Women scientists about working with children
Employees of scientific laboratories of the Research Institute of Correctional Pedagogy, the oldest institution in the country, are developing new methods for working with non-standard children. The institute is 106 years old, and some employees are exactly four times less. Ksenia, Anna and Oksana work with difficult children, lead them from infancy and help them all their lives. They told how best to find an approach to a child, what can be changed by attentiveness and care, and why they put their whole lives on science.
After university, I did not go to graduate school because I did not know in which direction I wanted to move on, but went to work in a regular Moscow school. Observed first graders and saw that many of them have small problems, including neurological ones. Of course, I talked about this to my parents. Most often it ended with the fact that parents who consider their children ideal, simply said that the teachers are to blame for everything - they cannot find an approach to the child. And where is the approach, if the child, for example, needs a consultation of a neurologist? I realized that I want to work with those families who really understand that they need my help, who will listen and follow the recommendations. And she came to the Russian Academy of Education, to the institute.
The topic of my Ph.D. thesis has not yet been formulated, but will be something like this: "Psychological support for parents of a child with severe hearing impairment before and after cochlear implantation surgery (during the inpatient stay)." This means that a child who was born deaf is implanted with a special apparatus, and the hearing can return to it completely, if the rehabilitation phase is right. For parents, the appearance of a special child in the family is stressful. The operation is a double stress, the subsequent rehabilitation is a very painstaking process, so parents should be psychologically prepared for it. Only from them will it depend whether the child has a speech or not. With mom and dad, as well as with children, you need to work, support them.
Once I, as a private psychologist, went to study with one boy and his mother for a year. The boy was given early childhood autism when he was three. He lost the speech. Mom could not believe it, could not accept. She just left the situation - quickly returned to work, and the boy was left to himself. You could say his mother was afraid of him. And we year together re-built their relationship. Through the game - catch up, dolls. For some reason, many parents think that the child learns to play by himself: so he was born - and everything is interesting to him in itself. This is not true. And autistic children generally have a hard time making contact - they do not like hugs, do not look into their eyes, bite. But a year later, my mother realized that her child can not only snap, but also be happy. We made emotional contact. I can say I did it!
It is very difficult not to stick to the soul of the children. It seems to me that all of them are unique, unique, the best. Then part very hard. I think it will come with experience, I can.
In my youth I, like many, wanted to do everything at once - a bigger salary, for example, so that you could travel, not to deny yourself anything. That is why I did not go right here, to the institute, it scared away. Only four years later - when I matured. You know, salary is not the most important thing, maybe it’s even better that you don’t pay huge amounts of money here - it eliminates people who would come here just for this, and not to work with children and move science.
Our laboratory is developing special techniques that are used in their practice by non-specialist doctors - psychologists and defectologists who work with the youngest children. There are no analogs of the federal research institute specializing in special education problems in Russia at the moment.
Why am I working with children? Hard to say. I was also impressed with the idea of the plasticity of a child as a freshman at the institute. That is, the sooner you start working with it, the more you can do for its development. For example, if you begin to engage with a child with Down syndrome from a very young age, then after a few years he will be radically different from a child with the same diagnosis with whom he was not engaged at all.
We lead children from the first months of life to three years. When the patient is three years old, we must pass it on to specialists from other laboratories - they lead older children. But sometimes it happens that we work with the child further. Just get in touch with him and with his parents. We can not slam the door in front of them just because the child is older?
The main thing in class with an autistic child is to observe what he is doing and do it with him. Well, here he, for example, runs around the room in circles - it means that we must run too. Turn it into a game in the shop. We get acquainted in this way, start to communicate. After some time, the child may begin to repeat the words that we say during the game: he has a speech, and his actions have a meaning.
There is no wow effect in our work. There are no such super methods, which can be used to normalize the development of a child in a month, in two. This is a painstaking daily work, which often lasts for years. For example, mothers come to us with a baby. He is on the documents for two years, and on skills - God forbid for a year, and he does not speak. Totally. If after two months of communication, he can say two words - this is a success. If earlier he could not do anything, but now he can drink from a cup on his own - this is also a success.
The success of remedial work with children with autism syndrome largely depends on how early the child began to receive adequate specialist assistance. But it often happens that the parents come with the child to the pediatrician and share their experiences, that he is silent, for example. And the doctor reassures: yes what do you mean, you have a boy - he will speak later! This is wrong and prevents to help those guys who can help.
Children meet each other in class, meet each other, begin to be friends - at the age of five or six. Then they get older, teen clubs appear. Together they celebrate birthdays, New Year and other holidays. Now many of our patients are over thirty. They still meet and communicate with each other. In the summer, we all go hiking together - and there we see what kind of cohesive group they are. Well, for example, when we play cards, you can be sure that no one will worry about their favorite psychologist. But cheer for your friend - of course!
Work with children's autism is long, not for a year or two. For example, in February one of my patients turned 21 years old. We started remedial work when he was 4 years old. He had an enormous speech delay, almost no coordination. We decided to use a "holding therapy", that is, activities for the whole family: we taught him to cuddle with his parents, just not to scream and not to escape. We began to succeed. Kohl spoke to the first class and knew how to read and write no worse than their peers. And now this is a young man, studying in college. I laugh and say to him: "I can determine for you how many years I have been working at the institute on my own." It turns out, seventeen. Of course, I do not regret.