The work deals with the problems of people with autism spectrum disorders and their individual and group integration. The first part of my paper deals with the general characteristics of the different types of autism spectrum disorders, their problem areas, which is a social behavior, communication and imagination and play. The important part is the chapter on integration, which aims to become familiar with its characteristics, possibilities and related legislation. The empirical part deals with the influence of the triad of behavioral manifestations of a child with high-functioning autistic child and a description of their impact on the area of individual and group integration over four years of experience. In this work is shown and described healthy development of the child, with which it is compared individual and group integration. For better orientation is the development of all three lines of development recorded in the chart.

Autism is a serious development impairment which is characterized by impaired communication and ability to develop relationships with other people, urgent need of permanence and other symptoms that seriously affect the life of an individual and people in their surroundings. The situation of autistic people in the Czech Republic is becoming better and better every year. Although the improvement of the services and care of autistic people is provable it is still impossible to consider the current situation satisfying. The objection of the diploma work was to find out the extent and quality of the comprehensive attitude to children with autistic spectrum impairments and to map the care of these children and their families. The research group consisted of four children with autism diagnosis in cooperation with their families. The research took place in day- and week-centres in Jihlava, while all the respondents used the service of the week-centre. The methodology of the diploma work is based on the principles of the qualitative research. The following methods and techniques of data collection were used in order to achieve the objective: method of participant observation, content analysis of documents, technique of half-controlled discussion and they were gradually completed during the survey. The basic concept of the comprehensive attitude to autistic children and their families is characterized by a purposeful interdisciplinary interconnection of care in the social, heath and educational area. It is logical that such pervasive affection as autism requires cooperation of many specialists of assisting professions and such assistance thus connects different areas of services to people. Facilities providing services in the field of social and educational services and guidance are irreplaceable as far as ensuring a functioning system that guaranties quality of social services, guidance and help to autistic children and their families is concerned. The only possible attitude is a better understanding of the world of the autistic people that differs from our ideas and practices so much. The contribution of my diploma work lies in the possibility to utilize its results in the field of ensuring a quality effective systematic care of children suffering from autism and their families.

This disertation focuses on people with mental disabilities, the way in which they could be integrated into society, and possibilites for them to achieve their sporting ambitions within the Paralympics.This research would not have been possible to carry out without the information obtained from the Research Library of South Bohemiaand its archives in Ceske Budejovice.The first part of this research explains what mental disabilities can consist of. It gives a detailed definition of mental disabilities, talks about different types of mental disabilities and its characteristics, and the influence these characteristics might have on an individual's personality. Furthermore, it talks about what causes mental disabilities to occur, how it develops throughout an individual's life, and how to possibly prevent such occurances. An important part of this research involves discussions concerning individuals with Down Syndrom and Authism, what causes these disabilities, and the different behaviours that are visible what causes these disabilities, and the different behaviours that are visible amongst these cases. The second part of the research discusses the Paralympics, in particular the Czech Association of Paralympics. It concentrates on the organisation's structure, its foundation, as well as looking at the goals and different activites it covers. \\

The pragmatic language level in junior school pupils is the subject of the Master's thesis. The main object is to analyze the expression of the selected pupils with autism disorder, focusing on the pragmatic language level and then suggest other consecution for the practical use. The ultimate target is to analyze verbal, nonverbal and paralinguistic aspects of their speech. The theoretical part is focused on the process of communication, each language levels, and impaired communication ability. There is also theoretical knowledge about the autistic spectrum disorders, especially the terminology, etiology, symptomatology and the particular types of the disorders. The last part is based on the specification of the speech of pupils with the autistic spectrum disorder and the possibility of other development in this area, for example how to use the alternative and augmentative communication. The empiric part includes the qualitative research that analyses pragmatic language level of the selected pupils within the autistic spectrum. The analysis of the research, the observation of the participant, and the semi-structured dialog with the mother and the child are used to elaborate the research. KEYWORDS disorders of the autistic spectrum, autism, pragmatic language level, communication, impaired...

This diploma thesis deals with respite service and issues with providing respite services to parents of children and adults with autism and mental retardation. The opening chapters focus on autistic spectrum disorder in combination with mental retardation and potential challenging behaviour. This work describes therapeutic process for persons with autism and mental retardation and it also describes the issues with providing social service to these persons. This thesis focuses mainly on respite services. The empirical part describes the availability of respite services for families with autistic person and mental retardation in the Czech Republic.

