The day before yesterday I had a discussion after watching the movie Temple Grendin.
On the one hand, it was a very interesting experience, because in addition to me, three other autistic people participated in the discussion, who helped me a lot.
On the other hand, it was not easy. There were too many tasks ahead of me. I needed to make sure that people did not interrupt each other. I needed to comment on where I disagree with Temple Grendin. I had to talk about the mistakes in the film and the fact that most women do not manifest autism in the same way as Temple. I had to comment on the words of another presenter and answer questions. There were many questions, they were very different and some were quite unexpected. We discussed everything from the emotional perception of autistic people to the ethical issues of building slaughterhouses.
Now I want to once again turn your attention to the issues related to emotions, and perhaps explain some things more clearly than I was able to explain then.
The ability to feel
1) So, autistic people can feel. They can experience emotions. And, dear listener, whose name I do not know, they experience the same emotions that non-autistic people experience. Anyway, I think so. Autistic and non-autistic people experience the same emotions, as much as two people, regardless of their neurotype, can experience the same emotions.
2) The ability to describe emotions and the ability to experience them are not the same thing. Many autistic people find it difficult to describe their emotions in words. Some autistic people may be confused mental condition with the physical. For example, my girlfriend, in adolescence confused anxiety with symptoms of purely physiological health problems.
3) The ability to understand words for emotions and the ability to experience these emotions are not the same thing. Many autistic people have trouble understanding abstract concepts, including words for emotions. I understood the meaning of the word “rage” at the age of 15, but I first experienced rage in early childhood.
4) Autistic people, like neurotypical people, are able to empathize.
5) Autistic people, like neurotypical people, are separate individuals. They feel differently, remember and express their emotions differently. And, of course, the same event can cause different reactions in different autistic people.
Expressing emotions
1) Autistic people may express emotions differently from non-autistic people.
Non-autistic people are almost always mistaken when they try to determine from my face or voice how I feel and what I think. Very often I have been told that I look sad when, in fact, I was happy. I was told that I was angry when I just excitedly talked about a topic of interest to me, and experienced rather positive emotions. I was told that I was indifferent when I was very afraid of something.
It is also extremely difficult for me to recognize emotions from the face and voice of a neurotypical interlocutor. As a child, I was constantly scolded for not noticing how tired my mother was. To be honest, I still don't notice it. And I don't understand how others see it.
But I, like many other autistic people, find it easier to recognize the emotions of other autistic people.
Most autistic people do not have “problems understanding other people's emotions,” just as most neurotypicals do not. Both autistic and neurotypical people have problems understanding the emotions of people with a different neurotype. There are more neurotypes than autistic people, and therefore the fact that neurotypes have problems recognizing autistic emotions goes unnoticed.
2) Autistic and non-autistic ways of expressing emotions are equally valuable. For example, shaking your hands and smiling are equivalent ways of expressing joy. Simply smiling is a socially acceptable way of expressing emotions, but shaking hands (a way of expressing emotions for some autistic people) is not.
3) IQ and speaking skills are not related to the ability to understand emotion words. Moreover, from personal observation, I have noticed that non-speaking autistic people often find it easier to understand words that denote emotions than those who could always speak. And, to be honest, I don't know what it might be connected with.
Increased emotionality?
1) Autistic people do not "react to everything more emotionally." It's just that, more often than not, autistic and neurotypical people care about different things. As my girlfriend says, she can never understand teenagers who worry that they don't have enough fashionable clothes. But, at the same time, these teenagers, most likely, will never be able to understand why it is so difficult for her to endure the change of plans.
I was less worried about the very fact of the creation of the DPR than all my Donetsk acquaintances. But at the same time, I was more worried than most of my friends because of how much the consciousness of people changed after the information war. Propaganda caused me only rejection, and I did not understand how it can win someone's sympathy. I was more worried than all my family members about the change of plans when moving, but less afraid of the fact that tanks were driving along the streets.
2) Do not forget that the environment in which we live was created with the expectation of neurotypes. We live in cities that are adapted to the sensory perception of neurotypes. Moreover, it is extremely difficult for autistic people with increased sensory sensitivity to find themselves in most establishments.
Teachers, doctors, human resources specialists, psychologists, even waiters have all been taught to work with neurotypical people, evaluate people by neurotypical standards, and take into account the needs of neurotypical people in their work. For many of us, it is more difficult to obtain high-quality medical assistance, go to the store, go to university, get a job, etc.
