Problems of Professional Training of Specialists for Working with Children with Learning and Development Difficulties

This article substantiates the thesis that one of the most important competencies of a modern teacher is the ability to assist students in overcoming learning difficulties. When providing assistance, the individual characteristics of the student should be taken into account, and the assistance itself should contribute to his development. The following is a description of the so-called “learning difficulty” as a resource for development. The psychological mechanisms are also described, the work of which turns educational activity into a source of development. In addition, the article poses a problem: how an adult (teacher, psychologist, parent), while helping a student in overcoming learning difficulties, can learn to create conditions for the development of a student in a situation of encountering learning difficulties. The main provisions of cultural and historical psychology act as theoretical and methodological grounds for providing assistance that contributes to the development of students: on the relationship between learning and development, on the zone of nearest development, on cooperation between a child and an adult, on the child’s conscious appropriation of the experience of joint activities. The provisions of cultural-historical psychology are supplemented by modern ideas about the role of the student’s subject position in relation to educational activity, about the student’s ability to reflect. The article also describes the long-term practice of helping various categories of students in overcoming learning difficulties. In this case, the means of the reflexive-activity approach are used. The practice itself has a deep theoretical foundation, which was worked out and formed the basis of the system for preparing students of the Moscow State University of Psychology & Education for providing psychological and pedagogical assistance to students with learning difficulties. This system is also a powerful resource for preparing teachers and psychologists to work with students with learning difficulties.

1. Alekseev N.G. Metodologicheskie printsipy analiza kontseptual’nykh skhem deyatel’nosti v psikhologii [Methodological principles of the analysis of conceptual schemes of activity in psychology]. Problemy metodologii v ergonomike: Sbornik statei [Methodological problems in ergonomics. Collection of articles]. Moscow: VNIITE Publ., 1979, pp. 104–125.
2. Alekseev N.G. Proektirovanie uslovii razvitiya refleksivnogo myshleniya. Diss. dokt. psikhol. nauk [Designing conditions for the development of reflective thinking. Dr. Sci. (Psychology) diss.]. Moscow, 2002. 41 p.
3. Alekseev N.G., Semenov I.N. Urovni poznavatel’noi deyatel’nosti pri reshenii tvorcheskikh zadach [Levels of cognitive activity in solving creative problems]. Novye issledovaniya v psikhologii [New Research in Psychology], 1979, no. 2, pp. 3–7.
4. Blonskii P.P. Izbrannye pedagogicheskie i psikhologicheskie sochineniya: V 2 t. T. 2 [Selected pedagogical and psychological works: in 2 vol. Vol. 2]. Moscow: Pedagogika, 1979. 398 p.
5. Vygotskii L.S. Istoricheskii smysl psikhologicheskogo krizisa [The historical meaning of the psychological crisis]. In Vygotskii L.S. Sobranie sochinenii: V 6 t. T. 1. [Collected works: in 6 vol. Vol. 1]. Moscow: Pedagogika, 1982, pp. 291–436.
6. Vygotskii L.S. Myshlenie i rech’. In Vygotskii L.S. Sobranie sochinenii: V 6 t. T. 2. [Collected works: in 6 vol. Vol. 2]. Moscow: Pedagogika, 1982, pp. 5–361.
7. Vygotskii L.S. Problemy detskoi (vozrastnoi) psikhologii. In Vygotskii L.S. Sobranie sochinenii: V 6 t. T. 4. [Collected works: in 6 vol. Vol. 4]. Moscow, 1984. 432 p.
8. Davydov V.V., Slobodchikov V.I., Tsukerman G.A. Mladshii shkol’nik kak sub”ekt uchebnoi deyatel’nosti [The junior schoolchild as a sub”ect of educational activity]. Voprosy psikhologii [Psychology Issues], 1992, no. 3–4, pp. 14–19.
9. Zaretskii V.K. Zona blizhaishego razvitiya: o chem ne uspel napisat’ Vygotskii… [The zone of proximal development: what Vygotsky did not have time to write about ...]. Kul’turno-istoricheskaya psikhologiya [Cultural-Historical Psychology], 2007. Vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 96–104.
10. Zaretskii V.K. Stanovlenie i sushchnost’ refleksivno-deyatel’nostnogo podkhoda v okazanii konsul’ta-tivnoi psikhologo-pedagogicheskoi pomoshchi [Formation and essence of the reflexive-activity approach in the provision of consulting psychological and pedagogical assistance]. Konsul’tativnaya psikhologiya i psikhoterapiya [Counseling Psychology and Psychotherapy], 2013, no. 2, pp. 8–37.
11. Zaretskii V.K. Odin shag v obuchenii — sto shagov v razvitii: ot idei k praktike [One step in learning — one hundred steps in development: from idea to practice]. Kul’turno-istoricheskaya psikhologiya [Cultural-Historical Psychology], 2016. Vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 149–188. doi: 10.17759/chp.2016120309.
12. Zaretskii V.K., Nikolaevskaya I.A. Metod situatsionno-vektornogo analiza kognitivno-lichnostnogo razvitiya uchashchikhsya v protsesse preodoleniya uchebnykh trudnostei [The method of situational-vector analysis of cognitive-personal development of students in the process of overcoming learning difficulties]. Kul’turnoistoricheskaya psikhologiya [Cultural-Historical Psychology], 2020. Vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 35–48. doi: 10.17759/chp.2020160104.
