teaching SEN children

[LeBFG]

I've just read this very interesting article and thought posters here would be interested to know about it.

Works on the idea the brain is fairly plastic and so can be trained to do things (spelling, linking words to meaning and so on) even if parts of the brain that are meant to do this are not functioning normally. Standard SEN teaching is based more around setting traditional learning tasks and making them more accessible. This lady does very different tasks instead.

Is there a link available to this article? Thanks

Does the link above not work? If not google guardian and Barbara Arrowsmith-Young

Sorry, my fault!! I didn't see the link (the laptop screen was tilted in a such a way that I couldn't see it).

So, sorry...the link DOES work...just me that doesn't at the moment!

Thanks

A very interesting article, but she obtained her results by working 8-10 hours a day. That's a hell of a commitment, I'm not sure it'd be feasible to impose that on another person. I'd be interested to know what curriculum her schools run and if I'd get funding to open one here

Yes, the schools are in USA and Canada. I think they just replace the standard curriculum with these 'brain gym' style activities. I have no idea if success depends on intensity - kids seem to take a year or two out of mainstream ed and go to these schools, get their brains 'fixed' (for want of a better expression) and then return.

So in this country, you almost want to run it like instrumental music lessons - half an hour a week out of regular classes

Indeed, this is certainly what I saw in schools when I taught. A 20 mins literacy thing at registration time, that sort of thing. Another article I once read was AA Gill, who suffers from pretty improtant dyslexia. He went to special schools etc all trying to help him read and spell - all of the efforts failed. He dictates his articles now and doesn't actually write them. What an inspiration. But highlights that for important SEN, perhaps approaches have not diverged enough from what we teach kids without SENs. Dunno, just some musings I'd had.