Social Interaction of Primary School Students In Integrated Learning: Understanding Emotional States

The article explores and presents an analysis of the features of the social interaction of the primary school children with mild intellectual disability and those with typical development in conditions of integrated learning. The study reveals that the primary school children with mild intellectual disability need help in interaction with both peers and adults. The ability to understand emotional states is considered to be one of the factors facilitating social interaction. Methods of conversation and game situations were used to identify the levels of understanding the emotional states such as joy, fear, anger, anxiety, resentment, aggression, and to reveal signs that help students to identify emotions. The authors provide the methods of developing the ability to understand emotional reactions in the primary school children with mild intellectual disability. They argue that integrated learning is the right environment where social interaction positively affects both primary school students with and without mild intellectual disability. Keywords—social interaction; integrated learning environment; primary school students with mild intellectual disability; emotional