Because of this, some of us may be more emotional. Not because autistic people have “the way the brain works,” but because we live in a world where our needs are not met. If you were in a world where everything is designed for autists, it would not be easy for you either.
3) This item is directly related to the previous one. The point is that autistic people are a discriminated minority. Most autistic people have faced discrimination. Most autistic people were rejected and misunderstood by members of their own families. Most autistic people have experienced bullying and violence in school.
We are constantly confronted with both intentional and unintentional ailism. Most people don't want people like us to be born in the future. Many people justify killing people like us. Our way of thinking and the way we perceive the world is considered a "disease" and an annoying mistake. Moreover, most people know nothing about our way of thinking, and we almost constantly communicate with people in a state of culture shock.
And now I don't even write about the experience of those autistic people who also belong to other discriminated minorities.
So yes, we have good reason be more emotional. But this, again, is not because our brains are wired incorrectly. What I have described in this paragraph is called minority trauma. Representatives of all discriminated minorities have such trauma. And if you look at the statistics, you will see that black people living in the United States have more mental problems than whites. The reason for this is the very trauma of the minority, and not the color of their skin (despite the fact that even fifty years ago, many "psychiatrists" thought otherwise).
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So, I hope you will no longer have any questions about the peculiarities of emotional perception of autistic people.
True, my questions remained unanswered. I ask myself when will people finally stop thinking about autism as a problem. When they stop wondering what is wrong with us, and instead will be ready to listen and perceive any position of autistic people themselves, including the one based on the fact that the problem is not in us, but in the world around us. When will they finally admit that we are human too, and stop assuming that we experience other emotions, or that we have some special, purely autistic attitude towards life and death, or come up with other such nonsense?
A child with autism should not be measured. ordinary people, says defectologist Natalia Kerre, author of the book "Special children: How to give a happy life to a child with developmental disabilities." Any child screams and cries for a reason - but the sensations from the outside world are often simply unbearable.
Sensory changes are always observed in autism, although they can be expressed to varying degrees. This is one of the main diagnostic signs... If there are no sensory features, it makes sense to doubt the correct diagnosis. This means that smells, sounds, tactile and temperature sensations that do not cause any concern to people with no developmental disabilities will be very strong and unpleasant for a child with autism.
Sometimes parents cannot understand why the child begins to behave restlessly, to be capricious, seemingly without the slightest reason. And this is due to the fact that sometimes a sound of medium volume is perceived by a child as an explosion near the ear, every thread is felt on a woolen sweater, a tag on the side tears the skin unbearably, and a slight smell of deodorant seems to be an unbearable stench. All this can completely disorient the child.
In this case, the pain threshold can be significantly overestimated: the child may not feel serious discomfort, even when he fell and hit hard. These are the features that must be taken into account when diagnosing autism and further working with an autistic child.
Along with the correction of speech, thinking, attention, classes on sensory integration are imperative, which will slightly reduce sensitivity and "saturate" the child with those sensations that he lacks.
It is also absolutely necessary because, if the child's sensitivity is not normalized, especially if it is greatly increased, it is unlikely that significant results will be achieved in improving the child's behavior. It is hardly worth expecting good and socially approved behavior from a little man, when it seems that the whole world around him causes discomfort: a child cannot be in a supermarket, because fluorescent light hurts his eyes intolerably; there is an unbearable smell in the dairy section of the store; the dogs bark so loudly that one wants to immediately sink into the ground, etc.
With the help of purposeful work, the sensitivity can be slightly weakened, but some areas will feel too strong for a person all his life: this may be associated with clothes made of certain fabrics (for example, a person cannot wear chunky-knit sweaters); food (does not like raw vegetables, crackers, chips due to the fact that they crunch too loudly inside the head, etc.), but this will not interfere so much with being in society. But when the work has just begun and all the child's feelings are heightened, you should not injure him once again, demanding that he overcome himself, because it is unlikely that a neurotypical person can imagine the degree of intensity of sensations that an autistic child experiences.
Find out what makes your child especially uncomfortable: the smell of some kind of perfume? Discard them! (And by the way, for professionals who will read this book, if you work with children on the autistic spectrum, then, as sad as it may be, you will have to stop using perfume with a strong scent during work hours.)
