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Autism is a violation of the emotional-volitional sphere. Autism and emotions

In the structure of the ongoing work on the social adaptation of the child, an important component is the development of the emotional sphere of the child. The main direction in the development of the emotional sphere in a preschooler with RDA is the emergence of the ability to control emotions. First, you need to limit the impact of emotionally traumatic situations, then encourage the child to adequate emotional reactions in specific situations, offer him ready-made options for such reactions to use them in his childhood life.

Correction of the emotional sphere of the child involves work in the following areas of study:

the ability to fix one's attention on the emotional state of other people;

correctly recognize the emotional state of another person by the external signs of a particular feeling;

behavioral ethics on an emotional basis.

When correcting the emotional sphere, it should be noted that the emotional state of a child with autism is unpredictable. It can be expressed in the polarity of his feelings: from love and close symbiotic relationship to sudden manifestations of aggression or self-aggression. The content of the work may be as follows:

establishing a positive emotional contact with the child;

overcoming negative reactions on the environment;

correction of affective manifestations, the use of them and the child's stereotypical actions for communicative interaction in the game;

teaching the child the "language of feelings" (i.e., the formation of emotions);

development of creative abilities;

conducting individual work with parents;

establishing emotional interaction in the family of an autistic child.

To ensure the formation of the emotional sphere in an autistic child, an adult connects to his classes without offering anything new, gradually transforming stereotypical actions into an emotional game. Creating a calm, non-traumatic environment for the child helps to avoid negative emotional states.

Ways of implementation:

games: “Hidden-appeared”, “Ku-ku”, “Catch me”, “Catch up with me”, “I will sing a song about ...”, “Eyes”, “Ears are listening”, “Up and down”, “Let's ride a horse »;

use of illustrations with a positive emotional background;

games: “Show me”, “I’ll finish drawing to make a cheerful face”, “Conversation with a toy”;

viewing photos from the family album;

joint viewing of special TV programs for children;

listening to recordings of emotions (laughter);

empathy for characters from fairy tales, games;

examining one's own facial expressions in front of a mirror;

the ability to imitate animals with different intonations, etc.

In the work on the development and correction of the emotional sphere of autistic children, it is possible to use the following methods:

game therapy (dramatization games, role-playing games, didactic games, games-exercises for emotions and emotional contact);

psycho-gymnastics (etudes, facial expressions, pantomimics);

conversation on a given topic;

examples of expressing one's emotional state in drawing, music;

use of visual aids (photos, drawings, diagrams, graphics, symbols);

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Introduction

In the first year of a child's life, it is impossible to consider his mental development outside of his constant interaction with close people, primarily the mother, who is the mediator and organizer of almost all of his contacts with the environment. A number of works, both domestic and foreign, are devoted to the analysis of interaction in the mother-child dyad, the description of its dynamics in different age periods. autism child communication

The child in the early stages of development is dependent on the mother. We are dependent not only physically, as a source of realization of all his vital needs for satiety, warmth, security, etc., but also as a regulator of his affective state: she can calm him down, relax, invigorate, console, increase endurance and set him up for complicating relationships with the outside world. The most important condition for this is the possibility of synchronization of their emotional states: infection with a smile, syntony in mood and experience of what is happening around. The central point in the mental development of a child in the first months of life, as is known, is the formation of individual attachment. Within the framework of this emotional community, the individual affective mechanisms of the child mature and develop - his ability in the future to independently resolve life tasks: organize himself, maintain and maintain activity in relations with the world. As the child develops, a series of increasingly complex life tasks arises, and in order to solve them at each stage, it becomes necessary to actively include in the work a new way of organizing behavior. The first vitally important task is the mutual adaptation of the infant and mother to each other in ordinary situations of interaction - feeding, bathing, swaddling, putting to bed, etc. They are repeated from day to day and the baby develops in them the first affective stereotypes of behavior, his first individual habits. These are his first effective mechanisms for organizing behavior, this is how adaptation to fairly uniform, stable environmental conditions occurs. The assimilation of these stable forms of life common to those close to them is the first adaptive achievement of the child.

The situation is quite different in children with early childhood autism syndrome. As you know, the syndrome of early childhood autism is finalized by the age of 2.5-3 years. At this age, the mental development of an autistic child already has pronounced features of distortion (Lebedinsky V.V., 1985), violations are pervasive and manifest in the features of motor, speech, and intellectual development. At present, it is becoming more and more clear that the distortion of mental development is associated with a general violation of the child's ability to actively interact with others. Such a violation may be the result of difficulties in the formation of affective mechanisms that shape both the behavior and the very attitude of the child. In such a child, they develop rather in order to protect and protect him from contact with the world.

Traditionally, the most obvious features of the already established syndrome of childhood autism are defined as follows:

Violation of the ability to establish emotional contact;

Stereotyping in behavior, which manifests itself as a pronounced desire to maintain the constancy of the conditions of existence;

Intolerance to the slightest of its changes;

The presence in the behavior of the child of monotonous actions: motor (rocking, jumping, tapping, etc.), speech (pronouncing the same sounds, words or phrases), stereotypical manipulations of an object; monotonous games; addictions to the same objects; stereotypical interests that are reflected in conversations on the same topic, in the same drawings;

Very special disorders of speech development (lack of speech, echolalia - the reproduction of heard words and phrases in unchanged form, speech stamps, stereotypical monologues, the absence of the first person in speech), the essence of which is a violation of the ability to use speech for communication purposes.

All researchers emphasize that childhood autism is primarily a violation of mental development caused by special biological causes, which manifests itself very early.

The opinion of experts on the specifics of the behavior of such children in early age is confirmed not only by the memories of their loved ones, but also by home videos that have now become not uncommon, which clearly show that the features of the affective development of autistic children could be detected already in the first year of their life.

1. Features of the emotional development of children with RDA

What is the qualitative originality of emotional development in early childhood autism?

1. Increased sensitivity (sensitivity) to sensory stimuli is noted in a child with this type of development already at an early age. It can be expressed in intolerance to everyday noises of normal intensity (the sound of a coffee grinder, a vacuum cleaner, a telephone call, etc.); in dislike for tactile contact, as disgust when feeding, and even, for example, when drops of water get on the skin; intolerance to clothes; in the rejection of bright toys, etc. It should be noted that unpleasant impressions in such a child not only arise easily, but are also fixed in his memory for a long time.

