Just how common is it for a child to have "special needs" ?

Interesting thread..

FWIW, I agree with Lazymumofteenagesons - once dyslexic always dyslexic

Also agree with Reallytired - getting the right help early on can mean the ability to develop coping strategies.

My Ex BF (a lovely lovely chap - very successful, happily married with two kids) was terribly dylexic.

BUT, the help he got meant that he was able to get through his exams (wrote in mirror writing) and studied computer design... (something he is brilliant at)

He still IS dylexic, but it matters less, because he can cope with the things he struggles, and concentrates on the things he excels at.

If he'd been written off as lazy or slow when he was in primary school, I very much doubt his life would be as positive now.

Then again, ReallyTired, not all parents are as caring and on the ball as we are. Some are even neglectful. My 10yo nephew's schooling has been disturbed for over a year by 3 children who appear to be on the autistic spectrum; the school is powerless to help as the parents don't want them examined. Noone has been learning much in the class, certainly not the three children mentioned.

"There are two in Ds's preschool (him included) but he manager has said there are children with needs that haven't been addressed as the parents show no interest or refuse accept. "

Often parents know more about their kids than childcare workers.

Prehaps the pre school are wrong about those children. Sometimes nursery nurses are too quite to make massive assumptions. They think just because they have attended a lecture as part of an NVQ in childcare they are experts. In many ways a small amount of knowledge is more dangerous than no knowledge.

Glue ear is really common in pre schoolers and children do out grow glue ear. There are other children who development is a bit atypical without necessarily having long term problems.

TBH only a team of medical experts can diagnose a major developmental problems.

There are two in Ds's preschool (him included) but he manager has said there are children with needs that haven't been addressed as the parents show no interest or refuse accept.

I can see both sides. I am sure that Maverick would agree with me that a lot of reading problems are caused by dysteachia. Children should be taught to read by methods that proven to be effective.

My son's class were lucky in that the reception teacher used nothing but pure synthetic phonics to teach her class to read. However there were three children in my son's year who had hearing problems bad enough for them to have hearing aids. The school applied for and got local authority funding to get a soundfield system.

I am sure that without the soundfield system and digital hearing aids sythetic phonics would have been a flop. Surely this is an example of a special neeed that best met in a mainstream school using additional funding.

I'm puzzled, Zazette. The paper by John Marks was not an experimental study requiring peer review, it was a series of statistics on SEN with all the sources well documented.

What educational agenda is it that you believe he wants to further by producing this paper?

The paper maverick linked to is NOT an academic paper: there is no evidence whatsoever that it has been through any form of peer review to establish the validity of its methods, data or conclusions.

It is a polemical piece published by a right-wing think-tank to further its own agendas in relation to education. Most of the author's publications emanate from the CPS, or a body which he administered. If he was a credible academic, at least some would have been published in reputable journals.

I wasn't being racist, It was my opinion (which was clear from my post). I worked for the largest employer in Finland for 6 year in their london office also visited their HO in Helsinki several time. I didn't say they weren't bright or intelligent, in fact I said the opposite. I just saw no evidence of problem solving, it was the english staff who were expected to be able to multitask, which was not a skill that was really valued by the Finnish management.
It was things like being asked to make sure that there was enough paper in the printer if someone came in on a saturday, because they were not able to work out how to do it themselves, these were people with degrees!

I really enjoyed working for that company and met some very nice people, however I saw nothing that led me to believe that the Finnish education system was any better than ours.

Fins are good at problem solving

They are about second in the world for problem solving with South Korea first.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PISA_(student_assessment)

"I have worked with Finns, they are like robots and have no initiative. Brilliant and very efficient at their very own narrow field but can't think outside of the box, so not impressed with their education system really."

christywhisty, That is totally racist. What is your evidence? Or is it just antedotal. Actually I met finns who are bright and certainly have initative.

Infact I think that British education system is poorer at developing initative as it introduces formal learning too soon. The finns start formal education at the age of seven and most of them can read after one term where as British children take two to three years to learn how to read.

