The specific learning disabilities with the primary focus on dyslexia as one of the special educational need are characterised in the thesis. The theoretical part provides thorough clarification of the individual disabilities as well as the enumeration and explanation of the re- educational approaches towards the specific learning difficulties aimed at the process of teaching English as a foreign language. The qualitative research conducted on the second stage of the basic school constitutes the empirical part of the thesis. The major aim of tracing the needs of the learners with dyslexia was achieved by combining the results of the analysis of the textbooks and the self-created worksheets, observations from the lessons and the interviews with the participants. The main research question, discussing the degree of appropriateness and suitability of the created material in opposition to the regularly used textbooks, was answered in favour of the designed worksheets. Moreover, the thesis provides well-structured and comprehensive summary of the recommendations to enhance the learning process of the learners with dyslexia. Key words Dyslexia, foreign language teaching, lower secondary level, re-education, special educational needs, specific learning disabilities

The diploma thesis deals with pupils' possibilities of partial functions development in the first class of elementary school. The theoretical part defines the basic terms and it introduces the definitions in the field of specific dysfunctions of learning. It also deals with a possible diagnostics of the specific dysfunctions. The thesis describes crucial partial functions in the relation to school skills acquirement and it presents the partial function theory as one of the causes in difficulties in reading and writing acquirement. The practical part analyses the results of the diagnostics which was realized in the first grade at elementary school. This diagnostics was aimed to chosen partial functions and the results were taken before and after the exercises aimed to partial functions development.

The master thesis is focused on the reading and reading literacy of studentes with specific reading difficulty - with Dyslexia. The target group are students of the second level of primary school. The theoretical part focuses on the definition of the specific learning difficulty, expecially on Dyslexia. It follows not only a general definition and an etiology but also diagnostics in school practice. The center of interest is mainly the support of this group of pupils at school. This text presents the charakteristics of the reading skills and reading and reading literacy that contribute to school success. The thesis is to investigace the support of the reading at primary school. The empirical part is based on the analysis of the quantitative research data. The research focuses on the concept of reading, which is aimed at students of the second level of primary school, while the actual analysis follows possible nuances in the self-assessment component of the students representing the norm and students with Dyslexia. The aim of the research is to capture the current relationship of students to reading with regard to the nature of the support provided. The results of the survey correspond to theoretical findings from professional sources - pupils with dyslexia often consider themselves as weaker...

My thesis occupies with the influence of home preparation for successfulness of pupils with specific learning disturbances and behaviour in basic school. The theoretical part there are explained terms of specific evolutional disturbances of school skills. This part deals with etiology and diagnosis. There are legislative alterations of education and it includes complete reeducational school care which points on importance of teacher's personality and on forming of positive climate in the class. It describes family and its role in connection with all risk factors which influence it. The point of preparation determines learning and behaviour by way of concrete forms and methods of work with pupils with specific disturbances. The empirical part of thesis is compiled by method of qualitative research and it's a result of research investigation which is connected to detailed analysis of acquired data. The main methods of investigation were long-lasting structured pupils' observation, analysis of file documentation and analysis of professional advice. These all together and interviews made complete picture of individual case studies.

