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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Diagnosing 'learning difficulties' -or worse- in children
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oldandrew
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# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Was referred to this thread to read Apocalypso's post. ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
It is rather great.
It really does make concrete the issue of intervention to give people their "right" to be supported, and intervention that actually helps them.
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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rugasaw
Shipmate
# 7315
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
All I said was that for students who are poor readers there was one single treatment.
Speaking as a poor reader. I would think that for those who have Irlen's syndrome there might be treatments that has nothing to do with good teaching per say. I don't know if you consider this physical or what but I assure you it does exist and that something as simple as use of colored paper, tinted overlays, or tinted glasses can do wonders.
The research says otherwise.
http://www.rep.bham.ac.uk/2008/Coloured_filters_for_reading_disability_FINAL_VERSION.pdf
http://www.ldrc.ca/contents/view_article/207/?print=false
http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2003/12/irlen_lenses_sc.html
Research can say anything it likes. I will let other people find counter research if they want to it is easily found. But I don't need the research I know from personal experience that if research says otherwise it is faulty research. I know that it is easy to read if things are tinted a different color. I know this would lead to better test scores on standardized tests had I had that option. I know that would have led to more rigorous classes in high school. You can point out all the research your little heart desires. But if the research does not explain real world experiences that appear to counter the research then the research is nothing but bad research. So tell me why it is easier for me to read with tinted glasses than with out. Tell me not having that ability in school did not hinder my learning to read. You said that for poor readers there is one single treatment. I say that you need more than that one single treatment for some readers specifically me.
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Treat the earth well, It was not given to you by your parents. It was loaned to you by your children. -Unknown
Posts: 2716 | From: Houston | Registered: Jun 2004
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Actually, the red herring is your consistent strawman that anyone here has claimed that SEN deals with physical disabilities. What has been said, several times, is that assessments should include screening for sensory impairments.
Which is, of course, completely irrelevant to the discussion of the SEN system, unless we pretend that the SEN system is focused on physical disabilities.
How is saying the SEN system should screen for physical disabilities irrelevant to a discussion of the SEN system?
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:
Research can say anything it likes. I will let other people find counter research if they want to it is easily found.
If past experience is anything to go by, nobody here will come up with anything that stands up to a moment's scrutiny. People selling coloured glasses have put out quite a lot of rubbish on this, but the serious research is pretty clear.
quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:
But I don't need the research I know from personal experience that if research says otherwise it is faulty research.
There's a reason why doctors don't accept personal testimony as evidence of the effectiveness of medical interventions. If we accepted this as evidence then they'd still be treating people for an imbalance of humours.
I'd recommend Ben Goldacre's "Bad Science" to anybody who is interested in distinguishing between pseudo-science and actual medical facts.
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
How is saying the SEN system should screen for physical disabilities irrelevant to a discussion of the SEN system?
I am saying that if we want to critise or defend the SEN system we should probably discuss what the SEN system actually does in reality, rather than what they might do in a purely hypothetical universe.
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
Infinite_monkey, I can't argue with your experience, so I won't. I hear often from educators that inclusion is done "right" in their school(s), and I have noticed two constants in these stories: one, inclusion or mainstreaming that's successful seems to happen mostly pre-middle-school, and two, it seems to happen where the school district's response to disability is to hire and assign aides on a 1-aide-per-student (or maybe 1-to-2) ratio. I can only tell you what I have seen (and I am looking at older children, not your 4th-graders): children with aides in steady attendance interact mostly with the aide; other children steer clear. Children without aides who need aides cause ruckus.
In the classroom I visited, there was no one under the age of 16. There were 34 students, 4 of whom had obvious disabilities; there's every possibility that 3 or 4 more students had disabilities or learning issues that are not immediately obvious to an outside observer.
There was one aide. My guess, based on brief discussions with the aide, is that she normally deals with all four of the obviously-disabled students, but that on this day, she was (under instruction from her superiors) attending exclusivly to my referral because he was being observed by an outside professional.
Some points: some fourth-grade girls, advanced or not, still play with dolls. Girls still in latency (though that ends quite young these days) are still working through all that learning-to-nurture phase of their development. Boys in latency often have this nurturing need too. Such children will quite often express this need (and accompanying learning of how to nurture) by engaging with a classmate who plainly needs this.
Fourth-grade, and latency, are both wayside stops along the developmental route, though. By the time these kids hit middle school, they are working on other developmental issues, and it's precisely this age group where the whole inclusion and/or mainstreaming, even WITH adequate aide support, starts to fall apart.
There are always exceptions (just as there are out there in the Real World, so-called), but from what I can see, students with significant disabilities remain, for the most part, socially isolated and academically underserved in classes originally meant to help typical students prepare for college.
By the time students get to high school, it's all about peer groups and social disambiguation. Those with significant disabilities are left to form peer groups of their own; they are seen as "likes," just as the geeks, jocks, nerds, Goths, etc. are.
Students with less-visible kinds of learning differences or disabilities are probably not served well in this classroom environment either; they and their issues are going to get passed over and ignored, unless the kids act out in some fashion; and then the response will likely have far more to do with the acting-out than with the underlying learning problem.
The typical kid who is neither advanced enough to act as junior teacher/aide nor impaired enough to warrant professional attention, and whose parents may carry lunchpails rather than briefcases to work, is left to fend for him/herself in a welter of chaos.
I personally think that people with similar, or possibly complementary, learning issues would be better-served by being grouped for study together with educators well-trained in dealing with that issue.
Given a quiet, distraction-free setting, enough time, and patient and persistent support, Mr. Crayon may eventually learn to distinguish the red crayon from the others and learn to pick it up and use it on prompting. He may eventually learn some words, or at least to respond consistently to the utterance of his own name. The likelihood that this will happen in an overcrowded classroom where a gas pressure lesson is going forward and another student is yawping and flailing around, and several students with nothing to do are buzzing amongst themselves, is absolutely nil.
[ 18. September 2010, 14:33: Message edited by: Apocalypso ]
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Antisocial Alto
Shipmate
# 13810
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Posted
Apocalypso, I was going to suggest that mainstreaming works better in primary than secondary because teenagers are sociopathic little creeps, but your version sounds better. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posts: 601 | From: United States | Registered: Jun 2008
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markprice81
Shipmate
# 13793
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Posted
I had never heard of Irlen syndrome before and decided to do a quick google search and found the following web page which basically says it is a form of snake oil designed to con money out of stupid people.
I must admit I thought it sounded dodgy when I saw it was a registered trade mark.
Posts: 126 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2008
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infinite_monkey
Shipmate
# 11333
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Posted
Apocalypso, though I take enormous issue with your comparison of inclusion students to "dolls" in need of nurturing (and the idea that engaging in supportive behaviors towards peers is something that middle and high school children should be expected to grow out of...), I will concur that inclusion is more challenging as students pass through the grades.
