a special needs child - AAARRGGHHH!

[DameMargotFountain]

ok, i've been housebound with DD who is going through some sort of sensory implosion right now, and i may be irrational here but is it only me who wants to claw out their own eyeballs when they see the phrase 'special needs child'?

it's a child (full stop) who had special needs.

thank you for reading

i recently brough my nursery to task on this for including the phrase "a special needs child" in their annual report. But then worried for days about whether I had overreacted.

nope, it's wrong

it's putting the disability before the child

Worst is 'he is special needs' not even 'a special needs child' just 'special needs'.

aaarrrggghhhhhh!! Amber YES!!!

Actually I hate the phrase special needs altogether though I use it because it is common parlance. I prefer additional needs but I am not overly keen on that either. And yes of course a child or young person with special/additional needs.

I agree.

Off on a tangent a bit, but, in SEN process documents etc, I tend to talk about DS as a child with disabilities which are, as a matter of law, also special needs under the Education Act.

Most children with special needs are children with disabilities and I think the focus on them as people with a disability is much more empowering as they have a right to equality rather than just to have someone meeting needs.

The language is just different when dealing with the two different legal concepts yet we are talking about the same child and the same issues!

i have to go to meeting at school now, but wanted to totally agree about using the word 'disability' - that word carries so much more legal weight

Does it matter? Till the time your child gets all the support they need?

It irks me as much as "he is ADHD"

No, he has ADHD and while it will influence his life it many ways, is is not all of what he is.

yes it does matter. It very much matters.

When Ds was first diagnosed I used to say he had a disability. I felt more comfortable using that label as I have disabilities myself. However the use of special needs in education and social services is so overwhelming and there seems to be a prejudice against using disability (not to mention Jo Public who assumes that Ds is therefore a wheelchair user) that I have succumbed to the special needs terminology.
Having read other people's thoughts I might go back to disability though.

I say my daughter has a disability or behavioural special needs. Because I guess she could be autistic and not disabled or have those behavioural special needs, but she does, so rather than just say she is autistic, I find it a better descriptive to say how she is affected not what she has.

And it is far far easier to just tell people I am disabled rather than to start going into why and what. Because that is just complicated.