DESCRIPTORS: Abilitation, rehabilitation, special education, educational research, educational psychology, pedagogical rehabilitation, educational abilitation space.
SYNOPSIS: I.P. Chepuryshkin provides definitions for the relatively new term, “educational abilitation space,” recently introduced in European special education circles to describe that field of work which focuses on assisting young learning disabled children to adapt and function in their personal environments.

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Introduction: A Definition of Rehabilitation

The concept of an “abilitational component” in education all the more frequently has become a subject for pedagogical research. This category of education entails such concepts as “rehabilitation,” “educational space” and “abilitation” or “adaptation by means of alternatives.”

In a literal translation from Latin, “rehabilitation” means “restoration or renewal.” In France and French speaking countries it is used to convey the understanding of “re-adaptation,” which means a restoration of the patient’s level of adaptability for change or alteration. The concept of rehabilitation is also used in the juridical, medical, and psychological fields. The juridical aspect of rehabilitation allows for restoration of the good name and legal rights of a person through the power of the acknowledgment of former guilt. Medical rehabilitation is essentially similar to medical treatment. The difference lies in the fact that the basic treatment produces a medical-biological restoration of the organism, but the essential goal of medical rehabilitation is the medical-social restoration of certain fundamental activities.

Educational psychology is replete with a wide variety of  research topics on the concept of rehabilitating children as can be seen in such examples as the educational rehabilitation work of A.V. Gordeyeva, V.V. Morozov, and others; the social rehabilitation findings of S.G. Vershlovskii and N.S. Morova; the psychological-medical-pedagogical rehabilitation writings of T.Z. Volkova; the educational-psychological rehabilitation efforts of N.F. Velikhanov; the social-pedagogical rehabilitation research of S.A. Belicheva, M.V. Zhdanova, S.A. Raschetina, A.B. Chistova, and others; and the medical-pedagogical rehabilitation discoveries of R.V. Ovcharova.

The term, “rehabilitation,” is used by the pedagogues of our homeland in connection with preventive activities. According to the thinking of R. V. Ovcharova, rehabilitation is the complex, multilevel, multi-stage, and dynamic system of mutually connected activities directed at the restoration of a person’s rights, status, health, and energy in his own eyes and in the face of his surroundings. It also includes preventing and correcting any divergence or decline. [6]

N.S. Morova expands upon this concept and defines social-pedagogical rehabilitation as the process of providing for the inclusion of purposeful and beneficial educational influences into the surroundings of an individual with problems. Up to the present time in the field of education, there is still no settled and accepted definition of the concept of “pedagogical rehabilitation.” [5]

Pedagogical Rehabilitation

Throughout the files of scientific research, the essential substance of the concept of “pedagogical rehabilitation” reveals itself through the status of the integrated pedagogical, psychological, medical, and social functioning of those elements which prove to be a beneficial influence on the restoration of the life force of a child, on his physical health, his psyche, his behavior, the state of his vital activities, the prevention and treatment of pathological conditions, and on prevention, correction, and compensation for learning and formational difficulties (B.V. Almazov, S.A. Belicheva, N.P. Vaizman, V.K Zaretskii, G. F. Kymarina, N. S. Morova, L. M. Shipitsyna, and others).

In the opinion of A.V. Gordeyeva, the rehabilitation approach differs from correction in that it relies on the internal restorative potential of the individual. Proceeding from this, she defines the pedagogical rehabilitation approach as a process and the result of maximally restoring to a reasonable child, his integrity, harmony of being, and interaction with the surrounding world, as well as his active ability for self-realization. [3]

Gordeyeva’s definition of rehabilitation in the socio-educational context places a high degree of importance on the creation of a favorable social situation by developing and restoring an individual’s positive attitude toward his environment. Quite a few of our national researchers like V.G. Bocharova, A.B.Orlov, Yu.C. Manuilov, A.B. Mudrik, V.D. Semenov and others, value the factors of development and socialization and also consider the social environment to possess a valuable potential for rehabilitation.

