Ship of Fools: Purgatory: Diagnosing 'learning difficulties' -or worse- in children

Thread: Purgatory: Diagnosing 'learning difficulties' -or worse- in children Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.

To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=11;t=000786

Posted by Makepiece (# 10454) on :

I was in school 20 years ago and I was pretty unaware of learning difficulties or mental health issues. Now every other child seems to have some sort of problem or other.

Is it helpful to diagnose mild 'problems' in children? Would you be content if your child was diagnosed with mild autism, ADHD or dyspraxia because helpful interventions could be put in place? Or would you be concerned about your child being labelled at a young age, and embarrassed by overzealous teachers, when they could simply grow out of it?

I'm talking here of mild conditions because I'm sure anyone would agree that it's helpful to diagnose more severe cases.

[ 15. June 2016, 18:45: Message edited by: Belisarius ]

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

If the conditions don't affect their ability to function in school, are they worth diagnosing? If they do, are they mild?

Posted by Makepiece (# 10454) on :

Surely there is a range of abilities in school though. In the past people simply accepted that some were less able than others. I guess part of the issue here is whether there are really interventions which can assist such children. Can't labelling itself be a disabling experience?

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

Mousethief has it in a nutshell.

I have ADHD and dyslexia. I was diagnosed two years ago. I've been a teacher for 32 years and am now studying for a Masters degree in SpLD.

It's not a matter of being 'less able' - you can be incredibly intelligent and have dyslexia.

Do I wish I had known about my own specific learning difficulties?

I don't know, probably.

I was lucky though - I didn't go to school until I was seven and then finished at lunch time every day, so didn't suffer long.

[ 08. September 2010, 20:26: Message edited by: Boogie ]

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Makepiece:
Can't labelling itself be a disabling experience?

Yes, it can. Until we knew he had Asperger's, middle son's diagnosis was "lazy", given him by the school administrators. The real diagnosis was liberating, as it meant (a) we weren't alone in dealing with this particular set of problems, and (b) others before us had found strategies on how to cope with it.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Makepiece:
Can't labelling itself be a disabling experience?
Yes, it can. Until we knew he had Asperger's, middle son's diagnosis was "lazy", given him by the school administrators. The real diagnosis was liberating, as it meant (a) we weren't alone in dealing with this particular set of problems, and (b) others before us had found strategies on how to cope with it.

But isn't that really an argument FOR diagnosis? It was the lack of a diagnosis that led to the inaccurate labeling and inappropriate expectations.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But isn't that really an argument FOR diagnosis?

Yes, yes it was.

Posted by Makepiece (# 10454) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Makepiece:
Can't labelling itself be a disabling experience?
Yes, it can. Until we knew he had Asperger's, middle son's diagnosis was "lazy", given him by the school administrators. The real diagnosis was liberating, as it meant (a) we weren't alone in dealing with this particular set of problems, and (b) others before us had found strategies on how to cope with it.

That's interesting, it must be very frustrating to be labelled as lazy when the cause of the problem is entirely different.

Is there a risk though of then creating fictional limitations which aren't there? For example people who don't understand the condition could assume that there are limitations there which really aren't and this could create a self fulfilling prophesy. On the other hand the person with the condition may start to lack confidence in abilities which really aren't affected by the condition.

Of course it still may be better to be diagnosed but how do you deal with potential obstacles like these?

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

Education and good will and as a last resort legal action (if the school is uncooperative).

[eta] The thing is, if the kid is having difficulties in school, she's going to be labelled anyway -- "lazy" or "defiant" or "unruly" or worse. Better to have the correct label, so that remediation as needed can be applied. Also so that, in the US at least, IDEA (Americans with Disabilities in Education Act) can be brought to bear.

[ 08. September 2010, 20:57: Message edited by: mousethief ]

Posted by Chill (# 13643) on :

Assuming that we are not using mild as a code for the miss diagnosis of conditions, I would say it’s better to know than to labour in ignorance. I think this firstly because co-morbidity is common with various specific learning difficulties. So a mild difficulty in one area can often be a clue or indicator of more serious issue in other areas. Given the number of kids who historically slipped through the net I think it wise to be a little overcautious.

Furthermore if you have identified the cause of a problem you are half way to fixing or adapting to it. You have access to the tools you need to address and cope with the issue. For example with dyspraxia there are exercises which can help to address some of the issues. Knowledge is power and affords you the opportunity to take positive action which in the case of mild conditions could yield very positive results. To not do so is akin to not checking out the warning light on the dashboard if the car still starts up. We are all tempted to do it but in the long run it’s not the smart course of action.

As for worrying about your child being ladled by others, I would contend that raising your kids to give a dam about the prejudices of others would be doing them a far greater disservice than helping them to take on board there difficulties and overcome them.

Chaz

Posted by Spiffy (# 5267) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Makepiece:
It must be very frustrating to be labelled as lazy when the cause of the problem is entirely different.

Yes, yes it is.

My own case: I tested out as 'extremely gifted' (read: smarter than all y'all) in every subject, except math. The conclusion by the educational specialists of the 1980s was that I wasn't trying hard enough. Spent the next seven years of education being extremely frustrated with every single math class, never being able to finish a complete math exam, and getting no higher than a C- (and that by scraping and pleading) until I gave up on math entirely the first semester of 10th grade.

As I signed the paperwork to drop Advanced Trig (because that was where 'smart kids' like me needed to be), I was told I could still pass if I "worked harder". I believe my reply was something along the lines of "shuck that fit".

Graduated college six years later without knowing my times tables and having to resort to a calculator for many basic math problems. Got my first 'real' job working as Student Body Coordinator. Was preparing a bulletin board on Learning Disability testing options. The LD Testing coordinator was rattling off a list of things they tested for, and she said the magic word:

"Dyscalculia"

"I'm not familiar with that one."

"It's similar to dyslexia, but with numbers. It's also hereditary."

"...what does a staff member need to do to take these tests?"

Got my formal, registered diagnosis of dyscalculia and finally stopped feeling like an idiot for counting on my fingers and getting lost, because it comes with a side order of spatial reasoning issues.

It appears in some cases to be hereditary, and somehow related to dyslexia-- which my father has.

Now that I understand how my brain works, and learned some coping strategies (and have a calculator always handy on my cell phone), I've had a whole different world of job opportunities open up to me. My current work is in an accounting-related field, one I never thought I'd be able to do back when I thought I was too stupid to get math. It takes me a bit longer than other people in my work group to complete numbers, but because I go over them at least three times, my reports have fewer mistakes.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Makepiece:
Would you be content if your child was diagnosed with mild autism, ADHD or dyspraxia because helpful interventions could be put in place?

The usual intervention for a mild "special need" is some paperwork that makes no difference, but the process of telling the child they have a special need might, if they are inclined to be lazy or badly behaved, give them an excuse for being lazy or badly behaved.

The next most likely intervention would be assistance in class from a teaching assistant. The UK government commissioned research into this and discovered that this "help" actually lowered academic attainment of those students recieving help.

A good school will concentrate on teaching not labelling students with "needs" that probably don't exist. Unless your child has severe problems (i.e. something that even in less enlightened eras would have been seen as disability not a personality trait) steer clear of the SEN racket. It is about medicalising normal variations in character and ability as an excuse for bureacracy, pseudo-science and appeasement.

You can go into a lot of schools now and find academically weak kids who won't even open their books because they expect an adult to do it for them, and badly behaved children who expect to be spoilt rotten whenever they misbehave. The SEN racket wastes money, infantalises the young, undermines the authority of adults and, worst of all, seeks to find excuses for denying people their share of the intellectual inheritance of their culture.

[ 08. September 2010, 21:21: Message edited by: oldandrew ]

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Spi[QUOTE]Originally posted by Makepiece:

Now that I understand how my brain works, and learned some coping strategies (and have a calculator always handy on my cell phone), I've had a whole different world of job opportunities open up to me. My current work is in an accounting-related field, one I never thought I'd be able to do back when I thought I was too stupid to get math. It takes me a bit longer than other people in my work group to complete numbers, but because I go over them at least three times, my reports have fewer mistakes.

yes

Looking back, I have employed many coping strategies, and did at school too. Many of them learned from my Dad who was just like me.

I often got the label 'lazy' - fact was I was putting more effort in, not less.

'If she paid more attention .....' was on all my reports.

It's good to know why, even looking back so many years. So many teachers knocked me back - but (as is often the case) I was very resilient.

[Big Grin]

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Makepiece:
Would you be content if your child was diagnosed with mild autism, ADHD or dyspraxia because helpful interventions could be put in place?
<snip>Unless your child has severe problems (i.e. something that even in less enlightened eras would have been seen as disability not a personality trait) steer clear of the SEN racket. It is about medicalising normal variations in character and ability as an excuse for bureacracy, pseudo-science and appeasement.<snip>

Actually even quite mild dyslexia, which would almost certainly not even have been recognised in a general educational context in earlier times, but which has a clear physiological component and neuropathology, can result in a child, who is nonetheless very intelligent, being labelled as lazy. Proper diagnosis enables proper remedial and coping measures. Woe betide the child whose teacher regards it as a need that doesn't exist.

Of course it is little better to diagnose the problem, but to fail to provide appropriate resources to deal with it.

I can think, off the cuff, of two highly able highly qualified adults whose late diagnosis of dyslexia has opened up a whole new world of possibilities for them, and explained to them the miseries they suffered in the school system three or four decades ago when they were simply labelled as lazy or stupid.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
A good school will concentrate on teaching not labelling students with "needs" that probably don't exist.

Are you a doctor? Do you have the right to say any given child's special needs don't exist? No, and no. This is intentionally provocative and inflammatory, and potentially destructive of multiple children's schooling.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The thing is, if the kid is having difficulties in school, she's going to be labelled anyway -- "lazy" or "defiant" or "unruly" or worse.

Most children with disabilities are not lazy, defiant or unruly. The idea that they are has been cooked up by those people who believe that children are intellectually brilliant living saints. It is so hard for them to explain why children behave badly or do poorly in academic subjects that their usual approach is to suggest that children are not responsible for their behaviour or low achievement because they have some kind of problem that makes them misbehave or underachieve. Obvious problems include unsympathetic teachers, low self-esteem or poverty. Sometimes though, particularly when middle class kids have academic weaknesses, or when behaviour is particularly bad, the "problem" is identified as some kind of "special need" a phrase that is used to place genuine disabilities alongside any old weakness or character flaw.

For those of us who have encountered children with genuine problems, nothing is more offensive than the claim that this means we can expect them to act as if they are lazy, defiant or unruly. There is no connection between disabilities, disadvantage and misfortune and bad behaviour, except for the one adults create by having low expectations for those students with most to gain from high expectations.

Some people are bad at some stuff. Some people are just arseholes. Just because sometimes those people are children doesn't make it a medical condition, a psychological problem or a disability. To pretend it is to ignore human weakness and to insult those who genuinely do have problems.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
Actually even quite mild dyslexia, which would almost certainly not even have been recognised in a general educational context in earlier times, but which has a clear physiological component and neuropathology,

Simply not true. There is no single condition of "dyslexia", least of all one that can be identified physiologically.

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:

can result in a child, who is nonetheless very intelligent, being labelled as lazy. Proper diagnosis enables proper remedial and coping measures. Woe betide the child whose teacher regards it as a need that doesn't exist.

The best treatment for dyslexia is the same as for any other child who can't read well - more time spent being taught to read and practising the skill.

"Coping measures" can actually be a distraction from that.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
A good school will concentrate on teaching not labelling students with "needs" that probably don't exist.
Are you a doctor? Do you have the right to say any given child's special needs don't exist? No, and no. This is intentionally provocative and inflammatory, and potentially destructive of multiple children's schooling.

I very much doubt that you are a doctor either, but this is beside the point as only a tiny fraction of children who are identified as having special needs have ever been diagnosed by a doctor.

Even where doctors exist who will sign off on a given condition, there is very often very little hard science behind it (the diagnositic descriptions of a lot of these conditions are prone to changing). Plenty of doctors have objected to the medicalising of personality traits.

[ 08. September 2010, 21:50: Message edited by: oldandrew ]

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

I agree that there is controversy round this area. There is, however, a considerable body of evidence of specific neurological differences. In fact as your response hints the term 'dyslexia' is something of a catch-all, so there is not one clear identifiable condition to which the term is consistently applied.

I deliberately avoided stating that dyslexia could be identified or diagnosed physiologically. I don't think that the research so far has reached the point of providing diagnostic information.

Posted by Makepiece (# 10454) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
[QUOTE] there is very often very little hard science behind it (the diagnositic descriptions of a lot of these conditions are prone to changing).

That may be correct but without giving examples of flimsy science it's difficult to know whether you opinion is any better than another persons. Are you aware of any specific examples of Mickey Mouse science?

I must admit that some of the interventions do cause images of medieval alchemy to flash through my mind (eg ritalin).

It seems to me that the primary issue here is whether or not interventions have been shown to work. If they have not been shown to work, or even cause damage as oldandrew contends, then clearly diagnosis would be unhelpful. If they have been shown to work however then obviously diagnosis is worthwhile.

Clearly some of the people who have responded have found coping mechanisms helpful. Others, such as Boogie, appear to have established coping mechanisms prior to any diagnosis.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I very much doubt that you are a doctor either,

Yes but I am not making claims about who is or isn't really learning disabled.

quote:
but this is beside the point as only a tiny fraction of children who are identified as having special needs have ever been diagnosed by a doctor.

Easy to type isn't it? You have any source for it?

quote:
Even where doctors exist who will sign off on a given condition, there is very often very little hard science behind it (the diagnositic descriptions of a lot of these conditions are prone to changing). Plenty of doctors have objected to the medicalising of personality traits.

You're tarring a lot of canvas with a very broad brush. Plenty of doctors have also come out to say that there's a lot more than "personality traits" going on here. If you ever were a parent pulling their hair out trying to figure out how to get your child's school life on track, then find a diagnosis and a plan for working it out, and it works, you wouldn't be so smug about your skepticism.

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

This is an interesting thread. Our son is very bright, but his spelling is, and always has been, appalling. He was tested for dyslexia at age 7 or 8, but he's not dyslexic. At age 10 he had a spelling age of 8 and a reading age of 14. At that point we were told that a six year differential between reading and spelling age showed that he had "something." We were pretty relaxed about it, as it seemed ridiculous to label him as having a "problem" based partially on the fact that his reading age was advanced! Now that University applications are looming, I'm wondering whether he might need to clarify the issue. He can't spell for toffee, but does all his homework etc on computer and uses a spell check, so should be able to cope fine with Uni essays etc.

Have any other shipmates come across a situation where a "learning difficulty" is diagnosed partially on the child being advanced for his age? Have we failed as parents by not getting him diagnosed?

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

I am not sure where you're getting your assertion that children with learning difficulties are not diagnosed, oldandrew. In England, GPs (general practitioners) do not specialise in the diagnosis learning difficulties and tend to refer to CAMHS (the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) or the local equivalent for diagnosis by a psychologist, usually an educational psychologist. Schools usually either refer to the educational psychologist or specialist advisory teachers for diagnosis.

Internal school SEN reports are most likely to state difficulties as reading or spelling age compared to chronological age or maths levels or test results of another kind when last tested and a date or chronological age for that test, or an observational comment on difficulties. Parents may say that the child has a particular diagnosis and that might be referred to in the SEN report.

Those SEN reports are double-edged swords. They are used to inform the school teaching staff and also go home to the parents, so the school, if it has any sense, is very unlikely to suggest a diagnosis unless there is a formal diagnosis from an Ed Psych or other medical professional.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

[x-post, this is to NE Quine]

It's not "being advanced" that's the issue, it's having a very wide spread on two measures of aptitude. That is usually considered to be indicative that something is going on beyond the normal range. If he was at grade level in reading and 6 years behind grade level in spelling, it would be the same. Or if a child takes a test that has a language and a math part, and the score is very widely split, it very often means something is going on.

[ 08. September 2010, 23:12: Message edited by: mousethief ]

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

Thanks, mousethief. Yes, I understand that it's the spread that indicates something, but the fact that part of that spread comprised "above average" meant we didn't pursue it. The school system here (state comprehensive) did the tests, but didn't come up with a diagnosis; had we wanted a diagnosis we'd have had to push. As he enjoys school, mostly, and has no behavioural problems, we couldn't see the point in pursuing it. But there's no doubt in my mind that something's wired differently with him, and I wonder if we've been too lackadaisacal?

Would it be useful to him to have a one word descriptor, rather than just "can't spell for toffee"?

[ 08. September 2010, 23:24: Message edited by: North East Quine ]

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

This problem has just come up in my family.

My daughter visited me this weekend with her husband and their 3½ year old son. His preschool teacher had noticed that he had far less skill in manipulating small objects than the other children. She recommended having him shape Play-Dough into little balls to develop his manipulative skills. The alarm bells went off in my head.

I was very late in developing control of the muscles in my hands and arms. All through first and second grades, I tried my best to write neatly, and failed dismally. Finally I discovered that if I pressed my wrist down on the paper and used only my hand muscles, I could write neatly. My writing was very small, but it was neat, and I thought the adults should be satisfied. They started complaining about the size of my writing, and I felt really angry. I had done my best, and it was impossible to please them.

When I was about ten I finally developed the muscle control most kids have at five. By this time I was used to my tiny writing, and I didn't want to change.

I am concerned that exercises will not help my grandson. I see it as a maturation problem that only time can fix. I don't want him to get the feeling that he is considered unsatisfactory in a situation that is beyond his control.

My daughter, the child's mother, was also late in developing muscle control, and I asked the school not to say anything to her about her handwriting. At around age ten she began to write more neatly.

My experience convinced me that adults sometimes made very unreasonable demands, and this made them somewhat untrustworthy.

Moo

Posted by Chill (# 13643) on :

Andrew,
I am not middle class in case that is relevant and no longer a child. When I was my mum scrubbed floors to pay for extra tuition which I attended after school, my dad worked two Jobs to make ends meet and we lived on a council estate. My specific learning difficulties are in no way mild. I have an IQ gap which ranges from the top one percent of the population in some areas to levels which if they were global rather than specific measures of intelligent would make me subnormal. For want of an educational psychologist you could use the catchall terms dyslexia, dyscalculia and dyspraxia, as a rough guide to my situation. I’m also super bright by the way!

I was given a very early diagnosis. I was pickedup in primary school, I was at the bottom of the class behind in almost everything. We had a sort of show and tell were we could talk about whatever we wanted the others talked about their pets and what have you. I talked about the political ramifications of the Iran-Iraq gulf war and went on to talk about western balance of power politics in the region. I liked listening to radio four in my spare time.

In my experience coping strategies and various support helped me a great deal. I became a capable athlete despite my dyspraxia. I had a fairly successful school life going on to further higher and then postgraduate education. Far from presenting an excuse my disability pushed me to excel and surmount it. Have things changed dramatically in education? Does a diagnoses of specific learning difficulties now obviate the need for hard work and good behaviour? I see no evidence of this in the schools in which I am regularly involved in a professional capacity. Maybe it’s different in your neck of the woods.
For the most part my teachers were supportive of me. I did, however, encountered prejudice and disbelief from the occasional teacher. I normally confounded such attitudes by being such a bizarre combination of total brilliance and total spazzishness all bundled together. Oddly in my experience such wilful blindness normally comes from less able teachers. As if they were casting around for excuses in order to validate their own short comings. When one struggles to inspire, maintain discipline and teach effectively it is always easier to devote tremendous energy to looking for what is wrong with the “system” than to engage in real and sincere self evaluation. Not that I think this is the case with you of course. I’m sure your view is founded on much more solid precepts. I haven’t quite gathered what they are yet. Maybe it is my dyslexia surfacing and I have misread some very compelling and pivotal point in your posts. Living with a disability can be tiresome.
Chaz

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

I'm going to avoid replying to oldandrew right now because my blood pressure is high enough.

To the rest of you, then--yes, I wish very much I had been diagnosed when I was still in school. Today I know that I have asthma (diagnosed early twenties) and Ehlers-Danlos hypermobility type--a genetic problem of the connective tissues that is actually quite common, but when severe leads to general klutziness, crap handwriting and multiple dislocations. Oh, and inability to play ping pong before age 25.

How did this play out for me in school? Simple. I was the only kid in my class given remedial handwriting exercises (read: copy everything seven times instead of five. It did no good at all but made me feel crap.). Now, at age 40 plus, I can FINALLY make a proper cursive r letter. Couldn't do it in my thirties. (Guess who had three r's in her maiden name?)

I was also the only kid I ever heard of who had to take remedial physical education. Which consisted of running laps on asphalt--great stuff for an asthmatic with one leg askew. Certainly this was much more adaptive than (say) being allowed to do archery like the other kids (which I might actually have done WELL at, given my issues).

Laughed at? yes. Bullied? yes. In danger of a deadly asthmatic attack? yes, yes, yes!

And since PE was mandatory through high school, I had twelve years of shame to live through. Oh the joy.

I now have a son with Ehlers-Danlos (though not asthma I think, please God). He learned to walk just a month before he turned two. Still handles knives, handwriting, etc. in a freaky way that is painful to watch but apparently works for him. Can't throw for toffee. Gets bullied. Has an IQ around 160.

The difference is, he has a mother who knows what the hell is going on with him. And so I think (I hope!) his childhood is going a little better than mine did.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
Would it be useful to him to have a one word descriptor, rather than just "can't spell for toffee"?

If it were me, I'd tell him what you were told way back when, and tell him that if he wants to find out what the "something" is, he could probably get a neuropsych evaluation, and they'd likely be able to figure it out.

Figuring it out could be useful, because if you know why something is difficult, you might be able to find ways to make it easier.

But at this point, having computers and spell-check and the like, he might not think it's worth the trouble.

I'd respect his choice either way.

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

I've been thinking about some of this lately, re myself, and am comforted by some of the posts here.

There are some kinds of motor coordination that I didn't develop until late teens or adulthood: whistling, snapping fingers, lighting matches. I've finally gotten so I can throw fairly accurately, if I pay constant, precise attention. [Cool]

My handwriting has always been difficult to read; it's somewhat better now, but I have to work consciously at it if someone unfamiliar with my handwriting has to read it. I had to do extra handwriting exercises as a kid. Angry grownups, special mechanical pencil, not fun.

PE was mostly difficult. I thought about taking an "Adaptive PE" class, but figured that would only make things worse, socially.

There's a big gap between my verbal and math abilities--though, in my case, it's due to math anxiety. I'm capable of doing math if I can keep my brain from checking out, and I like playing with some math concepts.

To make things more interesting, I've developed health problems, as an adult, that have some cognitive effects. So verbal often isn't as easy as it used to be.

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I was also the only kid I ever heard of who had to take remedial physical education. Which consisted of running laps on asphalt--great stuff for an asthmatic with one leg askew.

Jay-suz, LC, that is cruel and unusual punishment!

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

To be fair, it lasted only a day or two. I don't remember what happened after that, I think maybe someone got nasty with them. And I think (brain fuzz here) that it was near the end of the quarter, so they dumped me right back into ordinary PE the next quarter--which meant I got to run miles on a freshly cut grass track (next to a major highway in smoggy CA). Face turned purple, the whole bit. I have NO IDEA why the PE teacher, who was obviously worried by my wheezing, didn't do something. Maybe she didn't know what to do.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
I agree that there is controversy round this area. There is, however, a considerable body of evidence of specific neurological differences. In fact as your response hints the term 'dyslexia' is something of a catch-all, so there is not one clear identifiable condition to which the term is consistently applied.

That was my point. It is ridiculous to claim that when you don't have a clear condition then you can have "a clear physiological component and neuropathology".

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Makepiece:
That may be correct but without giving examples of flimsy science it's difficult to know whether you opinion is any better than another persons. Are you aware of any specific examples of Mickey Mouse science?

The sort of thing I am talking about is the mess that is the current debate over autism conditions and the DSM springs to mind.

If you want a more specific example I would ask how often teachers are told that Aspergers is "a disorder of uncertain nosological validity".

[ 09. September 2010, 05:36: Message edited by: oldandrew ]

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

I am on the autism spectrum with specific learning difficulties, sensory processing disorder, dyspraxia etc. I'm a national adviser for autism, working with the international experts and with parents and children across the world these days. I'm not an 'expert'. I don't diagnose. But I do get to see the research first hand, which is good. And chat to a heck of a lot of people in the trade/with a vast range of disabilities of every level of severity.

For years we've had "oh these so-called disabilities are really just child X being lazy/rude/whatever". Now they're putting people into the new MRI scanners and seeing that they can diagnose using the scans. It's right there in front of them,very real indeed. Early days, but real progress at last.

Until now it's been hugely hard to get many of the diagnoses. Parents often struggle in waiting queues for year after year whilst their child makes zero progress at school because they simply can't. I was one of them. Our son is moderately dyslexic etc and for 18 months went backwards thanks to a school that refused to help him in any way because they didn't see the point.

Right diagnosis, right help, result = 9 GCSEs. And vastly improved behaviour from him. Often there really is a link. I can think of a few hundred examples where behaviour improved once the disability/special need was identified and addressed properly.

Anyway, I'm off to the hospital with him for him to have an eye operation, something else that thankfully someone diagnosed in time to make a difference (we hope).

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I very much doubt that you are a doctor either,
Yes but I am not making claims about who is or isn't really learning disabled.

You are actually making far stronger claims than I am.

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
but this is beside the point as only a tiny fraction of children who are identified as having special needs have ever been diagnosed by a doctor.
Easy to type isn't it? You have any source for it?

I am talking about my experience of the SEN system in the UK. Medical involvement is only a tiny part of the system.

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Even where doctors exist who will sign off on a given condition, there is very often very little hard science behind it (the diagnositic descriptions of a lot of these conditions are prone to changing). Plenty of doctors have objected to the medicalising of personality traits.
You're tarring a lot of canvas with a very broad brush.

I am being very careful not to imply that there are no conditions out there, only that there is a problem with imagining that there is a medical or psychological explanation for all sorts of human failings.

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

Plenty of doctors have also come out to say that there's a lot more than "personality traits" going on here. If you ever were a parent pulling their hair out trying to figure out how to get your child's school life on track, then find a diagnosis and a plan for working it out, and it works, you wouldn't be so smug about your skepticism.

There are people out there who would swear that astrology is a useful tool for directing one's life. It doesn't make it true.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
I am not sure where you're getting your assertion that children with learning difficulties are not diagnosed, oldandrew. In England, GPs (general practitioners) do not specialise in the diagnosis learning difficulties and tend to refer to CAMHS (the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) or the local equivalent for diagnosis by a psychologist, usually an educational psychologist.

So just to check, you do admit that in most cases diagnosis is not by a doctor?

You do understand that this was my claim?

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
Anyway, I'm off to the hospital with him for him to have an eye operation, something else that thankfully someone diagnosed in time to make a difference (we hope).

All prayers for that -- I find eye operations very scary.

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

quote:
Ehlers-Danlos hypermobility type--a genetic problem of the connective tissues that is actually quite common,

(waves to Lamb Chopped) - my kids got diagnosed with this when they were aged 6 and 4, at which point I got a diagnosis, too (aged 37!) The early diagnosis meant that we were encouraged to get our kids swimming (non weight bearing exercise) rather than anything which would strain their joints. Swimming meant they could
have E-D and still be quite fit and sporty.

More to the point; our variety of E-D means that our skin scars disproportionately. I have a little pattern of dots round my inner elbow from where I gave blood betwen the ages of 17 and 34; I'm now 46, so each blood donation has left me with a tiny permanent mark. When I was 8 I took a nose-dive over the handlebars of my bike, was taken by my parents to casualty and fixed up, but I was left badly scarred and had remedial plastic surgery on the NHS at 11. The assumption was that the doctor who had treated me in casualty had been negligent, but now of course, I realise it wasn't his fault - I just scar badly. Although scarring is a bit off topic, I wonder if there's a general principle- other people can't get blamed if you have a diagnosis of something which is inherent?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

Sorry, missed this bit.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

Those SEN reports are double-edged swords. They are used to inform the school teaching staff and also go home to the parents, so the school, if it has any sense, is very unlikely to suggest a diagnosis unless there is a formal diagnosis from an Ed Psych or other medical professional.

Every school I've worked in has had vast numbers of kids on the SEN register coded as M (monitoring) or SA (School Action) which involves no outside professionals. There were plenty of amateur diagnoses among these (my own favourite was the efforts to label foul-mouthed kids with Tourettes made by people who couldn't even spell it).

Whether these schools had any sense is a matter of debate, but amateur diagnosis is normal practice.

Posted by Lola (# 627) on :

Lamb Chopped

In my view and experience, oldandrew historically posts abrasively on threads about this subject. It seems to me that the route of the argument is his perception that the effect of a diagnosis of special needs is of both parents and teachers, and based on this the child, giving up. I suppose the positive intention is that he wants to be the teacher that never gives up on a child - his proposed action for a difficulty is that both he and the child should work harder:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
The best treatment for dyslexia is the same as for any other child who can't read well - more time spent being taught to read and practising the skill.

"Coping measures" can actually be a distraction from that.

So possibly - his view may be that NEQ's kids should do extra swimming lessons to address their diagnosed condition but should not be excused PE.

Moo gives an example where this was unproductive - I think oldandrew is taking a polar opposite and arguing that telling the child not to bother practising handwriting at all would also be unproductive. Rather than a middle ground?

The trouble is, as I think Mousethief points out, is that with the number and variety of conditions under discussion the debate quickly becomes ridiculously broad and useless. Let alone the variety of kids! As an example, Mr Lola was over the moon when he was sent off on punishment laps at his British secondary school - as the new boy just moved from growing up in Africa he was really worried that running was not taken seriously enough in the UK. It seems his PE teacher was as unimaginitive as yours - only this time not spotting that he was a keen as mustard to do an extra cross country run - (shakes head in disbelief!!)

oldandrew it would help me if you could give us some specific examples of coping measures which you believe are distracting?

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
I am on the autism spectrum with specific learning difficulties, sensory processing disorder, dyspraxia etc. I'm a national adviser for autism, working with the international experts and with parents and children across the world these days. I'm not an 'expert'. I don't diagnose. But I do get to see the research first hand, which is good. And chat to a heck of a lot of people in the trade/with a vast range of disabilities of every level of severity.

Most of these neurological conditions are on spectrums (spectra?)

My son has ADHD (it is highly heriditable and it was after his diagnosis that I woke up to mine and went for diagnosis.)

His ADHD wasn't picked up until his first year of university. This is quite common in the UK - especially if the child's behaviour isn't an issue. High school teachers here are often loathe to refer and Educational psychologists are snowed under with children who have behavioural difficulties.

We employed an ADHD coach for him and he hasn't looked back since. He's incredibly intelligent and always managed to 'fill the gaps' at school. But there were gaps - we got him a maths tutor during his A levels as he had huge gaps in his knowledge. He passed maths and further maths with A*s.

He now has an MSc in Ecology and teaches English in Germany to high powered IT professionals. He speaks fluent German and has earned enough to buy a flat in Heidelberg.

With many of these SpLDs it isn't as much the learning differences as the organisational problems which can be the real struggle.(I MUCH prefer the term 'differences' - we learn fine, just in different ways which often don't suit typical classrooms)

I now coach adults with ADHD in my spare time all of whom were not diagnosed until they got to university.

Many of the coping strategies I teach came from my Dad. He dealt with our family trait wonderfully - with no knowledge of it whatever. But when I told him of our discovery he was positive, encouraging and understanding - as always. He, before he died, believed 'The younger the better' for picking up SpLDs - as I do.

[Smile]

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
Thanks, mousethief. Yes, I understand that it's the spread that indicates something, but the fact that part of that spread comprised "above average" meant we didn't pursue it. The school system here (state comprehensive) did the tests, but didn't come up with a diagnosis; had we wanted a diagnosis we'd have had to push. As he enjoys school, mostly, and has no behavioural problems, we couldn't see the point in pursuing it. But there's no doubt in my mind that something's wired differently with him, and I wonder if we've been too lackadaisacal?

Would it be useful to him to have a one word descriptor, rather than just "can't spell for toffee"?

As parents we do the best we can with the knowledge we have at the time.

I have been a keen reader from an early age - but have quite severe dyslexia which affects my spelling and organisational skills.

Often good readers who are, nevertheless, dyslexic have a huge visual 'sight' vocabulary but poor phonological processing.

It doesn't matter what age they start - a good structured, cumulative, multisensory language programme will help them to make great progress in spelling.

One of my case studies last year (age 10) went from level 2a to level 4a due to an excellent multisensory programme (which, in turn, raised his self esteem immeasurably)

It never goes away completely - I don't think I'll ever know whether it's 'Mousetheif' of 'Mousethief' without checking!

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
The best treatment for dyslexia is the same as for any other child who can't read well - more time spent being taught to read and practising the skill.

"Coping measures" can actually be a distraction from that.

I don't know what kind of "coping measures" would distract from extra teaching time, but the fact is that here in Canada and in at least some places in the US (don't know about the situation in the UK), that extra teaching time you say the dyslexic child needs, is exactly the kind of intervention you CANNOT get without a diagnosis of some kind of learning disability. The resources are not there for teachers to simply decide "I'm going to spend an extra two hours a day teaching Johnny to read and write because he has difficulty with it," but if Johnny can get diagnosed with dyslexia, he MAY be able to get the services of a special needs teacher for a couple of hours a day to get that help. Without the diagnosis, he's got no chance of getting that help.

Posted by 3rdFooter (# 9751) on :

OldAndrew - You seem to be informed to some extent but your opinions are BS of a substantial hue.

quote:
OldAndrew offered the following arrogant nonsense:
A good school will concentrate on teaching not labelling students with "needs" that probably don't exist. Unless your child has severe problems (i.e. something that even in less enlightened eras would have been seen as disability not a personality trait) steer clear of the SEN racket. It is about medicalising normal variations in character and ability as an excuse for bureacracy, pseudo-science and appeasement.

Of course school special needs registers have grades that don't involve outside intervention. The school is a likely place for a range of special needs to emerge. Both neurological and the simple need for extra help. Surely noting a phenomenon, registering and monitoring is Good Science (TM). How are you going to identify "severe" issues unless you actually look for them?

In my own direct experience, it was the schools failure to observe and respond to a child's difficulties in a class situation that precipitated a crisis.

You are correct that 1-1 support is often ineffective. Education Authority provision is often in the form of an untrained teaching assistant, usually trying their best but having to make it up as they go. A failure of application rather than the whole approach.

Your contention that the medical profession is not involved is also wrong. Anything funded by the education authority will go via a panel including educational psychologists and peadiatricians. These professions have continued involvement in most cases.

Have people manipulated the system to excuse the behaviour of their child? Yes I have seen that. I have also known of healthy people signing themselves off sick. Does abuse undermine the whole picture? Of course not.

A Good School (TM) needs to do its best to educate each child according to that child's abilities and constraints rather than ignore a significant component of some children's lived reality. I will not return to the 1950's attitudes that scarred members of my family and community.

I would recommend a sabatical from your ivory tower spent learning at first hand the realities of Special Educational Needs.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
The best treatment for dyslexia is the same as for any other child who can't read well - more time spent being taught to read and practising the skill.

"Coping measures" can actually be a distraction from that.
I don't know what kind of "coping measures" would distract from extra teaching time, but the fact is that here in Canada and in at least some places in the US (don't know about the situation in the UK), that extra teaching time you say the dyslexic child needs, is exactly the kind of intervention you CANNOT get without a diagnosis of some kind of learning disability. The resources are not there for teachers to simply decide "I'm going to spend an extra two hours a day teaching Johnny to read and write because he has difficulty with it," but if Johnny can get diagnosed with dyslexia, he MAY be able to get the services of a special needs teacher for a couple of hours a day to get that help. Without the diagnosis, he's got no chance of getting that help.

This is true in the UK too, except that - even with a diagnosis there is very little specialist help out there.

One excellent initiative by the BDA (British Dyslexia Association) is to encourage
dyslexia friendly classrooms - a great initiative which is beginning to bring positive results. A lot can be done by the class teacher to help dyslexic pupils, of all abilities, to access the curriculum. These measures also help, to some extent, to mitigate self esteem issues which often arise as a result of SpLDs.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

quote:
Ehlers-Danlos hypermobility type--a genetic problem of the connective tissues that is actually quite common,
(waves to Lamb Chopped) - my kids got diagnosed with this when they were aged 6 and 4, at which point I got a diagnosis, too (aged 37!) The early diagnosis meant that we were encouraged to get our kids swimming (non weight bearing exercise) rather than anything which would strain their joints. Swimming meant they could
have E-D and still be quite fit and sporty.

More to the point; our variety of E-D means that our skin scars disproportionately. I have a little pattern of dots round my inner elbow from where I gave blood betwen the ages of 17 and 34; I'm now 46, so each blood donation has left me with a tiny permanent mark. When I was 8 I took a nose-dive over the handlebars of my bike, was taken by my parents to casualty and fixed up, but I was left badly scarred and had remedial plastic surgery on the NHS at 11. The assumption was that the doctor who had treated me in casualty had been negligent, but now of course, I realise it wasn't his fault - I just scar badly. Although scarring is a bit off topic, I wonder if there's a general principle- other people can't get blamed if you have a diagnosis of something which is inherent?

Yes, it was when my son wouldn't walk that I got diagnosed (it being rather difficult to diagnose the typical infant!). But it's autosomal dominant so they knew that if they had me, they likely had him too.

And I'm a great swimmer. [Two face]

My only sport, besides sex.

I didn't know about the scarring thing. I have a permanent rash (keratitis pilaris) so put down all my skin problems to that. But it makes sense! And you've explained the myriad puncture marks on the inside of my elbow and on the back of my hand--I've been a blood / platelet donor for years. The scars are quite handy, no one ever has to hunt for a vein anymore.

The positive side of this diagnosis is that those who get it in moderation (like the rest of my family) get compliments on their flexibility and lovely skin. My grandmother was very proud of her doctor's compliments on what she could do at age 90. We should have been contortionists.

Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :

The thing with diagnosing learning disorders, though, is getting everyone in the child's life -- parents/caregivers, teachers, other adults in authority -- to understand and buy into the strategies for dealing with these problems.

In our church we have a family consisting of a grandma raising the three children of her crackhead, absentee daughter. Now, these kids have issues that have as much to do with their brain chemistry as their early childhood experiences with Crackhead Egg and Sperm Donors; Lord knows what biological damage was done to them in utero.

They've been diagnosed with ADD/AHD and various other issues through the schools and social-service system. But their grandmother uses those diagnoses as an excuse for not proactively parenting them, for not teaching them how to behave in public, etc.: "Well, that's just how they are [those poor, afflicted children]."

This situation frustates my partner and me, not only because we don't think that Grandma (who may simply be overwhelmed by this unforseen responsibility in midlife) is doing these kids any favors in the long run, but also because my partner has a rapport with the children and is able to get them to focus and exercise self-control in church in ways that Grandma can't or won't.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

Whether these schools had any sense is a matter of debate, but amateur diagnosis is normal practice.

Yes, amateur diagnoses do more harm than good. But, as we have seen, the solution to amateur, inaccurate diagnoses is not no diagnoses (which simply leads to less formal, even less informed, unwritten amateur diagnoses). The solution to amateur, inaccurate diagnoses is professional, qualified, accurate diagnosis.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

Anyway, I'm off to the hospital with him for him to have an eye operation, something else that thankfully someone diagnosed in time to make a difference (we hope).

What sort of operation? My son had surgery on his weakened eye muscles at age 6 (after literally years of haggling w/ US insurance co.). The surgery was difficult for him, but the results have been momentous. Four years later he is close to being corrected to 20/20. A hard road, but well worth it. Praying for your son.

Posted by Unjust Stuart (# 13953) on :

I used to be totally "anti-labelling", because simply giving a name to a condition is not going to help anyone.

But now I realise that, whereas I was unhelpfully labelled as "clumsy and no good at sports", labelling my son as extremely "hypermobile" is extremely positive because of the additional resources of time, advice and tuition provided by the school and the NHS.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

Anyway, I'm off to the hospital with him for him to have an eye operation, something else that thankfully someone diagnosed in time to make a difference (we hope).
What sort of operation? My son had surgery on his weakened eye muscles at age 6 (after literally years of haggling w/ US insurance co.). The surgery was difficult for him, but the results have been momentous. Four years later he is close to being corrected to 20/20. A hard road, but well worth it. Praying for your son.

Experimental correction of keratconus. Alternative is a long wait for eye transplant bits. It's gone OK, we think.

Meantime, the problem with 1:1 support in schools is also that often it's in the break times for the children or over the top of existing classroom noise and chaos - and the child ends up more exhausted than they can cope with.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Yes, amateur diagnoses do more harm than good. But, as we have seen, the solution to amateur, inaccurate diagnoses is not no diagnoses (which simply leads to less formal, even less informed, unwritten amateur diagnoses). The solution to amateur, inaccurate diagnoses is professional, qualified, accurate diagnosis.

Amen!

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It's not "being advanced" that's the issue, it's having a very wide spread on two measures of aptitude. That is usually considered to be indicative that something is going on beyond the normal range.

You say that as if a condition is then identified as a physical problem that explains the aptitude measurements. It isn't. These conditions are diagnosed by further study of aptitudes. A wide spread on two measures of aptitude only indicates that something is wrong because people have decided that a wide spread on two measures of aptitude is wrong.

[ 09. September 2010, 13:24: Message edited by: oldandrew ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chill:
Does a diagnoses of specific learning difficulties now obviate the need for hard work and good behaviour? I see no evidence of this in the schools in which I am regularly involved in a professional capacity.

I have seen bottom sets where the kids sit immobile, not even opening their books, until the teaching assistant comes round to work with them. I have seen children who decide not to work, start yelling and screaming if told to, and if any adult stands up to them say "Don't you know I'm SEN?", or worse, produce a card from the SEN co-ordinator saying they have permission to leave the lesson.

quote:
Originally posted by Chill:

Oddly in my experience such wilful blindness normally comes from less able teachers. As if they were casting around for excuses in order to validate their own short comings. When one struggles to inspire, maintain discipline and teach effectively it is always easier to devote tremendous energy to looking for what is wrong with the “system” than to engage in real and sincere self evaluation. Not that I think this is the case with you of course.

Well obviously you do or you wouldn't have mentioned it. It is a standard defence of the SEN racket to claim that anyone who doesn't agree with it must be personally at fault.

But then what else can you do when you are defending a way of spending billions that achieves no measurable positive effect?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

For years we've had "oh these so-called disabilities are really just child X being lazy/rude/whatever". Now they're putting people into the new MRI scanners and seeing that they can diagnose using the scans. It's right there in front of them,very real indeed. Early days, but real progress at last.

Last I heard this is not only not possible, but never likely to be possible, despite a spate of newspaper stories.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It's not "being advanced" that's the issue, it's having a very wide spread on two measures of aptitude. That is usually considered to be indicative that something is going on beyond the normal range.
You say that as if a condition is then identified as a physical problem that explains the aptitude measurements. It isn't. These conditions are diagnosed by further study of aptitudes. A wide spread on two measures of aptitude only indicates that something is wrong because people have decided that a wide spread on two measures of aptitude is wrong.

Just like people have decided that an elevated temperature, generalized muscle pain, productive cough, and bloody sputum indicates that something is wrong.

A list of symptoms doesn't tell you what is wrong, or what to do about it, but it tells you that something is wrong, and needs further investigation.

Extreme scatter in scores on standardized tests of sensory, motor, and cognitive function is a symptom that needs further investigaton. You don't have to take my word for it. You could ask any board-certified pediatric neurologist to explain the significance of score scatter on standardized measures of sensory, motor, and cognitive functioning to you.

They will tell you that a moderate amount of score scatter generally indicates nothing more than that a person is better at this, and not as good as that. As long as the score scatter is within a particular range, and is distributed in ways that make sense developmentally and neurologically, the neurologist will note it, and that's as far as it will go.

But if a child has gross motor skills more than two standard deviations above the mean, balance fine motor skills three standard deviations below the mean, left-right awareness two standard deviations below the mean, oculomotor control one standard deviation above the mean, and so on and so forth, the neurologist is going to tell you that you're not looking at a normal variation in abilities. It indicates that something is wrong.

Now, maybe you know more about neurological disabilities than board-certified pediatric neurologists do. You certainly wouldn't be the first teacher to think that. Fortunately, states don't grant teachers license to practice medicine, no matter how well qualified some teachers think they are to do so.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lola:
In my view and experience, oldandrew historically posts abrasively on threads about this subject.

It would be nice if it were possible simply to discuss the system as a whole and its evidence base on a thread like this. But, of course, it rapidly becomes very personal because people develop a comforting narrative of their life, or their children's lives, in which a wide variety of their problems stem from either a condition or other people not understanding their condition and they take it very badly if that is ever challenged.

quote:
Originally posted by Lola:

It seems to me that the route of the argument is his perception that the effect of a diagnosis of special needs is of both parents and teachers, and based on this the child, giving up. I suppose the positive intention is that he wants to be the teacher that never gives up on a child - his proposed action for a difficulty is that both he and the child should work harder:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
The best treatment for dyslexia is the same as for any other child who can't read well - more time spent being taught to read and practising the skill.

"Coping measures" can actually be a distraction from that.
So possibly - his view may be that NEQ's kids should do extra swimming lessons to address their diagnosed condition but should not be excused PE.

I don't really have a problem with directly diagnosible physical conditions. I'm even happy with the "hidden" conditions where there is a clear justification and some precision.

The problem is with labelling behaviours and academic weaknesses as medical conditions, and giving help that is either harmful, ineffective or does not differ from what you'd do for somebody with similar difficulties but who is not thought to have a condition.

There is also a point of intellectual honesty here. History is full of attempts to medicalise behaviour which, as values changed, were later rejected, for example: "female hysteria", "sluggishly progressing schizophrenia", "drapetomania" and "dysaethesia aethiopica", not to mention the prolonged efforts to make homosexuality a medical condition. I think the historical precedent provides good reason for scepticism when people rush to medicalise behaviour.

quote:
Originally posted by Lola:

Moo gives an example where this was unproductive - I think oldandrew is taking a polar opposite and arguing that telling the child not to bother practising handwriting at all would also be unproductive. Rather than a middle ground?

It is the easiest debating trick in the world to paint two theoretical extreme positions and then put yourself in the middle. However, this discussion is not happening in a vacuum. There are SEN systems in place in UK and US schools. I'm not arguing for a theoretical extreme, I am arguing that where schools are currently is indefensible and we need to move in the direction of accepting ordinary human imperfections as facts of life not as medical conditions.

quote:
Originally posted by Lola:

oldandrew it would help me if you could give us some specific examples of coping measures which you believe are distracting?

The use of computers for kids who would benefit by practising writing by hand springs to mind.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
It never goes away completely - I don't think I'll ever know whether it's 'Mousetheif' of 'Mousethief' without checking!

That's a pretty good example of perfectly normal weaknesses being described as part of a condition. I misspelt "received" earlier, I could just as easily have misspelt "thief" (in fact I just did and had to go back and correct it). I still find myself having to rely on "i before e except after c". This is normal.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:

I don't know what kind of "coping measures" would distract from extra teaching time, but the fact is that here in Canada and in at least some places in the US (don't know about the situation in the UK), that extra teaching time you say the dyslexic child needs, is exactly the kind of intervention you CANNOT get without a diagnosis of some kind of learning disability.

This would suggest a problem with the curriculum.

I'd be the first to acknowledge that part of the motivation for medicalising academic problems is to avoid looking at problems with the education system, particularly those caused by mixed ability teaching.

That said, there have recently been moves in England to provide "catch up" help for any child who is behind rather than just those with a label.

Posted by Spiffy (# 5267) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
The best treatment for dyslexia is the same as for any other child who can't read well - more time spent being taught to read and practising the skill.

"Coping measures" can actually be a distraction from that.

Bullpucky. Coping measures are often just different praxis than the 'normal'. I count on my fingers. That's a coping measure. I had teachers who told me to stop that, I needed to learn to 'do it right'. Today, I'm headed to work, where I guarantee I shall be counting up hundreds of thousands of dollars at least partially on my fingers, and in the back of my mind, taking deep, abiding glee in the fact that my 7th grade Algebra teacher told me that I would never get anywhere in life if I had to keep counting on my fingers.

Oh, and by the way, I have a M.Ed. with significant neurobiological and psychological coursework. I'm not licensed to make official diagnoses, however I am able to identify alternate teaching patterns and set up IEPs. I also spent two years as a co-teacher and three years as a teacher's aide in the public school system in California, one of the largest school systems in the world. Oldandrew, I'd like to know exactly where your conclusions come from-- actual experience working in the system, or reading about the system?

[ 09. September 2010, 15:07: Message edited by: Spiffy ]

Posted by sharkshooter (# 1589) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
...if Johnny can get diagnosed with dyslexia, he MAY be able to get the services of a special needs teacher for a couple of hours a day to get that help. Without the diagnosis, he's got no chance of getting that help.

Exactly. The key words here are "MAY be able to get the services". Of course, that is only if they are available, and only to the extent they are not spent on someone else. There is no "right" to these services.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Spiffy:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
The best treatment for dyslexia is the same as for any other child who can't read well - more time spent being taught to read and practising the skill.

"Coping measures" can actually be a distraction from that.
Bullpucky. Coping measures are often just different praxis than the 'normal'. I count on my fingers. That's a coping measure. I had teachers who told me to stop that, I needed to learn to 'do it right'. Today, I'm headed to work, where I guarantee I shall be counting up hundreds of thousands of dollars at least partially on my fingers, and in the back of my mind, taking deep, abiding glee in the fact that my 7th grade Algebra teacher told me that I would never get anywhere in life if I had to keep counting on my fingers.

I do too - all my 'mental arithmetic' has to be written as I can't hold numbers in my head. This isn't a skill I will gain - my working memory has improved - but not enough to enable fast or accurate mental arithmetic.

I was deputy headteacher for four years. Now have a Postgraduate Certificate in SpLD (dyslexia) and am studying for a P Dip and MA in the same subject. I'll be applying for specialist teacher jobs soon - can't wait!

I'm a good maths teacher despite my personal shortcomings in arithmetic - mainly because when a child says ' I can't do this' I don't say 'yes you can' and continue teaching the same method which didn't work for them. We work on finding methods which do.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Lola:

oldandrew it would help me if you could give us some specific examples of coping measures which you believe are distracting?
The use of computers for kids who would benefit by practising writing by hand springs to mind.

Who should decide whether the child would benefit from more practice, whether a computer is a necessary accommodation, or whether occupational therapy might be required to build core strength, pincer grip, etc., so that the child's handwriting will be able to develop naturally? How should that be decided?

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

For years we've had "oh these so-called disabilities are really just child X being lazy/rude/whatever". Now they're putting people into the new MRI scanners and seeing that they can diagnose using the scans. It's right there in front of them,very real indeed. Early days, but real progress at last.
Last I heard this is not only not possible, but never likely to be possible, despite a spate of newspaper stories.

