SOCIAL INTEGRATION OF YOUTH WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES: CURRENT DIRECTIONS OF DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

Young people with intellectual disabilities are persons who have qualitative and quantitative deviations in the development of mental abilities and have completely or partially lost the ability to independently perform certain functions as a result of illness, injury or birth defects. Support for social integration of youth with intellectual disabilities at the state level is expressed in the functioning of a system of institutions that solve individual tasks of this process. In particular, a state policy of tolerance for persons with intellectual disabilities is being formed, mechanisms are being implemented to ensure constitutional rights and freedoms, and equal opportunities are being implemented in all spheres of society. The legislative framework in Ukraine acts as the main tool that guarantees persons with intellectual disabilities to receive quality services, which include correctional and pedagogical work, care, protection of rights, treatment, etc. The initial stage of social integration of youth with intellectual disabilities is the deployment of meaningful activities of educational institutions (special and inclusive) and complex rehabilitation in Ukraine, which, in particular, are able to successfully implement social adaptation of persons with intellectual disabilities through propaedeutic complex (social, emotional and cognitive) development of each child so that he/she feels like a unique, full-fledged participant in social life. Accordingly, the priority directions for the further development of the system of social integration of young people with intellectual disabilities include the following: further improvement of the legislative and regulatory framework, improvement of the organizational and methodological foundations of the activities of institutions of inclusive education and comprehensive rehabilitation, increase in the transparency and accessibility of social services, systematic information policy aimed at humanizing society's attitude towards persons with various types of developmental disorders.