No more ‘SEN’!

[LookAroundYou]

Please can people stop using the term ‘SEN’. People are not SEN, they have Conditions or disabilities that mean they Have educational needs different to ‘the norm’. Also a blind person is going to have different needs to a dyslexic and lumping different support needs into one big Category is not helpful and just enforces Sigma against disability and neurological differences.
I am also fed up of seeing the The term being used as a euphemism for ‘Autism’. Is it really that difficult to just say the word; or neurodiverse (if talking about more then one condition).
I just wish people would stop talking about us (usually in a passive negatively tone) in language that is really dangerous for us.
Unless specifically talking about different needs in an education setting, please can we try and refrain from ‘SEN’ (the correct phase being SEND) and if we are talking about autism, to just say the word.

Kind regards
A very exasperated ‘SEN’ Neurodivergent MNer

The terminology would be far less offensive I am sure to most parents if their children were offered the fair access to education others naturally are.
I cannot get worked up about this I am sorry-I mean to be concerned by this would mean that I actually believed professionals actually ever listen to SEND parents. They typically don't and mediocrity and missed deadlines are continuously an accepted fact.
We should IMHO be focusing all our energies on the broken system itself way before we begin correcting terms.

And I dislike additional needs because just like special needs it's very variable and can vary from mild to very severe but that just goes to show we all have different preferences.

So what would you use? The needs are additional to those of the average child. It isn’t supposed to be descriptive of an individual but do describe a group of people who need additional support.

My child is dyslexic. I use dyslexic not SEN because i don't think his needs have any similarity to the wide spectrum SEN includes and to be honest if i did use it i think most people would presume he has some form of autism. I do find it odd that the acronym is used to describe so many varying conditions

I think there’s a bit of an issue with using SEN to capture everything that a child might need in terms of school- but only specific to the circumstances I found myself in. That is, the council (doing the EHCP) understood that my daughter needed to attend a particular kind of school, uses a wheelchair, is non-verbal, cannot walk or eat etc. But the same council, when it came to organising school transport had (their words) assumed that have an EHCP meant she “had SEN” so I could just explain to her what travel in a bus was like etc etc.
They completely overlooked the fact she has profound mental disabilities and physical disabilities because of the assumption that SEN meant “just” educational needs - well technically it does - but conflate SEND and SEN and arrive at ASD.
That’s when it becomes problematic.
I won’t bore you with the other instances (but for instance getting an EHCP done (she was initially given a place in a regular school that had zero provisions (hoist/accessible areas/tube feeding/suction trained teachers etc).
Or when helpful people told me how great a particular SEN school was. It is. It just does not cater for physically disabled children.
Same with trying to get an ambulance once.
Or a paediatric consultant.
So actually I do see the OP’s point a bit, as most of the answers to her post refer to SEN, ASD, ADHD… because that’s what a lot of people assume is meant by SEN.

@Samcro

a child can have SEN I agree they are not SEn they are a child first. I stopped using that (term and sn) when they left education. but if someone wants to say their child has sen . thats up to them not anyone else.

Exactly!

I am currently completing training with AsIam an Irish charity that supports autistic people set up by an autistic person and they use that condition first terminology so autistic child/teenager etc.
I also have a daughter who is undergoing assessment and I have followed this.

@mrsmolks

My child is dyslexic. I use dyslexic not SEN because i don't think his needs have any similarity to the wide spectrum SEN includes and to be honest if i did use it i think most people would presume he has some form of autism. I do find it odd that the acronym is used to describe so many varying conditions

'some form of autism'

I am not easily offended but the tone of this comment does 😑

Dyslexia does fall under the SEND bracket if the child needs support at school because it literally is a special educational need 🙄 fair enough that you wouldn't use that term to describe your own child, I always use autism when speaking about my children, but that doesn't mean they aren't children with SEND 🤷‍♀️

I'll keep using SEN for as long as I like. Me and my daughter find "a dyslexic" much more offensive. That's not who we are!

My son is autistic and I do use this description frequently. Personally I don't say ASD.
But if I'm talking about a situation where his needs are high such as him being non verbal in a public place that's busy and dangerous, I might say my son who has special needs as not all autistic people need high support levels.