The report I read was in the Journal of Neuroscience about a month ago and was written by the person who had designed and run the trial that was being reported on. Is that what you mean by a "spate of newspaper stories"?

The results as reported seemed to indicate that the concept was proven, although the technique would need to be tested against a variety of different control groups to ensure it would be suitably robust and reliable to be given widespread clinical use. Has there been subsequent reporting to cast doubt on this?

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
...if Johnny can get diagnosed with dyslexia, he MAY be able to get the services of a special needs teacher for a couple of hours a day to get that help. Without the diagnosis, he's got no chance of getting that help.
Exactly. The key words here are "MAY be able to get the services". Of course, that is only if they are available, and only to the extent they are not spent on someone else. There is no "right" to these services.

In the US, there is a right to the services, provided under IDEA (the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act), which was passed in 1976. The law requires schools to provide a free and appropriate public education to children with a documented disability in one of 13 categories, provided that the child, by reason of the disability, requires special education and related services to make adequate academic progress.

There are plenty of room in the law for schools to decide a child with well documented disabilities to refuse to provide services. And whether from budget shortfalls, philosophical objections, or simple ignorance, schools often refuse to provide services. If the parents have the resources to take the school to court over it, it can take years to settle. And there are no damages available for violations of the law -- just compensatory services, which are often too little too late. Special education attorneys usually recommend that parents dealing with recalcitrant schools simply pay for the services their child needs privately, since that means the child gets the services now rather than years from now.

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

oldandrew, when you responded to my last post you acknowledged my agreement with your statement that the term 'dyslexia' covers a number of different conditions, but you missed or passed over my additional point that

quote:
There is, however, a considerable body of evidence of specific neurological differences

in some people with dyslexia. The details of the first-cited study are here and an abstract of the second may be found here.

I mention these because you appear either to have missed the point I made, or to have assumed that it was based on newspaper stories. Is this, perhaps, a case of confirmation bias?

[ 09. September 2010, 16:27: Message edited by: BroJames ]

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

For years we've had "oh these so-called disabilities are really just child X being lazy/rude/whatever". Now they're putting people into the new MRI scanners and seeing that they can diagnose using the scans. It's right there in front of them,very real indeed. Early days, but real progress at last.
Last I heard this is not only not possible, but never likely to be possible, despite a spate of newspaper stories.

Well, eminent brain scientists doing the scans and the dissections that back up those scans say otherwise, for a variety of neurological differences. It's early days and more research is to be done, but it's all linking together nicely so far.

Posted by Makepiece (# 10454) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chill:
Andrew,
Oddly in my experience such wilful blindness normally comes from less able teachers. As if they were casting around for excuses in order to validate their own short comings. When one struggles to inspire, maintain discipline and teach effectively it is always easier to devote tremendous energy to looking for what is wrong with the “system” than to engage in real and sincere self evaluation.

Couldn't it also be easier for a teacher who is struggling to blame the child's condition? As Lutheran Chick points out I think there must be danger of some people failing to be proactive. I'm sure many of the posters here are proactive, but in the big wide world there are surely a lot of parents and teachers who would rely on the condition as an excuse. I'm starting to come full circle though because I guess people who are proactive will look for solutions regardless of labelling and extra resources will only assist them. On the other hand people who lack the resources to be proactive are likely to struggle whether or not the condition is labelled?

Posted by Makepiece (# 10454) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
[QUOTE]

Sometimes though, particularly when middle class kids have academic weaknesses, or when behaviour is particularly bad, the "problem" is identified as some kind of "special need" a phrase that is used to place genuine disabilities alongside any old weakness or character flaw.

Surely though middle class parents are more likely to have the awareness to seek a diagnosis. Is there a class issue here? Are working class children more likely to be stereotyped as badly behaved for socio economic reasons and learning difficulties ignored? Or are working class children more likely to have learning difficulties?

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine
Who should decide whether the child would benefit from more practice, whether a computer is a necessary accommodation, or whether occupational therapy might be required to build core strength, pincer grip, etc., so that the child's handwriting will be able to develop naturally?

In my case, it would have been better if I had not been taught cursive writing until I was ten. I could have been taught to print, not neatly, but legibly. Then when I had the necessary muscle control I could have learned cursive quickly and neatly.

I don't think any amount of practice or occupational therapy would have helped. My body had its own timetable for development. I think far more attention should be paid to the individual child's maturation in various areas.

Moo

Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on :

I am unsure about this. I have Asperger Syndrome, and was diagnosed as an adult. It wasn't around as an official diagnosis when I was a kid, and I sometimes wonder whether my life would have been different if it had, and whether it would have been a positive or negative difference.

I think it would depend on the actual awareness of the school, and the support put into place, and the attitude of the other kids towards disability. There's no point in a diagnosis without sufficient understanding and support - then it's just an empty word, with stereotypes attached, and can do more harm than good.

I'm not sure how helpful it would have been to grow up considering myself 'disabled', and knowing what particular limitations this particular disability has. I suspect that I might have had a limited view of my abilities and not taken risks or tried different things. As it is, I was always trying to make myself understand the world and other people, and putting myself into different situations which I knew would be scary, just so that I could learn, and I think this was a good thing for me.

On the other hand, it would have been very helpful to have a support worker who could have helped me with self-understanding and self-acceptance, and who could have helped me see the big picture of how to do well at school. As it is, I went through school in a confused daze, and couldn't put my feelings into words, and was frequently misunderstood and ostracised. I taught myself self awareness and self understanding as I moved into adulthood, and I learnt to put my feelings into words, but it was a long slow process. It would have prevented a lot of unnecessary fear and confusion if I'd had support to do this as a child. But then, equally, I wouldn't have had the satisfaction of finding solutions and strategies myself, and finding the ones that specifically suit me.

So honestly, I don't know. I've used a lot of trial and error to learn strategies to deal with the particular challenges I've had, and have been doing this long before I had a diagnosis. And actually, my best teachers at school were those who just understood me from observing me, and then just adjusted their communication style accordingly - for such teachers, there was no need for a label, because they were looking at me as an individual. Those teachers were few and far between though.

The diagnosis I have now is very useful in terms of support at college. In a way, I think it shouldn't have been necessary - I could have just told the lecturers about the things I have difficulty with and they could have made the small adjustments needed without a label. However, I tried this and they wouldn't make any adjustments, so I needed a diagnosis.

A diagnosis has also been useful in helping me to stop blaming myself for having difficulties with things that others don't have difficulty with. I was often chastised by teachers for being 'too quiet' and 'unsociable', as if this was a behavioural flaw that I needed to fix. Knowing that I have Aspergers, and that my brain works differently from the norm, has let me accept that actually it's fine for me to be quiet and spend lots of time alone, because this is 'normal' among people with Aspergers. It may seem daft that I needed a diagnosis to be able to accept this, because in theory one should just be able to accept oneself anway, but when you've been criticised all your life for being unsociable and too quiet, it's very easy to see yourself as doing something wrong.

Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Makepiece:
Surely though middle class parents are more likely to have the awareness to seek a diagnosis. Is there a class issue here? Are working class children more likely to be stereotyped as badly behaved for socio economic reasons and learning difficulties ignored?

I think this is definitely true. Also, parents who have had a good education, or hold jobs where they are in managerial positions and are used to making decisions, may be more likely to question the teacher's judgement and push for an accurate diagnosis, whereas parents who are not educated, or have a lowly position in a job, where others make the decisions and are seen as the knowledgeable ones, may be more likely to accept unquestioningly the decision of the 'experts'.

Posted by Jessie Phillips (# 13048) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

I'm not arguing for a theoretical extreme, I am arguing that where schools are currently is indefensible and we need to move in the direction of accepting ordinary human imperfections as facts of life not as medical conditions.

Do we really need to move in the direction of accepting ordinary human imperfections as facts of life, and not as medical conditions?

What exactly is the point of accepting ordinary human imperfections as facts of life? Sorry if I'm being a bit slow here, but I'm afraid I'm simply not seeing it. It sounds like an excuse for defeatism to me.

I'm not saying that I think the medicalisation of incapability is the panacea; it's just that, just because it might not be appropriate to slap a pseudo-clinical diagnosis on some lack of achievement or other, it doesn't necessarily mean that you shouldn't do anything about it.

When football teams lose matches, do they medicalise the final score? No. Well - okay, sometimes they do, but very rarely. But that doesn't mean that the team doesn't reflect on its experience, and tweak its future training regimes and game strategy plans accordingly. However, you do have to acknowledge the fault before it becomes possible to make those kinds of changes.

And I don't see how learning difficulty in childhood education is any different. Am I missing something?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by 3rdFooter:
OldAndrew - You seem to be informed to some extent but your opinions are BS of a substantial hue.

I'm pretty much used to the fact that supporters of the SEN racket have no tolerance for opposing views.

quote:
Originally posted by 3rdFooter:

Of course school special needs registers have grades that don't involve outside intervention.

Good. So now we can stop pretending that we are only talking about medical diagnoses here?

quote:
Originally posted by 3rdFooter:

The school is a likely place for a range of special needs to emerge.

Disabilities are likely to emerge. What is "needed" is a different issue and simply labelling things as special needs confuses that. A large part of the special needs racket is labelling things that obviously aren't disabilities, such as bad behaviour or normal academic failures.

quote:
Originally posted by 3rdFooter:

Both neurological and the simple need for extra help.

The issue here is that the "need for extra help" is not so simple. As I said earlier a lot of the "help" is harmful, a lot of it simply compensates for poor teaching or curriculum and even the help that is useful is of a sort that would be useful even without a diagnosis.

quote:
Originally posted by 3rdFooter:

Surely noting a phenomenon, registering and monitoring is Good Science (TM).

Science seeks to explain, and explanations based on ideology, particularly the ideology of child worship, are not Good Science.

quote:
Originally posted by 3rdFooter:

How are you going to identify "severe" issues unless you actually look for them?

If issues are severe then it is odd that we have to spend billions looking for them.

quote:
Originally posted by 3rdFooter:

You are correct that 1-1 support is often ineffective. Education Authority provision is often in the form of an untrained teaching assistant, usually trying their best but having to make it up as they go. A failure of application rather than the whole approach.

Your contention that the medical profession is not involved is also wrong. Anything funded by the education authority will go via a panel including educational psychologists and peadiatricians.

Which panel is this?

quote:
Originally posted by 3rdFooter:

I would recommend a sabatical from your ivory tower spent learning at first hand the realities of Special Educational Needs.

Ivory tower?

I see the harm and the waste of the SEN racket first-hand every day of my working life.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

One excellent initiative by the BDA (British Dyslexia Association) is to encourage
dyslexia friendly classrooms - a great initiative which is beginning to bring positive results. A lot can be done by the class teacher to help dyslexic pupils, of all abilities, to access the curriculum.

Hard to see it as more than jargon. Nobody is advocating "dyslexia unfriendly" classrooms.

More generally when it comes to methods for teaching dyslexic pupils the science and technology select committee's evidence check concluded that:

"There is no convincing evidence that if a child with dyslexia is not labelled as dyslexic, but receives full support for his or her reading difficulty, that the child will do any worse than a child who is labelled as dyslexic and then receives specialist help. That is because the techniques to teach a child diagnosed with dyslexia to read are exactly the same as the techniques used to teach any other struggling reader."

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

These measures also help, to some extent, to mitigate self esteem issues which often arise as a result of SpLDs.

The myth of self-esteem is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the SEN racket. When there is nothing seriously wrong we can always complain that there is a problem of "feeling bad about yourself". The evidence for such claims about self-esteem is blatantly lacking.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
...More generally when it comes to methods for teaching dyslexic pupils the science and technology select committee's evidence check concluded that:

"There is no convincing evidence that if a child with dyslexia is not labelled as dyslexic, but receives full support for his or her reading difficulty, that the child will do any worse than a child who is labelled as dyslexic and then receives specialist help. That is because the techniques to teach a child diagnosed with dyslexia to read are exactly the same as the techniques used to teach any other struggling reader."

...

"Modern neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) have produced clear evidence of structural differences in the brains of children with reading difficulties. It has been found that people with dyslexia have a deficit in parts of the left hemisphere of the brain involved in reading, which includes the inferior frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, and middle and ventral temporal cortex"

(Cao F, Bitan T, Chou TL, Burman DD, Booth JR (October 2006).)
The 2008/9 paper is here

I put it to you that it is likely that our teaching methods for reading difficulties are an unsophisticated cover-all approach at present that happens to produce results in a range of children. But that differentiated specialised tuition will turn out to be of greater use for children whose difficulties are brain-structure based.

It does not mean that dyslexia does not exist. It means we may not be brilliant at spotting it from its near-relatives.

Support is great. Identifying such children as lazy is not.

Mine was identified as lazy and told he would never achieve (one of many, many similar ones I could relate). When we got him properly diagnosed and supported, he achieved 9 GCSEs with good grades. He's dyslexic. Properly dyslexic. Can't see punctuation, can't work out how to use a capital letter, can't even find things in a dictionary at age nearly 18 because his brain can't reference the words. Yet he tries hugely hard every day. It exists, and it's not made to go away with effort or time.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

A dear friend of mine in severely dyslexic. She (fortunately) was diagnosed early in high school. She now uses a voice recorder for all her work and uses a virtual typist to write it all up.

She graduated a few years ago with first class honours from Cambridge.

Her subject? English literature - poetry.

There are plenty of lists around on the Internet of successful dyslexic people. I am priveleged to know a few. I always encourage parents with these stories.

Dyslexia is a fact of life for some (2 - 10%) people - not an excuse. The fact that so much effort in involved in writing can make children appear lazy as they will write three or four lines when others write three or four pages. In these days of excellent voice recorders they should be used MUCH more to record what children have learned.

I had the label 'lazy' for years, not from home - they knew the effort and enthusiasm I had. But from school. It stuck - I can achieve many things in a day but I still feel that I've been lazy. It's taken me many years to realise breaks are allowed.

Now I'm taking a 'gap' year to study and re-train. I am loving it and recommend it to anyone who can.

I've decided 49, for me, isn't a time for mid life crisis, it's a time for 'no compromise' [Smile]

That's another thing - people with neurological differences are often late developers. There is a huge neurological 'pruning' which goes on in the mid teens for most people which happens in the early twenties for some.

[Big Grin]

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
"Modern neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) have produced clear evidence of structural differences in the brains of children with reading difficulties. It has been found that people with dyslexia have a deficit in parts of the left hemisphere of the brain involved in reading, which includes the inferior frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, and middle and ventral temporal cortex"

(Cao F, Bitan T, Chou TL, Burman DD, Booth JR (October 2006).)
The 2008/9 paper is here

I have twice pointed oldandrew to this kind of information on this thread. Let's hope it's third time lucky, because he seems to have missed it so far. It appears to be, as far as he is concerned part of a process of

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
labelling students with "needs" that probably don't exist.

and that in the case of some conditions, apparently including dyslexia, it is part of a wider problem of

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
imagining that there is a medical or psychological explanation for all sorts of human failings

Whatever the reason, he appears to be unreceptive to evidence which suggests that, at least for some kinds of dyslexia, there are clear differences in brain structure and functioning associated with it.

Posted by Unjust Stuart (# 13953) on :

quote:
we need to move in the direction of accepting ordinary human imperfections as facts of life not as medical conditions.

Really? I am very short-sighted. I cannot read unless I hold the paper five inches away from my eyes. This is an ordinary human imperfection. It is a fact of life.

It is also a medical condition which for hundreds of years has been treated by means of spectacles, so much so that we no longer view short-sighted people as disabled in any way. With this amazing treatment we are able to drive cars, play sports, read blackboards and generally carry out a normal life...until we take those glasses off and forget where we put them.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

There is quite a difference between 'psychological' and 'neurological' too. Just as body and mind are closely intertwined, so is our psychology and neurology - but they are not the same thing, far from it.

In societies where ADHD is a positive advantage (hunting, risk taking, creativity, lateral thinking, problem solving, quick reactions, quick thinking etc) there will be no cultural stigmas or problems - so less chance of psychological damage there.

Everything is context related, I reckon. Putting children in classes of 30 and expecting them to sit still and write for hours on end which is un natural in the extreme imo.

Posted by Niminypiminy (# 15489) on :

I'm praying for your son, too, Amberlight.

What many people forget is that SEN is itself a spectrum. At the school my children go to 45 % of children are on the SEN register. Most of them are there because they have speech and language deficits (bequeathed by a background where they are not read to, talked with, taken out to interesting places and so on) so severe that they need extra help to get up to where children with a better start in life begin their learning. Children with speech and language deficits will struggle with every area of learning and are more likely to have problems with behaviour, concentration and so on.

It cannot be said too often that SEN is strongly correlated with other indices of deprivation (this school is in a catchment area in the fourth quartile of deprivation -- that is 75% of catchment areas are less deprived). Many of the children on the SEN register will not stay on it for their whole school career -- with school intervention hopefully they will make progress and come of it.

So those children with named and diagnosed conditions make up a minority of children with SEN, but their difficulties are more likely to be complex, multiple and lifelong. My son falls into this group as he has Asperger Syndrom and Dyspraxia.

Getting a diagnosis was a long and exhausting process and so was getting a statement of SEN. I wish it was the case that diagnoses and help were given out like smarties -- but they simply are not. You have to fight every step of the way. But the reason that as parents we did that was because our son was really struggling -- both at school and at home. Children with conditions such as Autism Spectrum Disorders, ADHD and other neurological conditions are massively more likely to be excluded from school because their difficulties, if misunderstood and badly managed, lead to highly disruptive behaviour. If they get the help they need, and it is appropriate help, and they are understood, the behaviour improves dramatically.

Finally, labelling has a bad name -- I've had well-meaning people say to me so often that 'it's a shame to label him'. Well, except that a diagnosis can help understanding, self-acceptance and self-esteem. Children on the autism spectrum are also much more likely to be bullied than others by kids using such labels as weirdo. Having a diagnosis at least allows people a fighting chance of getting other children and others to see that their difference is not weird but wonderful.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LutheranChik:
The thing with diagnosing learning disorders, though, is getting everyone in the child's life -- parents/caregivers, teachers, other adults in authority -- to understand and buy into the strategies for dealing with these problems.

The usual name for treatments that only work when everybody believes in them is "placebo".

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Yes, amateur diagnoses do more harm than good. But, as we have seen, the solution to amateur, inaccurate diagnoses is not no diagnoses (which simply leads to less formal, even less informed, unwritten amateur diagnoses). The solution to amateur, inaccurate diagnoses is professional, qualified, accurate diagnosis.

As ever the usual recommendation when something doesn't work is to do even more of it in an even more expensive way.

We don't need ever more sophisticated and expensive ways to medicalise normal human behaviour. We need to stop imagining that falling short of the ideal child in ability or character is a sign of a disorder.

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by LutheranChik:
The thing with diagnosing learning disorders, though, is getting everyone in the child's life -- parents/caregivers, teachers, other adults in authority -- to understand and buy into the strategies for dealing with these problems.
The usual name for treatments that only work when everybody believes in them is "placebo".

Oh, do you think that was what was meant? Like a sort of voodoo thing?

I'd read that quite differently. It seemed to me to be saying (sensibly enough) that strategies aimed at alleviating problems which affect the whole of a child's life and all their dealings with people could only be expected to be effective if they are applied consistently by everyone who has responsibility for the child at different times.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Extreme scatter in scores on standardized tests of sensory, motor, and cognitive function is a symptom that needs further investigaton. You don't have to take my word for it. You could ask any board-certified pediatric neurologist to explain the significance of score scatter on standardized measures of sensory, motor, and cognitive functioning to you.

Where did all this stuff about motor functions and sensory functions come from? Is it not possible to talk about Special Needs without strawmen based on physical or sensory disabilities coming into it?

We'll have crying babies next.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
...We need to stop imagining that falling short of the ideal child in ability or character is a sign of a disorder.

Who is the "we" in that sentence?

Working with families trying to find out if a child does or does not have an ASD, I know that it can take literally years and one set of professionals after another to reach a diagnosis, (all of whom have to agree with each other). And that diagnosis is not based on a vague feeling or vague compatibility.

When I had my own diagnoses, the testing was extensive and covered every aspect of my life from birth upwards, & interviews with me and with family members. And needed clear and unequivocal evidence that it was not any sort of simple character or personality trait. A diagnosis was not given until they had proof positive of grave impact on key aspects of life functioning, and a clear list of some 150 items that showed evidence of it being an ASD, not a personality quirk. I know of a very large number of people who have undergone such testing and been told they don't have an ASD. It is not a question of turning up and being 'rubber stamped' for something for political or convenience means, if this is what you are inferring.

Even for families where the child was entirely unable to function in school and displaying the clearest of symptoms, the process was intensive and very long.

Getting something like that for most disability diagnoses simply isn't possible on a whim from a a parent or teacher.

I do not doubt that there may be a minority of diagnoses which are given in error, but you are suggesting that the majority are. I find no evidence to suggest that this is true.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
]Disabilities are likely to emerge. What is "needed" is a different issue and simply labelling things as special needs confuses that. A large part of the special needs racket is labelling things that obviously aren't disabilities, such as bad behaviour or normal academic failures.

I don't know anything about the UK system, but in the US getting the "label" is extraordinarily difficult, and is limited to specific conditions identified by leading professional groups according to specific diagnostic criteria. School districts have a powerful financial motive to deny disabilities. The reality here anyway is pretty much the reverse of what you suggest.

quote:
The issue here is that the "need for extra help" is not so simple. As I said earlier a lot of the "help" is harmful, a lot of it simply compensates for poor teaching or curriculum and even the help that is useful is of a sort that would be useful even without a diagnosis.

That the help that is provided isn't useful may or may not be true in some cases-- the accusation is so broad and general and unsubstantiated it's really impossible to respond to. That the help would be useful even w/o a diagnosis is ridiculous, and contradicted by the 1st part. If you want effective help (as you suggest in the first part) you need effective diagnosis (which you ague against in the 2nd part). You can't help if you don't know what the problem is. You need to know if the problem is neurological, environmental, psychological, physiological, or motivational. Each would require a very different intervention.

quote:

]Science seeks to explain, and explanations based on ideology, particularly the ideology of child worship, are not Good Science.

Yes, it's quite popular these days to say we are a child-obsessed culture. I don't see it. We are a youth obsessed culture-- in that everyone is always trying to look/act/feel younger. But we don't value the young. At all. We don't invest anywhere near the resources in children and youth today that we did decades ago. We don't invest anything near the time in children and youth. We constantly denigrate youth in particular, castigating them as hoodlums or slackers or insolent jerks. We provide special programs and funding for the elderly, but the largest demographic group living in poverty (at least in the US) is children, the wealthiest demographic group is the elderly. None of that sounds like "child-worship" to me.

quote:
If issues are severe then it is odd that we have to spend billions looking for them.

How does that make sense? All sorts of severe illnesses are difficult to diagnose and require expensive medical testing. Why would it surprise you that identifying learning disabilities would not similarly be expensive? And, as we have seen, inaccurate diagnosis leads to bad results, so the money spent finding an accurate diagnosis would appear to be money well spent.

It would seem to me that the issue for you is all about $$. That you resent the (IMHO paltry) funds being spent, and want to see that reduced or eliminated, regardless of the result.

[ 10. September 2010, 15:31: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Who should decide whether the child would benefit from more practice, whether a computer is a necessary accommodation, or whether occupational therapy might be required to build core strength, pincer grip, etc., so that the child's handwriting will be able to develop naturally? How should that be decided?

Again we have physical disabilities coming into it. I really have no problem with doctors dealing with physical problems. I would have no problem with an SEN system that dealt with physical disabilities, but that is not how the system works.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Who should decide whether the child would benefit from more practice, whether a computer is a necessary accommodation, or whether occupational therapy might be required to build core strength, pincer grip, etc., so that the child's handwriting will be able to develop naturally? How should that be decided?
Again we have physical disabilities coming into it. I really have no problem with doctors dealing with physical problems. I would have no problem with an SEN system that dealt with physical disabilities, but that is not how the system works.

A different brain design, OldAndrew, is a physical problem. It's a part of the human body.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

For years we've had "oh these so-called disabilities are really just child X being lazy/rude/whatever". Now they're putting people into the new MRI scanners and seeing that they can diagnose using the scans. It's right there in front of them,very real indeed. Early days, but real progress at last.
Last I heard this is not only not possible, but never likely to be possible, despite a spate of newspaper stories.
The report I read was in the Journal of Neuroscience about a month ago and was written by the person who had designed and run the trial that was being reported on. Is that what you mean by a "spate of newspaper stories"?

No. I meant the newspaper articles.

I have now read the recent Journal of Neuroscience article (except for some technical bits) on brain scans of people with autism and I can find nothing in there suggesting that brains scans can be used for diagnosis.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Extreme scatter in scores on standardized tests of sensory, motor, and cognitive function is a symptom that needs further investigation. You don't have to take my word for it. You could ask any board-certified pediatric neurologist to explain the significance of score scatter on standardized measures of sensory, motor, and cognitive functioning to you.
Where did all this stuff about motor functions and sensory functions come from? Is it not possible to talk about Special Needs without strawmen based on physical or sensory disabilities coming into it?

Oldandrew, you lost me there.

Sensory, motor, and cognitive impairments are, by definition, special needs. They're not strawmen. When we're talking about special needs, that's wht we're talking about. At least, it's what I'm talking about. At this point, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

Maybe it's a pond difference. In the US, special needs means a disability that falls into one of the legally defined categories, and that is severe enough to cause significant difficulties in school performance.

The legally defined categories are
[list]
[*]autism
[*]deaf-blindness
[*]deafness
[*]developmental delay
[*]emotional disturbance* (i.e., a psychiatric disorder such as schizophrenia; it specifically excludes social maladjustment)
[*]hearing impairment
[*]mental retardation
[*]orthopedic impairment
[*]other health impairment (e.g., diabetes, sickle cell disease, leukemia)
[*]specific learning disability
[*]speech or language impairment
[*]traumatic brain injury
[*]visual impairment including blindness

*If the law were being passed today, the terms "mental retardation" and "emotional disturbance" would probably be replaced with "intellectual impairment" and "psychiatric disorder" but those were the words that were used in 1975.

That's what I'm talking about when I "special needs." Perhaps you could explain what you mean by the term?

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Who should decide whether the child would benefit from more practice, whether a computer is a necessary accommodation, or whether occupational therapy might be required to build core strength, pincer grip, etc., so that the child's handwriting will be able to develop naturally? How should that be decided?
Again we have physical disabilities coming into it. I really have no problem with doctors dealing with physical problems. I would have no problem with an SEN system that dealt with physical disabilities, but that is not how the system works.

Are you saying that children with physical disabilities are not provided services in the special education system in the UK? Or that special education services are not limited to children with physical disabilities?

If I understood you correctly, you've objected to children being allowed to use a keyboard in class, rather than writing by hand. Since keyboarding is most often permitted (at least in this country) when a child has physical impairments, I don't understand why you object to it, if you don't object to services and accommodations for physical disabilities.

But maybe I misunderstood you. Or maybe it works differently in the UK.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
oldandrew, when you responded to my last post you acknowledged my agreement with your statement that the term 'dyslexia' covers a number of different conditions, but you missed or passed over my additional point that
quote:
There is, however, a considerable body of evidence of specific neurological differences
in some people with dyslexia. The details of the first-cited study are here and an abstract of the second may be found here.

I mention these because you appear either to have missed the point I made, or to have assumed that it was based on newspaper stories. Is this, perhaps, a case of confirmation bias?

I'm not sure what you are driving at here. There is not a single clear condition called "dyslexia". It makes interpreting articles about brainscans that simply talk of a sample of "dyslexics" a bit difficult. Without that clarity of definition (plus the fact that comparisons are made between dyslexics and non-impaired readers rather than between poor readers considered to be dyslexic and poor readers who aren't, and that some of the research suggests more than one dyslexia condition) I think it is misleading to declare that mild dyslexia "has a clear physiological component and neuropathology".

Please remember that I am not claiming that no dyslexia conditions exist, simply that we are far from showing the usefulness of the diagnosis.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

For years we've had "oh these so-called disabilities are really just child X being lazy/rude/whatever". Now they're putting people into the new MRI scanners and seeing that they can diagnose using the scans...

... eminent brain scientists doing the scans and the dissections that back up those scans say otherwise, for a variety of neurological differences. It's early days and more research is to be done, but it's all linking together nicely so far.

Do you have a reference for this, specifically the claim that "they can diagnose using the scans"?

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I have now read the recent Journal of Neuroscience article (except for some technical bits) on brain scans of people with autism and I can find nothing in there suggesting that brains scans can be used for diagnosis.

Really? They are not currently being used for diagnosis until extra numbers of subjects are put through the initial testing, but there is a 90% match between computer prediction based on brain design and current best-practice diagnosis.

To quote also from a typical scientific review into autism brain design at present,

"Structural neuroimaging studies reported an increase in total cerebral volume, both in grey and white matter, mostly in the frontal, temporal and parietal lobes. These global volumetric changes are suggested to indicate a diffuse disturbance in neural networks during early development. In functional neuroimaging studies, activation abnormalities were observed in the temporal lobes and amygdala, which are involved in language and social cognition. An increase in visual activity cortex was also reported."

and

"Higher Functioning Autism appeared to activate occipito-parietal and ventral temporal areas, whereas [control subjects] relied more on frontal and temporal language regions. The increased reliance on visuospatial abilities in HFA was supported by intact connections between the inferior parietal and the ventral temporal ROIs. In contrast, the inferior frontal region showed reduced connectivity to ventral temporal and middle temporal areas in this group, reflecting impaired activation of frontal language areas in autism. The HFA group's engagement of posterior brain regions along with its weak connections to frontal language areas suggest support for a reliance on visual mediation in autism, even in tasks of higher cognition."

etc.

There's tons more where those came from.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Makepiece:
Surely though middle class parents are more likely to have the awareness to seek a diagnosis. Is there a class issue here? Are working class children more likely to be stereotyped as badly behaved for socio economic reasons and learning difficulties ignored? Or are working class children more likely to have learning difficulties?

The class issue stems from the habit of middle class parents having an inability to accept their children might be bad at something without there being a hidden condition to explain it. I don't think I connected social class and behaviour nor social class and actual (as opposed to immagined) learning difficulties.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
Do we really need to move in the direction of accepting ordinary human imperfections as facts of life, and not as medical conditions?

What exactly is the point of accepting ordinary human imperfections as facts of life? Sorry if I'm being a bit slow here, but I'm afraid I'm simply not seeing it. It sounds like an excuse for defeatism to me.

Far from it. The normal problems of life are the ones that we are most equipped to deal with. Habits can be changed, temptations can be resisted, and skills can be practised.

It is the official expert diagnosis that tells us that we are different from others that suggests we cannot change.

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I have now read the recent Journal of Neuroscience article (except for some technical bits) on brain scans of people with autism and I can find nothing in there suggesting that brains scans can be used for diagnosis.

Then we read it differently. As I read it, the researchers sought to test a proposal that detecting differences in the relative size and shape of various parts of the brain might be able to differentiate between people who do and do not have autism. This was only a first test, intended as a proof of concept only, but they reported being able to do so with 90% accuracy.

On the face of it that seems to make your very confident assertion that use of MRI scanning as a means of clinical diagnosis is "never going to be possible" to be qute difficult to sustain. Perhaps you had allowed yourself to be influenced by a presumption that development disorders can't have physiological causes.

[x-posted with amber]

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

Here's another: (all from the last year - if we look back over the last 10 years we could be here all year, which would make the Hosts cry)

"Compared with neurotypical control (NC) subjects, ASD showed greater likelihood of hypoactivation in two medial wall regions: perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in social tasks only and dorsal ACC in nonsocial studies. Further, right anterior insula, recently linked to social cognition, was more likely to be hypoactivated in ASD in the analyses of social studies. In nonsocial studies, group comparisons showed greater likelihood of activation for the ASD group in the rostral ACC region that is typically suppressed during attentionally demanding tasks."

and another:

"Reductions in the total volume of the Corpus Callosum and several of its subdivisions were found in the autism sample. .. Volumetric alterations of the CC observed in this investigation are consistent with midsagittal area tracings of decreased CC size in autism. "

Everywhere they look, our autistic brains are seemingly designed differently and work differently.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

I put it to you that it is likely that our teaching methods for reading difficulties are an unsophisticated cover-all approach at present that happens to produce results in a range of children. But that differentiated specialised tuition will turn out to be of greater use for children whose difficulties are brain-structure based.

The claim that people learn differently has been made for decades with little evidence to support it, and plenty to suggest the opposite.

Yes, neuro-imaging may change this but that is entirely in the realm of speculation.

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

It does not mean that dyslexia does not exist. It means we may not be brilliant at spotting it from its near-relatives.

The question is not whether we are good at distinguishing it, but is it even conceptually possible to distinguish it?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Unjust Stuart:

quote:
we need to move in the direction of accepting ordinary human imperfections as facts of life not as medical conditions.
Really? I am very short-sighted. I cannot read unless I hold the paper five inches away from my eyes. This is an ordinary human imperfection. It is a fact of life.

Have we now reached the level of taking quotations out of context and then picking holes in them?

Was it really plausible that my point was that common medical conditions shouldn't be treated as medical conditions because they are common?

[ 10. September 2010, 16:37: Message edited by: oldandrew ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Niminypiminy:
At the school my children go to 45 % of children are on the SEN register. Most of them are there because they have speech and language deficits (bequeathed by a background where they are not read to, talked with, taken out to interesting places and so on) so severe that they need extra help to get up to where children with a better start in life begin their learning.

Doesn't this completely undermine the idea that the needs are "special"?

To paraphrase The Incredibles, saying everybody (or perhaps 45% of everybody) is special is another way of saying nobody is.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

The latest report on dyslexia was by Sir Jim Rose. He said -

"Early identification is crucially important, but that is by no means the whole story. Once dyslexia and associated learning difficulties has been identified, we need to be a good deal clearer about what constitutes a high-quality teaching programme with sufficient flexibility to take account of individual differences"

How much of the report will be put into practice is unclear just now, due to the change of administration - we will see.

We also have a disbility discrimination actwhich covers dyslexia, ASD, ADHD and other learning difficulties for both adults and children.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Niminypiminy:
At the school my children go to 45 % of children are on the SEN register. Most of them are there because they have speech and language deficits (bequeathed by a background where they are not read to, talked with, taken out to interesting places and so on) so severe that they need extra help to get up to where children with a better start in life begin their learning.
Doesn't this completely undermine the idea that the needs are "special"?

To paraphrase The Incredibles, saying everybody (or perhaps 45% of everybody) is special is another way of saying nobody is.

As you well know, the national figure is around 20%, so 45% is a cluster effect perhaps relating to an area of social deprivation. Such clustering does not negate SEN nor the support such children need.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
...We need to stop imagining that falling short of the ideal child in ability or character is a sign of a disorder.
Who is the "we" in that sentence?

Working with families trying to find out if a child does or does not have an ASD, I know that it can take literally years and one set of professionals after another to reach a diagnosis, (all of whom have to agree with each other). And that diagnosis is not based on a vague feeling or vague compatibility.

I have no doubt that getting an official diagnosis (as opposed to a place on the SEN register) is long, bureaucratic and (unless you have inside information) uncertain. Why that makes it any better is beyond me.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Niminypiminy:
At the school my children go to 45 % of children are on the SEN register.
Doesn't this completely undermine the idea that the needs are "special"? To paraphrase The Incredibles, saying everybody (or perhaps 45% of everybody) is special is another way of saying nobody is.

Umm.... no.

First, there are cluster effects. If you happen to live in an area where the soil is heavily contaminated with lead because of past industrial activity, it's quite possible that three quarters of the school children in the area will suffer from the neurological effects of lead poisoning. They will all have special needs, even though they constitute a majority of the students in the area.

Second, "special needs" comprises a lot of different things. If 2% of your children are visually impaired, 5% are deaf or hard of hearing, 8% are autistic, 3% have a psychiatric disorders, etc., you can add up all the small numbers together and pretty soon have a big number.

Even though the total number of children with special needs may be large, each subgroup is small, and their needs are highly specialized. The visually impaired children need large print or braille, the autistic kids need SLP services, etc.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I have no doubt that getting an official diagnosis (as opposed to a place on the SEN register) is long, bureaucratic and (unless you have inside information) uncertain.

For those of us across the pond, perhaps you can explain what it means, and what it takes, to give a child a place on the SEN register.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I don't know anything about the UK system, but in the US getting the "label" is extraordinarily difficult, and is limited to specific conditions identified by leading professional groups according to specific diagnostic criteria. School districts have a powerful financial motive to deny disabilities. The reality here anyway is pretty much the reverse of what you suggest.

The UK system makes it difficult to get the final label (although anecdotally it is suggested some people know how to work the system) but it is very easy to get a child into the bureaucracy.

With regards to the US, some of the dubious diagnoses have proliferated there, but I wouldn't claim to to know how that fits in with the education system (or systems).

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
That the help that is provided isn't useful may or may not be true in some cases-- the accusation is so broad and general and unsubstantiated it's really impossible to respond to. That the help would be useful even w/o a diagnosis is ridiculous, and contradicted by the 1st part. If you want effective help (as you suggest in the first part) you need effective diagnosis (which you ague against in the 2nd part). You can't help if you don't know what the problem is. You need to know if the problem is neurological, environmental, psychological, physiological, or motivational. Each would require a very different intervention.

My point is that in a lot (in my experience most) of these cases that simply isn't true, or is at best unproven.

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
None of that sounds like "child-worship" to me.

I describe the ideology of child worship here. I was not claiming it was universal in society but it is widely promoted by the advocates of the SEN racket.

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
How does that make sense? All sorts of severe illnesses are difficult to diagnose and require expensive medical testing. Why would it surprise you that identifying learning disabilities would not similarly be expensive?

The conditions I have been talking about are diagnosed from behaviour. If it is difficult to identify the behaviour that is reason to ask whether the condition is well-defined. This is not the same situation where there is a clear idea of what a disease is, but it is difficult to identify it in practice.

Posted by Chill (# 13643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Makepiece:
I'm sure many of the posters here are proactive, but in the big wide world there are surely a lot of parents and teachers who would rely on the condition as an excuse. I'm starting to come full circle though because I guess people who are proactive will look for solutions regardless of labelling and extra resources will only assist them. On the other hand people who lack the resources to be proactive are likely to struggle whether or not the condition is labelled?

Hi, the work involved in obtaining a professional diagnosis and statement of S.E.N normally (sadly) separates the pro-active from the less so.

You spoke in the OP about mild conditions. The condition would have to have sufficient impact on the life or education of the child to justify the struggle.

Of course there is a trade of between potential labelling, prejudice and potential help. It’s a judgment call. It would depend on the possible impact on the individual Child’s wellbeing and education. Prejudice has never concerned me much. I was a tough kid and any way I was fat and ginger so the other labels just brought verity to the party.

A valuable aspect of getting a professional diagnoses and a statement of S.E.N. is that it affords your child certain rights and protections. It legally obligates the school and its employees to meet those needs in certain predetermined specific ways.

It also helps you to identify the source and nature of the problem and equips you with the tools and knowhow to overcome or work round them.

On balance I’d say it’s worth it even in milder cases. If you are going to do it, you should do it properly get a professional diagnosis from a paediatrician, educational philologist, etc and don’t just rely on a chat with the SEN co.
Chaz

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
The conditions I have been talking about are diagnosed from behaviour. If it is difficult to identify the behaviour that is reason to ask whether the condition is well-defined. This is not the same situation where there is a clear idea of what a disease is, but it is difficult to identify it in practice.

It's exactly the same thing. Consider a cough. Most of the conditions that can cause a cough are well-defined. And the symptom is extraordinarily easy to identify. But a cough is a fairly nonspecific symptom. Deciding which of myriad possible conditions (asthma? pertussis? histoplasmosis? cancer? Tourette syndrome? pneumonia? sarcoidosis?) is causing this particular cough is hard.

It's really no different when you're looking at other behaviors that may be symptomatic of underlying diseases or disorders. The conditions can be well defined. The behavior can be easy to identify. Connecting them up is hard.

Posted by Emma Louise (# 3571) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
...the national figure is around 20%, so 45% is a cluster effect perhaps relating to an area of social deprivation.

I've been curious about this for a while (especially looking at ofsted reports - it seems that there is a correlation between high SEN and high area of deprivation).

What is it about areas of deprivation that make the child more likely to have SEN - is it living in the area or having less money or what? (We're well educated middle class parents living on a low income and thinking about moving to a "deprived" area and just curious! I also don't think having money makes someone a "better" parent but it seems the world does.)

Posted by Chill (# 13643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
or whether occupational therapy might be required to build core strength, pincer grip, etc., so that the child's handwriting will be able to develop naturally? How should that be decided?
Again we have physical disabilities coming into it. I really have no problem with doctors dealing with physical problems. I would have no problem with an SEN system that dealt with physical disabilities, but that is not how the system works. [/QB]

Andrew one of the conditions mentioned in OP was dyspraxia which is treated in just such a manner hence peoples confusion. You do show an alarming lack of factual knowledge about a subject on which you are so vocal.

Posted by Niminypiminy (# 15489) on :

EmmaLouise: there is a robust correlation between SEN and other indices of deprivation, and I'll say more about that in a second. But one thing that should be made clear in all this is that in the English educational system at least there is a difference between Special (or Additional) Needs, which usually includes children with a named disability (including neurological conditions such as the autism spectrum, ADHD). These children are usually considered to have special educational needs in addition to their wider needs for extra support in their life in general.

Then there are children with a named specific learning disability such as dyslexia and dyscalculia. Those children have needs for additional and special educational support.
Finally there are children who through speech and language deficits, deficits in social skills, the effects of chaotic home life and so on need far more educational support than the range of 'typical' children envisaged by the national curriculum. These children have additional educational needs that require extra intervention on the school's part (speech and language therapy, social skills support for example) that means they are classed as having special educational needs.

OK, now on the one hand there is a recognised correlation between having a child with Special Needs and deprivation. Partly this is because the effects on health of deprivation are linked with those factors that can lead to certain kinds of special needs (such as low birth weight and premature birth), but largely because the demands of having a child with SN are so great in terms of time and money that it makes you poor, and the benefits supposed to address this problem go only a small way to addressing it.

On the other hand, SEN is correlated with deprivation because of factors such as poor educational achievement by parents, overcrowding, bad housing, poor parental and child health, chaotic lifestyles, lack of books and reading, little understanding of the role of face-to-face contact in early childhood, lack of educational aspiration and so on.

So SEN clusters around areas that score highly on other indices of deprivation, and this is recognised in the formulae for school funding. Schools receive extra money for pupils on the SEN register and that extra funding is partly determined by the deprivation factor in the catchment area.

So, to cut a long story short, a high number of pupils on the SEN register usually means a large number of poor pupils. But I wouldn't make assumptions about the school based on that.

Posted by Niminypiminy (# 15489) on :

Sorry for double post. Just wanted to say that if you are looking for a school where the teachers really work hard with their pupils, are really committed and imaginative, then go to one in a deprived area.

Posted by Makepiece (# 10454) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Niminypiminy:

On the other hand, SEN is correlated with deprivation because of factors such as poor educational achievement by parents, overcrowding, bad housing, poor parental and child health, chaotic lifestyles, lack of books and reading, little understanding of the role of face-to-face contact in early childhood, lack of educational aspiration and so on.

Basically, as listed above, it comes down to a lack of resources. I think the main result of the factors listed above is poor language and communication skills which aggravate poor quality relationships and interpersonal skills.

Posted by Chill (# 13643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew: The UK system makes it difficult to get the final label...but it is very easy to get a child into the bureaucracy.

Why do you imaging that would be the case? Money which was once ring fenced for children with professionally diagnosed conditions and a statement of how their needs must be met, is now distributed to the schools on the basis of S.E.N. register numbers.

This provides a financial incentive for schools to have huge numbers on their registers whilst discouraging proper diagnosis which would obligate both them and the L.E.A in terms of spending.

I think that when I went through the system things were better than they are now. Instead of L.E.A. specialists we now have unqualified teaching assistant doing the same jobs. Good schools like the one my son goes to will encourage and support parents in the statementing process were appropriate. This is not common and there is very little incentive except decency and goodwill for them to do so.

Andrew, you complain about amateur diagnosis and seem to see S.E.N as a dumping ground for the academically weak and badly behaved pupils. You insist it is an ineffective waste of money. You fail to recognise that amateur diagnosis is in effect a synonym with undiagnosed. You point out that if a child is undiagnosed it is quite possible that the issues are ‘imagined’ and simply no more than bad behaviour or academic inability.

You claim that in your daily work you see antisocial behaviour medicalised and excused by armature diagnosis from senco’s. Of course currently financial incentives encourage this state of affairs. Whilst getting a statement and professional diagnosis is made very difficult. Well dur!

The OP asks is it worth getting a diagnosis. You say no. Your position makes no sense to me. If you are right about the ‘S.E.N racket’ then surly you would want to see more professional and rigorous diagnosis not less. This would allow schools to identify kids with genuine disabilities. It would ensure the money is spent on real and deserving case. In short it seems to me that your scepticism props up the vey system you revile.

Chaz

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

quote:
Again we have physical disabilities coming into it. I really have no problem with doctors dealing with physical problems. I would have no problem with an SEN system that dealt with physical disabilities, but that is not how the system works.
A different brain design, OldAndrew, is a physical problem. It's a part of the human body.

If SEN departments only worked with people who had a proven difference in "brain design" then, again, I wouldn't mind so much.

I think, perhaps, the brain scan stuff has gone to people's heads here (no pun intended). You do understand that a difference in behaviour with a correlated difference in brain activity is not, in itself, good reason to assume that the behaviour is caused by differences in "brain design"?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Extreme scatter in scores on standardized tests of sensory, motor, and cognitive function is a symptom that needs further investigation. You don't have to take my word for it. You could ask any board-certified pediatric neurologist to explain the significance of score scatter on standardized measures of sensory, motor, and cognitive functioning to you.
Where did all this stuff about motor functions and sensory functions come from? Is it not possible to talk about Special Needs without strawmen based on physical or sensory disabilities coming into it?
Oldandrew, you lost me there.

Sensory, motor, and cognitive impairments are, by definition, special needs. They're not strawmen. When we're talking about special needs, that's wht we're talking about.

Oh for pity's sake.

Mousethief's claim (which I quoted) was referring to a split in reading and spelling scores. A difference in language and maths was also mentioned. I specifically mentioned that what I was talking about wouldn't be identified as a physical problem.

You unilaterally widened this to "sensory, motor, and cognitive function" and then continued the argument based on claims about motor skills. A blatant strawman and one you used to accuse me of thinking I "know more about neurological disabilities than board-certified pediatric neurologists do". I could do without the strawmen and the ad hominems.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Again we have physical disabilities coming into it. I really have no problem with doctors dealing with physical problems. I would have no problem with an SEN system that dealt with physical disabilities, but that is not how the system works.
Are you saying that children with physical disabilities are not provided services in the special education system in the UK? Or that special education services are not limited to children with physical disabilities?

In my experience school SEN departments are predominantly not dealing with physical conditions.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I have now read the recent Journal of Neuroscience article (except for some technical bits) on brain scans of people with autism and I can find nothing in there suggesting that brains scans can be used for diagnosis.
Really? They are not currently being used for diagnosis until extra numbers of subjects are put through the initial testing, but there is a 90% match between computer prediction based on brain design and current best-practice diagnosis.

Right, this is the misunderstanding based on inaccurate newspaper articles I was talking about.

Fortunately, your newspaper is one of the few to correct the story (which saves me a lot of effort):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/aug/12/autism-brain-scan-statistics

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
Then we read it differently. As I read it, the researchers sought to test a proposal that detecting differences in the relative size and shape of various parts of the brain might be able to differentiate between people who do and do not have autism. This was only a first test, intended as a proof of concept only, but they reported being able to do so with 90% accuracy.

Hopefully, you have now read the link explaining why this is nowhere near good enough to provide a general diagnostic method.

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:

On the face of it that seems to make your very confident assertion that use of MRI scanning as a means of clinical diagnosis is "never going to be possible" to be qute difficult to sustain. Perhaps you had allowed yourself to be influenced by a presumption that development disorders can't have physiological causes.

You cannot hope to diagnose a condition that affects a tiny proportion of the population with a scan that has a 90% sensitivity and 80% specificity even for a control group with no symptoms.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

I must apologise for a hit and run comment - won't have time to really engage in the thread until later next week - but I did want to observe that 90% sensitivity and 80% specificity is actually pretty good for a test of a complex neurological condition. I know it sounds bad, but a lot of medicine is on those sorts of percentages.

(Oh, and by the way sensitivity and specificity are properties of the test and don't vary according to the population - it's the positive and negative predictive values that vary according to the population. And one can't calculate sensitivity on a control group alone - only specificity.)

Only having a tiny proportion of the population affected would mean one certainly couldn't use the test as a screening tool on the general population with those figures - but one could use it on groups identified by a doctor as being at high risk because of symptoms, who then have a higher pre-test probability and would then have a decent post-test probability if testing positive.

[ 10. September 2010, 22:32: Message edited by: mdijon ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I must apologise for a hit and run comment - won't have time to really engage in the thread until later next week - but I did want to observe that 90% sensitivity and 80% specificity is actually pretty good for a test of a complex neurological condition. I know it sounds bad, but a lot of medicine is on those sorts of percentages.

(Oh, and by the way sensitivity and specificity are properties of the test and don't vary according to the population - it's the positive and negative predictive values that vary according to the population. And one can't calculate sensitivity on a control group alone - only specificity.)

Only having a tiny proportion of the population affected would mean one certainly couldn't use the test as a screening tool on the general population with those figures - but one could use it on groups identified by a doctor as being at high risk because of symptoms, who then have a higher pre-test probability and would then have a decent post-test probability if testing positive.

Surely, the specificity must depend on the population as the number of false positives might be influenced by the characteristics of the population? (Which is why we currently have no reason to assume this test would be useful even if confined to high risk groups.)

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

I seem to have posted this before, but forgive me for repeating as I don't seem to have been as clear as I thought. This was a first test to prove the concept that it is possible to identify people with autism by physically examining aspects of the construction of their brain. It does that.

I didn't claim that this is a diagnostic tool ready for use. Nobody has said that. Although it is true that the specificity and sensitivity of this test, from this preliminary set of figures, is comparable to diagnostic tests that are regularly relied upon in medicine.

What I did say is that this apparently convincing proof of concept makes it very difficult to sustain your assertion that it will never be possible to identify people with autism in this way. Do you still stand by that?

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
...We need to stop imagining that falling short of the ideal child in ability or character is a sign of a disorder.
Who is the "we" in that sentence?

