Mariya А. Demina

One of the components of psychological readiness for schooling is speech readiness, which includes the correct pronunciation of all sounds of the native language, the formation of phonemic processes and word formation and inflection skills, as well as a sufficiently developed vocabulary. The highest level of speech development in older preschool children is the ability to express their thoughts coherently, logically and consistently and to construct an oral utterance so as to be understood by peers and adults in the process of communication. Children with primary speech development disorders are at risk in terms of speech readiness for school, since their oral speech deficits negatively affect cognitive, emotional and personal development and, in the future, will lead to persistent specific writing errors. Therefore, the issue of timely identification, correction and prevention of difficulties related to the acquisition of coherent speech in preschool children with speech impairments is important and relevant. The aim of this work is to study the ability to compose a story based on a series of plot pictures in children aged 6–7 years with general speech underdevelopment (Levels III–IV of speech development) who are educated in compensatory groups for children with severe speech disorders. The research drew on the psychological pedagogical approach to the classification of speech disorders, as well as psycholinguistic, individual and person-centered approaches. The results of the diagnostic experiment are presented: in older preschoolers with general speech underdevelopment, the stories based on a series of plot pictures show the greatest deficits in the structural organization of the text, grammatical sentence construction, grammatical coherence and expressiveness of speech; lesser impairments are observed in the independence of sequencing the pictures and composing the story, thematic and semantic unity, and the lexical component. The theoretical significance of the work lies in the analysis and synthesis of national and international studies on the topic. The practical significance – the qualitative results obtained during the study on the ability of preschool children with general speech underdevelopment can be used by speech therapists to develop correctional and developmental programs for the development of coherent speech in preschoolers with severe speech disorders.