The Conceptual and Categorial Apparatus of Correctional Pedagogy

Lecture



The conceptual-categorical apparatus in correctional pedagogy refers to a system of concepts, terms and categories used to describe and analyze the developmental and learning characteristics of children with various types of disorders in various domains (cognitive, psychomotor, social, etc.). This apparatus helps correctional educators and specialists in the field of special education more precisely identify and understand the specific needs and capacities of learners, and also develop effective teaching methods and strategies.

An essential condition for the emergence and functioning of any science is the creation within it of its own conceptual apparatus. Since correctional pedagogy is one of the branches of pedagogical knowledge, alongside its own specific terminology it also employs general pedagogical categories and concepts. In correctional pedagogy, just as in general pedagogy, the leading pedagogical categories are instruction, upbringing, education, development. In the context of the professional activity of a social educator, socialization also belongs among the above-named categories.

In the reference and specialized defectological (correctional-pedagogical) literature (T.A. Vlasova, V.A. Lapshin, M.S. Pevzner, B.P. Puzanov, S.G. Shevchenko, G.F. Kumarina and others), the conceptual apparatus of the course has been developed quite thoroughly and with sound justification, and the leading categories of correctional pedagogy and the concepts derived from them have been characterized. Education – is the most important social mechanism ensuring the stability of society's social system, since the main condition for its constructive functioning is the continuity of social life, and education ensures this continuity through the transmission of social values and culture. Professor E.V. Rudensky – the founder of a new scientific direction, the victimology of education, identified the main reasons for the transformation of the Russian education system into a system of risk, owing to the totality of unfavorable socialization conditions affecting the child. A person becomes a personality in the process of socialization. Socialization is understood as the process by which an individual, over the course of their life, assimilates the social norms and cultural values of the society to which they belong. Socialization – is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. It is the process of a personality's integration into the social system, connected not only with the process of adaptation but also with its self-actualization. In terms of significance for the person, the process of socialization stands on a par with such processes as upbringing and development.

Examples of concepts and categories within the conceptual-categorical apparatus of correctional pedagogy may include the following:

  1. Inclusion: The concept of inclusion refers to the incorporation of children with special educational needs into mainstream educational institutions. This is an important category describing the processes and methods for ensuring equal rights and opportunities for all children, regardless of their specific needs.

  2. Differentiated instruction: This category describes teaching methods adapted to the individual characteristics and needs of learners. Differentiated instruction allows teachers to adapt material and teaching approaches according to the level of ability and level of development of each child.

  3. Sensory impairments: The category of sensory impairments includes various types of disorders of sensation, such as impairments of vision, hearing, smell and touch. These impairments require specific approaches to teaching and support.

  4. Social adaptation: This category describes the processes of integrating children with special educational needs into the social environment. Social adaptation includes the development of communication skills, interaction and social competence.

  5. Individual educational programming: This concept describes the process of developing individual educational plans for children with special educational needs. These plans take into account the individual needs and abilities of each child.

  6. Compensatory strategies: The category of compensatory strategies refers to methods and approaches that help children with disorders overcome difficulties in learning and development by providing them with alternative ways of achieving goals.

This is only a brief overview of the concepts and categories within the conceptual-categorical apparatus of correctional pedagogy. They help specialists better understand the needs of children with special educational needs and work with them effectively in the educational environment.

The structure of the categorical apparatus of correctional pedagogy.

The categorical apparatus of correctional pedagogy comprises:

  1. General scientific concepts (method, principle, etc.).

  2. Basic concepts (from the subject area of CP: instruction, upbringing, principles of instruction, etc.).

  3. Concepts relating to particular groups of pedagogical phenomena (the principle of scientific character, the principle of accessibility, the principle of solidity, etc.).

The categorical apparatus of correctional pedagogy comprises the concepts: upbringing, instruction, development, correction, compensation, rehabilitation, habilitation, social adaptation, integration and others.

