Growing number of children 'don't know their own name' when starting school

[mrz]

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8668117/Growing-number-of-children-dont-know-their-own-name-when-starting-school.html

additionally - anectdotally...my daughter had a speech issue. she is a twin.

we were poor, sink estate poor, so rough it was nicknamed beirut.

so i mentioned it to the doctor, nurses and other health professionals to get nowhere, health professionals noted it to me and asked me point blank
do you leave her to watch a lot of telly

now iwas young and a bit shy and i just said no

what i should have said was "sure i do i leave her to watch telly, but her TWIN brother, i talk to all the time "

it was like a conspiricy of fucking professional incompetance and MORONS

so she reached the age of 8 8 YEARS OLD - it wasn;t right, her speach was clearly messed up

she had sporadic speech therepy, but lots of staff and funding shortages meant that she got about 4 weeks of it then the member of staff left and then we wern't contacted until i kicked up shit and then had to go to the bottom of ANOTHER waiting list!

so there we were 8 years later. I moved house, we moved down south, it was still social housing, but it was a pocket of deprivation amongst some serious wealth - went to the doctors and she was diagnosed at being DEAF

PARTIALLY DEAF

40% hearing loss in BOTH ears

talk about service failure from a plethera of professionals who put it down to poor parenting - even though her twin brother was fine and becuase we were poor and i must not talk to them or interact with her.

many assumptions were made in place of good service delivery

and if youve read that rant

good on ya!

"a number of children" - one is a number

"a growing number of children" - two is a growing number.

Just because it says a number and a growing number it doesn't mean either is a high number.

It's a bit like people getting fooled by the sales offering goods at "a fraction of the price" when anything can be expressed as a fraction; eg £1 off a £1000 sofa is a sofa at a fraction of the price!! 999/1000 being the fraction in question.

Surely one or two children per teacher is one or two too many

If they asked a bunch of 5 year olds what their christian names were, I'd be surprised if any of them answered. First names, yes. Christian names, no.

I am sorry to hear that custardo but I can understand how assumptions get made, although I know they should not.

I have a sig minority of clients who simply do not talk to their children. If a child isn't addressed by his name, how is he supposed to know what it is?

Not clear if they are talking about children not responding to their names, or not being able to answer the question "what is your name?". I wonder if some of this is down to language barriers (not speaking English at home) and a different name/nickname being used at home than the one on their birth certificate.

The Sure Start programme was set up to tackle problems just like these and in my area does so very well. Not just helping develop fine motor skills and speech in children, but in pushing supporting the parents to do so as well. Speech problems were detected quickly and referal to a speech therapist was made. All this is now under threat as the cuts are really starting to bite.

It says Ms Gross was speaking to "head teachers" in Hull and London.

So an unspecified number reported by an unspecified number of heads as occurring in their schools.

I agree that even one, anywhere, is too many.

However these articles tend to paint a picture of an epidemic of shit parenting rampaging across the land.

It could be that some of the parents their little cherubs so much that the children think they are called "darling." Which is a foolish oversight on behalf of the parents but not a sign of criminal neglect.

Custardcake: Bloody hell. No wonder teachers have such a hard time. Half the kids don?t know their name and have never so much as seen a crayon and the other half are being taught trigonometry before they start Reception and have parents who will go into melt down if they don?t progress at a rate of 9 reading levels per year.

Totally agree

I think this is a slight exaggeration tbh. I've taught in many deprived areas and have maybe come across two children who struggled with their names on entry to reception. I'm talking about nt children of course, not those with s&l or communication difficulties.

I have not doubt there are issues which need addressing such as lack of rounded vocabulary and knowledge of fruit/animals/colours etc but to suggest to those reading the article that a huge wave of children are starting school without knowing their name is simple scaremongering.

See I've not had any problems getting referalls to SALT, paediatricians etc in fact I've seen quite a variety of specialists who all agree there is definately an issue and it needs addressing and they are all making wonderfull plans to contact each other and speak to nursery and set some targets. Now if they could couple that with some ACTUAL meaningful therapy, that ACTUALLY helps ds make progress then that would be fucking marvellous and no a sheet of A4 paper suggesting I read books, talk more and limit TV is catergorically not meaningfull.

I often wonder what could have been achieved if someone other than me was actually doing something with ds.

I've taught children in very middle class schools who didn't know their first names spottyfrock

these children didn't need SaLT as they didn't have speech and language delay.

Children to didn't respond to their name, or who didn't answer when asked mrz? How did you know that they didn't know their name rather than just weren't responding to you? Did the parents also report that the child was unaware of their own name?

Notice the teachers aren't surprised! No trick questions needed - I doubt this has been found out through trying to catch children out. I teach secondary and it's not at all unknown for 11-year-olds in my nice, rural comprehensive, to not be able to spell their surname (and in some cases, their first name) or tell me their date of birth. Some don't know their own address or phone number. And I promise I don't sit there thinking of ways to make children look stupid - sometimes I want them to give me information to put on a form and they just don't know it.

Maybe mrz or maybe they were just undiagnosed I think it would be very easy for lots of children to slip through the cracks especially in deprived area where parents do seem to struggle to access services.

DS has only seen so many specialists because I'm a pushy cow and have some experience in education so have an idea of what to push for and demand.

Really, mrz??? I presume you don't mean a Kate who didn't know she was a Catherine. But nt children who start school without responding to or knowing their name. I've taught in inner city areas of London, Glasgow and Salford and have maybe come across 2 children like this in 20yrs!

Should add that my automatic assumption would be that the child has a hearing loss rather than a parent who, in 5yrs, couldn't be bothered to teach a child it's name.

No HairyJo they didn't have Speech and Language problems (they went through the school up to the age of 11 so I knew them over a period of 7 years and achieved well) they simply had never been taught their own names.

I'm still not clear on how you know they didn't know their name?

As I said earlier there were identical twins who only knew they were "the twins" because that is what the family called them ... no sense of individual identity until they were nearly 6 no SEN no Speech or Language delay. Simply children who have never heard their own name.

OK, so "the twins" seems quite a specific example and I can see how that could happen. What about in singleton children?

Rita in the case of these boys they didn't respond to their names (only to twin) and if asked their name would respond "twin" my other experience was a little boy who thought his name was "boy" and a little girl who believed her name was "princess" and got very distressed when we tried to tell her that wasn't her name

I've not come across that, but I have known quite a few children that have no idea what a conversation is, or that a question is expected to have a reply. Not used to anything interactive.
Either children who have been pretty much ignored within the family, or who have been told what to do without any expectation that they'd respond.

Thinking your name is "boy" is pretty sad, was the family neglectful/abusive? I think the princess one is pretty sweet and not alarming in a 4 year old. Lots of little children are called by pet names or nicknames - that's what she was called.

When I read the article I was imagining children who just weren't referred to at all by their families.