Os professores inseridos no ensino fundamental precisam estar preparados para lidar com alunos que possuem dificuldade na aprendizagem da linguagem escrita, e, no entanto, é reduzido número de instituições que oferecem cursos para aprimorar esses conhecimentos em muitas áreas do país, havendo-se assim, uma grande necessidade de investimentos na formação continuada do professor, devido ao seu importante papel principalmente na fase inicial de alfabetização, identificando precocemente os Transtornos de Aprendizagem. Objetivo Geral: Elaborar um material educacional interativo para informar os professores de ensino fundamental, via auto-orientação, a distância, sobre os Transtornos de Aprendizagem, disponibilizado em CD-ROM. Objetivos Específicos: Realizar um levantamento sobre o conhecimento e interesses dos professores sobre o assunto; verificar a contribuição do material elaborado para a obtenção de competências esperadas e avaliar o CD-ROM quanto aos seus aspectos técnicos (apresentação, recursos de navegação, imagens, clareza do texto). Método: Um questionário foi idealizado e elaborado para focar o conhecimento dos professores, levantando-se os pontos relevantes em relação as suas dúvidas e interesses sobre o tema abordado. Este questionário foi submetido a 31 professoras do ensino fundamental, sendo que participaram 20 professoras da rede pública e 11 professoras da rede particular. Por meio das respostas fornecidas pelas professoras participantes, construiu-se o conteúdo teórico sobre o assunto, e uma equipe técnica foi contratada para confeccionar o CD-ROM. As competências esperadas e os aspectos técnicos do material interativo multimídia foram avaliados por duas professoras-chaves, por meio da aplicação de questionários específicos. Resultados: Os professores apresentaram diversas necessidades em seu repertório conceitual no que diz respeito aos Transtornos de Aprendizagem, e, no entanto, este fato demonstra a necessidade de abordar estes conceitos na formação continuada desses profissionais. O CD-ROM Principais transtornos relacionados ao aprendizado da Leitura e Escrita: Manual Eletrônico para Professores foi elaborado de acordo com as dúvidas, sugestões e curiosidades das professoras, possibilitando o uso do CD-ROM (sendo este um material interativo com recursos multimídia) na formação continuada dos professores do Ensino Fundamental. Os aspectos técnicos tiveram avaliação positiva. Conclusão: O material educacional desenvolvido atendeu aos objetivos propostos, e, desta forma, fornece ao professor as competências esperadas e, ainda, em perspectivas futuras, pode ser utilizado para a estruturação de fóruns, chats, cybertutor e blogs, para troca de experiências. / Teachers in elementary school must be prepared to deal with students who have difficulty in learning written language, while there are few institutions offering courses to improve this knowledge in many areas of the country, thus, there is a great need for investment in teachers continuing education, due their important role especially in early literacy, making early identification of learning disorders. General Objective: To develop an interactive educational material to inform elementary school teachers, through distance self-orientation, about the Learning Disorders, available on CD-ROM. Specific Objectives: To conduct a survey of knowledge and interests of teachers about the theme; to check the contribution of the prepared material for the acquirement of expected competences and evaluate the CD-ROM about the technical aspects (presentation, navigation features, images, clearly text). Method: A questionnaire was idealized and developed to focus the knowledge of teachers, raising the relevant points regarding their doubts and concerns about the topic. This questionnaire was submitted to 31 elementary school teachers, and participated 20 public school teachers and 11 private.school teachers. Through the answers provided by participating teachers, the theoretical content about the subject was constructed, and a technical team was contracted to produce the CD-ROM. The expected competences and the technical aspects of interactive multimedia material were evaluated by two key teachers, through the application of specific questionnaires. Results: The results showed that teachers have several needs in their conceptual repertoire regarding Learning Disorders, and yet, this fact demonstrates the need to address these concepts in teachers continuing education. The CD-ROM \"Main disorders related to learning of Reading and Writing: Electronic Manual for Teachers\" was prepared in accordance with questions, suggestions and curiosities of the teachers, enabling the use of CD-ROM (an interactive multimedia material) for the continuing education of elementary school teachers. The technical aspects obtained positive evaluation. Conclusion: The educational materials developed reached the proposed objectives, and thus, provides the expected competencies for the teacher, and also, on future prospects, can be used for structuring forums, chats, blogs and cybertutor, favoring experiences exchange.

