Teaching children with cerebral palsy – viewpoints of teachers, students and parents

This master's thesis focuses on children with cerebral palsy (CP). Their significant permanent physical impairment occured as a result of brain damage in their early stage of development. When integrating a child with CP into a regular primary school it is important for him to be taught in accordance with his abilities. A teacher should have adequate knowledge of children with CP to cooperate with them and their parents. In the empirical part a research was made on what experiences primary teachers have with teaching a child with CP, what are children's experiences with schooling itself and what their parents' perspective is. The study involved 27 teachers who teach or taught children with CP and 23 parents of those children. Both groups filled in an online questionnaire. An interview was made with three young people with CP who used to attend a regular primary school. According to the results, one third of the teachers had prior knowledge about CP and most of them educated themselves after a child joined in the class. Before integrating a child with CP in the class most teachers (46 %) were worried about adjusting their teaching to that child and most parents (63 %) were concerned about the child's social integration. On the other hand, all youths reported no worries or fear before starting school. 69 % of parents, 55 % of teachers and all three former pupils confirmed the integration as successful. They reported that children with CP are good at language, memory and perseverance, but have some difficulties in other fields, such as space perception. All three youths mentioned problems with school work, but only one of them identified them in everyday life. Teachers, parents and youths agreed that teachers adjust their work to children with CP and cooperate well. The results of the research enable new findings about educating children with CP in regular primary schools and are a starting point to an even better work