Abstract:

The scope of work of a special educator is very broad and it needs to cover many areas that could affect or disrupt a successful education of young individuals. The adolescence period is an important life milestone in which the personality of young people is developed and it puts them into new roles. Adolescents need new opportunities to test these roles and to adopt their own position in society. In this tumultuous period is very important a good support and attention from the school, family and their peers. If these basic needs are not fulfilled, we can encounter a pathological development which is necessary to detect in time and conduct in the right direction.

The submitted work focuses on the understanding of family influences on the development and progression of eating disorders in adolescent girls. The goals of the work were to find out what influence has a family and its typology on the development and progression of eating disorders in adolescent girls. Furthermore, to detect how the role of family changes during the occurrence of eating disorders in girls. Lastly, to introduce which factors in these families can be considered protective or risky to the treatment of these disorders. A qualitative technique was chosen for this research which included processing of four case studies based on precedent semi-structured interviews. The case studies were subjected to phenomenological research. All data were coded, categorized and analyzed in a way to disclose answers to the understanding of researched topic. The results were introduced by a method called card-sorting. In the end, the research questions were answered and the gained data were discussed.

An initiative for the research in this area was an experience from the school environment where eating disorders were often overlooked until the condition of the girls was alarming. This problematic is frequently overlooked because initially it does not directly disrupt schooling or their school performance. These discovered data bring to the educators a better understanding of what the girls are going through which allows them to provide better care and help not only to the affected girls but also to their families. For the educational society this work brings insight and better understanding of the given problematic, a motivation for cooperation with families, and topics for further research.

Keywords:

Special educator, eating disorders, adolescence, girls, school, family, typology of families, intervention, qualitative research, case study, the Czech Republic.