Often, a child‘s first contact with a book is connected with a picture book, which is, especially during the preschool period, usually read to the child by an adult. Reading picture books in the preschool period is not only important for a child‘s development in various areas, but also educates the child for life. Short texts, accompanied by many illustrations, open the door to a world unknown to children. They can break taboos, strive for wider social equality and help build bridges for often (still) ignored groups, such as persons with special needs. With the graduation thesis, I wanted to identify the attitudes of preschool teachers towards the use of picture books about special needs in the preschool period. In the theoretical part of the thesis, I presented the picture book, shed light on the topic of special needs in children‘s literature and described individual groups of children with special needs. I did some research online and on our market I also found some wonderful picture books about special needs, that preschool teachers can read to children in the kindergarten. In the empirical part of the graduation thesis, I used a questionnaire to investigate the attitudes and opinions of preschool teachers about the use of picture books about special needs in the preschool period. I found that preschool teachers are in favour (84%) of using picture books about special needs in the preschool period. I also checked the extent, to which preschool teachers already use picture books about special needs in their work. The results showed that only a minority of preschool teachers (33%) use them more than 3 times a year; most often picture books about children with emotional and behavioural disorders. I was also interested in how preschool teachers themselves evaluate their knowledge of people with special needs, which they pass on to children through the picture books. Preschool teachers rated their knowledge with an average grade (3.2), as neither good nor bad (67%). I believe that preschool teachers should use picture books about special needs more often in their work with childrenin the kindergarten, as they provide an excellent starting point for dealing with problematic topics with children in kindergarten and further discussions on this topic. For every pedagogic worker, dealing with the topic of special needs with children should become just another venture in his professional development and a challenge to consciously improve his knowledge in these areas, if he lacks it or does not yet feel empowered in these areas. The preschool teacher has the great privilege of being able, in addition to the parents, to help the child develop an empathetic and understanding attitude towards peers, who are different, also through reading such picture books, even in the early period of his development.
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