Working with families trying to find out if a child does or does not have an ASD, I know that it can take literally years and one set of professionals after another to reach a diagnosis, (all of whom have to agree with each other). And that diagnosis is not based on a vague feeling or vague compatibility.
I have no doubt that getting an official diagnosis (as opposed to a place on the SEN register) is long, bureaucratic and (unless you have inside information) uncertain. Why that makes it any better is beyond me.

It doesn't inherently make it better of course. But it does seem to refute your claim that parents and/or teachers are frivolously abusing the system to justify their own or their offsprings' laziness.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
The conditions I have been talking about are diagnosed from behaviour. If it is difficult to identify the behaviour that is reason to ask whether the condition is well-defined. This is not the same situation where there is a clear idea of what a disease is, but it is difficult to identify it in practice.
It's exactly the same thing. Consider a cough. Most of the conditions that can cause a cough are well-defined. And the symptom is extraordinarily easy to identify. But a cough is a fairly nonspecific symptom. Deciding which of myriad possible conditions (asthma? pertussis? histoplasmosis? cancer? Tourette syndrome? pneumonia? sarcoidosis?) is causing this particular cough is hard.

It's really no different when you're looking at other behaviors that may be symptomatic of underlying diseases or disorders. The conditions can be well defined. The behavior can be easy to identify. Connecting them up is hard.

And yet, to continue your analogy, correct diagnosis is essential since treatment of each of those array of underlying causes would be significantly different. Therefore it's worth the outlay of expense to determine the correct cause in order to apply the proper treatment. A rather obvious conclusion, one might think, but one that seems to have escaped oldandnew.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
roven.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by cliffdweller:
None of that sounds like "child-worship" to me.

I describe the ideology of child worship here. I was not claiming it was universal in society but it is widely promoted by the advocates of the SEN racket.

Uh-huh. Quite the extended rant. Now can you point me to some sources, even examples, to back it up? Can you show me, for example, some SEN literature that spouts the "child-worshipping" assumptions you attribute to them?

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Extreme scatter in scores on standardized tests of sensory, motor, and cognitive function is a symptom that needs further investigation. You don't have to take my word for it. You could ask any board-certified pediatric neurologist to explain the significance of score scatter on standardized measures of sensory, motor, and cognitive functioning to you.
Where did all this stuff about motor functions and sensory functions come from? Is it not possible to talk about Special Needs without strawmen based on physical or sensory disabilities coming into it?
Oldandrew, you lost me there.

Sensory, motor, and cognitive impairments are, by definition, special needs. They're not strawmen. When we're talking about special needs, that's wht we're talking about.
Oh for pity's sake.

Mousethief's claim (which I quoted) was referring to a split in reading and spelling scores. A difference in language and maths was also mentioned. I specifically mentioned that what I was talking about wouldn't be identified as a physical problem.

I'm sorry I misunderstood you. I thought you were asserting that score scatter on standardized tests doesn't signify anything. I didn't realize that you were actually asserting something much more limited: that score scatter on standardized tests of cognitive function doesn't signify the presence of a physical disability.

If that's what you were asserting, I'd have to agree with you. But I wonder why you would consider that worth saying?

quote:
You unilaterally widened this to "sensory, motor, and cognitive function" and then continued the argument based on claims about motor skills.

When we're talking about special needs (that is what we're talking about, isn't it?) sensory, motor, and cognitive function isn't unilaterally widening the discussion. That IS the discussion.

Unless you are talking about something else when you're talking about special needs. If that's the case, maybe you'd be so kind as to let the rest of us know what you're talking about.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
As you well know, the national figure is around 20%, so 45% is a cluster effect perhaps relating to an area of social deprivation. Such clustering does not negate SEN nor the support such children need.

You say that as if 20% isn't a ridiculous number of children. There has to be a point where needs cease to be "special".

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Umm.... no.

First, there are cluster effects. If you happen to live in an area where the soil is heavily contaminated with lead because of past industrial activity, it's quite possible that three quarters of the school children in the area will suffer from the neurological effects of lead poisoning. They will all have special needs, even though they constitute a majority of the students in the area.

Again we are back in the realm of bizarre situations that don't resemble what we are dealing with.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Second, "special needs" comprises a lot of different things. If 2% of your children are visually impaired, 5% are deaf or hard of hearing, 8% are autistic, 3% have a psychiatric disorders, etc., you can add up all the small numbers together and pretty soon have a big number.

But that's not how it works is it? I can count the number of visually impaired or deaf students I have taught on the fingers of 1 hand, whereas I have encountered thousands of students on the SEN register. When the systen was set up it was thought that all disabilities and all "maladjusted" children would make up less than 2% of the population (and that was when there were less pre-natal tests for physical disabilities and less treatments available for disabilities both of which would make us think the number of disabled children might fall). Medicalisation turned this into 20%, the vast majority of which have conditions in which many of the symptoms are normal behaviour.

[ 11. September 2010, 06:55: Message edited by: oldandrew ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
For those of us across the pond, perhaps you can explain what it means, and what it takes, to give a child a place on the SEN register.

The SEN register is the list of kids given to teachers indicating special needs. It is used as the basis for SEN interventions. All it takes to get on it is a nod from the SEN department.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chill:
Hi, the work involved in obtaining a professional diagnosis and statement of S.E.N normally (sadly) separates the pro-active from the less so.

You spoke in the OP about mild conditions. The condition would have to have sufficient impact on the life or education of the child to justify the struggle.

Anecdotally, the opportunity to claim benefits for having a disability is incentive enough for a lot of parents.

quote:
Originally posted by Chill:

Of course there is a trade of between potential labelling, prejudice and potential help.

Given the weakness of the evidence for the effectiveness of the help that schools give, hardly anybody would pursue it if they were making a rational judgement of costs and benefits, rather than seeking the emotional comfort of a label.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
The conditions I have been talking about are diagnosed from behaviour. If it is difficult to identify the behaviour that is reason to ask whether the condition is well-defined. This is not the same situation where there is a clear idea of what a disease is, but it is difficult to identify it in practice.
It's exactly the same thing. Consider a cough. Most of the conditions that can cause a cough are well-defined. And the symptom is extraordinarily easy to identify. But a cough is a fairly nonspecific symptom. Deciding which of myriad possible conditions (asthma? pertussis? histoplasmosis? cancer? Tourette syndrome? pneumonia? sarcoidosis?) is causing this particular cough is hard.

It's really no different when you're looking at other behaviors that may be symptomatic of underlying diseases or disorders. The conditions can be well defined. The behavior can be easy to identify. Connecting them up is hard.

Okay this has become a classic example of a rapidly changing argument. First we had the odd claim that we had to work hard to discover severe issues (which was an odd definition of "severe"). This then became diagnosing conditions behind the severe issues. Now you have turned it into diagnosing conditions behind minor symptoms.

I have no doubt that it is very difficult to find "underlying conditions" to explain minor aspects of people's behaviour.

So what? My claim is that it's not worth doing, and the argument used against me was that there were "severe issues" to be found. Feel free to deal with that point, but let's not switch between discovering severe issues and identifying underlying conditions to explain normal behaviour as if they were the same thing.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Emma Louise:
I've been curious about this for a while (especially looking at ofsted reports - it seems that there is a correlation between high SEN and high area of deprivation).

What is it about areas of deprivation that make the child more likely to have SEN - is it living in the area or having less money or what? (We're well educated middle class parents living on a low income and thinking about moving to a "deprived" area and just curious! I also don't think having money makes someone a "better" parent but it seems the world does.)

Traditionally it was the middle classes who wanted a diagnosis as it would get their kids extra help.

That has changed with funding changes. Now the people most eager to have a diagnosis seem to be parents who live off benefits and SEN staff who make a living from administering the bureaucracy. An obvious tragedy in this mess is that if anyone does have a real impairment then it tends to get lost in the bureaucracy.

Edit: I should add that there is still a middle class constituency for diagnosis but this tends to be for older kids so as to get them extra time in exams.

[ 11. September 2010, 07:27: Message edited by: oldandrew ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chill:
Andrew one of the conditions mentioned in OP was dyspraxia which is treated in just such a manner hence peoples confusion. You do show an alarming lack of factual knowledge about a subject on which you are so vocal.

Again we have things I've said deliberately misinterpreted and then used to justify insults.

Grow up. I have made no comment about dyspraxia. I have repeatedly drawn a distinction between physical conditions and medicalising behaviour or academic weaknesses.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chill:

The OP asks is it worth getting a diagnosis. You say no. Your position makes no sense to me. If you are right about the ‘S.E.N racket’ then surly you would want to see more professional and rigorous diagnosis not less. This would allow schools to identify kids with genuine disabilities. It would ensure the money is spent on real and deserving case. In short it seems to me that your scepticism props up the vey system you revile.

As ever the usual claim is that we must throw ever more money into a failing system in order to get it to work.

I take the point that more professional diagnosis could be used as a very expensive way to trim the lists.

However, a cheaper way to trim the list is to stop medicalising ordinary behaviour and academic weaknesses in the first place.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Emma Louise:

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
...the national figure is around 20%, so 45% is a cluster effect perhaps relating to an area of social deprivation.
I've been curious about this for a while (especially looking at ofsted reports - it seems that there is a correlation between high SEN and high area of deprivation).

What is it about areas of deprivation that make the child more likely to have SEN - is it living in the area or having less money or what? (We're well educated middle class parents living on a low income and thinking about moving to a "deprived" area and just curious! I also don't think having money makes someone a "better" parent but it seems the world does.)

A number of factors: if a parent can't read or write or use social skills to access a job because of a disability issue, very likely they will end up in council-owned housing etc.

The same is true for parents escaping from an abusive relationship who may not be able to afford their own accommodation and will often be placed in 'council estates'.

In such areas, there tends to be a lot of social unrest, a lot of sudden changes of location for children. The children may also have the same disability issues as their parents (because of quite strong genetic links in many cases).

The children have more people around them with low social skills and challenging behaviour, so it also encourages them to behave in those sorts of ways - peer pressure or sheer survival?

Plus such families don't always have the money to buy the children the books or resources they need to get into the top academic schools.

So you end up with areas where many of the children struggle because of disability, or because of poverty meaning they can't access resources, or because they are living in 'survival mode', where every day is a struggle to cope with the behaviour of the people around them and the constant changing circumstances. A lot have never been taught any of the basics by anyone.

There are many excellent parents in such areas, and a good number of children who have what it takes to make a successful life for themselves. But there are also a lot of parents who need a heck of a lot of support before they can add to their child's education.

We see a very large number of children entering school who cannot say a simple sentence, cannot use a knife and fork, have almost zero social skills, and have probably never held a pencil in their lives. An equally large number of the parents cannot read the newsletters we send out. It's a challenge. But very worthwhile when the children are later grinning with happiness at their achievements after we put the right support in for them. It's why I love being a school Governor.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
I seem to have posted this before, but forgive me for repeating as I don't seem to have been as clear as I thought. This was a first test to prove the concept that it is possible to identify people with autism by physically examining aspects of the construction of their brain. It does that.

I didn't claim that this is a diagnostic tool ready for use. Nobody has said that.

The original claim was made by Amber:

"Now they're putting people into the new MRI scanners and seeing that they can diagnose using the scans".

This is not the case. I don't think anybody here has ever denied that there are neurological correlates for behavioural and academic conditions. Given that human behaviour (e.g. learning to read) changes the brain then it would be strange if there were not differences between the brains of people with distinctly different behaviours or distinctly different levels of ability. This should not, however, be used to suggest that conditions diagnosed on the basis of behaviour or academic ability are well-defined or have a single neurological cause.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
It doesn't inherently make it better of course. But it does seem to refute your claim that parents and/or teachers are frivolously abusing the system to justify their own or their offsprings' laziness.

In which parallel universe did I say that?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
And yet, to continue your analogy, correct diagnosis is essential since treatment of each of those array of underlying causes would be significantly different.

Which is obviously not the case for SEN interventions where the usual treatments (easier work, weaker discipline, TA help in class, spoiling them, extra time in exams) are basically the same for all conditions (and similarly ineffective for all conditions).

You can't defend the expense of the system by appealing to the need for effective diagnosis and treatment when the scale of the system is a result of the impossibility of either when the "conditions" are actually just normal human weaknesses.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Anecdotally, if you analyse CATs* which test under three basic headings: verbal, non-verbal and quantitative and an overall average of these scores, there does seem to be a correlation between scores under different headings and behaviour and learning. There is, of course, a limit to this - those students who refuse to engage with the tests won't produce results that can be used.

The scores reported back range from 67 to 135, 100 being the normalised mean, 85 and 115 being the first standard deviation above and below the mean. It was worth looking at any student with a score under 80 under any heading and also a difference of more than 20 points between verbal and non-verbal scores.

Students with flat scores of 67 or near to that bottom score were usually, but not always statemented for learning difficulties - this often also meant a reading age under 6 years. These are pupils in the bottom 1% of the population academically - we usually had 3-5% in a year. Children with a 20 point higher score for non-verbal than verbal score more often than not have low reading ages (7 years and under at age 11) and struggle in class - and often exhibit challenging behaviour

The really interesting one was the list you get of students with a non-verbal score of under 80, but reasonable quantitative and verbal scores and reading ages - they tended to be the students with major behaviour issues - the ones who came known to the local police force and social services.

Now, this is the sort of analysis I did of the entire school to check if the SEN register had any basis in reality. The problem with secondary SEN registers are they are the collection of the lists of students on the SEN register at the primary schools. The 10-20% of children identified at one feeder primary school may all need to be on the secondary SEN register, and maybe another 10% from that school, because that primary is in a very deprived area. Only 1% of the students from another feeder primary school from a more affluent area may have recognisable additional educational needs.

For a secondary school in a deprived area, do you recognise all the students as having an educational need when they are in that 10% of the population in the bottom tail of the normal distribution curve? or do you just recognise those who are getting additional support? When the system is about to change to generalised funding and the school needs to reflect the deprivation of the area, then students with reading ages that mean they struggle and other indicators showing that those students are in the bottom 10% of the population academically gives a realistic picture of that school - but gave 30% on the SEN register.

*Cognitive Assessment Tasks often used in English schools in year 7 to give the secondary schools a basis for setting and prediction, together with the SATs. The SATS are national tests taken at the end of year 6, final year of primary school and used to assess the schools and the pupils. These pupils are aged 11,

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
The original claim was made by Amber:

"Now they're putting people into the new MRI scanners and seeing that they can diagnose using the scans".

This is not the case.

Yes it is. But it's not allowed as a formal diagnostic method as yet because trials need to be bigger before governments accept them, and there isn't the equipment in place to offer it on a larger scale as yet.

Note also the presence of the word "can" in my sentence. "Can" is not the same as "do currently". I pointed you to much other evidence from fMRI scans, dissections and brain banks. There are hundreds of such studies, which are being matched up in readiness for the DSM V final version. They can even spot differences in dissected brains of foetuses - real design differences that, (when identical differences are spotted in older people) are from people with autism. We're born with brains that are autistic by design from and before birth, from the evidence now emerging.

Specific example for you: They are spotting that in autism our brain layers do not stop developing when they should. So differing parts of the brain continue to move around and connect to things they shouldn't/connect to things in novel ways. Try doing that with a bit of personality difference.

Are you really saying that the combined scientific minds of the world haven't got a clue what they're looking at when spotting key differences in structure and function, and matching those up to autism with 90% accuracy, and ought to ask you for advice on basic logic? Can I watch when you suggest it to them?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Uh-huh. Quite the extended rant. Now can you point me to some sources, even examples, to back it up?

So just to check, you are asking me to find the arguments for the SEN system?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Niminypiminy:
Sorry for double post. Just wanted to say that if you are looking for a school where the teachers really work hard with their pupils, are really committed and imaginative, then go to one in a deprived area.

And while you are there you should have a look at the SEN bureaucracy obstructing those teachers.

Posted by JimC (# 13842) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
Are you really saying that the combined scientific minds of the world haven't got a clue what they're looking at when spotting key differences in structure and function, and matching those up to autism with 90% accuracy, and ought to ask you for advice on basic logic? Can I watch when you suggest it to them? [/QB]

You clearly didn't read Andrew's link so I'll try and repeat some of the ideas here.

90% is not that accurate. As it stands this diagnostic method is wrong 10% of the time - if it were used 1 in 10 people with genuine autism would go undiagnosed. Worse, for every 100 people you screen for suspected autism you would diagnose 10 of those with the condition when there is really nothing or something else wrong with them.

I have not read the study so I'm making some assumptions from here on i.e that scanner itself is not the problem.

Now if particular brain structures cause autism then we'd expect all people with autism to have that brain structure. Does the study not show that 10% of people with autism don't?

There certainly appears to be an association between particular brain structure and autism but what I'm not sure it is strong enough to say that it is a cause.

Posted by JimC (# 13842) on :

Apologies I couldn't edit the above. Even if there is a very strong association with autism and a particular brain structure that still does not mean the brain structure is the cause of the condition.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by JimC:
90% is not that accurate. As it stands this diagnostic method is wrong 10% of the time - if it were used 1 in 10 people with genuine autism would go undiagnosed. Worse, for every 100 people you screen for suspected autism you would diagnose 10 of those with the condition when there is really nothing or something else wrong with them. ...Now if particular brain structures cause autism then we'd expect all people with autism to have that brain structure. Does the study not show that 10% of people with autism don't? There certainly appears to be an association between particular brain structure and autism but what I'm not sure it is strong enough to say that it is a cause.

Even the best psychiatrists aren't able to achieve more than 90% total certainty even with the existing methods. Autism has an overlap (for example) with sensory processing disorders and extremes of personality type, which when combined can cause autism-like symptoms. The big debate in autism at the moment is what exactly makes it autism rather than autism-like. It seems to me that this scan is identifying autism from brain design differences, rather than things that appear to cause the same symptoms. We shall see.

There is no suggestion that such a scan would be the only diagnostic method used. The suggestion is rather that it could cut out £1000+ of extra staff time, and two or more years of waiting time for families. There would still be a checklist and a family interview, and someone to check that the person was exhibiting autism symptoms and having big problems coping with elements of life as a result. But that could be a much more streamlined and fast process once they have the right research tools to hand.

It's no different to any other medical specialists trying to work out if they are looking at X or Y: scanning can be accurate, and can help hugely and speed up the process, but they still use questions and physical observations to back it up. Well, unless it's something totally obvious like "This man has only one leg!"

90% for any neurodiagnostic tool by itself, in the relatively early days of the research, is ruddy good going.

Am I by any chance just talking a load of clueless nonsense off the tabloids? Nope:

Here is the Medical Research Council telling us "Autism in adults diagnosed in new quick brain scan". "The brain scan was highly effective in identifying individuals with autism " it says.

Well, if the Medical Research Council doesn't know what it's talking about, what hope is there for any of us?

Here's another one of the endless fMRI studies that are looking at differences in brain function and design between autistic and non-autistic groups:

"In autism, ventromedial prefrontal cortex responded equally to self and other, while middle cingulate cortex responded more to other-mentalizing than self-mentalizing. These atypical responses occur only in areas where self-information is preferentially processed and does not affect areas that preferentially respond to other-referential information. In autism, atypical neural self-representation was also apparent via reduced functional connectivity between ventromedial prefrontal cortex and areas associated with lower level embodied representations, such as ventral premotor and somatosensory cortex. Furthermore, the magnitude of neural self-other distinction in ventromedial prefrontal cortex was strongly related to the magnitude of early childhood social impairments in autism. Individuals whose ventromedial prefrontal cortex made the largest distinction between mentalizing about self and other were least socially impaired in early childhood, while those whose ventromedial prefrontal cortex made little to no distinction between mentalizing about self and other were the most socially impaired in early childhood. These observations reveal that the atypical organization of neural circuitry preferentially coding for self-information is a key mechanism at the heart of both self-referential and social impairments in autism. "

They're all showing clear differences between autism and non-autism. Are we really saying that those differences are likely to be coincidence, every single time? Isn't that like saying "people with Diabetes just happen to have the wrong amount of insulin but that doesn't mean there's a link between insulin and diabetes"?

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
It doesn't inherently make it better of course. But it does seem to refute your claim that parents and/or teachers are frivolously abusing the system to justify their own or their offsprings' laziness.
In which parallel universe did I say that?

That seems to be the content of virtually every post you've made, as well as the rant-blog you linked. If not, then I have completely misunderstood your position and would welcome clarification.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Uh-huh. Quite the extended rant. Now can you point me to some sources, even examples, to back it up?
So just to check, you are asking me to find the arguments for the SEN system?

I'm asking you to support your potentially strawman argument. The blog you pointed us to was simply a list of maxims YOU attribute to SEN. No evidence, no source, nothing. Just a long list of "isn't it ridiculous that SEN believes this to be true". Yet in in your entire rant you don't provide even one example. I'm asking you to back up your assumptions. Give us a link to a statement from SEN that illustrates/ exemplifies one of those "child-worshipping" attitudes you attribute to them.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

Apols for double post.

and this is a pretty good scientific summary of the brain structure/density abnormalities in autism

Here's another science article about differential brain structure in autism

There are another 130 studies on the immediate list. The internet is awash with brain scan/dissection science results that show the same kind of things for autistic people, and not for other people.

Let us contemplate how children such as Ricky could be seen to be a different personality type and nothing more, whilst we're here: Teachers TV - Reaching Ricky which is well worth a viewing for the lovely work that Phoebe does.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
The conditions I have been talking about are diagnosed from behaviour. If it is difficult to identify the behaviour that is reason to ask whether the condition is well-defined. This is not the same situation where there is a clear idea of what a disease is, but it is difficult to identify it in practice.
It's exactly the same thing. Consider a cough. Most of the conditions that can cause a cough are well-defined. And the symptom is extraordinarily easy to identify. But a cough is a fairly nonspecific symptom. Deciding which of myriad possible conditions (asthma? pertussis? histoplasmosis? cancer? Tourette syndrome? pneumonia? sarcoidosis?) is causing this particular cough is hard.

It's really no different when you're looking at other behaviors that may be symptomatic of underlying diseases or disorders. The conditions can be well defined. The behavior can be easy to identify. Connecting them up is hard.
Okay this has become a classic example of a rapidly changing argument.

No, it's not. It's an example of using multiple analogies or examples in the attempt (apparently futile) to communicate an idea or a concept. If I think you're familiar with A, B, and C, but not with X, I might show you how A is like X, and then how B is like X, and then how C is like X, assuming that you might begin to see the connections and understand the point I'm trying to make.

It's ordinarily a useful technique, because in an ordinary conversation, you can assume that the other person is trying to understand what you're trying to say.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
I seem to have posted this before, but forgive me for repeating as I don't seem to have been as clear as I thought. This was a first test to prove the concept that it is possible to identify people with autism by physically examining aspects of the construction of their brain. It does that.

From the report mentioned we would expect that for the general population somebody who tested positive on the brain scan would have a 5% chance of actually having the condition, and we have no data whatsoever as to how effective it would be on somebody with symptoms of autism (which would be more useful).

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:

I didn't claim that this is a diagnostic tool ready for use. Nobody has said that.

Whether it is ready for practical use or not is beside the point. It does not do what was claimed.

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:

Although it is true that the specificity and sensitivity of this test, from this preliminary set of figures, is comparable to diagnostic tests that are regularly relied upon in medicine.

Have you followed the link I gave earlier? I thought it explained this rather well.

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:

What I did say is that this apparently convincing proof of concept makes it very difficult to sustain your assertion that it will never be possible to identify people with autism in this way. Do you still stand by that?

I stand by the claim that the tests as described are not possible to use as a diagnostic tool for autism.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

I'm sorry I misunderstood you.

Yes, I think it is a misunderstanding caused by taking isolated quotations out of context. Perhaps you should try not doing that.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

I thought you were asserting that score scatter on standardized tests doesn't signify anything. I didn't realize that you were actually asserting something much more limited: that score scatter on standardized tests of cognitive function doesn't signify the presence of a physical disability.

I'm pretty certain that wasn't what I said either.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

When we're talking about special needs (that is what we're talking about, isn't it?) sensory, motor, and cognitive function isn't unilaterally widening the discussion. That IS the discussion.

Okay, for future reference, when you have taken a quotation out of context, it is not enough to look at other points in the discussion and assume that the statement applied to all matters within the scope of the discussion.

If you want to know what a claim means you should:

a) look at the precise context in which it was made

or

b) ask.

I'm getting fed up with

c) interpret it in whichever way would be easiset to prove wrong and then write a long and insulting rant about how wrong it is.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
Yes it is. But it's not allowed as a formal diagnostic method as yet because trials need to be bigger before governments accept them, and there isn't the equipment in place to offer it on a larger scale as yet.

Have you read the link I gave you?

I think it explains rather well why, even if the results are substantiated by proper trials, they would not demonstrate that it could be used as a method of diagnosis.

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

Note also the presence of the word "can" in my sentence. "Can" is not the same as "do currently".

No, but "can" usually implies "can currently do" as opposed to "can't currently do".

Doesn't it?

[ 11. September 2010, 16:56: Message edited by: oldandrew ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
Even the best psychiatrists aren't able to achieve more than 90% total certainty even with the existing methods.

Please, just go and read the link.

This is getting silly.

[ 11. September 2010, 16:58: Message edited by: oldandrew ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
It doesn't inherently make it better of course. But it does seem to refute your claim that parents and/or teachers are frivolously abusing the system to justify their own or their offsprings' laziness.
In which parallel universe did I say that?
That seems to be the content of virtually every post you've made, as well as the rant-blog you linked.

For pity's sake, is this really all the justification you are able to give for your absurd strawman?

I'm used to being demonised by the defenders of the SEN racket, but you are taking the mickey with this one.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm asking you to support your potentially strawman argument. The blog you pointed us to was simply a list of maxims YOU attribute to SEN. No evidence, no source, nothing. Just a long list of "isn't it ridiculous that SEN believes this to be true".

The whole point of identifying those bad arguments for SEN was to challenge you to justify your position without using those bad arguments. If you can't do so then it proves my point about the SEN racket being indefensible, regardless of how often the bad arguments are actually used.

(That said, the main inspiration for those points was a debate on this very forum...)

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

I'm sorry I misunderstood you.
Yes, I think it is a misunderstanding caused by taking isolated quotations out of context.

That's entirely possible.

It's also possible that your ability to communicate your thoughts clearly and effectively is somewhat below average.

I seem to have gotten the (possibly erroneous) idea that you believe that it is a disservice to students to pretend that they are more skillful than they really are. If indeed that is your opinion, which it might not be (I might have made it up, based on the accidental misunderstandings of imagined implications of brief bits of other things that you may or may not have said), do you feel the same way about interactions between adults?

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
]Surely, the specificity must depend on the population as the number of false positives might be influenced by the characteristics of the population? (Which is why we currently have no reason to assume this test would be useful even if confined to high risk groups.)

Specificity = true negatives that test negative divided by all true negatives. Hence only those without the disease are in the equation, and it doesn't vary with the population. On the other hand, the negative predictive value (true negatives that test negative divided by all that test negative) will vary with the population, and that's why we can't use the test for screening.

Posted by Bean Sidhe (# 11823) on :

Oldandrew - still with us! Every staffroom has one.

I got a well-deserved hostly rap on the knuckles last time I let him get to me.

So, I'll whistle a happy tune and be on my way. Anyone coming?

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm asking you to support your potentially strawman argument. The blog you pointed us to was simply a list of maxims YOU attribute to SEN. No evidence, no source, nothing. Just a long list of "isn't it ridiculous that SEN believes this to be true".
The whole point of identifying those bad arguments for SEN was to challenge you to justify your position without using those bad arguments. If you can't do so then it proves my point about the SEN racket being indefensible, regardless of how often the bad arguments are actually used.

(That said, the main inspiration for those points was a debate on this very forum...)

But it's not my argument-- it's yours. I didn't say SEN is "child-worshipping"-- you did. As I said, as an American educator, I know nothing of the UK system. Your blog makes a long series of unsubstantiated, undocumented, unsupported statements that supposedly represent the attitude or prevailing presumptions of SEN. I'm asking YOU to support YOUR argument. Can you demonstrate that any of these truisms are held by a significant percentage of the SEN bureaucracy?

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:

What I did say is that this apparently convincing proof of concept makes it very difficult to sustain your assertion that it will never be possible to identify people with autism in this way. Do you still stand by that?
I stand by the claim that the tests as described are not possible to use as a diagnostic tool for autism.

I think the expression you might use is: "for pity's sake".

Nobody has said that this first test should be rolled out to hospitals at once for immediate use as a diagnostic tool. Nobody. Not on this thread. Not in the actual report of the experiment. And so far as I am aware not even in the tabloids.

But you have asserted that, however well the process is refined by further experiment and development it will never be suitable for that use, that it is impossible for this process ever to become a useful diagnostic tool. For that to be a valid assertion though the experiment reported on would have to have produced results which indicate that the brains of people with autism display no characteristics marking them out from the brains of non-autistic people. But that is the opposite of the findings reported.

The specificity and sensitivity of this test are such that it would be difficult to use in clinical practice as it now stands (and assuming that having proved the concept nobody will do anything to improve its accuracy). But not impossible to use, even now in fact. Otherwise various other tests which are currently relied on, for instance some common tests for prostate cancer, would be discarded, because they have significantly lower rates both of specificity and sensitivity than this test has already achieved. And yet they are not discarded. Because though they are not ideal they are better than not being able to diagnose prostate cancer at all.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
...for instance some common tests for prostate cancer, would be discarded...

I think prostate cancer screening probably should be discarded, but that's too much of a tangent...

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
No, it's not. It's an example of using multiple analogies or examples in the attempt (apparently futile) to communicate an idea or a concept. If I think you're familiar with A, B, and C, but not with X, I might show you how A is like X, and then how B is like X, and then how C is like X, assuming that you might begin to see the connections and understand the point I'm trying to make.

It's ordinarily a useful technique, because in an ordinary conversation, you can assume that the other person is trying to understand what you're trying to say.

Oh dear.

Disagreeing with you is not the same as misunderstanding you. You need to listen and respond to opposing arguments not treat them as a request for another explanation of the point they have already addressed.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
It's also possible that your ability to communicate your thoughts clearly and effectively is somewhat below average.

If my meaning is unclear, can I suggest asking for clarification rather than inventing an obviously silly position, attributing it to me, and then insulting me for holding it?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Specificity = true negatives that test negative divided by all true negatives. Hence only those without the disease are in the equation, and it doesn't vary with the population.

Yes, it does.

Different populations will, obviously, have different proportions of true negatives testing as negative (unless false positives only occur through random error, something which you simply cannot assume).

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But it's not my argument-- it's yours. I didn't say SEN is "child-worshipping"-- you did. As I said, as an American educator, I know nothing of the UK system.

Yep, looking back I see that it was actually Thirdfooter who started this line of argument. You simply misunderstood me, and when I explained to you what I meant started complaining that I hadn't "backed it up".

It now appears to be that this was a way for you to say that you had no knowledge of what I am talking about. Fair enough, but can you stop acting like your ignorance is my responsibility and that I have an obligation to demonstrate everything to you?

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

The British Dyslexia Association has a blog here which I find well worth following.

[Big Grin]

I have now completed the Postgraduate Certificate - which qualifies me as a specialist teacher.

Next week I start the Postgraduate Diploma which qualifies me to diagnose SpLD.

The following year research and MA. I intend to research teachers' attitudes to specific learning difficulties.

Should be interesting.

[Yipee]

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
The British Dyslexia Association has a blog here which I find well worth following.

I have now completed the Postgraduate Certificate - which qualifies me as a specialist teacher.

Next week I start the Postgraduate Diploma which qualifies me to diagnose SpLD.

The following year research and MA. I intend to research teachers' attitudes to specific learning difficulties.

Should be interesting.

Brilliant news!!

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I stand by the claim that the tests as described are not possible to use as a diagnostic tool for autism.
I think the expression you might use is: "for pity's sake".

Nobody has said that this first test should be rolled out to hospitals at once for immediate use as a diagnostic tool. Nobody. Not on this thread. Not in the actual report of the experiment. And so far as I am aware not even in the tabloids.

So?

My point is not that the tests are unready or unproven, my point is that the tests, even if it is properly established that they can do what is claimed and even if it was practically possible to use the tests more widely, could not be used as a diagnostic tool if all they could do was what is described in the article.

I have provided a link to a rather good explanation of why this is the case which people seem rather keen to ignore. Could you engage with that rather than this strawman?

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:

But you have asserted that, however well the process is refined by further experiment and development it will never be suitable for that use, that it is impossible for this process ever to become a useful diagnostic tool.

Oh for pity's sake.

My claim is that even if the tests are established to have the reported properties then this would not make them useful as a diagnostic tool. Obviously, I make no claim about what will happen if the tests turn out to have useful properties that are not reported in the article. I am objecting to Amber's claim that "Now they're putting people into the new MRI scanners and seeing that they can diagnose using the scans", and I am objecting, not simply on the grounds that the claims in the article are not yet proven, and the technology not yet widely available, but on the grounds that even if the claims were to be proven, and the technology was available, it still wouldn't be possible to use scans with only the reported properties as a useful diagnostic tool.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Different populations will, obviously, have different proportions of true negatives testing as negative (unless false positives only occur through random error, something which you simply cannot assume).

I'm not sure that's an obviously, actually. That effect is generally pretty subtle, although there are some well described examples (e.g. ECGs to diagnose angina/heart attacks are less specific in Afro-Carribeans). But in general that effect doesn't present practical problems. The far greater practical problem is that the negative/positive predictive values of the test vary hugely depending on the prevalence of the disease in the population we're looking at.

The point at the start of this was whether it was reasonable to give a specificity of a test without particular reference to the prevalence of the disease in the population tested. The answer is that you can, and that 90% specificity is generally not that bad for this kind of test.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Different populations will, obviously, have different proportions of true negatives testing as negative (unless false positives only occur through random error, something which you simply cannot assume).
I'm not sure that's an obviously, actually. That effect is generally pretty subtle, although there are some well described examples

I would imagine that it would absolutely have to be a subtle effect in those cases where a medical test has been established and is useful. However, for evaluating the usefulness of a newly created test, calculating the statistics for people with symptoms rather than the general population must be absolutely vital mustn't it? That link I gave earlier suggested that this was one of the (two) reasons carcino-embryonic-antigen was abandoned as a useful test for colon cancer despite being more accurate than the tests we are talking about for autism.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

I think you're still missing the point.

The usual way of evaluating this is to start by saying that specificity and sensitivity are intrinsic properties of the test.

If you know those and the prevalence of disease in a population, you can then calculate the positive and negative predictive values in different circumstances.

Because the negative and positive predictive values vary every time you change the prevalence, it wouldn't be plausible to measure them empirically every time you need to think about them.

In general, very few tests can function as screening tests, because of the very low prevalence of the disease. Even quite good tests like HIV tests start to struggle when you're screening blood donors in rural UK. (i.e. you get to the situation where most positive tests are actually false positives).

So to say this test wouldn't be any good for screening is besides the point. However, the problem I'd have working out how the scans operate is that the reasoning is circular. We know that a doctor's assessment might be wrong - other conditions could be confused with autism. So we want a test. Brain scans sound nice and objective, so we'll work one up and then start evaluating it.

What's our gold standard against which to evaluate its accuracy? There isn't one. We could use clinical assessment as the gold standard, but that isn't great which is why we need another test in the first place.

Hmmmm.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But it's not my argument-- it's yours. I didn't say SEN is "child-worshipping"-- you did. As I said, as an American educator, I know nothing of the UK system.
Yep, looking back I see that it was actually Thirdfooter who started this line of argument. You simply misunderstood me, and when I explained to you what I meant started complaining that I hadn't "backed it up".

It now appears to be that this was a way for you to say that you had no knowledge of what I am talking about. Fair enough, but can you stop acting like your ignorance is my responsibility and that I have an obligation to demonstrate everything to you?

Thirdfooter did not write the blog, you did. You linked us to YOUR blog that presented a list of maxims purportedly representing the position/worldview/philosophy of SEN. That is an argument-- YOUR argument. I asked YOU to back up YOUR argument with examples of statements made in SEN literature that illustrate a couple of those maxims. If indeed the assumptions are as prevalent within the SEN bureaucracy as you claim them to be, this should not be a hard thing to do. And, as it is YOUR argument-- not mine, not thirdfooters-- it is your task to support it. In fact, there's really no way for anyone else to do it, since we have no way of knowing what you are thinking.

btw, I said from the very beginning, and in the post in question, that I am an American and know nothing of the UK system. But that doesn't change the weight of the responsibility to support the kinds of claims you are making.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I think you're still missing the point.

The usual way of evaluating this is to start by saying that specificity and sensitivity are intrinsic properties of the test.

Surely the reason it is usual for this to be the case is that if it is not (i.e. the known specificity may not be accurate for the population that is actually being tested) then you don't have a test that can be actually be used for diagnosis, regardless of the prevalence?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Thirdfooter did not write the blog, you did. You linked us to YOUR blog that presented a list of maxims purportedly representing the position/worldview/philosophy of SEN. That is an argument-- YOUR argument...But that doesn't change the weight of the responsibility to support the kinds of claims you are making.

I'm sorry but this is a product of your imagination.

I linked to the blog entry to explain a term ("child worship") you had misunderstood, not to make an argument or make a claim.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

Oldandrew, I think I've asked, and other people have asked, but I'll try again.

In your opinion, what conditions should allow a student to receive either accommodations or special services? To be clear, by accommodations and special services, I mean things that are allowed for, done for, or provided for students who have those conditions that are not usually allowed for, done for, or provided for students who do not have those conditions. I gave you the list of conditions that's used in the United States as part of the determination of whether a child qualifies for special services. If you were in charge of the list, what conditions would be on it?

Second, in your opinion, how should those conditions be identified? Who should determine whether a child in fact has one of the specified conditions?

Third, in your opinion, for those children who have been determined to have an eligible condition, who should decide what accommodations and special services should be provided, and in what circumstances?

Thank you.

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

In your blog, oldandrew, you describe the ideology of 'Child Worship'. In your post # 11546 on this thread on 10 September at 17:51 you say that the ideology is

quote:
widely promoted by the advocates of the SEN racket

. Please can you give specific examples from the SEN literature of where this ideology appears. Thank you.

[ 12. September 2010, 17:31: Message edited by: BroJames ]

Posted by infinite_monkey (# 11333) on :

Card-Carrying SEN Racketeer returning to the OP:

quote:
Originally posted by Makepiece:

Is it helpful to diagnose mild 'problems' in children? Would you be content if your child was diagnosed with mild autism, ADHD or dyspraxia because helpful interventions could be put in place? Or would you be concerned about your child being labelled at a young age, and embarrassed by overzealous teachers, when they could simply grow out of it?

I'm talking here of mild conditions because I'm sure anyone would agree that it's helpful to diagnose more severe cases.

There are a lot of issues at play here, but in the States at least, I think it's crucial to understand the process in the schools that leads to diagnosis. First off, it's not undertaken unless the suspicion is of an EDUCATIONALLY SIGNIFICANT disability--something that is impacting negatively on a child's experience of school. I can name off the top of my head 3 different students at my school who I suspect of being on the autism spectrum*, but these kids are thriving academically, having a socially decent time of it, and supported by families who don't want to go that route. We don't butt in if butting in ain't needed.

And if, through the SST process (parents of struggling students conference with a group of school staff which usually includes a school psychologist or special education teacher), the school team does come to feel that further investigation is warranted, we can't do any of it without parent agreement and consent. So families concerned about labeling and such have the right to curtail the process, though often I'd prefer that they first explore those concerns against the benefits for their child of being evaluated.

Yup, I said benefits. It's been my experience that if a kid gets to that stage of the SST process, it's because there are unknowns and issues which can't be rectified with the amount of information and support available in the general education system. A good evaluation for a possible disability, done by competent professionals with appropriate background knowledge, contains both quantitative and qualitative information gleaned from observation as well as testing. It's not just a deficit profile: it's a learning profile--the kind of thing that, yes, might be great to have for every child, but time constraints just keep the psychologist from doing that for every child in the room.

It's been my experience that these mild conditions aren't exactly things that the child will "grow out of"--they're elements of that child's learning profile, and knowledge is power when it comes to moving on with that. A child with auditory processing disorder will probably always struggle in classes which are heavily lecture-based: knowing that about my students allows me to advocate for putting them in the class with the teacher that uses a lot of visual supports, even though the quite verbal teacher has other amazing teaching skills which benefit kids with other learning styles. Specific learning disabilities like dyslexia and dyscalcula require intervention: yes, a lot of the intervention is just "more of good teaching", but the cold reality is that it's good teaching, delivered intensively in small groups or 1:1 by a person with masters-level training in educational exceptionality, and the school system just can't throw that net wide enough to also cover the kids who honestly don't need it. It's also things like testing alone in a quiet room, for kids whose APDs or ASDs make background noise like cannon fire: good luck figuring out a way to get a room for every kid.

Education has shifted, in a lot of ways--there's a lot more emphasis now on the reality that one size doesn't fit all when it comes to learning profiles, and a focus on all kids making progress, not just all kids "being taught". There are challenges and strengths with that approach, of course, but I'm firmly in the camp that thinks knowing is better than not knowing when it comes to something that can help a teacher reach a kid.

*insert obligatory disclaimer that I am not, as a special education teacher, actually authorized to DO the diagnosis...

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Oldandrew, I think I've asked, and other people have asked, but I'll try again.

I don't think you you have, or if you did it was obscured among other more precise points.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

In your opinion, what conditions should allow a student to receive either accommodations or special services? To be clear, by accommodations and special services, I mean things that are allowed for, done for, or provided for students who have those conditions that are not usually allowed for, done for, or provided for students who do not have those conditions.

I'm sorry? Are you expecting me to put aside a few hours here and write a list of all the conditions that I can think of where it might be reasonable to help somebody who has them? Or are you just after more exact principles for making these sorts of judgements?

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

I gave you the list of conditions that's used in the United States as part of the determination of whether a child qualifies for special services. If you were in charge of the list, what conditions would be on it?

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Second, in your opinion, how should those conditions be identified? Who should determine whether a child in fact has one of the specified conditions?

If there is some doubt as to whether somebody actually has a disability they should be referred to appropriate medical professionals.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Third, in your opinion, for those children who have been determined to have an eligible condition, who should decide what accommodations and special services should be provided, and in what circumstances?

The entitlement dealt with by the education system should be to an education not to "accommodations and special services" for individuals. Provision of accomodations and special services should be devolved to the lowest possible levels and organised according to obvious need on the ground not according to a bureaucratic formula.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
In your blog, oldandrew, you describe the ideology of 'Child Worship'. In your post # 11546 on this thread on 10 September at 17:51 you say that the ideology is
quote:
widely promoted by the advocates of the SEN racket
. Please can you give specific examples from the SEN literature of where this ideology appears. Thank you.

Oh dear. That's two posts in a row where people, for no obvious reason, ask me questions that are so broad and general that I could spend hours answering them without making a relevant point.

If there's something in that blog post where you don't see what sort of thing I am referring to, please feel free to ask about that individual point on that blog post. I'm not going to attempt to deal with all ten points here, for no discernable reason, and I am baffled as to why you are suggesting that I only be allowed to give examples from the SEN literature.

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

Well you make a generalised statement about what is promoted by the SEN racket. I'm not asking for examples across all ten points - just (say) two or three examples emanating from 'the SEN racket' where they make one or more of the ten points which you enumerate in your blog. I haven't found them, but I am not a teacher and I don't know the field. I would just like to see some of the evidence on which you base your proposition that the 'SEN racket' widely promotes child worship.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

In your opinion, what conditions should allow a student to receive either accommodations or special services? To be clear, by accommodations and special services, I mean things that are allowed for, done for, or provided for students who have those conditions that are not usually allowed for, done for, or provided for students who do not have those conditions.
I'm sorry? Are you expecting me to put aside a few hours here and write a list of all the conditions that I can think of where it might be reasonable to help somebody who has them? Or are you just after more exact principles for making these sorts of judgements?

It shouldn't take hours to provide a general summary of the sorts of conditions that you think would justify providing accommodations or special services. Not a detailed list of every possible diagnosis, but a description of the kinds or categories of conditions would perhaps make it easier for other people to understand your points.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

I gave you the list of conditions that's used in the United States as part of the determination of whether a child qualifies for special services. If you were in charge of the list, what conditions would be on it?

Off the top of my head I don't think I would administer it like this. I would leave schools, and the wider education bodies as much autonomy with resources as possible, subject to the condition that the disabled are entitled to the same degree of educational opportunity as everybody else.[/quote][/qb]
What do you mean by "the same degree of educational opportunity as everybody else"? Do you mean that the child should receive the same instruction that everyone else receives? Or that the child should receive instruction that will allow the child to learn what everyone else learns? Or something else?

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Second, in your opinion, how should those conditions be identified? Who should determine whether a child in fact has one of the specified conditions?

If there is some doubt as to whether somebody actually has a disability they should be referred to appropriate medical professionals.[/quote][/qb]
Would the appropriate medical professional simply provide a diagnosis? Or would the appropriate medical professional also make recommendations about accommodations and special services?

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Third, in your opinion, for those children who have been determined to have an eligible condition, who should decide what accommodations and special services should be provided, and in what circumstances?

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

Sorry for the botched code.

Preview post is my friend.

Posted by PataLeBon (# 5452) on :

(A comment from someone who was diagnosed with a non-specific Learning Disability)

I know that I don't hear things they way everyone else does. I knew that in second grade when my teacher started talking about when you know something is a long vowel and when something is a short vowel, and I thought she was talking about the same thing! (Vowel sounds are close to impossible for me to differentiate between.) It took two years for the school system to realize that I would never be able to tell the difference between certain sounds in the English language (at least with the teaching methods they had back then).

I've been taught the RTI model of teaching which says that between 80 to 85 percent of the students in my class should be able to learn the material if I use good teaching methods.(Which in my class of 20 would be 16)

15 to 20 percent will need extra help and/or practice to learn which should be provided by the classroom teacher. (Which in my class would be 3 to 4)

0 to 5 percent will need specialized instruction from a specialized teacher (AKA Special Ed) (Which in my class would be about 1)

The problem is that the 15 to 20 percent could include students who are identified with learning disabilities, but can function fine in a regular classroom given modifications. (AKA hearing aids for a hard of hearing students, modified behavior for autistic children, classroom supports for students with Irlen syndrome, etc.)

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I think you're still missing the point.

The usual way of evaluating this is to start by saying that specificity and sensitivity are intrinsic properties of the test.

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Surely the reason it is usual for this to be the case is that if it is not (i.e. the known specificity may not be accurate for the population that is actually being tested) then you don't have a test that can be actually be used for diagnosis, regardless of the prevalence?

Evaluations of tests are usually repeated in several populations, and an idea of the kinds of conditions that might give false positives obtained (which may vary by population), but the idea that the sensitivity and specificity of a test might vary by population is usually not formally evaluated in that sense.

What got me off on this was you saying "You cannot hope to diagnose a condition that affects a tiny proportion of the population with a scan that has a 90% sensitivity and 80% specificity even for a control group with no symptoms."

And my original response was to explain that this was just an inaccurate understanding of how sensitivity and specificity work. That is still the case, despite this (albeit slightly interesting) tangent.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Thirdfooter did not write the blog, you did. You linked us to YOUR blog that presented a list of maxims purportedly representing the position/worldview/philosophy of SEN. That is an argument-- YOUR argument...But that doesn't change the weight of the responsibility to support the kinds of claims you are making.
I'm sorry but this is a product of your imagination.

I linked to the blog entry to explain a term ("child worship") you had misunderstood, not to make an argument or make a claim.

OK, let's review. You claimed that SEN is "child-worshipping". I asked you to elaborate what you meant. You linked us to the blog in which the author (you?) derisively attributed a bunch of attitudes or maxims to SEN bureaucracy, but offered no sources or examples of SEN statements or actions to support the assumption that these maxims are representative of their belief system.

Is your position now that the blog is NOT representing SEN? That you linked to it only as a generic example of "child-worshipping" but not the sort of "child-worshipping" found at SEN?

Either your link was a red herring that was unresponsive to the original question, or you are trying to evade having to support a potentially strawman argument.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Thirdfooter did not write the blog, you did. You linked us to YOUR blog that presented a list of maxims purportedly representing the position/worldview/philosophy of SEN. That is an argument-- YOUR argument...But that doesn't change the weight of the responsibility to support the kinds of claims you are making.
I'm sorry but this is a product of your imagination.

I linked to the blog entry to explain a term ("child worship") you had misunderstood, not to make an argument or make a claim.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

sorry for the double post-- edit window's closed, perhaps a moderator can help me out here?

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
Well you make a generalised statement about what is promoted by the SEN racket. I'm not asking for examples across all ten points - just (say) two or three examples emanating from 'the SEN racket' where they make one or more of the ten points which you enumerate in your blog. I haven't found them, but I am not a teacher and I don't know the field. I would just like to see some of the evidence on which you base your proposition that the 'SEN racket' widely promotes child worship.

Exactly my request. Seems simple enough.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
Well you make a generalised statement about what is promoted by the SEN racket.

No I didn't.

I said 3 days ago that child worship "was [not] universal in society but it is widely promoted by the advocates of the SEN racket". And I only said that in passing to correct a misinterpretation.

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:

I'm not asking for examples across all ten points - just (say) two or three examples emanating from 'the SEN racket' where they make one or more of the ten points which you enumerate in your blog.

The point is not the absolute number of points you ask for. Telling me to answer it incompletely and arbitrarily doesn't make this any better. If you have an issue with a particular point then I don't mind discussing it. But I am not answering vague questions which could only be answered either in a long essay, or incompletely.

Nothing kills the focus of a debate than when people stop referring to particular points and start suggesting essay questions for other people to answer (and claiming that actually you don't want a whole essay answer just a random point to dispute doesn't help matters.) When the essay question is based on half a sentence from days ago taken out of context and apparently prompted by somebody else's misunderstanding then it becomes pretty obvious what you are doing.

If you don't want to discuss the points at hand then go, but don't bother wasting my time with essay questions.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

In your opinion, what conditions should allow a student to receive either accommodations or special services? To be clear, by accommodations and special services, I mean things that are allowed for, done for, or provided for students who have those conditions that are not usually allowed for, done for, or provided for students who do not have those conditions.

Fine. Severe ones.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

It shouldn't take hours to provide a general summary of the sorts of conditions that you think would justify providing accommodations or special services. Not a detailed list of every possible diagnosis, but a description of the kinds or categories of conditions would perhaps make it easier for other people to understand your points.

Severity is the issue. Massive expenditure on minor or even negligible inconveniences is the problem here. That's what I would end.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

What do you mean by "the same degree of educational opportunity as everybody else"? Do you mean that the child should receive the same instruction that everyone else receives? Or that the child should receive instruction that will allow the child to learn what everyone else learns? Or something else?

I mean that they will not be obstructed from an appropriate education.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Would the appropriate medical professional simply provide a diagnosis? Or would the appropriate medical professional also make recommendations about accommodations and special services?

I don't have a problem with them making recommendations, but I ccertainly wouldn't give those recommendations authority over the education system.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

What do you consider the lowest possible level?

