TEENS’ COPING/NON-COPING WITH COMMUNICATION DIFFICULTIES IN A SPECIAL BOARDING SCHOOL SETTING

Abstract

The paper focuses on teenagers` with special needs communicative stress and coping. Russia has little experience in inclusive education and adolescents with special needs (health impairments:  auditory, visual, speech and motor) as a rule study in special boarding schools. Similar phenomena in typically developed teenagers (12-13 yrs old, n = 100) and their peers having visual (n = 30), auditory (n = 30), speech (n = 25) and motor (n = 15) disorders are compared: communication difficulties, stress experience and coping strategies. Results show teenagers` with special needs vulnerability and disadvantage: only part of them use resources and overcome communication difficulties successfully, while the others are not able to cope with chronic communicative stress.