Additional expert assistance is intended for overcoming deficiencies, offering learning assistance and counselling. It also helps develop the functioning of the pupils, thereby improving their success and independence. However, to achieve positive results of such assistance, a number of criteria need to be met. The school must ensure experts, premises and accessories. It is also vital that both children with special needs and their peers have a good understanding of and experience with additional expert assistance. If children with special needs perceive additional expert assistance as a solid support of their education, they will become more successful. Their peers are also important in this respect, which is why they must understand and grasp the significance of expert assistance.
This research was based on a survey in order to explore the experience and understanding of additional expert assistance. The empirical part of the thesis analysed the experience and understanding of additional expert assistance among pupils with special needs and their peers. The sample involved 24 pupils with special needs and 173 pupils without special needs who are attending three elementary schools in the vicinity of Kranj. The data was collected through two survey questionnaires that were designed specifically for this research. They contained 16 closed-ended and semi-open questions.
The results indicated that pupils with special needs normally like the lessons with additional expert assistance, although they often feel embarrassed in front of their peers. Nevertheless, both groups of pupils showed adequate understanding of additional expert assistance. Based on other pieces of research and my own experience, I expected more statistically significant differences between their answers (pupils, pupils with special needs, girls, boys, younger and older pupils). That was only the case in one question where the girls knew more peers with special needs than boys.
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