Educating pupils with vision impairment and combined disability within mainstream education

This bachelor thesis is devoted to the education of children and students with visual impairments and other concurrent disabilities in the mainstream education. It is essential to note that I have not included the pupils with mental disabilities into the target group of this thesis, mainly because of the reason, that in case of the mental disability, the way of the education is being changed. The theoretical part is divided into three chapters. The first chapter focuses on the presentation of individual types of disabilities. The second chapter deals with the integration and its legislation, other ways of the education of students with visual impairments and concurrent disabilities and information about teacher assistants. The third chapter contains specifics of the education in particular types of disabilities (visual, auditory and physical disabilities and attention deficit disorders) and specifics of the education in the combination of the visual and other concurrent disabilities. Those impairments were chosen in connection with the practical part of the bachelor thesis. The practical part of the thesis has been defined by research objectives. The main objective is to analyse the education process at the pupils with the visual impairments and other concurrent disabilities in the mainstream education. To achieve this main objective, I chose three sub-goals. The first sub-goal is focused on the organization of lessons for the children with visual impairments and other concurrent disabilities in the mainstream education. With the help of the second research goal, I tried to find out the method of the teacher assistants´ preparation for the educational process and the third sub-goal deals with the motivation, experience and education of the teacher assistants. To meet the objectives of the practical part I chose qualitative methods of the data collection, i.e. structured interviews with open-ended questions, observations and document analysis. Most questions were posed to the teacher assistants in the interviews, then there were interviewed the teachers, especially classroom teachers and teacher of selected subjects. Those subjects were: Czech language, a foreign language, Mathematics and some of the subjects like Geography or History and some of the educational activities. Further there were made observations of the pupils with visual impairments and concurrent disabilities in their classes; they were held in preliminary specified lessons. The last used method was an analysis of the documents, specifically of the individual educational plans for four selected pupils with visual and concurrent disabilities, who are educated at the elementary or secondary mainstream schools. The target group of the bachelor thesis consists of four chosen pupils with visual impairment and other concurrent disabilities, their teachers and the teacher assistants. The research results show that the education of pupils with the visual impairment and other concurrent disabilities is possible at the adaptation of material, labour, pro-social conditions, in respect to a psycho-motoric pace of the pupils and with set rules for their stay in the classroom and in the resting place of the pupils with visual and other concurrent disabilities. As the adapted conditions there are meant modified materials enlarged texts, textbooks or overwriting of original texts and textbooks in the Braille writing. Furthermore, it is also a modification of the working environment of the pupils with visual impairments by using suitably positioned folding benches or benches with folding boards, lamps to illuminate the text and for the pupils with severe visual impairments, placing guide-lines, if they need them for their movement. Conditions must be adapted as well as to other concurrent disabilities that limit the individual even more. These include for example an orthopaedic chair, an adequate height of the working surface, a barrier-free access to school