Atualmente, a temática da dislexia e do transtorno déficit de atenção/hiperatividade passou a ocupar os mais diversos espaços acadêmicos e políticos, com manchetes de especialistas nos programas de televisão, rádio, jornais, e criação de diversos projetos de lei que se propõem a criar serviços de diagnóstico e tratamento nas secretarias de educação. Em todos esses espaços sociais, estes supostos distúrbios são apresentados como doenças neurológicas, que explicariam dificuldades encontradas pelas crianças em seu processo de escolarização. Se, por um lado, temos este quadro de afirmação da suposta doença; por outro há um conjunto de autores que têm questionado tais distúrbios e reiterado a necessidade de compreender a complexidade do processo de alfabetização das crianças iniciantes (no caso da dislexia) e todo o contexto sociocultural que envolve o comportamento das crianças na atualidade (no caso do TDAH). O presente trabalho, por meio de uma abordagem qualitativa de estudo de caso, investiga a história do processo de escolarização, a produção do diagnóstico de dislexia e seus efeitos nas relações escolares de crianças em fase inicial de aquisição da leitura e da escrita. Foram realizadas entrevistas com a mãe, coordenadora pedagógica, professoras e criança diagnosticada, além da análise do laudo realizado por equipe multidisciplinar. No discurso da mãe sobre a história escolar do filho surge o tema das dificuldades escolares trazido como um problema da criança, que teria algo a menos ou em quem faltaria algo a mais. Esta concepção instaura um processo diagnóstico, gerando um tratamento que constitui o processo de medicalização e de culpabilização da criança e de sua família pelo não aprender na escola. As vozes das professoras, não escutadas durante o processo diagnóstico, denunciam que diferentes concepções de desenvolvimento, de aprendizagem e crenças sobre os alunos resultam em relações, ações pedagógicas e, portanto, possibilidades de aprendizagem também distintas. O diagnóstico encontrado, foi realizado ao largo da escola o que evidencia a concepção de desenvolvimento humano na qual se pauta, partindo do pressuposto que a dificuldade pertence à criança. A avaliação incluiu apenas aplicação de testes de diversas áreas tais como psicologia, fonoaudiologia e neurologia, ignorando resultados de pesquisas recentes que inviabilizam o uso de alguns deles por não estarem relacionados ao alegado distúrbio e utilizando outros relacionados exatamente ao motivo do encaminhamento para a avaliação: questões de leitura e escrita. Ter um diagnóstico de dislexia cristaliza um movimento, um processo dinâmico que é o de aprendizagem e desenvolvimento. Desta forma o diagnóstico segue orientado somente para a falta e para as dificuldades estabelecendo limites a priori para o desenvolvimento do sujeito. Além desses efeitos relacionados à aprendizagem, existem outros decorrentes da medicação que parecem inerentes ao diagnóstico de dislexia acompanhado de TDAH. A criança vive na escola relações estigmatizadas que contribuíram na constituição de sua subjetividade, pautada na doença e nas limitações impostas pelo rótulo diagnóstico / Nowadays dyslexia and ADDH (Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity) topics are gaining larger place in the media. This stimulates a series of law projects intended to create public services of diagnosis and treatment. In this attempt of controlling and managing the problem, these so called \"disorders\", are rather quickly defined by operators and specialists as neurological diseases, which would logically explain the difficulties incurred by children during their schooling process and partially solve teachers and parents headaches on that matter. If practitioners now tend to legitimate this supposed illness, on the other hand, there are many serious authors questioning such straight definition, empathizing two ideas: the urgent necessity of fully understand the complexity of literacy process in beginner children and the necessity to grasp the sociocultural context that surrounds children education and behavior in the present time. This work investigates, by means of a qualitative case study, the diagnosis dyslexia of a child during the schooling process acquiring reading and writing abilities, and consequences of this diagnosis on his relations at school. We hereby present interviews with the mother, the pedagogical coordinator, with the teachers and with the diagnosed child himself. The study also presents the analysis of the report made by the multidisciplinary team responsible for evaluation. The mother of the child that is object of the study presents her sons problems as a lack of something that differentiates him from others in the educational process. This conception establishes the base for the diagnosis process, and results in a treatment that starts medicalization, blaming the child and his family and justifying the inability to learn at school. The voice of the teachers, unheard during the diagnosis process, denounces that different conceptions of development and learning as well as different beliefs about the students end up in distinguished relations, pedagogical actions and learning possibilities for the pupils. The diagnosis found was achieved without considering the school, which highlights the idea of human development on the basis of this approach, assuming as its starting point that the difficulty belongs to the child. The evaluation included tests in many areas such as psychology, phonoaudiology and neurology; ignoring the results of recent researches that discredit some of these methods for not being related with dyslexia. They also use other methods, which are connected exactly to the motifs why the evaluation was requested at the first place: questions referring to reading and writing ability. Declaring dyslexia crystallizes a movement, a dynamic process that is learning and developing. By this way the diagnosis focuses on the difficulties building up barriers to growth of the subject. Besides those effects related to learning, there are other effects, due to medication, that seems inherent to the diagnosis of dyslexia followed by the one of ADDH. The child lives stigmatized relations at school that contribute to the constitution of his subjectivity, based on the illness and limitations imposed by the diagnostic label