Having said that, I've moved students with autism and Down Syndrome up to middle school, where my inclusion colleagues have found that these kids remain voluntarily surrounded, much of the time, by typically developing peers. I have colleagues at the middle and high school level who have seen it work and have made it work. Yes, with adult support, typically best at the 1:2 or 1:3 level, with the support provider coached in appropriate fading procedures to keep the student from interacting exclusively or primarily with him/her.
Having grown up under a different educational system, I've also seen and, in retrospect, been ashamed of the alternative: I remember going through high school with a vague sense of the kids in the portable (=trailer classroom) being somehow weird and to be avoided, I remember a student with cognitive disabilities joining a writer's club at my school and the other members tearing her work to bits for being too simple. I remember kids, including myself, using words which were actual labels for actual kids as swear words and insults. More recently, remember the fake prom debacle surrounding a lesbian teenager in Mississippi? Chief among the other "rejects" who got the invitation to the decoy party were kids with disabilities. (Who, for the record, showed up and had a great time--the only good thing Constance McMillen identified as coming out of that...)
These are the things kids do in a vacuum; these may be the feelings kids develop towards kids with exceptionalities when inclusion is done so poorly as to set everyone up for chaos and failure. But that doesn't mean it's inevitable, and it doesn't mean it's right.
Granted, educational inclusion's easier with young kids. But the reality is that inclusion, well or poorly done, is the NORM in the adult world. The transition programs I've been a part of are all about teaching students with severe disabilities how to take the bus, shop in stores, use neighborhood facilities like the YMCA and the library, and give back to their communities through volunteer or paid work. There aren't special yellow buses once you get past 22, and everyone eats in the same cafeterias. Some adult programs and residences, of course, do minimize contact with the world beyond disability--I personally don't think that they're doing it right.
Given that, I think it's a step backwards followed by a jump too far forwards to exempt middle and high schools from inclusive school practices. The classroom you observed? I wouldn't get behind that, either. But I would suggest that there are other ways of pursuing strong though divergent aims for a variety of learners in a high school science class. I've had students with cognitive disabilities serve as materials managers, distributing equipment (no, of course I don't let them play with the Bunsen burner, but not everything is flammable in a science class); there are learners on the more severe end of the autism spectrum who are cognitively at or above average who can access the content if accommodations are made. Mr. Red Crayon may not have his finest academic hour in a high school physics class, but daily opportunities for him to sit quietly with and attend to a large group of peers will ultimately better prepare him for riding the bus and going to the movies than any number of discrete-trial sessions on red versus green.
It's hard. It's not perfect. I differ from many of my full-inclusion colleagues in willingly stating that it's not, all the time, for everybody. But it is a possibility, and in this country, at least, it's also the law.
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His light was lifted just above the Law,
And now we have to live with what we did with what we saw.
--Dar Williams, And a God Descended
Obligatory Blog Flog: www.otherteacher.wordpress.com
Posts: 1423 | From: left coast united states | Registered: Apr 2006
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infinite_monkey
Shipmate
# 11333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
All I said was that for students who are poor readers there was one single treatment.
Which is?
Teaching them well.
(sarcasm alert)
Oh. Was I supposed to do that? Here I thought that my additional two years of post-graduate training on cognitive diversity, access to specifically designed research-based intervention materials, and ability to work with struggling learners in the small group format identified as more effective than whole group teaching for children who haven't responded to general instruction was all simply designed to anger classroom teachers and fail young kids. While, ideally, costing boatloads of money.
Oops.
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His light was lifted just above the Law,
And now we have to live with what we did with what we saw.
--Dar Williams, And a God Descended
Obligatory Blog Flog: www.otherteacher.wordpress.com
Posts: 1423 | From: left coast united states | Registered: Apr 2006
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jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Another piece of research that dismisses coloured lens:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/pediatrics;102/5/1217
I think it is worth mentioning for the following claim:
"Visual problems are rarely responsible for learning difficulties."
If you take "learning difficulties" to be a technical term with a specific meaning, which I'm sure you neglected to define by sheer accident, then maybe so.
But it's pretty obvious that anyone with visual difficulties is going to have difficulty learning in an environment which is geared to people who are fully sighted.
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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.
Posts: 8040 | From: Æbleskiver country | Registered: Aug 2009
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
How is saying the SEN system should screen for physical disabilities irrelevant to a discussion of the SEN system?
I am saying that if we want to critise or defend the SEN system we should probably discuss what the SEN system actually does in reality, rather than what they might do in a purely hypothetical universe.
It seems that I and most others here would like to discuss how SEN (as well as the US system) could be improved/ enhanced/ modified, rather than simply the false dichotomy you keep clinging to of either accepting a faulty and possibly wasteful system or chucking the whole thing.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Another piece of research that dismisses coloured lens:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/pediatrics;102/5/1217
I think it is worth mentioning for the following claim:
"Visual problems are rarely responsible for learning difficulties."
quote:
Originally posted by jacobsen:
If you take "learning difficulties" to be a technical term with a specific meaning, which I'm sure you neglected to define by sheer accident, then maybe so.
But it's pretty obvious that anyone with visual difficulties is going to have difficulty learning in an environment which is geared to people who are fully sighted.
Indeed. I think the article is saying that special tinted glasses or looking for subtle visual processing difficulties that might explain learning difficulties is unevidenced and shouldn't be done. (In fairness to oldandrew I think other posters were suggesting it should be and so this article is a reasonable counter to that, and that is how he introduced the link). However, what it is not saying is that conventionally understood visual impairments are irrelevant to educational problems.
quote:
When children have learning problems that are suspected to be associated with visual defects, the ophthalmologist may be consulted by the primary care pediatrician. If no ocular defect is found, the child needs no further
vision care or treatment and should be referred for medical and appropriate special educational evaluation and services.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by infinite_monkey:
Apocalypso, though I take enormous issue with your comparison of inclusion students to "dolls" in need of nurturing (and the idea that engaging in supportive behaviors towards peers is something that middle and high school children should be expected to grow out of...), I will concur that inclusion is more challenging as students pass through the grades.
Nowhere did I compare inclusion students with dolls. I am simply pointing out that some typical 4th-graders are still experiencing a primary need to nurture others, either in play form or in actuality, and that some probably meet part of this need by attending to a classmate who appears to them to need nurture.
Neither did I say anybody *should* outgrow this need; we don't; if we did, we obviously wouldn't be reproducing as a species at irresponsible rates. But the need to nurture peers (as a primary way of relating to them) naturally does diminish as one's peers, from a developmental perspective, typically need less of this as they grow.
quote:
Originally posted by infinite_monkey:
Having said that, I've moved students with autism and Down Syndrome up to middle school, where my inclusion colleagues have found that these kids remain voluntarily surrounded, much of the time, by typically developing peers. I have colleagues at the middle and high school level who have seen it work and have made it work. Yes, with adult support, typically best at the 1:2 or 1:3 level, with the support provider coached in appropriate fading procedures to keep the student from interacting exclusively or primarily with him/her.