The change in the target orientations of Russian education also presupposes a new interpretation of the essence of upbringing. In contemporary conceptions of educational activity one can find several definitions of the content of upbringing:

  • - upbringing as a purposeful process of managing personality development (L.I. Novikova, V.A. Karakovsky, N.L. Selivanova);
  • - upbringing as the creation of conditions for personality development (S.I. Grigoriev, B.T. Likhachev);
  • - upbringing as the management of the process of personality socialization (A.V. Mudrik, D.I. Feldstein);
  • - upbringing as a process of psychological-pedagogical support for personality development (O.S. Gazman).

All the interpretations named reflect the main idea of upbringing – the priority of developing the actual and potential capacities of the personality, its abilities and needs, and its readiness for self-knowledge and self-realization. At the same time, socialization takes place throughout life, whereas upbringing takes place «here and now», carried out by specific agents of upbringing. At some stage a person may not experience educational influences (meaning specifically educational influence, not self-education), but they always experience the influence of the social environment, of social conditions.

Ideally, a socialized person should be able to withstand unfavorable conditions of socialization. However, we encounter people who are fully socialized, who have essentially dissolved into society, incapable of the activity needed to withstand a negative environment. The definition of socialization as adaptation to particular social conditions requires clarification. Socialization is carried out in two forms: adaptation and integration into the social environment. Socialization in the form of adaptation represents a passive accommodation to the social environment. And as long as the environment is stable, the person feels quite comfortable in it. However, changes in the environment, its instability, can lead to personal discomfort and stressful situations. We are participants in the process of socialization of Russian society in connection with the fundamental changes in historical, political and socio-economic conditions. Integration, as a form of the individual's interaction with the social environment, presupposes their active entry into society, when the person is ready to make independent decisions in situations of choice, capable of influencing the environment, changing it, or changing themselves.

Instruction - is a specific mode of education, a process of active, purposeful interaction between the teacher and the learner. As a result, the learner develops certain knowledge, abilities, skills, experience of activity and behavior, and also personal qualities.

Instruction in correctional pedagogy has a specific character, determined by the depth and nature of the child's defect. Moreover, general didactic methods and techniques, and the organization of the educational process, are differentiated depending on the branch of special pedagogy (deaf, blind, or intellectual-disability pedagogy).

Personality development - is a complex process of growth, improvement and qualitative change in all spheres significant for the personality: in activity, in the reflection of surrounding reality, in the relation to surrounding phenomena and people, in cognitive processes.

The development of an atypical child depends, to a greater extent than that of a normal child, on formally organized instruction. Therefore, in the absence of instruction, or when it begins too late, harm is done to the children's development, the formation of their mental functions is slowed, the lag behind peers with intact psychophysical status deepens; in complex disorders of ontogenesis, the potential for mental development may go unrealized.

Instruction and development - are two interrelated phenomena. The developmental character of instructing children with developmental and behavioral deviations presupposes taking into account the pupil's zone of proximal development (according to L.S. Vygotsky) – that reserve of potential capacities, of forming functions, which the child is not yet able to realize independently at the present moment, but which they successfully use with the teacher's direct assistance. Instruction activates the transition of the zone of proximal development into actual development, when the teacher's support helps the child's inner activity to unfold and raises the level of their independence. Instruction leads development along with it.

The relationship between development, instruction and upbringing. The processes of instruction and upbringing underlying the formation of the child's personality rely on the mechanisms of development of the nervous system and psyche. Here, nervous-psychic development is understood as a continuous process of the gradual, stage-by-stage change of the brain's morphological structures and the functional systems of the psyche depending on age. Important significance here is given to the development of new forms of the child's consciousness, which constitute the principal new formation of each period of life.

Development, as a sociobiological process, is under the influence of external, and especially social, environmental factors. In particular, close contact between mother and child is necessary from the very first days of life. Disruption of this contact leads to deviation in emotional and mental development, often being a psychogenic cause of delay in nervous-psychic development.

The child's brain contains a certain genetic program of development. At the same time, in order to learn to voluntarily control their emotions and be able to think and analyze their actions, a child must go through a process of instruction, mastering skills of cognitive and communicative activity, etc. The formation of life experience and moral-ethical values as a result of upbringing likewise ensures the adequate development of the child's psyche. In this process, upbringing and instruction actively stimulate the maturation of brain structures, the formation of certain psychological functions, and, on the whole, nervous-psychic development.

