In my master's thesis, I first define the terminology related to children with special needs and review the legislation that governs working with them. Due to the frequent misunderstanding of inclusion, as well as the challenges we still face in its practical implementation, the following chapters provide a detailed definition of inclusive education, various approaches and definitions, and an overview of the development of understanding inclusion over time. I cite various studies related to inclusion, revealing the challenges in implementing inclusive approaches in practice. Subsequently, I focus on the education of children with special needs in regular educational programs and describe the adaptations these children receive due to inclusive approaches.
Next, I define the school counseling service, its tasks, and the profiles of the employees who can work in it. I also review existing research on the qualifications of school counselors for working with children with special needs.
In the empirical part, I researched the attitudes of school counselors towards the inclusion of children with special needs and the impact of these attitudes on their behavior and support for these children. I also explored how different profiles of school counselors assess their professional competence in providing support and assistance to children with special needs and how they evaluate their cooperation with children, parents, teachers, the school, and external organizations.
To collect data, I used an open-ended questionnaire. I analyzed the data using qualitative research methods. I found that the opinions of the counselors on the inclusion of all groups of children with special needs are diverse, but they all support it. The participants believe that their competence to work with children with special needs increases with work experience, yet they observe a lack of formal knowledge when dealing with certain groups of children. The provision of additional professional support to children with special needs is often not tailored to their needs, as counselors do not report significant differences in implementation approaches. Cooperation with students, teachers, and parents is rated as very good, while collaboration with external institutions is somewhat lower. The findings of the research confirm the need to upgrade the education of future school counselors and to promote inclusive values among counselors, which would lead to more effective educational environments. Based on the research findings, I made recommendations to improve the practices of school counselors, which would contribute to better inclusion of children with special needs in the regular education system.
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