Distorted development: the elaboration of Victor Lebedinsky’s ideas

This paper provides promising areas of the research of laws and mechanisms of distorted children’s development. The paper is based on the results of the analysis and compilation of empirical data of the author’s longitudinal study of mental development of 170 children with autistic spectrum disorders who were hospitalized in the children’s psychiatric hospital N 6 in Moscow in 1997-2015 years more than once, and 36 children with certain autistic features who were adapted well enough to mass kindergartens and schools in 2010-2015 years. In our research we try to develop several key ideas of V. V. Lebedinsky on the distorted development in the following ways: 1) the study of an uneven development of physical functions by using not only the model of speech development, but the model of development of different kinds of symbolic activity as well; 2) the different types of abnormal links (isolation, confusion, adhesiveness, fixation, star-type links) in regard to the different types of behavior, symbolic activity, emotional states and types of the child’s contact with other people are explored; 3) the different factors, including the restored attachment with close people and the role of child’s personal activity in choosing productive development or refusal from the development in key fields, which determine a high variability of distorted development, are studied; 4) the method of therapeutic observation is being worked out which is based on the identification and support of the natural mechanisms of compensation of distorted development and on the thorough knowledge of adaptive forms of distorted development which are spreading fast in the modern population.

autistic spectrum disorders, distorted development, affective-behavioural complex, attachment, symbolic activity, therapeutic observation