Educational Space

The concept of “educational space” has become a phenomenon of pedagogical reality. An analysis of scientific publications concerning themselves with “educational space” allows us to pick out several supportive examples of this phenomenon:

• Space is a developed and adaptive natural, cultural, social, or even informational environment for solutions of educational problems.
• The concepts, “environment” and “space,” are not identical. The environment is a reality which isn’t represented by the results of the constructive activity of a person. Space is the result of the educational development of this reality.
• The educational space isn’t formed per se or by command from above. It is born internally from educational reality thanks to specially organized activities.
• Educational space grows out of the humanistic factors in children’s lives and education. It will be successful provided it: can become an area dedicated to children’s commonalities; is completely suitable; has significance for children in that it helps them find answers to their vital questions; and provided the children perceive it as their very own territory for which they take responsibility.
• The creation of educational space includes internal processes that are connected with a choice of priorities for pedagogical activities and external factors which include familiar commonalities found in the surrounding environment of children and adults. [8]

It is well known that “environment” is considered by researchers as one of the most important components of the educational system. Through familiarity with it, children are able to form and develop: opinions and values in relation to their world and culture; consciousness of themselves in their world; their self-concept; and their place among the other people in their lives.  Educational space ought to be unified. This is its essential characteristic. Experience demonstrates that this is not produced spontaneously. One may succeed in creating a unified educational space as long as both internal and external forces are directed at the achievement of such a unity.

The Concept of Abilitation and Some Fundamental Attempts at a Definition

The following are some ideas that are related to the concept of “abilitation.” At this moment in time, there is no agreement among authors who concern themselves with this idea. More than that, we can not find a precise definition in the educational psychology literature, special education textbooks concerned with special education pedagogy or even in educational psychology books dealing with special education. As used in Denmark and Sweden, the concept of “abilitation” is close to the concept of “normalization.” In translation from the Latin, “habilitation” (from Medieval Latin, “habilitate,” meaning to make fit) literally signifies “a presentation of rights and abilities; provision for the formation of abilities” and is employed at times in child psychiatry in respect to a person who has been suffering from an early age from some physical or psychological defect.

In Medicine, psychology, and educational literature, “abilitation” is often used similarly to “rehabilitation.” In medical literature the most precise division of the elements of the concept is considered in the textbook written by the noted neuro-pathologist L.O. Badalyan who states that “abilitation” is the system of medical-educational function which has as its goal the prophylactic treatment of very young children who have not adapted to their social environment, and it concerns that pathological state or condition which they demonstrate through their inability to work, learn, and be a full member of society. [1]

“Rehabilitation,” however, is a system of medical and educational functions directed at the prophylactic treatment of a pathological condition which can bring about a temporary or persistent loss of the work capacity. The goal of rehabilitation is to restore, by way of the individual’s potential, the ability to live and work in his usual environment.

“Abilitation” on the other hand deals with those cases where the pathological condition of the disabled patient sprang up in very early childhood. A very young child has not yet formed normal motor stereotypes, as well as gnostic-praxical (knowledge from interactions with the environment), and speech functions. A young child with such personal educational needs does not possess the ability to take matters into his own hands and has not had sufficient life experiences from which to learn.

“Rehabilitation” speaks to those cases where the patient already had already gained some social experience and socially healthy activities. 

“Abilitation” concerns itself, then, with making provision for the medical and educational rectification of the motor, mental, and speech spheres for very children as they proceed for the first time up through the learning process.

“Rehabilitation,” in turn, provides such measures in the treatment of children of older ages and for grown ups who have moved up through the learning process but need to re-learn some functions or activities.

G. Sergeyeva links “abilitation” with preventative maintenance disruptions in the child’s development. In her opinion, “rehabilitation” is a complex medical, educational, and social measure directed at the restoration (or compensation) of a disruption of an organism’s operations, social functioning, and ability of the patient to operate normally. “Abilitation” describes those maintenance activities designed to prevent possible disruptions in the early stages of the development of a child as well as work with the children having individual educational needs. [7]
An interesting point of view is presented to us by O. A. Gerasimenko and R.P. Dimenshtein which considers the concept of “abilitation” in comparison to the concepts of adaptation and integration. These two authors reckon “abilitation” to be the creation of new possibilities, or the increase of social potential which is to say the possibility of the person to be an achiever within a given community. A question arises concerning a child’s development of those functions and abilities which normally mature without special efforts from the people surrounding him, but for a child with problems, these activities are able to develop only as a result of the intensive activity of a specialist. [2]

Adaptation is the suitable attainment of an accumulated social potential within the given community.

Integration is the process within the framework of which a given community provides the conditions for the acquisition of the maximum social potential of each individual of that community. The problem of integration is not able to be decided from the outside. This problem is able to be decided only from within the community itself. Integration is the mutual adaptation of an individual and society, one to/with the other. In the course of this process the individual adapts himself to the society and the society takes the necessary steps to adapt to this individual.

