New manual on caring for children with severe developmental disabilities
18.07.2018
An information and instructional manual entitled “Improving care for children with severe and multiple developmental disabilities” will be extremely useful for parents, charity staff and doctors. This is an illustrated document, 110 pages in length. An electronic version is available on: https://rosmintrud.ru.
The manual explains how to organise daily motor activity of children with severe and multiple developmental disabilities, how to carry out hygiene procedures and feed children, as well as how to occupy their free time. The book’s authors have drawn on the latest and most innovative global practices as well as their own professional experiences.
The manual has been developed by the Centre for Curative Pedagogics, with support from the Sberbank Charity Foundation’s “A contribution to the future”. The book’s editors are Anna Bitova, Director of the Centre for Curative Pedagogics, and Olga Boyarshinova, musical and motor specialist.
“Similar instructional materials have been available nationally for a while now, but none of them have really been attuned to Russian realities. Other national guidance and manuals have often suggested that children with severe developmental disabilities are unteachable and that their lives will never change. We expect these children will have a life which is considered normal and adequate by 21st century standards. This new approach is laid down in our methodological recommendations and in this sense they are innovative”, said Anna Bitova.
According to the authors the manual should help in changing the higher education system in the field of curative pedagogy. It also aims to attract the involvement of highly qualified professionals to work with children suffering from severe and multiple developmental disabilities.
The manual will also be useful to organisations that provide help to children with mental and other developmental difficulties, as well as their parents.
“This guidance describes the guiding principles in improving care which is essential for all those who work with children with special developmental needs. These are principles that respect a child’s personality, an individual approach, enhance the formation of basic life skills, guide the development of a child’s behaviour and social integration”, said Jan Zhuravlev, Head of “Inclusive Environment” at Sberbank’s Charitable Foundation’s “A contribution to the future”.
