about sen

The term 'Special Educational Needs'(SEN) has a legal definition, referring to children who have learning difficulties or disabilities that make it harder for them to learn or access education than most children of the same age. 
Many children will have SEN of some kind at some time during their education. Help will usually be provided in their ordinary, mainstream early education setting or school, sometimes with the help of outside specialists.

If your child has special educational needs, they may need extra help in a range of areas, for example:

• Schoolwork
• Reading, writing, number work or understanding information
• Expressing themselves or understanding what others are saying
• Making friends or relating to adults
• Behaving properly in school
• Organising themselves
• Some kind of sensory or physical needs which may affect them in school

The government has set out targets to identify what most children should be able to do when they reach certain ages. For 3-5 year olds these targets are the Early Learning Goals of the Foundation Stage of education.

5-16 year olds are assessed using the Attainment Targets of the National Curriculum. The National Curriculum also lays out what most children will study and learn at each stage of their education.

Children who are working at a level significantly below other children of the same age will be identified as having SEN. These children are entitled to extra support to help them access the same curriculum and opportunities as other children their age.

Remember, all children progress at different rates and learn in different ways. Teachers are expected to plan carefully so that their lessons, classroom, books and materials suit the range of children in their classes and help them to learn in different ways. This is known as 'differentiation' or 'differentiating the curriculum'.

If your child is making slower progress or is having difficulties with something specific, they may be given extra help or different lessons to help them. This might include one-to-one help from a teacher or teaching assistant, special 'catch-up' work or lessons, or the chance to attend extra homework clubs or lessons in holiday time.

However, don't assume your child has SEN just because they're making slower progress or are getting some extra help. The extra support being given may well help your child to catch up quickly and carry on working at the same level as the rest of the class.

The umbrella term specific learning difficulties (SPLD) is used to cover a wide variety of difficulties. Many people use it synonymously with dyslexia (a difficulty with words), but it is now generally accepted that dyslexia is only one of a group of difficulties that may include:

• Dyslexia: The umbrella term for writing, reading and number difficulties
• Dysgraphia: writing difficulty
• Dyspraxia: motor difficulties
• Dyscalculia: a difficulty performing mathematical calculations
• Attention deficit disorder, or attention deficit hyperactive disorder(ADD or ADHD): concentration difficulties with heightened activity levels and impulsiveness
• Asperger’s syndrome and autism: emotional behaviour or even social communication difficulties.

Dyslexia is a combination of abilities and difficulties; the difficulties affect the learning process in aspects of literacy and sometimes numeracy. Getting through required reading is generally seen as the biggest challenge at higher education level due in part to inability to skim and scan written material. Marked and persistent weaknesses may be identified in short-term and working memory, speed of processing, sequencing skills, auditory and /or visual perception, spoken language and motor skills.

Abilities can include good visual-spatial skills, creative thinking and intuitive understanding; enabling technology is usually found to be very beneficial.

Students with dyspraxia are affected by an impairment or immaturity of the organisation of movement, often appearing clumsy. Gross and fine motor skills (related to balance and co-ordination) and fine motor skills (relating to manipulation of objects) are hard to learn and difficult to retain and generalise.

Writing is particularly laborious and keyboard skills difficult to acquire. Pronunciation may also be affected and people with dyspraxia may be over/under sensitive to noise, light and touch. They may have poor awareness of body position and misread social cues in addition to those shared characteristics common to many SPLDs.

Dyscalculia is a learning difficulty involving the most basic aspect of arithmetical skills. The difficulty lies in the reception, comprehension, or production of quantitative and spatial information. Students with dyscalculia may have difficulty in understanding simple number concepts, lack an intuitive grasp of numbers and have problems learning number facts and procedures.

These can relate to basic concepts such as telling the time, calculating prices and handling change and estimating and measuring such things as temperature and speed.

Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) exists with or without hyperactivity. In most cases people with this disorder are often off task, have particular difficulty commencing and switching tasks together with a very short attention span and high levels of distractibility. They may fail to make effective use of the feedback they receive and have weak listening skills. Those with hyperactivity may act impulsively and erratically, have difficulty foreseeing outcomes, fail to plan ahead and be noticeably restless and fidgety.

Those without the hyperactive trait tend to daydream excessively, lose track of what they are doing and fail to engage in their studies unless they are highly motivated. The behaviour of people with AD(H)D can be inappropriate and unpredictable; this, together with the characteristics common to many SPLDs can present a further barrier to learning.

Individuals with Asperger’s syndrome (AS; sometimes known as high functioning autism) can exhibit a variety of characteristics along a range of severity.

These may include:

• difficulty with change, causing unexpected responses to surroundings
• difficulty reading non-verbal cues (body language) and determining body space, which can lead to problems with social interactions.

They may become preoccupied with a particular subject of interest, or develop obsessive routines. Students with AS whose obsessive interests include their subject can be an asset. They have a high attention to detail, and can be punctual, reliable and dedicated.

They may be overly sensitive to sounds, tastes, smells and light. The syndrome is neurologically based but does not necessarily affect intelligence.

Autism is a lifelong developmental disability. It is part of the autism spectrum and is sometimes referred to as an autism spectrum disorder, or an ASD. The word 'spectrum' is used because, while all people with autism share three main areas of difficulty, their condition will affect them in very different ways. Some are able to live relatively 'everyday' lives; others will require a lifetime of specialist support.

The three main areas of difficulty which all people with autism share are sometimes known as the 'triad of impairments'.

They are:

• Difficulty with social communication
• Difficulty with social interaction
• Difficulty with social imagination.

These are described in more detail below.

It can be hard to create awareness of autism as people with the condition do not 'look' disabled: parents of children with autism often say that other people simply think their child is naughty; while adults find that they are misunderstood.All people with autism can benefit from a timely diagnosis and access to appropriate services and support.

The following are recognised as characteristic effects of dyslexia and other specific learning difficulties on the learning process. The range of characteristics will differ from person to person.

• Lack of confidence
• Difficulty in becoming fluent in a new skill to the point where it becomes automatic, for example reading, writing and driving a car
• Taking longer to complete tasks than other students
• Difficulties in organising work and other aspects of their lives
• A poor sense of passage of time, mixing up dates, times and appointments
• Poor short-term memory leading to difficulties in carrying out instructions or copying from the board and remembering what has just been read and/or said
• Difficulties retrieving words when speaking and mispronunciations caused by difficulties in discriminating sounds or motor problems
• Directional confusions, getting easily lost and having problems using maps or finding their way to a new place
• Poor motor control resulting in a range of difficulties including controlling a pen leading to untidy handwriting with many crossings out
• Errors when reading and spelling such as confusion or omission of sounds and/or muddling words
• Difficulties in retaining the visual image of words, signs, symbols and formulae
• Difficulties in reading text caused by visual distortions such as blurring or moving letters
• Difficulties in comprehension despite appearing to read fluently
• Difficulties in sequencing letters in spelling, or numbers and signs in maths, difficulties taking messages, remembering phone numbers and dialling them accurately
• Problems with sequencing such as instructions and mathematical procedures, sequencing of numbers or letters and difficulties using dictionaries, encyclopaedias and directories
• A short attention span and poor concentration
• Particular susceptibility to stress which may be associated with deadlines or examinations
• Noticeable inconsistency between what can be achieved on a “good” and “bad” day