Children with Special Needs and Developmental Disorders in the Diaries of E.K. Gracheva: History of the Concept and Methodology of Curative Education

This paper presents an analysis of Ekaterina Konstantinovna Gracheva's diaries, which are a unique source on her work with children with special needs and developmental disorders at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. Gracheva developed progressive principles of work with children, but adhered to a segregationist approach, separating children with different types of diagnoses, which was the beginning of disinclusiveness, a problem that is still relevant today. An examination of the contradiction between Gracheva's progressive practical achievements and her contribution to the isolation of children with special needs in Russia leads to a question about the evolution of thought, perception, and the structural design of the field of pathology. Methodologically important to the work is the question of the concepts and linguistic structures that shaped the perception of children with developmental disabilities, as well as the socioeconomic context, the influence of European experience, and the religious grounding in the development of the discourse on special childhood. An analysis of the diaries allows us to trace how categories of perception of children with special needs have been transformed and what results this has led to in therapeutic pedagogy now.