The peculiarity of reactions to sensory impressions manifests itself simultaneously in another, very characteristic, developmental trend that manifests itself in children already in the first months of life: with insufficient activity aimed at examining the world around us and limiting a variety of sensory contact with it, a pronounced “capture” is observed, “ fascination” with certain specific impressions (tactile, visual, auditory, vestibular), which the child seeks to receive again and again. Often there is a very long period of passion for some one impression, which after some time is replaced by another, but just as stable. For example, a child’s favorite pastime for six months or more may be rustling a plastic bag, leafing through (books, magazines), playing with fingers, watching the movement of a shadow on a wall or a reflection in a glass door, contemplating the wallpaper ornament. It seems that the child cannot tear himself away from the enchanting impressions, even if he is already tired.

As shown above, "capture" by rhythmic repetitive impressions is generally characteristic of an early age and is normal. The behavior of a child up to a year is dominated by "circulating reactions", when the baby repeats the same actions many times in order to reproduce a certain sensory effect - knocks with a toy, spoon, jumps, babbles, etc. However, as already mentioned, a child with a favorable affective development with pleasure includes an adult in his activity. If an adult helps, emotionally reacts to the actions of the child, plays along with him, the baby gets more joy and is engaged in such manipulations much longer. So, he would rather jump on his mother's lap than alone in the arena. In the presence of an adult, attracting his attention, he will walk with great pleasure, repeat sounds, manipulate any toy or object.

On the contrary - and this is a fundamental difference - with an autistic type of child development, a loved one practically fails to connect to the actions that absorb the child. The more the child appears "captured" by them, the more he resists the adult's attempts to intervene in his special activities, offer his help, and even more so, switch him to something else. The kid can only endure the passive presence of someone close (and in some cases insistently requires it), but active interference in his actions, obviously, spoils his pleasure from the manipulations performed, from the sensations received. Often in such cases, parents begin to think that they really interfere with their baby, that the classes they offer are not as interesting to him as his own - not always understandable, monotonous manipulations. So, many attentive and caring relatives of the child, not receiving the necessary response from him in their attempts to establish interaction with him - a positive emotional response to their intervention - become less active and often leave the child alone. Thus, if during normal emotional development, the child’s immersion in sensory stimulation and contact with a close adult go in one direction, and the latter dominates, then in the case of early childhood autism, violations of this development, the baby’s sensory hobbies begin to fence him off from interaction with loved ones and, as a result, , from the development and complication of ties with the outside world.

2. Features of the interaction of an autistic child with loved ones and, above all, with the mother, are already detected at an instinctive level. Signs of affective distress are visible in a number of the earliest, significant for adaptation, reactions of the infant. Let's dwell on them in more detail.

a) one of the first adaptively necessary forms of response of a small child is adaptation to the hands of the mother. According to the recollections of many mothers of autistic children, they had problems with this. It was difficult to find any mutually comfortable position for both mother and child when feeding, rocking, while caressing, because in the hands of the mother the baby was not able to take a natural, comfortable position. It could be amorphous, that is, as if "spreading" on the hands, or, conversely, overly tense, inflexible, unyielding - "like a column." The tension could be so great that, according to one mother, after holding the baby in her arms, her “whole body ached”;

b) another form of the infant's earliest adaptive behavior is fixing the gaze on the mother's face. Normally, an infant shows an interest in the human face very early; as you know, this is the most powerful irritant. A baby already in the first month of life can spend most of his waking time in eye contact with his mother. Communication with the help of a glance is, as mentioned above, the basis for the development of subsequent forms of communicative behavior.

With signs of autistic development, avoidance of eye contact or its short duration are noted quite early. According to numerous recollections of relatives, it was difficult to catch the eye of an autistic child, not because he did not fix it at all, but because he looked, as it were, “through”, past. However, sometimes it was possible to catch a fleeting but sharp glance of a child. As shown experimental studies autistic older children, the human face is the most attractive object for an autistic child, but he cannot fix his attention on it for a long time, therefore, as a rule, there is an alternation of phases of a quick look at the face and its removal;

c) Normally, the baby's natural adaptive reaction is also the adoption of an anticipatory (anticipatory) posture: the baby stretches out his arms to the adult when he leans towards him. It turned out that in many autistic children this posture was unexpressed, which indicated their lack of desire to be in their mother's arms, discomfort from being in their arms;

d) a sign of the well-being of the affective development of the child is traditionally considered the timely appearance of a smile and its addressing to a loved one. In all children with autism, it appears almost on time in time. However, its quality can be very peculiar. According to the observations of the parents, a smile could arise more likely not from the presence of a loved one and his address to the baby, but from a number of other sensory impressions that are pleasant for the child (braking, music, lamplight, a beautiful pattern on the mother’s dressing gown, etc.).

In some autistic children, the well-known phenomenon of “smile contagion” (when the smile of another person causes the child to smile back) did not occur at an early age. Normally, this phenomenon is already clearly observed at the age of 3 months and develops into a “complex of revival” - the first type of directed communicative behavior of an infant, when he not only rejoices at the sight of an adult (which is expressed in a smile, increased motor activity, cooing, increasing the duration fixing the gaze on the face of an adult), but also actively demands communication with him, gets upset in case of an insufficient reaction of an adult to his appeals. With autistic development, there is often an “overdose” of such direct communication by the child, he quickly becomes fed up and moves away from the adult who tries to continue the interaction;

e) since a close person caring for an infant, both physically and emotionally, is a constant mediator of his interaction with the environment, the child already from an early age distinguishes well different expressions of his face. Usually this ability occurs at 5-6 months of age, although there are experimental data indicating the possibility of its presence in the newborn. When affective development is dysfunctional, the child has difficulty in distinguishing facial expressions of loved ones, and in some cases there is also an inadequate reaction to one or another emotional expression on the face of another person. An autistic child may, for example, cry when another person laughs or laugh when crying. Apparently, in this case, the child is more focused not on a qualitative criterion, not on a sign of emotion (negative or positive), but on the intensity of irritation, which is also characteristic of the norm, but at the earliest stages of development. Therefore, even after six months, an autistic child may be frightened, for example, by loud laughter, even if a person close to him is laughing.

