Polykovski M. - Study of Creative-Practical Component of Figurative Speech among Young Pupils with Low and Normal Vision

Contact: Polykovski Marina, a graduate student of the department of ophthalmopedagogy and ophthalmopsychology, National Pedagogical Dragomanov University, Kyiv, Ukraine. Academic interests: issues related to the speech development of children with visual impairment. 

The article reviews the issues of the figurative speech development among young pupils with visual impairments. It is determined that the creative-practical component of the figurative speech implies children’s ability to use figurative expressions consciously and appropriately. It is also related to their skill to choose the accurate words, and make oral and written presentations. The study of creative-practical component is based on the following criteria: pupils’ ability to use lexicalsemantic figurative expressions, their skill of oral text retelling and the ability to write a descriptive composition. It is stated that about half of the younger pupils performed high and medium proficiency levels of choosing relevant lexical-semantic figurative expressions, since students had already done similar tasks during the Ukrainian language lessons. Both categories of primary school children (with low and normal vision) showed mainly an average proficiency level of ability to use figurative expressions in verbal presentations (respectively 37.6% and 33.1% of students). It is noted that the ability to use figurative expressions in descriptive compositions - is considered a complicated type of work for children. Its level is characterized as low for both categories of respondents (51.1% among primary school children with low vision and 57.9% among primary school children with preserved vision). It is proved that the proficiency level of the creative-practical component of the figurative speech among young students is defined mainly as low (children with visual impairment-35.2%, children with normal vision - 38.7%) and very low (25.3% of younger students with low and 19.8% - with preserved vision). It is stated that young students with low vision have insufficient proficiency level to use figurative expressions consciously and contextually appropriate in their speech.

Key words: young pupils, low vision, figurative speech, means of figurativeness, creative and practical component.