The lowest level that is practical, where "practical" is judged with consideration to other students as well. Teachers should help their students. If their disabilities make that impractical then the school should make provision. If that is not practical the Local Authority should make provision. If that is not practical then the government should make provision.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Evaluations of tests are usually repeated in several populations, and an idea of the kinds of conditions that might give false positives obtained (which may vary by population), but the idea that the sensitivity and specificity of a test might vary by population is usually not formally evaluated in that sense.

What you are saying seems to be a matter of algorithms for calculating predictive values rather than dealing with first principles. A test is no use if it gives large numbers of false positives among the population of people who are most likely to be tested. Whether this is formulated as "specificity" and calculated exactly or whether the test is thrown out the moment it becomes clear that false negatives are a problem, is not really the point. It is the same issue. You cannot use something as a diagnostic tool until you have identified the rate of false negatives for the population of people you are likely to use it on.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
OK, let's review. You claimed that SEN is "child-worshipping".

No, I didn't.

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

I asked you to elaborate what you meant.

No, you didn't.

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

You linked us to the blog in which the author (you?) derisively attributed a bunch of attitudes or maxims to SEN bureaucracy,

No, he didn't.

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

but offered no sources or examples of SEN statements or actions to support the assumption that these maxims are representative of their belief system.

Feel free to search my blog for more details about how SEN works.

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

Is your position now that the blog is NOT representing SEN?

I never said it was.

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

That you linked to it only as a generic example of "child-worshipping" but not the sort of "child-worshipping" found at SEN?

I don't even know what is meant by "at SEN".

The whole child worshipping point was to get out of the way some flawed arguments used to justify the SEN system. I wouldn't have bothered if I had known this thread would just concentrate on strawmen rather than actually debating the issue.

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

Either your link was a red herring that was unresponsive to the original question, or you are trying to evade having to support a potentially strawman argument.

I have already explained to you why I linked to it. You have chosen to ignore my explanation and invent your own strawman explanation. Let me know if you want to engage in the discussion that actually happened instead of this one you have invented.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
You cannot use something as a diagnostic tool until you have identified the rate of false negatives for the population of people you are likely to use it on.

That I certainly agree with. But my original point of entry to the thread was that what you were saying about specificity, and specificity related to this particular test was simply wrong.

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
No I didn't.

I said 3 days ago that child worship "was [not] universal in society but it is widely promoted by the advocates of the SEN racket"

Well I call you on this. I think it is largely BS. I am asking you to substantiate, with evidence, your claim (which I have emphasized above) that 'child worship' "is widely promoted by advocates of the SEN racket". Frankly, it looks to me like the claims one finds in some of the worse examples of sloppy journalism when they run a crowd-pleasing story of 'political correctness gone mad' or 'health and safety run amuck' which on actual examination turns out to be rather different from the way it is reported.

If it is as "widely promoted by advocates of the SEN racket" as you claim, then you must be aware of clear specific instances to which you can readily point us. If not, I (and doubtless others too) are liable to continue to regard your claim as BS.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

Last year I had a youngster in my class I suspected may have Asperger syndrome - s/he found it hard to read the signals that most of us take for granted. S/he found it much more difficult to communicate and interact with others and had quite high levels of anxiety and confusion.

So, early on in the year, I had a chat with the child's parents. They were very relieved that I had raised the issue and wasn't sweeping under the carpet the fact that their child was different. I also wasn't expecting he child to change. I suggested they went for diagnosis as, when the child went to high school, things would get harder as they change teachers often through the day.

S/he was a very hard worker but quite cognitively rigid and found changes in routine hard to deal with. So I set up a visual timetable and made sure I made all the accommodations I could. I operate a 'no blame' policy and we all worked hard to make life bearable for the child.

The child was very intelligent but, whatever the difficulty, it affected their learning because of the way classrooms work.

S/he was diagnosed and the statement will, I believe and hope, help his/her high school teachers to understand and work more effectively.

I have no idea what tests they used, it isn't my field, but I certainly trust the professionals and follow their recommendations - just as I hope the teachers who refer to me will do when I am qualified.

SpLD professionals - medical, pyschologists or specialist teachers are the 'consultants' to the class teacher's 'GPs'.

It is by no means a 'racket'! - it is vital that we don't assume all children are the same and have no neurological differences. One size does not fit all when it comes to teaching our children.

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
You cannot use something as a diagnostic tool until you have identified the rate of false negatives for the population of people you are likely to use it on.
That I certainly agree with. But my original point of entry to the thread was that what you were saying about specificity, and specificity related to this particular test was simply wrong.

Similarly my point of entry was where oldandrew picked up a reference to MRI scans having been reported recently to have been able to identify markers within the structure of the brain that are specific to autism. He asserted that not only was this finding presently unsuitable for diagnostic purposes (which everyone would accept and nobody has said otherwise), but that it could not EVER be made so. There's simply no basis for that.

Leaving that aside though, it seems to me from reading this thread and his blog is that oldandrew has concluded that children with severe disabilities should receive help in school and children with incapacities that are not severe should not. That's a clear enough statement, but I would need to know how he would propose to administer this before I would be comfortable to dismantle all the provisions in our education system at the moment.

The first concern is how to define "severe", given that in reality most disabilities present on a sliding scale. Oldandrew accepts that in some instances it will be patently and objectively obvious to any teacher or school administration that a particular child has disabilities which are "severe". In every other case though, if the school administration (or presumably any influential dissenting voice within it) does not accept that a particular child is "severely" disabled they will be entitled to no help and no accommodation whatever from the school.

The only way past this all-or-nothing school gatekeeper would be to provide a medical diagnosis which certifies not only that the child has a disability, but that it represents a severe handicap to their coping in a mainstream school unaided. Presumably there will be scope here for dispute as to whether the diagnosis should be made by a general practitioner or only by a specialist in the particular condition(s) the child has.

The second concern is how to determine what the school could and should do about it. Presumably, whether or not the school has insisted upon a medical diagnosis before according "severe" status to the child's disability it is going to need some specialist advice at this point. Possibly that might also have to come from a medical practitioner, though it would surely make more sense for people with different letters after their name to play a role at this stage?

That all sounds mechanically similar to the existing processes for getting a Statement. So perhaps oldandrew's real issue lies with the ability for the school to make some accommodations on its own initiative when dealing with a child who seems to have symptoms of disability but who has not been through the Statement process. But my understanding is that schools have only very modest budgets for their own action. Is that not the case?

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

Schools have incredibly small SEN budgets and get very few educational psychologist or specialist teacher visits in a year.

They have to prioritise - so the children who are on the spectrum of SpLD or neurological difference but not very severe don't get seen - especially and particularly if they are academically very bright.

As ADHD coach I find that bright, well behaved children with ADHD or ADD are not usually picked up until they reach university. The universities, in my experience, have excellent student support departments and (at long last) youngsters are getting the help and support which should have begun at the beginning of their schooling.

Girls, especially, are overlooked when it comes to ADHD diagnosis and support until they reach higher education in the UK.

[ 13. September 2010, 09:37: Message edited by: Boogie ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
Well I call you on this.

Great. You have picked the vaguest opinion I have expressed in this discussion to "call me on".

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:

I think it is largely BS. I am asking you to substantiate, with evidence, your claim (which I have emphasized above) that 'child worship' "is widely promoted by advocates of the SEN racket".

The point is that this is an internet forum. An essay question such as "Substantiate, with evidence, your opinion of the philosophical underpinnings of all arguments you have widely heard in favour the SEN system" is not something I am able to rattle off in five minutes. This whole request just looks like a way to waste my time and avoid discussing any substantive point. Have you written a similar essay on the forum about your views? Or is it only people who disagree with you who have to do this?

Anyway, I will not be answering essay questions in full, or in part, on this forum. If I wanted to write something on that scale I would put it on my blog, and I would not do it simply because you have declared (without evidence for your own point of view) that my opinions on the topic are BS.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

Purgatory guidelines (emphasis mine):

quote:
Pull up a chair, get your brain in gear, and prepare for some serious time in Purgatory. This is where your ideas, views and beliefs can be refined and made fit for Heaven! Purgatory is our serious debate space – where theological, ethical, social and cultural issues are discussed from a Christian perspective. All views are welcome – orthodox, unorthodox, radical or just plain bizarre – so long as you can stand being challenged.

I call BS too.

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
steer clear of the SEN racket. It is about medicalising normal variations in character and ability as an excuse for bureacracy, pseudo-science and appeasement.

This, oldandrew, is from your first post on this thread. The gist of the whole post is 'except in the clearest of cases, don't get involved in the SEN racket'. Your response appears to be based on views you hold on SEN which we can find at length on your blog, but which you are utterly unwilling or unable to substantiate. Given that your opinion about SEN appears to be BS, so, therefore, is your advice about whether to get involved in it or not.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

OldAndrew seemingly truly believes that the absence of parts of the brain would be unlikely to alter behaviour, though. Or rather, he suggests there is no proven link between the two, despite enough medical evidence to sink a flotilla of battleships and indeed a couple of Aircraft Carriers.

My brain has no 'people centre' to it. Amazingly, that affects my ability to recognise people, read their body language, use body language, and understand social concepts properly. According to OldAndrew, I'm just being awkward, though, I think, and my diagnosis is all part of a big racket (not the sort you play tennis with, I guess...).

What I find interesting is the big study of all of the primary school children in one major county. They funded a team to examine every child in the class in a certain year. They realised that they had only diagnosed half of the total number of children who have an Autism spectrum condition. Why? Because the diagnostic teams were treating it as if it were a behavioural problem, only putting the badly-behaved ones up for diagnosis, and thus all the quiet well-behaved ones of us were getting totally missed. And struggling. And failing/developing major mental health conditions as a result of the strain (see the new NAS campaign that notes that most children with autism end up with mental health conditions because there is so little help for them).

It rather disproves the theory that we're overmedicalising. If anything, we're undermedicalising in some areas.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
Similarly my point of entry was where oldandrew picked up a reference to MRI scans having been reported recently to have been able to identify markers within the structure of the brain that are specific to autism. He asserted that not only was this finding presently unsuitable for diagnostic purposes (which everyone would accept and nobody has said otherwise),

Is there some kind of amnesia going on here? Amber claimed that "Now they're putting people into the new MRI scanners and seeing that they can diagnose using the scans".

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:

but that it could not EVER be made so. There's simply no basis for that.

No, I said that it was "never likely to be so" and I was referring to the picture Amber painted, rather then all possible methodologies involving scans as part of a wider process.

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:

Leaving that aside though, it seems to me from reading this thread and his blog is that oldandrew has concluded that children with severe disabilities should receive help in school and children with incapacities that are not severe should not. That's a clear enough statement, but I would need to know how he would propose to administer this before I would be comfortable to dismantle all the provisions in our education system at the moment.

The first concern is how to define "severe", given that in reality most disabilities present on a sliding scale. Oldandrew accepts that in some instances it will be patently and objectively obvious to any teacher or school administration that a particular child has disabilities which are "severe". In every other case though, if the school administration (or presumably any influential dissenting voice within it) does not accept that a particular child is "severely" disabled they will be entitled to no help and no accommodation whatever from the school. The only way past this all-or-nothing school gatekeeper...

There always has to be a cut-off under any system. I might remind you that the question wasn't simply help or accomodation, but help or accomodation "that are not usually allowed for, done for, or provided for students who do not have those conditions". There will be no rule saying "never help these students", but if a student is going to officially singled out for help and accomodation then there needs to be a major difference. It is not "all or nothing". But if we are going to label kids as officially deserving of help that other kids don't get then there needs to be clear difficulties not simply a label.

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:

would be to provide a medical diagnosis which certifies not only that the child has a disability, but that it represents a severe handicap to their coping in a mainstream school unaided. Presumably there will be scope here for dispute as to whether the diagnosis should be made by a general practitioner or only by a specialist in the particular condition(s) the child has.

This assumes a model of entitlement to help rather than entitlement to educational opportunity. All help should be administered on the basis of its educational value to the student, not on the basis of labelling the student as the sort of person who gets help. Doctors can provide advice but they should not make educational decisions.

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:

The second concern is how to determine what the school could and should do about it. Presumably, whether or not the school has insisted upon a medical diagnosis before according "severe" status to the child's disability it is going to need some specialist advice at this point. Possibly that might also have to come from a medical practitioner, though it would surely make more sense for people with different letters after their name to play a role at this stage?

Why? It seems far from obvious that people with disabilities can only be educated according to medical advice. There may be cases where a school needs medical advice, but that is not the same as assuming that we need a bureaucracy where advice, welcome or unwelcome, useful or useless, is constantly transmitted through the system.

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:

That all sounds mechanically similar to the existing processes for getting a Statement. So perhaps oldandrew's real issue lies with the ability for the school to make some accommodations on its own initiative when dealing with a child who seems to have symptoms of disability but who has not been through the Statement process. But my understanding is that schools have only very modest budgets for their own action. Is that not the case?

No, it is not the case.

But this is beside the point, my complaint is not that schools have the power to take action. I think schools and teachers are the best people to take action. My complaint is that it is done through a bureaucratic procedure where students are labelled and resources are thrown at labels. It needs to be "educationalised". SEN resources should be allocated like other resources, not by an autonomous group of busybodies.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Schools have incredibly small SEN budgets and get very few educational psychologist or specialist teacher visits in a year.

In most secondary schools the SEN department is the biggest. Don't confuse the power of the SENCO to spend money with how much money is actually being wasted by the SEN racket.

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

They have to prioritise - so the children who are on the spectrum of SpLD or neurological difference but not very severe don't get seen - especially and particularly if they are academically very bright.

Indeed, the number of kids labelled by the bureacracy is far, far greater than the number of kids the bureaucracy could ever actually "help". The interventions, therefore, reflect the priorities of the bureaucracy.

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

As ADHD coach I find that bright, well behaved children with ADHD or ADD are not usually picked up until they reach university. The universities, in my experience, have excellent student support departments and (at long last) youngsters are getting the help and support which should have begun at the beginning of their schooling.

Girls, especially, are overlooked when it comes to ADHD diagnosis and support until they reach higher education in the UK.

Yeah, odd how schools often concentrate help on, well, those who need help and all the kids that are doing fine and having no great difficulties are left to fend for themselves.

Don't worry though, I'm sure your experience is biased by the fact that university students are disproportionately likely to have gone to good schools. In the Battleground schools the culture of labelling and then allocating resources on the basis of complying with labels, rather than for the purposes of educating, has become normal.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Purgatory guidelines (emphasis mine):

quote:
Pull up a chair, get your brain in gear, and prepare for some serious time in Purgatory. This is where your ideas, views and beliefs can be refined and made fit for Heaven! Purgatory is our serious debate space – where theological, ethical, social and cultural issues are discussed from a Christian perspective. All views are welcome – orthodox, unorthodox, radical or just plain bizarre – so long as you can stand being challenged.
I call BS too.

I suppose it is hopeless to point out that "calling BS" on opinions you don't happen to like without making any kind of argument is not really a challenge?

It comes across more as a statement of insecurity about one's own opinions, particularly when people do it together as if quantity of people holding the opinions is a substitute for a lack of actual arguments for the opinion.

[ 13. September 2010, 11:39: Message edited by: oldandrew ]

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Yeah, odd how schools often concentrate help on, well, those who need help and all the kids that are doing fine and having no great difficulties are left to fend for themselves.

And odd too, how in your haste to make this riposte you missed what amber. had to say about the potential for damage to mental health to children whose issues are undiagnosed because they do not lead to obvious academic failure.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
This, oldandrew, is from your first post on this thread. The gist of the whole post is 'except in the clearest of cases, don't get involved in the SEN racket'. Your response appears to be based on views you hold on SEN which we can find at length on your blog, but which you are utterly unwilling or unable to substantiate.

I assumed that this was where it was going.

First, ask an essay question. Secondly, when an essay isn't written, pretend that the person you were bossing around must have no arguments in their favour. Thirdly, get really indgnant that they dared express an opinion and hope that in all the bluster nobody notices that you haven't managed to put together an argument yourself.

Let me know when you have something to actually say.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I suppose it is hopeless to point out that "calling BS" on opinions you don't happen to like without making any kind of argument is not really a challenge?

It comes across more as a statement of insecurity about one's own opinions, particularly when people do it together as if quantity of people holding the opinions is a substitute for a lack of actual arguments for the opinion.

You seem to be confusing 'facts', which are supported by primary evidence and cogent argument (which you singularly fail/refuse to supply) and 'opinion', which is something you believe whether or not you can provide primary evidence and cogent argument to support your position.

As far as I'm concerned, your refusal to justify your claims demotes you to the status of just another nutbar with an axe to grind and enough bandwidth to tell the whole world.

oldandrew = new myrrh

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
OldAndrew seemingly truly believes that the absence of parts of the brain would be unlikely to alter behaviour, though.

Strawman.

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

Or rather, he suggests there is no proven link between the two,

Even sillier strawman.

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

despite enough medical evidence to sink a flotilla of battleships and indeed a couple of Aircraft Carriers.

Well then it should have no trouble bombing hell out of those strawmen. Shame it has nothing to do with anything I've said.

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

My brain has no 'people centre' to it.

Which part of the brain is that then?

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

Amazingly, that affects my ability to recognise people, read their body language, use body language, and understand social concepts properly. According to OldAndrew, I'm just being awkward, though, I think, and my diagnosis is all part of a big racket (not the sort you play tennis with, I guess...).

In which parallel universe have I made any comment on your diagnosis? Until you said you had part of your brain missing I had no interest in your condition at all.

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

What I find interesting is the big study of all of the primary school children in one major county. They funded a team to examine every child in the class in a certain year. They realised that they had only diagnosed half of the total number of children who have an Autism spectrum condition. Why? Because the diagnostic teams were treating it as if it were a behavioural problem, only putting the badly-behaved ones up for diagnosis, and thus all the quiet well-behaved ones of us were getting totally missed. And struggling. And failing/developing major mental health conditions as a result of the strain (see the new NAS campaign that notes that most children with autism end up with mental health conditions because there is so little help for them).

It rather disproves the theory that we're overmedicalising. If anything, we're undermedicalising in some areas.

Oh great, competing groups of people throwing out labels and we're meant to be shocked that one group labelled less children than the other.

I think what is more shocking is that nobody seems interested in whether there is any genuine benefit from the labelling.

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:

That all sounds mechanically similar to the existing processes for getting a Statement. So perhaps oldandrew's real issue lies with the ability for the school to make some accommodations on its own initiative when dealing with a child who seems to have symptoms of disability but who has not been through the Statement process. But my understanding is that schools have only very modest budgets for their own action. Is that not the case?
No, it is not the case.

But this is beside the point, my complaint is not that schools have the power to take action. I think schools and teachers are the best people to take action. My complaint is that it is done through a bureaucratic procedure where students are labelled and resources are thrown at labels. It needs to be "educationalised". SEN resources should be allocated like other resources, not by an autonomous group of busybodies.

If I am following you then, you are saying that schools have a large resource available to spend on children who are perceived as having some form of learning disability but who have no medical evidence to back that up. But this enviable resource is not in the hands of mainstream teachers, but rather is administered by a runaway bureaucracy of self-serving do-gooders with tentacles reaching into every department of every school. And these people, not having teaching as their focus squander that resource without thought to the educational outcomes for the affected children and the potential effects on the educational environment created for the peers.

That's not what I am accustomed to reading in the press, nor what I hear more generally. I'm not a teacher, but I do have some contact with 'the system'. I have ten years experience as a school governor at two different schools, I have two children currently in a comprehensive school, and I am a reading volunteer in a city centre primary school. I have friends and colleagues with children in school who do have some disability, a few with Statements and a majority without. I'm afraid that I don't recognise your description at all.

One of my children has some contact with the SEN group at her school; it's for a physical disability with an unambiguous clinical diagnosis so not really material to the thread, but it means I have met the SEN team at her school a few times. They don't seem to be by any means the largest department in the school as you have claimed.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Yeah, odd how schools often concentrate help on, well, those who need help and all the kids that are doing fine and having no great difficulties are left to fend for themselves.
And odd too, how in your haste to make this riposte you missed what amber. had to say about the potential for damage to mental health to children whose issues are undiagnosed because they do not lead to obvious academic failure.

Was this in another post? It certainly wasn't in the one I replied to.

Still I am interested in any evidence people have of mental health problems in people with undiagnosed SEN conditions.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

I love someone making himself out to be an expert on SEN provision but not knowing that autistic people don't understand terms like "strawman" [Big Grin]

I've told you which part of the brain is missing.

Anyway, here's the link to some more evidence for you to say doesn't/can't exist, OldAndrew:

NAS report on children and mental health

And the Chief Exec of the National Autistic Society recently noted that research aplenty shows that those with supposedly "mild" versions of autism actually fare much worse on any test of quality of life, health etc than the ones who are categorised as "severe". Why? Because we get people lining up to say it's not really a disability so gets no help and support.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
They realised that they had only diagnosed half of the total number of children who have an Autism spectrum condition. Why? Because the diagnostic teams were treating it as if it were a behavioural problem, only putting the badly-behaved ones up for diagnosis, and thus all the quiet well-behaved ones of us were getting totally missed. And struggling. And failing/developing major mental health conditions as a result of the strain (see the new NAS campaign that notes that most children with autism end up with mental health conditions because there is so little help for them).

This is my contention too. Children are living with unnecessary anxiety and blame in schools due to (some) teachers who either have little knowledge or little interest in neurological differences.

So often teachers ask children 'Why can't you .... <insert teacher's demand>' when the child is already overloaded with difficult and challenging sensory demands - and putting in five or ten times the effort of their peers to overcome them.

Quite often the accommodations are simple too - like printing on pastel coloured paper for visual stress. I made sure all reading and writing was available on pastel paper for any child who felt the need. If some just 'liked the colour' there would be others who really benefited from the reduction in the glare of the white paper. The same with screen tinters for the computers - it costs nothing and can make a huge difference for those who have problems with visual stress.

<edited due too dreadful spelling [Big Grin]

>

[ 13. September 2010, 12:14: Message edited by: Boogie ]

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

From that report,

"Over 70% of children with autism also have a mental health problem."

It then shows the research supporting the clear link between a lack of provision and mental health outcomes for those children. Look at the case study on page 10/11 showing how good services work with schools to ensure the right outcomes for a child, and avoid mental health conditions developing.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

As far as I'm concerned, your refusal to justify your claims demotes you to the status of just another nutbar with an axe to grind and enough bandwidth to tell the whole world.

oldandrew = new myrrh

The one thing I love about the SEN lobby is that they will make excuses for any behaviour at all other than disagreeing with them.

Still it will be interesting to see if any of the people who are outraged by my terrible failure to write essays on demand are evenly slightly outraged by Doc Tor's abuse.

Posted by Zoey (# 11152) on :

I've just finished a Masters dissertation about disabled children (haven't had the mark back yet, so it may have been utter crap, but still ....)

Gathering statistics about how many children in the UK are disabled is notoriously difficult because the definitions and measuring instruments used vary enormously. (These guys provide a 25-page long chapter on the difficulties of counting numbers of disabled children.) However, most of the figures I've seen tend to estimate that the proportion of UK children who are disabled is roughly between 5% (cf Contact A Family's stats here) and 7% (Office for National Statistics (2004) Living in Britain: Results from the 2002 General Household Survey. London: HMSO.).

Government stats for the last few years consistently put the proportion of school-aged children in England who have Statements of Special Education Need at about 2.7 - 2.8% (you can check the figure for each year in the stat reports provided here).

I argued in my dissertation (and others also argue) that a child being disabled and a child having SEN are not necessarily the same thing, but that there is a significant degree of overlap between these two categories.

oldandrew - how can you argue that the "SEN racket" is labelling too many children as having SEN when the proportion of children with Statements of SEN appears to consistently be significantly lower than the number of disabled children in the country (2.7-2.8% compared to, very approximately, 5-7%)?

Posted by Zoey (# 11152) on :

(I hated the research module on my course more than any other and stats aren't my strongest suit.) I have a feeling my post above isn't a watertight argument. What I'm trying to get at is:

There's a population of children in England who are disabled and have a Statement of SEN.

There's a population of children who are disabled but don't have a Statement of SEN.

There may be a population of chidlren who aren't permanently disabled but do struggle in school and therefore have a Statement of SEN.

Measuring the size of any of these populations is tricky. If the percentage of children with Statements was very much greater than most estimates of the percentage of disabled children in the UK, then that might indicate that children were being too readily labelled as having SEN. However, the percentage of children with Statements consistently appears to be lower than the percentage of children estimated to be disabled - which is not conclusive evidence, but does seem to suggest that children are not being labelled as having SEN unnecessarily.

Agh. Still not sure I'm making sense. Hope folks can understand what I'm trying to say.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
... I have ten years experience as a school governor at two different schools, .... I'm afraid that I don't recognise your description at all.

Likewise. I'm a Governor of a State Primary, and there is no hint of monies being wantonly thrown about or meddled with by distant government departments. Not in our school nor in any of the others I liaise with. We measure outcomes against monies spent on the children, and can readily demonstrate specific improvements aplenty.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:

That's not what I am accustomed to reading in the press, nor what I hear more generally. I'm not a teacher, but I do have some contact with 'the system'. I have ten years experience as a school governor at two different schools, I have two children currently in a comprehensive school, and I am a reading volunteer in a city centre primary school. I have friends and colleagues with children in school who do have some disability, a few with Statements and a majority without. I'm afraid that I don't recognise your description at all.

I suggest you look into it more critically. I'm not really out on a limb here.

Most mainstream classroom teachers I know have a nightmare story or two about their SEN department. The creator of the SEN system has disowned it; in 2006 the Education Select Comittee concluded it was "struggling to remain fit for purpose", and even someone as wedded to conventional educational opinion as Francis Gilbert actually wrote a newspaper article entitled "Special needs is a fad that harms children". I mentioned earlier that a couple of large statitical studies of aspects of the system seemed to show that it did more harm than good.

It's difficult to have a reasonable debate about it, because there are a lot of people who like to have their (or their children's) shortcomings "medicalised" and a lot of people employed by the system. However, you should have noticed, at the very least, how little people have in the way of solid arguments to defend it.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

In your opinion, what conditions should allow a student to receive either accommodations or special services? To be clear, by accommodations and special services, I mean things that are allowed for, done for, or provided for students who have those conditions that are not usually allowed for, done for, or provided for students who do not have those conditions.
Fine. Severe ones.

Do you mind explaining what you mean by "severe"? Do you mean, "conditions that make a child entirely unable to function in the classroom without additional services and support"? Or do you mean something else?

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

It shouldn't take hours to provide a general summary of the sorts of conditions that you think would justify providing accommodations or special services. Not a detailed list of every possible diagnosis, but a description of the kinds or categories of conditions would perhaps make it easier for other people to understand your points.
Severity is the issue. Massive expenditure on minor or even negligible inconveniences is the problem here. That's what I would end.

At least on this side of the pond, I've never seen anything that looked like "massive expenditure on minor or even negligible inconveniences." In the UK, what proportion of the education budget is spent on SEN?

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

What do you mean by "the same degree of educational opportunity as everybody else"? Do you mean that the child should receive the same instruction that everyone else receives? Or that the child should receive instruction that will allow the child to learn what everyone else learns? Or something else?
I mean that they will not be obstructed from an appropriate education.

What do you mean by that? You've said that I should not assume that I know what you mean when it's not clear what you mean. This is not clear.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Would the appropriate medical professional simply provide a diagnosis? Or would the appropriate medical professional also make recommendations about accommodations and special services?

I don't have a problem with them making recommendations, but I ccertainly wouldn't give those recommendations authority over the education system.

So, for example, if the neurologist said that, by reason of finger agnosia, impaired lateralization, impaired visual memory, and left-side neglect, a student's handwriting would not ever be either legible enough or fast enough to be useful, and that the student should therefore be permitted to use a keyboard, or have a scribe, or some other alternative to writing by hand, should the school be required to provide a keyboard or some other alternative to writing by hand? Or should it be at the school's discretion? If it is at the school's discretion, who at the school should make the determination -- each individual classroom teacher? A specialist on the school staff?

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

What do you consider the lowest possible level?

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Purgatory guidelines (emphasis mine):

quote:
Pull up a chair, get your brain in gear, and prepare for some serious time in Purgatory. This is where your ideas, views and beliefs can be refined and made fit for Heaven! Purgatory is our serious debate space – where theological, ethical, social and cultural issues are discussed from a Christian perspective. All views are welcome – orthodox, unorthodox, radical or just plain bizarre – so long as you can stand being challenged.
I call BS too.
I suppose it is hopeless to point out that "calling BS" on opinions you don't happen to like without making any kind of argument is not really a challenge?

It comes across more as a statement of insecurity about one's own opinions, particularly when people do it together as if quantity of people holding the opinions is a substitute for a lack of actual arguments for the opinion.

More BS. You made an argument you can't substantiate, then whine when others ask you to back it up. Boo.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
[QUOTE]

It's difficult to have a reasonable debate about it, because there are a lot of people who like to have their (or their children's) shortcomings "medicalised" and a lot of people employed by the system. However, you should have noticed, at the very least, how little people have in the way of solid arguments to defend it.

Little hard to take that criticism seriously, given the source.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Doc Tor:
[qb]

Still it will be interesting to see if any of the people who are outraged by my terrible failure to write essays on demand are evenly slightly outraged by Doc Tor's abuse.

An essay is not required and has not been requested. We haven't even asked you to back up all of your accusations in your long rant. Just one or two. Take a few representative samples of the long list of maxims you attribute to SEN. Pick the low-hanging fruit-- the easy ones. Find a statement in SEN lit. or website that illustrates that attitude. Give us a link or quote.

That's not an essay, it's an example.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
I love someone making himself out to be an expert on SEN provision but not knowing that autistic people don't understand terms like "strawman"

Yeah, whoever heard of an autistic person being familiar with logical fallacies?

(Presumably you'll be telling me off for using sarcasm next.)

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

I've told you which part of the brain is missing.

No you haven't, unless you think there's a part of the brain called "the people centre".

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

Anyway, here's the link to some more evidence for you to say doesn't/can't exist, OldAndrew:
NAS report on children and mental health

What is this meant to be evidence of?

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
I love someone making himself out to be an expert on SEN provision but not knowing that autistic people don't understand terms like "strawman"
Yeah, whoever heard of an autistic person being familiar with logical fallacies?

(Presumably you'll be telling me off for using sarcasm next.)

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

I've told you which part of the brain is missing.
No you haven't, unless you think there's a part of the brain called "the people centre".

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

Anyway, here's the link to some more evidence for you to say doesn't/can't exist, OldAndrew:
NAS report on children and mental health
What is this meant to be evidence of?

I've now no idea what you're talking about at all. Are you saying that you've written something sarcastically? If so, why, given that I can't identify sarcasm very easily at all? What is a logical fallacy? I give information which I believe is accurate. If it isn't, please say so clearly and demonstrate why it wasn't, so that I can learn from it. Otherwise I'm guessing you're now mocking the disability I have.

Are you saying that you want the technical terms of body parts in all discussions? There is a part of the brain that deals with incoming information about people, as you must surely know if you are critiquing SEN provision for people who are without this area? Calling it the 'people centre' is a lot more user-friendly than using its latin name.

I'd suggest you read the report in context above. You keep saying (in various posts) that there's little or no evidence that helping most children with SEN makes any difference to the outcome. Well, there's a chunk of evidence.

Posted by fat-tony (# 13769) on :

Regarding overlap between % disability and % statement.

Statemented pupils make up a very small part of a SEND list. Maybe 10% of it at most. The ones for my current and previous schools' would be more like a 5-6% of the list. Though looking at some from other schools in the Authority (Area) some do reach 10%. The SEND list is therefore likely to be between 10 and 20 times larger than the number of statemented pupils. Our current yr7 has 40% on SEND list and 3 statements.

The SEN budget in a secondary comprehensive is huge. Maybe 300-400 times greater than the Gifted and talented budget. Almost 500 times greater than the intervention budget for Maths and English combined for borderline C/D students. Even including staffing costs it is one of the largest financial commitments a school has. For sheer size(bodies) it has been the largest dept in all the schools I've worked in since 2000. And all this for what a number of reports say is a negative impact.

fat-tony

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
This is my contention too. Children are living with unnecessary anxiety and blame in schools due to (some) teachers who either have little knowledge or little interest in neurological differences.

Do you think that a bureaucracy that labels 1 in 5 students as different is going to increase or decrease teachers' interest in genuine differences?

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

So often teachers ask children 'Why can't you .... <insert teacher's demand>' when the child is already overloaded with difficult and challenging sensory demands - and putting in five or ten times the effort of their peers to overcome them.

Yep. Clearly such children would be better off ina special environment. Shame the SEN racket tries to keep them in a mainstream classroom.

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

Quite often the accommodations are simple too - like printing on pastel coloured paper for visual stress. I made sure all reading and writing was available on pastel paper for any child who felt the need. If some just 'liked the colour' there would be others who really benefited from the reduction in the glare of the white paper. The same with screen tinters for the computers - it costs nothing and can make a huge difference for those who have problems with visual stress.

Oh for pity's sake. This is the sort of thing that I worry about. Visual Stress Syndrome is a dubious condition at the best of times, and the evidence from research into using coloured filters and overlays suggests that the whiteness of paper makes no actual difference to reading.

Yet once we have it in our heads that such a condition exists we not only see it everywhere but we put time and effort into providing "treatments" that could instead be put into teaching.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Zoey:
oldandrew - how can you argue that the "SEN racket" is labelling too many children as having SEN when the proportion of children with Statements of SEN appears to consistently be significantly lower than the number of disabled children in the country (2.7-2.8% compared to, very approximately, 5-7%)?

Last time I checked about 1 in 20 of the school age population are down as SEN, so statements are neither here nor there.

I would be interested as to how you calculate the disabled numbers though.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
and there is no hint of monies being wantonly thrown about or meddled with by distant government departments. Not in our school nor in any of the others I liaise with. We measure outcomes against monies spent on the children, and can readily demonstrate specific improvements aplenty.

It isn't a distant government department, it's a department in the school. I don't know how it works at primary but in secondary they throw money away with little to show for it. (And I'm sure they don't tell the governors that.)

Still, I'd be interested in how your school measures outcomes.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Last time I checked about 1 in 20 of the school age population are down as SEN, so statements are neither here nor there.

Sorry, that should have been 1 in 5 (20%)

Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on :

If you want to know the mental health implications of being an undiagnosed kid at the high functioning end of the autism spectrum, I can tell you a bit about them.

Mostly anxiety. Anxiety at levels that most other kids never seem to experience is pretty much a permanent feature: utter terror, around many "ordinary" situations. The academic side of things was a breeze for me. Everything else was a nightmare. I got good grades and wasn't disruptive so it never would have occurred to anyone to help. Neither did I express anxiety in the same way as other kids, so nobody necessarily realised how anxious I was. The psychological effects of living in a world which was totally inexplicable and overwhelming, and in constant danger of getting into trouble for things I didn't understand I'd done wrong, were powerful. I probably started seriously fantasising about suicide at the age of eight or so, after realising that merely running away wouldn't help. (I'm not saying this to get sympathy from anyone. I'm just stating a relevant fact.)

The thing is, it wouldn't have taken all that much to make school a lot easier for me. I didn't need to change schools: I wasn't disrupting lessons for anyone else, I was top of the class academically. It wouldn't have required any extra money (well, ok, maybe some kind of booklet to the teacher explaining what helps with high-functioning ASD kids). It would have made an enormous difference if my teacher had understood that when she said "Would you like to come over here and join in?" and I replied "No," I wasn't trying to be rude. I thought I was genuinely answering her question. It would have made a difference to have ear defenders at break time, but my parents would happily have bought those if they'd known they would help. It would have helped to be warned of routine changes and had rules explained to me if I didn't understand the first time. This wouldn't require a laptop, or a permanent teaching assistant. I didn't want permission to break the rules - I'm mildly obsessed with rules and only ever break them by accident anyway.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Most mainstream classroom teachers I know have a nightmare story or two about their SEN department.

And most parents of children with disabilities have a nightmare story or two about mainstream classroom teachers. But anecdote does not equal data.

quote:
It's difficult to have a reasonable debate about it, because there are a lot of people who like to have their (or their children's) shortcomings "medicalised" and a lot of people employed by the system.

It's proven difficult to have a reasonable discussion about it here because you make broad assertions that are in no way self-evidently true, or even particularly clear. When others ask you to clarify or to support your assertions, you refuse.

It's really hard to have a discussion that way.

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
I love someone making himself out to be an expert on SEN provision but not knowing that autistic people don't understand terms like "strawman"
Yeah, whoever heard of an autistic person being familiar with logical fallacies?

(Presumably you'll be telling me off for using sarcasm next.)

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

I've told you which part of the brain is missing.
No you haven't, unless you think there's a part of the brain called "the people centre".

If you knew anything about what you are attempting to talk about, oldandrew, you would know that one of the classic issues for people with ASD is difficulty with metaphoric and figurative language ("strawman") and difficulty with interpreting the emotional nuances of language (e.g. sarcasm). Incidentally in her references upthread to brain scans and autism amber. has already openly referred to her own circumstances (in her first post) and to the differences typical in ASD in the amygdala (not inappropriately described as a 'people centre') and the frontal and temporal cortices.

I can't tell from your apparently missing the obvious point about her difficulties in processing figurative/metaphorical language whether you are just ignorant about autism, disbelieving of the neurological research, or taunting her about her disability - on a par with laughing at the wheelchair user for being unable to go upstairs.

As for this:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
The one thing I love about the SEN lobby is that they will make excuses for any behaviour at all other than disagreeing with them.

Any speculation about whether you might have some issue which affects your engagement with this thread and topic would have no validity at all given the complexity of assessing these sorts of conditions and would likely fall foul of the first of the Purgatory posting guidelines.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Most mainstream classroom teachers I know have a nightmare story or two about their SEN department.

And most parents of children with disabilities have a nightmare story or two about mainstream classroom teachers. But anecdote does not equal data.

quote:
It's difficult to have a reasonable debate about it, because there are a lot of people who like to have their (or their children's) shortcomings "medicalised" and a lot of people employed by the system.

It's proven difficult to have a reasonable discussion about it here because you make broad assertions that are in no way self-evidently true, or even particularly clear. When others ask you to clarify or to support your assertions, you refuse. ...

Or mocks people's disabilities and uses language he knows we are very likely to struggle with, so we can't answer properly anyway, it seems.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
...I can't tell from your apparently missing the obvious point about her difficulties in processing figurative/metaphorical language whether you are just ignorant about autism, disbelieving of the neurological research, or taunting her about her disability - on a par with laughing at the wheelchair user for being unable to go upstairs...

Apologies for x-post with BroJames. Responding to his, it is only fair to say that some (few) people on the autism spectrum have an understanding of metaphor and sarcasm.

As people of the Ship know from four years of me being here, I absolutely struggle with both things.

For me, a straw man is a scarecrow, because my brain only sees pictures. I think someone explained it to me before, but it doesn't make sense, so my brain doesn't store the answer.

Having looked up the word, it says (I think) that I'm supposed to be able to ...

a) work out what oldandrew is saying if it's not in really clear language (er, not really)
b) work out what he is then thinking (no chance - not enough theory of mind)
c) calculate what a whole audience of people thinks about oldandrew (no chance - not enough theory of mind)
d) calculate what to say to make the group think badly of oldandrew by lying about what he's said? (no chance - I don't ever deliberately lie, and I have no clue how to relate oldandrew's posts to a group's opinions).

So my brain just sees a scarecrow. Unfortunate, but true.

But I'm very impressed that other people have brains that can do that stuff.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
In your opinion, what conditions should allow a student to receive either accommodations or special services? To be clear, by accommodations and special services, I mean things that are allowed for, done for, or provided for students who have those conditions that are not usually allowed for, done for, or provided for students who do not have those conditions.
Fine. Severe ones.
Do you mind explaining what you mean by "severe"? Do you mean, "conditions that make a child entirely unable to function in the classroom without additional services and support"? Or do you mean something else?

That's about right, although I might replace "a child" with "a child or their peers" and "function" with "learn".

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

At least on this side of the pond, I've never seen anything that looked like "massive expenditure on minor or even negligible inconveniences." In the UK, what proportion of the education budget is spent on SEN?

I don't know what it is now, but, in 2006, 13% of education spending was specifically spent on SEN.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

What do you mean by that? You've said that I should not assume that I know what you mean when it's not clear what you mean. This is not clear.

I'm not really sure how else to phrase it. I am not requiring that all children receive the same instruction, I am not requiring all students achieve the same outcome. I am requiring that they receive a similar opportunity to learn. If it's difficult to grasp it is because it is very difficult to conceptualise a standard unit of educational value. That said I think we can all identify differences in educational value.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

So, for example, if the neurologist said that, by reason of finger agnosia, impaired lateralization, impaired visual memory, and left-side neglect, a student's handwriting would not ever be either legible enough or fast enough to be useful, and that the student should therefore be permitted to use a keyboard, or have a scribe, or some other alternative to writing by hand, should the school be required to provide a keyboard or some other alternative to writing by hand?

Not directly. The school would, however, be required to give the child the opportunity to be educated which, no doubt, would require such provision at times.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Or should it be at the school's discretion? If it is at the school's discretion, who at the school should make the determination -- each individual classroom teacher? A specialist on the school staff?

Haven't I already said? It should be devolved to the lowest possible level that is practical. Teachers would have first say as to how to help their students and it would go to a higher level as and when required in the same way decisions about educational resources generally do. The division of SEN resources and other resources should end. There should only be educational resources.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
I've now no idea what you're talking about at all. Are you saying that you've written something sarcastically? If so, why, given that I can't identify sarcasm very easily at all?

I was sarcastic because it is the usual way of dealing with complete absurdity.

However, just in case, after I was sarcastic I immediately mentioned that you might tell me off for it.

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

What is a logical fallacy?

I'm sorry? Why are you asking me? If you genuinely don't know what ordinary words mean can you please look them up.

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

I give information which I believe is accurate. If it isn't, please say so clearly and demonstrate why it wasn't, so that I can learn from it.

I believe I linked to a Guardian article explaining why you were wrong. Have you read it yet?

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

Otherwise I'm guessing you're now mocking the disability I have.

I'm not mocking anybody.

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

Are you saying that you want the technical terms of body parts in all discussions?

I am saying that if part of your brain is missing I would like to know what part it is. There is no part of the brain I know of called a "people centre".

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

There is a part of the brain that deals with incoming information about people, as you must surely know if you are critiquing SEN provision for people who are without this area?

There are lots of parts of the brain that do tasks related to other people. There is not, to my knowledge, a single one called the "people centre". Nor is a missing brain part something I have identified in any of my SEN students, hence my interest.

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

Calling it the 'people centre' is a lot more user-friendly than using its latin name.

I didn't ask for a Latin name. All I want is enough information to find it on a picture of the brain, or in my textbook on cognitive psychology, or on Wikipedia.

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

I'd suggest you read the report in context above. You keep saying (in various posts) that there's little or no evidence that helping most children with SEN makes any difference to the outcome. Well, there's a chunk of evidence.

Which page? I really don't want to have to work through all the anecdotes and opinion to get to the evidence.

Posted by JimC (# 13842) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
If you want to know the mental health implications of being an undiagnosed kid at the high functioning end of the autism spectrum, I can tell you a bit about them.

Mostly anxiety. Anxiety at levels that most other kids never seem to experience is pretty much a permanent feature: utter terror, around many "ordinary" situations. The academic side of things was a breeze for me. Everything else was a nightmare. I got good grades and wasn't disruptive so it never would have occurred to anyone to help. Neither did I express anxiety in the same way as other kids, so nobody necessarily realised how anxious I was. The psychological effects of living in a world which was totally inexplicable and overwhelming, and in constant danger of getting into trouble for things I didn't understand I'd done wrong, were powerful. I probably started seriously fantasising about suicide at the age of eight or so, after realising that merely running away wouldn't help. (I'm not saying this to get sympathy from anyone. I'm just stating a relevant fact.)

The thing is, it wouldn't have taken all that much to make school a lot easier for me. I didn't need to change schools: I wasn't disrupting lessons for anyone else, I was top of the class academically. It wouldn't have required any extra money (well, ok, maybe some kind of booklet to the teacher explaining what helps with high-functioning ASD kids). It would have made an enormous difference if my teacher had understood that when she said "Would you like to come over here and join in?" and I replied "No," I wasn't trying to be rude. I thought I was genuinely answering her question. It would have made a difference to have ear defenders at break time, but my parents would happily have bought those if they'd known they would help. It would have helped to be warned of routine changes and had rules explained to me if I didn't understand the first time. This wouldn't require a laptop, or a permanent teaching assistant. I didn't want permission to break the rules - I'm mildly obsessed with rules and only ever break them by accident anyway.

I worry about sounding offensive here but...

A lot of children get anxious about school and don't particularly like loud noise - both ASD and non ASD. I'm not saying I'm unsympathetic but if we try to cater for every single child who experiences normal emotions in the way you suggest we'd never get anything done.

Worse, if you were unfortunate enough to attend my last school you'd be bullied for wearing the ear defenders. Some of the children doing the bullying would certainly be on the SEN register labelled with EBD or ESBD conditions.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

And most parents of children with disabilities have a nightmare story or two about mainstream classroom teachers. But anecdote does not equal data.

Curiously, though you ignored my comment about statistical studies and replied to my comment about anecdotes.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

It's proven difficult to have a reasonable discussion about it here because you make broad assertions that are in no way self-evidently true, or even particularly clear. When others ask you to clarify or to support your assertions, you refuse.

No, I don't.

Oh wait, this is another whinge about how I didn't answer that essay question isn't it?

Is this the plan from now on? Lots of people pretending that my failure to write essays on demand characterises me as somebody with no arguments?

Don't you think keeping that up is just going to make you all look a bit, well, pathetic?

Posted by JimC (# 13842) on :

quote:
Originally posted by fat-tony:
The SEN budget in a secondary comprehensive is huge. Maybe 300-400 times greater than the Gifted and talented budget. Almost 500 times greater than the intervention budget for Maths and English combined for borderline C/D students. Even including staffing costs it is one of the largest financial commitments a school has. For sheer size(bodies) it has been the largest dept in all the schools I've worked in since 2000. And all this for what a number of reports say is a negative impact.

fat-tony

Further to what Tony has said.

In my school the SEN department has four times as many staff as the second largest department in the school. I'm about to do my annual wade through the 200 or so IEPs on the school system for the children in my classes. Amazing strategies include 'give X clear instructions' or 'Make sure X writes HW in their homework diary'.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
Or mocks people's disabilities and uses language he knows we are very likely to struggle with, so we can't answer properly anyway, it seems.

Don't play the victim with me. You joined the discussion claiming you knew the international experts and read neurological research papers. Now you don't understand what a "logical fallacy" is and can't even manage to use a dictionary or look it up on line. And that's without getting on to the bizarre story of your missing brain part.

Either you were having us on at the start or you are having us on, now. Either way, you might want to stick to engaging with the arguments rather than making everything about you in the future.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
If you knew anything about what you are attempting to talk about, oldandrew, you would know that one of the classic issues for people with ASD is difficulty with metaphoric and figurative language ("strawman") and difficulty with interpreting the emotional nuances of language (e.g. sarcasm).

"Straw man" is a name given to a logical fallacy. It is not figurative langauge or metaphorical, it is actually what it is called, and it can be looked up on Wikipedia by anyone who doesn't know it.

I'm not sure why you are telling me that autistic people might have problems with sarcasm, I was the one who stopped to point it out when I was being sarcastic.

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:

Incidentally in her references upthread to brain scans and autism amber. has already openly referred to her own circumstances (in her first post) and to the differences typical in ASD in the amygdala (not inappropriately described as a 'people centre') and the frontal and temporal cortices.

Sorry? Are you saying that the missing bit of her brain is the amygdala?

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:

I can't tell from your apparently missing the obvious point about her difficulties in processing figurative/metaphorical language whether you are just ignorant about autism, disbelieving of the neurological research, or taunting her about her disability - on a par with laughing at the wheelchair user for being unable to go upstairs.

Sorry. but if you are going to resort to abuse like this, can you please make sure that it is based on something more substantial than your own ignorance of what "figurative" or "metaphorical" language is?

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:

Any speculation about whether you might have some issue which affects your engagement with this thread and topic would have no validity at all given the complexity of assessing these sorts of conditions and would likely fall foul of the first of the Purgatory posting guidelines.

It's a real shame that you need guidelines in order to control your urge to make personal attacks on people.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

Having looked up the word, it says (I think) that I'm supposed to be able to ...

Are you really going to claim that your special needs prevent you from being responsible for your own poor arguments?

Sorry, but if you are going to attack me for things I don't actually believe then you should expect to hear the word "straw man". And if having started your strawman with speculation about what I "truly believe" then nobody is going to accept that it is medically impossible for you to try to work out what I am thinking (and you really don't want to add to that a claim about how you never deliberately lie).

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
"Straw man" is a name given to a logical fallacy. It is not figurative langauge or metaphorical, it is actually what it is called, and it can be looked up on Wikipedia by anyone who doesn't know it.

I know it is the name given to a logical fallacy. Since that logical fallacy is not literally a human figure made out of straw, the term is in fact a metaphor. Metaphor is a way of using language which is particularly hard to grasp for many people on the ASD spectrum. I trust English is not your subject in school.

[ 13. September 2010, 18:19: Message edited by: BroJames ]

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
Or mocks people's disabilities and uses language he knows we are very likely to struggle with, so we can't answer properly anyway, it seems.
Don't play the victim with me. You joined the discussion claiming you knew the international experts and read neurological research papers. Now you don't understand what a "logical fallacy" is and can't even manage to use a dictionary or look it up on line. And that's without getting on to the bizarre story of your missing brain part.

Either you were having us on at the start or you are having us on, now. Either way, you might want to stick to engaging with the arguments rather than making everything about you in the future.

amber. also joined the discussion pointing out her particular ASD issues, about which you appear to know little. If you had read her post carefully you would understand that the term "straw man" was what she didn't understand. If you understood the issues around ASD you would appreciate why that kind of language is difficult for her. If you understood ASD you might have some appreciation for her expertise. You might also be less likely to be free in making personal accusations that she is 'playing victim', with the implication that she is somehow acting in bad faith.

Posted by JimC (# 13842) on :

quote:

Wait a second. How does one judge that the 'best' pshychiatrists are only 90% accurate? What do you compare their performance against?

quote:

I don't see how adding brain scans to the diagnostic process is going to save time or money.

quote:

Is the the tool the actual problem here? My understanding of what you have written is that scientists are trying to link autism with particular brain structure. My problem is that the study suggests there are people with an 'autism' brain structure who don't actually have autism.

quote:

You've mentioned they say its effective but without any basis for comparison effective can mean a lot of things.

quote:

My problem is that 100% of people with diabetes probably have issues with their insulin levels. Do 100% of people diagnosed with autism have a radically different brain structure? Can you have such a brain structure and not have autism?