13. Zaretskii V.K., Semenov I.N. Logiko-psikhologicheskii analiz produktivnogo myshleniya pri diskursivnom reshenii zadach [Logical-psychological analysis of productive thinking in discursive problem solving]. Novye issledovaniya v psikhologii [New Research in Psychology], 1979, no. 1, pp. 3–8.
14. Zaretskii V.K., Kholmogorova A.B. Mirovaya psikhologiya i pedagogika v poiskakh teorii razvitiya, adekvatnoi vyzovam nashego vremeni: vpered k Vygotskomu [World psychology and pedagogy in search of a development theory adequate to the challenges of our time: forward to Vygotsky]. Konsul’tativnaya psikhologiya I psikhoterapiya [Counseling Psychology and Psychotherapy], 2017. Vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 170–175. doi: 10.17759/cpp.2017250312.
15. Zaretskii V.K., Kholmogorova A.B. Svyaz’ obrazovaniya, razvitiya i zdorov’ya s pozitsii kul’turno-istoricheskoi psikhologii [The relationship between education, development and health from the perspective of culturalhistorical psychology]. Kul’turno-istoricheskaya psikhologiya [Cultural-Historical Psychology], 2020. Vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 89–106. doi: 10.17759/chp.2020160211.
16. Zaretskii Yu.V. Cub”ektnaya pozitsiya po otnosheniyu k uchebnoi deyatel’nosti kak resurs razvitiya i predmet issledovaniya [Subjective position in relation to educational activity as a resource for development and a subject of research]. Konsul’tativnaya psikhologiya i psikhoterapiya [Counseling Psychology and Psychotherapy], 2013, no. 2, pp. 110–128.
17. Zinchenko V.P. Lev Semenovich Vygotskii: zhizn’ i deyatel’nost’ [Lev Semenovich Vygotsky: life and work]. In Shchedrina T.G. (eds.), Stil’ myshleniya: problema istoricheskogo edinstva nauchnogo znaniya. K 80-letiyu Vladimira Petrovicha Zinchenko: Kollektivnaya monografiya. [Style of thinking: the problem of the historical unity of scientific knowledge. On the occasion of the 80th birthday of Vladimir Petrovich Zinchenko. Collective monograph]. Moscow: Rossiiskaya politicheskaya entsiklopediya, 2011, pp. 294–299.
18. Isaev E.I., Kosaretskii S.G., Mikhailova A.M. Zarubezhnyi opyt profilaktiki i preodoleniya shkol’noi neuspevaemosti u detei, vospityvayushchikhsya v sem’yakh s nizkim sotsial’no-ekonomicheskim statusom [Foreign experience of preventing and overcoming school failure in children brought up in families with low socio-economic status]. Sovremennaya zarubezhnaya psikhologiya [Contemporary Foreign Psychology], 2019. Vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 7–16. doi: 10.17759/jmfp.2019080101.
19. Nikolaevskaya I.A. Situatsionno-vektornyi analiz stenogramm zanyatii po preodoleniyu uchebnykh trudnostei: analiz sluchaya [Situational vector analysis of transcripts of classes to overcome learning difficulties: case analysis]. Klinicheskaya i spetsial’naya psikhologiya [Clinical and Special Psychology], 2020. Vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 186–203. doi: 10.17759/cpse.2020090110.
20. Petrovskii V.A. Sub”ektnost’: novaya paradigma v obrazovanii [Subjectivity: a new paradigm in education]. Psikhologicheskaya nauka i obrazovanie [Psychological Science and Education], 1996. Vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 100–109.
21. Rubinshtein S.L. Printsip tvorcheskoi samodeyatel’nosti (k filosofskim osnovam sovremennoi pedagogiki) [The principle of creative amateur performance (to the philosophical foundations of modern pedagogy)]. Voprosy psikhologii [Psychology Issues], 1986, no. 4, pp. 101–109.
22. Rubtsov V.V. Sotsial’no-geneticheskaya psikhologiya razvivayushchego obrazovaniya: deyatel’nostnyi podkhod [Socio-genetic psychology of developing education: an activity approach]. Moscow: MGPPU Publ., 2008. 416 p.
23. Tolstykh N.N. Formirovanie lichnosti kak stanovlenie sub”ekta razvitiya [Formation of personality as the formation of the subject of development]. Voprosy psikhologii [Psychology Issues], 2008, no. 5, pp. 134–140.
24. Kholmogorova A.B. Klinicheskaya psikhologiya: V 4 t. Vol. 1. Obshchaya patopsikhologiya [Clinical Psychology: in 4 vol. Vol. 1. General pathopsychology]. Moscow: Akademiya, 2010. 464 p.
25. El’konin B.D. Pedagogicheskaya ideya razvivayushchego obucheniya [The pedagogical idea of developing education]. In El’konin B.D. et al. Sovremennost’ i vozrast. [Modernity and age]. Moscow: Avtorskii klub, 2015, pp. 26–28.