The child is worried about the labels on the clothes, he decisively refuses to wear slippers at home? Cut shortcuts, let your socks walk at home! Choose clothes from fabrics that are pleasant for your child.
Is the sound in the cinema too loud? Postpone your visit to the cinema until a later time, when you slightly adjust its hypersensitivity or provide earplugs for your child!
Are fresh vegetables and fruits crunchy intolerable? There is no need to force the child to eat them, stew or boil them, etc.
The most important thing to understand in this situation is: sometimes the child behaves "unbearably" not out of nothing, he is really very uncomfortable.
Often, when describing the sensory characteristics of people with autism, they speak only of hypersensitivity (hypersensitivity) to touch or sound. But sensory issues in autism can also include:
- hyposensitivity (decreased sensitivity), when stimuli are not perceived, unless they are very loud or painful. This creates many problems in everyday life: the child calmly puts his palm on the hot stove or does not feel that boiling water is flowing from the tap;
- synesthesia, when one feeling is perceived as another;
- and sometimes extreme changes in sensitivity.
These problems can relate to absolutely any sense, including proprioception (sensation of body position in space) and vestibular apparatus (sensation of movement).
But all these features tell us only one thing: you cannot evaluate a child with autism in terms of our ideas about which sensations are pleasant and which are terrible, and in this area you need to let him decide for himself what is acceptable for him and what is not. follow the child, and not force him to adapt to our standards and criteria.
Often, unusual fears are associated with increased sensitivity: a child may be afraid of fur toys, leather clothes, animals and birds that behave unpredictably and make harsh sounds (there can be a huge variety: pigeons, small dogs, cats, etc.), household sounds (hairdryer, washing machine, etc.).
You can and should work with fears, but, again, having previously found out what exactly causes discomfort, and getting rid of them gradually, do not throw the child into a traumatic situation for him so that he overcomes fear: in the case of autism, this can lead to the fact that that the child will withdraw even deeper into himself.
Do animals treat autism?
Sometimes, in order to overcome fears, it is advised to have an animal at home. But this advice is very ambiguous, because, firstly, you cannot be completely sure that the child, faced with the need to be around the animal around the clock, will overcome fear, and will not become even more afraid.
Secondly, you should like this idea yourself: if you are afraid or do not like animals, you will get an additional source of stress associated with the need to take care of this source as well.
I recommend starting with a zoo, regular or contact, try canis or hippotherapy (therapy using dogs or horses), look at the child's reaction and only after that decide whether an animal is really necessary in the house or if communication "on the side" is enough.
Unfortunately, horses, dolphins, and dogs do not cure autism. However, communication with animals within the framework of targeted therapy can improve the child's condition through positive impressions, sensory sensations, new and unusual experience of interaction, and motor load. So if you and your child don't mind this experience, it's worth giving it a try.
One of the alarming trends in special education in Russia 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 for an average of 200 - 300 newborns.
According to the World Autism Organization in 2008, the same single case of this diagnosis accounted for 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 there are no data from Russian statistics on the exact number of children with this diagnosis, but it has been established that this disorder predominates mainly in boys. Indicators of the 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 socialization programs for children with ASD, to develop and apply correction techniques without a clear understanding of the peculiarities of the emotional-volitional sphere of children with this diagnosis - the originality of the child's development is manifested primarily through violations in this area. mental development and is the main obstacle to the formation of his full-fledged 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 emotion that arose in time, the human body has the ability to adapt extremely favorably to the surrounding conditions. He is able to quickly react at high speed to an external influence, not yet defining its type, shape, and other particular specific parameters.
Will on personal level manifests itself in properties such as energy, perseverance, endurance. They can be considered as the primary basic volitional qualities of a person. These qualities determine human behavior, and, consequently, his socialization.
That is why ASDs make a person absolutely unsocialized. With this diagnosis, the earliest system of social interaction with people around is often lagging behind in its formation - the revitalization complex. This is manifested in the absence of fixation of a gaze on a person's face, a smile and emotional responses in the form of laughter, speech and motor activity to manifestations of attention on the part of an adult. As the child grows, the weakness of emotional contact with close adults continues to grow. Usually a child distinguishes parents from other adults, but does not express much affection, and the words "mom" and "dad" may appear later than others in the dictionary and do not relate to the 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 even from pleasant communication, is prone to fixation 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 in 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.