Again, I don't doubt this. I too have seen exceptions (albeit rare) to the classroom I visited most recently. I am simply saying that inclusion or mainstreaming is, at least in my own experience, far more often done very badly than done even passably well. More than that I can't say; I am merely an observer in these settings. I am not a teacher; I don't claim to know how to address these issues, to understand what's wrong in the settings where things don't go well, or how such situations could be improved.
I only know what has worked with folks on my caseload who get sadly limited services. It's plain to me that Mr. Crayon needs fewer distractions in order to learn. My staff and I can arrange that and will, beginning next month when he's officially "on board" with us. If he can learn to distinguish consistently among 2-3 colors, or 2-3 sizes, or 2-3 shapes, my staff and I can turn that ability into a marketable skill with which Mr. Crayon may be able to obtain supported employment (tough in this economy). Also, if he can learn that, he may be able to learn other things as well. But I submit he has little chance of learning much of anything in a class like the one described above. I rather doubt any kid present learned much that day.
quote:
Originally posted by infinite_monkey:
Granted, educational inclusion's easier with young kids. But the reality is that inclusion, well or poorly done, is the NORM in the adult world. The transition programs I've been a part of are all about teaching students with severe disabilities how to take the bus, shop in stores, use neighborhood facilities like the YMCA and the library, and give back to their communities through volunteer or paid work. There aren't special yellow buses once you get past 22, and everyone eats in the same cafeterias. Some adult programs and residences, of course, do minimize contact with the world beyond disability--I personally don't think that they're doing it right.
Our experiences differ, then. I work primarily with adults; my only experience with schools comes through the process of evaluating 21-y.o. people about to transition onto my caseload.
I am the only manager in my agency whose caseload consists exclusively of adults who live (or soon will live), as we term it, "independently" in community settings -- that is they reside apart from their families of origin; they do not live in group homes or institutions; they live on their own.
The mission of my little sub-branch of my agency is to teach the independent living skills people need to remain safely on their own (bus-taking, cooking, laundry-washing, etc.). The reality is that most folks on my caseload need long, careful, thorough, consistent training to acquire these skills; In the meantime -- pre-skill-acquisition -- people need not only teaching but also support to do these activities, which is one of the ways in which most of us learn -- through constantly-repeated experience. If all goes well, staffers start to "fade," at first observing from afar to see that Client X does in fact get on the right bus, that he does not grab women's breasts while waiting for said bus; that he does not accept invitations from strangers to go off and do something else instead of going to the 10-hour-a-week job, etc. And then it becomes our mutual task to figure out a next step in the learning program to help Client X become even safer and more independent.
However, the folks on my caseload and (when I occasionally pinch-hit for another manager who's out) the folks who live less independently have remarkably little interaction with anybody except staffers and others who have disabilities. Inclusion may be an ideal, but it is far from the norm as you claim.
My agency's hours, except for dire emergencies (and we do have on-call policies and procedures in place for these), are 8:30 to 5 p.m. My mission, as handed down from a layer or two above me, is both to teach ADL and safety skills and to "integrate" individuals on my case load into their communities. Inclusion, in other words; assisting them in meeting and becoming included in the social groups and activities of similarly-aged adults.
The former my staff and I do pretty well. The latter is all but impossible. My clients range in age from early 20s to 62. Their services, per the agency's hours, get provided between 8:30 and 5 p.m.
Where do you find typical adults in this age range during these hours? You find them at school (college or trade school) or at work. Neither, unless you're a student or co-worker, is a venue for random socializing. In fact, neither is a venue to which a non-student or non-employee can gain any but very temporary and superficial admittance, especially with a staff person in tow.
I have made this plea, and my case, over and over to higher-ups in my agency: change the hours of service, and change the way we offer service. Do the programs on evenings and weekends. If I could have my staff take clients to a bowling alley on Saturday afternoons, or to a knitting class or photography club on week nights, or to a church of the client's choice on Sunday mornings, I might have some small hope of achieving some real inclusion. But it cannot be done in the way we are attempting to do it. The adults we run into when (as almost inevitably happens) we end up with our clients at the local mall are . . . retirees who'd rather hang out with other retirees; mothers of preschoolers who are scared of us (sometimes with good reason); high schoolers playing hooky who want nothing to do with us; and, yes, staffers from other agencies who are dragging their own charges around the mall for lack of anything more "inclusive" to do.
Inclusion, in short, is far from the norm (and this in a state which prides itself with having pioneered some of the innovations in this field).
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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JonahMan
Shipmate
# 12126
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Posted
Looking at ways of improving the way children with special needs are dealt with, from my experience one vital facet is including the parents in the programme. As the middle class, highly motivated parents of an Asperger's child, we put in (and are putting in) a huge effort to make sure we were involved in and backing up what the school was doing. We mutually reinforce what each is doing and saying so there aren't mixed messages about what is acceptable behaviour, and communicate constantly (mainly through a daily home-school diary) so we know what's been going on, can make sure any schoolwork missed out gets done etc.
Without our involvement anything the school did would have been certainly less successful and quite probably failed altogether. Given that many parents are less able, in terms of being able to give time, money and understanding, to be involved, it's easy to see why SEN interventions could easily be less effective than they need to be. I'm not sure how this scales up.
What percentage of the school population does have special needs? I know the figure of about 20% has been bandied about as an unrealistically high number. Presumably this includes
1. Kids who have special needs who can't learn in a mainstream environment
2. Kids who have milder special needs who can or could learn in a mainstream school
3. Kids who haven't got genuine special needs but have been diagnosed as such for some reason or another
It doesn't of course include any who have special needs but who haven't been diagnosed as such, which can also happen.
Because special needs cover a range of dysfunctions and characteristics, rather than having a simple binary yes/no, where do you draw the line anyway? In an ideal world all kids would get the extra attention and support they needed to maximise their learning and their potential, in the real world resources are limited so presumably you limit the support in some way - but what way, who do and don't you support?
Given that 75% of Americans use some sort of vision correction (a physical issue I know, but it suggests that not being perfect is the norm, if you see what I mean), and 25% suffer from mental health problems, I wouldn't find it particularly surprising if 20% of children did have special educational needs - the figure, given that it covers a huge range of conditions, doesn't seem out of line with other conditions differing from the norm/ideal. Of course until you have a comprehensive screening process in place with a rigorous scientific diagnostic methodology the true figure can't be known for sure. But could anyone give informed estimates for the 'real' figure?
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Thank God for the aged
And old age itself, and illness and the grave
For when you're old, or ill and particularly in the coffin
It's no trouble to behave
Posts: 914 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Dec 2006
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
I think the real issue here has less to do with individual learning differences, which everyone has anyway, than with an attempt to create two mutually-exclusive systems with diametrically-opposed goals which operate under one roof.
So-called "typical" children are fed through the people-processing-machine of public education being "measured" or graded according to curricular norms set for the group. Third-grade 8-y.o. kids learn cursive and long division (or whatever the curriculum says) and progress is compared to these standard norms, which kids exceed, meet, or fall short of and are responded to accordingly.
