Early childhood is one of the key periods in the development of an individual. Inadequate or insufficient care for the child can have serious consequences for his further development. Numerous studies prove the influence of early experience on an individual's cognitive, emotional, social and physical development. For this reason, there is a set of services and activities of special support intended for children with special needs and children with high risk factors during development in pre-school and their families, called early childhood intervention. In the master's thesis I will analyse three areas of early intervention of children with special needs in two neighbouring countries, Slovenia and Croatia. These areas are: defining the early childhood intervention of children with special needs, the scope of existing legislation and relevant documents, and the field of implementation and realisation of early childhood intervention. Depending on the country's rule of law, it depends on how the early childhood intervention of pre-school children with special needs will be implemented and developed. Results of empirical data have shown that in practice parents and experts in both the countries encounter themselves with different advantages and disadvantages, even more so, each individual interviewee has diverse good and bad experiences in this area of practice. Slovenian interviewees see a problem in the over encumbered medical sector and too few experts employed in the field of early development, which they view as a result of limited financial support from the country. Croatian interviewees determine the problem is in the poor interdepartmental connections, lacking legislation, and inadequate funding. Interviewees of both the countries see the advantage of early development in the collaboration and interdisciplinary work of professionals.
|
