Situation of student with special educational needs in climate of classroom

This bachelor thesis is entitled "The situation of children with special educational needs in a classroom environment." Its objective is to map the position of integrated pupils with special educational needs in a classroom of intact children. Due to the extensive breakdown of the concept of pupils with special educational needs into several heterogeneous groups, a hearing impairment issue was chosen as the main subject of research. The thesis is divided into two parts - theoretical and practical. The first mentioned area is further divided into three chapters. At the end of the first and second sections, there is a summary of their contents. The first chapter addresses the definition of pupils with special educational needs. The following chapters focus on the definition of hearing impairment. They characterize deafness in terms of its type and degree of disability. Furthermore, the study targets the attitude towards an early diagnosis and its impact on the psychosocial and individual role of the school advisory facility used by this target group, e.g. within their individual integration. The second chapter focuses on the psychosocial climate of the classroom. The subchapters deal with the definition of the classroom as a social group and the classroom climate characterized by its co creators teachers, pupils and parents. The main theoretical basis consists of the specifics of the classroom climate, which influences the integration of a pupil with hearing impairment among the intact classmates. The last chapter of this section describes the research methodology used when working with surveyed students with hearing disabilities from South Bohemia, who were integrated individually into mainstream schools. A qualitative research was applied in this work, namely through the analysis of personal documents of the probands and using a sociometric survey. The first mentioned method contains the data of the probands provided by the Special Pedagogical Centre for the hearing impaired in České Budějovice and the individual educational plans of the analysed subjects. A sociometric survey of the relationships in the classroom was carried out using a specially designed test assignment for the whole class. The collected data were used to elaborate three case studies of selected students with a hearing impairment integrated into mainstream education classes. The evaluated sociometric test shows that a pupil with a hearing impairment does not always have to take up a position on the edge of the classroom; that such pupil can be an equal member of the class group. Two of the three probands assumed a position of an unpopular, and an overlooked classmate, who was rejected by the rest of the class. An exception is a proband, who, despite the heaviest degree of hearing defects, is a popular member of the classroom and has even assumed the position of a star. The analysis of personal data of the three probands and the positive elections reasoned for by the classmates showed that the position, which the examined subjects occupy in the classroom is likely to affect their personal attributes. The position, which the individual probands take in the class group can influence the degree of the presence of aspects which contribute to successful integration. Such factors also include attitudes towards the probands held by the classroom teachers, who are the most important co creators of the classroom climate. The issue of the integration of pupils with hearing disabilities into mainstream schools and of the positions taken by such pupils in class groups, the popularity of all their members and the interrelationships between classmates would deserve an expanding research, which would contribute to a closer specification of the survey results