Study of maternal attitudes to primary school age children with severe speech disorders

Statement of the problem. The authors study the characteristics of maternal attitudes towards children of primary school age with severe speech disorders. Currently, a large number of studies of the impact of the family on the development of the child are recorded, while there are practically no studies of parental attitudes towards children with developmental disorders, including children with severe speech disorders. The purpose of the article is to describe the specifics of maternal attitudes to children of primary school age with severe speech disorders and to substantiate the directions and content of psychological and pedagogical work with this category of mothers. The research methodology is composed of scientific concepts reflecting the general and specific laws of the mental development of children, presented in the works of L.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontiev, V.V. Lebedinsky; studies by V.V. Tkacheva, characterizing the relationship of parents and children in families raising children with developmental disabilities; works by A.Y. Varga, A.S. Spivakovskaya, R.V. Ovcharova, Y.B. Hippenreuter, substantiating the significance of psychological support of the family to ensure the full mental and personal development of the child. The study involved 30 mothers raising primary school age children with severe speech disorders. The psychodiagnostic tool was the methodology for studying parental attitudes, developed by A.Y. Varga and V.V. Stolin, aimed at identifying the predominant type of parental attitudes towards the child; the methodology “Questionnaire of child-parental emotional interaction”, proposed by E.I. Zakharova, which allows assessing the severity of such indicators of parent-child interaction as sensitivity, emotional acceptance, behavioral manifestations. Research results. The peculiarities of maternal attitudes towards children of primary school age with severe speech disorders are described. It was established that mothers are characterized by a destructive attitude towards a child: the predominant types of parental relationship are “Authoritarian Hypersocialization” and “Little Loser”, which indicates the desire of mothers to exercise total control over the behavior of the child, based on the belief that the child is too small, immature, compared to peers, is not adapted to independent life. At the same time, the emotional interaction of mothers with children is characterized by insufficient expression of emotional acceptance, the ability to provide emotional support to the child. Conclusion. Based on the identified features of parental attitude to children with severe speech disorders, the authors proposed and substantiated a system of psychological and pedagogical work with mothers, which involves: informing parents about the features of mental and personal development of a child with severe speech disorder; mastering techniques of effective communication with the child; establishing a friendly parent-child relationship. The main content of this work is psychological education, as well as individual and group counselling of parents.