To adapt, the baby also needs the ability to express his emotional state, share it with loved ones. Normally, it usually appears after two months. The mother perfectly understands the mood of her child and therefore can control him: to console, relieve discomfort, cheer, calm down. In the case of dysfunctional affective development, even experienced mothers with older children often recall how difficult it was for them to understand the shades of the emotional state of an autistic child;

f) as you know, one of the most significant for the normal mental development of the child is the phenomenon of "attachment". This is the main core around which the system of relations between the child and the environment is being established and gradually becomes more complex. The main signs of the formation of attachment, as mentioned above, are the selection by the infant of “their own” from the group of people around him at a certain age, as well as the obvious preference for one person who cares for him (most often the mother), the experience of separation from her.

Gross disturbances in the formation of attachment are observed in the absence of one permanent loved one at the early stages of the development of the infant, primarily when separated from the mother in the first three months after the birth of the child. This is the so-called phenomenon of hospitalism, which was observed by R. Spitz (1945) in children brought up in a children's home. These babies had pronounced disorders of mental development: anxiety, gradually developing into apathy, decreased activity, preoccupation with primitive stereotypical forms of self-irritation (swinging, head shaking, thumb sucking, etc.), indifference to an adult trying to establish emotional contact with him. With prolonged forms of hospitalism, the emergence and development of various somatic disorders was observed.

However, if in the case of hospitalism there is, as it were, an “external” reason that causes a violation of the formation of attachment (the real absence of a mother), then in the case of early childhood autism, this violation is generated by the laws of a special type of mental and, above all, affective development of an autistic child, which does not reinforce the natural attitude of the mother to form a bond. The latter sometimes manifests itself so weakly that parents may not even notice some kind of trouble in the relationship developing with the baby. For example, according to formal terms, he can begin to single out relatives in time; recognize mother; to prefer her hands, to demand her presence. However, the quality of such attachment and, accordingly, the dynamics of its development into more complex and extended forms of emotional contact with the mother can be quite special and significantly different from the norm.

2. The most characteristic variants of the features of the formation of attachment in autistic type of development

Dosage of manifestation of signs of affection. With this form of developing emotional connection with the mother, the child may early begin to single out the mother and sometimes show towards her, solely on her own impulse, a super-strong, but very time-limited positive emotional reaction. The baby can show delight, give the mother an “adoring look”. However, such short-term moments of passion, a vivid expression of love are replaced by periods of indifference, when the child does not respond at all to the mother's attempts to maintain communication with him, emotionally "infect" him.

There may also be a long delay in the selection of any one person as an object of affection, sometimes its signs appear much later - after a year and even after a year and a half. At the same time, the baby demonstrates an equal disposition to all others. Parents describe such a child as "radiant", "radiant", "going on the hands" to everyone. However, this happens not only in the first months of life (when the “revitalization complex” is normally formed and reaches its peak, and such a reaction of the child, of course, can be caused by any adult communicating with him), but also much later, when normally a stranger is perceived by the child. with caution or with embarrassment and the desire to be closer to mom. Often, such children do not have the "fear of someone else" characteristic of the age of 7-8 months at all; it seems that they even prefer strangers, willingly flirt with them, become more active than when communicating with loved ones.

3. Difficulties in interacting with others associated with the development of forms of addressing the child to an adult

a) in a number of cases, parents recall that the child's appeals were not differentiated, it was difficult to guess what exactly he was asking for, what did not satisfy him. So, the baby could monotonously "mumble", whimper, scream, intonation without complicating his sounds or monotonous babble, without using a pointing gesture and without even directing his gaze to the desired object;

b) In other cases, the children formed a directional look and gesture (stretching their hands in the right direction), but without trying to name the object, desire, without turning their gaze to an adult. Normally, everyone behaves like this Small child, but in the future, on this basis, he has a pointing gesture. Characteristically, however, this does not occur in the autistic child—and at later stages of development, directed gaze and gesture do not translate into finger pointing. And for many older children with autism, it remains characteristic when expressing their specific desire to silently take an adult by the hand and place it on the desired object - a cup of water, a toy, a video cassette, etc.

4. Difficulties in the child's arbitrary organization

These problems become noticeable when the child reaches the age of one, and by the age of 2-2.5 years they are already fully recognized by the parents. However, signs of difficulties in voluntary concentration, attracting attention, and orientation to the emotional assessment of an adult appear much earlier. This can be expressed in the following most characteristic trends:

a) the absence or inconstancy of the response of the baby to the appeal to him of relatives, to given name. In some cases, this trend is so pronounced that parents begin to suspect that the child has hearing loss. At the same time, attentive parents are puzzled by the fact that the child often hears a faint but interesting sound (for example, the rustling of a plastic bag), or by the fact that the child’s behavior makes it clear that he heard a conversation not addressed directly to him.

Such children often later do not begin to fulfill the simplest requests: “Give me”, “Show me”, “Bring”;

b) the lack of eye tracking the direction of the adult’s gaze, ignoring his pointing gesture and the word (“Look at ...”). Even if in a number of cases at first there is a follow-up of the mother's instructions, then gradually it can fade away, and the child ceases to pay attention to what she shows, unless it coincides with the object of his special interest (for example, a lamp, a watch, a car). , window);

c) lack of expression of imitation, more often even its absence, and sometimes a very long delay in formation. Usually parents remember that it was always difficult for their kid to teach something, he preferred to reach everything himself. It is often difficult to organize such a child even for the simplest games that require elements of display and repetition (such as “pallets”), it can be difficult to teach the gesture “bye” (with a pen), nodding the head in agreement;

d) too much dependence of the child on the influences of the surrounding sensory field. As was shown above, at the age of about a year, practically all children, during normal development, go through a stage when they are "captured" by field tendencies and adults have real difficulties in regulating their behavior. In the case of early childhood autism, "capture" by the sensory stream emanating from the outside world is observed much earlier and enters into competition with the orientation towards a loved one. Often an adult, having no emotional contact with a child, acts only as a “tool” with which the child can receive the necessary sensory stimulation (an adult can shake him, circle him, tickle him, bring him to the desired object, etc.). If parents show great persistence and activity, trying to attract the attention of the child to themselves, he either protests or leaves contact.