Children with educational handicaps, so-called, enter into the people-processing-machine of public education as exceptions to the norms established for typical children. They are set goals which are individualized according to whatever we can suss out about their abilities, potential, and prognoses. If there is no progress, current goals get dropped and new goals are adopted. In theory, this should maximize the EH child's chances of getting everything s/he can out of school. In practice, I'm afraid, it sometimes means that we lower expectations for children who prove too "difficult" for us to manage.
To make the system as a whole work more efficiently, it seems to me we ought to commit to one of these models for every kid, rather than trying to make both work within a single educational environment.
Back when this all started in the US, two systems made some sense; a lot of compensatory schooling was needed for kids who'd been getting the shaft.
A generation on, though, systems which are neither separate nor equal create chaos. Maybe it's time for every single child to have an individualized education plan. Or maybe it's time to think about creating specialized learning environments for special kids.
[ 18. September 2010, 22:58: Message edited by: Apocalypso ]
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
The SEN register I worked with only included students with visual impairments or hearing difficulties if they had an impact on their education - so seating plans or additional materials have to be prepared, Students with eyesight corrected by glasses were not included.
The problem, as usual with the English education system is, that you are trying to achieve several things with one measure and you have a limited number of ways of flagging up students to teachers. One way of making sure a child was flagged up semi-permanently was to put them on the SEN register. This meant that if the child needed large print documents or a seating plan to make sure they can hear the lesson are accommodations the SEN register is the mechanism to do this. Teachers are supposed to be aware of all the students in their class and to make accommodations as suggested.
We used to flag up students with low reading ages (depended on where in the school they were - but 6-7 year reading age at age 11, 8 years at age 15, say) - because those students would need work differentiated to allow them to access the lesson. None of that is particularly controversial.
Now a significant number of these students had behaviour issues too. and strategies to support these students might include suggestions to deal with the behaviour issues, This is all on IEPs showing what should be in place for each student to support their learning. Persuading teachers to read these or report back on them was *interesting* - 6% returns was about par - and when additional moves to get a diagnosis relies on teacher reports this isn't helpful.
The difficulty gets much harder when looking at behaviour issues. If it was a temporary issue causing a student to not cope, it was raised in morning briefing and the student hopefully was cut a bit of slack if, for example, their mother was in hospital. If the child was having ongoing counselling with CAMHS for big home and family issues - and part of the accommodation was social skills work in school, should they be flagged up by putting them on the SEN register?
And what do you do when you're looking at long-standing behaviour issues that the partial diagnosis at the previous school suggests might be ASD linked - do you put the student on the SEN register because that student really isn't coping but all that is showing is behaviour issues? And access to external support is based on showing that efforts have been continuing, then the SEN register again is used.
When the special needs system and inclusion was originally envisaged by Mary Warnock back in 1978, she thought there would be around 2% statements for children with serious needs, 20% with students moving on or off the register as events affected their lives, but she's been saying since 2008 that the system isn't working. From a google the figure is something like 17.1% with statements. I can guess reasons for that - students can only access special schools with a statement, and a statement suggests funding bands to support the student by what is required to be provided.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
Then what's the purpose of the SEN register? Surely every student isn't on it; and if you're not on it, you're not getting something which those on it do get (or vice-versa).
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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infinite_monkey
Shipmate
# 11333
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Posted
Apocalypso, you make an excellent point about scheduling and the difficulties of fully integrating adults with significant disabilities during the hours when most of the world is at work. (Though, with unemployment rates being what they are these days....) I love the idea of introducing your clients to church activities or knitting clubs--makes a lot of sense.
It's not my intention to paint a ridiculously rosy picture of a world where every individual with disabilities is lovingly surrounded by groups of diverse peers--I've worked transition as well, and I honor the realities. But I think my point stands-- the world we prepare our students for goes beyond the special day class, and given the reality that adults with disabilities are visibly present in wider society (shoot, given the reality that about 20% of the population will personally experience disability in the course of their lives), I think there's a lot of value in mixing it up a bit during school. I was 22 when I first met an individual on the autism spectrum: it strikes me as ridiculous that it took me that long.
I'm genuinely curious about your argument that it doesn't work to track student progress according to two standards: I honestly can't imagine doing it another way. Kids with severe disabilities have long been taught and evaluated with a degree of individuality that is simply not possible for a room of thirty kids. It would be awesome to be able to create an individual learning plan for all typically developing students, but I think there'd be a lot of redundancy there (hey! Turns out all these kids need long division!), and gen ed teachers are already stretched thin enough. And I think the opposite solution--sticking the kids with individualized plans in a separate place so their standards aren't present in the regular classroom--underestimates the ability of both children and teachers to deal with a situation in which one size won't fit all.
I guess it's a question of the fish not really noticing the water that it swims in, but I've done differentiated instruction and evaluation for years without ever finding it deleterious or ineffective: every student I have right now would be utterly screwed if held without accommodation to a gen ed standard, yet every student I have has been individually determined to be best served in the gen ed class. A kid with severe cognitive disabilities in a 5th grade classroom which is working on multiplying and dividing 7-digit numbers? I don't see why it hurts anybody to have that student recognizing and circling the individual target numerals "3" and "4" on the same worksheet. It's no different than in a class without students with disabilities, where the teacher throws in five challenge spelling words for advanced learners when giving the test.
Have you experientially found problems with it that I haven't encountered?
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His light was lifted just above the Law,
And now we have to live with what we did with what we saw.
--Dar Williams, And a God Descended
Obligatory Blog Flog: www.otherteacher.wordpress.com
Posts: 1423 | From: left coast united states | Registered: Apr 2006
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rugasaw
Shipmate
# 7315
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
There's a reason why doctors don't accept personal testimony as evidence of the effectiveness of medical interventions.
Yet the best doctors always take personal testimony into account. I would not take my personal testimony to say anything for all people. I say my personal testimony for what happens to me. Shaded glasses/overlays/paper help me read beyond what good teaching practices did. You either don't believe me or you do. I have now stated a counter example to your claim that only good teaching practices help people who are poor at reading. By the way you only need to provide one counter example to discount a rule. you provided the rule I provided the counter example.
You have studies include meta-analysis which is not hard science and as such is hard to credit. Critique of Irlen's research which hardly counts as research itself. What appears to be a blog. And yet another critique of research. So I would have to disagree with you. You have not shown that research disagrees with me. You have shown people with degrees and credentials disagree with the research techniques very well.
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Treat the earth well, It was not given to you by your parents. It was loaned to you by your children. -Unknown
Posts: 2716 | From: Houston | Registered: Jun 2004
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rugasaw
Shipmate
# 7315
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by markprice81:
I had never heard of Irlen syndrome before and decided to do a quick google search and found the following web page which basically says it is a form of snake oil designed to con money out of stupid people.
I must admit I thought it sounded dodgy when I saw it was a registered trade mark.
