Topic: Experience of the difficulties faced by children with disorders of the written language.

Research question: how the difficulties caused by the phenomenon of written language disorder manifest themselves in pupils' experiences?

Objective: the phenomenon of the difficulties experienced by children with written language disorders.

Theoretical framework

Written language combines the processes of writing and reading. It is a complex, multifaceted structure involving the construction of the sound sequence of words, the writing of words, the application of grammatical forms, and the conveyance of thought (Blood et al., 2010). According to Chung et al. (2020), up to 30–47% of children who encounter difficulties in writing also have problems in reading. This is explained by the significant relationship between the components of the language system: spoken language, reading, and writing (Chung et al., 2020; Petersen et al., 2022).

Written language disorders affect the development of a child’s personality. Research studies show that students with reading and writing disorders have lower self-esteem, more severe distress, high levels of social pretension and defensiveness, greater dependence on adults, and a tendency towards low self-esteem compared to their peers (Matsyuk & Yelagina, 2020). Consistent failure in learning negatively affects the children’s motivation to learn and promotes avoidance of participation in learning (Gargot et al., 2021).

Speech, language, and written expression disorders are common problems in the learning process but tend to be interpreted by the school and the family as character deficiencies (Chung et al., 2020). A common reason for not understanding children’s problems is that children’s voices are ignored or considered only superficially (Singer, 2014). These children are granted a say in simple everyday matters such as what to eat or what to wear but are not asked for their opinion on issues that are important in their lives, such as which school to go to (Pekince & Avci, 2018). Yet, children’s opinions, as part of the context in which their personality develops, are of great importance, sometimes determining their social participation (Hellmich & Loeper, 2019).

The previous studies on “children’s voice” show that students with learning disabilities have the same needs as their peers without disabilities. Recognition of their status is crucial for them (Grobler & Wessels, 2020). These students appreciate relationships with teachers to whom they feel close and do not justify punishing or ignoring students with difficulties. These students particularly value the recognition of student diversity and the fostering of close relationships within the student-teacher community (Ramírez‐Casas del valle et al., 2021). They see themselves as playing a valuable role in their schools and community, and maintaining good relationships (Bonati & Andriana, 2021). In favourable contexts, such as when using information technology, they characterise themselves as creative, hard-working, eager to learn, and comfortable with the learning process (Schock & Lee, 2016). Although children have been more actively involved in research over the last few decades, there are still few studies that have explored the voices of children with disabilities (Kalenjuk et al., 2023).

The aim of the research is to answer the question of how the difficulties caused by the phenomenon of written language disorder manifest themselves in pupils' experiences.

Research design. The research is constructed based on a phenomenological approach, which provides an understanding of the phenomena through which meanings and relationships emerge in our interactions with each other and with the world around us (Vagle, 2014). The study of phenomena and the meanings that surround them attempts to explain the essence of phenomena and to understand the complexity of the experience lived. This study analyses the phenomenon of difficulties caused by the phenomenon of written language disorder, which reflects the children's well-being, perception of quality of life and attitudes towards the possibility of solving the problem, through the children's reflections on offering support to a friend who is experiencing the same situation of failure as they are. Research data collection. To obtain maximum authenticity in the children’s voice and to avoid any influence of the researcher on the children’s deliberations, the interview method, which is more common in phenomenolog

Children's voices reveal that in the experiences the children go through when striving to overcome difficulties caused by the phenomenon of written language disorder, the support manifests itself through the intentional choice to not mention potential failure and to empathetically highlight success, as an attempt to give meaning to personal worth. This attempt constitutes the essence of the recognition in the classroom community, which is obtained via the efforts to overcome the potential demotivation to learn. The recognition of such efforts is so powerful that it results in the choice to limit one’s favourite activity. The ideas that determine the learning success are named as slow learning, intensive reading, doing dictation tests at home, and memorising grammar rules. In the experience of the children striving to overcome the difficulties caused by written language disorder, the participation of educators – teachers, specialists, and parents – is an important but not the main component of support

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