Under such conditions, when emotional contact with loved ones is not formed, the moment of physical separation of the baby from the mother at the age of about a year is especially difficult. Often associated with this time is the impression of parents that there is a sharp change in the nature of the child: he completely loses his sense of edge, becomes completely unstoppable, naughty, uncontrollable. A baby can demonstrate a catastrophic regression in development, lose that minimum of emotional connections, forms of contact, skills that began to take shape, including speech skills, which he was able to acquire before he learned to walk.

Thus, all of the above features of the relationship of an autistic child with the outside world in general, and with close people especially, indicate a violation of the development of ways to organize active relationships with the world and the prevalence in its development from an early age of a pronounced trend - the predominance of stereotypical autostimulation activity (extraction sensory sensations with the help of surrounding objects or one's own body) over really adaptive (aimed at active and flexible adaptation to the environment).

Bibliography

1. Lebedinskaya K.S., Nikolskaya O.S., Baenskaya E.R. etc. "Children with communication disorders: Early childhood autism", Moscow 1989.

2. Lebedinsky V.V. "Disorders of mental development in children" Moscow 1985.

3. Nikolskaya O. S., Baenskaya E. R., Liebling M. M., “Autistic child: ways of helping”

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Municipal budgetary educational institution

"Secondary School of Psychological and Pedagogical Support No. 101"

Development and correction

emotional-volitional sphere

in students with RDA.

Compiled by:

Dyagileva M.S.,

The teacher is a psychologist,

Higher qualification

Kemerovo

2016

Explanatory note.

Currently, the RDA syndrome is of great interest to teachers, psychologists and other specialists due to the high prevalence and large social significance Problems.

With autism in children, there is mainly a distortion of the emotional-volitional sphere. Such children are characterized by a variety of fears, aggressiveness, inappropriate behavior, negativism, avoiding communication even with close people, lack of interest and understanding of the world around them. There is a pronounced emotional immaturity of the child (“emotional” age can be much less than the real biological age), the lack of an adequate emotional response. And this happens due to the inability to distinguish the emotional states of the people around them by their manifestations: facial expressions, gestures, movements.

Children with RDA syndrome need correction of the emotional-volitional sphere aimed at establishing contact with an autistic child, overcoming sensory and emotional discomfort, negativism, anxiety, restlessness, fears, as well as negative affective forms of behavior: drives, aggression.

The main task of a teacher-psychologist in correcting the emotional-volitional sphere of children with RDA is to teach them to recognize emotional states, understand people's behavior, see the motives of the actions of others, enrich emotional experience, and adapt to the team with the prospect of further socialization.

In her practical activities, she faced the problem of the lack of techniques and methods of work on the correction and development of the emotional-volitional sphere that would effectively work with autistic children. Therefore, the following task was set: to determine the most effective methods and methods of work on the correction and development of the emotional-volitional sphere in children with RDA syndrome.

As a result of a long search, study of the literature on this issue, some methods and techniques of work were identified and tested in practice, which make it possible to most effectively correct the emotional-volitional sphere in autistic children.

In working with autistic children, the main task is to involve the child in individual and joint activities for his further adaptation in society.

To achieve this task, it is necessary to get to know the child better, with his behavior, play. At the first meeting, difficulties may arise in work. The child's behavior can be unpredictable: the child either becomes tense and aggressive, or does not pay attention to the presence of a new adult, with the second variant of behavior occurring most often. You need to be prepared in advance for such a reaction of an autistic child. The psychological reasons for this behavior are that the appearance of a new stranger introduces an element of uncertainty into the life of an autistic child, which causes him a feeling of fear and discomfort. The child will need some time to get used to the new environment, get used to the new person.

However, teachers should remember that the very first step when working with such children will be to establish primary contact, create a positive emotional climate for the child, a comfortable psychological atmosphere for classes, a sense of self-confidence and security, and only then gradually move on to teaching new skills and forms of behaviour. The adaptation period of work can take a long time, most often it stretches from one week to several months.

During the adaptation period, it is necessary to try to establish emotional contact with the child and reduce his level of anxiety. One of the effective methods of establishing contact with an autistic child is the use of sensory games. The sensory component of the world acquires special significance for such a child, so conducting sensory games is a kind of incentive for involvement in the game, a “temptation” for the child. There are many types of sensory games.

Grain games . Pour, for example, millet into a deep bowl, dip your hands into it and wiggle your fingers. Expressing pleasure with a smile and words, invite the child to join you. In the following classes, you can use other cereals (buckwheat, rice, beans, peas, semolina, etc.).

Games with plastic material(plasticine, clay, dough). By offering the child various materials (plasticine, clay, dough), it is possible to find one that the child will like.

Paint games (drawing with brushes, sponges and especially fingers) help relieve excessive muscle tension and develop fine motor skills of the fingers. For this purpose, it is also useful to work with sand, clay, millet, water.

No less interesting are the games with water . Children especially like fussing with water, transfusing it, these games also have a therapeutic effect.

ice games . Prepare the ice in advance, squeeze the ice out of the mold into the bowl together with the child: “Look how the water has frozen: it has become cold and hard.” Then warm it in your palms, it is cold and melts. In winter, while walking, you can draw the child's attention to icicles, puddles, etc. They will be delighted with such changes in nature.

Games with soap bubbles. Children like to watch soap bubbles spin in the air, how they burst, they are captured by the process of blowing soap bubbles.

Reducing the level of anxiety during the adaptation period is also facilitated by relaxation games, listening to calm music, finger games, game exercises with candles . It has long been known that a burning candle attracts the attention of not only adults, but also children. Candles fascinate, soothe, take away wonderful world tranquility and harmony. Here are a few techniques of play activities that will contribute to the formation of emotions in the child.

1. "Drawing with smoke."

Holding an extinguished candle in our hand, we draw smoke in the air: “Look, what a smoke in the air! Can you smell it?" Then we blow or wave our arms to dissipate the smoke.

2. "Let's blow on the light."

