Enabling access to learning
Most children have a variety of needs. The Teacher Training Agency’s document, National Special Educational Needs Specialist Standards (TTA, 1999), acknowledges that placing pupils into particular categories of need can be:
‘...too simplistic since, in practice, the educational needs of pupils with severe and/or complex SEN vary considerably and may be difficult to classify. For example, a pupil may have specific learning difficulties and be a wheelchair user.’
The sections into which this interactive resource has been divided are intended to give easy access to further information about different needs, plus practical examples of how ICT can help pupils with particular needs. However, a pupil may need solutions from more than one of the sections presented here. The sections are:
- Communication & Interaction
- Cognition & Learning
- Behaviour, Emotional & Social Development (BESD)
- Sensory and/or Physical.
Two glossaries are also provided to help explain specialist terminology you may come across:
You should also try to gain further information about the child, their capabilities and their special educational needs as soon as possible. Refer to the pupil’s Early Years records, and baseline, key stage and QCA assessments as appropriate, plus any other relevant documentation. You may also be able to gain information from, for example:
- specialist occupational and physiotherapy reports
- behavioural checklists
- criterion-referenced assessments and specialist reports from specialist teachers, educational psychologists, and speech and language therapists
- specialist language assessments, eg
Afasic checklist, Pragmatics Profile, British Picture Vocabulary Test.
Many specialist assessments are available from nferNelson.