Far more finnish fifteen year olds can read, write and add up than than British teenagers. In fact many finns speak good English as well as other languages. There are international league tables which would show this. Are British people genetically stupid or is it that important steps are missed out when we push our children to do too much too soon.

The UK has a truely disgraceful record on teaching adults to be literate. I think children would find it easier to learn to read if they spent more time aquiring pre school skills like good speech and fine motor control. Instead we have the Early Years Foundation Curriculum which is stupidly unrealistic. Ie. wanting rising fives to write sentences.

www.childrenwebmag.com/articles/editorial/open-eye-petition

My DH is an electronics engineer as well

cw ditto dh (no surprise then that ds1 &ds2 dyslexic).

not an issue until lately when he's looking at returning to study, he's extremely bright (designs electronics) but the essays at Uni are going to be a big hurdle for him to jump over. I hope I can help him, but the language he uses is so very differet rechnically than the stuff I did- no place for a reference to the Bhagavad gita in an essay on (what? no idea- resistors? calculating power capacity on generators?)

It's th eonly part I worry about with DH's degree but without it he is unemployable

DH would be classed as dyslexic nowadays. He couldn't read until he was 10 and taught phonics. He is still dyslexic but he like many bright dyslexics has developed coping mechanisms. He still can't spell (thanks to the wonders of modern technology, spell check get's over that problem) and he still gets numbers muddled, so he hasn't grown out of it.

'Most children do grow out of mild special needs. The problem is knowing which children have long term problems and which children are just later developers.'

No, some children grow out of- or more likely are enabled to cope with- S e N.

Sn is different- a clinical dx or otehr additional difficulties oputside the educational field. They vary in severity and can improve but are always prsent (unless I suppose a cure rarely appears)

'I thought the report was odd. The writer seemed to have very limited ideas of what kind of child ends up on the SEN register. He seemed to think they could basically all be divided into two categories: those with real needs=statements and those without statements which are basically only pretend SEN.

"It is important to distinguish those with real special needs – the 2 to 3% with
Statements – from those who may be classified as having special needs – the
20% or so without Statements." '

um ds1 spent years on the school role with no astatement, did he only become sn when he got one then?

the answer op is- depends. on the school mainly. Our school you fight to get anyone to recogniose even failrly marked SN- DS3 was non verbal (still minimally) on entry and we had to fight to get them to acknowledge the issue (it was the nappies that cut it I think)- now a year later they've acknowledged he cannot cope in mainstream and is going to a SN unit. Soon, I hope.

other school I have heard like to get kids on school action at the drop of a hat.

DS1 is of the 'milder dx' briagade, ASpergers / HFA (but I tend to use HFA now as thats an ambiguous dx and AS doesn't in the least reflect his needs). It took the LEA so long to reach agreement to help that he was on highest rate DLA (for aggression, niht behaviours etc) a whole year before school would even place him on the register! (18 months later his new schol recognises and supports him, nd have mentioned EBD unit for secondary)

Children do not grow out of learning difficulties. If they get a large amount of extra help and support when they are younger (primary school years) than they can acquire the coping strategies needed to perform adequately in secondary school.

It really annoys me when parents say my son/daughter used to be dyslexic but is ok now, this is rubbish - once dyslexic always dyslexic.

My son thankfully received 3 years of professional help at a special school for his dyslexic/dyspraxic tendancies. He then moved back into mainstream where he now manages without any extra help. However, his performance will never be on par with his intelligence level.

Intensive help at primary level is essential, after that it is very difficult to catch up.

I have worked with Finns, they are like robots and have no initiative. Brilliant and very efficient at their very own narrow field but can't think outside of the box, so not impressed with their education system really.

DS is on the SEN register for dyslexia. Apparently he was on and off the SEN register all the way through primary, with about 2 years one to one for spelling. As mabanana indicated he was taught synthetic phonics properly so can read well but just can't write as well.

Most children do grow out of mild special needs. The problem is knowing which children have long term problems and which children are just later developers.

