| Maria Montessori was the first woman in Italy to receive a medicaldegree and was a celebrated preschool female-educationist in our world.Although she engaged in the special education for a short time and hadno any monograph of the special education, but she was also high up inthe pictures. Dr. Montessori succeeded in the treatment of the handicappedand developmentally delayed children through the sensorial educationmethod. Sensorial education, one of the most important measures for theespecial children, played a very important role in the educationexperiment.Montessori sensorial education for the special children wasinfluenced deeply by Friedrich Froebel, Johnn Heinrich Pesstalozzi, Jean.M. Itard and Edouard Seguin. In addition, the productions of the medicine,physiology and biology impacted on this kind of education measure.Maria Montessori thought that the sensorial education had five basicsenses——visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory (smell) and gustatory(taste). Dr. Montessori was as astonished as anyone at the realizedpotential of these children. She believed that every human being has asensitive period from birth to six. This sensitive period makes thesensorial education possible and is the basic foundation. During asensitive period it is very easy to teach children certain concepts thatlater on will be somewhat more difficult for an older child to learn. Inaddition, the sensorial education was of great benefit to theirintelligence, psychology and character. According to the character of thedevelopmentally delayed children, there were several basic rules tosensorial education put in practice.Of course, the Montessori sensorial education system has a littlecontroversial aspect. For example, some people thought that the isolatedsensorial education can influenced the whole progress of thedevelopmentally delayed children. Others thought that could not stimulatethe creativity of them. But It was undeniable that the sensorial educationfor the developmentally delayed children contributed greatly to the worldeducation and the special education.There are eight parts in this paper. The introduction puts forwardthe purpose, the literature summary, research methods and steps. Chapterone analyses the origin of the sensorial education. Chapter two to fourexpound the signification, contents, purpose, meaning and effect of it.Chapter five to six analyze the rules and sensorial equipments. Finally,in tag part, the author brings forward the shortage of the sensorialeducation and the influence in the area of the special education or thenormal education. |
