IDENTIFICATION OF SPECIAL NEEDS

Diagnosing special educational needs
Physical, sensorial, mental and speech disabilities are diagnosed by national and county expert committees. The activities of the committees cover three areas: (i) screening and assessing disabilities (expert activity); (ii) recommendation for special care provision of the pupils, for the way, form and place of provision as well as for special pedagogical services linked to provision (rehabilitation activities); and (iii) checking the existence of conditions required for special care (system development). Expert activities aiming at assessing entitlement to special provision are: early childhood development, pre-school education, school education, formative preparation, additional pedagogical services (logopaedia, conductive pedagogy and special physical education). The tasks of these committees have considerably increased in these areas in the last ten years. Early childhood development for children of 0-3 years of age has been regulated by legislation since 1993 (it had existed without legal regulation for decades), as well as formative preparation for children and young of 5-18/20 years of age with sever or multiple disabilities.

These committees carry out assessments of particular conditions for inclusive pre-school and school education, in debated cases they carry out control checks and participate in examinations launched in the framework of official or state administration procedures (e.g. objections concerning placing those with disabilities in caring/nursing institutions or parents’ objections related to expert opinions).

Expert opinion is formed on the child examined, on the basis of which recommendations are given for placing the child in pre-school or school education and for special requirements related to educating the given child.

The committees decide on placing the child in special classes or on transferring the child from a special class to the mainstream classes of the inclusive school. According to the act on equal opportunities the parents of children with special educational needs have a say in which institution their child will attend.

The National Committees for Assessing Learning Abilities and Rehabilitation are committees assessing sight impediment, hearing impediment, speech and learning abilities. They operate at metropolitan and county levels and consist of managers with special education qualifications, special education teachers, psychologists and specialists.