The biological program of development is realized within a concrete environment, which may not only activate it but, on the contrary, by inhibiting its manifestations, may also cause developmental deviations. Thus, for example, deprivation or a negative environmental influence contributes to significant secondary nervous-psychic disorders.

In turn, primary disorders of the mechanisms of the brain will hinder the process of instruction and upbringing. Therefore, children with developmental deviations require special educational conditions and technologies. These processes of mutual aggravation or, conversely, facilitation of brain activity and instruction are characterized by a certain staging and multi-level structure. Depending on the stage of the disorder, various elements become involved – for example, in deafness, besides the underdevelopment of hearing, there is auditory deprivation; insufficiency in the phonemic formation of speech – speech deprivation; delay in intellectual development – psychological deprivation, etc. (V.M. Astapov, 1991).

Special pedagogical concepts include «correction», «compensation», «rehabilitation», «adaptation».

Correction (from the Latin – correction/rectification) is defined as a system of special and general pedagogical measures aimed at weakening or overcoming shortcomings in the psychophysical development and behavioral deviations of children and adolescents. Correction may act as an independent pedagogical phenomenon, as specific actions aimed at the partial rectification of a shortcoming or the overcoming of a defect (correction of speech, of the pronunciation of individual sounds, rectification of visual impairments); at the same time correction may be a constituent part of the instructional-educational process and act as a holistic pedagogical phenomenon aimed at changing the developing personality of the child. Within the unified pedagogical process, correction acts as a combination of correctional-educational and correctional-developmental activity.

Correctional-educational activity encompasses the entire set of measures of pedagogical influence on the personality of a child with developmental shortcomings and behavioral deviations. It is aimed at changing the child's cognitive capacities and their emotional-volitional sphere, at improving individual personal qualities (responsibility, discipline, focus, organization), and at developing their interests and inclinations, and their labor, artistic-aesthetic and other abilities. Correctional-educational work represents a system of comprehensive measures of psychological-pedagogical influence on the various features of abnormal personality development as a whole. This is because each defect has a negative effect not only on a single mental function but reduces the child's social adaptation in all its manifestations.

Therefore it is not reduced to individual corrective exercises developing specific mental processes, but encompasses the entire instructional-educational process.

The essence of correctional upbringing consists in forming the child's mental functions and enriching their practical experience. At the same time, their existing disorders of speech, motor function, sensory functions, behavior, etc. are overcome. It is aimed at the prevention and correction of anomalies of mental development and at preparing the child for instruction and life in society.

Upbringing presupposes a combination of pedagogical and therapeutic measures, as well as taking into account the specifics of the abnormal development and the age-related characteristics of the child. In each case the degree of developmental lag compared with the age norm is assessed, its qualitative features are taken into account, as well as the clinical diagnosis and the potential capacities for development (E.M. Mastyukova, 1992).

All forms of classroom and extracurricular work in the process of forming general-educational and labor skills are subordinated to the correctional-educational task. At first, the assimilation of knowledge about the surrounding reality and the formation of self-care skills take place. Then children receive general-educational knowledge and vocational skills. The correction of disorders in the emotional sphere and the elimination of personal shortcomings are of great importance. In a number of cases, therapeutic-correctional measures are also applied (physical therapy, massage, physiotherapy, taking medications, etc.).

Correctional-developmental instruction - is a system of measures of differentiated education that makes it possible to solve the tasks of timely assistance to children experiencing difficulties in learning and school adaptation. The main task of this work is the systematization of knowledge aimed at raising the child's general level of development, filling in the gaps in their prior development and learning, developing insufficiently formed abilities and skills, correcting deviations in the child's cognitive sphere, and preparing them for the adequate perception of instructional material.

The instruction of abnormal children – is a purposeful process of transmitting and assimilating knowledge, abilities and activity skills. In organizing special instruction, account is taken of the degree and type of the anomaly, the age of the children, and the time at which the developmental deviations formed.

Correctional pedagogy deals with questions of special didactics – the theory of the education and instruction of abnormal children. Moreover, the tasks, principles and forms of organization of the instructional process are developed here for each specific type of special educational institution. In this process, differentiation and individualization of instruction are carried out.