Children with ASD also have a violation of the sense of self-preservation with elements of self-aggression, they often lack a “sense of the edge,” poorly consolidated the experience of dangerous contact with acute and hot.
Without exception, all children with this diagnosis have no craving for their peers and the children's team. When in contact with children, they usually have passive ignorance or active rejection of communication, 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 hinders the development of his personality. Such a child has extremely limited experience of emotional interaction with other people, he does not know how to empathize, to become infected with the mood of the people around him.
The severity of autistic disorders in children varies, on the basis of which Olga S. Nikolskaya identified four categories of children with ASD.
The first group is the most deeply autistic children. They differ in maximum detachment from the world around them, in a complete absence of the need for contact with it. They have no speech. The behavior of the children of this group is not a reflection of inner 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, pictorial movements.
The second group consists of children in whom contact with the outside world is disturbed to a lesser extent, but maladjustment to the environment is also quite pronounced. They have more clearly manifested 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 fixity. The speech of these children is more developed: they use it to indicate their needs. The child copies speech cliches perceived from the outside world without naming himself in the first person.
The peculiarities of children of the third group are manifested, first of all, in their extreme conflict when establishing contacts with the outside world: aggression directed at someone, or even self-aggression. The speech of these children is even better developed, but, as a rule, it is monologue: speech has a "bookish", learned, unnatural connotation. They are the most agile children among all groups in their motive power. These children may exhibit special knowledge in some disciplines. But this is, in essence, the manipulation of knowledge, the game of any concepts, since these children can hardly express themselves in practical activities. They perform mental operations (for example, math assignments) 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 manifests itself 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 is more pronounced than in children of the first three groups. However, their insecurity and vulnerability are manifested in the termination of contact at the feeling of the slightest obstacle and opposition. Children in this group are able to establish eye contact, but it is intermittent. Children come across as timid and shy. Stereotypes can be seen in their behavior, but more in the manifestation of pedantry and the desire for order.
Obviously, each of the 4 groups of children with ASD, identified by OS Nikolskaya et al. , requires an individual approach and correction. This suggests the need for accurate diagnosis of children with ASD in order 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 modern world 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 two-way solution to 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 impede the adequate perception of people with ASD.
Bibliography
1. Klevitov, SI Essence, specificity of the manifestation of autism and the problems of socialization of autists in modern society [Text] / SI Klevitov, OS 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. About the psychology of children of early and preschool age [Text] / A. V. Zaporozhets. - M., 1999 .-- 240 p.
3. Fundamentals of special psychology: Textbook. manual for stud. wednesday ped. study. institutions [Text] / L. V. Kuznetsova [and others]; Ed. L. V. Kuznetsova. - M.: Publishing Center "Academy", 2002. - 480 p.
4. Nikolskaya, OS Autistic child: ways of help [Text] / OS Nikolskaya, ER Baenskaya, MM Liebling. - Ed. 2nd, stereotypical. - M.: Terevinf, 2000.
These guidelines are addressed to educational psychologists, practical psychologists who work with children with RDA syndrome. The purpose of the data guidelines is to provide methodological assistance to psychologists in choosing the most effective techniques and methods of work on the development and correction of the emotional-volitional sphere in autistic children.
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Municipal budgetary educational institution
"Secondary School of Psychological and Pedagogical Support No. 101"
Development and correction
emotional and volitional sphere
from students with RDA.
Compiled by:
Diaghileva M.S.,
The teacher is a psychologist,
Higher qualification
Kemerovo
2016
Explanatory note.
Currently, the RDA syndrome is of keen interest among teachers, psychologists and other specialists due to the high prevalence and great social significance of the problem.
In children with autism, there is a predominantly distortion of the emotional-volitional sphere. Such children are characterized by various fears, aggressiveness, inadequacy of 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 (the "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, at overcoming sensory and emotional discomfort, negativism, anxiety, anxiety, 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 PDA is to teach how to recognize emotional states, understand people's behavior, see the motives of others' actions, enrich emotional experience, and adapt to the team with the prospect of further socialization.
In my practical activity, I faced the problem of the lack of techniques and methods of work for the correction and development of the emotional-volitional sphere, which 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 problem, 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 and play. At the first acquaintance, difficulties in work may arise. 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, and the second variant of behavior occurs 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 to feel fear and discomfort. It will take a child some time to get used to new conditions, to get used to a new person.