[ 13. September 2010, 18:35: Message edited by: JimC ]

Posted by JimC (# 13842) on :

Sorry the above makes no sense I'm still working out how the message system works...

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
I know it is the name given to a logical fallacy. Since that logical fallacy is not literally a human figure made out of straw, the term is in fact a metaphor.

A name is not usually considered to be a metaphor, even if it allows for another literal interpretation. "Metaphor" doesn't simply mean "non-literal", it usually needs to involve an analogy, or a comparison, or maybe some kind of substitution. I was not trying to poetically suggest the false statements about me were like a man made out of straw, I was identifying a particular logical fallacy.

Posted by JimC (# 13842) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
Apols for double post.

and this is a pretty good scientific summary of the brain structure/density abnormalities in autism

Here's another science article about differential brain structure in autism

There are another 130 studies on the immediate list. The internet is awash with brain scan/dissection science results that show the same kind of things for autistic people, and not for other people.

Let us contemplate how children such as Ricky could be seen to be a different personality type and nothing more, whilst we're here: Teachers TV - Reaching Ricky which is well worth a viewing for the lovely work that Phoebe does.

Whilst the article is saying that autistics have different brain structure it does seem to acknowledge that this is not always the case. This is my problem with the hypothesis.

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

oldandrew, you should probably read a little further down the wikipedia article and see the origin of the term to understand why it is in fact an example of metaphor.

In the meantime, as this thread is increasingly reminding me of Brer Rabbit and the tar-baby I am going to disengage, since however hard one tries the tar baby will go on saying nothing.

[ 13. September 2010, 18:52: Message edited by: BroJames ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Don't play the victim with me. You joined the discussion claiming you knew the international experts and read neurological research papers. Now you don't understand what a "logical fallacy" is and can't even manage to use a dictionary or look it up on line. And that's without getting on to the bizarre story of your missing brain part.

Either you were having us on at the start or you are having us on, now. Either way, you might want to stick to engaging with the arguments rather than making everything about you in the future.
amber. also joined the discussion pointing out her particular ASD issues, about which you appear to know little. If you had read her post carefully you would understand that the term "straw man" was what she didn't understand.

She also didn't understand what a logical fallacy was, which is what I was referring to.

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:

If you understood the issues around ASD you would appreciate why that kind of language is difficult for her.

This is getting ridiculous now. She didn't know what a straw man is. She didn't misinterpret it, she just didn't know what it meant. That is not a symptom of ASD, that is a symptom of not knowing what it means.

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:

If you understood ASD you might have some appreciation for her expertise. You might also be less likely to be free in making personal accusations that she is 'playing victim', with the implication that she is somehow acting in bad faith.

Oh for pity's sake. By anybody's standard she can dish it out but not take it.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
oldandrew, you should probably read a little further down the wikipedia article and see the origin of the term to understand why it is in fact an example of metaphor.

Oh for pity's sake.

The origins of a name cannot make every use of the name a metaphor rather than a name.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

As oldandrew is apparently continuing to deny the problems I have, thanks to the embarrassment of me being autistic, I am withdrawing from the debate. The prayer chain might yield clues in why I'm not debating clearly enough to impress him.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
As oldandrew is apparently continuing to deny the problems I have,

Hey, you've just attributed to me an opinion I don't have.

Do you know what that's called?

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

thanks to the embarrassment of me being autistic,

I guess the "playing the victim" thing is habitual now.

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

I am withdrawing from the debate.

Don't leave any bits of your brain behind as you go...

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

This is an interesting, anecdotal, book on ADHD. It has some case studies of people who were labelled at school 'naughty' 'lazy' etc who actually were strugglimg with executive function differences.

Delivered from Distraction is another one which I come back to again and again.

[Big Grin]

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

Interesting thread.

I've learned there's a lot more SEN provision within schools than I would have thought. But that makes it all the more surprising that (anecdotally I know, but it's what I have to go on) so many children with evident needs seem not to have them met. Or perhaps only have their needs met adequately after their parents have expended a considerable amount of time, money and emotional reserves forcing the issue through tribunal.

The SEN system seems to be open to abuse on all fronts. Anecdotally, pushy parents seek to have their child treated as dyslexic in order to game the exam system. To judge from the perplexing disparities between some adjacent schools' SEN statistics, some teachers shunt every vaguely plausible child into School Action so that when these children go on to do moderately well in examinations the school's measure of comparative added value is enhanced.

But although I would accept oldandrew's thesis that education rather than social engineering should be the focus of SEN provision in schools I think I've also learned that teachers may not be the best people to decide what accommodations someone with (for instance) an ASD might reasonably need. A well written Individual Education Plan might, for instance remind a class teacher that idioms as well as metaphors are opaque to many people with autism.

Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on :

quote:
Originally posted by JimC:
I worry about sounding offensive here but...

A lot of children get anxious about school and don't particularly like loud noise - both ASD and non ASD. I'm not saying I'm unsympathetic but if we try to cater for every single child who experiences normal emotions in the way you suggest we'd never get anything done.

Worse, if you were unfortunate enough to attend my last school you'd be bullied for wearing the ear defenders. Some of the children doing the bullying would certainly be on the SEN register labelled with EBD or ESBD conditions.

Not offended [Smile]

I know a lot of kids get anxious about school. The thing is that if that anxiety is enough to make their lives a constant misery, generally someone should at least be asking the question of whether anything can be done to lessen that anxiety. If something can be done fairly easily, then it's a good idea to do it. We do this (or should do this) for kids who are anxious because they're being bullied, for instance.

I think it would be possible to persuade primary school aged kids not to bully because someone has ear defenders, or a wheelchair, or is a Sikh boy with long hair - the latter two occurred at my primary school and everyone understood that you didn't take the piss. I recognise that it's harder with older students but noise is less of an issue at secondary school. Moreover, it's not merely a case of "disliking" loud noise. I find loud noises physically painful, like someone drilling into my brain. It's such that tbh I probably would have picked ear defenders with bullying if that had been an option.

When you become an adult, you can avoid a career path which is incompatible with an ASD. I could never work somewhere loud and unpredictable or where I needed first class people-reading skills. I have a job that fits. You can't do that with school. School just is what it is.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
A well written Individual Education Plan might, for instance remind a class teacher that idioms as well as metaphors are opaque to many people with autism.

Oh for pity's sake. It's the name of it, not a figure of speech. You really have managed to pick the wrong SEN condition here to try and catch me out with. I have successfully taught plenty of children on the autistic spectrum without having to reject all formal terminology that allowed for equivocation.

I really am the last person on earth to use a metaphor conversationally, and even my idioms are pretty pedestrian.

(That is pedestrian in the sense of lacking in imagination, rather than literally walking around. Just in case anybody was confused there.)

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Don't leave any bits of your brain behind as you go...

As this whole conversation has such potential for arousing hurt feelings and becoming personal, it is sometime a difficult judgment call to know where to draw the line. This comment, however, is definitely over the line of personal attack.

Please, everyone, let's try to stick to debating the issues, not the people involved. Attacking people rather than issues is an example of ad hominem, another classic logical fallacy.

Trudy Scrumptious, Purgatory Host

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
As this whole conversation has such potential for arousing hurt feelings and becoming personal, it is sometime a difficult judgment call to know where to draw the line. This comment, however, is definitely over the line of personal attack.

It is not intended as a personal attack at all, and I apologise if anybody thought it was some kind of insult. It is a reference to Amber's bizarre claim earlier to have a bit of her brain missing. Perhaps you missed that.

You may also have missed Doc Tor calling me "just another nutbar". How about Bro James describing me as "the tarbaby" and making comments about English not being my subject? Or amber accusing me of mocking her disability? How about Chill accusing me of an alarming lack of factual knowledge? Or 3rdfooter calling me arrogant and suggesting I leave my ivory tower?

Or were none of these over the line of personal attack?

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

Oldandrew,

I can assure you that I have read the entire thread with great care. Upon reflection, I think you are correct that the "nutbar" and "tarbaby" comments were also personal attacks, which is why my initial impulse to issue a general warning to all was probably the correct one.

If you still think your comment to amber was not a personal attack and would like to debate my ruling as a host, please feel free to lodge a complaint in the Styx rather than discussing it further on this thread.

I think this is an interesting and important topic between several well-informed people with strong, though divergent, opinions, and would be much better without the ad hominem attacks.

Trudy Scrumptious, Purgatory Host

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

For pity's sake I was acknowledging that you have made some valid points amongst your extravagant ranting against the entire "SEN racket" and all its works! Although I like to think that in your place I would not have needed to browbeat amber to prove my mettle.

Although I understood what you were referring to as a straw man, in my working environment the expression would be understood to refer to someone who isn't worth suing.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

There are several problems being conflated here. Many children now in mainstream schools were within many teachers' memories taught in special schools. The funding that is now spent in mainstream schools on SEN is now much higher than it was, but the closing of special schools was a cost-cutting exercise - so both things are to some extent accurate - there is less provision and it's difficult to obtain, and that SEN departments in secondary schools are often the largest department.

There are also other challenges - the SEN budget is supposed to be made up of what was ring-fenced money allocated to specific children to fulfil their statemented needs and a percentage of the key stage 3 and 4 monies (2% or 3%). That money has never been ring fenced. Learning Support Assistants are paid for out of the statement monies which can cause a number of problems:

Those monies do not cover the amount of support that the statemented student is entitled to - some statements come with no additional funding, or funds that have gone into the general fund and not ring-fenced;
when there is a contractual agreement with the local authority for the provision for each statement, which includes proving that the money allocated to that student has been spent on them there's a tendency for the LSA to be attached to the child with the money - which isn't always that effective - it doesn't allow for support of a group of students and it can deskill the statemented student;
if a LSA is paid to support a specific student (and that may well be the name on their contract) they find it difficult to see that they should be supporting other students;
because it is a poorly paid job the people doing the jobs will vary from those who are taking a job that allows them to be around for their own children (and take time off when their children are sick) to people getting experience on their way to teaching degrees
LSAs can get delayed at the previous lesson so arrive late at the start of the lesson when they'd be most useful;
any child on School Action Plus was entitled to 5 hours support - that's supposed to be funded by the Key Stage monies - and parents who know about this (told by the local authority) are putting pressure on the SEN department to provide that support;
if a student does not have a statement of special educational needs, even if they are setting fire to the place and carrying an knife, you cannot pass that child on to an EBD unit (emotional behavioural difficulties special school) so there are regular screams from all dealing with such students demanding that the SENCo does something now - all those IEPs and placement at School Action Plus are the SENCo stacking up that paperwork to get a statement. We had a few like that - EBD units do not take students unless they have a full statement at a certain level of funding;
btw - instructions to make sure the student has written their homework in their diary is almost certainly because the parent can't read what the child writes to be able to nag and support the doing of homework - and the poor SENCo has a daily phone call from said parent insisting they find out what the homework was ...

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
There are several problems being conflated here. Many children now in mainstream schools were within many teachers' memories taught in special schools. The funding that is now spent in mainstream schools on SEN is now much higher than it was, but the closing of special schools was a cost-cutting exercise - so both things are to some extent accurate - there is less provision and it's difficult to obtain, and that SEN departments in secondary schools are often the largest department.

There are also other challenges - the SEN budget is supposed to be made up of what was ring-fenced money allocated to specific children to fulfil their statemented needs and a percentage of the key stage 3 and 4 monies (2% or 3%). That money has never been ring fenced. Learning Support Assistants are paid for out of the statement monies which can cause a number of problems:

Now THIS is very useful and helpful information and perspective. Sadly, it probably comes to late in the game as the thread went south days ago and is, I suspect, irretrievably doomed for the nether-regions right about now. I know I'm feeling pretty hellish about it.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Now THIS is very useful and helpful information and perspective.

It is indeed! Thank you, Curiosity killed!

Let me make sure I understand it right:

In the UK, it sounds like there are two kinds of "special needs" -- kids with "statements" and kids without.

If you get a kid with a statement at your school, you also get funds to meet their needs. Not enough funds, but maybe almost enough.

The kids with a statement also come with an LSA to help teach them. Because the plan was to have the LSA do whatever specialized teaching was required, the regular teachers haven't been properly trained to teach kids with special needs. Of course, the LSA may not be properly trained, either. But it sounds like this is set up to guarantee "turf wars" between teachers and LSAs.

And then you've got the kids who are struggling in school but don't have statements. There's no money designated for them. So any resources they get are seen as taking away resources for "ordinary" kids.

Is that about right?

Posted by infinite_monkey (# 11333) on :

Very interesting!

It sounds, from this helpful information from Curiosity Killed... and a bit of internet research, as if the "Statement" is more or less analogous to the American IEP. Which is all about meeting criteria for one of 14 disabling conditions, which a kid needs to present with at an educationally significant level--it needs to meet established criteria, and it needs to have a major deleterious impact on the child's schooling.

Are the kids who have some pretty obvious learning needs, but don't have Statements, typically undiagnosed at this point? Previously tested, but found to not qualify? Something else?

I agree with Josephine and have found it in my own practice: it's hard when a) the kids without statements still need extra help and b) the "extra help" comes as a learning support assistant who may not have the training and/or supervision needed to deliver consistent quality services.

I guess not much of this directly relates to the initial question of the advantages and disadvantages of diagnosing milder disabilities: to tie it back, I guess I'd say it's important to get a clear sense, for each child, of what the "value added" of SEN/IEP participation would be, and how it plays out in each school or local educational system.

I've seen many a kid with a milder condition doing just fine for much if not most of their primary school experience, thanks to good, responsive teaching in the general education classroom and teachers going above and beyond to communicate, across the grades, about what works and what doesn't for the kid. I worry, though, sometimes about what may happen when the child goes from one carefully selected teacher who spends 6 hours a day with him, to the upper grades where the child has a different teacher every hour and a room that's sometimes twice as full of other kids. That's often when the stuff that's "just good teaching' might need to be documented as part of the child's services plan, to make sure those practices don't get lost in the shuffle.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

(returning to add for clarity: well, thanks to the wonders of modern day scans, one can tell if a bit of brain is missing. Thanks to brain injury before birth which they believe led to the autism, dyspraxia, faceblindness and specific learning difficulties I have, I really do have such a missing bit, it seems. I find it bizarre, but it's still true. I cope mostly. Sometimes quite badly, which is no-one's fault really.)

Posted by JimC (# 13842) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

Those monies do not cover the amount of support that the statemented student is entitled to - some statements come with no additional funding, or funds that have gone into the general fund and not ring-fenced;
when there is a contractual agreement with the local authority for the provision for each statement, which includes proving that the money allocated to that student has been spent on them there's a tendency for the LSA to be attached to the child with the money - which isn't always that effective - it doesn't allow for support of a group of students and it can deskill the statemented student;
if a LSA is paid to support a specific student (and that may well be the name on their contract) they find it difficult to see that they should be supporting other students;
because it is a poorly paid job the people doing the jobs will vary from those who are taking a job that allows them to be around for their own children (and take time off when their children are sick) to people getting experience on their way to teaching degrees
LSAs can get delayed at the previous lesson so arrive late at the start of the lesson when they'd be most useful;
any child on School Action Plus was entitled to 5 hours support - that's supposed to be funded by the Key Stage monies - and parents who know about this (told by the local authority) are putting pressure on the SEN department to provide that support;
if a student does not have a statement of special educational needs, even if they are setting fire to the place and carrying an knife, you cannot pass that child on to an EBD unit (emotional behavioural difficulties special school) so there are regular screams from all dealing with such students demanding that the SENCo does something now - all those IEPs and placement at School Action Plus are the SENCo stacking up that paperwork to get a statement. We had a few like that - EBD units do not take students unless they have a full statement at a certain level of funding;
btw - instructions to make sure the student has written their homework in their diary is almost certainly because the parent can't read what the child writes to be able to nag and support the doing of homework - and the poor SENCo has a daily phone call from said parent insisting they find out what the homework was ...

1. Counter to my experience where classroom teachers are hassled by various SEN interest groups to spend time and money making very specific resources (sometimes of dubious value) from their department budgets.
2. I'm surprised at this since I get the impression that most around here would like more money targeted at statemented children not less.
3. Agreed.
4. This is unprofessional on the part of the TA and possibly the teacher delaying them.
5. I don't have any experience of this.
6. I thought having an actual statement made it harder for schools to remove students from the mainstream.
7. This was aimed at me and I can almost certainly tell you it is not because the parent can't read. Such statements are there because the students are disorganised. 1) I know plenty of children who are disorganised but don't have an IEP. 2) Most good teachers will check that students have written H/W in planners and give clear instructions anyway. This is paperwork for the sake of it.

Posted by JimC (# 13842) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
(returning to add for clarity: well, thanks to the wonders of modern day scans, one can tell if a bit of brain is missing. Thanks to brain injury before birth which they believe led to the autism, dyspraxia, faceblindness and specific learning difficulties I have, I really do have such a missing bit, it seems. I find it bizarre, but it's still true. I cope mostly. Sometimes quite badly, which is no-one's fault really.)

Hang on. A while ago you were producing evidence implying that autism is caused by structural and functional differences within the brain.
Now you are saying that your autism was likely caused by you losing part of your brain in an accident.
Clearly most autism sufferers will have a remarkably different brain to you which begs the question will we ever be able to sort the autistic from the non autistic by brain function alone?

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

I'm sorry for linking my thoughts about Brer Rabbit and the tar baby to oldandrew in the way I did. It was a good characterization (for me) of the way this thread is working (and I'm staying out of it), but wrong to focus it on him in that way.

James

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

Is this relevant?

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

I'd also like to apologise - I expressed myself intemperately and shall withdraw with hostly admonishments ringing in my ears...

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

JimC - the funding that the Local Authority provides ring-fenced for a statemented student is only a part of the provision that the Local Authority expects to be accounted for that child. What you're describing as department funds is the 2% or 3% of Key Stage monies that should, by educational law, be spent on special needs resources. (2% or 3% because it varies with Key Stage and I can't be bothered to go look it up now).

In the local authority I was working, the 5 hours a week for the School Action Plus without ring-fenced funding had to be accounted for within the statement provision for the students with statements too. So the annual review for every statemented student had to show how the funding was used, including that 5 hours. For some statements, on lower funding bands, that was all the funding there was. Also for children on School Action Plus that the Local Authority were involved with, usually with specific needs like visual impairment who needed large print books and large print resources, or hearing impairments. The Specialist Teachers who came in to support those students also required an accounting of allocated funding. That's what comes out of the same pot that the departments are fighting for.
There's an OFSTED report out this morning saying that children are labelled with special needs too often -

quote:
Thousands of pupils are being wrongly labelled as having special educational needs when all they require is better teaching and support, Ofsted says.

The watchdog said up to a quarter of pupils in England identified as having special needs would not be labelled as such if schools focused more on teaching for all their children.

The good teachers who needed less support in their classrooms had a whole raft of additional resources in their classes. There was a history teacher who had all the resources differentiated and two levels of text book with different reading ages. Exercises were also differentiated, so he could hand out a task appropriate for each student and have them all feeding back to the same learning outcomes. When balancing needs and resources that don't stretch, some of the assessment made was made to place support where it was most needed. Classes like this one were the ones where I'd ask if he could cope without support when there weren't enough LSAs to go round through absence. In this case, the seating plan was planned, the behaviour control was in place, the homework was given out on slip of paper or as a worksheet to take home with instructions - so the students with visual impairments, poor reading ages, dyslexia or disorganisation through dyspraxia and ASD didn't struggle to copy it down from the board. That department also had a very good pass rate for History GCSE and students across the ability range opting to take it as they were supported by the teaching.

Posted by fat-tony (# 13769) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
Is this relevant?

In that it supports a lot of what Oldandrew says.

Diagnosis made by untrained non medical professionals for a number of reasons including boosting CVA and parental pressure.

Many children are put on the SEN list and shouldn't be.

That those defending it don't seem to be able to put together a coherent argument....{though they have asked the teaching unions to comment not really the font of any knowledge regarding teachers, teaching and children. The war in Iraq; homosexuality and hating anyone to the political right of Joseph Stalin theyUnions are great on}

However it is a news report on a written report. Although some people here seem to have the time to read long tedious reports and then link to them(well I assume people read them first) I'll just wait to see what happens when the dust settles.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by JimC:

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
(returning to add for clarity: well, thanks to the wonders of modern day scans, one can tell if a bit of brain is missing. Thanks to brain injury before birth which they believe led to the autism, dyspraxia, faceblindness and specific learning difficulties I have, I really do have such a missing bit, it seems. I find it bizarre, but it's still true. I cope mostly. Sometimes quite badly, which is no-one's fault really.)
Hang on. A while ago you were producing evidence implying that autism is caused by structural and functional differences within the brain.
Now you are saying that your autism was likely caused by you losing part of your brain in an accident.
Clearly most autism sufferers will have a remarkably different brain to you which begs the question will we ever be able to sort the autistic from the non autistic by brain function alone?

Well, at the risk of having to reveal my entire medical history at this rate [Hot and Hormonal]

it wasn't a physical accident that caused the brain injury as such (I'm thinking of things like a car crash - that sort of accident), it was (I am told) the result of mum trying very very hard to abort me before birth and not quite succeeding. That's quite a difficult thing to talk about on here, and I'm doing so because it might help explain why I got upset yesterday. I'm not good at handling emotions and debate at the same time, alas. I should learn from that.

The same area is noted on the scans of other autistic individuals: they note that lesions to that area also result in autism, as do failures in connection. All of them brain-structure related, all with the same sort of end result. That bit of the brain that links the amygdala to the central processing bits of the brain located behind the ear seems to be very important indeed. If it's missing or damaged, they also notice that we can't work out how close to stand to people, and some of us are over-friendly and think everyone is a friend and chat away and reveal far too much of ourselves on public message boards [Disappointed]

And we don't seem to ever learn from our social mistakes.

I'm very much looking forward to the upcoming research from the ARC which is examining 100 individuals to get further clarity on questions like this. Anyway, gotta get hubby ready for more tests and son over to his eye specialist, so I really am very tired and would like to apologise for any errors I'm making.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by fat-tony:

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
Is this relevant?

It's interesting, for sure. The new government are likely to change things and I wouldn't be surprised if that involved putting far less money into schools for SEN.

The report says, towards the end -

"Children's Minister Sarah Teather is calling for submissions for a Green Paper on the SEN provision system.

She says she wants to overhaul the system to give more choice for parents.

The Labour government tried, under a policy of "inclusion", to place pupils with special educational needs in mainstream schools wherever possible.

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat government says, in its coalition agreement, that it will "prevent the unnecessary closure of special schools, and remove the bias towards inclusion".

Interesting times.

I am off to a school today to work with several dyslexic pupils and teach their TAs effective intervention.

[Smile]

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

I have been trying to craft a post for about a week, about how diagnosis develops in medical science.

Firstly very little of it is done in laboratories, and very little of it is done by designed experiment.

As I understand it, what happens is a number of case studies happen. These are done by doctors normal specialists who are very good at clinical observation. They basically describe an interesting patient who is normally quite an extreme form of the illness.

What then happens is other often equally senior doctors will describe similar patients. If enough appear then the set of symptoms gets a label.

Once this happens there is a bit of a free for all, with many doctors wondering if they have patients with these symptoms. Often during this stage the diagnosis is stretched quite widely, too widely. I think we probably are in this situation with depression at present. Its the catch all diagnosis for an awful lot of mental distress; I am pretty sure there are mental illnesses there, just I am not sure that they are all the same sort. The thing is at this stage two things happen, a broadening of the subjective diagnosis to encompass more people and a diagnosis slip whereby this broadening changes what is seen as central to the diagnosis.

However doing brain tests is probably the most difficult area of medical science. Its expensive to scan people in a huge number of ways just to see if you can pick up differences. There is also the need to scan one healthy person for every sick person. Doctors like therefore to have a point to start at.

So sometimes doctors get lucky. Someone like Amber turns up with a definite brain injury that causes the same symptoms as one of these illnesses. They know where the brain injury is, so they then can scan to see if people with this illness have unusual patterns where that injury occurs. Also the nice thing with Ambers is that we know that the brain patterns cause the behaviour, not the behaviour causes the brain pattern. That is because we know what causes the brain pattern. People like Amber are often equally subject to case studies for just this reason. If the brain is a map where you are looking for buried treasure, people like Amber allow doctors to learn where the treasure is likely to be buried.

If this is the case you have moved from subjectively reported symptoms to a clinically measurable symptoms. There is still a lot of work to be done before they become a clinical test. What sort and level of difference is indicative of the illness/disability? How do we quantify it etc. Can this test be carried out in the numbers needed?

Now you have a fairly wide spread of people diagnosed with specific disability by a subjective measure and a known clinical test for that diagnosis. Almost certainly there is going to be no perfect overlap between these two groups. An 80% to 90% overlap is actually very good. The thing is that doctors are likely to view the new method as the gold standard rather than the old subjective method.

However this is the point at which there is a change in the definition of the illness. The illness instead of being defined by subjective ratings, is defined by the clinically measurable test. However almost inevitably some people with that diagnosis will not satisfy the test, and what is more it is totally possible for there to be undiagnosed people who do. What do you go with, the clinical test or the subjective diagnosis?

Often what happens is you go with the clinical test for new diagnoses. The people who don't fall into that group are moved off to another diagnosis. Some specialist carefully characterises a severe case and the whole process starts again.

Jengie

Posted by maryjones (# 13523) on :

And now Ofsted are in on the act, supporting oldandrew bbc news

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
For pity's sake I was acknowledging that you have made some valid points amongst your extravagant ranting against the entire "SEN racket" and all its works!

So? Does that somehow make it okay to go along with attacking me for not assuming that autistic people can't cope with the names of concepts not being literal descriptions? Although your comment was one of the most mild, and it's inaccuracy was probably inadvertent rather than malicious, it was going along with one of the most dishonest and unpleasant attacks.

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:

Although I like to think that in your place I would not have needed to browbeat amber to prove my mettle.

Again, I will remind you that amber began by claiming she was in with the international experts and studied neurological research, and thought nothing of making very objectionable comments about me.

I will certainly leave her alone now, but may I suggest that if people are concerned that she can't cope with being challenged then they advise her not to claim expertise she doesn't have, or to weigh into others?

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:

Although I understood what you were referring to as a straw man, in my working environment the expression would be understood to refer to someone who isn't worth suing.

It has a number of meanings which, can easily be looked up by anybody who is unaware of what is meant.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by maryjones:
And now Ofsted are in on the act, supporting oldandrew bbc news

I think that makes you the third person to post that link.

If anything, the BBC description of the report suggests it is less scathing than some other media have indicated. The Guardian reported that it was half of SEN students who were wrongly diagnosed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/sep/14/half-special-needs-children-misdiagnosed

Hopefully, this might cause some people to consider the possibility that I haven't actually just invented this problem, and that it won't just go away if they behave appallingly to anybody who mentions it.

Posted by Jenn. (# 5239) on :

Having read the information on this thread and the bbc news article (although I admit I haven't read any other reports on the report) my feeling is that those pupils with a statement are being properly treated. The problem appears to be with those on school action and school action plus.

Are pupils put on SA or SA+ for monitoring towards a statement, or are they put there for other reasons? Are pupils ever removed from SA? I agree with oldandrew (not something I thought I would find myself saying) that sometimes these things are used as an excuse for bad behaviour and good teaching/proper discipline would solve many of the problems. On the other hand it seems to me that proper diagnosis is worthwhile for children as the statement is the gateway to real funding and treatment.

Personally, I would push for those children on SA and SA+ to be properly assessed as soon as possible and either removed from those lists or given statements. This would enable teachers to concentrate their efforts on those who really need the help and on developing their skills for general good teaching, rather than basic intervention skills for people who have problems which aren't actually going to be helped by the interventions involved.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

The report is available online:

http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Publications-and-research/Browse-all-by/Documents-by-type/Thematic-reports/The-special-e ducational-needs-and-disability-review

I have only read the summary so far, but it certainly seems to be in agreement with my key points.

Schools are putting kids on the register because of academic deficits, and because of failures of teaching and pastoral care (presumably this includes behaviour). The inspectors easily found indefensible examples of misdiagnosis and estimated that half the children on School Action would not be there if teaching was better. As for those who were identified by outside agencies (i.e. school action plus and statemented kids) the specialist "help" they got was often worthless and that the people who provided it were completely unaccountable.

I'm sure some people will claim that if we just spent even more money on the system then it would work better, but it certainly looks as though OFSTED have wised up to the SEN racket.

Posted by Jenn. (# 5239) on :

oldandrew - do you think that if the children wrongly put on those registers were removed, the statemented children would get better teaching?

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

I haven't said anything deliberately untrue, as people who know me are well aware. If anything I've underplayed the role I have because I have no wish to put my actual name to this and nor should I have to. I work with many of the international experts and have lectured alongside some of them, and I read much of their research and they explain it to me. I think it's wonderful stuff. It doesn't make me a neurobiologist and I didn't claim to be one: too many brain circuits not working correctly alas, but I know where to find the starting points for such research and that's what I point people to.

And I do have a part of my brain missing.

And, because of that and the autism, my style of debating can be random and panicky, but it is not vicious or hurtful and I never intend it to be. It can lack social context, which means it reads wrongly. For that I apologise but cannot guarantee to be able to 'soften' it with the expertise that others use, because I lack that skill when very tired and stressed out.
I hope that is relatively clear.

Posted by fat-tony (# 13769) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

Hopefully, this might cause some people to consider the possibility that I haven't actually just invented this problem,

No, some people may consider a conspiracy where you've got all of the British media to time a news story just to help you debate on an online forum. Didn't realise you had so much power old chap.

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

Oldandrew, I haven't joined those who have apologised to you because I don't believe I have cause. You appear to think that I have attacked you personally in my posting on this thread, but I have read back through my posts and I disagree. It was perhaps a little petty of me to insist on demonstrating to you that 'straw man' really IS an idiomatic expression, whatever you might think, but I felt cross with you at the time because of what seemed to me to be needlessly rude treatment of amber.

I have acknowledged already that I have picked up useful and interesting information about SEN provision from your posting on this thread. With the publication of the Ofsted report today I think there may be plenty of mileage in this thread yet. I hope in particular to read what you might be thinking of contributing in response to the call for submisisons to a Green Paper. How would a better system be structured? How might it deal with difficult cases, for example where it isn't clear cut whether a child needs some special provision from the school to access education satisfactoriy or help from some other agency like social services to bring order to a chaotic home life?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jenn.:
Having read the information on this thread and the bbc news article (although I admit I haven't read any other reports on the report) my feeling is that those pupils with a statement are being properly treated.

No, provision for statemented kids are included in the conclusion that "this additional provision was often not of good quality and did not lead to significantly better outcomes for the child or young person."

There is less of a difference between SAP and Statemented kids in terms of funding nowadays, anyway. Some of the things on this thread have contradicted how I thought the funding worked (so I am reluctant to say anything until I have double checked my facts) but money doesn't follow statements the way it used to.

quote:
Originally posted by Jenn.:

The problem appears to be with those on school action and school action plus.

Are pupils put on SA or SA+ for monitoring towards a statement, or are they put there for other reasons?

They are put there for "help".

quote:
Originally posted by Jenn.:

Are pupils ever removed from SA?

In theory, yes. I've only seen it happen though when I worked at a school where form tutors had responsibility for the decision in some cases.

quote:
Originally posted by Jenn.:

I agree with oldandrew (not something I thought I would find myself saying) that sometimes these things are used as an excuse for bad behaviour and good teaching/proper discipline would solve many of the problems. On the other hand it seems to me that proper diagnosis is worthwhile for children as the statement is the gateway to real funding and treatment.

As I said, I don't think statements are what they were for getting funding, and the OFSTED report found that the spending on support for statemented kids often did no good.

Treatment is a medical matter not an educational one. The right to medical treatment should be a clinical matter.

quote:
Originally posted by Jenn.:

Personally, I would push for those children on SA and SA+ to be properly assessed as soon as possible and either removed from those lists or given statements.

Easier said than done. Many of the conditions are simply lists of behaviours without any clear medical cause. Diagnosis involves extensive studying of their behaviour by expensive professionals. It is a common complaint that this can't even be done for those who are severely afflicted, so doing it for 18.2% of the school population is not conceivable, which is why I have been raising the issue here of whether most of these medical conditions are actually well defined enough to be generally useful.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jenn.:
oldandrew - do you think that if the children wrongly put on those registers were removed, the statemented children would get better teaching?

I generally don't think centrally administered lists of personal entitlements help anybody. However, I recognise that they are particularly ineffective when they are stuffed full of kids who have nothing remotely resembling a disability.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
Oldandrew, I haven't joined those who have apologised to you because I don't believe I have cause.

I haven't asked you to apologise.

However, it would be nice if you recognised that the inability of some autistic people to deal with metaphor and figurative language does not normally extend to the names of things (even though names and figurative language can both be called "idioms"). As I said, when it comes to SEN then autistic conditions are what I have most experience of both professionally and socially, and I didn't take kindly to the suggestion that I was at fault and professionally deficient because I named a logical fallacy in a post to somebody with autism.

The first thing defenders of the SEN racket tend to do when teachers disagree with them is imply that they must be a bad teacher, your comment was only marginal in this and probably not worth apologising for, but I certainly feel I was entitled to challenge it and I hope you understand why.

Posted by fat-tony (# 13769) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

There is less of a difference between SAP and Statemented kids in terms of funding nowadays, anyway. Some of the things on this thread have contradicted how I thought the funding worked (so I am reluctant to say anything until I have double checked my facts) but money doesn't follow statements the way it used to.

It might be a local authority issue. I'd not contradict Curiosity as from the last time I really got involved in an education debate on thie site I believe she explained she was a SENCO. I've only been in one meeting with the local authority advisor to discuss the possible admission of a statemented child as the Head and Senco were busy(not my area of direct responsibility at all). In the discussion I was being as helpfulas I could but when I asked how much money was attached to the pupil so I could work out what provision I could put in place so that the curriculum issues I'd identified could be dealt with he burst out laughing and told me that it hasn't been done like that for years. Other than feeling a trifle out of my depth I promised myself I'd look into it, but still not got round to it.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

Again, coming in from across the pond, it sounds like the current practice in the UK is that, when a child is failing academically, they're pretty much automatically referred for special education services of some sort or another. But the referral doesn't necessarily result in any sort of evaluation to determine the reason for the child's difficulties, or how to remediate or accommodate them. It just results in some rather unfocused "support."

Is that it?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Again, coming in from across the pond, it sounds like the current practice in the UK is that, when a child is failing academically, they're pretty much automatically referred for special education services of some sort or another. But the referral doesn't necessarily result in any sort of evaluation to determine the reason for the child's difficulties, or how to remediate or accommodate them. It just results in some rather unfocused "support."

Is that it?

No.

It is an unaccountable bureaucracy sitting on a pile of resources (not necessarily money, but staffing and power). Like all bureaucracies it generates activity, and so SEN staff might look for academically weak kids to "help" but they might equally look for kids with low self-esteem or behaviour issues or suspected conditions they have just read about. In secondary they spend a lot of time on kids who have been identified by primary schools because the paperwork has already been started. Because they have these resources then teachers and managers might try and get help from them, and there is always paperwork to do, but it actually appears pretty arbitrary as to what they do in any give school, just as long as it creates the right paperwork. Sometimes they just throw their weight around, and most of the worst bullies I've encountered in teaching have been in SEN departments.

The biggest problem, though, are the true believers who genuinely think that children are perfect and everything that they do wrong is a medical or psychological problem and that they have a duty to make sure that some kids are never held responsible for their behaviour or effort, through amateur diagnoses. So you could not be more wrong in suggesting that there is a lack of "evaluation to determine the reason for the child's difficulties"; the problem is that there is too much evaluation. Nobody is ever bad or thick, they all have a condition and nobody is allowed to push or punish the child while the endless evaluation process for the non-existent condition is ongoing.

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
However, it would be nice if you recognised that the inability of some autistic people to deal with metaphor and figurative language does not normally extend to the names of things (even though names and figurative language can both be called "idioms"). As I said, when it comes to SEN then autistic conditions are what I have most experience of both professionally and socially, and I didn't take kindly to the suggestion that I was at fault and professionally deficient because I named a logical fallacy in a post to somebody with autism.

The first thing defenders of the SEN racket tend to do when teachers disagree with them is imply that they must be a bad teacher, your comment was only marginal in this and probably not worth apologising for, but I certainly feel I was entitled to challenge it and I hope you understand why.

Actually, I didn't say that all figurative language is problematic for all autistic people. I know perfectly well that this isn't the case, so I wouldn't, and didn't say so. My comment was aimed solely at what seemed to be a purely bloody-minded refusal in various earlier posts to accept that you had used a figurative expression. It wasn't an attack on you in your professional capacity. Aside from anything else I have absolutely no idea who you are, what you teach, to whom, or where. But if you are accustomed to facing that sort of attack when you discuss this issue IRL then, yes, I suppose I can see why you might be peculiarly sensitive to even a perception of criticism. I hope it won't prevent you from addressing my questions.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
My comment was aimed solely at what seemed to be a purely bloody-minded refusal in various earlier posts to accept that you had used a figurative expression. It wasn't an attack on you in your professional capacity.

The precise distinction between an attack on me and criticism of my bloody minded refusal to accept the content of an attack on me has escaped me.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

fat-tony - all Local Authorities were moving to provision mapping when I was still a SENCo a couple of years back. I was carefully using the past tense, but we are talking recent past and it takes a while to move attitudes on and change things, so a lot of what I was saying was relevant as to where we are. This Local Authority, the funding is still linked to students, but it's changing. Me, I've got out too, I'm back teaching, but in a special unit. I like students, not politics and paperwork.

Josephine, it really depends. We had feeder primary schools who did no placing of students on the SEN register and no paperwork, which meant when the little love we'd just acquired from them was one of those who was waving knives around and setting things on fire we had no evidence of previous behaviour to build a case on.

Jenn - I took kids off the SEN register as well as put them on, but I started from evidence of where they were and how they were coping. I also didn't get to do this independently - I did it in consultation with the heads of school and SMT (senior management team) because there were huge implications to what the SEN register looked like in recent years when the funding stream has been in the process of changing. If the school is in a deprived area, and this school was with 5% of all students with statements and 30% of the school in the bottom 10% academically, plus other indicators of deprivation, then having an SEN register that did not reflect this reality was going to mean funding dropping dramatically across the school. I did post something on this several pages back.

For a student to qualify for a statement of special educational needs you had to prove that the school has put support in place at various levels and that support has not worked - so some time at School Action Plus level of support. It's a massive paperchase to prove that things are being done. The annual review of a statement also looks at the level of support required and whether that level of support can be cut - sadly, in my experience, it meant the money went but the reporting did not.

The problem with any form of provision mapping or SEN provision in mainstream is that it's only going to work when all teachers are convinced that there is a need to support all the students in their classes - so they have differentiated their materials, have seating plans and behaviour plans in place, are 'teaching well'. What we regularly hear from teachers is that many students should not be in mainstream and they shouldn't have to teach them. And that the teacher training provision also spends time teaching how to differentiate and support a range of students in the classroom - which anecdotally is not always happening for secondary teachers.

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

I don't want to derail this any further with our tangential duologue. I'll join the others who have withdrawn from engaging with you on this thread oldandrew. Perhaps I will glean answers to the questions I have asked from your exchanges with others.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Again, coming in from across the pond, it sounds like the current practice in the UK is that, when a child is failing academically, they're pretty much automatically referred for special education services of some sort or another. But the referral doesn't necessarily result in any sort of evaluation to determine the reason for the child's difficulties, or how to remediate or accommodate them. It just results in some rather unfocused "support."

Is that it?
No.

It is an unaccountable bureaucracy sitting on a pile of resources (not necessarily money, but staffing and power). Like all bureaucracies it generates activity, and so SEN staff might look for academically weak kids to "help" but they might equally look for kids with low self-esteem or behaviour issues or suspected conditions they have just read about. In secondary they spend a lot of time on kids who have been identified by primary schools because the paperwork has already been started. Because they have these resources then teachers and managers might try and get help from them, and there is always paperwork to do, but it actually appears pretty arbitrary as to what they do in any give school, just as long as it creates the right paperwork. Sometimes they just throw their weight around, and most of the worst bullies I've encountered in teaching have been in SEN departments.

The biggest problem, though, are the true believers who genuinely think that children are perfect and everything that they do wrong is a medical or psychological problem and that they have a duty to make sure that some kids are never held responsible for their behaviour or effort, through amateur diagnoses. So you could not be more wrong in suggesting that there is a lack of "evaluation to determine the reason for the child's difficulties"; the problem is that there is too much evaluation. Nobody is ever bad or thick, they all have a condition and nobody is allowed to push or punish the child while the endless evaluation process for the non-existent condition is ongoing.

You know, oldandrew, if you really want people to understand and sympathize with your point of view, you could try being less combative and more informative. I suspect there are a lot of people who might agree with a lot of what you have to say, but your way of saying it is so hostile that it's difficult to get to the content.

At this point, I'm genuinely curious about how special education works in the UK, both in theory and in practice. I know something about it, because I know parents in the UK who have kids with significant disabilities. Their experience hasn't sounded all that different from what we deal with here on this side of the pond. But it sounds like there's more to it than that.

I think the fact that we use similar words may obscure the fact that we may not be talking about the same things. For example, it sounds like the excessive evaluations that you're complaining about aren't anything that I would recognize as evaluations at all.

So, if you wouldn't mind toning down the rhetoric a bit, I'd like to understand your POV. I think it's quite possible that we don't disagree with each other as much as you might assume.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

The problem with any form of provision mapping or SEN provision in mainstream is that it's only going to work when all teachers are convinced that there is a need to support all the students in their classes

As I said earlier, the usual name for a treatment that only works if everybody believes in it, is a "placebo".

The reality is that SEN departments label kids as having a condition because they misbehave and this makes it harder to control the child. When teachers have enough of this and decide that the SEN department should do something about the problem they have caused, they then come in and blame the teacher for not "supporting" the child.

Thank God, there are signs that the game is now up.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

The problem with any form of provision mapping or SEN provision in mainstream is that it's only going to work when all teachers are convinced that there is a need to support all the students in their classes
As I said earlier, the usual name for a treatment that only works if everybody believes in it, is a "placebo".

Oldandrew, you're missing the point.

Vaccines only prevent disease if parentsbelieve they work. That's because, if parents don't believe they work, they don't make sure their kids get vaccinated. Vaccines that aren't given don't work.

Accommodations in the classroom only work if teachers believe they work. That's because, if teachers don't believe they work, they don't implement the accommodations. Accommodations that aren't provided don't work.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
You know, oldandrew, if you really want people to understand and sympathize with your point of view, you could try being less combative and more informative.

I don't want sympathy. The SEN racket oozes sympathy. I want justice. The system is blatantly failing kids. Either one cares about that or one doesn't, and pretends it isn't happening. If being angry about this means that I don't fit in with the rest of the Tufty Club, I really don't care.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

I suspect there are a lot of people who might agree with a lot of what you have to say, but your way of saying it is so hostile that it's difficult to get to the content.

Judging by the tone of the debate most people here are quite happy with hostility as long as it is aimed at me.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

At this point, I'm genuinely curious about how special education works in the UK, both in theory and in practice. I know something about it, because I know parents in the UK who have kids with significant disabilities. Their experience hasn't sounded all that different from what we deal with here on this side of the pond. But it sounds like there's more to it than that.

It could be, or it could just be you have a rose-tinted view of the US system. "Medicalisation" is largely something that we have inherited from the US, although I guess in the US the medical professionals are far more implicated in it than here.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

I think the fact that we use similar words may obscure the fact that we may not be talking about the same things. For example, it sounds like the excessive evaluations that you're complaining about aren't anything that I would recognize as evaluations at all.

Is the entire US SEN system based around people in the categories you mentioned earlier?

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

So, if you wouldn't mind toning down the rhetoric a bit, I'd like to understand your POV. I think it's quite possible that we don't disagree with each other as much as you might assume.

Past experience suggests we do. It's just the disagreement may not be over the details of the bureaucracy in the UK which is, obviously, pretty key to this discussion.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Accommodations in the classroom only work if teachers believe they work. That's because, if teachers don't believe they work, they don't implement the accommodations. Accommodations that aren't provided don't work.

You say this as if we have a choice in implementing the accomodations. Once a kid has been told the teacher isn't allowed to make them work hard or punish them because they are special, it's pretty hard to do it anyway.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

It's looking like just another cut to me - they know special needs attaches money and they don't want to pay out.

We're getting better at diagnosing children with special needs - the teaching is not getting worse.

One chink of light is that Children's Minister Sarah Teather said -

"Children with SEN and disabilities should have the provision they need to succeed and parents should not feel they have to battle the system to get help. Improving diagnosis and assessment will be central to our commitment to overhaul the system to ensure families get the appropriate support at the right time."

We can only hope.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

Probably worth posting a link to this, written by a parent whose son was plunged into the bureaucracy:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/sep/14/primary-school-special-educational-needs

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
You know, oldandrew, if you really want people to understand and sympathize with your point of view, you could try being less combative and more informative.
I don't want sympathy. The SEN racket oozes sympathy. I want justice. The system is blatantly failing kids. Either one cares about that or one doesn't, and pretends it isn't happening. If being angry about this means that I don't fit in with the rest of the Tufty Club, I really don't care.

The problem is that you are aiming your target at people who could be your allies rather than your enemies. You might not care about that. But if you really want to change the system in a way that benefits kids, making sure you're shooting in the right direction is probably a good idea.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

At this point, I'm genuinely curious about how special education works in the UK, both in theory and in practice. I know something about it, because I know parents in the UK who have kids with significant disabilities. Their experience hasn't sounded all that different from what we deal with here on this side of the pond. But it sounds like there's more to it than that.
It could be, or it could just be you have a rose-tinted view of the US system.

Are you kidding? The US system is adversarial, expensive, and largely ineffective. It's better than the system it replaced (in which children with disabilities were routinely either excluded from schools entirely, or "warehoused" and not taught). But I don't think anyone would accuse me of having a rose-tinted view of our system.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

I think the fact that we use similar words may obscure the fact that we may not be talking about the same things. For example, it sounds like the excessive evaluations that you're complaining about aren't anything that I would recognize as evaluations at all.
Is the entire US SEN system based around people in the categories you mentioned earlier?

If I understand your question, then, yes. In the US, a child does not qualify for special education unless they have a documented disability in one of the categories I listed earlier. In addition to the disability, they must also, by reason of that disability, require special education and related services in order to receive a free and appropriate public education. Having a diagnosis in one of the listed categories is necessary but not sufficient.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
It's looking like just another cut to me - they know special needs attaches money and they don't want to pay out.

I wondered when we'd have the first example of full-on denialism.

Why shouldn't we cut something which doesn't appear to be doing any good? It is not as if OFSTED are the first people to notice this.

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

We're getting better at diagnosing children with special needs

Any evidence for this claim?

Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

We're getting better at diagnosing children with special needs
Any evidence for this claim?

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Accommodations in the classroom only work if teachers believe they work. That's because, if teachers don't believe they work, they don't implement the accommodations. Accommodations that aren't provided don't work.
You say this as if we have a choice in implementing the accomodations. Once a kid has been told the teacher isn't allowed to make them work hard or punish them because they are special, it's pretty hard to do it anyway.

Another pond difference, then. On this side of the pond, the accommodations spelled out in the IEP are in theory mandatory. In practice, it's entirely up to individual teachers.

If your child has a teacher that decides not to follow the IEP, there's almost nothing you can do. If you're lucky, you may be able to get your child transferred to a different class. Or the administrative staff may provide some "coaching" for the teacher (which often makes matters worse). You can call an IEP meeting, but the teachers who don't follow IEPs don't attend IEP meetings, either.

And once the teachers know that they can't be made to follow the IEP, and they won't be punished for not doing so, well, you know how that works.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

We're getting better at diagnosing children with special needs
Any evidence for this claim?

Oh God, we're not back to the "he hasn't answered the essay question" thing again, are we?

I mean, today of all days, we're not exactly short of evidence for my position.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Probably worth posting a link to this, written by a parent whose son was plunged into the bureaucracy:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/sep/14/primary-school-special-educational-needs

Interesting. On this side of the pond, you have to grant permission for your child to be evaluated. That's assuming a school ever referred a child for evaluation for any reason other than a written request by the parent. In practice, that rarely happens.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

And once the teachers know that they can't be made to follow the IEP, and they won't be punished for not doing so, well, you know how that works.

Well, if it's any comfort for you, I get the impression the tide in the US appears to be moving against teacher autonomy.

In England, anyone below management level has very little power to stand up to the bureaucracy.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

In theory, under the Children's Act (1989) parents are supposed to be involved in anything that happens to their children. We used to have to ask permission from the parents for the specialist teacher who was already involved with a child to have an appointment. We had students who were flat lining at the bottom of all measurable scales and the parents refused intervention so we couldn't do anything beyond the normal whole school testing.

Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I mean, today of all days, we're not exactly short of evidence for my position.

What we're not short of, OA, is a newspaper article or two. And since when was OFSTED viewed as the all-seeing, all-knowing, inerrant guide to education? Are OFSTED's statements evidence or opinions?

[ 14. September 2010, 22:43: Message edited by: jacobsen ]

Posted by Janine (# 3337) on :

quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
...if Johnny can get diagnosed with dyslexia, he MAY be able to get the services of a special needs teacher for a couple of hours a day to get that help. Without the diagnosis, he's got no chance of getting that help.
Exactly. The key words here are "MAY be able to get the services". Of course, that is only if they are available, and only to the extent they are not spent on someone else. There is no "right" to these services.

Well, yes, there is a right. Federal and state mandated help is there for any child who tests as needing the Special Ed. program. At least here is Louisiana it's so.

And that's the whole broad spectrum of special needs/special ed. -- from the mainstreamed kids with severe physical problems, who need an aide alongside throughout the school day, to the "gifted & talented". My kids received hours and hours of extra instructional time for their musical ability -- daughter had opera-level vocal training, sons were full-time in both choir and band. This required hiring teachers the system would not have had to hire, if not for kids like mine. There were children in their classes who had extra instruction in art, in acting, in dance. Other classmates required special audio-visual equipment.

The way it was explained to me, if the kids were identified as having a need, anything from ADHD to various learning disorders to physical needs to hyper-developed talents -- the local school district officials, the state officials, the feds, everyone, had their own obligations to make sure they were given all they needed to succeed.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Janine:

quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
The key words here are "MAY be able to get the services". Of course, that is only if they are available, and only to the extent they are not spent on someone else. There is no "right" to these services.
Well, yes, there is a right. Federal and state mandated help is there for any child who tests as needing the Special Ed. program. At least here is Louisiana it's so.