Individualization (Latin – orientation toward the individual, or toward an individual) – is an individual approach to the instruction of abnormal children, according to which questions of rehabilitation and the compensation of lost functions are resolved with regard to the characteristics of each child's abnormal development.

Differentiation (Latin – division, distinction) – is the division of abnormal children, depending on the anomaly present, into corresponding groups within the system of special (correctional) institutions of 8 types, or into special (correctional) classes within mainstream general-educational institutions. For example, one result of differential diagnosis is the identification of children with delayed mental development within a mainstream school and the creation of special classes for them.

The development of an abnormal child depends, to a greater extent than that of a normal child, on instruction. Therefore, in the absence of special instruction, or when it begins too late, the formation of mental functions is inhibited, and the lag of abnormal children behind normal peers deepens; in complex defects, the potential for mental development may go practically unrealized.

Therefore instruction and upbringing must have a developmental character, that is, must be specifically directed toward developing lost or diminished functions. In this process it must take into account the zone of proximal development as the reserve of potential capacities, of forming psychological functions, of the abnormal child. The child cannot yet realize them independently, but only with the help of the teacher. Instruction must stimulate the transition of the zone of proximal development into the zone of actual development, when the child is capable of independently carrying out voluntary activity. Thus, correctly organized instruction leads development along with it, relying on the mental functions being formed. Correction – is the process of rectifying one or another disturbed function. Unlike compensation, correction is always a certain influence on the person with the aim of rectifying something; it is a process external to the individual. Correction, unlike compensation, is indicated in the case of impairment of a function, but not its complete loss. For example, it makes no sense to correct vision when it is entirely absent. In that case what is at issue is rather the restoration of a lost function. The phrase «disturbed function» figures in the definition of both compensation and correction. This means that the question of whether a disturbed function should be corrected or compensated is decided depending on how pronounced the impairment itself is.

Compensation (Latin - reimbursement, balancing) - is a complex, multifaceted process of restructuring or substituting for disturbed or underdeveloped psychophysiological functions of the organism. The compensatory process relies on the reserve or insufficiently engaged capacities of the human organism. The process of compensation relies on considerable reserves of higher nervous activity. Besides the biological adaptability of the organism, which establishes its equilibrium with the environment, compensation in the human being is conditioned by the development of all aspects of the personality, on the basis of labor activity and the social relations connected with it. In the process of compensation, new dynamic systems of conditioned connections are formed, functions are rectified, and the personality develops.

Compensation is carried out through the activation of protective forces and the mobilization of reserve resources that resist the pathological process. Special instruction promotes this kind of activation and the purposeful use of the potential capacities for compensation.

L.S. Vygotsky formulated the law of the transformation of a minus defect into a plus compensation. The positive uniqueness of the abnormal child is created not by the fact that certain functions are lost, but by the fact that this calls into being new formations representing the personality's reaction to the defect, a compensation occurring in the process of development.

It is known that the earlier correctional work begins, the faster the process of compensation develops. When it begins at early stages of development, the formation of secondary psychological disorders is prevented. In connection with the gradual development of compensation, it is important to carry out correctional-educational measures consistently at all stages of development, taking their specifics into account.

The reverse process is called decompensation. This is a disturbance of the functioning of a particular system, or of the organism as a whole, resulting from a breakdown of existing compensation. In this case, working capacity sharply declines and development slows. Decompensation is connected with the fact that abnormal children are very susceptible to unfavorable influences. In illness, psychological overload and stress, and in new, unusual conditions of activity, their compensatory processes may be disrupted.

Conditions of compensation. These exacerbations of functional disorders contribute to the instability and weakening of mental processes. Therefore the abnormal child needs the creation of a protective psychological regime and a limitation of academic load.

