Shevtsov A.H., Nykonenko N.V. - To the Issues of Comparison of Conceptual and Terminological Field of Special Education in the Ukrainian and English languag

Contact: Andrii Shevtsov, Professor, Doctor in Special Education Sciences, Ph.D. in Physics and Mathematics, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine, Head of Department for Licensing of Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, Full Professor and Research Supervisor of the Department for Orthopedagogy, Orthopsychology and Rehabilitation of Faculty of Special and Inclusive Education of Dragomanov National Pedagogical University. Academic interests: special education and inclusive education of children and adults with disabilities, in particular, individuals with motor or orthopedical disabilities, orthopedagogy, orthopsychology, rehabilitation, social policy, organization and content of higher education, quality of education assessment, theoretical physics.

Nataliia Nykonenko, PhD of Pedagogical Sciences, Associate Professor of Pedagogy and Special Education Department in Oles Honchar Dnipro National University, Dnipro, Ukraine. Academic interests: peculiarities of special education organization and special education teachers preparation in Ukraine and abroad, special education terminology systems in Ukrainian and English, developing a professional portfolio for special education teachers, completing of educational course on sexual education for schoolchildren with intellectual disabilities.

The terminology of special education is closely connected not only with the socio-political and economic development of any society, but it also represents the level of its moral values, which leads to a natural change and constant updating of lexical units of the science. Some historical facts concerning special education terminology changes in the English language are delighted. Mostly the changes refer to the names of disabilities, names of individuals with intellectual disabilities, names of special institutions, laws and partly the name of the field has also been changed. The main reason for the changes observed is the evolution of the society’s attitude to the needs of people with disabilities.  A study of the use of terminological units of scientific and methodological literature allows to draw conclusions about a certain discrepancy between the terms used and the requirements put forward to them: the uniqueness and accuracy of the concept name, stylistic neutrality, the absence of a synonymous series within one science, the ease of constructing wordformation connections, standardization of the term. It is stated that some special education terminology in the Ukrainian does not correspond the mentioned requirements. The authors’ classification of special education terminological vocabulary is introduced in the article. It is proposed to attribute special education terms to the following thematic groups: sections of science names, participants of the educational process names, disabilities, organizations and institutions, documents, special education processes and phenomena, educational equipment and materials. 

Key words: special education terminology, terms, special education, term requirements, thematic groups in special education terminology.