PECULIARITIES OF VERBAL ASSOCIATIONS OF THE ENVIRONMENT OF PRESCHOOL AGE CHILDREN WITH MENTAL RETARDATION

The paper aims to reveal the results of the study of the ability of preschoolers with mental retardation for making associations of the environment. The experiment involved 60 preschoolers with mental retardation and 60 children with normal psychophysical development aged from 5 to 7 years. In the first part of the experiment, the children were consistently presented 15 polysemantic words in three grammatical categories, and in the second one they were showed 5 graphic representations of subjects (pictures). In response to the word-stimulus (or visual material), the respondents were asked to name as many words as possible. Associate reactions obtained during the study were grouped according to the following types: inadequate, form-forming, word-forming, syntagmatic, thematic and paradigmatic. It can be concluded that the features of verbal associations of preschoolers with mental retardation reveal the specifics of the mechanism of interfunctional interaction of speech and perception (syntagmatic strategy), visual-figurative and logical thinking (thematic and paradigmatic strategies) and characterize the ability to build integral worldview (text, scientific). The conducted experimental research has shown that in children with mental retardation the intensity and completeness of making associations of the environment is reduced, which is a manifestation of not only the narrowness of their linguistic development, but also inaccuracy, fragmentation of their representations, which determine the specifics of their worldview.