The favorable conditions that also promote the development of compensation in abnormal children include:

1. a correctly organized system of instruction and upbringing, providing for a differentiated network of special institutions; the construction of the instructional process on the basis of the application of special techniques and methods of correctional-educational work;

2. the use of the principle of combining instruction with labor as the main means of the comprehensive, harmonious development of children's mental and physical abilities;

3. adequate psychological relations within the children's collective, and also between teachers and pupils;

4. the correct organization of the regime of children's educational activity and rest, preventing nervous-psychic overstrain;

5. alternation of varied methods of instruction and upbringing, including those aimed at increasing the activity and independence of pupils;

6. the use of varied technical means, the broad application of a system of special equipment and instructional aids for the optimal use of children's capacities.

In the process of compensation, new dynamic systems and conditioned connections form within the child's organism, and disturbed or weakened functions are restructured (in a defect of the visual analyzer, the capacities of hearing and touch are enhanced; when speech capacities are insufficiently developed, the role of kinesthetic analyzers is enhanced). The compensatory capacities of the child's organism manifest against a background of the mobilization of reserve resources, the activation of protective means, and resistance to the onset of pathological processes in the organism. At the same time, resistance to the defect and its compensation are strengthened by the activation of social factors and effective assistance to the child from teachers and parents. Functional systems possess a high degree of plasticity and capacity for restructuring. It is precisely this capacity that underlies the mechanisms of compensatory restructuring. Traditionally, 2 types of restructuring of disturbed functions are distinguished: intrasystemic and intersystemic. Compensatory processes proceed under the constant control of, and with the participation of, higher nervous activity, and pass through several phases (stages):

Phase 1 – the detection of one or another disturbance in the functioning of the organism. The signal of a disturbance may be connected both with the disorder itself and with its consequences, with various deviations in behavior and activity;

Phase 2 – assessment of the parameters of the disturbance, its localization and depth (degree of severity);

Phase 3 – formation of a program for the sequence and composition of compensatory processes and the mobilization of the individual's nervous-psychic resources;

Phase 4 – monitoring of the process of implementing the program;

Phase 5 – the halting of the compensatory mechanism and the consolidation of its results. This phase is connected with the restoration of the disturbed function and the resumption of various forms of activity.

Compensatory processes are carried out at different levels of their organization. Usually 4 levels are distinguished:

Level 1 – the biological, or bodily, level: compensatory processes proceed predominantly automatically and unconsciously;

Level 2 – the psychological level, a way of restoring disturbed functions with the involvement of the work of consciousness. This level is connected with the person's capacity for an adequate assessment of their own capacities under conditions of one disorder or another, for setting realistic goals and tasks, and for maintaining a positive attitude toward themselves. The psychological level of compensation is also connected with the functioning of defense mechanisms and coping strategies of behavior.

Psychological defense is a special system for stabilizing the personality, aimed at shielding consciousness from unpleasant, traumatic experiences associated with internal and external conflicts, states of anxiety and discomfort. The mechanisms of psychological defense (repression, suppression, identification, projection, regression, sublimation, etc.) mostly belong to unconscious activity.

Coping strategies are conscious efforts made by the personality to cope with stressful situations that generate anxiety. Three main types can be distinguished: problem solving, seeking social support, and avoidance.

As a rule, in everyday life various defense mechanisms are combined with different variants of coping strategies.

Level 3 – the socio-psychological level (this includes participation, mutual assistance, emotional support, understanding, tolerance, awareness of being needed by someone). Many researchers associate the sense of well-being with three main life «pillars»: family, profession, and one's immediate circle outside the family. In each of these institutions the individual realizes, in varying proportions, an awareness of belonging and independence.

Level 4 – the social level: connected with the macrosocial scale of human existence. First of all, this is state policy regarding persons with disabilities: the creation of special social institutions whose functioning is aimed at helping persons with developmental disorders – kindergartens, schools, rehabilitation and habilitation centers, training and production enterprises. Secondly, this level presupposes the organization of a system for training specialists in the field of correctional education. Thirdly, this is special legislation representing certain guarantees on the part of society with regard to different groups of persons with disabilities.

The social level should also include the nature of attitudes toward persons with disabilities in the sphere of everyday mass consciousness.

Closely related to the concept of compensation is another term – decompensation, understood as the loss of a previously achieved compensatory effect under the influence of pathogenic factors.

Pseudocompensation – the fixation of stable personality tendencies to use defense mechanisms and coping strategies inadequately, which do not allow a person to find a productive way out of the crisis situation that has arisen.

