Abstract:

Good practice in teaching students with dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia depends on a number of factors. One of them certainly is admitting, accepting and respecting their differences. If children with difficulties are presented as such, then we can say that we often unrealistically evaluate their achievements and we restrict or protect them too much instead of giving them an encouragement to perform various activities. Working with such students is an exceptionally demanding task for teachers, not only for the specific teaching methods but also for the fact that these difficulties are sometimes generalized to the overall behavior of the student, claiming him/her irresponsible, lazy and disinterested in school. By ignoring the difficulties, constantly emphasizing negativity, not providing opportunities for affirmation, negative evaluation, often increasing the pressure of the environment, and the area of failure, besides the academic one, extends to emotional and social difficulties, and primarily include the inability to interact successfully with peers.

Therefore, at teacher training colleges in Croatia, these topics are represented in the syllabuses of courses, and, at some faculties, there are separate courses called Specific learning difficulties. There are parents associations of children with dyslexia and dysgraphia, the Croatian Association for Dyslexia, and there is almost no school without an employed speech therapist who works daily with children that have some specific learning difficulty.

The speech therapist cabinets where teachers and speech therapists participate are present in every larger city. In this context, the requirements for parental involvement are particularly emphasized. Speech therapists and teachers work with them. Parents of children with specific learning difficulties must actively participate with the aim of mitigating consequences that the difficulties may have on the child's image of itself, its attitude towards school and school obligations, will for learning, emotional state and the desire to socialize with peers. Constant support, understanding and patience are needed to reduce the fear of failure.
The Croatian legal framework and all the accompanying documents also emphasizes the importance of identifying and applying special methods in working with students with specific learning difficulties. Support models are not only limited to differentiate curricula but to individualized approaches, competences and partnership as well as learning results. All this with the aim of supporting and respecting diversity where inclusion is implemented in the real sense of the word, and where the pupil's achievements and talent are in first place, not his/her shortages.

Keywords:

Specific learning difficulties, dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, legal framework of the Republic of Croatia, speech therapist, parents' participation, parents' and teacher's cooperation.