Background. In everyday life it is often required to integrate multisensory input to successfully conduct response inhibition (RI) and thus major executive control processes. Both RI and multisensory processes have been suggested to be altered in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It is, however, unclear which neurophysiological processes relate to changes in RI in ASD and in how far these processes are affected by possible multisensory integration deficits in ASD. Method. Combining high-density EEG recordings with source localization analyses, we examined a group of adolescent ASD patients (n = 20) and healthy controls (n = 20) using a novel RI task. Results. Compared to controls, RI processes are generally compromised in adolescent ASD. This aggravation of RI processes is modulated by the content of multisensory information. The neurophysiological data suggest that deficits in ASD emerge in attentional selection and resource allocation processes related to occipito-parietal and middle frontal regions. Most importantly, conflict monitoring subprocesses during RI were specifically modulated by content of multisensory information in the superior frontal gyrus. Conclusions. RI processes are overstrained in adolescent ASD, especially when conflicting multisensory information has to be integrated to perform RI. It seems that the content of multisensory input is important to consider in ASD and its effects on cognitive control processes.

Background: Background of this work was the investigation of the endocannabinoid system (ECS) in the Fmr1 knock- out (KO) mouse. The Fmr1- KO mouse is a mouse model for fragile X syndrome (FXS). FXS is the leading monogenic cause for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in humans. The Fmr1- KO mouse displays autistic behavior such as an impaired social interaction, repetitive behavior, cognitive deficits, increased anxiety and aggressiveness. Alterations of the ECS have been suggested to play a key role in the etiopathology of a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders. Until today, little has been described about the involvement of the ECS in ASD. Interrogation: 1. Evaluating the manifestation of typical cannabinoid- induced effects in the Fmr1- KO mouse 2. Investigating the influenceability of autistic symptoms with THC treatment in the Fmr1- KO mouse 3. Analyzing the signaling cascade of the stimulated and unstimulated ECS in different brain regions of the Fmr1- KO mouse Material and Methods: Experiments were carried out on adult (12±1 weeks old) male Fmr1- KO and Fmr1- wild- type (WT) mice from the C57BL/6J- (B6)- background. N= 15 mice received THC (10mg/kg bodyweight) and N= 16 received WIN55,212 (3mg/kg bodyweight). 30min after injection, the body temperature was measured and the distance animals moved in an open field during 15min was recorded (locomotion). Then, animals were placed with their forepaws onto a horizontally fixed bar and the time remaining in this position (catalepsy) was measured. Finally animals were placed on a preheated plate and the temperature at which a pain stimulus occurred was determined (testing analgesia). All 4 experiments are called tetrad experiment. Afterwards changes in body temperature, locomotion, catalepsy and analgesia of the animals was evaluated. To explore long-term effects of THC after the tetrad, N= 15 animals were tested in a social interaction test with a female contact mouse, 10 and 20 days after THC treatment. Therefore, the tested mouse and the contact mouse were placed together into a cage and the time mice spent in social interaction (nose, body and anogential sniffing, allogrooming and body contact) was manually quantified during 6min of recorded testing time. Another group of N= 19 received a premedication of rimonabant (Cannabinoid- receptor 1 (CB1) antagonist, 3mg/kg bodyweight) 30min prior to THC treatment. Rimonabant prevents THC from binding to CB1 and therefore allows the assessment of the involvement of CB1 in mediating social behavior. Furthermore the suggestibility of context-dependent fear conditioning with THC treatment has been tested on N= 13 mice. Animals were placed into a conditioning chamber that delivered 6 short electric shocks with a 30sec pause to their paws (conditioning phase). Immediately afterwards mice received THC or placebo. 24h later contextdependent fear was evaluated by quantification of the time mice spent freezing in the conditioning-chamber (fear) without receiving foot shocks. Intraneuronal signaling of the ECS was analyzed with N= 29 animals using western blots. Quantities of phosphorylated (“activated”) protein kinases (ERK, AKT and S6) from different brain homogenates (hippocampus, striatum, cortex and cerebellum) were therefore measured after THC or placebo injection (30 minutes prior to sacrificing). Results: Cannabinoids induced hypothermia, hypolocomotion, analgesia and catalepsy in WTmice. These effects were significantly less detectable in Fmr1- KO mice. Effects of both cannabinoids, THC and WIN55,212, were comparable with a slightly greater but not significant efficiency of THC. THC treated WT- mice exhibited further reduced social interaction 10 days after treatment, an effect that was partially prevented by premedication with rimonabant. THC increased social interaction in Fmr1- KO mice comparable to the level of untreated WT- mice. THC had no effect on behavior of WT- mice in context-dependent fear conditioning. Fmr1- KO mice showed significant less contextdependent fear conditioning compared to WT- mice. THC facilitated the recognition of an anxiety-correlated context in Fmr1- KO mice comparable to untreated WT- mice. In western blots significant changes in the THC- induced signaling cascade were detectable and depending on genotype, brain-region and analyzed protein-kinase. In the hippocampus there were no changes in untreated Fmr1- KO mice compared to WT- mice. THC had no effect on activation of protein-kinases in WT- and Fmr1- KO mice. In the striatum there were no changes in untreated Fmr1- KO mice compared to WTmice. THC significantly increased activity of ERK, AKT and S6 in WT-mice and not in Fmr1- KO mice. In the cortex of untreated Fmr1- KO mice AKT showed a significantly increased activity compared to WT- mice. THC significantly increased AKT activity in WT- mice without having an effect on KO- mice. In the cerebellum there were no changes in untreated Fmr1- KO mice compared to WT- mice. THC significantly increased ERK- activity in Fmr1- KO mice but had no effect on protein kinase activity in WT- mice. Conclusion: We observed physiological cannabinoid effects in WT- mice after treatment with THC and WIN55,212. These effects are significantly attenuated in Fmr1- KO mice. This may be interpreted as a desensitization of the ECS in the Fmr1- KO mouse. At the same time it was demonstrated that THC has the potential to improve context dependent memory consolidation and to increase social interaction in the Fmr1- KO mouse. In particular the influence of THC on impaired social interaction should be a target of further investigations to find possible therapeutic options for this typical symptom of Autism. Underlying molecular mechanisms remain unclear and the analysis of THC stimulated intraneuronal signaling gave no clear indication of possible molecular alterations in the Fmr1- KO mouse.

