Current State of Emotional and Volitional Sphere in Primary School Children with Intellectual Disability

Contact: Yakovleva Svitlana Dmytrivna Doctor of Psychological Sciences, Head of the Department of Special Education in Kherson State University, Full Professor, Ukraine. Scientific interests: problems of psychophysiological and psychological development of children in different.

The article deals with the current state of development of emotional and volitional sphere in primary school children with intellectual disabilities. The article considers the mechanisms of establishment and characteristics of volitional and emotional activities in children with special educational needs. The biological value of emotions lies in person’s overall ability  to evaluate the inner state, to assess the needs and the possibilities of their satisfaction. Therefore, teachers and psychologists study a person’s inner world, investigate the process of his/her comprehensive and harmonious development, develop the theory and methodology in the field of education for the younger generation taking into account the mental abilities.

Emotions and feelings arise as a part of the motivation process, as a reflection to the certain state in internal environment by violation of the particular receptors. We have carried out a detailed analysis of emotional and volitional sphere in primary school children in special school under the influence of educational process. According to the level of emotional expression, the children were divided into two groups (class A and class B respectively) and three subgroups with high, medium and low levels. We have researched such types of emotions: moral, intellectual, labor, aesthetic. The emotional sphere was studied through the forms of emotional expressions: facial expressions, gestures, intonation, voice reaction, adequacy and differentiation of emotions. The emotional sphere was investigated by Charles D. Spielberger method  to determine the situational and personal anxiety degree. The analysis showed that the subgroup of Class A children showed in 94.74% of cases a high level of personal anxiety and in 84.21% of cases  – a high level of situational anxiety.

The analysis showed that the students in these groups express anxiety, autoaggression, and unsociability. They also demonstrated fear of self-expression, low resistance in stressful situations, as well as problems and fear in a student-teacher relationship. The anxiety was manifested in speech, movements and children’s facial expressions. The emotional sphere is in close connection with the personality's volitional qualities. They develop the character and particular features of self-consciousness. Therefore, when studying the emotional sphere it is necessary to consider the mechanisms of developing the volitional behavior  in mentally retarded students. We studied simple, complex and automated volitional acts among the volitional qualities.  The analysis showed that children in class A had quite high indexes of volitional qualities development. The research of both complex and automated volitional acts has proved the high level of volitional behaviour among  the respondents. Children with a lower level of cognitive development have more difficulties in development of emotional and volitional sphere than children with a higher level of cognitive skills have.

Thus, teaching strategies of special education for primary school children provide the positive dynamics in the development of personality emotional sphere: the emotional instability reduce, there is a rapid growth in the number of children with a low rate of emotional disturbance and development of volitional behaviour.

Key words: children with intellectual disabilities, emotional and volitional sphere, educational process, volitional qualities.