Professional readiness of pedagogical university students for psychological and pedagogical support of young children with disabilities

Introduction. Currently, issues of early assistance to children with disabilities are widely discussed as an important condition for their socialization and integration into the educational and social space. The education system needs qualified specialists to ensure the effectiveness of psychological and pedagogical support for children with disabilities at an early age. A pedagogical university has great potential in the field of training such specialists. However, at the moment there is a certain imbalance between the requirements of practice for solving various complex professional problems that arise in such support and the insufficient readiness of students of a pedagogical university to implement it. The study aims to experimentally analyze the state of professional readiness of bachelor students for psychological and pedagogical support of young children with disabilities and to identify the main ways of optimizing their preparation for implementing such activity. Materials and methods of research. 135 senior students of South Ural State Humanitarian Pedagogical University (Chelyabinsk) took part in the study: 75 students of Special (defectological) education with focus on Preschool defectology (EG 1) and 60 students of Pedagogical Education with focus on Preschool education (EG 2). The author's questionnaire included 9 blocks with questions determined in accordance with the tasks of professional activity and aimed to study the level of motivational and activity readiness of respondents to work with young children with disabilities. PRI is Index of professional readiness for the implementation of psychological and pedagogical support for young children with disabilities. Results. As a result of the empirical study, the motivational readiness to implement psychological and pedagogical support for young children with disabilities among EG 1 is above average (PRIm = 89.1%), and among EG 2 it is average (PRIm = 89.1%). Activity readiness (average in knowledge and instrumental components) among both groups is lower: EG 1 average (PRIS = 68.0%), EG 2 below average (PRIS = 54.7). Conclusion. The results prove the need to optimize the content, to search for effective means of preparing pedagogical university students for psychological and pedagogical support of young children with disabilities and for solving non-standard problems of professional activity, based on the variety of typological manifestations of children’s development and their educational needs.