Havrylova Natalia - Peculiarities of forming a speech therapy conclusion: linguistic and psyholinguistic aspects

Contact: HAVRYLOVA Natalia. PhD in Psychological Sciences, Professor, Professor of the Department of Speech Therapy and Special Techniques of Kamyanets-Podilsky Ivan Ohienko National University, Kamyanets-Podilsky, Ukraine.

The process of forming a speech therapy conclusion based on the study and assessment of speech as a functional system is a significant component of the work of speechlanguage pathologists in inclusive resource centers, preschools, general secondary education institutions, rehabilitation centers, and other similar settings. A priority issue at the current stage of professional development for these specialists is the further enhancement of their skills in working as part of a psychological-pedagogical support team for children with special educational needs, not through duplicating each other's roles, but through complementary interaction based on clear, well-reasoned, and comprehensible foundations. Under these conditions, there arises a need for the further refinement of tools for conducting speech therapy diagnostics and writing speech therapy conclusions. The objective of the research presented in this publication is to develop the most general model of a speech therapy conclusion from the perspectives of linguistic and psycholinguistic approaches. The article identifies the differences between “Speech Therapy Diagnosis” and “Speech Therapy Conclusion.” Many scientific publications in the fields of linguistics and psycholinguistics were analyzed to define the essence of concepts such as “sign,” “function,” “speech functional system,” “phoneme,” “lexeme,” “sentence,” “text,” and others. Based on the results of the theoretical analysis, specific components that should be included in the speech therapy conclusion were determined. In our understanding, the most general speech therapy conclusion should include information that does not contradict the approaches specified in the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), but rather complements it, taking into account the regularities of the development of the Ukrainian language. Specifically, for children aged 4 years and older, it should contain information about the developmental status of such language components as a phoneme, a word, a sentence, and a text. Each of these components should be significantly characterized from several positions: features of perception and realization of its form in spoken and written language and in the process of communication; specifics of the assimilated content; the system of connections that ensure its functioning; and the functions it performs. The proposed model is tentative and may still be a subject of discussion at this stage. Further, it is planned to test it to determine the practical conditions under which it can be most effectively used.

Key words: conclusion about the state of speech development, linguistic approach, psycholinguistic approach.