In middle and late childhood, the role of peers becomes more pronounced than that of parents. An individual spends a lot of time with their peers, so they have a very important role to play in social life. Developing the necessary skills for sociality, trust, deepening relationships and enhancing a sense of belonging. Students who are often rejected by peers become behaviorally difficult, and peer rejection can also affect their learning success. Research shows that students with disabilities, including students with specific learning disabilities (SLD), have difficulties in establishing peer relationships, are less popular, have fewer friendships, and are less likely to participate as active members of the group. Non-SLD students who have contact with SLD students achieve higher scores in accepting and understanding otherness. These students are more aware of the strengths and weaknesses of students with SLD, they prefer to help them, and become more empathetic with regard to the deficits of students with SLD.
Due to the extreme importance of peers, we have organized awareness-raising workshops for students with SLD and students without SLD. Raising awareness is important because, on the one hand, we help to increase the involvement and performance of students with SLD, and on the other hand, their peers without SLD acquire socially relevant knowledge and skills to coexist with others. In the theoretical framework, we present the importance of peers and their views in the context of inclusive education in relation to students with SLD and the importance of inclusion of students with SLD in the social group. For students without SLD and with SLD, we prepared four experiential learning workshops to help students learn about the characteristics of students with SLD, the strengths and weaknesses of these students, and their specific needs. The aim of the master's thesis is to examine whether the SLD workshops influence on the change of attitudes and knowledge of peers without a SLD, to peers with a SLD and to increase the inclusion of students with SLD in the social environment. With the help of the questionnaire we checked the attitudes and knowledge of the students about the SLD, before and after the workshops. Before and after the workshops, we also conducted a sociogram showing the involvement of students with SLD in the group. The survey included 30 fifth- and sixth-graders, five of whom have SLD. The results of the research showed that the workshops had a positive effect on the attitudes and knowledge in students, in relation to the knowledge of the SLD. After the workshops, students are more aware of the SLD, their problems and the importance of adaptation on study work for students with SLD. After the workshops, the sociometric index increased in four out of five students with SLD.
The master's thesis we represent some workshops that we can perform with students to ensure greater involvement of students with SLD. As part of the outreach, we have prepared a newspaper with students that will spread the importance of raising awareness of SLD throughout the entire school.
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