In the master's thesis, we investigate the mental health of adolescents with specific learning difficulties. The definition of mental health includes the experiences, thoughts, and behaviours that enable an individual to cope with the challenges of everyday life. Various factors influence the mental health of students (e.g. personal characteristics, environmental factors), which can either serve as protective factors or risk factors for their functioning and development. Sometimes risk factors cannot be eliminated, so it is important to strengthen the protective ones. In this context, school counselling services and other institutions that provide support in the area of mental health play a crucial role. In the empirical part, we present the research design and results, where we were interested in the characteristics of the mental health of adolescents with specific learning difficulties. The research consisted of both a quantitative (questionnaire) and qualitative (interview) part. The quantitative part included 52 adolescents with specific learning difficulties, attending the 6th, 7th, 8th, or 9th grade of elementary school. The adolescents completed a questionnaire that was developed based on the freely available Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale for Youth (DASS-Y, Psychology Foundation of Australia, 2022). The results showed that the mental health of adolescents with specific learning difficulties did not significantly deviate from the norm and no differences in mental health were found regarding gender, grade, or co-occurrence of learning difficulties. On average, adolescents rated their mental health as moderate to very good, and this rating was statistically significantly correlated with the mental health scores obtained from the DAS-M questionnaire. Only a good third of the adolescents answered that their teachers were aware of their mental health issues. In the qualitative part of the research (interview), six special and rehabilitation educators, employed as providers of additional professional support, participated. They stated that they also act preventively in the area of students' mental health, both in direct work with students and in their work with the class and at the school level. Most of the time, they identified students' mental health issues themselves, using their own observations during work with the students, as well as conversations with the students, their parents, and class teachers. They highlighted various risk factors for poor student mental health, but their responses varied slightly regarding how frequently students with specific learning difficulties experience mental health problems. They also mentioned that they respond to emerging mental health issues in different ways, emphasizing the importance of quality collaboration among school staff, parents, and external professionals. According to the special and rehabilitation educators, mental health is an important and current topic on which they would like to receive additional professional training.
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