It seems to me that your web site shows more proof than less that some treatment beyond just good teaching helps some people. What your web site seems to say is that there is contradictory research although most of the research sited seems to indicate that colored overlays help some people. I am not nor am I going to claim Irlen did anything near good research. I am saying that results count and the results help some people specifically me.
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Treat the earth well, It was not given to you by your parents. It was loaned to you by your children. -Unknown
Posts: 2716 | From: Houston | Registered: Jun 2004
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markprice81
Shipmate
# 13793
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:
I am saying that results count and the results help some people specifically me.
I have no doubt at all that it will work for some people in much the same way that homeopathy works for some people namely through the Placebo effect.
I should say that your arguments are making me more convinced it is pseudo-science.
Posts: 126 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2008
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Janine
The Endless Simmer
# 3337
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Posted
So it's all in my head that I read more easily -- book or computer screen -- with my tinted, slightly magnifying, reading glasses?
I guess a keyboard tilted properly and a comfortable grip-shape on my ink pens are just placebo factors, too.
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I'm a Fundagelical Evangimentalist. What are you?
Take Me Home * My Heart * An hour with Rich Mullins *
Posts: 13788 | From: Below the Bible Belt | Registered: Sep 2002
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rugasaw
Shipmate
# 7315
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by markprice81:
I should say that your arguments are making me more convinced it is pseudo-science.
You have yet to show that it is pseudo-science. I have stated a counter example that has not been proven false.
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Treat the earth well, It was not given to you by your parents. It was loaned to you by your children. -Unknown
Posts: 2716 | From: Houston | Registered: Jun 2004
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
The SEN register I worked with only included students with visual impairments or hearing difficulties if they had an impact on their education - so seating plans or additional materials have to be prepared, Students with eyesight corrected by glasses were not included.
Wha??? We have been assured several times by oldandrew that SEN has NOTHING to do with visual or hearing impairments under any circumstances. (Obviously vision that can be corrected wasn't something any of us were talking about, but, as you note, only those visual or hearing impairments that require some kind of accomodations).
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I think the article is saying that special tinted glasses or looking for subtle visual processing difficulties that might explain learning difficulties is unevidenced and shouldn't be done.
Littlest One's neurologist disagrees strongly with the AAP's position on vision therapy, and could point you to as many studies that support it as those that don't. It may well be the same for Irlen lenses. I don't know.
I do know that, before doing vision therapy, Littlest One's visual impairments included intermittent double vision, almost no depth perception, and extreme difficulty with visual tracking. Related to the diplopia, objects in his visual field would jump and move. This was especially problematic with near vision.
He also had other impairments of visual processing (simultanagnosia, visual crowding, face-blindness, left-side neglect, and more).
These difficulties definitely made it harder for him to learn to read. In fact, they made it harder for him to learn to do a lot of things. They're not trivial problems. They're not imaginary. And I can't imagine any reason why looking for these problems is something that "shouldn't be done."
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
cliffdweller, a blind student would have a statement to entitle them to a place in a special school, severe visual impairment that required a lot of accommodations but meant that the student could be accommodated in mainstream might well have a statement.
This document which is the latest document on SEN for parents and carers (2009) says:
quote:
The term ‘special educational needs’ has a legal definition. Children with special educational needs all have learning difficulties or disabilities that make it harder for them to learn than most children of the same age. These children may need extra or different help from that given to other children of the same age.
<snip>
Children with special educational needs may need extra help because of a range of needs, such as in thinking and understanding, physical or sensory difficulties, emotional and behavioural difficulties, or difficulties with speech and language or how they relate to and behave with other people.
Many children will have special educational needs of some kind at some time during their education. Schools and other organisations can help most children overcome the barriers their difficulties present quickly and easily. But a few children will need extra help for some or all of their time in school.
I suspect that oldandrew is not disputing the obvious physical needs as may be needing help, but the students with behavioural difficulties, who can and do disrupt classes in mainstream schools. A teacher who has had their lesson disrupted wants to be able to teach without disruption and is not going to be impressed with an IEP that says 'sit with an appropriate peer' and 'near the front' - when there are already 5 others with the same instructions in the class and there aren't enough suitable peers, or seats at the front.
The problem is that the reasons for behavioural difficulties range from children from dysfunctional families who have still, 5 or more years into their education not accepted or learnt how to adapt their behaviour to the classroom to a child who has been abused at home, and having told someone, is in the middle of dealing with the police and social services and courts, without the support of the family, because her abuser, now arrested, is a close family member and to whom teaching seems totally irrelevant; students with speech and language difficulties; students with comprehension difficulties; students whose reading means they cannot access the materials and they are bored and fed up being placed in a class of students of lower ability than they are based on their written work; children who can see no reason to read because no-one at home does and they're all doing fine ... it goes on.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by infinite_monkey:
Oh. Was I supposed to do that? Here I thought that my additional two years of post-graduate training on cognitive diversity, access to specifically designed research-based intervention materials, and ability to work with struggling learners in the small group format identified as more effective than whole group teaching for children who haven't responded to general instruction was all simply designed to anger classroom teachers and fail young kids. While, ideally, costing boatloads of money.
Feel free to tell us about your "research based interventions" and whether it meets my description of teaching well, or other people's descriptions of making diagnoses.
But don't just claim that because you have had "postraduate training" then it must be good. You can get postgraduate training in Neuro-Linguistic Programming or homeopathy, it doesn't make them any use.
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jacobsen:
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Another piece of research that dismisses coloured lens:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/pediatrics;102/5/1217
I think it is worth mentioning for the following claim:
"Visual problems are rarely responsible for learning difficulties."
If you take "learning difficulties" to be a technical term with a specific meaning, which I'm sure you neglected to define by sheer accident, then maybe so.
But it's pretty obvious that anyone with visual difficulties is going to have difficulty learning in an environment which is geared to people who are fully sighted.
Presumably it would be rare for somebody to be in that situation.
As I said before, the evidence of the epidemic of undiagnosed sight and hearing problems causing learning difficulties is anecdotal.
[ 19. September 2010, 07:29: Message edited by: oldandrew ]
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
It seems that I and most others here would like to discuss how SEN (as well as the US system) could be improved/ enhanced/ modified, rather than simply the false dichotomy you keep clinging to of either accepting a faulty and possibly wasteful system or chucking the whole thing.
Actually, what you are talking about (screening for physical problems) would involve a different system, a medical one. It is something the existing system isn't set up to do it. Obviously, it is somewhat absurd to say that this undermines the case for getting rid of the existing system. It is an argument for replacing the existing system.
[ 19. September 2010, 07:33: Message edited by: oldandrew ]
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Indeed. I think the article is saying that special tinted glasses or looking for subtle visual processing difficulties that might explain learning difficulties is unevidenced and shouldn't be done.
It is saying that, and that was the original reason I found it.
