Do you usually say Special Needs or SEN?

[PennyRa]

And do you say Sen or S-E-N?

Depends who I’m talking to. One of my children is autistic and if I’m talking to his school or about his education with a relevant professional I’d sometimes use SEN (as a word) because that’s the terminology teachers, SENCO etc seem to use. I don’t generally say special needs and I don’t particularly like the phrase (to my mind he doesn’t have “special” needs, he has different individual needs just like any other person), but since that’s what the education system uses I go along with it where necessary.

If I’m talking to someone outside of the education system I usually just prefer to say he is autistic or he has an autistic spectrum condition.

What I really don’t like though is “DC is SEN”. He has SEN, not he is SEN.

“Additional needs” - when talking about children,
“Special needs “ about professionals
”sen” - when naming job titles, schools, departments at the council and similar

I say I'm disabled (or autistic, or have adhd or whichever if specifics are relevant at the time). I don't really like being called special needs, because I think it's a euphemism that people use to avoid saying disabled. Disabled isn't a bad thing, plus disability is a protected characteristic in law so it's good to use it to describe my experiences.
Sometimes if I want to refer to my brain disabilities rather than my physical disabilities I'll say I'm neurodivergent (note not "neurodiverse", because that refers to a group of people with neurodivergent and neurotypical brains), but I've seen that used as a shorthand/ euphemism for autism and adhd a lot lately, and that's not what it means either.

And I hate phrase “SEN kids”

Sen
to me special needs are general difficulties (eg learning disability) and special educational needs are specific learning difficulties (eg dyslexia). I don’t use special needs really as I think it can have negative connotations

“Students with disabilities and learning difficulties”.

SEN is related to education so should really only be used in that context. I describe my own child as having a disability or I say what his disabilities are. I sometimes see adults described as having special needs, which I dislike.

Sen is only for education isn't it?

I'd usually say 'additional needs' or DS is autistic. If I'm writing it I might put SEN, but that's just laziness on my part.

There is also SEND which I use when talking to professionals about services .or other parents of children with SEND.

Additional Learning Needs, or ALN.