Os professores inseridos no ensino fundamental precisam estar preparados para lidar com alunos que possuem dificuldade na aprendizagem da linguagem escrita, e, no entanto, é reduzido número de instituições que oferecem cursos para aprimorar esses conhecimentos em muitas áreas do país, havendo-se assim, uma grande necessidade de investimentos na formação continuada do professor, devido ao seu importante papel principalmente na fase inicial de alfabetização, identificando precocemente os Transtornos de Aprendizagem. Objetivo Geral: Elaborar um material educacional interativo para informar os professores de ensino fundamental, via auto-orientação, a distância, sobre os Transtornos de Aprendizagem, disponibilizado em CD-ROM. Objetivos Específicos: Realizar um levantamento sobre o conhecimento e interesses dos professores sobre o assunto; verificar a contribuição do material elaborado para a obtenção de competências esperadas e avaliar o CD-ROM quanto aos seus aspectos técnicos (apresentação, recursos de navegação, imagens, clareza do texto). Método: Um questionário foi idealizado e elaborado para focar o conhecimento dos professores, levantando-se os pontos relevantes em relação as suas dúvidas e interesses sobre o tema abordado. Este questionário foi submetido a 31 professoras do ensino fundamental, sendo que participaram 20 professoras da rede pública e 11 professoras da rede particular. Por meio das respostas fornecidas pelas professoras participantes, construiu-se o conteúdo teórico sobre o assunto, e uma equipe técnica foi contratada para confeccionar o CD-ROM. As competências esperadas e os aspectos técnicos do material interativo multimídia foram avaliados por duas professoras-chaves, por meio da aplicação de questionários específicos. Resultados: Os professores apresentaram diversas necessidades em seu repertório conceitual no que diz respeito aos Transtornos de Aprendizagem, e, no entanto, este fato demonstra a necessidade de abordar estes conceitos na formação continuada desses profissionais. O CD-ROM Principais transtornos relacionados ao aprendizado da Leitura e Escrita: Manual Eletrônico para Professores foi elaborado de acordo com as dúvidas, sugestões e curiosidades das professoras, possibilitando o uso do CD-ROM (sendo este um material interativo com recursos multimídia) na formação continuada dos professores do Ensino Fundamental. Os aspectos técnicos tiveram avaliação positiva. Conclusão: O material educacional desenvolvido atendeu aos objetivos propostos, e, desta forma, fornece ao professor as competências esperadas e, ainda, em perspectivas futuras, pode ser utilizado para a estruturação de fóruns, chats, cybertutor e blogs, para troca de experiências. / Teachers in elementary school must be prepared to deal with students who have difficulty in learning written language, while there are few institutions offering courses to improve this knowledge in many areas of the country, thus, there is a great need for investment in teachers continuing education, due their important role especially in early literacy, making early identification of learning disorders. General Objective: To develop an interactive educational material to inform elementary school teachers, through distance self-orientation, about the Learning Disorders, available on CD-ROM. Specific Objectives: To conduct a survey of knowledge and interests of teachers about the theme; to check the contribution of the prepared material for the acquirement of expected competences and evaluate the CD-ROM about the technical aspects (presentation, navigation features, images, clearly text). Method: A questionnaire was idealized and developed to focus the knowledge of teachers, raising the relevant points regarding their doubts and concerns about the topic. This questionnaire was submitted to 31 elementary school teachers, and participated 20 public school teachers and 11 private.school teachers. Through the answers provided by participating teachers, the theoretical content about the subject was constructed, and a technical team was contracted to produce the CD-ROM. The expected competences and the technical aspects of interactive multimedia material were evaluated by two key teachers, through the application of specific questionnaires. Results: The results showed that teachers have several needs in their conceptual repertoire regarding Learning Disorders, and yet, this fact demonstrates the need to address these concepts in teachers continuing education. The CD-ROM \"Main disorders related to learning of Reading and Writing: Electronic Manual for Teachers\" was prepared in accordance with questions, suggestions and curiosities of the teachers, enabling the use of CD-ROM (an interactive multimedia material) for the continuing education of elementary school teachers. The technical aspects obtained positive evaluation. Conclusion: The educational materials developed reached the proposed objectives, and thus, provides the expected competencies for the teacher, and also, on future prospects, can be used for structuring forums, chats, blogs and cybertutor, favoring experiences exchange.

