Abstract:

The issue of the identification of children at risk of specific learning disabilities (SLD) in pre-school and younger school age, as well as the subsequent intervention of these individuals belong to the current issues discussed at the (special) educational theory and practice. The issue of children at risk of developing SLD is comprehensively addressed in relation to the pre-primary and primary education of these children as well as in the context of special educational intervention of children at risk of developing SLD. We often encounter the so-called SLD predictors in the pre-school period in children who are diagnosed with SLD in later school age. Typical symptoms of children at risk of SLD include difficulties in rhyming, deficits in tests of phonological awareness, problems with rapid appointing/naming of visual stimuli (pictures, letters), delayed speech development compared to their peers. The working process, repeat the activity according to predefined rules, which is associated with impaired ability to internally plan activities, automate x-times repeated instruction). Deficits are also manifested in these children in acquiring isolated numbers, letters, as well as in the area of their subsequent linking. There are also manifestations of hyperactivity, attention deficit disorder (ed. comorbidity with SLD in 30-50%) and deficits in vocabulary identified with these children. They have problems in pronunciation, problems interacting with their peers, difficulties in gross and fine motor skills. Other predictors include ineptness in dealing with obstacles and uneven ground, reduced quality in motor co-ordination, reduced quality of hand-eye co-ordination, as well as impaired quality of space perception, there are deficits in the area of right-left orientation, etc. In children with a risk of specific developmental learning disorders we can often encounter with dyspraxia, limited ability/inability to follow instructions (= comply with the rules, comply with The present research is aimed at verifying the prevalence of SLD development of pre-school and primary school age children, in the context of the prevention of learning difficulties development (i.e. in reading, writing and counting) stemming from the identified deficits in particular functions that appear after a child starts school attendance. The research was conducted from March 2015 to June 2015 in randomly selected kindergartens and primary schools in the Czech Republic. The research sample consisted of 1,000 children aged 5.5 to 7.5 years. In order to identify children at risk of SLD, questionnaire and test methods were used. Namely, they were modified form of the Scale of Dyslexia Risk (Bogdanowicz, M.), Test of Risk Disorders for Reading and Writing for early school-children (Švancarová, D., Kucharská, A.) and a test for the Evaluation of Aural Hearing in pre-school children (Škodová, E.et al.). Within the pilot stage, an analysis of the data collected (so far) from 100 children (50 boys x 50 girl) has been implemented, which shows a prevalence of about 2% of SLD development in children in that age category, while the incidence rate of the SLD development risk in the pilot sample is 1 girl per 3 boys. The specialised text presents not only the research results, but also the outline of possible options to reduce the risk of special learning disabilities in children with the identified deficits in particular functions, using special intervention programs.

Keywords:

Risk of specific learning disabilities, specific learning disabilities, pre-school and younger school age, early recognition of symptoms, diagnostics.