The development of potential of students with a creative approach to education

Abstract

The article presents a fragment of a research project devoted to studying the impact of the musical influence system on the mental development of mentally retarded children. The author’s approach to the criterion-oriented assessment of the levels of preschoolers’ psychomotor development is applied. Three estimated levels of children’s psychomotor development are used to assess both the actual features of this development and potential opportunities. The ascertaining experiment made it possible to reveal a significant motor impairment in mentally retarded children of theageof 6–7: difficulties in performing movements in accordance with the instructions; disorders of motor and spatial coordination; decreased motor memory; distortions of tempo, rhythm, and amplitude of movements (63.6%). The development program “Music and Dance of My Body” made it possible to actualize the children’s psychomotor potential through musical-motor improvisation. The program was aimed at developing a sense of rhythm, motor skills, forming correct posture, children’s expressive movements and facial expressions, spatial coordination. The program allowed increasing the percentage of children with an average level of psychomotor development from 33.9% to 57.0%. According to the results of the control stage, the dynamics of development were statistically significant at a high level of reliability (p = 0.001).