The increasing amount of children and adolescents, categorized as students with special needs, does not have a single disability/impairment, but more and more often we talk about the comorbidity of problems. Accordingly, specific learning difficulties in reading and writing oftentimes occur along with attention and hyperactivity disorders, as well as emotional and behavioral disorders.
The theoretical part of the master's thesis firstly introduces learning difficulties and emotional and behavioral disorders as well as their co-occurrence (comorbidity). In detail, we present the work of educational institutions in Slovenia, because Radeče Correctional Home, where they follow the goals and principles of the operational institutions in Slovenia, houses adolescents who have emotional and behavioral disorders. Since the empirical part was carried out in the correctional home, which is formally under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice, the theoretical part focused on studies that examined the prevalence of specific learning difficulties among prisoners, especially those involving juvenile offenders. Radeče Correctional Home is the only educational institution in Slovenia that is financed by the Ministry of Justice and not by the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport. Consequently, the theoretical part tries to show both sides of the operation and organization of the home.
The main goal of the master's thesis was to determine whether specific learning difficulties in reading and writing are more present among the adolescents of the Radeče Correctional Home than among their peers. In particular, we were interested in any specific reading and writing disorders that had not been detected in the past. To determine the presence of suspected dyslexia, we performed a Project include profiler in five adolescents, but no suspicion was detected in the test subjects. We confirmed this finding with a questionnaire, which we used to inquire about the history of learning difficulties in adolescents. We asked if they were categorized as primary students with special needs and what learning difficulties they encountered. Because we were interested in how they deal with the occurrence of specific learning difficulties in the home, we conducted a semi-structured interview with a teacher who teaches there. We found that specific learning difficulties are seldom present.
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