WHY IS THERE A SPEECH THERAPIST AT SCHOOL

Abstract. The work and benefits of a speech therapist at school.

Keywords: speech therapist, educational problems, examination.

In recent years, the quality of education at school has significantly decreased, especially in Russian language and literature. A sixth–grader reading by syllables is not uncommon. Children do not like to read and do not want to. By the end of school, only a third of them can thoughtfully read the text and extract useful information from it, speak and write competently, and master the norms of the language. More than half of graduates cannot consistently and competently express their thoughts.

As shown by long-term study, one of the reasons for the failure of children in both Russian and mathematics and other subjects is the lack of formation of oral speech, which prevents the mastery of correct reading and literate writing. By the age of five, the child should normally master the entire structure of the language, that is, the sound and semantic side. This means that the child speaks cleanly, competently, distinguishes the sounds of speech, has a sufficient vocabulary. Competent speech is an indicator of a child's mental development. At the age of six or seven, speech develops very rapidly.

The development of speech goes in two directions:

the vocabulary is intensively developing and the morphological system of the language spoken by others is being assimilated;

speech provides the restructuring of cognitive processes (attention, perception, memory, grammatical structure of speech, as well as thinking).

At the same time, the expansion of the dictionary, the development of the grammatical structure of speech and cognitive processes directly depends on the conditions of life and upbringing. Therefore, at this age it is very important to organize speech development classes, especially for children who have speech insufficiency. Such classes at school are conducted by a speech therapist teacher.

Speech therapy in Greek means "education of correct speech." The subject of speech therapy as a science is speech disorders and the education of persons with speech disorders. The object of study is a person. Like all human sciences, speech therapy is a synthetic science. A speech therapist teacher is a teacher who must have knowledge related to special branches of pedagogy (typhlopedagogy, sign language pedagogy, oligophrenopedagogy), methods of teaching native language and mathematics, general and special psychology, neuropsychology, neuro- and psycholinguistics and other sciences. In order to successfully correct and prevent speech disorders, comprehensively influence the personality, it is necessary to know the symptoms of speech disorders, their etiology, mechanisms, the ratio of speech and non-speech symptoms in the structure of speech disorders.

At school, a speech therapist teacher is an expert on academic performance in the native language. He identifies children with oral and written speech deficiencies and organizes classes to prepare the prerequisites for a full-fledged teaching of a child by a teacher. The speech therapist teacher solves not only the actual speech tasks in his classes, but also forms the educational activities of children. If at preschool age the main activity of the child is a game, then at school he should be engaged in educational activities. According to M.Bezrukikh, 78% of 6-year-olds are not ready for school, and 20-30% for 7–year-olds. According to the observations of first-graders of our school, all 7 children who were less than 6.5 years old on September 1 had psychological problems: 5-disinhibited, 1-often cries, 1-withdrawn and touchy, 1-can't remember letters, 1- vomiting attacks.

Modern psychological and pedagogical research suggests that one of the most important aspects of psychological readiness for school is a certain, sufficient level of voluntary or volitional development of the child. It is also known that the transformation of involuntary functions and processes into arbitrary ones turns out to be the main line in the psychological mechanism of the child's personality development.

Even gifted children have a fairly high level of development of cognitive processes, speech and imagination combined with insufficient formation of arbitrariness. This is recorded both in children entering school and in students of grades 2-3. The insufficient level of arbitrariness is manifested in the peculiarities of the design of written works (dirt in the notebook, inability to press the pen, very slow pace of writing) and in the presence of special errors that do not relate to spelling or dysgraphic, typical for children with speech defects:

When writing

1) replacing letters (k-p);

2) copying with errors from the board;

3) cannot retain and reproduce speech elements (sounds, words, sentences);

4) tremor of the hands when writing;

5) the appearance or increase of errors by the end of the work;

6) difficulties in mastering the alphabet;

7) lack of spelling vigilance.

When reading:

1) re-reading a line, skipping a line, reading a line located above;

2) loss of a line when reading;

3) reading with errors;

4) low reading speed;

5) poor memorization;

6) does not know how to highlight the main thing in what he has read.

Mathematics:

1) arithmetic error;

2) inability to solve problems.

In modern conditions of preschool education, the formation of genuine arbitrariness is difficult. In children's institutions, the development of arbitrary attention is carried out according to the external type, when the goals and objectives of any activity are set by adults, and the child is required to obey norms and rules. The real arbitrariness lies in the fact that the child must "master his own behavior, treating himself as if from the outside, considering himself as an object" (Vygotsky). "Speech helps him to master this object" (Vygotsky).

In early and primary school age, the word follows the action and captures the result. At the next stage of development, speech accompanies action. Then the speech shifts to the foreground. The child verbally defines a task for himself and thus regulates and plans his behavior. A child of 5-6 years old can practically control his behavior, subordinate his actions to the expectations of people around him, achieve his goal, overcome difficulties, but at the same time easily distracts from his intentions to any circumstance attractive to him.

A first grader should be able to separate the main thing from the secondary and organize his behavior consciously so as not to be distracted from the main thing.

Thus, in order to prepare a child for a full-fledged educational activity and to form a creative personality, it is necessary to develop a child's arbitrary activity and arbitrary behavior, communication, which help children adapt faster to the student environment and acquire the skill of learning. This can be done on the basis of speech development in speech therapy classes. The fullness of speech therapy groups (3-6 people) allows for an individual approach to solving educational problems of each child.

A speech therapist teacher can conduct a detailed examination of the child and identify the reasons for his failure to study.He has the necessary arsenal of means to help the child, will be able to give specific advice on teaching each child to his teachers and parents. The examination of first-graders is carried out in early September. According to the results of the examination of children by a speech therapist and taking into account the recommendations of a neuropathologist and a speech therapist of the polyclinic, children are enrolled in classes in speech therapy groups. Children who have attended speech therapy kindergartens continue their education at the school speech center, since it is known that the general underdevelopment of speech is compensated only by the age of 10.

It is important to pay attention to the child's problems as early as possible. It would be useful to conduct a screening examination of children when enrolling them in school and give parents recommendations on development and upbringing even before entering the 1st grade. Many school difficulties can be avoided if parents pay attention to their child's behavior, level of development of thinking and speech in time. The prognosis for the further development of children with speech disabilities is rather favorable, provided timely targeted assistance. For example, children who have a delay in reading at the age of 10, without special help, most likely will not be able to catch up with their peers by the time they graduate from school. And maybe they will also fall behind. Both parents and teachers should understand that the child himself will not be able to cope with such problems, he needs qualified help from specialists. At school, such a specialist is a speech therapist teacher.