Special psychology is a branch of psychology that studies the special conditions of childhood and adolescence under the influence of certain groups of factors. Such conditions are manifested in slowed down or pronounced peculiar psychosocial development of the child, which significantly complicates its socio-psychological adaptation, self-education and subsequent professional definition.
Special psychology is studying various options for the pathology of mental development and the problems of abnormal development of the psyche. Special attention is paid to the study of the individual characteristics of mentally retarded children, with lesions of the cerebral cortex and with a violation of the activity of analyzers (hearing, speech). It has been reliably studied that the primary defect causes significant secondary changes, for example, deafness, can cause changes in mental development, the restructuring of one's life position, perception, thinking, and relationships with others. Based on the data of special psychology, special training programs are created for people with developmental abnormalities. The main task posed by special psychology is the formation of an adequate personality through the use of special techniques and methods of education and training, which result in the restructuring and replacement of impaired functions.
The object of special psychology is a person with developmental disabilities, and its tasks are to study the characteristics and patterns of mental development of people with various psychological and physical abnormalities in the context of correctional education. Special psychology has several specific areas that determine its activity. Psycho-psychology studies the psychology of deaf and hard-of-hearing people, typhlopsychology studies the psychology and behavior of blind and partially sighted people, oligophrenpsychology studies the psychology of mentally retarded people, and speech psychology is designed to help people with speech disorders. Such a direction, like the psychology of gaze, is of particular importance for people with even the slightest disturbances, since it is almost the only way to adapt them to the outside world.
Special psychology along with special pedagogy are the main components of a comprehensive scientific discipline - defectology, which deals with the development of children with mental and physical disabilities and their subsequent training and education. Special psychology has special special research methods, the most often used in it:
- Group and individual laboratory psychological experiments . They represent the active intervention of the researcher in the life of the ward in order to create conditions that reveal any psychological regularity.
- Observation . Observation is the targeted perception of the ward.
- Product research activities. Under this influence is understood the analysis of writing, crafts or children's drawings.
- Questioning. Tasks in this research option are presented as questions.
- Projective techniques. Intended for the diagnosis of personality.
- Educational experiments . They are natural experiments characterized by the targeted formation of psychological processes.
- Conditioned reflex techniques .
Each of these techniques is used in special psychology for specific purposes, taking into account external factors and individual characteristics of a person. They are quite in demand among people suffering from various physical and mental disabilities. Like the psychology of gaze, special psychology today rises to a whole new level. Who knows, maybe in the near future thanks to her, people with mental and physical disabilities will become full members of our society.