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
(In fairness to oldandrew I think other posters were suggesting it should be and so this article is a reasonable counter to that, and that is how he introduced the link). However, what it is not saying is that conventionally understood visual impairments are irrelevant to educational problems.
quote:
When children have learning problems that are suspected to be associated with visual defects, the ophthalmologist may be consulted by the primary care pediatrician. If no ocular defect is found, the child needs no further
vision care or treatment and should be referred for medical and appropriate special educational evaluation and services.
This doesn't actually undermine the suggestion that it is rare for eye problems to be the cause.
As I said, I am sceptical about the epidemic of undiagnosed sight and hearing problems affecting learning. I can't, however, say that it doesn't exist for certain, but the lack of (non-anecdotal) evidence for it and the fact that the AAP and related organisations seem oblivious to it would certainly suggest that it isn't the soundest basis for policy making.
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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amber.
Ship's Aspiedestra
# 11142
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Posted
Learning difficulties linked to vision, sight etc?
Report The Learning Difficulties report from the UK Government Office for Science (2008) says that learning difficulties may occur because,
"The infant brain essentially learns about correlations and systematic co-occurrences across sensory modalities like hearing, vision and touch, enabling construction of a complex cognitive system from basic sensory stimulation. By watching visual events,listening to language and other sounds and studying goal-directed behaviour, the infant rapidly develops a linguistic and conceptual system and the ability to read intentions"
and
"Recent research suggests that quite small perturbations or inefficiencies in the sensory processing systems that yield the information used by the brain in learning are associated with major effects on learning trajectories. For example, very subtle impairments in auditory processing are associated with impaired language acquisition,and can be detected using simple brain responses to sound. Similar auditory impairments are implicated in developmental dyslexia and in specific language impairment. Subtle impairments in visual processing (e.g. “reading information in the eyes”) are found in autism spectrum disorders. Children with autism and with anti-social behaviour and conduct disorders tend to have difficulties with language, executive function and “theory of mind” (understanding the mental states of others"
It links to the research that supports each of these statements.
In other words, if you've never properly experienced sensory input like spoken/written language and non-verbal communication, you have a faulty understanding of how to use language, learn properly from it, and understand the concepts of a social society. The child is left trying to solve a puzzle every day, but with only some of the pieces.
It links to some 55 research articles which people can track down to investigate the evidence further.
[ 19. September 2010, 07:51: Message edited by: amber. ]
Posts: 5102 | From: Central South of England | Registered: Mar 2006
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:
Given that 75% of Americans use some sort of vision correction (a physical issue I know, but it suggests that not being perfect is the norm, if you see what I mean), and 25% suffer from mental health problems, I wouldn't find it particularly surprising if 20% of children did have special educational needs - the figure, given that it covers a huge range of conditions, doesn't seem out of line with other conditions differing from the norm/ideal. Of course until you have a comprehensive screening process in place with a rigorous scientific diagnostic methodology the true figure can't be known for sure. But could anyone give informed estimates for the 'real' figure?
Eye-sight gets worse with age so you can't use the population statistics to judge how many children have sight problems. (Even if we were to accept the ridiculous idea that needing glasses meant a child should be labelled and put on a register.)
The mental health statistic is even more dubious:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/24/one-in-four-mental-health-statistic
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
There's a reason why doctors don't accept personal testimony as evidence of the effectiveness of medical interventions.
Yet the best doctors always take personal testimony into account. I would not take my personal testimony to say anything for all people. I say my personal testimony for what happens to me. Shaded glasses/overlays/paper help me read beyond what good teaching practices did. You either don't believe me or you do.
I recommend you read Bad Science.
The point is not that everybody who claims that some individual piece of quackery helped them is a liar. The question is over what level of anecdote actually tells us anything. The placebo effect means we would expect many people to tell us stories like yours even if the disease and treatment are complete quackery.
quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:
I have now stated a counter example to your claim that only good teaching practices help people who are poor at reading. By the way you only need to provide one counter example to discount a rule. you provided the rule I provided the counter example.
If we are going to spend billions on this system the burden of proof should be on the people who think that is necessary.
quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:
You have studies include meta-analysis which is not hard science and as such is hard to credit.
Read the book. You are talking nonsense here.
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Janine:
So it's all in my head that I read more easily -- book or computer screen -- with my tinted, slightly magnifying, reading glasses?
I guess a keyboard tilted properly and a comfortable grip-shape on my ink pens are just placebo factors, too.
There's absolutely no reason to think they aren't. It is a medical fact that placebos do work.
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
The SEN register I worked with only included students with visual impairments or hearing difficulties if they had an impact on their education - so seating plans or additional materials have to be prepared, Students with eyesight corrected by glasses were not included.
Wha??? We have been assured several times by oldandrew that SEN has NOTHING to do with visual or hearing impairments under any circumstances.
I'm getting a bit sick of your straw men.
Stop making stuff up.
I have already told you that sensory disabilities account for 3% of SAP students and 5% of statements.
The point is that the system labels 1 in 5 and deals mainly with non-physical disabilities, yet people keep using arguments based solely on the small minority of students with physical disabilities.
[ 19. September 2010, 08:10: Message edited by: oldandrew ]
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
quote:
Originally posted by Janine:
So it's all in my head that I read more easily -- book or computer screen -- with my tinted, slightly magnifying, reading glasses?
I guess a keyboard tilted properly and a comfortable grip-shape on my ink pens are just placebo factors, too.
There's absolutely no reason to think they aren't. It is a medical fact that placebos do work.
In that case, are they placebos?
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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy
The man who made time, made plenty.
Posts: 8040 | From: Æbleskiver country | Registered: Aug 2009
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five
Shipmate
# 14492
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Posted
Technically the tilt, etc isn't a placebo, since of course something mechanical has been done. It isn't just a sugar pill.
As to the question "if it works, can it be a placebo?" the answer is ABSOLUTELY. There's plenty of reading (easily found) which show that taking a sugar pill or having a "fake" sort of treatment so that nothing mechanical, biochemical or anything else medical other than telling the person that X will work can wind up with that person being "cured" (only in quotes not because the problem doesn't go away, but because it isn't a definition of cure in the way that say, antibiotics cures someone of a bacterial infection.)
In short, if you take a sugar pill and nothing happens, it is a sugar pill. If you take a sugar pill and you're cured, it is a placebo.
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And Jesus said 'the greatest commandments are these: Love the Lord your God with 10% of your time and energy, and Pamphlet your neighbour with tracts' - Birdseye
Posts: 1250 | Registered: Jan 2009
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
cliffdweller, a blind student would have a statement to entitle them to a place in a special school, severe visual impairment that required a lot of accommodations but meant that the student could be accommodated in mainstream might well have a statement.
This document which is the latest document on SEN for parents and carers (2009) says:
quote:
The term ‘special educational needs’ has a legal definition. Children with special educational needs all have learning difficulties or disabilities that make it harder for them to learn than most children of the same age. These children may need extra or different help from that given to other children of the same age.
<snip>
Children with special educational needs may need extra help because of a range of needs, such as in thinking and understanding, physical or sensory difficulties, emotional and behavioural difficulties, or difficulties with speech and language or how they relate to and behave with other people.