Hypercompensation – the ability of a person with physical or mental developmental impairments to achieve high results in a wide variety of fields of human activity that are not accessible to most normal people.

In contemporary special psychology the term «compensation» is not widely used. The concept of «rehabilitation» is used more often. Compensation is an internal process; rehabilitation is an external one.

School adaptation (Lat. – to adapt) is the process by which a child adjusts to the conditions of school life, to its norms and requirements, to active cognitive activity, to the mastery of the necessary academic knowledge and skills, and to the full development of a picture of the world. Children with psychophysical developmental impairments and behavioral disorders are often not ready for school, for changes in their life activity, or for the demands of teachers, owing to their general development (or, more precisely, its deficiencies), or to errors and dysfunction in family upbringing. This is how the problem of school maladjustment arises, the result of which is chronic academic failure, falling behind in a number of subjects in mastering the school curriculum, resistance to pedagogical influence, a negative attitude toward learning, absenteeism, running away from school and home, pedagogical neglect, and antisocial behavior.

Social rehabilitation (Lat. – restoration) — is the process of including a child with developmental and behavioral disorders in the social environment, in normal socially useful activity and adequate relationships with peers. The process of rehabilitation is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, since a full return to society occurs through medical rehabilitation (treatment of impairments, elimination of the consequences of the defect), psychological rehabilitation (removal of psychological complexes, restoration of mental processes), pedagogical rehabilitation (restoration of lost academic skills and cognitive abilities, formation of individual personal qualities). Rehabilitation is, in a sense, the outcome of all correctional-pedagogical work, a system of measures aimed at restoring lost social ties and relationships.

Key to this definition is that rehabilitation represents a system of measures. This should be emphasized in particular, in order to distinguish this concept from the term «compensation». A single, isolated intervention cannot be regarded as rehabilitative. This process is directed not at the disorder itself, but at the personality of the person with one or another disorder, at restoring the full existence of this personality in society.

Being external to the individual, rehabilitation measures rely on compensatory (internal) processes. It can be said that rehabilitation is nothing other than an attempt to act upon a person's compensatory abilities. At the same time, different types of rehabilitation rely on and are directed at different levels of compensatory processes (for example, medical rehabilitation addresses the biological level of organization of compensatory mechanisms; family, pedagogical, occupational and leisure-based rehabilitation address the social and socio-psychological levels of compensatory mechanisms).

Stages of the rehabilitation process, developed by M.M. Kabanov:

1. restorative treatment;

2. readaptation – developing the capacities of a person with a disability to adjust to conditions of the external environment;

3. the rehabilitation stage proper – restoring the person with a disability's former relations with the surrounding reality.

In contemporary special psychology another term is also used – habilitation. This is a system of early intervention in a child's developmental process aimed at achieving his maximum adaptedness to external conditions of existence, taking into account the individual characteristics of his existing disorders. That is, these are cases in which the individual is already born with one or another defect in physical or mental development.

The main focus of a person's social rehabilitation is connected with restoring his status in society. In sociology, social status is defined as an individual's rank or position within a group. In this connection the concept of social role is also taken into account: «Status and role are two sides of a single phenomenon: whereas status is a set of rights, privileges and obligations, role is action within the framework of that set of rights and obligations»1. Thus, to socially rehabilitate a person means to carry out a system of actions aimed at restoring or securing certain rights, privileges and obligations for him, a system of actions to teach the performance of various social roles in accordance with his rank or position within the group. In addition, with regard to the aspect of the social rehabilitation of persons with disabilities, it is necessary to include in the process of social rehabilitation a system of actions for environmental orientation and everyday-life adaptation, which is likewise connected with the performance of social roles.

Pedagogical rehabilitation consists of upbringing-oriented measures aimed at correcting behavior, intellectual activity, and emotional state, obtaining an education, eliminating pedagogical neglect, developing in the child psychological confidence in his own worth, and forming a socially significant personal-professional orientation. The concept of «pedagogical rehabilitation» is closely connected with the concepts of resocialization and re-education.

