The beginning of the system of assistance to children with visual disabilities: historical and bibliographical aspect

The scientific article reveals some of the historical facts of the beginning of helping children with visual impairments. The main chronological events of caring for children with the noted category of disorders are noted, which later became the basis for the development of special education, in particular, typhlopedagogy. The article describes the emergence of hospitals, shelters for orphans, sick and crippled people throughout Rus, which testifies to the attention of society to their lives. The facts of the search for ways of treatment and the development of methods, principles and means of teaching people with impaired psychophysical development are outlined. Based on the study of historical sources, the times of Kyivan Rus are characterized, when in some monasteries and churches premises were allocated for the residence of orphans and crippled children. There is information about the first institution in Ukraine, which was guarded by the problem of blind people, although it did not provide for special education and training for this category of persons. An important point of the article is the definition of the role of the state in the care of visually impaired persons. It is noted that in the 17th and 18th century in Ukraine, social work began to take care of orphans and people with disabilities. From the end of the 17th century, orphans and children of "mutilations" began to be in the care of shelters and hospitals, which was stipulated by a number of state decrees. In the 30s of the 18th century, a new form of guardianship over the disabled was introduced, patronage, which still exists in a modernized form. For a deeper retrospective of the state's assistance to children with visual impairments, it is necessary to investigate the facts of historical sources from the 18th century to the presen