We install a long candle steadily and light it: “Look, the candle is burning - how beautiful!”. Remember that the child may be frightened - then postpone the game. If the reaction is positive, we offer the child to blow on the flame: “Now let's blow ... Stronger, like this - oh, the light went out. Look at the smoke rising." Most likely, the child will ask you to light the candle again. In addition to enjoyment, blowing out the flame of a candle is good for the development of breathing.

3. "Cold - hot."

Fill a tablespoon with water and hold over the candle flame, drawing the child's attention to the fact that the cold water has become warm. You can also melt a piece of ice, ice cream or butter. “You can’t touch the light - it’s hot! You can get burned. Let's hold a piece of ice over the flame. Look, the ice is melting!

In the process of such games, the child will gain confidence in you, and it is in this case that we can talk about establishing emotional contact. Having established emotional contact with an autistic child, you can work on his behavior and emotions.

Target classes on the correction of the emotional-volitional sphere:

Introduce children to basic emotions;

To teach children to distinguish emotions from schematic images - pictograms;

Learn to understand your feelings and the feelings of other people and talk about it;

To teach children to convey a given emotional state using various expressive means: facial expressions, gestures, movements;

Learn to listen and understand music.

As methods and techniques in the work of a psychologist for development and correction

emotional-volitional sphere in autistic children, it is possible to use the following:

Game therapy (didactic games, games-exercises for emotions and emotional contact, dramatization games);

Use of visual aids (photos, graphics, pictograms, symbols, drawings, diagrams);

Conversation on a given topic;

Psycho-gymnastics (etudes, facial expressions, pantomime);

Examples of expressing one's emotional state in drawing, music;

Elements of psychological training.

In correctional and developmental classes, children get acquainted with the basic emotions: joy, sadness, surprise, fear, anger. Acquaintance with emotions takes place in a playful way, with the involvement of entertaining material, for example, poems, stories, fairy tales, etc. So, with the help of N.A. the conclusion that all clouds are different, unlike each other, just like people.

You can also introduce children to emotions with the help of the Emotion Cube game. Children are presented with two cubes: one cube is filled - on the faces of the cube there are round grooves, circles are inserted into these grooves with cards pasted on them depicting different emotions- pictograms and the second cube - blank, and round inserts with pictograms for this cube. The adult asks the child to fill in the second cube in the same way as the first one, but at the same time draws his attention to the pictograms. It is spoken aloud what kind of emotion it is, parts of the face are circled with the child with a finger: eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth, while the child’s attention is drawn to how they are located.

The second version of the game "Cube of Emotions": we throw a cube to the child, on each side of which a face is schematically depicted, expressing some kind of emotional state. The child displays the appropriate emotion. This version of the game contributes to the development of expressiveness of movements, attention, arbitrariness, and the consolidation of the ability to determine emotions from schematic images.

The game "Choose a girl" allows you to practice identifying emotions. The child chooses from the proposed cards with images of a cheerful, sad, frightened, angry girl the most suitable for the text of each of the proposed poems by A. Barto. (The hostess abandoned the bunny. A bull is walking, swinging. They dropped the bear on the floor. I love my horse.) After reading each verse, the adult asks the child a question:

What girl threw a bunny?

What girl was afraid of a bull?

What girl took pity on the bear?

What girl loves her horse?

In the game "Halves" on the material of the characters of fairy tales, such concepts as good - evil are fixed, the main emotions characteristic of these fairy-tale characters are determined.

The game "Masquerade" also consolidates knowledge about basic emotions. With the help of stickers, children lay out the faces of fairy-tale characters on a given topic, in such a way that, for example, they get funny, sad faces, etc.

In the classroom for the development of the emotional sphere, it is necessary to select cartoons for viewing with characters whose facial expressions are clear. The child is invited to guess the mood of the characters of cartoons, fairy tales (for example, using a freeze frame), and then depict it himself.

When “healing with a game”, games with clearly established rules should be used, and not role-playing games where you need to talk. Moreover, each game must be played many times, accompanying each action with comments so that the child understands the rules, and the game is not for him some kind of ritual that autists love so much.

Thus, through play therapy, immersion of children with RDA syndrome in a correctional and developmental environment, changes occur in their emotional sphere. Their views on the world and relationships with others are changing. They learn to distinguish between basic emotions such as joy, sadness, anger, fear, surprise. They have an increased ability to recognize and control their emotions.

Bibliography.

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2. Baenskaya E.R., Nikolskaya O.S., Liling M.M. Autistic child. Help paths. M .: - Center for Traditional and modern education"Terevinf". – 1997.

3. Braudo T.E., Frumkina R.M. Childhood autism, or the strangeness of the mind. // Man, - 2002, No. 1.

4. Buyanov M.I. “Conversations about child psychiatry”, Moscow, 1995.

5. Vedenina M.Yu. “Using Behavioral Therapy of Autistic Children for the Formation of Household Adaptation Skills” Defectology 2*1997.

6. Vedenina M.Yu., Okuneva O.N. “Using Behavioral Therapy of Autistic Children for the Formation of Household Adaptation Skills” Defectology 3*1997.

7. Weiss Thomas J. “How to help a child?” Moscow 1992

8. Kogan V.E. "Autism in children" Moscow 1981

9. Lebedinskaya K.S., Nikolskaya O.S., Baenskaya E.R. and others. “Children with communication disorders: Early childhood autism”, Moscow, 1989.

10. Lebedinsky V.V. "Impaired mental development in children" Moscow 1985.

11. Lebedinsky V.V., Nikolskaya O.S., Baenskaya E.R., Liebling M.M. "Emotional disorders in childhood and their correction" Moscow 1990.

12. Liebling M.M. “Preparation for teaching children with early childhood autism” Defectology 4 * 1997.

13. Moskalenko A.A. Violation of the mental development of children - early childhood autism. // Defectology. - 1998, No. 2. p. 89-92.

14. Fundamentals of special psychology: Proc. allowance for students. avg. ped. textbook institutions/L.V. Kuznetsova, L.I. Peresleni, L.I. Solntseva and others; Ed. L.V. Kuznetsova. - M.: Publishing Center "Academy", 2002.

I remember thinking about autism many years ago as an aspiring clinical psychologist, before my autistic son was born and I started working with autistic children and adolescents. These thoughts were different from the picture of autism that I had as a child.