However, teachers should remember that the very first step when working with such children will be to establish initial 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 learning new skills and forms of behavior. The adaptation period of work may take long time, most often it stretches over a period 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 most effective techniques for 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, therefore, carrying out sensory games is a kind of stimulus for involvement in the game, a "temptation" for the child. The types of sensory games are varied.
Cereal games ... Pour, for example, millet into a deep bowl, put your hands in it and wiggle your fingers. Expressing pleasure with a smile and words, invite your child to join you. In the next lessons, 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, sponge and especially fingers) help to 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.
Games with water ... Fiddling with water, pouring it over is especially popular with children; these games also have a therapeutic effect.
Ice games ... Prepare ice in advance, squeeze ice together with the child from the mold into a bowl: "Look how the water froze: it became 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 spinning in the air, how they burst, they are captured by the very process of blowing soap bubbles.
Relaxation games, listening to calm music, finger games, playing 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, carry away to the wonderful world of calmness and harmony. I will give several methods of play activity that will contribute to the formation of emotions in a child.
1. "Drawing with smoke".
Holding an extinguished candle in our hand, we draw in the air with smoke: “Look, what a smoke is in the air! Can you smell it? " Then blow or wave your arms to disperse the smoke.
2. "Let's blow the light."
We set the long candle steadily and light it: “Look, the candle is burning - how beautiful!”. Remember that the child may be scared - then postpone the game. If the reaction is positive, we invite the child to blow on the flame: “Now let's blow ... Stronger, like this - oh, the light has gone out. Look at the smoke rising. " Most likely, the child will ask to light the candle again. In addition to enjoying the pleasure of blowing out a candle light, it is beneficial for the development of breathing.
3. "Cold - hot".
Fill a tablespoon with water and hold it over a candle flame, drawing the child's attention to the fact that cold water became 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 fire. Look, the ice is melting! "
In the process of such games, the child will be imbued with trust in you, and it is in this case that we can talk about the establishment of emotional contact. Having established emotional contact with an autistic child, you can work on his behavior and emotions.
Target classes for the correction of the emotional-volitional sphere:
Introduce children to basic emotions;
To teach children to distinguish emotions by schematic images - pictograms;
Learn to understand your feelings and the feelings of other people and talk about it;
Teach children to transmit the assigned emotional condition using various means of expression: facial expressions, gestures, movements;
Learn to listen and understand musical works.
As methods and techniques in the work of a developmental and correctional psychologist
emotional-volitional sphere in autistic children, possibly using the following:
Game therapy (didactic games, games-exercises for emotions and emotional contact, games-dramatization);
The use of visual aids (photographs, graphic images, pictograms, symbols, drawings, diagrams);
Conversation on a given topic;
Psychogymnastics (sketches, facial expressions, pantomime);
Examples of expressing your emotional state in drawing, music;
Elements of psychological training.
In correctional and developmental classes, children get acquainted with the main 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. the conclusion that all clouds are different, unlike each other, just like people.
You can also introduce children to emotions using the Emotions Cube game. Children are presented with two cubes: one filled cube - there are round grooves on the edges of the cube, circles with cards pasted on them depicting different emotions are inserted into these grooves- pictograms and the second cube is empty, 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 is filled, but at the same time draws his attention to the pictograms. Aloud, what kind of emotion it is, together with the child, parts of the face are circled 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 face of which a face is schematically depicted, expressing some kind of emotional state. The child depicts the corresponding emotion. This version of the game contributes to the development of expressiveness of movements, attention, arbitrariness, consolidation of the ability to determine emotions from schematic images.
Choose a Girl allows you to practice identifying emotions. The child chooses from the offered 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 threw the bunny. The bull is walking, swinging. They dropped the bear on the floor. I love my horse.) After reading each verse, an adult asks a child:
Which girl left the bunny?
Which girl was scared for the bull?
Which girl took pity on the bear?
Which girl loves her horse?
In the game "Halves" on the material of the characters of fairy tales, concepts such as good and evil are fixed, the main emotions characteristic of these fairy-tale characters are determined.
The game "Masquerade" also reinforces the knowledge of 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, funny, sad faces, etc.
In the classroom on the development of the emotional sphere, it is necessary to select cartoons with characters who have clear facial expressions for viewing. The child is invited to guess the mood of cartoon characters, fairy tales (for example, using a freeze frame), and then depict it himself.