My son's school got their knickers in a twist about the fact that he could not control a pencil at the age of six, but the occupational theraphist told us it wasn't really a medical issue until a child is seven years old. Boys are often late and as a country we set our children up for failure.

Also a lot of difficulties are outgrown. When my son was younger he had physio, occupational theraphy, audiology, and speech theraphy. He recently gave back his hearing aids and is fine now. The problem is that is school will not take him off the SEN register.

I feel that now my son no longer has difficulties with hearing and his writing is improving that the SEN resources should be given to other children. However I also think he would be very behind without the help he had in the past. I would like to see other children get the help he did.

I am sure that a lot of SEN could be easily avoided if our children started school later and spent longer in pre school. Certainly Finnish children outshine our children at fifteen. Also if there was a little bit more flexiblity about which academic year a summer born child was in.

As for the OP: if you think about the enormous sums of money it costs society to have children grow up with reading and writing problems and consequently low self-esteem, early intervention, though it may seem excessive, is probably money well spent.

The writer reminds me of my dd's old headteacher. Too lazy to arrange the timetable so her set was on bottom floor and with his mind set on an Outstanding for attendance. His solution to the first problem was to suggest she should go to a special school, his solution to the second to call in the Education Welfare and the social workers and try to frighten us out of letting dd be off sick.

There are people who just can't cope with the idea of disability, so they think the problem just needs to go away.

To the OP. My ds has hypermobility which affects his movements. Used to be called double-jointed. Means a lot of his joints are over mobile and he struggles to control them (he can appear uncoordinated). His main areas of weakness are hips, knees, ankle so he has difficulty running, jumping, climbing etc. But it can affect any joint(s). HIs gross motor skills are more akin to a 2 yr old than the nearly 4.5 yr old he is. I wonder if your ds could have something similar? We've been told that our ds has to do loads of exercise to ensure his muscles stay strong to control his joints (and he had long term physio which has stopped since his strength has improved).

There is all kinds of cr@p on the internet. I think that levels of help like school action, school action plus and statements indicate the level of need.

My son and his two little class mates were on school action for their deafness but still got their soundfield system. The soundfield system was necessary to make synthetic phonics work.

I strongly agree that proper teaching of reading using synthetic phonics are promoted by Ruth Miskin is absolutely vital and we are failing our children every day. We also need to continue to offer proper support and reading rescue to kids until they can read, not think, they are in yr2 or whatever, so special help with reading must stop.
I strongly disagree with this ridiculous paper that there is 'real' SN with statements and 'the untaught underclass' without, and that all children with statements should be sent to institutions to be ignored. My ds is academically very bright, but has Aspergers and other difficulties.

I have seen the article before and I think its too simplistic.

There are several different types of special need.

For example my son had a quite a considerable hearing impairment during reception and year 1 due to scarring on the ear drum and glue ear. His hearing has improved a hell of lot due to the fact he no longer has glue ear. (He still has the scarring) At one point there were three boys with hearing aids in his year so the school approach county and got a grant for a soundfield system.

I think there are too many children on the special needs register, but its nothing to do with shipping children off to special school. A lot of children have temporary special needs, however schools are too lazy to take off the special needs register once they no longer have the special needs.

Examples of temporary special needs are glue ear, a child going through major emotional truama, a child not being able to speak English, difficulties settling into reception, toileting issues or being later than average in learning to read or write. (Ie. they get there in the end)

I think that children on the special needs register should be reviewed and assessed more throughly than they are at my son's school. Logically there would be a far higher percentage of children on the special needs register in infant school than secondary.

Special schools should exist, but should be a last restort. There are some children who need the sheltered enviornment of a special school for emotional reasons. A child should not be bunged in a special school just because they are in a wheelchair.

It was bizarre, wasn't it?

Ds1 has no statement so therefore his SN isn't real, even though he has a dx of ASD.

Being taught to read earlier would have made bugger-all difference. He's pretty much hyperlexic so could read very early and has no problems with spelling either.

It's as though the author of the report had a lightbulb moment - "I think there are too many children on the SEN register. If we send the ones with statements off to special school and get rid of the SEN register altogether then we won't have SEN any more."