Česká psychopedie

Psychopedia is an interdisciplinary field focusing on the development, raising and education of mentally handicapped persons. This publication by Marie Černá and her colleagues provides the first systematic overview of this discipline among scientific literature. She covers the history of Czech psychopedia from its beginning to the establishment of special pedagogy (whose part psychopedia became) as a university field of study. Other chapters cover persons with mental retardation on a general level, current information on mental retardation, including terminology, definitions, constructs, models and etiology of the human rights of the handicapped. An individual chapter is devoted to the problem of psychopedic diagnostics. The final three sections characterize the three individual stages of human life: early and pre-school age, school age and adolescence, adulthood and old age. The specialized part of the book is introduced through excerpts from literary works by a handicapped co-author and each chapter is completed with bibliography and suggestions for further study. The book will address people across disciplines and will help better understand the life of those with mental retardation.