Special Education

The aim of the doctoral study program Special Education is to prepare researchers specializing in research, teaching and professional activities in special education focusing on following fields: speech therapy, hearing impairment, intellectual disability, physical disability, visual impairment, specific learning disorders, multiple disorders, special andragogy and addictology. The training prepares highly qualified professionals for theoretical as well as practical applications of special education expertise aimed at solutions of broad range of special educational issues including social inclusion.

“Special education is a study program focusing on scientific preparation of professionals who strive to use practice-oriented research for enhancement of educational, work, and independent living conditions of children and adults with special needs with the aim to increase their quality of life.”

The aim is to enable outstanding students to continue their chosen profiling in the doctoral study Special Education, to enable them to carry out research activities that many of them have been doing since master's studies and to prepare highly qualified specialists for their further work at the university or at the research institutions in our country and abroad.

The doctoral program Special Education is conceived interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary. In the interdisciplinary approach arises a new discipline and at the same time, it inspires the original sciences for further research. A multidisciplinary approach is an unexplored space which is located among several disciplines and each has the right to dominate.

The program is realized in both full-time attendance and combined attendance, in Czech language and English language.

Practical training

In the DSP Special Education, PhD students participate in the teaching of students in the bachelor programs, both in a subject Special Education and in subjects of their specialization for 2 semesters. Abroad internships are preferred (ERASMUS, ERASMUS +, foreign practice, etc.). Comulsory internship is required for 7 weeks abroad.

Traineeships are especially suitable in counselling services: special educational centres, pedagogical and psychological counselling centres, educational centres, speech therapy ambulances and others according to the focus of their dissertation.

Doctoral students are members of scientific teams

• The research Special Needs of Pupils in the Context of the Framework Educational Program, the researcher: prof. PhDr. Marie Vítková, CSc. (2007-2013)
• Interdisciplinary research project Inclusion in School as an Interdisciplinary Issue. Basis, Conditions and Implementation of the Strategy, the researcher: prof. PhDr. Marie Vítková, CSc. (2013-2015)
• Specific research projects - annually from 2010 (projects A and B)
• FRMU projects
• OPVVV project Quality Inclusive Education of Pupils with Special Educational Needs in Primary and Secondary schools, the researcher: prof. PhDr. Marie Vítková, CSc. (2017-2020)
• Other projects implemented by the Department of Special and Inclusive Education or the Institute for Research in Inclusive Education (IVIV).

The graduates from the doctoral studies in Special Education are highly qualified specialists and find their positions mostly at universities or at the scientific and research institutions in the Czech Republic and abroad.