Les troubles neuropsychologiques sont très répandus et posent de réels problèmes de santé publique. En particulier, dans notre société moderne où la communication écrite est omniprésente, la dyslexie peut s’avérer excessivement handicapante. On remarque néanmoins que le diagnostic et la remédiation de cette pathologie restent délicats et manquent d’uniformisation. Ceci semble malheureusement inhérent à la caractérisation clinique par exclusion de la dyslexie, à la multitude de praticiens différents impliqués dans une telle prise en charge ainsi qu’au manque d’objectivité de certaines méthodes existantes. A ce titre, nous avons décidé d’investiguer les possibilités offertes par l’informatique actuelle pour surmonter ces barrières. Effectivement, nous avons supposé que la démocratisation des systèmes informatiques et leur puissance de calcul pourraient en faire un outil de choix pour pallier les difficultés rencontrées lors de la prise en charge de la dyslexie. Cette recherche nous a ainsi mené à étudier les techniques, aussi bien logicielles que matérielles, pouvant conduire au développement d’un système bon marché et évolutif qui serait capable d’assister un changement bénéfique et progressif des pratiques qui entourent cette pathologie. Avec ce projet, nous nous plaçons définitivement dans un courant innovant au service de la qualité des soins et des aides apportées aux personnes souffrant d’un handicap. Notre travail a ainsi consisté à identifier différents axes d’amélioration que l’utilisation de l’outil informatique rend possible. Chacun de ces axes a alors pu faire l’objet de recherches exhaustives, de modélisations et de développements de prototypes. Nous avons également réfléchi à la méthodologie à mettre en œuvre pour concevoir un tel système dans sa globalité. En particulier, nos réflexions et ces différents accomplissements nous ont permis de définir un framework logiciel propice à l’implémentation d’une plate-forme logicielle que nous avons appelée la PAMMA. Cette plate-forme devrait théoriquement pouvoir disposer de tous les outils permettant le développement souple et efficace d’applications médicales intégrant des processus métiers. Il est ainsi attendu de ce système qu’il permette le développement d’applications, pour la prise en charges des patients dyslexiques, conduisant à un diagnostic plus rapide et plus précis ainsi qu’à une remédiation plus adaptée et plus efficace. De notre effort d’innovation ressortent des perspectives encourageantes. Cependant, ce type d’initiative ne peut se concrétiser qu’autour de collaborations pluridisciplinaires disposant de nombreux moyens fonctionnels, techniques et financiers. La constitution d’un tel consortium semble donc être la prochaine étape nécessaire à l’obtention des financements pour réaliser un premier prototype fonctionnel de la PAMMA, ainsi que de premières applications. Des études cliniques pourront être alors menées pour prouver indubitablement l’efficacité d’une telle approche dans le cadre de la prise en charge de la dyslexie, ainsi qu’éventuellement d’autres troubles neuropsychologiques. / Neuropsychological disorders are widespread and generate real public health problems. In particular in our modern society, where written communication is ubiquitous, dyslexia can be extremely disabling. Nevertheless we can note that the diagnosis and remediation of this pathology are fastidious and lack of standardization. Unfortunately it seems inherent to the clinical characterization of dyslexia by exclusion, to the multitude of different practitioners involved in such treatment and to the lack of objectivity of some existing methods. In this respect, we decided to investigate the possibilities offered by modern computing to overcome these barriers. Indeed we have assumed that the democratization of computer systems and their computing power could make of them a perfect tool to alleviate the difficulties encountered in the treatment of dyslexia. This research has led us to study the techniques software as well as hardware, which can conduct to the development of an inexpensive and scalable system able to attend a beneficial and progressive changing of practices in this pathology field. With this project we put ourselves definitely in an innovative stream serving quality of care and