Many children will have special educational needs of some kind at some time during their education. Schools and other organisations can help most children overcome the barriers their difficulties present quickly and easily. But a few children will need extra help for some or all of their time in school.
I suspect that oldandrew is not disputing the obvious physical needs as may be needing help, but the students with behavioural difficulties, who can and do disrupt classes in mainstream schools.
Yes, I realize all that. Nonetheless, we have spent considerable time on this thread with oldandrew presenting himself as an expert on this topic, and insisting with increasing vehemence that any discussion of visual or hearing impairments of any sort was "a red herring" on a discussion of SEN since SEN does not deal with "physical impairments"* under any circumstances. Your link would seem to put lie to that, and raise questions about oldandrew's overall credibility as a self-proclaimed expert on SEN.
*again, the distinction seems forced to me, along with the underlying implication that "some disabilities are more worthy than others".
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
The point is that the system labels 1 in 5 and deals mainly with non-physical disabilities, yet people keep using arguments based solely on the small minority of students with physical disabilities.
How are you defining non-physical disabilities? It might advance the discussion if you made that clear.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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JonahMan
Shipmate
# 12126
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:
Given that 75% of Americans use some sort of vision correction (a physical issue I know, but it suggests that not being perfect is the norm, if you see what I mean), and 25% suffer from mental health problems, I wouldn't find it particularly surprising if 20% of children did have special educational needs - the figure, given that it covers a huge range of conditions, doesn't seem out of line with other conditions differing from the norm/ideal. Of course until you have a comprehensive screening process in place with a rigorous scientific diagnostic methodology the true figure can't be known for sure. But could anyone give informed estimates for the 'real' figure?
Eye-sight gets worse with age so you can't use the population statistics to judge how many children have sight problems. (Even if we were to accept the ridiculous idea that needing glasses meant a child should be labelled and put on a register.)
The mental health statistic is even more dubious:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/24/one-in-four-mental-health-statistic
You have misunderstood me. My point wasn't that the 75% of people having less than perfect eyesight meant that the same percentage applies to children. It was that surprisingly high percentages of people (in general) can be less than perfect in some respect, or worse than what was considered normal. And therefoer I felt it not impossible that 1 in 5 kids have some sort of special educational need. The same applies to the 1 in 4 stat for people suffering mental health issues at some point in their lives. I pulled the
stat from a mental health charity site; I don't think one Guardian Comment is Free article necessarily invalidates it, though I agree it this was making an interesting point. Without doing a lot more research and taking further viewpoints and facts into account I couldn't begin to start arguing about it, nor am I sufficiently interested to do so. Again, my point was that if this sort of stat is correct, or even approximating correct, then it wouldn't be surprising that a relatively high percentage of kids had special needs of one sort or another. The question being, what to do about it.
To add to the discussion about undiagnosed vision problem, I came across this page which claims that 20% of children have some sort of eye problem which causes educational difficulties and that these don't get caught by typical basic vision tests. They mention 'latest research' but don't link to a source so I don't know whether this is genuine or if it's exaggerated for some reason. The American Optometrists Association say that quote:
Over 10 million children in the United States suffer from undetected vision problems. These vision problems often contribute to difficulties in the classroom, even in students who score 20/20 vision in a vision screening.
This would appear to be more than a small handful.
I would agree that in some ways this is a red herring - with a proper, thorough, screening process for vision problems, these children with a physical problem could be spotted and helped (presumably mainly through straightforward technological support like glasses). Which would leave those with genuine special needs together with others who are just plain naughty to be dealt with in other ways.
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Thank God for the aged
And old age itself, and illness and the grave
For when you're old, or ill and particularly in the coffin
It's no trouble to behave
Posts: 914 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Dec 2006
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
Infinite_monkey, I am about to head into the busiest time of my month, and won't be responding for a while, but here are a couple of thoughts:
In what we refer to, rather fancifully, as the Real World, work exists to provide goods and services to customers and clients, and to earn profits for owners/proprietors/shareholders.
Employees are hired to assist in the production and distribution of goods, the provision of services, and the generation of profits, as well as the tracking and record-keeping that necessarily accompany such activities.
In the same Real World, schooling used to exist to provide students with the skills and knowledge needed to become effective employees and citizens, and (in a few cases) prepare them for higher education.
The Real World hasn't changed all that much, but the role of schooling has. Schooling, at least in the US, now attempts to prepare students for a much wider range of adult roles. High schools offer sex-ed classes, parenting classes, anti-bullying classes, Al-Anon meetings, etc. etc. and various other classes and activities which cover material that was once considered to be the exclusive province of the home, the church, or the peer-group.
Whether that's bad or good or necessary I'm not qualified to say. But in this context, it's certainly understandable that social integration -- by class or race or disability --has worked its way onto the public education agenda.
What I fear, though, is that the original and primary purpose -- providing children with the skills and knowledge base needed to function effectively in college or at work or in civic life -- of public education is being lost in the shuffle.
I am not a public school teacher. My SO is a teacher, though in college. According to my SO's experience, kids in the first two years of college these days have gigantic holes in their knowledge bases, are significantly lacking in reading and writing skills, and are also often poorly socialized. Many of my SO's colleagues, with whom we socialize, feel the same way.
In a well-run inclusionary classroom, I can see no problem with adding an "identifying numbers" exercise or a smatter of challenge spelling words to an assignment meant for the middle-of-the-roaders. I see no problem with the pre-high-school advanced student choosing to work on a story with the disabled student while the rest of the class does work the advanced student has completed and the disabled student isn't ready to attempt.
What I do have a problem with is this: in high school, at least where I live, students generally "track" into college prep classes (physics, foreign languages, literature), commercial classes (typing, shorthand, bookkeeping), and gen ed classes (shop, home-ec, etc.).
I see zero point in wasting Mr. Crayon's time with a class meant to prep students for college-level sciences. I am reasonably confident he can learn something; he needs minimal support in toileting himself (though he must be accompanied to and from the rest room in order to ensure he gets there and returns); he manages to keep his clothing on; he is able to sit in one place for up to 6-7 minutes at a stretch, and can attend to something which interests him for up to a minute at a time. He didn't enter the world with these capacities; he learned them. So he can learn.
Without language (or minimal language), though, Mr. Crayon cannot identify numbers or letters. He cannot participate meaningfully in any aspect of a college prep class EXCEPT socially (he is able to make occasional eye contact, and can smile and laugh, and in fact, can be a charmer in his own way.
But without more receptive and expressive language than he now exhibits, there is also not going to be much meaningful social contact with typical high school students.
A physics class is not an appropriate venue for socialization. It's an appropriate place for learning physics.
Lunchtime is an appropriate venue for socializing; gym class might be. Band or chorus, perhaps; he claps a great deal, though I have not yet been able to determine if he can clap in time to music. There are opportunities during the school day for Mr. Crayon to interact, as best he's able, with students in more relaxed settings.