I'm not sure what the State of Louisiana mandates. But under federal law, children with disabilities do have a right to special education and related services. The right is limited. Children do NOT have the right to services that will provide the best results, or that will best meet their needs. They do NOT have the right to services that will maximize their potential. They do NOT have to provide everything necessary to ensure that the child can succeed. They simply have the right to a program that will provide them access to the same educational benefits that their non-disabled peers receive.

And they can try, and fail, and try again, with impunity. So if your child has dyslexia, and the school thinks that an hour of reading instruction in a special class once a week will do the trick, they get to do that for a year or two, and when your child still can't read, they can try something else for another year or two. Parents can't insist that the school provide more intensive or more appropriate services, unless the school has tried and failed over a long period of time.

Some schools do better than they absolutely have to, of course. Some do worse. It depends partly on available resources, of course. But even more, it depends on having an administration that believes in educating all the children. When the administration is on board, things usually go well.

quote:
And that's the whole broad spectrum of special needs/special ed. -- from the mainstreamed kids with severe physical problems, who need an aide alongside throughout the school day, to the "gifted & talented".

Federal law does not require schools to meet the needs of gifted and talented students. Some states do -- Louisiana is one of very few states that has a mandate for both identification and services for gifted students, and that includes services for gifted students in the state's special education law. This page has a table of "gifted mandates" by state, if you're interested in what other states do. Tennessee is another state that, in theory, has gifted services as part of the special education program, but in Tennessee, if the school has a special class for gifted kids that meets a couple of hours a week, that's enough to meet the mandate. You children were really very fortunate to get the services that they got.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Accommodations in the classroom only work if teachers believe they work. That's because, if teachers don't believe they work, they don't implement the accommodations. Accommodations that aren't provided don't work.
You say this as if we have a choice in implementing the accomodations. Once a kid has been told the teacher isn't allowed to make them work hard or punish them because they are special, it's pretty hard to do it anyway.

Those would be very odd sorts of accomodations; Again, I don't know the UK system, but here in the US the kinds of accomodations made in classrooms are nothing resembling that. What sort of UK-specific diagnoses are these that produce a "don't work hard" accomodation?

[ 15. September 2010, 03:55: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

We're getting better at diagnosing children with special needs
Any evidence for this claim?

Oh God, we're not back to the "he hasn't answered the essay question" thing again, are we?

I mean, today of all days, we're not exactly short of evidence for my position.

Sounds like oldandrew wants an IEP/SEN meeting so he can get a "doesn't have to work" accomodation.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Sounds like oldandrew wants an IEP/SEN meeting so he can get a "doesn't have to work" accomodation.

Well, if he has been at work this week he's spent an inordinate amount of his time on the Internet.

Posted by fat-tony (# 13769) on :

quote:
Originally posted by jacobsen:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I mean, today of all days, we're not exactly short of evidence for my position.
What we're not short of, OA, is a newspaper article or two. And since when was OFSTED viewed as the all-seeing, all-knowing, inerrant guide to education? Are OFSTED's statements evidence or opinions?

But OA you didn't write the referenced evidence based report yourself which is what was asked of you...very lazy. You relied on OFSTED to provide an evidence based report....tut tut.

Jacobsen in my experience OFSTED are usually correct in what they observe, you can sometimes trick them, but they're getting smart to the usual tricks. If a school is very succesful they will omit the odd nasty from a report and have a quiet word with leadership about the one teacher letting the kids play cards , text their mates etc.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

Re the assertion that autistic people like me don't normally have difficulties with the names of things...

Depends on the variety of autism. Most (not all) are visual-based. Just like Dr Temple Grandin (with whom I worked recently on a project), my brain only sees pictures, not words. In common with many autistic individuals, it also only accepts one final picture for words with two or more meanings.

An example:

"He walked along a muddy bank".

Explain to me why a branch of a bank is muddy. Was there a flood that has wrecked their carpets and caused their customers to tiptoe through the mud?

That's exactly what my brain sees. Apparently it means a river bank, though. How do people know that? It doesn't say river anywhere.

"Straw man" is a scarecrow.

If someone says to me "straw man means social thingy A" then it makes no sense at all to me. I can't see social concepts because I can't draw a picture of them in my mind. Even if I memorise the answer, my brain drops it again within a few minutes.

Ask me again what a straw man is, I'll tell you it's a scarecrow.

Amuses my autism team and support team, but makes my life really difficult. In classes I just seemed to be rude. I think sometimes I do on here too, becauase I can't see most of the words people write down: they don't make pictures.

So that is why a good proportion of autistic people struggle to know what a word means...we're blind to them, or they make the wrong picture so we guess the wrong answer or response.

Then add to that a cluelessness about social rank and often an inability to learn from social errors. Result - teachers tearing their proverbial hair out (which makes a good picture so I know that one) because Pupil A seems stroppy and arrogant and deliberately making stupid remarks about what Pupil B just said.

Maybe it's the same problem as asking a totally deaf-from-birth person to say what a word sounds like. Not sure. Many learn to speak using careful techniques, but it doesn't mean they can hear.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

The problem is that kids with learning difficulties - those children in secondary education who do not have the reading or comprehension skills to read the text book, for example - usually react in one of two ways in a mainstream classroom with no accommodations: sit quietly and do nothing/sit there doodling or act up/out, which often results on them being sent out, because sitting quietly is boring.

The expectation is that teachers are aware of any learning difficulties - such as low reading ages, visual impairments or other reasons for finding it difficult to copy from the board, hearing difficulties - and make accommodations in their lessons by seating plans and additional provision. An example of provision is having everything that needs copying from the board as copies that can be put on the desk next to those students. That means having lessons completely planned out in advance for each class with the knowledge of any learning difficulties in those classes.

In primary, the teacher is usually dealing with one class of 30 students for most if not all lessons, so is aware of those students. In secondary, each teacher is going to be teaching maybe one class of students in every year group as a minimum, depending subject - so five times that number of students - so 150 different students every day as an absolute minimum, and they are expected to produce the same accommodations. That's assuming that the classes get their regular teachers.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

I agree CK - but the way you teach can make a huge difference too.

'Chalk and talk' all the time often gives the least opportunity for learning to the least number of pupils - especially in these days of visual media.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by jacobsen:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I mean, today of all days, we're not exactly short of evidence for my position.
What we're not short of, OA, is a newspaper article or two.

Oh for pity's sake.

People have repeatedly claimed that I was simply making stuff up, now we know that inspectors found the exact same thing that were being dismissed.

quote:
Originally posted by jacobsen:

And since when was OFSTED viewed as the all-seeing, all-knowing, inerrant guide to education?

I wasn't appealing to their infallibility, just to the fact that they are bearing witness to the very things that I was being accused of inventing.

quote:
Originally posted by jacobsen:

Are OFSTED's statements evidence or opinions?

If it doesn't count as evidence you need to tell us what does count as evidence. I would also like to know what evidence there is against my position, after all, if there is not enough evidence for you either way then I would suggest that it is best not to spend billions on something which has no evidence of doing any good.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Those would be very odd sorts of accomodations; Again, I don't know the UK system, but here in the US the kinds of accomodations made in classrooms are nothing resembling that. What sort of UK-specific diagnoses are these that produce a "don't work hard" accomodation?

Cards that allow them to leave the room whenever they feel like it. A teaching assistant who does their work for them. An arrangement not to have to do detentions. A recommendation to teachers not to tell them off. An explanation that they will only follow a minority of instructions. An SEN session that takes a chunk out of the lesson and gives them plenty of time playing in the corridors. Rock bottom low expectations well established with the child.

As I keep saying, SEN provision here obstructs teaching and learning and the evidence suggests that it tends to be useless or harmful.

Posted by Merchant Trader (# 9007) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Makepiece:
I was in school 20 years ago and I was pretty unaware of learning difficulties or mental health issues. Now every other child seems to have some sort of problem or other.

I have just read the Ofstead report summary and looked through the full report:

Well its certainly not 'every other child'(a comment worthy of the Daily Mail?) the percentage of statemented children seem pretty constant <3% and non statemented children with difficulties rising from 14% to 18%.

Even if It said up to 25% of the 1.7m pupils in England with special needs would not be so labelled if schools focused more on teaching for all their children; 75% or 1.3 million remain correctly diagnosedand does not take account of those undiagnosed. This makes nonsense of the Mail's comment

quote:
Daily Mail:
The special needs industry is a gigantic con. What pupils really need is to be taught properly

In fact Ofstead give a lot of space to the inconsistancies of provision and justified parental frustration whilst fighting for the rights of their children.

However, Ofstead's main focus seems to be on quality of provision 'Combination of effective identifaction and good –quality provision was not common' and 'Additional provision was often not of good quality and did not meet needs effectively'. This is where Ofstead concentrate their recommendations:

quote:
Ofstead:
The key implication of these findings is that any further changes to the system should focus not on tightening the processes of prescribing entitlement to services but, rather, on:
␣ improving the quality of assessment
␣ ensuring that where additional support is provided, it is effective
␣ improving teaching and pastoral support early on so that additional provision is not needed later
␣ developing specialist provision and services strategically so that they are available to maintained and independent schools, academies and colleges
␣ simplifying legislation so that the system is clearer for parents, schools and other education and training providers
␣ ensuring that schools do not identify pupils as having special educational needs when they simply need better teaching
␣ ensuring that accountability for those providing services focuses on the outcomes for the children and young people concerned.

Repeat: 'should focus not on tightening the processes of prescribing entitlement to services'

The press have done Ofstead and, more importantly, Special Needs no favours in their reporting [Mad]

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

Cards to allow children to leave the classroom?

What evidence would we collect to show the percentage who use such cards to avoid work, though?

How to explain: I need to leave lectures and events regularly. It's not to avoid working:

Because my brain has had to learn over decades to do things the difficult, long way, using brain wiring that isn't designed to cope with the workload, it literally 'overheats' the wiring. A bit like trying to run a generator off the standard sockets in the house. Sooner or later it fuses.

It then becomes hugely painful/frightening and I can't see or hear anything well enough to make any sense of it. A bit like being in a rock concert at full volume with a strobe light being the only thing to see with.

If I don't get out of the room in time, I lose the ability to communicate and go into 'shutdown'. Others find their brain pushes them into the equivalent of a toddler tantrum. Others try to hide under things to get away from at least the tiniest bit of the pain and fright/confusion.

If a team has assessed that this is what's happening for a child, forcing the child to stay in the class, or thinking that they are just being lazy, wouldn't be helpful.

There will of course be some children who will use such cards to escape work and who need careful instruction to work well. But many do need the break. Modern classrooms are a sensory nightmare of epic proportions compared to the old-fashioned low noise, low-flickering-lighting ones of the past.

When I'm teaching teachers and LEAs about what it's like to have autism, and doing classroom audit access visits when they have been unable to resolve a situation, I often cannot get through a whole day in the classroom myself. It's very distressing for me to have to disrupt other people for my own needs, but it's not something I can avoid.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Sounds like oldandrew wants an IEP/SEN meeting so he can get a "doesn't have to work" accomodation.

Do you think that the personal abuse gives weight to your case?

It certainly makes a mockery of the complaints about my tone when the pro SEN racket side are so utterly intolerant of disagreement.

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

From the Beeb:-

quote:
he report's author, Janet Thompson, said these cases included children whose general educational needs had not been identified early enough - such as children who struggled with reading and later developed behavioural difficulties as a result.

Mrs. Cod, who is a teacher, says she could not understand why children in the UK were taught to read and write so early. She says this is a major cause of dyslexia. In Finland, for example, children generally aren't taught to read and write until seven. She says that boys in particular are late developers in this respect: drilling reading and writing into them when they're not ready will certainly cause behavioural problems in some of them.

Is this perhaps an example of where SEN simply needs to give way to better teaching?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
The problem is that kids with learning difficulties - those children in secondary education who do not have the reading or comprehension skills to read the text book, for example - usually react in one of two ways in a mainstream classroom with no accommodations: sit quietly and do nothing/sit there doodling or act up/out, which often results on them being sent out, because sitting quietly is boring.

And this is where the problem happens with the SEN racket.

The normal expectation in a functioning education system is that somebody with a genuine difficulty would put their hand up and say "I can't do that". The teacher should already know about glaring weaknesses from the academic information and, of course, it is a failure of teaching and learning if kids are in a classroom where the curriculum covers things they will never be able to do.

However, in appeaser world, kids with SEN are incapable of telling a teacher about a problem and teachers are oblivious to the academic ability of their students, so we need a massively expensive bureaucracy to work with the kids who aren't working or aren't behaving in order to prove that this is a result of a Special Need. Because, as every true believer knows, it is highly unlikely that a child would ever choose to be lazy or badly behaved due to base motives.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

The expectation is that teachers are aware of any learning difficulties - such as low reading ages, visual impairments or other reasons for finding it difficult to copy from the board, hearing difficulties - and make accommodations in their lessons by seating plans and additional provision. An example of provision is having everything that needs copying from the board as copies that can be put on the desk next to those students. That means having lessons completely planned out in advance for each class with the knowledge of any learning difficulties in those classes.

As ever the reality of 1 in 5 kids being labelled, usually for behaviour or academic weakness, gives way to the fantasy that we are dealing with serious problems with seeing or hearing or unacknowledged illiteracy.

The idea that the SEN racket leaves you alone if you do make provision for the blind, the deaf and the illiterate is ludicrous. The SEN department are more likely to hassle a teacher for not letting a child sit next to their friends than for a difficulty seeing the board or hearing the teacher. In fact it is amazing just how often the only appropriate place in a seating plan for a child is next to their best friend and kids who have gone bleating to the SEN department suddenly overcome their disabilities when they discover that they can move to the front, but they still can't sit next to the person of their choice.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I agree CK - but the way you teach can make a huge difference too.

'Chalk and talk' all the time often gives the least opportunity for learning to the least number of pupils - especially in these days of visual media.

Assuming that by "chalk and talk" you mean whole class interactive teaching rather than lecturing (a common straw man when it comes to debates about teaching methods) then you are simply wrong.

The research on teaching effectiveness has shown that direct instruction is highly effective and nothing else, other than the quality of feedback given to students, makes more of a difference to attainment.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Merchant Trader:

quote:
Originally posted by Makepiece:
I was in school 20 years ago and I was pretty unaware of learning difficulties or mental health issues. Now every other child seems to have some sort of problem or other.
I have just read the Ofstead report summary and looked through the full report:

Well its certainly not 'every other child'(a comment worthy of the Daily Mail?) the percentage of statemented children seem pretty constant <3% and non statemented children with difficulties rising from 14% to 18%.

If I recall correctly it is 18.2% on SA and SA+, and 2.7% on statements. If you add to that the undisclosed number being monitored, and take account of the fact that not all students who will be labelled at some point in their school career are necessarily on the register right now, then we are not that far off from "every other child". It is certainly the case in some schools.

quote:
Originally posted by Merchant Trader:

Even if It said up to 25% of the 1.7m pupils in England with special needs would not be so labelled if schools focused more on teaching for all their children; 75% or 1.3 million remain correctly diagnosedand does not take account of those undiagnosed. This makes nonsense of the Mail's comment

quote:
Daily Mail:
The special needs industry is a gigantic con. What pupils really need is to be taught properly

It was half of those on SA or SA+ so that is considerably more than 25%.

And it shouldn't be assumed that even if a child's Special Need wouldn't vanish through better teaching alone, then that guarantees that it Special Need is real or that the diagnosis is worth making. A major part of the report is that the help given, even where genuine problems have been identified, is often worthless.

The system stands convicted by the inspectors of identifying non-existent problems and providing worthless help. Yes, this isn't a case for the straw man position that nobody should ever be helped, but it is a very strong case for saying the system is taking a lot of money and doing very little good with it.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
Cards to allow children to leave the classroom? What evidence would we collect to show the percentage who use such cards to avoid work, though?

Hang on, if we are going to let kids walk out the classroom having done no work then shouldn't the burden of proof be the other way?

That said, the cards are usually for reasons of "anger management" rather than autism i.e. kids who get upset when they don't get their own way. Children with autism are not usually the first to want to wander the corridors on their own.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
Mrs. Cod, who is a teacher, says she could not understand why children in the UK were taught to read and write so early. She says this is a major cause of dyslexia. In Finland, for example, children generally aren't taught to read and write until seven.

Isn't this just because of the difficulty of the written language? Written English is easier than Chinese, but harder than Finnish, so, if I remember correctly, the teaching of reading and writing starts earlier than the Finnish but later than the Chinese?

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

Sounds like oldandrew wants an IEP/SEN meeting so he can get a "doesn't have to work" accomodation.

Hostly Corset ON

There has already been one warning here about personal attacks. It should be perfectly possible to debate these issues without resorting to personal insult and ad hominem attack. Open a thread in Hell if you feel the need to abuse people, but keep this discussion clear of personal comments like the one quoted above. This is a warning to cliffdweller for continuing personal attacks after a general warning, and a warning to everyone on the thread that this quite interesting topic is in danger of being shut down if everyone can't stick to the topic at hand.

Trudy Scrumptious, Purgatory Host

Hostly Corset /OFF

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
It was half of those on SA or SA+ so that is considerably more than 25%.

Sorry, that is my mistake, it was half of those on SA so I guess that is around 25%.

Apologies.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

An example:

"He walked along a muddy bank".

Explain to me why a branch of a bank is muddy. Was there a flood that has wrecked their carpets and caused their customers to tiptoe through the mud?

That's exactly what my brain sees. Apparently it means a river bank, though. How do people know that? It doesn't say river anywhere.

Can we just clarify here, that this problem with homonyms is not something that can be routinely expected from people on the autistic spectrum, particularly those who claim to be able to be familiar with high level academic research?

Posted by PataLeBon (# 5452) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
Mrs. Cod, who is a teacher, says she could not understand why children in the UK were taught to read and write so early. She says this is a major cause of dyslexia. In Finland, for example, children generally aren't taught to read and write until seven.
Isn't this just because of the difficulty of the written language? Written English is easier than Chinese, but harder than Finnish, so, if I remember correctly, the teaching of reading and writing starts earlier than the Finnish but later than the Chinese?

Actually the learning to read at age 7 is also done in some schools in New Zealand. And there is a recent study that shows that a child who learns to read at 5 is no better off than a child who learns to read at 7 by the time they are 9 or so.

Research Study of Reading in New Zealand

I'm still confused however. 15% of students needing special help and/or more severe interventions means that 85% are learning on level without accommodations. That is considered "good teaching" by research standards (80 to 90 percent).

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

Homonyms and autism (words with more than one meaning)?

I can relate what we (one of the larger autism charities) were told by one of the leading neuroscientists last year, namely that they were finding it was very common in autism for us to fix on one meaning for one word. The gentleman in question is Prof Anthony Bailey (a world authority on autism), who was heading up the Oxford research group but is now in Canada. We invited him to speak at one of our conferences and he talked for some time about his group's findings on this. He suggested weak central coherence was likely to be responsible, and I believe he's doing further research on it. I'm meeting one of his original team members at Oxford in the near future to talk about the work and where they want it to progress next.

Prof Simon Baron-Cohen's team (with whom I also have done some work and invited to speak at conferences etc) are continuing to look at the brain scan results around autism and commissioning bigger studies. These are going to be linking in to language and non-verbal communication findings.

Prof Quinton Deeley, with whom I work internationally, did some very useful work recently on limbic pathways and autism which is worth looking up, as it relates back to the role of the system in understanding of language.

I'm pretty sure there's plenty more going on with some of the other people I'm in contact with on a regular basis, but that's a good start if people want to read a little about language comprehension and autism.

I work with such people because I'm autistic and an adviser and indeed a philanthropist in this field (not a field with cows in it) and they tend to use me as a good example/terrible warning [Big Grin]

, not because I am an academic. I'm blessed to be able to sit down with such fine minds and their 3-d models of the brain to talk through the things they find.

[ 15. September 2010, 11:05: Message edited by: amber. ]

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Merchant Trader:

quote:
Ofstead:
The key implication of these findings is that any further changes to the system should focus not on tightening the processes of prescribing entitlement to services but, rather, on:
␣ improving the quality of assessment
␣ ensuring that where additional support is provided, it is effective
␣ improving teaching and pastoral support early on so that additional provision is not needed later
␣ developing specialist provision and services strategically so that they are available to maintained and independent schools, academies and colleges
␣ simplifying legislation so that the system is clearer for parents, schools and other education and training providers
␣ ensuring that schools do not identify pupils as having special educational needs when they simply need better teaching
␣ ensuring that accountability for those providing services focuses on the outcomes for the children and young people concerned.

Repeat: 'should focus not on tightening the processes of prescribing entitlement to services'

I agree with every word of this - and am glad that the press got it wrong.

Hopefully schools will respond to this and not the 'I told you so' knee jerk attitude of those who would ignore the special needs of children in our classrooms.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by PataLeBon:
Actually the learning to read at age 7 is also done in some schools in New Zealand.

The link only mentions Steiner schools which are progressive, private schools and somewhat outside the educational mainstream. For obvious reasons my statement was only a generalisation from memory, and I haven't been able to confirm the details. I'm surprised Steiner schools can actually be used for comparison in serious research.

If I remember correctly (and I'm not 100% certain I do) the US used to start reading a later than the UK, and there was evidence to suggest that this did leave US students behind UK students throughout their education. I do have a nagging suspicion that I read this in a book published in the 50s or 60s and I assume that, even if I am remembering this correctly, things have changed.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
Mrs. Cod, who is a teacher, says she could not understand why children in the UK were taught to read and write so early. She says this is a major cause of dyslexia. In Finland, for example, children generally aren't taught to read and write until seven. She says that boys in particular are late developers in this respect: drilling reading and writing into them when they're not ready will certainly cause behavioural problems in some of them.

I agree with Mrs Cod in that we begin formal education far too early - seven years old is a good time to begin to learn to read and write. But dyslexia is not caused by this - dyslexia is a neurological problem with many different causes. (And is usually life - long, even after reading and spelling have been mastered. There are plenty of other executive function differences which need to be dealt with all our lives)

Disaffection with school is certainly caused by making children start too early and is, in my view, a huge problem in the UK. They are given stringent tests in year 2 (age 6/7) which gives no choice for infant teachers but to 'hot house' their children into reading and writing before they are ready.

I was really fortunate to be educated in South Africa - we finished school at 1pm, when I went home, where my real education began each day. They were very kind to me, but assumed I couldn't learn (As I can't learn anything by rote) and sat me at the back colouring in. At high school it was a different story. They lined you up if you couldn't answer a question and then hit you at the end of the lesson. [Roll Eyes]

[ 15. September 2010, 11:16: Message edited by: Boogie ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I agree with every word of this - and am glad that the press got it wrong.

The press didn't get it wrong. Saying that you agree with the recommendations about what to do about the problems, doesn't mean the press lied about the problem. If anything it probably shows the tendency of official reports to recommend only vague things that everyone can agree with.

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

Hopefully schools will respond to this and not the 'I told you so' knee jerk attitude of those who would ignore the special needs of children in our classrooms.

For pity's sake. What's "knee jerk" about suggesting we ignore non-existent needs and refrain from interventions that don't work?

Don't you think that at some point the spending of billions on SEN should be positively justified, rather than just dismissing as prejudices the views of people who notice that it is doing no good?

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

Ofsted -

quote:
The key implication of these findings is that any further changes to the system should focus not on tightening the processes of prescribing entitlement to services but, rather, on:
␣ improving the quality of assessment
␣ ensuring that where additional support is provided, it is effective.

This means that, if their recommendations are followed, children with SEN (dyslexia, dyspraxia, ASD etc) will be better assessed and the additional support will much better targeted.

I hope it comes to pass. It will be much more expensive than the present system as specialist teacher support doesn't come cheap, and better assessment will pick up those who slip through the net and (if they get there) are only picked up at university.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
This means that, if their recommendations are followed, children with SEN (dyslexia, dyspraxia, ASD etc) will be better assessed and the additional support will much better targeted.

So just to check, you think that when a report which claims loads of kids are wrongly labelled as having SEN talks of "improving the quality of asssessment" it must be talking about picking up on the SEN kids who "slip through the net" rather than ending the identification of kids with no real disabilities?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I agree with Mrs Cod in that we begin formal education far too early - seven years old is a good time to begin to learn to read and write. But dyslexia is not caused by this - dyslexia is a neurological problem with many different causes.

What do you mean by "neurological problem" here?

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
This means that, if their recommendations are followed, children with SEN (dyslexia, dyspraxia, ASD etc) will be better assessed and the additional support will much better targeted.

So just to check, you think that when a report which claims loads of kids are wrongly labelled as having SEN talks of "improving the quality of asssessment" it must be talking about picking up on the SEN kids who "slip through the net" rather than ending the identification of kids with no real disabilities?

Yep - absolutely.

There are children in every class who, because they manage and behave well, don't ever get a diagnosis.

Do they need one?

Of course they do. If you have high intelligence but are kept in low sets due to reading and spelling difficulties you are being let down enormously by the system.

My friend who now uses a voice recorder is a case in point. School did her no favours whatever.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

So just to check, you think that when a report which claims loads of kids are wrongly labelled as having SEN talks of "improving the quality of asssessment" it must be talking about picking up on the SEN kids who "slip through the net" rather than ending the identification of kids with no real disabilities?
Yep - absolutely.

There are children in every class who, because they manage and behave well, don't ever get a diagnosis.

Do they need one?

I am not asking you if this is your opinion on the issue. I am asking you if you think that this is what OFSTED are saying.

[ 15. September 2010, 12:56: Message edited by: oldandrew ]

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

They are (see Merchant Trader's quote above) looking to improve the quality of assessment and provision.

I hope that's what they are looking to do, at least - but their track record seems to be in supporting the politics, league table and testing regime of the day, rather than supporting tecahers and children.

We will see.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
They are (see Merchant Trader's quote above) looking to improve the quality of assessment and provision.

Obviously.

My point was that you seem to have imagined that this means they are advocating what you think would "improve the quality of assessment and provision" (i.e. diagnosing even more kids and spending even more money on support from specialist teachers) rather than dealing with the problems that the report actually describes (i.e diagnosing too many kids and spending money on support that does no good).

It is almost as if you have ripped some phrases out of context and then interpreted them to say the exact opposite of what the report actually said.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
My point was that you seem to have imagined that this means they are advocating what you think would "improve the quality of assessment and provision" (i.e. diagnosing even more kids and spending even more money on support from specialist teachers) rather than dealing with the problems that the report actually describes (i.e diagnosing too many kids and spending money on support that does no good).

I would expect that higher quality assessments would result in diagnosing some kids who were not previously diagnosed under the current system, changing the diagnoses of some kids who were diagnosed under the current system, and removing diagnoses from some kids who were diagnosed under the current system.

Given the report, I would expect that you'd have a large number of kids in the last group, but that the number in the other two groups would not be zero.

Getting correct diagnoses is important. If a child can't read, if you don't know why they can't read, the odds of effective intervention go way, way down. The child may simply need more practice. The child may need intensive one-on-one instruction with a highly trained specialist reading instructor. The child may need glasses. The child may need to be taught English. The child may need hearing aids. Or any of a large number of other things.

So, yes, good assessment is vital.

The report also said that better quality instruction from the "regular" (non SEN) teachers is needed, to prevent the academic and behavioral problems that, under the current system, lead to SEN identification. That sounds important, too. Children can't learn when they have teachers who can't teach.

Good teaching, good evaluations. I think those are things that everyone could get behind.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Getting correct diagnoses is important. If a child can't read, if you don't know why they can't read, the odds of effective intervention go way, way down. The child may simply need more practice. The child may need intensive one-on-one instruction with a highly trained specialist reading instructor. The child may need glasses. The child may need to be taught English. The child may need hearing aids. Or any of a large number of other things.

Again we suddenly have physical problems joining the list, as if SEN departments were opticians or doctors.

However, if the only problem is difficulty learning to read then you are wrong to suggest we need a diagnosis in order to intervene effectively.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
The problem is that kids with learning difficulties - those children in secondary education who do not have the reading or comprehension skills to read the text book, for example - usually react in one of two ways in a mainstream classroom with no accommodations: sit quietly and do nothing/sit there doodling or act up/out, which often results on them being sent out, because sitting quietly is boring.
And this is where the problem happens with the SEN racket.

The normal expectation in a functioning education system is that somebody with a genuine difficulty would put their hand up and say "I can't do that".

There are loads of reasons that a child with real difficulties might not ask for help. The son of one of my friends is autistic. He won't raise his hand and say he can't do something, because that sets up a social interaction he can't predict. A child with language processing difficulties might not know how to explain what the problem is. There are loads of other valid reasons.

The way to handle this is to include the skills needed to meet normal classroom expectations in the child's "Present level of performance" statement, and set goals and objectives related to them. While the child is making progress, a certain amount of scaffolding may be required. But it shouldn't be too much to expect that a child will learn these skills, so that in the future the child is not handicapped by the lack of skill (and the child's future teachers are not driven crazy by the lack).

quote:
The teacher should already know about glaring weaknesses from the academic information and, of course, it is a failure of teaching and learning if kids are in a classroom where the curriculum covers things they will never be able to do.

Agreed. Putting a blind child in a regular reading class is stupid. That child needs to be in a class with Braille materials and a TVI.

quote:
However, in appeaser world, kids with SEN are incapable of telling a teacher about a problem and teachers are oblivious to the academic ability of their students, so we need a massively expensive bureaucracy to work with the kids who aren't working or aren't behaving in order to prove that this is a result of a Special Need.

Some teachers, unfortunately, are entirely oblivious to the abilities and needs of their students. Not all of them. Not most of them. But some of them.

In your world, oldandrew, what would you do with teachers like that? Let's say there's a child with a balance disorder caused by brain damage commonly caused by premature birth. She often trips over things, or falls out of her chair. When she does, the teacher says she's just trying to disrupt the class to avoid doing her work, and sends her to sit in the hall. The parents have already provided the school with the medical reports regarding the child's condition, and the child is seeing a private OT to work on her balance. But since she's spending at least a third of her days sitting in the hallway, she's falling behind academically.

What do you think should be done in an instance like this?

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Getting correct diagnoses is important. If a child can't read, if you don't know why they can't read, the odds of effective intervention go way, way down. The child may simply need more practice. The child may need intensive one-on-one instruction with a highly trained specialist reading instructor. The child may need glasses. The child may need to be taught English. The child may need hearing aids. Or any of a large number of other things.
Again we suddenly have physical problems joining the list, as if SEN departments were opticians or doctors.

Are physical problems not covered by SEN provision in the UK? Do SEN departments not get and use reports from doctors, opticians, SLPs, OTs, or other medical professionals?

quote:
However, if the only problem is difficulty learning to read then you are wrong to suggest we need a diagnosis in order to intervene effectively.

Do you not think it matters WHY the child is having difficulty learning to read?

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

Guardian newspaper report recommending schools actively promote an eye screening process

Apparently only 30% of schools actively promote the government's free eye tests for children through opticians.

15% of secondary school children have never had their eyesight tested.

This is the leaflet they produce for parents of school-age children that goes with that campaign.

Schools don't have to be opticians, but I do think they need to encourage parents to make good choices about getting eye tests for their children.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

However, if the only problem is difficulty learning to read then you are wrong to suggest we need a diagnosis in order to intervene effectively.

You couldn't be more wrong.

I point you in the direction of the
Rose review 2009.

"Identifying and Teaching Children
and Young People with Dyslexia
and Literacy Difficulties"

These were its conclusions and recommendations (We can only hope that this new government takes them on board)

# Training 4000 specialist teachers in dyslexia over the next two years;

# Boosting early identification (eg. from Year 1) and effective intervention for pupils with dyslexic difficulties;

# Making provisions for dyslexia awareness training for existing teachers;

# Putting more special educational needs training into initial teacher training courses;

# Acknowledging the need for specialist teachers and 1:1 interventions for severely dyslexic pupils;

# School should build a positive dialogue with parents and provide relevant information for them;

# Schools should provide support for children with dyslexia at transfer to secondary school;

# Continuing Helpline advice for parents and teachers

Again - we shall see.

Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
However, if the only problem is difficulty learning to read then you are wrong to suggest we need a diagnosis in order to intervene effectively.

What is the effective intervention?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

There are loads of reasons that a child with real difficulties might not ask for help.

Yes, but the obvious solution is to find ways to get them to ask for help, not to spend billions on a massive bureaucracy that hunts for people to help whether they want it or not.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Some teachers, unfortunately, are entirely oblivious to the abilities and needs of their students. Not all of them. Not most of them. But some of them.

I'm sure many teachers fail in many ways, but that shouldn't lead to the creation of a bureaucracy to do their jobs for them. I still trust the teachers more than the bureaucracy.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

In your world, oldandrew, what would you do with teachers like that? Let's say there's a child with a balance disorder caused by brain damage commonly caused by premature birth. She often trips over things, or falls out of her chair. When she does, the teacher says she's just trying to disrupt the class to avoid doing her work, and sends her to sit in the hall.

If I've not made it clear enough before, I am interested in discussing the SEN system as it is, not one in a theoretical world where it spends all its time dealing with teachers who ignore physical disabilities. (That said I do wonder why a child who kept falling out of her chair should be in a mainstream classroom where it could only be disruptive.)

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Are physical problems not covered by SEN provision in the UK? Do SEN departments not get and use reports from doctors, opticians, SLPs, OTs, or other medical professionals?

It's not that they don't ever deal with physical problems, but this is a tiny, even unusual, part of what they do, and yet whenever we discuss this you start talking about physical disabilities.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Do you not think it matters WHY the child is having difficulty learning to read?

All the evidence I have seen suggests that all poor readers seem to benefit from the same sort of intervention. Certainly it is not clear as to what sort of reasons for poor reading you are expecting to find.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

However, if the only problem is difficulty learning to read then you are wrong to suggest we need a diagnosis in order to intervene effectively.
You couldn't be more wrong.

I point you in the direction of the
Rose review 2009.

"Identifying and Teaching Children
and Young People with Dyslexia
and Literacy Difficulties"

These were its conclusions and recommendations (We can only hope that this new government takes them on board)

# Training 4000 specialist teachers in dyslexia over the next two years;

# Boosting early identification (eg. from Year 1) and effective intervention for pupils with dyslexic difficulties;

# Making provisions for dyslexia awareness training for existing teachers;

# Putting more special educational needs training into initial teacher training courses;

# Acknowledging the need for specialist teachers and 1:1 interventions for severely dyslexic pupils;

# School should build a positive dialogue with parents and provide relevant information for them;

# Schools should provide support for children with dyslexia at transfer to secondary school;

# Continuing Helpline advice for parents and teachers

Again - we shall see.

Rose focused on dyslexia because that was his remit, not because a diagnosis of dyslexia changed the intervention.

The Science and Technology Committee of the house of commons looked into this and observed that:

quote:
83. When we asked the Minister why dyslexic children receive a label that identifies their particular (in theory) problem, but other children do not, she replied:

Clearly the dyslexia lobby has been very clear that they wanted to have identified the particular concerns and conditions of dyslexia and that is why the Government decided to ask Sir Jim Rose to look particularly at dyslexia and to look at the evidence.[106]

84. This is an interesting admission: that the Government decided to spend time and money looking specifically at dyslexia because of the strength of the dyslexia lobby, rather than because of any pre-existing, well researched, well defined problem. We have demonstrated the range of difficulties in this area: that dyslexia is so broadly defined that it encompasses a continuum of reading difficulties that have little if any relation to specific literacy interventions; and that the research in this area is not of the highest quality. The Minister's admission explains why teachers who are being trained to help all children with reading difficulties are labelled 'specialist dyslexia teachers'. We recommend that the Government be more independently minded: it should prioritise its efforts on the basis of research, rather than commissioning research on the basis of the priorities of lobby groups.

They went on to recommend:

quote:
10. The Rose Report's definition of dyslexia is exceedingly broad and says that dyslexia is a continuum with no clear cut-off points. The definition is so broad and blurred at the edges that it is difficult to see how it could be useful in any diagnostic sense. (Paragraph 71)

11. We conclude that 'specialist dyslexia teachers' could be renamed 'specialist literacy difficulty teachers'. There are a range of reasons why people may struggle to learn to read and the Government's focus on dyslexia risks obscuring the broader problem. The Government's support for training teachers to become better at helping poor readers is welcome and to be supported, but its specific focus on 'specialist dyslexia teachers' is not evidence-based. (Paragraph 77)

[ 15. September 2010, 15:36: Message edited by: oldandrew ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
However, if the only problem is difficulty learning to read then you are wrong to suggest we need a diagnosis in order to intervene effectively.
What is the effective intervention?

Teaching them well.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Are physical problems not covered by SEN provision in the UK? Do SEN departments not get and use reports from doctors, opticians, SLPs, OTs, or other medical professionals?
It's not that they don't ever deal with physical problems, but this is a tiny, even unusual, part of what they do, and yet whenever we discuss this you start talking about physical disabilities.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Do you not think it matters WHY the child is having difficulty learning to read?
All the evidence I have seen suggests that all poor readers seem to benefit from the same sort of intervention. Certainly it is not clear as to what sort of reasons for poor reading you are expecting to find.

I'd like to see one shred of this evidence.

If they have a poor visual memory they don't need the same programme as those with a poor auditory memory.

Those with Irlen syndrome do not need the same interventions as those with dyslexia.

I could go on ...

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

There are loads of reasons that a child with real difficulties might not ask for help.
Yes, but the obvious solution is to find ways to get them to ask for help, not to spend billions on a massive bureaucracy that hunts for people to help whether they want it or not.

Here's a point of agreement, then. On this side of the pond, the kids that need to be taught how to ask for help often don't get that because their teachers don't know how to teach that skill, or don't think they should have to. In the UK, it sounds like your take is that the teachers know how, and are willing to, but the bureaucracy gets in their way. Is that it?

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Some teachers, unfortunately, are entirely oblivious to the abilities and needs of their students. Not all of them. Not most of them. But some of them.
I'm sure many teachers fail in many ways, but that shouldn't lead to the creation of a bureaucracy to do their jobs for them. I still trust the teachers more than the bureaucracy.

If putting kids in SEN when they've got inadequate teachers is the wrong answer (and I would agree, wholeheartedly, that it's the wrong answer), what would you do about inadequate teachers?

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

In your world, oldandrew, what would you do with teachers like that?
If I've not made it clear enough before, I am interested in discussing the SEN system as it is, not one in a theoretical world where it spends all its time dealing with teachers who ignore physical disabilities.

Yes, we all know that you would like to dismantle the SEN system. If you dismantle it, you will still have children with special needs. What is the responsibility of the school in ensuring that these children receive an adequate education? If you didn't have the SEN system, what would you have in its place?

quote:
(That said I do wonder why a child who kept falling out of her chair should be in a mainstream classroom where it could only be disruptive.)

In this country, the law requires that all children be taught in the least restrictive environment in which the child can receive a free and appropriate public education. That means that, in almost all cases, children must be in mainstream classes, and modifications, accommodations, and supports must be provided to make it work.

In the case of the child falling out of her chair, it would have been easy to get her a chair that provided enough support for her not to fall out of it. Her parents had such a chair for her at home. But as long as the school insisted that it was an attention-seeking behavior, they could blame the child and her parents, and avoid buying the chair (or providing anything else she needed).

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

In the case of the child falling out of her chair, it would have been easy to get her a chair that provided enough support for her not to fall out of it. Her parents had such a chair for her at home. But as long as the school insisted that it was an attention-seeking behavior, they could blame the child and her parents, and avoid buying the chair (or providing anything else she needed).

I had just such a child in my class last year. He had a special chair and cushion for floor sitting. This was all he needed (along with specially made shoes)

There are many other small adjustments - like 'fiddle pens' or doodle pads for children who struggle to sit still.

But the crux of this whole debate (imo) is in NOT blaming the child and parents but finding solutions.

This solution finding and problem solving is what I am devoting my life to [Big Grin]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
All the evidence I have seen suggests that all poor readers seem to benefit from the same sort of intervention. Certainly it is not clear as to what sort of reasons for poor reading you are expecting to find.
I'd like to see one shred of this evidence.

I would suggest that the burden of proof lies with people wanting to spend money on diagnoses to show that they serve a purpose.

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

If they have a poor visual memory they don't need the same programme as those with a poor auditory memory. Those with Irlen syndrome do not need the same interventions as those with dyslexia.

I could go on ...

You could indeed. I'd love to know what different approaches you think would be used in each case, and what evidence there is that they are effective.

Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
All the evidence I have seen suggests that all poor readers seem to benefit from the same sort of intervention. Certainly it is not clear as to what sort of reasons for poor reading you are expecting to find.
I'd like to see one shred of this evidence.
I would suggest that the burden of proof lies with people wanting to spend money on diagnoses to show that they serve a purpose.

I would suggest that the burden of proof for an assertion rests with the person who made the assertion. So, oldandrew, where is your proof?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by jacobsen:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
All the evidence I have seen suggests that all poor readers seem to benefit from the same sort of intervention. Certainly it is not clear as to what sort of reasons for poor reading you are expecting to find.
I'd like to see one shred of this evidence.
I would suggest that the burden of proof lies with people wanting to spend money on diagnoses to show that they serve a purpose.

I would suggest that the burden of proof for an assertion rests with the person who made the assertion. So, oldandrew, where is your proof?

Sorry, I forgot that I started it.

http://www.nrdc.org.uk/uploads/documents/doc_166.pdf

claims that

quote:

We conclude that there is no evidence from research to support a policy of differentiating
dyslexic from non-dyslexic students in adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL. We offer five main
reasons for our conclusion. First, both dyslexic and non-dyslexic students need to acquire the
same knowledge and skills in literacy and numeracy. Second, structured and explicit tuition is appropriate for both groups. Third, individual differences between students occur along many
dimensions, while all classification schemes entail overlapping categories. Fourth, diagnostic
protocols for dyslexia in adults cannot be used with any confidence either to ascertain the
causes (as opposed to the symptoms) of literacy or numeracy difficulties or to predict the
outcomes of interventions.

and

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/44/44.pdf

which I quoted earlier as saying

quote:
that dyslexia is so broadly defined that it encompasses a continuum of reading difficulties that have little if any relation to specific literacy interventions;

and arguing against having "specialist dyslexia teachers".

These are the two sources that most immediately spring to mind.

[ 15. September 2010, 17:31: Message edited by: oldandrew ]

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

These reports are dicussing dyslexic adults and not the same as interventions for children.

I am one of 4000 specialist teachers now being trained (and funded) to Masters Level to work with schools on specialist intervention for children.

This funding has continued with the new administration - so I am hopeful.

Here is a good guide as to when it's useful to refer to specialist teachers.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Time Out cards are a recognised accommodation. I will agree they are something that should only be offered when they are monitored and withdrawn if abused. When we offered them we only gave them to the student if they'd signed an agreement as to their use and an understanding that abuse meant they would lose the card.

I'm going to posit a scenario. There is a student who is having difficulties in class. There is a suggestion from the specialist teacher who has observed him/her that they should have a Time Out card, so, in consultation with the parents, one is issued with all the caveats, laminated and with the agreement on the back, including where the student should go when taking time out. This is suggested because the student is currently being assessed for ASD (autistic spectrum disorder) or other social difficulties by the local CAMHS (child and adolescent mental health service). Very quickly, the SENCo gets reports back that the student is abusing the card. Now these reports are only coming back from one teacher. So the SENCo either sends out a round robin to the teachers, form tutor and year head and any others involved in working with this student (10% return) or goes around and talks to them all (100% return) to check if the student is abusing the card. The answer is that the student is abusing the card in one or two lessons - so for 2 teachers out of the 14 they see - and using the card responsibly for the other 12. In consultation, it is decided not to withdraw the card, but to discuss with the student why they are abusing the card in specific lessons.

The teacher who is complaining is now irate because this has taken a few days to check and negotiate and the student still has the card they are abusing. They are also feeling undermined because they haven't had their word taken, but the SMT and SENCo are also aware that that particular teacher is unsympathetic to the use of time out cards.

When the student is interviewed, they say they use the card to stay out of that teacher's lessons because if they try to leave to defuse a situation that they cannot handle - this teacher will not let them leave and they end up getting involved in a fight or argument which is what they are trying to avoid. The other lesson they are abusing the card for is French, which they don't like - and if the student is in year 9, that's a completely different debate.

It comes back to what I said earlier - these accommodations and support only work if all the teachers working with these students are prepared to use the accommodations too.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

There are loads of reasons that a child with real difficulties might not ask for help.
Yes, but the obvious solution is to find ways to get them to ask for help, not to spend billions on a massive bureaucracy that hunts for people to help whether they want it or not.

Here's a point of agreement, then. On this side of the pond, the kids that need to be taught how to ask for help often don't get that because their teachers don't know how to teach that skill, or don't think they should have to. In the UK, it sounds like your take is that the teachers know how, and are willing to, but the bureaucracy gets in their way. Is that it?

The number of children who cannot ask for help is negligible so I can't really make a definitive statement either way. My point is really that the SEN bureaucracy is not going to be better at this than their regular teachers.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Some teachers, unfortunately, are entirely oblivious to the abilities and needs of their students. Not all of them. Not most of them. But some of them.
I'm sure many teachers fail in many ways, but that shouldn't lead to the creation of a bureaucracy to do their jobs for them. I still trust the teachers more than the bureaucracy.

If putting kids in SEN when they've got inadequate teachers is the wrong answer (and I would agree, wholeheartedly, that it's the wrong answer), what would you do about inadequate teachers?

Make sure they start being adequate or go.

But this strikes me as a diversion. SEN departments do not compensate for the weaknesses of inadequate teachers, they make teachers more inadequate.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

In your world, oldandrew, what would you do with teachers like that?
If I've not made it clear enough before, I am interested in discussing the SEN system as it is, not one in a theoretical world where it spends all its time dealing with teachers who ignore physical disabilities.

Yes, we all know that you would like to dismantle the SEN system. If you dismantle it, you will still have children with special needs. What is the responsibility of the school in ensuring that these children receive an adequate education? If you didn't have the SEN system, what would you have in its place?

The pastoral system in the first instance, special schools if that's inadequate.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
(That said I do wonder why a child who kept falling out of her chair should be in a mainstream classroom where it could only be disruptive.)
In this country, the law requires that all children be taught in the least restrictive environment in which the child can receive a free and appropriate public education. That means that, in almost all cases, children must be in mainstream classes, and modifications, accommodations, and supports must be provided to make it work.

I know. My point is that it is insane.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
These reports are dicussing dyslexic adults and not the same as interventions for children.

The first one is, the second one isn't.

Where's your evidence by the way?

Posted by JimC (# 13842) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
These reports are dicussing dyslexic adults and not the same as interventions for children.

I am one of 4000 specialist teachers now being trained (and funded) to Masters Level to work with schools on specialist intervention for children.

This funding has continued with the new administration - so I am hopeful.

Here is a good guide as to when it's useful to refer to specialist teachers.

I wonder about whether to post this or not...

You mentioned earlier that you were about to embark on some research about mainstream teachers attitudes towards SEN and SEN departments.

Based on your comments here and your current career path I have serious questions about the validity of what you are going to produce.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

I'm going to posit a scenario.

Code for "I'm going to speculate about how it is the fault of the teacher".

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

There is a student who is having difficulties in class.

Where time-out cards are given in response to what happens in class then these cards are usually given to badly behaved kids. Behaving badly is not a difficulty you have, it is a choice you make.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

There is a suggestion from the specialist teacher who has observed him/her that they should have a Time Out card,

"observed him"?

These cards are handed out when it is highlighted that something must be done about a kid being badly behaved. How is that an observation?

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

so, in consultation with the parents, one is issued with all the caveats, laminated and with the agreement on the back, including where the student should go when taking time out.

If you say so. If this does happen it has no effect.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

This is suggested because the student is currently being assessed for ASD (autistic spectrum disorder) or other social difficulties by the local CAMHS (child and adolescent mental health service).

Now you have completely lost touch with reality. Children who are on the way to a genuine diagnosis of autism are the last people to want to wander the corridors.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

Very quickly, the SENCo gets reports back that the student is abusing the card. Now these reports are only coming back from one teacher.

Indeed. If kids are going to try it on they will try it with one teacher at a time.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

So the SENCo either sends out a round robin to the teachers, form tutor and year head and any others involved in working with this student (10% return) or goes around and talks to them all (100% return) to check if the student is abusing the card.

So the SENCO acts as if the teacher is a liar?

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

The answer is that the student is abusing the card in one or two lessons - so for 2 teachers out of the 14 they see - and using the card responsibly for the other 12.

The language of SEN types is incredible. A child doesn't storm out of a classroom every lesson and that's "using the card responsibly"?

That's not using the card responsibly, that is the bare minimum of appropriate behaviour for a child in a school.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

In consultation, it is decided not to withdraw the card, but to discuss with the student why they are abusing the card in specific lessons.

The teacher who is complaining is now irate because this has taken a few days to check and negotiate and the student still has the card they are abusing. They are also feeling undermined because they haven't had their word taken, but the SMT and SENCo are also aware that that particular teacher is unsympathetic to the use of time out cards.

Of course, teachers who object to kids walking out of their lessons when they don't feel like working or behaving are "unsympathetic".

After all, if they were as sympathetic as the SEN department the child would never be expected to have to work or behave.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

When the student is interviewed, they say they use the card to stay out of that teacher's lessons because if they try to leave to defuse a situation that they cannot handle - this teacher will not let them leave and they end up getting involved in a fight or argument which is what they are trying to avoid. The other lesson they are abusing the card for is French, which they don't like - and if the student is in year 9, that's a completely different debate.

So just to check they are using the card in reaction to the teacher not letting them use the card.

I think I see a logical flaw here...

But I guess in SEN logic bad behaviour is always the fault of the teacher who objects to the bad behaviour for objecting to the bad behaviour, so I guess, in SEN logic, this scenario makes sense.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

It comes back to what I said earlier - these accommodations and support only work if all the teachers working with these students are prepared to use the accommodations too.

Yeah, you do realise that in your desperate attempt to construct a scenario where the teacher is to blame, not the kid, you did actually bend the laws of time and space, allowing events to be caused by their consequences?

Still, I guess nobody can now claim they haven't seen any evidence for the truth of the Appeaser's Creed.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

Here is a good guide as to when it's useful to refer to specialist teachers.

Just started to look at the link.

There's some real rubbish in there:

http://www.excellencegateway.org.uk/page.aspx?o=126765

Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :

Why do you say that page is rubbish?

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

May I point out something here, simply because I am guilty of this. There are two separate overlapping concepts being confused.

Learning Difficulties - refers to difficulties that are related to specific personal failures to thrive in the classroom and are presumed to have an underlying biological cause.

Special Educational Needs - are barrier whether biological, circumstantial or even behavioural that prevent a person from attaining their full capabilities within the school environment under normal circumstances.

It is important to note the difference. Someone with Learning Difficulties will have Special Educational Needs, but someone with Special Educational Needs may not have Learning Difficulties. For instance if a child has a chaotic home background and is principle carer for younger siblings, they are likely to have special educational needs but no learning difficulties. This article brought this home to me.