I remember the first time I was attracted to this phenomenon at the age of about 10 years. Somehow, I heard a call from the depths of the deep well of autism. Having started reading various works about autistic children, I fantasized many romantic stories about how I would “rescue” them from the psychological cage in which, as it seemed to me, they were imprisoned. Such books usually told about a mother who imprisoned her children in these cages. And there was also a certain talented psychiatrist who could free them and bring them back to the "normal" world.

AUTISM

Then I grew up and went to university. I was told that autism is a neurological disorder that should not be understood or treated based on psychological theories. Autism was the domain of neurologists. Autistic individuals had some kind of brain disorder that “forced” them to perform certain actions. This behavior had no psychological meaning. We should have done nothing more than list the symptoms that would indicate this brain disorder and find ways to humanely treat these individuals, systematically teaching them to behave as normal as possible.

I remember many years later seeing an autism expert when my son was 4 years old. I told her about my son's obsession with death, when he repeated over and over again with fear day after day: “Mom, is anyone going to die?! Is anyone going to die?!" I remember her replying to me, “Just knock on the table when he does this and tell him to stop!” She warned me not to attach importance to his behavior. According to her, it was just an accidental circuit in the brain, which must be firmly stopped before it got out of control. It was just a tick and nothing more. Fortunately, by this time I already recognized my son. So I got better at it.

FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

Now my son is 14 years old and I have been working in the field for many years, thanks to which I found my own foundation for understanding autism - and this is not at the same time a romantic psychoanalytic theory about the cell with ideas about the "ice mother" that I read about at the age of 10, and not the mechanistic, computerized theory of meaninglessness that I studied at university and encountered in my life (remember, for example, the movie Rain Man).

For me, the key was understanding the evolutionary function of emotions, as Gordon Neufeld explains it, laying the foundation for the synthesis of both aspects of autism, psychological and neurological, creating a single holistic view. The resulting picture removes the "feature" from autism and instead makes it typical of our basic human condition. It was THIS call that I heard from the depths of the well of autism when I was 10 years old. This call makes us all respond, if we only allow ourselves to "hear" it.

The basis of my understanding of autism, which contrasts sharply with the idea that it is "just a tic," is succinctly stated by Gordon Neufeld's following statement: "The brain has its own causes." This evolutionary understanding of how the brain works allows me to give proper weight to the neurological aspects of autism without losing any sense. Autism does have a neurological basis (see also Neufeld's paper on attentional problems), but that doesn't force me to reduce my understanding of autism to mere brain malfunction, assuming machine-like randomness and nonsense. The fact that the brain has its own causes implies that it has a consistent program. The same is true of the autistic brain.

Everyone's program human brain- autistic or not - has evolved over millennia to serve us for survival or development.

At first, this program does not need our intentions and even awareness - from an evolutionary point of view, this would be too risky when the stakes are so high; however, intention and awareness become necessary later on for the full development of human potential. What the brain absolutely needs from the very beginning to carry out its evolutionary program is emotions.

THE POWER OF EMOTION

Gordon Neufeld calls it "the work of emotion". Emotions serve the program of the brain, moving us in directions that ensure our survival and development. Referring to the laws of thermodynamics, Gordon describes emotion as an "action potential", like an electric charge, which must find some way out, expression. In this sense, emotion is inherently about movement—inside and out; we are driven by them and move ourselves. If you remember this, then it is impossible not to to see how powerfully "moved" small autistic children: they run around the room, swing, wave their arms, make a wide variety of sounds. When asked about the reasons for this behavior, even my professional colleagues can answer: “Because they are autistic.” In other words, these children's movements correspond to the symptoms of autistic pathology. The observation of this movement in children only confirms that autism is definitely before our eyes, and says nothing more.

How different would our actions be in relation to autistic children if we looked beyond the behavioral “symptom”, if at these moments we saw children driven by powerful emotions - emotions that they may not feel, the sources of which for them at the moment unknown, and yet these emotions are designed to serve them one way or another. Even my children with Asperger's Syndrome, sitting at their desks in school, twirl in their chair, suddenly jump up, run out of the classroom, make sharp noises or laugh.

How different would our reaction be if we looked at their movements at such moments as being emotionally "loaded" that needed expression, instead of our focusing on their behavior and trying to teach them to sit still. "And yet, it spins."

Instead of fighting the brain's programming at such times, we could keep up with it by keeping the kids moving—helping them express it—and understanding the "work" emotions are trying to do.

To understand how emotions work, we need to understand the basic programming of the brain. Since we are inherently social animals who depend on others to survive and thrive, the brain's evolutionary programming should make it easier for us to depend on others, which in turn should be served by emotions. This explains the basic programming of the brain, the main task of which is to secure attachment, and the corresponding “work” of emotions, which is to solve the separation problem.

Here we come to the deepest understanding of why my children with autism are so "driven". At the root of autism are serious attention problems that arise due to, it is they that entail far-reaching developmental consequences - both at the sensory level and at the level of relationships. Insufficient ability to filter information leads not only to permanent neurological overload, but also to serious difficulties in establishing, maintaining and deepening attachment. My children with autism just can't "hold on" to the people they care about. As a result, they constantly face separation.

It is separation, or even anticipation of it, that switches the emotional system into emergency mode, forcing it to work to the limit in order to “move” us.

It was THAT that pushed my son to constantly ask himself the question: “Mom, is anyone going to die?! Is anyone going to die?!" It wasn't a meaningless tick. My son experienced a vague but persistent threat of separation, which he felt as if at any moment he could lose someone close to him.

In my work, I see daily very “loud” manifestations of the separation complex in all its power: I see a high level of , which underlies strong arousal, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive behavior. I see a high level of frustration leading to . I see an irresistible longing for intimacy in desperate clinging to objects, places, rituals, and familiar things. The whole palette of emotional responses designed to "push" us to eliminate separation is what we see in the behavior of children with autism. It is THAT that drives them so strongly, although it is not FELT consciously. In the eyes of my young children with autism, there is especially a huge, incredible level of arousal. They don't know why, but they just HAVE to move.

