation of the most essential aspects and properties of objects and phenomena of the world, appear later in the recognition of objects. Recognition of objects is carried out in violation of the sustained and less complete than normal, and the recognition is correct depends on visual acuity. So, visually impaired, compared with it increases approximately 1.5 times.

Learning how to correlate the ability to compare objects of perception and memory images developed in the blind and visually impaired in the same way as in the normal, gradual and dependent on sensory experience. Limitation of the last in disorders of the visual analyzer functions slows the development of this process.

Studies have shown that in the course of specially organized training the blind, visually impaired and chastichnozryachie master respectively tactile skills, visual-tactile and visual recognition.

The process of recognition is undergoing major qualitative and quantitative changes, and close to normal.