Now what OFSTED report said was the Special Educational Needs were in part of the country over specified. This may or may not mean that learning difficulties are over diagnosed. It could mean too many pupils on list for reasons to do with social deprivation rather than learning difficulties.

Jengie

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

oldandrew - when trying to get a diagnosis for a child, specialist teachers are often involved in observing students in lessons - the Local Authority specialist teachers - who then advise the school on accommodations. As the school is undoubtedly trying to get a statement for this kid, they have to seek and take advice and implement said advice, whatever, because unless you've tried and proved it doesn't work, you have no case for additional support or a statement.

Actually - the investigations for ASD was real, We had to give a child who was throwing chairs across the class a time out card on the advice of the specialist teacher. That child was seeing CAMHS and ASD was something that was being investigated. But I have deliberately mixed up several stories.

No following external specialist advice, no statement, no possible hope of this child going to an EBD unit.

Posted by JonahMan (# 12126) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
And this is where the problem happens with the SEN racket.

The normal expectation in a functioning education system is that somebody with a genuine difficulty would put their hand up and say "I can't do that". The teacher should already know about glaring weaknesses from the academic information and, of course, it is a failure of teaching and learning if kids are in a classroom where the curriculum covers things they will never be able to do.

However, in appeaser world, kids with SEN are incapable of telling a teacher about a problem and teachers are oblivious to the academic ability of their students, so we need a massively expensive bureaucracy to work with the kids who aren't working or aren't behaving in order to prove that this is a result of a Special Need. Because, as every true believer knows, it is highly unlikely that a child would ever choose to be lazy or badly behaved due to base motives.

One of my children has Asperger's Syndrome, and one of the ways this manifests is that he often isn't able to ask for help, or say that he can't do something. If he is then pressed to do it anyway, he can respond inappropriately e.g. by refusing to listen, or throwing things around. Even though he knows the consequences of his behaviour e.g. loss of privileges he cannot help himself - that's how he is. Not always, but sometimes. One of his aims is to improve this, so that he is able to ask for help.

He was diagnosed a few years ago and since then we've developed, in conjunction with his teachers and some other professionals such as educational psychologists, strategies to help him learn effectively and behave appropriately. Almost all of these are implemented by his class teacher, though it's important that other adults within the school - and other kids, to some extent - are also aware of the issues he has and ways of dealing with them. Most of these are about anticipating and preventing problem behaviour. He certainly belongs in a mainstream school -he's bright, and really wants to do well; when he takes a mind to it he can produce first class creative work. He has undoubtedly improved vastly. Some of this is no doubt down to him getting older (still in Primary school though, so how different things would be at secondary school I don't know). A lot I think is due to us, as parents, having a better idea of how to deal with him, but much is because the school doesn't try to handle him the way they would another child exhibiting the same behaviour. I would call this good teaching, and is helping him learn as much as possible without disrupting the rest of the school - which is also important. He doesn't get away with not doing work and the expectation is that he will achieve the same levels as his peers (allowing for individual talents at different things of course). The same sanctions and incentives are in place that we use for our other children, though we might explain them differently or at a different time.

He hasn't had a huge amount of extra money spent on him; as I've said, some ed psych time, some staff time (in meetings with us, and training) and the odd extra bit of teaching assistant time. The intention is to help him get to the stage where he can function in the school framework, ideally without any extra support at all (though he may still need careful, sensitive, appropriate handling by school staff).

Of course this doesn't mean that all children refusing to do work have special needs which need addressing the same way. This is where a diagnosis comes in handy. One difficulty is that autism covers a range of symptoms, and many people probably exhibit at least a few of them at least some of the time. So it's not a simple yes/no scenario. Also, autistic people aren't all the same, so what works for one may not work for another. (Frustratingly, what works one time may not always work another time with the same individual). This doesn't mean the condition is not real, just complicated. However, yes, some kids are just being naughty or lazy. But it is possible to differentiate the two.

I don't know how much SEN money is wasted, or if too many people are diagnosed who shouldn't be, or if the interventions attempted are effective. But I do know that in this case it has been worthwhile and has made a difference. It made things better for our son. It made things better for us. It made things better for his teachers. I also know that one case study doesn't prove anything on the national scale. Equally though it means the whole concept can't be dismissed as a racket.

Jonah

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

The other thing I forgot to say was that students with learning difficulties - poor reading ages and other issues - are still coming through schools. I teach AltEd, year 10 and 11 students (14-16 year olds) whose school placements have broken down. Most of the students, when we start working with them, have unaddressed and long-standing learning difficulties. Addressing those is a lot of the reason we are doing good things to the NEET figures locally (Not in Employment, Education and Training)

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
May I point out something here, simply because I am guilty of this. There are two separate overlapping concepts being confused.

Learning Difficulties - refers to difficulties that are related to specific personal failures to thrive in the classroom and are presumed to have an underlying biological cause.

Special Educational Needs - are barrier whether biological, circumstantial or even behavioural that prevent a person from attaining their full capabilities within the school environment under normal circumstances.

It is important to note the difference. Someone with Learning Difficulties will have Special Educational Needs, but someone with Special Educational Needs may not have Learning Difficulties.

Wow. Thank you, Jengie Jon. That is hugely helpful.

On this side of the pond, we have nothing equivalent to your "special educational needs." Here, special education is exclusively related to what you would call learning difficulties. Children who are in chaotic homes, who don't get enough to eat, who are looking after younger siblings (or their parents, or their own children), who live in neighborhoods where it's dangerous to walk to school -- they're not part of our special education system.

We have free lunch (and free breakfast) programs for children in poverty, and vision and hearing screenings are provided free of charge in nearly all states. But parents have to apply for their kids to get free lunch, and have to send in a signed consent form for the vision and hearing screenings. Children in a chaotic home may not be able to access the free meals or the screenings, if their parents can't get their act together to do the paperwork.

Some schools may have a nurse on staff, some may have a social worker. The little town I live in has a "family center" that helps families whose children are deemed to be at risk -- the family center is on the property of one of our schools, but in a separate building. They provide some very minimal services and support -- mostly, they can help guide families through the process of qualifiying for food stamps or the like, and they offer parenting classes. The family center is jointly funded by a consortium of charities and government agencies.

But, here, special education is exclusively about disabilities. Oldandrew, that's why I keep bringing up disabilities -- that's what special education is here. I didn't know the rest of what you're talking about even existed.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
Why do you say that page is rubbish?

Because the myth that people with dyslexia have special talents accomapanying it has little to support it. According to the NRDC research review:

quote:

On anecdotal evidence (Davis, 1994; West, 1997), the belief that ‘difficulty in learning to read is not a wholly tragic life sentence but is often accompanied by great talents’ (Stein & Talcott, 1999) may seem attractive. However, systematic investigation has found little if any support for it (Adelman & Adelman, 1987; Everatt, 1997; Thomas, 2000; von Karolyi et al., 2003; Winner et al., 2001).

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
oldandrew - when trying to get a diagnosis for a child, specialist teachers are often involved in observing students in lessons - the Local Authority specialist teachers - who then advise the school on accommodations. As the school is undoubtedly trying to get a statement for this kid, they have to seek and take advice and implement said advice, whatever, because unless you've tried and proved it doesn't work, you have no case for additional support or a statement.

What on earth makes you think the school is trying to get a statement for the kid?

If they were under that level of scrutiny they'd be far less likely to misuse the card.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

We were trying to get that child diagnosed. And you are making erroneous assumptions if you think abuse of the time out card always means wandering the corridors, for this student it meant using the card to leave certain lessons and go to his safe space and stay there. He wasn't the only one.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
We were trying to get that child diagnosed. And you are making erroneous assumptions if you think abuse of the time out card always means wandering the corridors, for this student it meant using the card to leave certain lessons and go to his safe space and stay there. He wasn't the only one.

I seem to recall I mentioned the "time out card" as part of a long list of ways in which SEN interventions release kids from having to work. You seme to have picked the one item from the list that you have the best excuse for (and that's if doing something because another part of the bureaucracy tells you to is a good excuse).

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

I mentioned several other forms of classroom accommodations here

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
<snip> Also for children on School Action Plus that the Local Authority were involved with, usually with specific needs like visual impairment who needed large print books <snip>

The good teachers who needed less support in their classrooms had a whole raft of additional resources in their classes. There was a history teacher who had all the resources differentiated and two levels of text book with different reading ages. Exercises were also differentiated, so he could hand out a task appropriate for each student and have them all feeding back to the same learning outcomes. When balancing needs and resources that don't stretch, some of the assessment made was made to place support where it was most needed. Classes like this one were the ones where I'd ask if he could cope without support when there weren't enough LSAs to go round through absence. In this case, the seating plan was planned, the behaviour control was in place, the homework was given out on slip of paper or as a worksheet to take home with instructions - so the students with visual impairments, poor reading ages, dyslexia or disorganisation through dyspraxia and ASD didn't struggle to copy it down from the board. That department also had a very good pass rate for History GCSE and students across the ability range opting to take it as they were supported by the teaching.

and here

quote:
The expectation is that teachers are aware of any learning difficulties - such as low reading ages, visual impairments or other reasons for finding it difficult to copy from the board, hearing difficulties - and make accommodations in their lessons by seating plans and additional provision. An example of provision is having everything that needs copying from the board as copies that can be put on the desk next to those students. That means having lessons completely planned out in advance for each class with the knowledge of any learning difficulties in those classes.

In primary, the teacher is usually dealing with one class of 30 students for most if not all lessons, so is aware of those students. In secondary, each teacher is going to be teaching maybe one class of students in every year group as a minimum, depending subject - so five times that number of students - so 150 different students every day as an absolute minimum, and they are expected to produce the same accommodations. That's assuming that the classes get their regular teachers.

I only picked up on Time Out cards as it is something you were challenging and explained why they might be implemented when it might be something some teachers felt was inappropriate.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Josephine:

Do you not think it matters WHY the child is having difficulty learning to read?
All the evidence I have seen suggests that all poor readers seem to benefit from the same sort of intervention. Certainly it is not clear as to what sort of reasons for poor reading you are expecting to find.

I thought she was quite clear. It is your magical one-size-fits-all-solution we're having trouble envisioning. What is this wondrous singular intervention that can cure vision problems, hearing loss, language difficulties AND dyslexia???

Posted by JimC (# 13842) on :

Further to the dyslexia debate...

In one of my previous schools...

I was told by the SENCO that dyslexia is not an excuse for poor behaviour. I was also told by another member of the same team that I should not punish a child who continually acted up and refused to bring any equipment to lessons because both types of behaviour are symptoms of dyslexia. When I pointed out there were dyslexic students who did neither I was told that it was only because they had better home lives.

I did some research into this and found this website...

Dyslexia - the gift

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I thought she was quite clear. It is your magical one-size-fits-all-solution we're having trouble envisioning. What is this wondrous singular intervention that can cure vision problems, hearing loss, language difficulties AND dyslexia???

I specifically said I wasn't talking about vision and hearing problems. Obviously if the problem is with seeing and hearing not reading then the intervention will be different.

As ever this is the greatest red herring going. Hearing, vision and mixed sensory difficulties combined account for about 3% of SAP and 5% of statements. It seems highly unlikely that it is teachers who spot most of these, let alone SEN teachers, so trying to turn every SEN case into this sort of problem in order to justify the SEN racket is ridiculous. And that's without the obvious issue that if we did want to spend money on finding these problems then investing in opticians and audiologists, not specialist teachers, would be the obvious way forward.

My point, and one that I have provided some references for (and which nobody has found any evidence to contradict) is that the intervention for literacy difficulties do not differ that much between dyslexics and ordinary poor readers. I was not including difficulties that are not directly to do with reading.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
These reports are dicussing dyslexic adults and not the same as interventions for children.

I am one of 4000 specialist teachers now being trained (and funded) to Masters Level to work with schools on specialist intervention for children.

This funding has continued with the new administration - so I am hopeful.

Here is a good guide as to when it's useful to refer to specialist teachers.

I realise that I have already commented on this post more than once, but, I have just noticed that your dodgy link is from "Skills for Life", an organisation that teaches adults and yet you dismiss my reports (inaccurately) for being about adults.

You really do just dismiss and accept evidence on entirely on the basis of whether it fits your existing views don't you, and then make up excuses for doing so, don't you?

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

The Rose Report from 2009

The Rose Report from 2009 on dyslexia took evidence from more than 115 sources, reports, research projects and learned experts in the field of dyslexia across the world, before recommending that we put into place the 4000 specialist dyslexia teachers. I would find it difficult to believe that more than 115 separate well regarded sources/publications/reports are all wrong.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
The Rose Report from 2009

The Rose Report from 2009 on dyslexia took evidence from more than 115 sources, reports, research projects and learned experts in the field of dyslexia across the world, before recommending that we put into place the 4000 specialist dyslexia teachers. I would find it difficult to believe that more than 115 separate well regarded sources/publications/reports are all wrong.

Did all 115 sources agree that Rose had the right and agree with the final recommendations of the report?

The Science and Technology Committee of the House of Commons, which quizzed some of the key players and looked at the scientific research, concluded that the remit and recommendations of the Rose Report was a product of the influence of the dyslexia lobby, not an impartial review of the evidence.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

From that report by the Science and Technology Committee:

"it is well established that one-to-one support for a child yields better results than
normal classroom teaching"

which they use from Sir Jim Rose's own observations.

I'm not therefore sure that they are dismissing the whole report nor the teachers, if that is what is being pondered in this debate by some participants.

The Science and Technology Report then says that it recommends that the specialist teachers are called specialist literacy teachers rather than specialist dyslexia teachers. I note that the Rose Report's title makes it clear that it includes literacy difficulty in its broader definition of dyslexia. The Report does however suggest, wisely, that we need good evidence collection once the 4000 teachers are in place, and it hopes for more scientific evaluation of dyslexia to find out exactly what differentiates it from other literacy difficulties.

This doesn't mean that dyslexia doesn't exist, as far as I can tell, nor that specialist teachers are the wrong solution for those pupils who have more severe problems (which is the remit of these teachers, from what I'm reading)

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Did all 115 sources agree that Rose had the right and agree with the final recommendations of the report?

Sorry, that should say:

"Did all 115 sources agree that Rose had the right remit and agree with the final recommendations of the report?"

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

I'm not therefore sure that they are dismissing the whole report nor the teachers, if that is what is being pondered in this debate by some participants.

...

This doesn't mean that dyslexia doesn't exist, as far as I can tell, nor that specialist teachers are the wrong solution for those pupils who have more severe problems (which is the remit of these teachers, from what I'm reading)

I hope it won't confuse you when I point out that you are again areguing against a strawman here.

Nobody has said that dyslexia doesn't exist or that helping children who are poor readers learn to read isn't a good idea.

The issue was over the claim that we require an SEN diagnosis to help them.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

The Rose report uses those 115+ sources to come up with its findings. Would it be normal practice to go back to all those authors and groups to ask if they all agreed with the final result? Genuine question.

If one of the key findings is that one to one tuition really helps those who are struggling, a diagnosis is a good way to identify many of those who need that help? It wouldn't preclude excellent teaching of all pupils in the classroom in addition to that one-to-one specialised help?

[ 16. September 2010, 14:22: Message edited by: amber. ]

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I thought she was quite clear. It is your magical one-size-fits-all-solution we're having trouble envisioning. What is this wondrous singular intervention that can cure vision problems, hearing loss, language difficulties AND dyslexia???
I specifically said I wasn't talking about vision and hearing problems. Obviously if the problem is with seeing and hearing not reading then the intervention will be different.

As ever this is the greatest red herring going. Hearing, vision and mixed sensory difficulties combined account for about 3% of SAP and 5% of statements. It seems highly unlikely that it is teachers who spot most of these, let alone SEN teachers, so trying to turn every SEN case into this sort of problem in order to justify the SEN racket is ridiculous. And that's without the obvious issue that if we did want to spend money on finding these problems then investing in opticians and audiologists, not specialist teachers, would be the obvious way forward.

But the thing is, you're not going to know that until the assessment process. I am the parent of a severely visually impaired child. This was not obvious to us or to his teachers. Visual and hearing impairments may present as learning disabilities or behavior problems (since kids who can't see the board or hear the teacher are prone to getting bored & acting out in class). Because the impairment seems normal to the child they're unlikely to ask for help or even realize they need help (my son certainly didn't). The only way they're going to get the proper help they need is through an assessment process that looks holistically at the student's difficulties. If the SEN process is not set up to identify and address those sorts of "physical" impairments (although I would suggest that the distinction between "physical" and "mental" impairments is somewhat artificial) than that would significantly impact it's effectiveness. If that's the case, I would humbly suggest that that might be a better place to focus one's concerns, rather that the dismantling of the entire SEN system.

Posted by infinite_monkey (# 11333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

My point, and one that I have provided some references for (and which nobody has found any evidence to contradict) is that the intervention for literacy difficulties do not differ that much between dyslexics and ordinary poor readers.

Fair enough, to an extent, but Amber's addressing that point and I did as well a few pages back:

quote:
Specific learning disabilities like dyslexia and dyscalcula require intervention: yes, a lot of the intervention is just "more of good teaching", but the cold reality is that it's good teaching, delivered intensively in small groups or 1:1 by a person with masters-level training in educational exceptionality, and the school system just can't throw that net wide enough to also cover the kids who honestly don't need it.

Here in the States, we're gradually shifting away from a discrepancy model (kid is x standard deviations below in this than that, kid is y years behind academically) and into Response to Interventions. Kids pass as need be through tiers (visualize a pyramid): most children are well served through the base of the pyramid, Tier 1, which is quality instruction delivered in the general education class. Increasing levels of intervention, beginning by differentiated instruction in the gen ed class, work to get those "ordinary poor readers" back on track, with monitoring of student progress in response to the interventions. Kids who don't make adequate progress within the general education part of RTI get referred and, possibly, served through special education. Again because their educational needs are for a more specialized or intense amount of instruction, typically delivered in a more individualized way.

This model also applies to behavior issues, which in the states at least actually can have a disability category assigned to them: base pyramid is schoolwide procedures for discipline and management, middle tier is things like personalized in-class behavior contracts and social skills groups if generally available at that site, upper tier is where individualized interventions happen, often involving that dreaded SEN racket. Again with the understanding that solid, consistent teaching practices will reach and adequately impact at least 85% of learners, with the availability of additional support for those who need more or different.

It sounds like this wouldn't sit well with you: do you feel as a classroom teacher that you have the time and resources to do that more intensive intervention with top-of-the-tier students while the rest of your students are also in the class?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
The Rose report uses those 115+ sources to come up with its findings. Would it be normal practice to go back to all those authors and groups to ask if they all agreed with the final result? Genuine question.

If you are going to claim the unanimous support of all 115 sources then, yes, it would be normal to check that they actually agreed with the conclusions.

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

If one of the key findings is that one to one tuition really helps those who are struggling, a diagnosis is a good way to identify many of those who need that help?

No. The best way to find children who need help with reading is to test their reading ability.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I thought she was quite clear. It is your magical one-size-fits-all-solution we're having trouble envisioning. What is this wondrous singular intervention that can cure vision problems, hearing loss, language difficulties AND dyslexia???
I specifically said I wasn't talking about vision and hearing problems. Obviously if the problem is with seeing and hearing not reading then the intervention will be different.

Absolutely. But you have to know what the problem is, before you can decide what the correct intervention is. Until you've done a proper assessment (which would include assessments of sensory impairments), you don't know what you need.

quote:
As ever this is the greatest red herring going. Hearing, vision and mixed sensory difficulties combined account for about 3% of SAP and 5% of statements.

Maybe that's because only 3 to 5 percent of the kids have sensory difficulties. Or maybe it's because no one has bothered to assess most of the kids to see whether that's the problem or b]not.

quote:
[qIt seems highly unlikely that it is teachers who spot most of these, let alone SEN teachers, so trying to turn every SEN case into this sort of problem in order to justify the SEN racket is ridiculous. And that's without the obvious issue that if we did want to spend money on finding these problems then investing in opticians and audiologists, not specialist teachers, would be the obvious way forward

[/qb]
You're right that teachers don't usually pick up on sensory impairments. They usually decide that a child with undiagnosed sensory impairments is lazy, stupid, oppositional, uncooperative, or ill-behaved. That's what it looks like, if you don't know what's going on.

If the "SEN racket" doesn't do proper evaluations for kids having difficulties at school, then you're absolutely right to argue that they're wasting everyone's time and money trying to be sympathetic and supportive without first identifying what it is that needs support. Spend the money on proper evaluations. Then, after you know what the problems are, you can decide whether you need specialist teachers, or occupational therapists, or speech and language pathologists, or opticians, or psychiatrists, or social workers, or what have you. But if all you have is ill-informed but well-meaning guesswork, it's not going to serve anyone.

Especially not the children.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

As ever this is the greatest red herring going. Hearing, vision and mixed sensory difficulties combined account for about 3% of SAP and 5% of statements. It seems highly unlikely that it is teachers who spot most of these, let alone SEN teachers, so trying to turn every SEN case into this sort of problem in order to justify the SEN racket is ridiculous. And that's without the obvious issue that if we did want to spend money on finding these problems then investing in opticians and audiologists, not specialist teachers, would be the obvious way forward.
But the thing is, you're not going to know that until the assessment process.

Are you seriously talking about the SEN process here?

Are you really denying that people discover they have sight and hearing problems without an SEN teacher being involved?

This seems ridiculous.

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

I am the parent of a severely visually impaired child. This was not obvious to us or to his teachers. Visual and hearing impairments may present as learning disabilities or behavior problems (since kids who can't see the board or hear the teacher are prone to getting bored & acting out in class). Because the impairment seems normal to the child they're unlikely to ask for help or even realize they need help (my son certainly didn't). The only way they're going to get the proper help they need is through an assessment process that looks holistically at the student's difficulties.

Or a sight test.

I mean I'm no expert on this but let's see.

On the one hand we have a trained optician doing a test. On the other hand we have people with no medical or opthalmic qualifications labelling a fifth of the school population and swallowing 13% of the education budget on diagnoses that are unnecessary and interventions that do no good.

Which do you think is more likely to quickly and efficiently reveal a sight problem?

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

If the SEN process is not set up to identify and address those sorts of "physical" impairments (although I would suggest that the distinction between "physical" and "mental" impairments is somewhat artificial) than that would significantly impact it's effectiveness. If that's the case, I would humbly suggest that that might be a better place to focus one's concerns, rather that the dismantling of the entire SEN system.

I'm trying to follow the logic here, but it is escaping me. How is thinking of a type of diagnosis that would be useful an argument for keeping the people who are wasting billions on meaningless diagnoses? By all means take money from the SEN racket and put it into children's health services, but don't pretend that the SEN racket is providing those services already or that the people running the SEN racket are qualified to provide those services.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by infinite_monkey:

It sounds like this wouldn't sit well with you: do you feel as a classroom teacher that you have the time and resources to do that more intensive intervention with top-of-the-tier students while the rest of your students are also in the class?

I can't stomach mixed ability teaching from start to finish. The fact that it leaves weak kids struggling is no suprise. However, this is no excuse for setting up a bureaucracy to diagnose those kids as having Special Needs and provide largely useless interventions for them.

As for treating badly behaved kids as if they have a disability...

...well words fail me.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
As for treating badly behaved kids as if they have a disability...

...well words fail me.

Do you feel the same way about treating kids who have a disability as if they were badly behaved?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Absolutely. But you have to know what the problem is, before you can decide what the correct intervention is. Until you've done a proper assessment (which would include assessments of sensory impairments), you don't know what you need.

Are we really just going to assume that even at secondary age it is a real to struggle to notice that a kid can't hear or see?

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
As ever this is the greatest red herring going. Hearing, vision and mixed sensory difficulties combined account for about 3% of SAP and 5% of statements.

Maybe that's because only 3 to 5 percent of the kids have sensory difficulties. Or maybe it's because no one has bothered to assess most of the kids to see whether that's the problem or b]not.

We can speculate indefinitely about undiscovered disabilities, but we know where it leads. It leads to 1 in 5 kids being on the Special Needs register while those children with actual disabilities get a second class service.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
[qIt seems highly unlikely that it is teachers who spot most of these, let alone SEN teachers, so trying to turn every SEN case into this sort of problem in order to justify the SEN racket is ridiculous. And that's without the obvious issue that if we did want to spend money on finding these problems then investing in opticians and audiologists, not specialist teachers, would be the obvious way forward
You're right that teachers don't usually pick up on sensory impairments. They usually decide that a child with undiagnosed sensory impairments is lazy, stupid, oppositional, uncooperative, or ill-behaved. That's what it looks like, if you don't know what's going on.

Oh for pity's sake.

How dare you say that about those children. Once again you are suggesting that we treat the badly behaved as if they have disabilities, and suggesting that we pretend the well behaved don't.

This is a recipe for ignoring all the most vulnerable kids and lavishing attention on those who least deserve it.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

If the "SEN racket" doesn't do proper evaluations for kids having difficulties at school, then you're absolutely right to argue that they're wasting everyone's time and money trying to be sympathetic and supportive without first identifying what it is that needs support.

The problem is that the SEN racket is full of people who think that the academically weak and the badly behaved have secret disabilities.

They are wrong and you are wrong, and that's why in this country we waste an eighth of our education budget on a bureaucracy that pursues this fantasy at the expense of the well behaved and those with real disabilities.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
As for treating badly behaved kids as if they have a disability...

...well words fail me.
Do you feel the same way about treating kids who have a disability as if they were badly behaved?

It doesn't really arise, except in the fantasy world where teachers spend their time yelling at blind kids for losing their library cards, or whatever the appeasers' scenario of the week is.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

As ever this is the greatest red herring going. Hearing, vision and mixed sensory difficulties combined account for about 3% of SAP and 5% of statements. It seems highly unlikely that it is teachers who spot most of these, let alone SEN teachers, so trying to turn every SEN case into this sort of problem in order to justify the SEN racket is ridiculous. And that's without the obvious issue that if we did want to spend money on finding these problems then investing in opticians and audiologists, not specialist teachers, would be the obvious way forward.
But the thing is, you're not going to know that until the assessment process.
Are you seriously talking about the SEN process here?

Are you really denying that people discover they have sight and hearing problems without an SEN teacher being involved?

This seems ridiculous.

Again, I have no experience with the SEN process. But in the US, frequently visual and hearing impairments-- even severe ones like my son's-- are very often first diagnosed as a result of a special ed. assessment. That was the case for my son. Again, for the child it's normal. They have no way of knowing they need to ask for help. The presenting symptoms often are identical to those of a learning disability.

QUOTE]Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:

On the one hand we have a trained optician doing a test. On the other hand we have people with no medical or opthalmic qualifications labelling a fifth of the school population and swallowing 13% of the education budget on diagnoses that are unnecessary and interventions that do no good.

Which do you think is more likely to quickly and efficiently reveal a sight problem?

As I have said several times, I don't know the SEN process. I am arguing for a holistic process which would include visual tests being given by a trained optician and auditory tests being given by a trained audiologist. My argument-- which I think I stated rather clearly in the paragraph immediately below the one you quoted (reprinted below)-- is that if the SEN process does not include that sort of assessment by appropriate professionals, then the solution is not throwing out SEN & assessments, but reforming SEN so that it does provide the proper sorts of assessments.

QUOTE]Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

If the SEN process is not set up to identify and address those sorts of "physical" impairments (although I would suggest that the distinction between "physical" and "mental" impairments is somewhat artificial) than that would significantly impact it's effectiveness. If that's the case, I would humbly suggest that that might be a better place to focus one's concerns, rather that the dismantling of the entire SEN system.
I'm trying to follow the logic here, but it is escaping me. How is thinking of a type of diagnosis that would be useful an argument for keeping the people who are wasting billions on meaningless diagnoses? By all means take money from the SEN racket and put it into children's health services, but don't pretend that the SEN racket is providing those services already or that the people running the SEN racket are qualified to provide those services.

I don't see how anything in the paragraph you quote here could be construed as suggesting that I would "pretend that the SEN racket is providing those services already or that the people running the SEN racket are qualified to provide those services." The paragraph is framed around my acknowledgment that I DON'T know what sorts of assessments SEN provides or who performs them. The entire paragraph was a statement that if SEN does not do that, it should.

Posted by Moth (# 2589) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

Because the impairment seems normal to the child they're unlikely to ask for help or even realize they need help (my son certainly didn't).

I went suddenly and rapidly short-sighted at about 12 years old. no-one in my family wore glasses, so it never occurred to me that I might have a problem with my eyesight. The only 'symptom' was that my marks in French went rapidly downhill, because I couldn't spell the words properly. Unknown to me, this was because I hadn't been able to see them on the board to copy them accurately. As I was a high-attaining child, I managed fine when copying English because I had no need to see every letter - I could recognise the words.

Not one teacher mentioned the possibility of short-sightedness to me, even though it's very common for children to develop this condition at or around puberty. My mother finally figured it out when we went to Wales that summer, and it became clear that I couldn't see the little trains on Mount Snowden!

I am in the middle in this debate. I've seen some pretty flakey diagnoses in my time as a university lecturer, but I certainly do recognise that problems are not always apparent to the sufferer. If I had said that I couldn't see the board, the teacher would have moved me to the front of the class. I didn't say because I didn't know. I just accepted that I 'couldn't get the hang of' French.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

If you are going to claim the unanimous support of all 115 sources then, yes, it would be normal to check that they actually agreed with the conclusions.

Where was that claim of unanimous support made? Genuine question.

What I said was, (with key words now emboldened)

"The Rose Report from 2009 on dyslexia took evidence from more than 115 sources, reports, research projects and learned experts in the field of dyslexia across the world, before recommending that we put into place the 4000 specialist dyslexia teachers. I would find it difficult to believe that more than 115 separate well regarded sources/publications/reports are all wrong"

Weighing up evidence to reach a conclusion and then write a report based on those conclusions does not suggest that all 115 reports etc agreed 100% nor that they had to?

Does that help?

Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Do you feel the same way about treating kids who have a disability as if they were badly behaved?

quote:
It doesn't really arise, except in the fantasy world where teachers spend their time yelling at blind kids for losing their library cards, or whatever the appeasers' scenario of the week is.

It happened to me all the time as a kid, and I'm - like I said - very high-functioning. I wasn't intentionally defiant or disruptive but I often got into trouble for "being rude" in response to questions I misunderstood because of the ASD. Taking things literally, not understanding that you're sometimes expected to lie or say nothing - all of these things can make you appear rude. I have a much better understanding of that now, but at the time it was difficult and a major source of anxiety.

[ 16. September 2010, 16:02: Message edited by: Liopleurodon ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

Just read this letter on the Guardian website:

quote:

In addition to those who are wrongly diagnosed, there is also a large number of children who do not receive a diagnosis and who struggle to achieve in school as a direct result of undiagnosed problems with hearing, vision, motor skills, abnormal brainwave variants and in some cases even mild cerebral palsy.

This growing problem of "missed diagnosis" results from a combination of the phasing out of developmental testing of all children by a school doctor at the time of school entry and the handing over of responsibility for the diagnosis and management of special needs from the domain of medicine to education in the 1980s. This has meant that problems of a medical nature are often overlooked and misdiagnosed as a specific learning difficulty.

Research carried out in UK schools with more than a thousand children five years ago indicated that 48% of five- to six-year-olds and 35% of eight- to nine-year-olds in the sample did not have all the physical skills in place needed to support reading, writing, spelling and maths. A more recent survey carried out in the north of England suggests that the number may be even higher in areas of social deprivation.

It is not only teaching and pastoral care that is needed but a national programme of screening children's developmental status at the time of school entry and monitoring it throughout the educational process, and improved communication and co-operation between the professional domains of education, medicine and educational psychology, to provide effective treatment or remedial intervention.

Sally Goddard Blythe

Director, The Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology

I had forgotten that as a small child I was examined by the school doctor before I started at school. I had pretty much forgotten about it. I also have vague recollections of having a sight test while at infant school. For those of you who aren't familiar with the history of the SEN racket, it was first set up in the early eighties, so if this letter is correct it was roughly at the same time as the school doctor was phased out. It hadn't dawned on me before that the SEN racket had replaced actual medical testing.

All of which puts the claim that we need the SEN racket to diagnose medical problems in a different perspective.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
Where was that claim of unanimous support made? Genuine question.

It is implicit in this argument:

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

I would find it difficult to believe that more than 115 separate well regarded sources/publications/reports are all wrong"

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Do you feel the same way about treating kids who have a disability as if they were badly behaved?

quote:
It doesn't really arise, except in the fantasy world where teachers spend their time yelling at blind kids for losing their library cards, or whatever the appeasers' scenario of the week is.
It happened to me all the time as a kid, and I'm - like I said - very high-functioning. I wasn't intentionally defiant or disruptive but I often got into trouble for "being rude" in response to questions I misunderstood because of the ASD. Taking things literally, not understanding that you're sometimes expected to lie or say nothing - all of these things can make you appear rude. I have a much better understanding of that now, but at the time it was difficult and a major source of anxiety.

I got the cane/ruler/hit by teachers on a very regular basis for being 'rude' and for not doing what they had asked me to do. In each instance, it was autism behaviour that was being punished. In each case, to me, the punishment appeared to be totally random and taught me nothing whatsoever.

If only it was all a fantasy....

I have nightmares even now where I'm back at school and going through the living hell all over again. Whilst this is one personal story, it would suggest (combined with L's response above) that such things do happen.

Amongst friends (and bear in mind that autistic people don't have hundreds of friends), a son who was found to be 80% blind only after 3 years of many teachers telling him that he wasn't paying attention.

Another who turned out to only have sight in one eye who was regularly mocked by his PE teachers for not being able to calculate how to catch a ball. He thought that's how all people saw, so had compensated.

Another who turned out to be 60% deaf, left in the classroom and almost entirely unable to follow proceedings.

Another who has just been kicked out of school now diagnosed with profound dyslexia (too late) after many years of some of teachers making scathing comments about how useless he was.

There are good schools and good teachers and pockets of excellence, of course. I have a number of teachers who are friends of mine who do a truly excellent job in very tough circumstances. But those are the sorts of children who could do with diagnosis, and who I am told need specialised support to get them back on track.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
Where was that claim of unanimous support made? Genuine question.
It is implicit in this argument:

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

I would find it difficult to believe that more than 115 separate well regarded sources/publications/reports are all wrong"

No.

Posted by Carys (# 78) on :

I heard the other day of someone (now probably in his 50s) who wasn't diagnosed as being deaf until he was in secondary school.

Carys

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

Total blindness or deafness might be hard to miss right up through elementary school to high school, but I find it easy to believe of hearing loss or visual impairment. The only educational assessment I ever actually completed was done on a 19-year-old young man who was in our adult-ed program. I ended up recommending him for an eye test and it emerged that this boy, who had been through a series of foster homes and group homes since age 10 or so, had never been taken to have his eyes tested. He needed glasses, probably had for years, and got them. Big improvement in his reading. Hardly an earth-shattering story but I'm sure things like that happen quite often, especially in kids who don't come from the sort of background where regular eye test and doctor's appointments are part of the routine.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

It was a regular conversation with parents - when had the child had their hearing tested or eyesight checked to exclude those problems when children were struggling in school. The next problem was to convince the students to wear the glasses that were prescribed and not lose them all the time.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
All of which puts the claim that we need the SEN racket to diagnose medical problems in a different perspective.

I don't think anyone on this thread has claimed that "we need the SEN racket to diagnose medical problems." I think the claim has been that many, many children have medical problems that affect their learning and behavior, that these problems are frequently not diagnosed or treated, and that children who have these problems should be identified and helped.

I understand that you think SEN is a waste of time and money, and does more harm than good. From what I've learned on this thread, that may well be true. But saying "Dismantle SEN" isn't enough. If you want to dismantle it, what do you want to replace it with? How are the children with sensory, motor, and neurological impairments going to be identified and helped?

If you were to ask me, I'd say that

quote:
a national programme of screening children's developmental status at the time of school entry and monitoring it throughout the educational process, and improved communication and co-operation between the professional domains of education, medicine and educational psychology, to provide effective treatment or remedial intervention.

sounds like a good start. That's something I would think that everyone could get behind.

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
It was a regular conversation with parents - when had the child had their hearing tested or eyesight checked to exclude those problems when children were struggling in school. The next problem was to convince the students to wear the glasses that were prescribed and not lose them all the time.

I have a friend exceptionally bright, whose hearing is and has nearly always* been seriously impaired. She did not get diagnosed until quite late in her school career simply because her mother would not believe it.

Jengie

*She has had several operations for it, following one she had for a while perfect hearing but that did not last. However I suspect the long term impact of the operations has actually been detrimental to her hearing.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Josephine, oldandrew has stated he does not like mixed ability teaching and teaching students with learning and behaviour difficulties in mainstream schools.

If those children are then to be educated (presumably oldandrew thinks they should be educated?) special schools will need to be built and re-established. That is far more expensive than SEN support in mainstream. I have been begged by the Local Authority to put together a package to keep one child in mainstream who really was not coping, because it was going to cost something like 5 to 10 times as much to place that child in a special school as the most expensive things I could dream up to maintain that child in mainstream. We're talking the difference between £10,000 or £20,000 and £100,000. That child was moved to a special school.

I don't think that the SEN system is working particularly well, but there are several things going on here:

secondary school SEN registers tend to be made up of historic decisions - the lists from primary schools. It's very time-consuming reviewing the register regularly
students will be on the register for a range of reasons, it depends on which criteria have been used - academic - considering how far behind they are; involvement of outside bodies or other issues;
more and more students are being moved into mainstream schooling and this is becoming a feedback system - as the special schools cater for the most disabled students, parents refuse to place their children in the special school and insist on mainstream, which leaves the special schools looking less and less attractive to parents.
Government and local authority policy is to move students into mainstream - the places are much cheaper. Ten or fifteen years ago, students with moderate learning difficulties had places in special schools, nowadays more students with severe learning difficulties are ending up in mainstream - and these secondary schools are not equipped to deal with teaching students on P scales
to reduce costs further the hoops that have to be got through to obtain additional funding for students have got more stringent. When I started assessing students for statements the academic requirements for a statement were being 6 or 7 years behind the expected levels for their chronological age. That then extended. That means that a year 7 class full of 11 year olds could have students achieving at average 5 year old level up to 15 year old level. The students getting help were achieving below 5 year old standards, formerly those at 6 year old levels were getting help.
to get support, you have to prove that everything else has been tried and that the student is still not achieving - which again is very time consuming - and that child is falling more and more behind while this goes on.
as you can see from oldandrew's posts, not everyone is comfortable with the need to support these students in mainstream.

If you have a student who has the reading age of a 6 year old in a mainstream classroom (secondary is age 11 to 16 or 18, most text books have a reading age of at least 9 years, most GCSE exams have a reading age of 15) they are likely to get frustrated and act up/out, so lots of provisions have to be put in place, and the schools are expected to do this with less and less funding to do so.

The English system is to put students up chronologically, so whether or not the student can cope they move up through the years and finish at 16 with whatever qualifications they can be got through. Schools are partially measured on the points that students achieve in their exams so many schools are reluctant to put students in for qualifications with a lower points tariff, and if the students are achieving below a certain point the exam board won't give concessions.

Posted by Antisocial Alto (# 13810) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

The English system is to put students up chronologically, so whether or not the student can cope they move up through the years and finish at 16 with whatever qualifications they can be got through.

Doing this and, at the same time, having mixed ability classrooms seems crazy to me. Surely it would be easier on the teachers not to have to deal with such a wide variety of skill levels all at the same time?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

I have been trying to avoid responding to personal anecdotes, simply because scepticism, even about how common a situation is, tends to offend.

However, I'm not going to accept the deluge of hearing and seeing related anecdotes as a good case for an epidemic of undiagnosed sensory disabilities. Stories of late diagnoses are always more memorable than ones of timely diagnosis. That's why we have all, no doubt, heard stories of women giving birth on the toilet. It doesn't mean it's happening all the time.

I'm sure spotting sight and hearing problems might be important with very young children, and that, if you define it strictly enough, you can declare some huge proportion of the student population to have sensory disabilites. Once you've done this then anyone desperate to find alibis for poor behaviour, effort or ability can add this to the list of excuses. But the idea that in the classroom we have an army of students struggling to see or hear but unable to realise it or unwilling to say when it happens, is ludicrous. You only have to listen to the barrage of complaints if the sun obscures the board or the classroom next door is noisy to know that students will usually say when they can't see or haven't heard.

That said, if people are convinced that this is a significant problem (some non-anecdotal evidence would be good) then a screening programme would be a much better idea than leaving diagnosis to specialist SEN teachers on the basis of behaviour or academic difficulties.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Antisocial Alto - most schools set and stream for at least some subjects so not everything is taught in mixed ability - maths and science are pretty much universally taught in sets, English and humanities not always. The problem is that if you end up with a bottom set of *thickies* you can very often create a disaffected group who are disruptive to everyone else, because however you code that classification, it gets known across the school.

In some subjects academic achievement may be immaterial - things like Resistant Material (metalwork and woodwork) and PE (sports) - until it has to be written up and all the literacy problems return.

[ 17. September 2010, 06:49: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I'm not going to accept the deluge of hearing and seeing related anecdotes as a good case for an epidemic of undiagnosed sensory disabilities.

The letter you cited above says

quote:
there is also a large number of children who do not receive a diagnosis and who struggle to achieve in school as a direct result of undiagnosed problems with hearing, vision, motor skills, abnormal brainwave variants and in some cases even mild cerebral palsy.

I don't know whether your "epidemic" and her "large number of children" are in the same ballpark, but it would seem that at least some experts have reason to believe large numbers of children "struggle to achieve in school as a direct result of undiagnosed problems."

If it's not considered cost-effective to screen all children (and it might not be; I certainly don't know how frequent the condition is, or would have to be to make universal screening cost-effective), then screening children who are struggling academically or behaviorally would make sense.

And if it turns out that they're all just ill-behaved brats, then the screening program could be abandoned. But if it turns out the person who wrote that letter is right, and there are large numbers of children, the screening would identify them, and the could get the help they need.

What would be wrong with that?

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I have been trying to avoid responding to personal anecdotes, simply because scepticism, even about how common a situation is, tends to offend.

However, I'm not going to accept the deluge of hearing and seeing related anecdotes as a good case for an epidemic of undiagnosed sensory disabilities. Stories of late diagnoses are always more memorable than ones of timely diagnosis. That's why we have all, no doubt, heard stories of women giving birth on the toilet. It doesn't mean it's happening all the time.

I'm sure spotting sight and hearing problems might be important with very young children, and that, if you define it strictly enough, you can declare some huge proportion of the student population to have sensory disabilites. Once you've done this then anyone desperate to find alibis for poor behaviour, effort or ability can add this to the list of excuses. But the idea that in the classroom we have an army of students struggling to see or hear but unable to realise it or unwilling to say when it happens, is ludicrous. You only have to listen to the barrage of complaints if the sun obscures the board or the classroom next door is noisy to know that students will usually say when they can't see or haven't heard.

Might I point out that you have also only provided us with anecdotal evidence, including the above? And when we requested something more substantial we were accused of "assigning essay questions".

And the anecdotal evidence you supply above would, if anything, imply the opposite of what you suggest. Since again we are not talking about kids with 100% hearing or vision loss going undiagnosed, but rather kids like my own with significant impairment. The kinds of obstacles/ distractions you are describing will be experienced much more acutely by kids with impairment than those with perfect vision/hearing. People with hearing loss are notoriously affected by ambient noise in ways those with perfect hearing are not. Issues of lighting and contrast are much more significant for someone like my son than for those with 20/20 vision.

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
That said, if people are convinced that this is a significant problem (some non-anecdotal evidence would be good) then a screening programme would be a much better idea than leaving diagnosis to specialist SEN teachers on the basis of behaviour or academic difficulties.

And again, that's pretty much what everyone here is suggesting. However, again, since the manifesting symptoms of hearing/vision loss may be identical to those of learning disabilities, having a common point of entry is going to be key. If SEN teachers are not trained to do rudimentary vision & hearing assessments, again, they should be, with of course the understanding that a preliminary tentative pre-diagnosis would be confirmed by a medical professional. (This is the process by which my son's severe impairment was discovered). Such a system would be far less expensive (which seems to be a key concern for you) than having every child experiencing any sort of classroom or learning difficulties immediately assessed by an optician and an audiologist. Which argues again, for reforming/ augmenting/ refining the SEN system rather than dismantling it.

And, while I of course am, because of my particular life experiences, very concerned that undiagnosed hearing and visual impairments be identified, I am uncomfortable with the implication that these sorts of impairments or difficulties are somehow categorically different or "more worthy" than other sorts of learning difficulties. The only real difference is that they happen to be easier to quantify and correct.

Posted by Jemima the 9th (# 15106) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
That said, if people are convinced that this is a significant problem (some non-anecdotal evidence would be good) then a screening programme would be a much better idea than leaving diagnosis to specialist SEN teachers on the basis of behaviour or academic difficulties. [/QB]

*non-specialist alert*
I'm not familiar with education literature. However, there was a piece on In Touch on R4 last week, here for those of us with listen again facilities:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tmt9c#synopsis

highlighting the concern raised by the Association of Optometrists about how many children's failing eyesight is missed by their schools.

Children *should* have access to a free eyesight test which should be carried out soon after they start infant school. However, it's down to the PCTs to decide how this is implemented. In some schools it's done by ?school nurse - I think it was in ours, in some the parents are just told that their right exists, and it's left to them to take it up. It all seems to be a bit patchy.

[anecdote] In Child A's class of 30, 2 children were diagnosed as requiring glasses after the infant school test. Child A's blind-as-a-batness was missed, and no one knew there was a problem 'til she remarked to me on the way to school about the reading scheme: "Mummy, you know when we do ERP? Well I can't see the words, so I have a game I play. I listen to the other children and then repeat the words they say." Prescription initially +4.5, improving now but too late to fix completely. So that's 10% in an ordinary common-or-garden sort of school...[/anecdote]

[ 17. September 2010, 16:06: Message edited by: Jemima the 9th ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Might I point out that you have also only provided us with anecdotal evidence,

You can point it out but it won't make it true. I keep mentioning research only for it to be ignored or dismissed.

If I haven't mentioned non-anecdotal evidence here it's because I don't have any. Perhaps there really is this hidden epidemic of poor sight and hearing. I'm just saying that it doesn't fit my experience and I see no proper evidence for it.

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

And again, that's pretty much what everyone here is suggesting.

The point is that it has been used as an outrageous red herring (if you'll pardon the non-literal terminology).

We were discussing why people who can't read need an SEN diagnosis rather than simply better teaching. Suddenly it turned out they didn't need a conventional SEN diagnosis at all, but a medical one for sensory disabilities. No decent evidence has been put forward for this, but it has been used effectively to change skew things away from the point about being unable to read.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

I don't know whether your "epidemic" and her "large number of children" are in the same ballpark, but it would seem that at least some experts have reason to believe large numbers of children "struggle to achieve in school as a direct result of undiagnosed problems."

I've absolutely no idea how expert she is, I mentioned her letter because it reminded me how things used to be done before the SEN racket.

But as I say, my point on this is that even if the claims are true, it doesn't justify the SEN racket which hardly seems to be an efficient method to screen for sight and hearing problems.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

If it's not considered cost-effective to screen all children (and it might not be; I certainly don't know how frequent the condition is, or would have to be to make universal screening cost-effective), then screening children who are struggling academically or behaviorally would make sense.

It would only make sense if it was probable that kids who were struggling academically or behaviourally were likely to have sight or hearing problems which is the very thing that nobody seems able to demonstrate.

We seem to have this ridiculous situation where people are arguing that a system which labels 1 in 5 students, costs more than an eighth of the education budget and lasts for (at least) 11 years of schooling is somehow justified by the need for the sort of one-off medical (not educational but medical) checks that the people who work in the system aren't actually qualified to do.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

What you call the SEN racket, oldandrew, is an attempt to paper over the cracks when policy on special needs changed to put as many students as possible in mainstream, the institution of an entitlement National Curriculum which means all students have to be taught everything on the National Curriculum and the measurement of schools by results. It's not the SEN departments you should be railing against, but the educational and health decisions that have made them necessary.

Eye and hearing tests are not carried out by the SEN department - they are carried out by the school nurse. All the SEN department does is ask permission from the parents and refer to the school nurse.

Posted by Nicolemrw (# 28) on :

I've been reading this thread, though I don't understand a lot of it, and I haven't commented. But here's one thing I have to ask.

All the people posting here with anecdotal evidence about profound sensory deficits going undiagnosed until fairly high ages. I'm confused. In most cases a simple auditory or optical test would have discovered these at a much earlier age if it had been done.

That these problems aren't being discovered til later in life, isn't this just showing up that there's some serious flaw in the SEN program, which is what oldandrew has been arguing all along?

I mean, my older brother was diagnosed as autistic 47 years ago, when he was 3. The very first thing that was ruled out as the cause of his problems when making the diagnosis (or at least according to my mother, this was before I was born) was the possibility of deafness. He was about 2 at the time. And this was years ago, as I said! Surely things should have improved by this time, rather than devolved to kids not being identified or tested.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
What you call the SEN racket, oldandrew, is an attempt to paper over the cracks when policy on special needs changed to put as many students as possible in mainstream, the institution of an entitlement National Curriculum which means all students have to be taught everything on the National Curriculum and the measurement of schools by results. It's not the SEN departments you should be railing against, but the educational and health decisions that have made them necessary.

If there hadn't been a ready supply of appeasers to run the departments then the policy would have had to be reconsidered. The people in those departments who obstruct teachers, spread bad practice, promote pseudo-science and urban myths and spoil badly behaved kids are to blame for their actions. Identifying non-existent conditions and providing useless or harmful interventions is not papering over the cracks, it's widening them.

Posted by PhilA (# 8792) on :

We have around 30% of students at my school on the SEN register. When I look at some of them, I'm not sure that they do have special educational needs but behavioural difficulties.

On the other hand, one of my Y9s, (13-14) told me the other day he was proud that he had spelled his name right for the first time without help recently...

One of the effects of giving a child a label is that it gives the school an excuse as to why the kid fails. Also, with a large SEN register comes a larger budget, and a more understanding OFSTED if little Billy pulls a blinder and sticks his bum out of the window.

To a certain extent, I am sure that SEN is a bit of a scam and people are miss diagnosed by non medical staff. However, I am also sure that for many kids with various issues, whether that is lacking social skills or any mild disorder, a bit of extra help - a crutch to lean on - can be a massive help to self esteem and confidence if nothing else.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

And you're the person unhappy at personal attacks - yeah right.

What you are calling appeasing I would describe as an attempt to ensure students who are struggling in mainstream are educated. Usually because I know, however much some teachers prefer that student was not in mainstream, that actually there is no other option. The local special school only taught students up to National Curriculum level 2 - that's the expected level for a 7 year old. They wouldn't take any student who was going to achieve more than that by the time they were 16. There were no EBD places locally (in county) for girls, and very few for boys, there were no ASD special schools locally (in county) and the local authority would not send students out of county as that escalated costs.