ATTACHMENT

In a certain sense, Bruno Bettelheim's psychoanalytic interpretation of autism is correct: the brains of my autistic children respond to a state of abandonment - not abandonment due to a heartless iceberg mother, but abandonment, born from their own deep inability to "hold on" to their own. Because of the inability to endure such abandonment, I observe vicious circle escalation of reactions that result from defensive alienation, which almost always occurs to a greater or lesser extent. The brain is forced to protect the child. There is a detachment from attachments, and we get the feeling that the child lives "in his own separate world."

I think it's very confusing, disorienting and very disturbing when we feel this in children. We feel their mental suffering and understand that we are in some sense the answer to it, but we cannot reach out to our children in order to offer them what they need so much. We experience utter helplessness, and if the mother bear awakens in you, as in the mother of an autistic child, you will feel such a deep despair that you have never experienced before. Perhaps this explains why that autism expert wanted to reassure me that my son's behavior was meaningless, just a tic. She probably thought it would make me feel better. Perhaps that made her feel better. It is very difficult to bear the feelings that children with autism arouse in us. It is hard to hear the call coming from such a deep well. But it is very important for us to continue to do so.

Often people are amazed when they see how quickly a bridge can be built to children with autism if you understand them from the inside.

By sending them a very clear invitation into our lives and then generously using our deep-seated repertoire of attachment techniques, especially those that are used all over the world with babies (e.g., wide eyes, parted mouth, exaggerated facial expressions, similar movements, imitation, etc.) we can reduce the need for protective withdrawal as well as offset the attentional problems that initially prevent a child with autism from forming secure attachments. In other words, we start a mutual dance of affection with them. Once the dance begins (and I have never worked with an autistic child who has NOT started dancing with me in any way from the very first meeting), we can move on to play. And as soon as we start playing, the gears of development are launched.

It sounds very simple, but it requires a high level of care and sensitivity on our part to tune in to each child in such a way as to establish contact with him without overloading him. To be able to work with autistic children, we need our feelings. Only in this way can we sensitively guide them through play to their own feelings (inviting them into our lives, softening them, lowering their defenses), which in turn will increase the speed of the motor that drives the process of maturation.

It is critical for children that their parents be helped to find their own. The softening and dancing that I arrange with the child will not last long if the dance is not taken up by the parents at home. Ideally, we organize a large extended circle of attachment dance, including as many close adults of the child as possible. When that happens, it doesn't take long for that wild, electrifying look to disappear from the eyes of young autistic children. The child will still be autistic - we have not solved the main filtering problem, but we have been able to compensate for it enough that the separation issue is no longer a permanent and top priority. There comes a period of rest - at least for a while. And we can start playing.

THE GAME

I think it will not surprise anyone that the main game that I use with my autistic children is. The whole point of this game is built around separation. We play over and over. We NEED to play it again and again!

How many times do we wait out the period of "hiding", that is, separation, holding our breath; we play with tension, slowly increasing the waiting time; we tease the child with anticipation when it is already known that our reunion is imminently approaching, and we laugh with pleasure and relief when we are together again. This is what we do over and over again, in every session. We experiment with different variations, one way or the other. As long as the child suddenly "loses interest" in the game and starts exploring the room in search of new activities - suddenly there is something attractive in that box in the corner full of colorful blocks. This moment always makes me smile. I step back and let the child follow his path... Although I stay there to share and respond to his sense of wonder at the world or start another game of hide and seek.

Even in severely autistic children who do not speak, awareness can be maintained by working through constant responsiveness, expressive gestures, exaggerated body language and other forms of non-verbal communication - I use a lot of imitative sounds.

I also discovered that a child can be gently (and patiently) led into the adjustment process—moving from anger to sadness—without the use of language at all, which is great news given the amount of futility autistic children experience!

Finding balance - mixed feelings - is a process that I observed and supported in my children with Asperger's syndrome, sometimes in the game (we created films in which the characters they played experienced all kinds of mixed feelings), and sometimes just discussing and thinking about events with them that happened during the week.

For my son, the journey to mixed feelings was especially difficult because his emotional intensity made it very difficult to mix. . Now he rarely experiences the “purity” of emotions that used to give him so much trouble at school. However, if the son's feelings become too strong - if someone speaks to him in an overly firm voice (and he begins to worry that he is "bad" or no longer likes this person, that is, he is in danger of separation), then he is still may lose its balance...

ON THE SIDE OF THE CHILD

I was reading an article about autism with a wonderful title: "Human and More Than". To me, it succinctly sums up the concept of autism. At its very source, autism has to do with what drives us the most: . In autism, we see an emotion that does what it's supposed to do: it tries to fix the separation problem.

It also clearly shows what happens when the methods aimed at repairing the broken connection do not work - when we do not have what we most need to survive and thrive, namely, secure attachment.

But once we understand this, we already know what to do. And this is definitely not a knock on the table and a demand to stop. As disturbing as it is for us to hear the call of a child from the depths of the well of autism, it must be heard in order to be answered. And it is extremely important for us to find out what this particular child needs so that he can hear us. It won't be something exotic. It will be something from our repertoire of attachment techniques, but we will need to target them specifically for this child.

Given that we are unlikely to be able to "liberate" an autistic child from his underlying neurological problems, nevertheless, on our part, it is quite possible for us to compensate for them in order to start an attachment dance together.

It will often be a rather clumsy dance, but in my experience, even that is enough for us to enjoy each other and have a lot of fun playing and exploring the world together... And that's quite a lot! There is often much more we can do: by removing obstacles to growing up through attachment and play, we can support the natural processes that can then "push" a child to their true potential.

One worrying trend in Russian special education is the sharp increase in the number of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). According to S. I. Klevitov and O. S. Terentyeva, this trend has a very rapid dynamics (and not only in our country, but throughout the world): in 2000, their number was 26 cases out of 10 thousand children. ; in 2005 - one case of a child with ASD on average for 200 - 300 newborns.

According to the World Autism Organization in 2008, the same single case of this diagnosis occurred in 150 children. In just 10 years, the number of children with ASD has increased 10 times. In Russia, autism spectrum disorders are diagnosed in 2-4 cases (and in combination with mental retardation - 20 cases) per 10,000 children. It should be noted that Russian statistics on the exact number of children with this diagnosis are not available, but it has been established that this disorder predominates mainly in boys. Indicators of world and, in particular, Russian statistics indicate the need for a comprehensive study of ASD and the development of methods for its correction.