Resocialization consists in the assimilation of new values, roles and skills in place of former ones that were insufficiently mastered or have become outdated.

Resocialization is an activity directed at persons with various forms of deviant behavior for the purpose of restoring social status and social-behavior skills that have been lost or never formed, and reorienting the social attitudes and reference orientations of deviants by including them in new, positively oriented relationships and activities within a pedagogically oriented environment.

Socio-pedagogical rehabilitation is a process that combines actions for both social and pedagogical rehabilitation. The possibility of such a combination is explained by the presence of shared components: resocialization within pedagogical rehabilitation, and the teaching of social-role behavior within social rehabilitation.

Socio-pedagogical rehabilitation is a system of measures aimed at eliminating or weakening the influence of unfavorable factors, restoring the individual's status, providing assistance in mastering social roles appropriate to the individual's status, and changing behavior and intellectual activity, and obtaining an education through retraining, re-education, and resocialization.

When carrying out socio-pedagogical rehabilitation, two circumstances must be taken into account. First, it is necessary to take into account the processes that occur in a person's life in parallel, over a specific span of time: socialization, upbringing, instruction, and self-upbringing. On the one hand, these processes should not contradict the direction of the rehabilitation process, but should consolidate the results obtained in the course of rehabilitation, expand the zone of rehabilitation measures, and make the rehabilitation process continuous. On the other hand, the rehabilitation measures themselves should not disrupt established positive processes of life activity.

Second, the system of actions listed within the framework of socio-pedagogical rehabilitation does not include actions to restore the biological functions of the organism, actions to restore psychological processes, actions related to vocational training, or actions to provide economic and legal assistance, and so on. These actions belong to other types of rehabilitation: medical, psychological, vocational, economic, and others. If the rehabilitation process is considered comprehensively, it is necessary to coordinate actions among the different types of rehabilitation in order to optimize the measures being carried out.

Therefore, four main components of action can be distinguished within socio-pedagogical rehabilitation: actions to eliminate the influence of unfavorable factors, actions to restore social status and role, actions of re-education, retraining and resocialization, and actions to coordinate socio-pedagogical rehabilitation measures with the processes of a person's life activity and with the measures carried out within other types of rehabilitation.

The outcome of the rehabilitation process qualitatively characterizes the effectiveness of the actions that were built into the rehabilitation program. The results of the rehabilitation process should be tracked according to the quantity of resources invested in the program and according to the qualitative changes in the subject's condition.

Assessing the rehabilitation process by the quantity of resources used is connected with determining the hours of specialists' work with the client, determining material costs (food, medications, material assistance, visual aids, exercise equipment), and determining the energy costs of operating the various equipment used for rehabilitation purposes. As a rule, this kind of assessment is applied at the administrative level.

At the level of the specialists participating in rehabilitation programs, the effectiveness of actions should be assessed on the basis of an analysis of changes in the subject's condition. Here two methods should be distinguished: the statistical and the parametric.

The statistical method of assessing the effectiveness of rehabilitation programs is connected with recording the rate of relapse into disadaptation and repeat requests from the client to the rehabilitation service. When a rehabilitation program is carried out effectively, the person's adaptive capacity increases and the need for repeat requests disappears. When a rehabilitation program is carried out ineffectively, the problem of disadaptation is removed for some period of time, but it reappears after that time has elapsed, and a repeat request to the rehabilitation center is required. Therefore the relapse rate of disadaptation can serve as a criterion of the effectiveness of rehabilitation programs in a statistical study.

The parametric method provides a qualitative characterization of the effectiveness of rehabilitation programs. By comparing the parameters of a person's condition before and after participation in a rehabilitation program, one can judge its effectiveness. As described above, the parameters of a person's condition are: physical, mental and social. The initial and subsequent condition of the person with regard to these parameters is measured using the same methods, in order to obtain objective data.

Summarizing the aforementioned categories (compensation, rehabilitation, habilitation and correction), it should be noted that the main criterion of the effectiveness of these processes is the result obtained and the stability of the effect achieved.

Thus, correctional (special) pedagogy, as a separate branch of scientific knowledge, has its own subject of research, its own conceptual apparatus, and addresses its own specific tasks.

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