I'd be all for this, especially if Mr. Crayon could also be offered time in a quiet, distraction-free setting, one on one with an aide, to work on distinguishing colors, responding to prompts, and enlarging on his already-established capacities.
As things stand, Mr. Crayon's time is being wasted in physics class (also in French class and in Cultural Anthropology class); he is distracting others, and nobody, with the possible exception of the aide who gets employment out of the deal, benefits.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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infinite_monkey
Shipmate
# 11333
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Posted
Point of solid agreement, then. I think inclusion needs be understood in the concept of LRE--Least Restrictive Environment, which is the driving concept in the states behind special ed service provision.
Under LRE, the default assumption is that the student can and should learn and progress in the general education classroom, and deviations from that are carefully considered on a case by case basis with regard to both the child's needs and possible impacts on the GE setting. And students for whom the general education class isn't considered the best primary means of service delivery are still expected to have access to typically developing peers during other times of the day (such as lunch, recess, and electives.)
It's unfortunate that there is so much friction around mainstreaming and inclusion: I definitely have experienced times when parents have advocated for experiences which aren't ultimately beneficial for anybody simply because they are "my child's right." It helps me when I contextualize this within the long history of special education for kids with significant disabilities. In the working memory of many of my colleagues, kids currently included in their classrooms were institutionalized. It's still common for special day class teachers to send their children to recess and lunch parallel to the general education schedule. When my inclusion classrooms have substitute teachers, the kids (all the kids) are always fine--but the grown up often panics. The best intentioned adults in the world have looked me in the eye and said, "are you sure he belongs here?" or "am I supposed to teach HER?"
I think the middle way has a lot going for it, but it seems like there needs to be squabbles from both sides before we get there.
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His light was lifted just above the Law,
And now we have to live with what we did with what we saw.
--Dar Williams, And a God Descended
Obligatory Blog Flog: www.otherteacher.wordpress.com
Posts: 1423 | From: left coast united states | Registered: Apr 2006
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fat-tony
Shipmate
# 13769
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Posted
I feel slightly at a disadvantage posting on this thread as I do not have any diagnosed (late or otherwise) Special Educational Needs or disability, and not having fathered (to the best of my knowledge) someone with them either.... so can't really write about any personal experiences of being let down by the system. I am, and always will be incredibly grateful for my edcation and my teachers support. I do wear glasses, but that was diagnosed by an optician. I supose one teacher did threaten to punch me so hard that my head would dent the wall, but I deserved it, I was trying to wind him up. My failings as a student (spelling, grammar and coherence) are mine and mine alone.
That's why when reading the anecdotal evidence and stories of teachers inadequacies I find it very hard to believe. I do not believe that there is this army of teachers who are causing discipline problems in school by failing to understand their pupils. It just doesn't fit with my experience.
I have found in my years of teaching and management that the majority of problems are caused by pupils unwillingness to follow simple instructions, such as come in quietly, sit down, open you books, stop talking, take your coat off etc. The pupil's disrupting often are on the SEN list for a variety of things, none of which would suggest they have a problem doing as they're told. In fact what they invariably have in common is that they are either
1)used to always getting their own way from parents or their TA
2) Have no barriers at home
The reason that I've come to the conclusion that regardless of what is on their IEP that it never stops them actually doing what they're told is that as my career has progressed and I've become more senior the less problems I have, till now, where I seemingly have none. Am I a better teacher? Nope, in fact due to how busy I am my lessons are generally tedious, direct instruction followed by questions and repetiton. The difference is that there is nowhere further up the discipline chain they can go. So out of fear of the consequences they behave. Not beause I magically don't give the pupil with "only diagnosed by the SEN dept" dyslexia the same work to do, I do. I expect the same from him as everyone else....and he performs. I'm aware that his IEP suggests he misbehaves when expected to read, copy etc....I just know that he CAN behave under those circumstances. As he does.
I have been struggling to see the general benefits to the current system for years. Put simply. I'm not convinced that the dignosis of learning difficulties has much impact on the best strategies for teaching a class.With the current research suggesting, at secondary school at least, even the provision of TA's does not help the pupil improve (I've always liked having TA's in my class) I really do feel the current system is a failure.
[Asside only about any system that allows disruptive pupils in lessons:
Meanwhile while we're including disruptive pupils in lessons trying to find some "accomodation" that will mean they stop being disruptive we're effectively treating the rest of the class as guniea pigs, sacrificing their education to see how we can keep a disruptive pupil in class.]
[Back to my main concerns]
Teachers are so afraid of being accused of discriminating against a pupil on the SEND list that they aren't enforcing discipline in case they are branded as "one of those" teachers by the SEN dept. Someone who bully's the "Special" children and doesn't understand them.
Sorry that this is not overly coherent.
fat-tony
{edited to try and improve coherency - accept I've not done a great job}
[ 19. September 2010, 19:26: Message edited by: fat-tony ]
Posts: 74 | From: Springfield( The South) | Registered: Jun 2008
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
Learning difficulties linked to vision, sight etc?
...
In other words, if you've never properly experienced sensory input like spoken/written language and non-verbal communication, you have a faulty understanding of how to use language, learn properly from it, and understand the concepts of a social society. The child is left trying to solve a puzzle every day, but with only some of the pieces.
It links to some 55 research articles which people can track down to investigate the evidence further.
I've tracked down enough to know they are talking about auditory and visual processing (i.e. how the brain deals with sight and sound) not eye-sight and hearing. The learning difficulties weren't related to poor eye sight or being hard of hearing, they were related to brain responses measured using EEGs.
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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oldandrew
Shipmate
# 11546
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Nonetheless, we have spent considerable time on this thread with oldandrew presenting himself as an expert on this topic, and insisting with increasing vehemence that any discussion of visual or hearing impairments of any sort was "a red herring" on a discussion of SEN since SEN does not deal with "physical impairments"* under any circumstances.
As I have already told you, I have never said this.
Can you please stop claiming things about what I've said which you must surely know are not true? I am getting more and more fed up with it.
Again (just so that everyone can judge your honesty quite directly if you say it again) I am not claiming that vision and hearing problems are never classed as SEN and never dealt with by SEN departments. Please can you confirm whether or not you now acknowledge this?
What I am saying is that SEN departments are not qualified to diagnose vision and hearing problems, and that physical disabilities (and I am including sensory disabilities in this) are only a very small proportion of SEN cases in schools, and so you cannot defend the system as it is by constantly referring only to those cases.
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Teaching Blog at: http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/
Posts: 1069 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2006
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rugasaw
Shipmate
# 7315
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
If we are going to spend billions on this system the burden of proof should be on the people who think that is necessary.
You seem to think I care if you spend billions on this system. I assure you I don't. I don't even know enough SEN to have much of a say about it. You made a statement earlier I refuted it. You have yet to show scientific evidence that my refute is wrong.
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Treat the earth well, It was not given to you by your parents. It was loaned to you by your children. -Unknown
Posts: 2716 | From: Houston | Registered: Jun 2004
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