However, it is impossible to talk about programs for the socialization of children with ASD, to develop and apply correction methods, without having a clear understanding of the features of the emotional and volitional sphere of children with this diagnosis - the originality of a child's development is manifested primarily through violations in this area of mental development and is the main obstacle to the formation his complete personality.

In the mental life of any person, emotions and will occupy a special place. A variety of emotional moments are included in the content of all mental processes - perception, memory, thinking, etc. Emotions also stimulate the development of fantasy, give speech credibility, brightness and liveliness. Moreover, thanks to the timely arisen emotion, the human body has the ability to adapt extremely favorably to the surrounding conditions. He is able to quickly respond to external influences with great speed, without having yet determined its type, form, and other particular specific parameters.

Will on personal level manifested in such properties as energy, perseverance, endurance. They can be considered as primary-basic volitional qualities of a person. These qualities determine the behavior of a person, and, consequently, his socialization.

That is why ASD make a person absolutely unsocialized. With this diagnosis, the earliest system of social interaction with other people, the revitalization complex, often lags behind in its formation. This is manifested in the absence of gaze fixation on a person’s face, a smile and emotional responses in the form of laughter, speech and motor activity to manifestations of attention from an adult. As the child grows, the weakness of emotional contacts with close adults continues to grow. Usually the child distinguishes parents from other adults, but does not express great affection, and the words "mother" and "dad" may appear later than others in the dictionary and do not correlate with parents.

All of the above symptoms are manifestations of one of the primary pathogenic factors of ASD - a decrease in the threshold of emotional discomfort in contacts with the world. A child with this diagnosis has extremely low endurance in dealing with the world. He quickly gets tired of even pleasant communication, is prone to fixing on unpleasant impressions, to the formation of fears. It is worth noting that the manifestation of all the above symptoms in full is extremely rare, especially at an early age (up to three years). In most cases, parents begin to pay attention to the "strangeness" and "peculiarities" of the child only when he reaches two or even three years.

In children with ASD, there is also a violation of the sense of self-preservation with elements of self-aggression, they often lack a “sense of edge”, the experience of dangerous contact with sharp and hot is poorly fixed.

Without exception, all children with this diagnosis lack craving for peers and children's team. When in contact with children, they usually have a passive ignoring or active rejection of communication, a lack of response to the name. The child is extremely selective in his social interactions. Constant immersion in inner experiences, the isolation of an autistic child from the outside world makes it difficult for him to develop his personality. Such a child has an extremely limited experience of emotional interaction with other people, he does not know how to empathize, be infected by the mood of the people around him.

The severity of autistic disorders in children varies, on the basis of which O. S. Nikolskaya identified four categories of children with ASD.

The first group is the most profoundly autistic children. They are distinguished by maximum detachment from the outside world, total absence need for contact with him. They have no speech. The behavior of children in this group is not a reflection of internal aspirations, but, on the contrary, manifests itself as an echo of extraneous impressions. Autism manifests itself in a pronounced degree of detachment from what is happening around and in the desire to be left alone. Children do not use speech, as well as gestures, facial expressions, visual movements.

The second group consists of children whose contact with the outside world is disturbed to a lesser extent, but maladaptation to the environment is also quite pronounced. They more clearly manifest stereotypes, selectivity in food, clothing, choice of routes. The degree of activity of contacts and their nature in these children is manifested in extreme selectivity and fixation. The speech of these children is more developed: they use it to indicate their needs. The child copies speech patterns received from the outside world without calling himself in the first person.

The characteristics of the children of the third group are manifested, first of all, in their extreme conflict in establishing contacts with the outside world: aggression directed at someone, or even self-aggression. The speech of these children is even better developed, but it is, as a rule, monologue: speech has a "bookish", learned, unnatural tone. Motorically, these are the most dexterous children among all groups. These children may show special knowledge in some disciplines. But this, in essence, is a manipulation of knowledge, a game with some concepts, because these children can prove themselves in practical activities with difficulty. They perform mental operations (for example, tasks in mathematics) stereotypically and with great pleasure. Such exercises serve as a source of positive impressions for them.

The fourth group is especially vulnerable children. To a greater extent, autism is manifested in them not in the absence, but in the underdevelopment of forms of communication. The need and readiness to enter into social interaction in children of this group are more pronounced than in children of the first three groups. However, their insecurity and vulnerability are manifested in the cessation of contact when they feel the slightest obstacle and opposition. Children in this group are able to make eye contact, but it is intermittent. Children come across as timid and shy. Stereotypes are seen in their behavior, but more in the manifestation of pedantry and striving for order.

Obviously, each of the 4 groups of children with ASD identified by O. S. Nikolskaya et al. , requires an individual approach and correction. This indicates the need for accurate diagnosis of children with ASD to determine the group to which each child belongs, and further correction of his emotional state, education, and most importantly, socialization.

However, the solution to the problem of autism in the modern world is complicated by the fact that the characteristics of people with this diagnosis are faced with the unwillingness of society to accept these people as they are and to contact them taking into account their characteristics.

This indicates the need for a bilateral solution of the issues of socialization of children with ASD. In addition to the timely diagnosis and correction of this disorder, it is necessary to pay considerable attention to the dissemination of information about it, to destroy the stereotypes of society that prevent adequate perception of people with ASD.

Bibliography

1. Klevitov, S. I. Essence, specificity of manifestation of autism and problems of socialization of autists in modern society [Text] / S. I. Klevitov, O. S. Terentyeva. // Bulletin of the Tambov University. – Series: Humanities. – Tambov: Tambov State University them. G.R. Derzhavin, 2014 - 6 (134). - S. 133-138.

2. Zaporozhets, A. V. On the psychology of children of early and preschool age [Text] / A. V. Zaporozhets. - M., 1999. - 240 p.

3. Fundamentals of special psychology: Proc. allowance for students. avg. ped. textbook institutions [Text] / L. V. Kuznetsova [and others]; Ed. L. V. Kuznetsova. - M .: Publishing Center "Academy", 2002. - 480 p.

4. Nikolskaya, O. S. Autistic child: ways of helping [Text] / O. S. Nikolskaya, E. R. Baenskaya, M. M. Liebling. – Ed. 2nd, stereotypical. - M. : Terevinf, 2000.