aid provided to people with disabilities. Our work has been identifying different improvement areas that the use of computers enables. Then each of these areas could then be the subject of extensive research, modeling and prototype developments. We also considered the methodology for designing this kind of system as a whole. In particular our thoughts and these accomplishments have allowed us to define a software framework suitable for implementing a software platform that we called the PAMMA. This platform should theoretically have access to all the tools required for the flexible and efficient development of medical applications integrating business processes. In this way it is expected that this system allows the development of applications for caring dyslexic patients thus leading to a faster and more accurate diagnosis and a more appropriate and effective remediation. Of our innovation efforts emerge encouraging perspectives. However such initiatives can only be achieved within multidisciplinary collaborations with many functional, technical and financial means. Creating such a consortium seems to be the next required step to get a funding necessary for realizing a first functional prototype of the PAMMA, as well as its first applications. Some clinical studies may be conducted to prove undoubtedly the effectiveness of such an approach for treating dyslexia and eventually other neuropsychological disorders.

No description available.

The present thesis was concerned with the possible constraints set by visual and attentional pre-orthographical factors on visual word recognition in dyslexic individuals. In a first study, we investigated the visual word recognition ability of MT, a young boy with surface dyslexia, by means of a paradigm that measures performance as a function of the eye fixation position within the word, known as the "viewing position effect" paradigm. In well-achieving readers, the viewing position effect is mainly determined by factors affecting letter visibility and by lexical constraints on word recognition. We further quantified MT's sensory limitations on letter visibility by computing visual span profiles, i.e. the number of letters recognizable at a glance. Finally, in an ideal-observer's perspective, MT's performance was compared with a parameter-free model combining MT's letter visibility data with a simple lexical matching rule. The results showed that MT did not use the whole visual information available on letter identities to recognise words. These results can be best accounted for by a reduction of the number of letters processed in parallel. Accordingly, there is growing evidence that some dyslexic children suffer from a deficit in simultaneously processing of multiple visually displayed elements. The aim of the remaining studies was to investigate possible cognitive impairments at the source of the multi-element visual processing deficit in dyslexic children. A computational model of the attentional involvement in multi-object recognition [TVA: Bundesen, C. (1990). A theory of visual attention. Psychological Review, 97(4), 523--47] served as framework for this investigation. In a second study, we used TVA to investigate multi-element processing in two young dyslexic participants, AB and PA. By combining psychophysical measurements with computational modelling, we demonstrated that this multi-element processing deficit stems from two distinct cognitive sources: a reduction of the rate of visual information uptake, and a limitation of the visual short-term memory capacity. These deficits were replicated in a third study, in which the multi-element processing was investigated in three dyslexic individuals, FA, LT and YC. The last study further demonstrated that the multi-element processing deficit observed in dyslexia is not simply due to a sluggish activation of items names, instead of visual processing difficulties. Finally, the generalisability of the multi-element processing deficit has been assessed by comparing report performance of letters vs colour patches. Unfortunately, the results were inconclusive. Taken together, the results of these different studies point to a reduced capacity of processing visual information in parallel (at least for letters), that might constrain visual word recognition.