THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF ENHANCING SOCIO-ECONOMIC KNOWLEDGE OF STUDENTS WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES AT GEOGRAPHY LESSONS

Abstract

The article is devoted to highlighting the problem of enhancing socio-economic geographical knowledge in students with intellectual disabilities, revealing the role of school geography in economic socialization and professional labor adaptation of graduates in the conditions of a market economy. The importance of the school course “Geography of Ukraine” in enhancing socio-economic knowledge of high school students of special secondary education institutions is revealed. An analytical review of theoretical and empirical research within the framework of the outlined problem proved that scientists directed their efforts at improving methodological approaches to the study of social and economic geography of Ukraine, revealing pedagogical ways of forming economic and geographical concepts at geography lessons in a special school. Special attention is focused on the analysis of the practical experience of enhancing students’ socio-economic knowledge at geography lessons in the conditions of traditional education. On the basis of a survey of geography teachers of special secondary education institutions in different regions of Ukraine, the results of the answers regarding the importance of geographic knowledge of a socioeconomic nature in teaching and upbringing of high school students with intellectual disabilities, correction of their cognitive activity, social and labor adaptation are summarized. Some features of the subject-methodological competence of special school teachers in the socio-economic geography of Ukraine were identified, pedagogical conditions and optimal methods and techniques for the formation of geographical ideas and concepts of socio-economic direction among schoolchildren were determined. The analysis of the obtained results made it possible to state the need to take into account in the practical activities of teachers the specifics of enhancing socio-economic knowledge of students with intellectual disabilities at geography lessons, which is due, on the one hand, to a high level of abstraction of socio-economic learning material, and on the other – to the peculiarities of understanding and assimilation by this category of children with complex nature of inter-conceptual connections and cause-and-effect dependencies.