The thesis deals with the topic of foreigner's families living in the Czech Republic who have children with disabilities. The purpose of the thesis is to find out how these families perceive their situation, what are their needs, what resources they use and which obstacles they encounter. The first part of the thesis focuses on theoretical concepts of disability, including the description of different types of disabling conditions, the situation of families with disabled children and the social support system in the Czech Republic. The fundamental information about foreigners in the Czech Republic together with main concepts of culture and multiculturalism are also presented. The existing research findings from Canada, USA and UK are explored at the end of the first part. The second part is dedicated to the author's qualitative research using semi-structured interview and open coding. The research findings are described in seven categories - cultural and language aspects, living with a child with disability, health care, institutional support, information sources, informal support and parent's strategies for handling the situation, and unfulfilled needs including suggestions for improvement.

The thesis deals with the theory of metaphor in selected pieces of research that focus on autism spectrum disorders. Patients with autism spectrum disorders show weakened ability to communicate and they have trouble understanding everyday social interactions as they are not able to identify with thoughts and feelings of others. They also have trouble understanding metaphors, irony, hyperbolical speech, etc. In their book Metaphors we live by Lakoff and Johnson claim that our language and our thinking are based on metaphors, i.e. on abstraction. The hypothesis is that various pieces of research focusing on how people on the autism spectrum understand metaphors draw on different definitions of metaphor and different approaches to it. The theory of metaphor that is presented in Lakoff's and Johnson's work should be able to provide theoretical framework for coherent understanding of a metaphor. It should also have the potential to point out the differences between particular pieces of research and possible shortages within them.

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterized by deficits in the areas of communication and social interaction, stereotypic behaviour and changes in the sensory processing. These symptoms pose challenges to everyday situations such as visits to the doctor's office, which are more stressful for children with ASD and their parents than for the general population. Furthermore, more than one-third of parents have encountered refusal to provide medical care for their child because of ASD. In our diploma project, we combined the parent's reports with an analysis of international sources to create a project called AutFriendly which aims to increase the knowledge of the Czech healthcare practitioners about ASD. In the presented thesis, we summarize the theoretical background in the field of healthcare provision for people with ASD and we review current Czech and international literature to show how the topic of ASD is addressed in the education of healthcare practitioners. In the practical part of the thesis, we summarize our two-year experience with the AutFriendly project. First, we created a two- hour AutFriendly workshop for the students of secondary schools of nursing and we put it into practice with more than 250 participating students of the Czech secondary schools of nursing. Second, we...