When “healing by playing”, games with clearly defined rules should be used, and not role-playing games where it is necessary to speak. Moreover, each game must be played many times, accompanying each action with comments so that the child understands the rules, and the game was not for him a 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 be aware of and control their emotions.
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Violation of the emotional-volitional sphere is the leading symptom in the RDA syndrome and can manifest itself shortly after birth. So, in 100% of observations (K.S. Lebedinskaya) with autism, the earliest system of social interaction with the surrounding people - the revitalization complex - lags sharply behind in its formation. This is manifested in the absence of fixation of a gaze on a person's face, a smile and emotional responses in the form of laughter, speech and motor activity to manifestations of attention on the part of an adult. As the child grows, the weakness of emotional contact with close adults continues to grow. Children do not ask for hands, being in their mother's arms, do not take the appropriate posture, do not cuddle, remain lethargic and passive. Usually the child distinguishes parents from other adults, but does not express much affection. They can even feel fear of one of the parents, they can hit or bite, they do everything in spite of it. These children lack the desire characteristic of this age to please adults, to earn praise and approval. The words "mom" and "dad" appear later than others and may not relate to parents. All of the above symptoms are manifestations of one of the primary pathogenic factors of autism, namely, a decrease in the threshold of emotional discomfort in contact with the world. A child with RDA has extremely low endurance in communication with the world. He quickly gets tired even from pleasant communication, is prone to fixation on unpleasant impressions, to the formation of fears. K. S. Lebedinskaya and O. S. Nikolskaya distinguish three groups of fears:
typical for childhood in general (fear of losing the mother, as well as situationally conditioned fears after the experienced fright);
due to increased sensory and emotional sensitivity of children (fear of household and natural noises, strangers, unfamiliar places);
inadequate, delusional, i.e. without a real foundation.
Fears occupy one of the leading places in the formation of the autistic behavior of these children. When establishing contact, it is found that many ordinary objects and phenomena (certain toys, household items, the noise of water, wind, etc.), as well as some people cause the child constant feeling fear. The feeling of fear, which sometimes persists for years, determines the desire of children to maintain their familiar environment, to produce various protective movements and actions that have the character of rituals. The slightest changes in the form of rearranging furniture, daily routine cause violent emotional reactions. This phenomenon is called "the phenomenon of identity."
Speaking about the behavioral features of EAD of varying severity, O.S. Nikolskaya characterizes the children of the 1st group as not allowing themselves to experience fear, reacting with withdrawal to any impact of great intensity. In contrast to them, children of the 2nd group are almost constantly in a state of fear. This is reflected in their appearance and behavior: their movements are tense, frozen facial expressions, a sudden cry. Some of the local fears can be provoked by individual signs of a situation or object that are too intense for the child in their sensory characteristics. Also, local fears can be caused by some kind of danger. A feature of these fears is their rigid fixation - they remain relevant for many years and the specific cause of fears is not always determined. In children of the 3rd group, the causes of fears are determined quite easily, they seem to lie on the surface. Such a child constantly talks about them, includes them in his verbal fantasies. The tendency to master a dangerous situation often manifests itself in such children in the fixation of negative experiences from their own experience, books they read, primarily fairy tales. In this case, the child gets stuck not only on some scary images, but also on individual affective details that slip through the text. Children of the 4th group are fearful, inhibited, insecure. They are characterized by generalized anxiety, which especially increases in new situations, when it is necessary to go beyond the usual stereotyped forms of contact, when the level of requirements of others increases in relation to them. The most typical are fears that grow out of the fear of negative emotional assessment by others, especially those close to you. Such a child is afraid to do something wrong, to be “bad”, to not live up to the expectations of the mother.
Along with the above, in children with RDA, there is a violation of the sense of self-preservation with elements of self-aggression. They can unexpectedly run out onto the roadway, they do not have a "sense of the edge", the experience of dangerous contact with sharp and hot ones is poorly fixed.
Without exception, all children have no craving for their peers and the children's team. When in contact with children, they usually have passive ignorance or active rejection of communication, 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 hinders the development of his personality. Such a child has extremely limited experience of emotional interaction with other people, he does not know how to empathize, to become infected with the mood of the people around him. All this does not contribute to the formation of adequate moral guidelines in children, in particular, the concepts of "good" and "bad" in relation to the situation of communication.