We point out a similar position held by D. N. Isayeva who stresses that the “abilitation” of children with mental retardation highlights the stimulating potential of the psyche and motility of the child through the correction of defects in his development; by the treatment of accompanying somatic-neurological disruptions/disturbances; and the correction of any declination in the emotional and rational spheres from the goal of developing optimal skills for social adaptation. [4]

Conclusions and a Definition of “Abilitation” and “Abilitational-Educational Space”

The foregoing allows us to arrive at the following working definition of the concept of “abilitation” which we shall describe as “any adaptively developed activity that stimulates the potential for children’s organic opportunities directed at the development of optimized skills for social adaptation, the creation of new possibilities, or increased social potential for the person to achieve in a given society.

In our opinion, educational abilitation space is a specific organization of the various powerful elements (medical people, psychologists, educators, speech therapists, parents) in the environment of a learning disabled child which are cleverly integrated in order to create conditions for optimal skill development in social adaptation and to provide opportunities for the child to utilize these acquired skills under natural conditions in his social surroundings. [8]

An important characteristic of “abilitation” is its systematic organization which takes into consideration such aspects as: concepts, structures, and substrata. In an adjusted “educational abilitation space” which is already essentially a humanitarian system (wherein the person develops out of the ego), the conceptual standard provides for common ideas, vision, and presentation of the concept of “abilitation” among the participants of the particular community under consideration. This process guarantees a unified pedagogical strategy for a “vertical and horizontal” orientation on the child’s personality, on the development of his abilities, on the creation of security in his social environment. All of this significantly influences the increase of self-evaluation and social status of the child as well as the development of his internal potential for self-realization.

The structural standard for “educational abilitation space” introduces its own systematically formed attitudes which spring up among the subjects of a particular space on the way to realization of their own “abilitational” functions.   This field of dialogue was created by a complex interaction of all elements for the sole purpose of engaging a learning disabled child within the boundaries of the entire municipality (of the region) in the goal of attaining his own “abilitation,” adaptation and integration into the world around him.

In other words, treatment consists in the systematic construction of a functional “abilitation” space. The various elements of the space are subdivided into the passive sphere which includes everything found in the “abilitational” environment and the active sphere which contains the subjects of the organizational structure: the children, parents, and specialists of the medical, social, and educational services.

The characteristic parameters of “educational abilitation space” are its multi-dimensionality, extent, and density. As practice shows, any “abilitational” space includes within itself diverse other spaces ( in our case these are educational, hygienic, informational subspace, psychological services, the protective social services, etc). Nevertheless, it is the essential quality of integrity that provides the effective influence of “abilitational” space on the personality of the subject child. The heterogeneity of elements in a steady “educational abilitation space” provide for its integrity and stability. The connected elements function under the influence of a single concept which is focused on the optimal social adaptation and integration of each individual child.      

Naturally each “educational abilitation space,” by itself, is as specific and unique as the personality of the particular child. However, the general as well as the particular is revealed just as in the individual development of the person where the laws of psycho-physiological growth reveal themselves. Therefore, as it reveals itself to us, we have the ability to abstract from the concrete, real experiences of these or other areas and single out the very concept of “abilitational-educational space” as a pedagogical category which reflects the defined phenomenon of educational reality.

References:

• Badalyan, L.O., Neuropathology: A Textbook. 2nd edition, Moscow; published in “Academia,” 2003, p.368.
• Gerasimyenko, O.  A., Dimenshtein, R.P., “A Few Words on the Question of Integration,” http://www.detisite.ru/experts/integration/
• Gordeyeva, A.B. Concepts of Pedagogical Rehabilitation in General Education School Situations. The Scientific Methodology Textbook, Moscow; “Academia,” 2001. p. 34.
• Isayev, D.N. “The Protection of Children as a Pedagogical Concept,” Concerning Humanistic Education Under Contemporary Conditions, Moscow, 1995, pp.47-64.
• Morova, N.C., Foundations for the Social and Educational Rehabilitation of Children with Limited Capabilities, An abstract from her doctoral dissertation in pedagogical science, Moscow, 1998, p. 38.
• Ovcharova, R.V., Handbook of Social Pedagogy, Moscow, 2001, p.478.
• Sergeyeva, T.A., “School Center of Integrative Instruction and Diagnostics: A New Type of Educational Institution for Children with Developmental Differences,” Defectology (a journal for specialists in mental and handicaps), Issue number 5, 1993, pp. 58-59.
• Chepuryshkin, I.P., “A Model for the Educational Component of Boarding Schools for Children with Limited Abilities,” An abstract of his dissertation as a candidate doctor of pedagogical sciences, Izhevsk, 2006, p. 28.