The Principles of Working with Mentally Retarded and Physically Handicapped Children

Any handicap, that is, any physical deficiency, confronts the organism with the task of overcoming this handicap, making up for the deficiency, and compensating for the harm it causes. Therefore, the impact of the handicap is always twofold and contradictory: on the one hand, it weakens the organism, undermines its activity, and is a drawback; on the other, precisely because it hampers and disrupts the organism’s activity, it serves as a stimulus for greater development of other functions of the organism, prodding and impelling the organism to more intensive activity, which can compensate for the deficiency and overcome the difficulties. This is a general rule that is equally applicable to the organism’s biology and psychology: the minus of the handicap turns into the plus of the compensation, that is, the deficiency proves to be a stimulus for intensified development and activity. Two principal types of compensation are defined: direct, or organic, and indirect, or psychological. The former occurs mostly when one of the paired organs is damaged or removed. For example, when a kidney, a lung or the like is removed, the other, remaining paired organ compensatorily develops and assumes the functions of the diseased organ. Where direct compensation is impossible, the task is taken on by the central nervous system and the person’s psychic apparatus, creating over the diseased or deficient organ a protective superstructure of the higher functions that support the apparatus’s operation. In the view of A. Adler, sensing the deficiency of organs serves as a constant stimulus for the individual to develop his psychology. The education of a child with a physical handicap usually relies on indirect, psychological compensation, since direct, organic compensation of blindness, deafness, and similar deficiencies is not feasible.