CHARACTERISTICS OF RESEARCH METHODOLOGY DEVELOPMENT IN SPECIAL EDUCATION AND REHABILITATION

The aim of the text is to point out the developmental tendencies in the research methodology of special education and rehabilitation worldwide and in our country and to emphasize the importance of methodological training of students in special education and rehabilitation at the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje.The achieved scientific knowledge through research is the fundamental pre-condition for development of special education and rehabilitation theory and practice. The results of the scientific work sometimes cause small, insignificant changes, but, at times, they make radical changes. Thank to the scientific researches and knowledge, certain prejudices were rejected. For example, in the sixth decade of the last century there was a strong prejudice that mentally retarded children should be segregated from the society as aggressive and unfriendly ones or the deaf children should not learn sign language because they would not be motivated to learn lip-reading and would hardly adapt. Piaget and his colleagues from Geneva institute were the pioneers in researching this field and they imposed their belief that handicapped children were not handicapped in each field and they had potentials that could be developed and improved by systematic and organized work. It is important to initiate further researches in the field of special education and rehabilitation, as well as a critical analysis of realized researches. Further development of the scientific research in special education and rehabilitation should be a base for education policy on people with disabilities and development of institutional and non-institutional treatment of this population