Humanistic Model of Assisting the Development through understanding the human world of life

The paper presents the Humanistic Model of Assisting the Development. Understanding the dynamic and changing relationship between the human and the world, as perceived from the time perspective by the aided person, constitutes the basis of the aided development. In this process the feedback is focused on the concept of life – the system of opinions and beliefs concerning life – which includes the following subsystems: knowledge about life, values – directions of the life path, life goals, goal realization schemes, attitude to the self, attitude to the others, moral control of actions, heuristics of the global assessment of life and time perspective. The concept of life is created as a result of understanding and experiencing the relationality of the world available thanks to consciousness. In order to make actions and their effects (events) available to consciousness, one has to ascribe meaning to them. Obtaining access to the ‘world’ of meanings of a person in a problematic situation is a key element in understanding such people, and one of the cognitive methods is dialogue with the aided person, which helps those who want to understand. The aim is to change the concept of life in order to solve the problem. This method can be supplemented with selected techniques focused on the development of skill and ability if the aided person thinks that their effects will help to fulfi ll the concept of life.

Verbal-nonverbal two-element combinations in children`s communication

Studies on communication skills of young children have shown that body language is used for the purpose of communication early in ontogenesis and regardless of culture. Before children learn to speak, they express  themselves through gestures and continue to produce gesture-word combinations later in development. Multiple research suggests that those compounds are used when a child is not yet able to combine two words into a single utterance.
This paper focuses on the role of gesture and speech combinations as a transitional device for future developments in language

Development on the edge of normality and pathology. Case-study of a three-year-old boy with visual impairment

The aim of the work is to present a clinical study of a development path using the theoretical model of developmental pathways (Pickles, Hill, 2006). The subject of the study, a three-year-old boy, came into the world through complicated labor which ended in cesarean section. He displayed characteristics of insecure-avoidant attachment. Moreover, he had a visual defect.
The study describes the crisis at the beginning of preschool education. Adaptive irregularities arising from these burdens, but also the lack of competence and support from the preschool staffmeant that the boy began to show features of mental disorders functioning. At this time independent specialists diagnosed mental retardation and attention defi cit with hyperactivity disorder.
Through correcting the vision problems, working on the relationship, changing the preschool facility and introducing cognitive-behavioral techniques the abnormal development of the boy returned onto the correct track. The aim of the work is to show the path of corruption in the development of mental disorder in the three-year-old boy. The developmental pathways approach takes into account the role of a wide range of internal factors (biological, social and psychological) as well as external ones – environmental and those concerning the effect of time and place, both in the development of pathology, and in turning to pathology as a way to return to normal development

Use of information on belief in creating a persuasive argument. The role of understanding first and second order false beliefs

Whether and when children can apply their developing understanding of belief to persuasion was examined using picture stories tasks. Children created or selected arguments to persuade a parent. In 2 studies, 253 children (aged 4–8 years) engaged in persuasion tasks and in first and second order false-belief reasoning tasks. The belief-relevant argument increased with age. The understanding of false beliefs proved to be a predictor of the ability to refer to the cognitive perspective of others in creating and selecting a persuasive argument. The results suggest that improvements in belief reasoning in early and middle childhood may be refl ected in social interactions such as persuasion.

The regulatory role of individual experiences with parents in coping of youth with mild intellectual disability in situations of interpersonal conflicts

Research findings have documented that coping of individuals with mild intellectual disability depends on social and psychological factors (Kościelska, 1998; Zigler, 1999; Switzky, 1999; Kurtek, 2009). The aim of the empirical research was to verify the regulatory role of individual experiences (conscious representation of parental attitudes) in coping of youth with mild intellectual disability in confl icts with parents. In the study of a group of 60 students (age: 14–20) from a special school, psychological methods belonging to a cognitive paradigm were used: te PCR Questionnaire (Parent-Child Relation Questionnaire) by A. Roe and M. Siegelman (1963) and RTSS Questionnaire (Coping in Difficult Social Situations) by Danuta Borecka-Biernat (2003). Both methods were adapted to low reading and understanding skills of the population (shorter items without abstract words).
The results of multiple regression confi rmed the model of tendentious perception of object by R.H. Fazio (1986) in regulating coping strategies. Problem-oriented responses in confl icts with parents are explained in 30% of variance by individual experiences of Love (from mother and father as well) and not Demanding (rather Casual) mother. The predictors of aggressive coping tendency were experiences of father’s Rejection and lack of mother’s Attention (15% of variance). Finally the avoidance coping was explained in 10% by the experience of lack of mother’s Love. Obtained data comply to the holistic model of social rehabilitation of mildly intellectually disabled youth.

Difficulty in upbringing situation as experienced by parent and child’s representation in parent’s mind: model of the phenomenon

The purpose of the analysis was to verify a model which included connections among variables crucial to the child’s upbringing process. These variables were: the discrepancy between the parental goal and child’s actual state, the difficulty experienced by the parent (which following Gurycka [1990] is understood as psychological stress) and the child’s representation in the parent’s mind. It was hypothesized that the discrepancy between the parental goal and child’s actual state might determine the diffi culty experienced by the parent. What is more, this difficulty experience might start the process of shaping the child’s negative representation in the parent’s mind.
The purpose of the analysis was to discover connections among the constructs in the net of common relations. A structural equation model was used for this purpose. The calculations were conducted with the help of the IMB AMOS program.
The research was conducted on a sample of 100 people, parents of children aged 3 to 10 . The results obtained confirm the suggested connections among the variables. The results confirm the good fit of the model.

RECENZJA

K. Chawarska, A. Klin, F.R.Volkmar (red.) (2008), Autism in infants and toddlers. Diagnosis, assessment and treatment, New York: Guilford Press

Sprawozdanie z Międzynarodowej Konferencji Vocational Counselling of Pupils with Special Educational Needs (SEN): Experience of the European Union Countries, Šiauliai, Litwa, 31 maja 2012