Features of the Thinking of Preschool Children With Mental Retardation

The development of effective correctional education and the prevention of school maladjustment is one of the important problems for psychological and pedagogical sciences today. Mental retardation is a serious problem that affects various aspects of a child's life, including his cognitive abilities and thinking. The article presents the results of a study of the peculiarities of the formation of thinking in older preschool children with mental retardation. The aim of the study was to identify the features of thinking in preschool children with mental retardation and the determination of correctional tasks for their development. To achieve this aim, a theoretical analysis of scientific literature was conducted, as well as an empirical study using observations of a child's behavior in a situation of solving mental problems. Preschool children with mental retardation have peculiarities of thinking formation. In such children, there is an insufficient formation of a number of prerequisites for thinking: problematization, purposefulness, the operational component of thinking and speech mediation. These features are expressed in the behavior of the child, have an impact on the level of psychological readiness for school. The results and recommendations can be used by teachers, parents and specialists working with preschool children with mental retardation to create optimal learning and development conditions.This work contributes to the understanding of the peculiarities of the formation of thinking in children with mental retardation and promotes the development of individual correctional programs for this category of children.