You'll be surprised to know I fought very hard for some children to be placed in special schools - didn't always win, but I damn well tried. But having not won that battle, and having the local authority place them in mainstream, then for the child's sake we had to make it work. It really wasn't the child's fault that the default was mainstream and placement elsewhere took a lot of battling, on behalf of the primary and secondary school involved and the parents.

And in case you haven't noticed, I have put my money where my mouth is and have been teaching AltEd for the past couple of years. Those year 10 and 11 students whose school placements have failed - so trying to educate those students and help the mainstream school teach the majority.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

What you are calling appeasing I would describe as an attempt to ensure students who are struggling in mainstream are educated.

I think I've explained quite enough times that this isn't what happens.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

In your opinion or experience. Not in mine.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
In your opinion or experience. Not in mine.

Well quite.

For people working in the SEN racket then all their interventions make a lot of difference. But it's the ordinary classroom teachers that end up having to pick up the pieces.

[ 17. September 2010, 20:51: Message edited by: oldandrew ]

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemrw:

That these problems aren't being discovered til later in life, isn't this just showing up that there's some serious flaw in the SEN program, which is what oldandrew has been arguing all along?

Not quite. Oldandrew is arguing that SEN be dismantled, and a single "good teaching method" be used for all under-achieving students. The rest of us are arguing that rather than dismantling SEN, it should be reformed/ improved, so that, for example, such things as sensory problems are screened.

Posted by Antisocial Alto (# 13810) on :

cliffdweller, if you feel OK about sharing more, would you mind telling us a little more about your son's vision trouble? Why wasn't his pediatrician able to catch it?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemrw:

That these problems aren't being discovered til later in life, isn't this just showing up that there's some serious flaw in the SEN program, which is what oldandrew has been arguing all along?
Not quite. Oldandrew is arguing that SEN be dismantled, and a single "good teaching method" be used for all under-achieving students. The rest of us are arguing that rather than dismantling SEN, it should be reformed/ improved, so that, for example, such things as sensory problems are screened.

Absolute fantasy. All I said was that for students who are poor readers there was one single treatment.

The idea that "poor readers" meant the blind and the deaf was a red herring the supporters of the SEN racket came up with.

Acting as if SEN departments mainly deal with physical disabilities, has been a recurring tactic on this thread, and this is just the latest variation on that.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Antisocial Alto:
cliffdweller, if you feel OK about sharing more, would you mind telling us a little more about your son's vision trouble? Why wasn't his pediatrician able to catch it?

Ultimately it was caught by his pediatrician, but relatively late in the game. It was beyond her scope, but she thankfully referred him on to a pediatric optomologist. This was around the time he was beginning to be identified for classroom behavior/ attention problems which turned out to be vision-related.

Part of the problem here in the US is the crappy state of our medical system, which sucks. It's a whole 'nother thread, but you wouldn't believe what we had to go through to get him the help he needed (surgery, consultations with pediatric opthamologist, continued care-- it has literally taken years, and some very savvy "working the system"). But that's another thread.

Part of the problem is, of course, ours. I guessed he probably needed glasses-- everyone in our family has 'em. But I was more focused on his older brother who had more acute classroom problems and things that looked to the untrained eye like vision-related problems. Older son had all sorts of eye-hand coordination difficulties, couldn't catch a ball, reading difficulties, classroom behavior issues. He was the "squeaky wheel" that drew the attention of both school and, I confess, parents. Younger son loved & excelled at sports, could throw & catch a ball, reasonable eye-hand coordination, milder classroom behavior issues. Only symptom there was behind the curve on reading. I-- and the school-- was so focused on older son that it never occurred to me that his problem might be more acute.

Turned out older son had only mild vision problems, easily corrected with glasses. His problem turned out to be more closely related to those "less worthy" non-sensory learning/ processing conditions that oldandrew doesn't seem to think we should be throwing our $$ at. Younger son's uncorrected vision turned out to 20/500. One surgery (another US health care nightmare to arrange), monthly visits to pediatric opthamologist, and 4 years of "patching" later, his vision now corrects to 20/30.

Moral of the story I think is that we can't rely on "squeaky wheels" alone, nor can we rely on kids speaking up and asking for help. (Again, younger son was born with his condition so thought his vision was normal). Learning and sensory disabilities are not always immediately obvious.

Again, I know nothing of SEN or whether it does a good or poor job of screening for these sorts of things. Obviously the US system is deeply flawed. My only point is that a system is needed, that oldandrew's suggestion of dismantling SEN is not a good one.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
[QUOTE]
The idea that "poor readers" meant the blind and the deaf was a red herring the supporters of the SEN racket came up with.

Acting as if SEN departments mainly deal with physical disabilities, has been a recurring tactic on this thread, and this is just the latest variation on that.

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. Again, if SEN does not do this, then SEN should be reformed to provide this. But, however flawed SEN may be (and I have no way of knowing since you have offered us very little info that would be helpful in discerning what the specific problems might be) a system like SEN is the most efficient place to do at least preliminary screening/ diagnosis. If SEN is dismantled, it will need to be replaced by something that serves a similar purpose.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

I'll give an example of the sort of strategy that was seen as appeasement. As a whole school policy it was requested that nobody used hangman as a teaching tool - it can be used as a starter to teach odd spellings or revise new vocabulary. The reason was that there were three students in the school who had seen their fathers hang themselves, different families, and still lived in the same homes.

Now is that appeasement to mollycoddle badly behaved students or an attempt to support students who were struggling with their home situations?

Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :

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. I don't know if your SEN deals with Irlen's syndrome or not. I don't even know if you would consider it a physical disability or not. But it does cause people difficulty in reading.

***Personal anecdote alert***
I was diagnosed in elementary school with dyslexia. I was over diagnosed and put into a special ed. class that was way under my ability level(the next year I was diagnosed the other direction and placed in a gifted and talented class). I have had teachers fawn over me and teachers who thought I was stupid(I'm talented that way). I have since been informed that most dyslexics have Irlen's syndrome. Just this week I was looking at a difficult to read form in the coaching offices. On the way out to the field I looked at the form again with my blue shaded sunglasses on and found the same difficult to read form clear and much easier.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
All I said was that for students who are poor readers there was one single treatment.

Which is?

Posted by Gurdur (# 857) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Carys:
I heard the other day of someone (now probably in his 50s) who wasn't diagnosed as being deaf until he was in secondary school.

Carys

This used to happen far more often than you would think - deaf or hearing-disabled children were often not diagnosed as such in primary schools, and treated as simply slow-learners.

Deafness in only one ear - say just the usual 60dB hearing-loss resulting from a perforated ear-drum (resulting from glue-ear, chronic middle-ear infection) - is quite enough to handicap a child in school very severely, and it can go undiagnosed very long, typically till sometime in secondary school.

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

posted by PhilA

quote:
One of the effects of giving a child a label is that it gives the school an excuse as to why the kid fails. Also, with a large SEN register comes a larger budget, and a more understanding OFSTED if little Billy pulls a blinder and sticks his bum out of the window.

According to Zoe Williams, writing in the Guardian diagnosing children with special educational needs does not obtain additional funding for the school.

Posted by Apocalypso (# 15405) on :

I have been straining to stay away from this thread. I am now doomed.

I'm not a teacher, but a designer of services in an agency that helps, or at least claims to help, adults with multiple disabilities (physical, sensory, cognitive, and/or psychiatric) live allegedly "normal" lives in community settings.

My case load takes up where students with diagnosed disabilities "age out" of public (US) education at 21 years of age. My contact with the US equivalent of SEN (where I live it's called SPED)consists of meeting with the student, his/her family, and his/her "team" (the assemblage of specialists, therapists, educators, etc. who work with the student through the school district) beginning when s/he is referred to us four-to-six months before s/he "transitions" into adult services. Experience has taught me to request substantial observation time in the classrooms of referred "transitioning" students.

People actually eligible for adult disabilities services where I live are not folks with wide variations in aptitudes, or uneven maturation rates, or atypical learning styles. I am not trivializing these situations, which can cause immense complications in living for those who have them; I am simply pointing out that someone with a condition like dyslexia has a different set of frustrations, obstacles, and difficulties to contend with than someone who is, say, profoundly deaf, moderately retarded, and uses a wheelchair. We are talking here about people anyone would immediately recognize as clearly and significantly disabled.

While I suspect that this is not what oldandrew means by "mixed ability" classrooms, my observation time in various public high schools in my state leads me to conclude that my state's current methods for dealing with children who have disabilities AND "learning difficulties" is a complete and utter unworkable crock.

Here's why:

1. "Mainstreaming," so-called: this is the practice of placing students with mild, moderate, and profound disabilities of all kinds together in the classroom with so-called "typical" students.

The theory, as I understand it, is that since children with disabilities suffer from social isolation from their peers (and resultant outright discrimination in adulthood) when segregated into separate SPED classrooms, they will do better academically as well as socially if surrounded by "typical" children who are unwittingly recruited as role models for them. (Why it never seems to occur to anyone that possibly the "typical" children and their parents might prefer to be offered some choice in this matter I can't say.) "Typical" children are meant to benefit from this arrangement by becoming some sort of "peer teachers," which allegedly reinforces their own learning. Also, they benefit by becoming more accepting of and compassionate toward their disabled peers.

The last "mainstreamed" classroom I visited, about 4 months ago, was a zoo. There were 34 students in a high school physics class. Two students were using wheelchairs at lab "benches" they could barely reach, as none had been made handicap-accessible for them. (There were, in fact, benches for only 24 students; several students just stood around gawping.)

Another student (mostly) sat with an aide in the back of the room with crayons and a coloring book; the aide was attempting to get this student to focus on and respond to the word "red" by getting him to pick up a red crayon to use on the coloring book, which I guess is a form of physics if you happen to have a low IQ plus autism; this was my referral.

A fourth student was wandering aimlessly and clumsily around the classroom, bumping into benches and other students, shaking his head and flapping his hands and occasionally making high-pitched sounds that might have been words; I couldn't tell.

The remaining students, under the direction of the physics teacher, were attempting, despite numerous interruptions and distractions from the wandering student as well as from my guy with the crayons (who would get up periodically and lunge around trying to get away from his aide) to master a lesson having something to do with gasses and pressure.

I was a pretty good student through secondary, post-secondary, and graduate schools, though I took biology and chemistry rather than physics in high school. When the lesson was over, I could not have told you a thing about those gas pressures. Admittedly, I was more focused on young Mr. Red Crayon than the lesson, but still . . .

I stayed right through the passing bell, to see which "typical" students came around to have their learning reinforced by explaining gas pressure to Mr. Red Crayon, or to socialize with or be compassionate toward him. You may have three guesses about the number of students who came back to assist this young man to his next class; the first two guesses do not count.

It's possible that mixed-ability classes achieve more success than this mainstreamed class did; I wouldn't know. I only know that this situation is pretty typical of all the mainstreamed classes I have visited in the last five years, and it's a disaster. As far as I can see, this situation does no social, academic, or any other kind of good at all for anyone concerned.

2. "Normalization," so-called: When I first entered this field (rather longer ago than my five years' history with my current position), the goal was to get people out of institutions. I still support this goal; institutionalizing people with significant disabilities (or anybody else, as far as I can see) doesn't seem to do them much good. Insofar as a human being is able to make meaningful distinctions and choices, said human being should be encouraged to express and exercise such preferences as s/he has, so long as these aren't illegal and don't interfere with other people's rights and liberties. A human being should be entitled to a reasonable standard of living, as much personal liberty as s/he can manage without endangering self or others, and some measure of ordinary dignity, privacy, and respect. I have observed institutional life at close quarters while "springing" people from same, and rights, liberties, dignity et al. tend to run thin on the ground when you have to operate on the basis of low-bid contracts and economies of scale.

There is, however, such a thing as going to the opposite extreme. Nowadays, we expect people who have trouble remembering to shower or eat to maintain themselves, sometimes with a roommate, sometimes not, in their own (subsidized) apartments. We expect people unable to count, read, or tell time to secure and maintain part-time jobs to supplement their disability payments. The result is the creation of a whole industry (in which I am myself employed) which operates as a kind of disability theater. The world is the "set," the people with disabilities the actors, and behind the scenes are all these stage managers and stage hands, making sure the "actors" shower and dress, eat breakfast, wash up the dishes, and wait for the right bus at the right time to get to "work." At "work" -- that is, at supported employment -- another staff person, paid by an agency like mine, does the actual folding or sweeping or cleaning or what-have-you, while the "actor" looks on, bored and bewildered, but collects a paycheck from the actual employer. The another staff person drives the "actor" home (or makes sure he takes the right bus) and makes sure the "actor" puts together some sort of supper and does the laundry and remembers to go to bed.

You can call it "normalization" all you want; there is NOTHING normal about any of this. It's a whacking huge pretense. It's complicated, cumbersome, and expensive. It keeps a fair number of poorly-educated or recently-arrived-to-this-country people like my staffers employed, and it fills up the time of people who are sufficiently disabled to have trouble filling their time on their own. But what on earth is this all in aid of? Who is it for? What useful end is accomplished by it? Once upon a time, people like my clients -- and for that matter, like my staffers -- would find piece work to do, or jobs on assembly lines. Lowly as such work might be regarded, it was honest work; it generally actually produced something somebody somewhere actually wanted. Work like that is almost nonexistent now. So instead we have all this pretended busy-box make-work playacting which does nothing but fill time and offer the illusion, and I do mean illusion, of a useful, necessary place in the social order.

3. Entitlement: and here is a huge problem.

When this country first enacted the federal act which guaranteed a free, appropriate public education to every child, did anyone imagine that it would place Mr. Red Crayon in a high school physics class?

I don't think I'm being pessimistic in predicting that Mr. Crayon will not learn any physics. He does not read. He makes sounds but so far I have not heard him utter anything I would describe as language. (His parents claim he has a vocabulary of about 10 words. They love him, they are his parents, they want the best for him, and I respect that. But I spent some 20 hours in Mr. Crayon's company in a variety of settings, including one-on-one, and the parents are deluded in believing he has 10 words.) If he can count, he's keeping that to himself. I am by no means certain that he knows his own name. I respect this individual's personal and human rights, and I wish him well, but . . . what the HELL is this guy doing in a HIGH SCHOOL PHYSICS CLASS?

Shall I tell you? Do you really want to know? Because his highly-educated but sadly-hoodwinked parents PLAN TO SEND HIM TO COLLEGE.

Yes.

They have been entitled, through the federal IDEA, to receive services for their son since he was diagnosed, and their plan is to enroll him in the local community college. I hope they understand that they will be footing this bill themselves, but I'm not at all sure they do. Their son will qualify for adult services, but this is a pretty bare-bones prospect compared to what they've been getting; I've been given a budget of 8 hours per week of services for him; he's been getting the equivalent of 40 hours a week under the law from his school district. Those parents are going to claw, scream, and kick for everything they can get.

Moreover, so are the approximately 20 other sets of parents who are also applying for adult services for their sons and daughters, and who will NOT be getting any such services, based on my observations of them.

These are the young men and women who have genuine issues which are not severe enough to qualify for help. These are ALSO young people who have been diagnosed with assorted nebulosities like "non-specific learning disability," a condition which I personally, after considerable experience, translate variously as "child with normal case of adolescent rebellion," "child with lots of energy forced to sit still all day," "child with wacko parents," "child with incompetent or can't-be-bothered parents," or "child who was apparently just born mean and nasty."

Bottom Line: A system which empowers and authorizes the party of the first part to demand the moon, but forces the party of the second part to pay for it, is never going to work. Moreover, a system of education in which one group of students is meant to meet certain group standards while a second set of students is expected to meet individually-designed standards, can only be made to work is you keep the two groups separate.

Harrison Bergeron would be proud.

Posted by infinite_monkey (# 11333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Apocalypso:
The theory, as I understand it, is that since children with disabilities suffer from social isolation from their peers (and resultant outright discrimination in adulthood) when segregated into separate SPED classrooms, they will do better academically as well as socially if surrounded by "typical" children who are unwittingly recruited as role models for them. (Why it never seems to occur to anyone that possibly the "typical" children and their parents might prefer to be offered some choice in this matter I can't say.) ...

The last "mainstreamed" classroom I visited, about 4 months ago, was a zoo...

Moreover, a system of education in which one group of students is meant to meet certain group standards while a second set of students is expected to meet individually-designed standards, can only be made to work is you keep the two groups separate.

Apocalypso, I coordinate an elementary school program which serves students with moderate to severe disabilities (including many junior versions of your Mr. Crayon)in general education classrooms, and my experience of the successes and benefits of inclusive school communities is almost diametrically opposed to yours.

One of my students has severe physical, communicative, and cognitive disabilities--she says more than 10 words, but 80% of them are incomprehensible, and she's operating more or less at a 2-4 year old level. Far from being an "actor" in a role that shouldn't belong to her, she's a central member of her fourth grade classroom community, and her presence enriches her classmates' experience.

Yesterday, her class was reviewing place value concepts to the hundred millions, using a game they played in pairs with number tiles. In advance, the classroom teacher notified inclusion staff of which general education student was struggling the most with the concept: he paired with my student and received 10 minutes of intense 2-on-1 intervention because I worked with him on identifying each place value while my student practiced fine motor skills by lifting and matching the tiles. Today, during writer's workshop, my student worked with a child who is vastly above level--she'd already done all the assignments and chose to do an adapted story with my student because she wanted something more interesting than reading silently while the others finished.

Parents and children at my school aren't initially offered choice in the matter, it's true. But teachers are--and without exception, they choose to have inclusion students, because they've seen the benefits. Having another adult supporting the inclusion students means more chances to do small group and individual instruction: adaptations we use with our IEP students are often helpful for other kids challenged in similar ways. For the half of our classrooms with exceptional students, we are clear with all families that inclusion is a part of their child's classroom: I honestly can't think of a single parent request to transfer out of a class with inclusion kids in it.

I'm not an extremist when it comes to inclusive schooling: I've worked with kids who I feel would be poorly served in general education classrooms, and I've seen instances when adequate supports weren't in place. But, reading your description of the high school class you visited, I wanted to share another example: given supportive partner teachers and adequate resources, mixed-ability and inclusive teaching can and does work.

[ 18. September 2010, 06:33: Message edited by: infinite_monkey ]

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

Was referred to this thread to read Apocalypso's post. [Overused]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

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.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

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

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

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.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

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."

Still, that's only the American Academy of Pediatrics. What do they know?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Was referred to this thread to read Apocalypso's post.

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.

Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :

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.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

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?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

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.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

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.

Posted by Apocalypso (# 15405) on :

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 ]

Posted by Antisocial Alto (# 13810) on :

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]

Posted by markprice81 (# 13793) on :

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.

Posted by infinite_monkey (# 11333) on :

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.

Posted by infinite_monkey (# 11333) on :

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.

Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on :

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.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

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.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

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.

Posted by Apocalypso (# 15405) on :

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).

Posted by JonahMan (# 12126) on :

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?

Posted by Apocalypso (# 15405) on :

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 ]

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

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.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Apocalypso, the English National Curriculum is an entitlement curriculum. All students are supposed to have access to all of it.

Posted by Apocalypso (# 15405) on :

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).

Posted by infinite_monkey (# 11333) on :

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?

Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :

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.

Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :

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.

Posted by markprice81 (# 13793) on :

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.

Posted by Janine (# 3337) on :

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.

Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :

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.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

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).

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

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."

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

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.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

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.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

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 ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

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 ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

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.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

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. ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

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

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

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.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

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.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

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 ]

Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on :

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?

Posted by five (# 14492) on :

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.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

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".

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

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.

Posted by JonahMan (# 12126) on :

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.

Posted by Apocalypso (# 15405) on :

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.

Posted by infinite_monkey (# 11333) on :

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.

Posted by fat-tony (# 13769) on :

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 ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

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.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

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.

Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

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.

quote:
Meta-analysis can never follow the rules of hard science, for example being double-blind, controlled, or proposing a way to falsify the theory in question. It is only a statistical examination of scientific studies, not an actual scientific study, itself.

Well Wikipedia does not think meta analysis is hard science.

[ 19. September 2010, 20:42: Message edited by: rugasaw ]

Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :

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.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

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.

Oh? From that report, (for example)

"Children who are Deaf have severe impairments in their auditory sensory processing,
although technological innovations such as cochlear implants can improve the auditory
sensory information that is available to the brain. It is important to clarify that
cochlear implants do not provide access to the kind of auditory input available to the
non-deaf ear, as only selected frequency channels are transmitted. Although cochlear
implants lead to speech perception benefits, deaf children with implants may still show
atypical developmental trajectories, developing poor language, literacy and number
skills, and impaired social cognition."

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

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.
Oh? From that report, (for example)

"Children who are Deaf have severe impairments in their auditory sensory processing,
although technological innovations such as cochlear implants can improve the auditory
sensory information that is available to the brain. It is important to clarify that
cochlear implants do not provide access to the kind of auditory input available to the
non-deaf ear, as only selected frequency channels are transmitted. Although cochlear
implants lead to speech perception benefits, deaf children with implants may still show
atypical developmental trajectories, developing poor language, literacy and number
skills, and impaired social cognition."

So?

Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

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.

But real science would have proof that it is quackery not just the critique of research and pseudoscience you have presented. If it is truly just a placebo effect then it would be noted in some real science report.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

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.
Oh? From that report, (for example)

"Children who are Deaf have severe impairments in their auditory sensory processing,
although technological innovations such as cochlear implants can improve the auditory
sensory information that is available to the brain. It is important to clarify that
cochlear implants do not provide access to the kind of auditory input available to the
non-deaf ear, as only selected frequency channels are transmitted. Although cochlear
implants lead to speech perception benefits, deaf children with implants may still show
atypical developmental trajectories, developing poor language, literacy and number
skills, and impaired social cognition."
So?

You said in your para above that you had read enough to know that the learning difficulties being referred to in that report weren't related to being hard of hearing, and in the report it says they are. Just thought I'd mention it.

Posted by Apocalypso (# 15405) on :

Also to infinte_monkey:

I side-tracked myself. This is an add-on to the previous post, and you may want to get your blood-pressure meds handy:

After observing the young man I've been discussing, I had to ask, "WHY is this guy, with no or at best only minimal language, taking college-prep h.S. physics, French (he has no discernible English, for pity's sake!), and cultural anthropology?"

After discussions with his team and his parents (who are also his legal guardians, as he has been determined in a court of law to be legally incompetent), I have concluded that the overt reason comes down to his parents' intention to enroll him in college classes.

Why do they want to do this? There is certainly no practical point; it will waste more of the guy's time. Attending college will not render him employable (though it might give my staff who attend with him some Big Ideas about returning to school themselves, which I would encourage). Nor will it make him any safer, more independent, or (since they're talking about a local community college where most students are commuters who do not participate in extra-curriculars) better-connected socially.

Get those BP meds now: my conclusion is this.
These are fairly-well-heeled, well-educated upper-middle-class parents. This, forgive me, bullshit with the college-prep high school track and the community college enrollment is being done largely to make the parents feel better.

I have nothing against their feeling better. If I could do this myself, I would. They have had, and will continue to have, a very tough row to hoe, with too little support. They have had nearly 21 years of this. They are hoping against hope that somehow, the dawn of adulthood for their son will mean some lessening of the extraordinary burdens and struggles they have faced over the years, and they are wanting to be able to face the world -- their friends and relatives and co-workers et. al. -- with some happy news. "He's taking French at school," they'll smile. "He's doing well. He's enrolling in college in January," they'll say. All so that they, and those they engage with, can feel happy and positive about their son who, despite being about as far off the norm as it's possible to get, is leading, in their eyes, an ostensibly "normal" life.

But there are real costs to these endeavors -- costs to taxpayers, costs to teachers, staff, and other students, and costs to Mr. Crayon himself, whose time and whose real learning opportunities are being sacrificed on the altar of making Mom and Dad feel better.

And something else: he's in college-prep classes because the other students and parents in this track are less likely to complain. If Red Crayon were enrolled in gen ed, where he might at least get exposed to material relevant to his ADLs in home ec, those students and their parents, less constrained by upper-middle-class political correctness, would raise the biggest stink you ever had to hold a nose for.

And yet, if he's going to be mainstreamed in high school, that's what he should attend; that's what, over the long haul, would be most useful for him, if we can extend his language capabilities: classes in cooking, shopping, budgeting. This is where an enterprising inclusion teacher can have him circling pictures of apples, bananas, and carrots while the others learn about nutrition, and where a more advanced gen ed student, his/her own assignment done, might help him practice distinguishing among these real objects by color.

Unfortunately, that will not make his parents feel better. So he loses those opportunities, wastes his own time, and the school district's money. And it's bullshit.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

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.

I'm posting this for oldandrew as just one example among many of times where I interpreted his comments as suggesting that SEN does not deal w/ physical disabilities.

We're long down a rabbit trail leading straight to hell at this point, no point going any further if we can avoid it. But I did want to respond to his request.

Posted by infinite_monkey (# 11333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

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.

I was not and am not going to bore you all with the specifics of my training, but I can assure you that special education--even in your dystopian view of it-- has a significantly stronger research base to it than the alternatives you're offering.

Academic interventions used by myself and others in my profession have nothing to do with anybody's "descriptions of making diagnoses". Diagnosis and intervention are two separate processes which inform one another, but it's extremely erroneous to conflate the two.

In terms of whether or not what I do meets your "description of teaching well", perhaps you could point me to where you've provided that. The closest I see is your statement that students with reading issues need

quote:
more time spent being taught to read and practising the skill

which is precisely what students receive, again in the small group setting most conducive to accelerated intervention, when working with me or with any number of my evidently nefarious SEN colleagues.

Most classroom teachers I know readily state that they aren't able to make small group intervention work as intensively or consistently as they'd like due to the need to instruct and monitor the whole group: have you found a way to make it work at the recommended level without support beyond yourself?

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

Apocalypso,
I've been reading your thoughts with a lot of interest and considerable agreement. In a lot of classes and subjects, I was not far off being Mrs Red Crayon, just mimicking what I'm told but with no way to learn it or understand it. Not even if the most gifted teacher in the world spent ten years telling me. Simple stuff, but it might as well be advanced physics. My brain can't learn some things.

Did I feel empowered to sit in those classes? No, I felt embarrassed and confused and in pain from the sensory overload, but I tried anyway, for year after year. Pointlessly. A lesser example, but it gives me an idea that this isn't about empowerment and equality.

Yet, to add a little on what you say, what worries me is what happens to those who are placed in 'special schools'. Some are fortunate enough to find really specialist ones for their particular needs with very specialist teachers and equipment and materials that mean they truly can make progress.

Others, too many others, are put into 'schools-where-we-put-disabled-children', where those who cannot hear against noise are placed in classrooms filled with people screaming. Those who are highly vulnerable are placed in rooms also containing known bullies who target them mercilessly, knowing they can't fight back or speak back. For such children it is just a new form of hell somewhere else. I've met a number who have developed severe mental health issues from trying to cope in such environments.

What's truly needed I think is proper differentiated education in which everyone works together to understand and enable pupils like me and Mr Red Crayon, && for us to find some way to feel like we can contribute to society and be respected and be safe.

I experienced a similar cost-saving plan when a relative of mine was critically ill with a mental health condition that was a threat to her life through repeated suicide attempts and absolutely no sense of danger. They told me that "care in the community" (i.e. dump her at home and send a nurse round once a week), was empowering her. Yup, it empowered her to end up dead. Cost saving to NHS - huge.

Should Mr Red Crayon be in a higher level physics class? Nope. Though there is no reason why specialist schools and mainstream schools cannot share some more appropriate activities together for mutual benefit.

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

I think amber's post illustrates the way in which we are (perhaps wrongly?) conflating and confusing a number of different issues here. Amber, while you may have found yourself completely unable to comprehend a high school physics class, the very fact that you were able to write this post telling us about it (not to mention all the other things you have done in your life since) makes it crystal clear that you are in a completely different category from the young man in Apocalypso's example -- non-verbal and with the mental capacity of a very small child, not to mention poor control of motor skills.

I have found the tangent introduced by Apocalypso extremely interesting, because I agree with Apocalypso's observation that "inclusion" and "mainstreaming" of profoundly developmentally delayed students is often, perhaps usually, done in such a way that it's no help to the disabled child, and detracts from the education of other pupils. (I also agree with infinite_monkey that it can, in some situations, be done well, and tossing everyone back into the "special school" is not the answer, but in general I think mainstreaming has caused more problems than it has solved, and not solved the ones it set out to solve. Data not the plural of anecdote and all that, but I woke up to our morning news this morning to hear a mother being interviewed about her profoundly developmentally delayed son, who used to be so happy when he got to go to the challenging needs classroom and play in the ball pit, and now is miserable because he has been placed in a regular Grade 8 classroom where he's strapped into his chair all day).

However, this is a tangent, although a fascinating one. We've had lots of comments on this thread to the effect that one topic or another is a "red herring," and in fact it's quite OK for threads to go in whatever direction people want to take them. I'm not posting this as a Host or making any official effort to "get back on topic," but amber's post reminded me that the OP asked about the value of diagnosing mild forms of disabilities such as ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and even mental health problems. Nobody doubts that the boy with the red crayon should be diagosed and requires different interventions than a "normal" student; the debate is only over what kind of intervention serves him best. Whereas the sort of student that amber's self-description suggests -- an outwardly "normal" person who, due to various difficulties, has no idea what's going on in Physics class -- is where we started this thread.

Is such a person best served by a diagnosis and various interventions, or are they best served by (and I think this is what oldandrew and a few others have been suggesting), excellent but traditional teaching in a "normal" classroom with strict discipline and high expectations? Or do accommodations need to be made and do they actually help, in such a situation?

Due to my own teaching experience in a non-traditional setting, I'm quite on the fence about this one. I know that such students can succeed brilliantly if they are in an alternative setting and one they have chosen to be in, but I am at a loss to see how the sorts of things we do in my school could be applied in a regular public school classroom.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
Whereas the sort of student that amber's self-description suggests -- an outwardly "normal" person who, due to various difficulties, has no idea what's going on in Physics class -- is where we started this thread.

I believe, strongly, that if a child is generally succeeding in school, there's no need to look for a diagnosis of anything. The child may be more distractable than average, or quirky, or whatever, but they're doing okay. A diagnosis requires a clinically significant impairment. Kids that are succeeding don't have that.

But when kids are failing, for whatever reason, it's worth trying to figure out why.

Some people think they know the reason before the question is even asked: the child is lazy, bad, ill-tempered, bratty, or stupid. Or their parents are inept and indulgent. Or the teachers are incompetent.

And sometimes, those "diagnoses" may be accurate. But far more often, there is a real impediment that is preventing the child from succeeding. It is in everyone's best interests to determine whether that is true in any given instance. Is this child disrupting French, or failing math, or wandering out of the science class because they're bad or because there is an underlying problem that needs to be identified and dealt with?

You don't know until you look. It's important to look, no matter how normal the child seems otherwise.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
I think amber's post illustrates the way in which we are (perhaps wrongly?) conflating and confusing a number of different issues here. Amber, while you may have found yourself completely unable to comprehend a high school physics class, the very fact that you were able to write this post telling us about it (not to mention all the other things you have done in your life since) makes it crystal clear that you are in a completely different category from the young man in Apocalypso's example -- non-verbal and with the mental capacity of a very small child, not to mention poor control of motor skills.

Trudy, I agree with you on how it looks now and the differences between what I can do now and what Mr Red may be able to do when he's my age. May I add to that discussion, to think about the 'middle ground', though?

Up to age 10 I had no concept that I was a person, and spent most of my time rocking in a corner or staring mutely into space or lining up things, unable to make conversation with other people because I really didn't know what they were or how to use words to say things. Absolutely obsessed with inappropriate things, spent a lot of time in hospital with various consultants who were trying not to worry about what I'd tried to eat (or worse). Completely unable to join in social events. Fell off bikes, couldn't use scissors properly, dropped everything. Still can't throw a ball, still fall off bikes now.

At that early stage, the difference between me and Mr Red Crayon would not have been very clear, other than that I sat very still and very quietly in classes so no-one hit me.

The learning difficulty he has would be separate to the physical difficulties (as is true for me - mine is a combination of autism, dyspraxia, arthritis, spinal scoliosis and sensory difficulties, combined with other general health issues that take their toll (another phrase I can understand because there used to be toll bridges and it does feel like I have to pay heavily for each day)).

Put me in a room with a small child and a simple child's crossword puzzle and the small child will win every time, even now. Ask me to identify who you are, after meeting you 20 times, and I still won't have a clue. If a complete stranger approaches me and tells me that I'm supposed to give them a cheque for £10,000 and has even a slightly plausible reason, I'll believe them. Even at my age, and doing what I do. If I'm overloaded with sensory input, I revert to the sort of behaviour that Mr Red is doing - unable to find even the simplest word for something or work out what to do with objects. The connections between the bits of my brain are very, very dodgy and can unlink almost instantly.

It's why I have to work with a specialist team and absolutely cannot work alone or live alone.

It's absolutely true that people like me have specific learning difficulties rather than generalised ones. But the question of "what the heck do we do with people with learning difficulties" seems to apply to all of us. Only 15% of people like me ever manage to have a job of any sort, no matter how appalling, badly paid or badly bullied they are within it.

It's a heck of a problem, and why I do the work I do to try to make a bit of a difference here and there. Often not very adequately but I give it a go [Big Grin]

thanks to the help of many many lovely people.

It's those 85+ % of people like me/others with other specific forms of learning disability that I worry about hugely in classrooms. To us, it's could well be just a jumble of shapes and colours and sounds, with occasional pain and fear and embarrassment thrown in.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
You said in your para above that you had read enough to know that the learning difficulties being referred to in that report weren't related to being hard of hearing, and in the report it says they are.

No, it doesn't.

(Well not unless you are using one definition of "not related to" for summing up my position and another definition for your description of what the report says.)

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:
Well Wikipedia does not think meta analysis is hard science.

You appear to have ignored everything that Wikipedia said about Meta-analysis except for one badly phrased bit from the section entitled "weaknesses".

There's no getting away from the fact that meta-analyses are crucial in medical research, dismissing them out of hand with quotations from Wikipedia is simply to opt out of any serious consideration of the medical evidence.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:

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.

Fine, I will ignore your opinion on this then.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

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.
I'm posting this for oldandrew as just one example among many of times where I interpreted his comments as suggesting that SEN does not deal w/ physical disabilities.

For pity's sake.

Do you not understand the difference between saying the SEN system does not (and is not qualified to) screen for physical disabilities, and saying it does not deal with physical disabilities in any way?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by infinite_monkey:
I was not and am not going to bore you all with the specifics of my training, but I can assure you that special education--even in your dystopian view of it-- has a significantly stronger research base to it than the alternatives you're offering.

You mentioned it, as if something in it implied I was wrong.

Is this the case or not?

quote:
Originally posted by infinite_monkey:

Academic interventions used by myself and others in my profession have nothing to do with anybody's "descriptions of making diagnoses".

In which case you appear to have accepted the point I was making, and I am left baffled as to why you behaved as if you disagreed with me.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
However, this is a tangent, although a fascinating one. We've had lots of comments on this thread to the effect that one topic or another is a "red herring," and in fact it's quite OK for threads to go in whatever direction people want to take them.

That wasn't a claim that it was off-topic for the thread, but that it was an attempt to divert discussion from my argument. Not really a big deal, except where it creates a straw man, but when it happens again and again, it becomes a bit frustrating and people start to look habitually evasive. It reached the point where I thought I should start pointing it out whenever it happened. I'd rather people didn't reply to me at all, than repeatedly reply, but in such a way as to distract attention from the point I'm actually making.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Some people think they know the reason before the question is even asked: the child is lazy, bad, ill-tempered, bratty, or stupid. Or their parents are inept and indulgent. Or the teachers are incompetent.

And sometimes, those "diagnoses" may be accurate. But far more often, there is a real impediment that is preventing the child from succeeding. It is in everyone's best interests to determine whether that is true in any given instance. Is this child disrupting French, or failing math, or wandering out of the science class because they're bad or because there is an underlying problem that needs to be identified and dealt with?

None of us are saints, Josephine, particularly not when we are teenagers. Looking for the "underlying problems" to explain normal human weaknesses is a fool's errand. Accepting the ordinary faults of children is not a matter of pointing fingers and saying "that child is bad", it's a matter of saying "there, but for the grace of God, go I". When you do bad things yourself, do you think that it is a result of an "underlying problem"? If not, then why think that about children?

Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :

What puzzles me about the story of Mr. Red Crayon and his parents' aspirations for him to go to community college is this: does community college have the same mandate for inclusion that the K-12 schools do? And if not, how on earth is he going to pass his courses?

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Some people think they know the reason before the question is even asked: the child is lazy, bad, ill-tempered, bratty, or stupid. Or their parents are inept and indulgent. Or the teachers are incompetent.

And sometimes, those "diagnoses" may be accurate. But far more often, there is a real impediment that is preventing the child from succeeding. It is in everyone's best interests to determine whether that is true in any given instance. Is this child disrupting French, or failing math, or wandering out of the science class because they're bad or because there is an underlying problem that needs to be identified and dealt with?
None of us are saints, Josephine, particularly not when we are teenagers. Looking for the "underlying problems" to explain normal human weaknesses is a fool's errand. Accepting the ordinary faults of children is not a matter of pointing fingers and saying "that child is bad", it's a matter of saying "there, but for the grace of God, go I".

[emphasis added]
If you're talking about normal weaknesses and ordinary misbehavior, I would agree -- there's no need to look for underlying problems for normal, ordinary behavior. If a child's behavior is within the normal range for their age and developmental stage, and if they respond appropriately to normal, effective methods of teaching and behavior management, there's no reason to do anything else.

But children waving knives around, or knocking desks over, or ripping up their books, or cursing out the teacher, or throwing a tantrum that lasts for two hours and forty minutes, is not normal, ordinary, developmentally appropriate misbehavior for school-aged children in the part of the world I live in. Failing a math class when they're spending hours on their homework every night and their IQ and achievement test scores are both at least two standard deviations above the mean doesn't suggest a normal weakness. Curling up on the floor in a fetal position trembling and unable to speak doesn't reflect an ordinary fault.

When children can't cope in the classroom in a developmentally appropriate way, when teachers are using appropriate teaching methods and behavior management techniques, it suggests that something out of the ordinary is going on. And it is the responsibility of the adults to investigate and determine what is going on, and then take care of it.

If the adult who is aware of the difficulty can't investigate on their own, they can refer -- to doctors, or child protective services, or whoever they think can figure it out and get the child the help they need.

Posted by PataLeBon (# 5452) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
What puzzles me about the story of Mr. Red Crayon and his parents' aspirations for him to go to community college is this: does community college have the same mandate for inclusion that the K-12 schools do? And if not, how on earth is he going to pass his courses?

Speaking as someone who has a diagnosed Learning Disability, I believe they have to follow some modifications.

I remember starting college with a LD in Spelling. I read above level, I spell WAY below. I told the TA that I had an LD in my English Comp class and she quickly asked me what kind of modifications I would need. I told her that I needed to be able to use a dictionary, and if my essays were unreadable, the ability to redo them (yeah, my handwriting is BAD also, and I also had handwriting modifications...).

She told me that dictionaries were no problem as she wanted all of us to spell correctly, and even though most of the writing was to be done in class, all final drafts needed to be typed. I think she was relieved.

(Of course, when I was diagnosed, there was, according to my parents, a real discussion of what kind of instruction and modifications I would need. Those discussions were based on what I would need to function in the "real world" and not "the classroom". Therefore, I was excused from taking spelling tests, and was allowed to redo or type assignments. The comment was that teaching me how to look up words that I didn't know how to spell and learning how to type were better uses of instructional time as they were good skills for life. I have yet to take a spelling test since I left school [Biased]

)

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by PataLeBon:
Speaking as someone who has a diagnosed Learning Disability, I believe they have to follow some modifications.

They do, but the modifications are as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act, no the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act.

IDEA requires children with disabilities to receive educational benefits commensurate with those received by their non-disabled peers. ADA requires only that schools (and workplaces and public places generally) provide reasonable accommodations so that people with disabilities have equal access to programs and facilities.

It's a very different standard. I doubt that Mr. Red Crayon would be considered otherwise qualified for French classes at a community college.

Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
...
Is such a person best served by a diagnosis and various interventions, or are they best served by (and I think this is what oldandrew and a few others have been suggesting), excellent but traditional teaching in a "normal" classroom with strict discipline and high expectations? Or do accommodations need to be made and do they actually help, in such a situation?

I want to make clear that I completely support high expectations academically and behaviorally. I also do not believe this is necessarily in opposition to modifications. Examples of modifications that I have absolutely no problem with are preferential seatting, extra time to complete assignments(can we say tutorials), and positive reinforcement.

Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:
Well Wikipedia does not think meta analysis is hard science.
You appear to have ignored everything that Wikipedia said about Meta-analysis except for one badly phrased bit from the section entitled "weaknesses".

There's no getting away from the fact that meta-analyses are crucial in medical research, dismissing them out of hand with quotations from Wikipedia is simply to opt out of any serious consideration of the medical evidence.

If you wish to accept the report you linked to that included meta-analyses you might wish to read it for understanding. The report actually states the problem is poor quality and limited number of studies. So I think that report does not really say much. Personally I would like to see better independent research done.

Posted by fat-tony (# 13769) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
...
Is such a person best served by a diagnosis and various interventions, or are they best served by (and I think this is what oldandrew and a few others have been suggesting), excellent but traditional teaching in a "normal" classroom with strict discipline and high expectations? Or do accommodations need to be made and do they actually help, in such a situation?
I want to make clear that I completely support high expectations academically and behaviorally. I also do not believe this is necessarily in opposition to modifications. Examples of modifications that I have absolutely no problem with are preferential seatting, extra time to complete assignments(can we say tutorials), and positive reinforcement.

The issue is that many of these strategies involve a lowering of high expectations academically and behaviorally, often not only for the student involved but, through learned behaviour, the entire class. Here's some that have always stuck in my mind.
The time out card,
Immunity from detentions,
Can swear at you once a lesson
Not expected to do any homework
Not expected to read
Not expected to wear uniform
Allowed to hit Teaching Assistants(not normally official policy but seen enough schools where it was definitely unoffical policy)
Allowed to swear continuously at classmates.
Allowed one "touch" of a classmate...
Being allowed to go to the toilet to masterbate once per lesson. (more if teacher is blonde female)..more importantly being allowed to announce to classmates this is where child is going.
Allowed to lie on class tables and cluck like chicken.

These are all things that happen in SEN dept as a result of diagnosing "learning difficulties" in some children. Do you think millions should be spent to encourage this?

fat-tony

Posted by urbanbumpkin (# 13505) on :

I spent a year working as a (very unqualified, which may underline my point) TA in a special school, where with one kid in particular, very little was expected. He was allowed to shout, scream, hit kids, hit TA's/Teachers, swear, make provocative comments, masturbate...all because "Michael had problems". Don't get me wrong, Michael did have problems, but he's also learnt how to wrap the whole school round his little finger.

Then he got a new form tutor, who was very clear that this was unacceptable. And without bullying te kid, remarkable changes happened. Michael often got frustrated in lessons. It was acceptable to quietly ask for help, or to move to sit at the back and have a minute or two out - it wasn't acceptable to throw chairs. Just as one example. It opened my eyes a lot to the victimisation of special needs kids...it was remarkable how much this lad changed just with the expectations being a little higher.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by fat-tony:
The issue is that many of these strategies involve a lowering of high expectations academically and behaviorally, often not only for the student involved but, through learned behaviour, the entire class. <snip> These are all things that happen in SEN dept as a result of diagnosing "learning difficulties" in some children.

Are these accommodations part of behavior plans that are designed to reduce the frequency of target behaviors? For example, the child who is permitted to swear once per lesson -- did he used to swear non-stop, with a measurable goal (with deadlines) to change the behavior so that he doesn't swear at school at all, with once per day being the current target? Or is the swearing being permitted as temporary step in a behavior plan that is designed to eliminate hitting as the immediate goal, with the elimination of swearing coming later?

Likewise with the time-out card -- is it part of a plan for increasing the child's ability to monitor his own behavior, recognize when he is becoming dysregulated, and make appropriate choices (that don't involve throwing or hitting)? Does the plan have measurable goals or objectives?

And for children not expected to read in class -- is that a temporary accommodation that's provided for a child to allow them to maintain access to the rest of the curriculum while they receive specialized instruction in reading? Or is the school not teaching them to read at all?

In the US, such accommodations would be implemented as part of an IEP. The IEP has to have measurable goals and objectives, and if the child does not make adequate progress, the school has to amp up what they do to help the child make progress -- including, if necessary, moving them from a general education setting to a more restrictive environment. And if the child's behavior is a safety issue (certainly hitting is a safety issue), the child will be placed in a more restrictive environment very quickly.

Again in the US, the accommodations you describe would not be acceptable outside the context of an appropriate IEP and behavior intervention plan. In fact, one case where the school decided not to teach a dyslexic child to read, because it was easier to simply provide readers, books on tape, etc., the parents took the school district to court and won. Readers, books on tape, etc., are permitted only as a temporary bridge to independence. Teaching the child to read is required.

It's the same with behavioral difficulties. The school can't just allow maladaptive behaviors without having a plan in place to change the child's behavior.

Is that not how it works in the UK?

Posted by fat-tony (# 13769) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
Originally posted by fat-tony:
The issue is that many of these strategies involve a lowering of high expectations academically and behaviorally, often not only for the student involved but, through learned behaviour, the entire class. <snip> These are all things that happen in SEN dept as a result of diagnosing "learning difficulties" in some children.
Are these accommodations part of behavior plans that are designed to reduce the frequency of target behaviors? For example, the child who is permitted to swear once per lesson -- did he used to swear non-stop, with a measurable goal (with deadlines) to change the behavior so that he doesn't swear at school at all, with once per day being the current target? Or is the swearing being permitted as temporary step in a behavior plan that is designed to eliminate hitting as the immediate goal, with the elimination of swearing coming later?

Likewise with the time-out card -- is it part of a plan for increasing the child's ability to monitor his own behavior, recognize when he is becoming dysregulated, and make appropriate choices (that don't involve throwing or hitting)? Does the plan have measurable goals or objectives?

Which of the behaviours listed above do you think is appropriate for a classroom?

Would you be happy if your child was the one being "touched"?

Would you be happy if your child was the one sworn at?

Do you think that teachers should be sworn at with no consequences for the child?

Do you think female teachers should be placed in a situation where a child has to relieve themselves after being taught by them?

Would you like it if your friend was the teaching assistant assaulted on a daily basis?

But the main question I want an answer too is does anyone on this thread actually think that all of the behaviour is appropriate to a classroom in a "bog-standard" comprehensive?

fat-tony

Posted by fat-tony (# 13769) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
Originally posted by fat-tony:
The issue is that many of these strategies involve a lowering of high expectations academically and behaviorally, often not only for the student involved but, through learned behaviour, the entire class. <snip> These are all things that happen in SEN dept as a result of diagnosing "learning difficulties" in some children.
Did he used to swear non-stop, with a measurable goal (with deadlines) to change the behavior so that he doesn't swear at school at all, with once per day being the current target?

Does the plan have measurable goals or objectives?

Sorry for double post but am curious about this point.

Just to highlight I don't know if the apparently prefect American system has this but even though all the things mentioned would have perfectly measureable targets...when the child invariably missed them they would just get written down as "ongoing"?

fat-tony

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by fat-tony:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Are these accommodations part of behavior plans that are designed to reduce the frequency of target behaviors?
Which of the behaviours listed above do you think is appropriate for a classroom?

I didn't say that any of the behaviors was appropriate for a classroom. I asked whether the accommodations are provided as part of a behavior intervention plan designed to eliminate the problem behaviors. If I thought the behaviors were appropriate, I wouldn't be asking whether there was a plan in place that was designed to eliminate them.

So would you mind answering my question?

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by fat-tony:
Just to highlight I don't know if the apparently prefect American system has this but even though all the things mentioned would have perfectly measureable targets...when the child invariably missed them they would just get written down as "ongoing"?

Are you asking me how the American system works, or telling me how the UK system works? Or something else?

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

quote:
Originally posted by fat-tony:
But the main question I want an answer too is does anyone on this thread actually think that all of the behaviour is appropriate to a classroom in a "bog-standard" comprehensive?

If all of that were happening in any ordinary classroom it would be completely wrong. If some of these things were happening even in isolation and regardless of context they would also be unacceptable (violence, swearing, subjecting the staff or anyone else to what is effectively harassment etc). A few of these things could be plausible accommodations depending on the circumstances. Off the top of my head:

Time Out card could be OK if it meant that the person had to remove themselves to a designated (and preferably a supervised) place when otherwise they were going to explode in uncontrolled misbehaviour and disrupt the rest of the class. A classmate of one of my daughters has such a card and goes to a specified room if she uses it, generally to the relief of the rest of the class. I don't know what her diagnosis is; Pottagette #2's informal assessment is that this child is a "jerk".

Immunity from detentions could be OK if the child's circumstances made detentions inappropriate (for instance if they had some known and genuine other commitment outside of normal school hours), and so long as some other sanction were available instead. I went to a traditional and fairly strict grammar school in the 1970s, well before there was ever "a SEN Racket", and fully half of us had such immunity because if we didn't catch the contracted bus at 3.30 we had no safe way of getting home. The replacement sanction was enough supplementary homework to wipe out an entire Saturday.

Having followed this thread with interest my conclusion so far is that the whole SEN system is horribly broken and needs to be fixed or replaced with something less flawed and open to abuse. I don't think the option of just scrapping it and having nothing in its place at all is a good one. Mainstream schools DO in fact contain some children with disabilities which limit their ability to access education and who do in fact need some help or accommodation to be able to do that.

This was the case even way back in my pre-SEN schooldays when (as the OP mentions) schools were altogether less inclusive and most children with an overt disability were shunted off to special schools. There were then children in mainstream school who really struggled; there would be more now. So I would think that we do need a provision of some kind. Tony, do you have thoughts on what sort of provision might actually help those who need it whilst leaving teachers to exercise their professional judgement and expertise to cope with the majority who don't? How might a better system operate?

Posted by fat-tony (# 13769) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
Originally posted by fat-tony:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Are these accommodations part of behavior plans that are designed to reduce the frequency of target behaviors?
Which of the behaviours listed above do you think is appropriate for a classroom?
I didn't say that any of the behaviors was appropriate for a classroom. I asked whether the accommodations are provided as part of a behavior intervention plan designed to eliminate the problem behaviors. If I thought the behaviors were appropriate, I wouldn't be asking whether there was a plan in place that was designed to eliminate them.

So would you mind answering my question?

Would it make a difference? The target should immediately be no swearing/hitting/w~~nking. Anything less is just horsetrading.

Surely no plan should allow that behaviour to occur in a classroom?

No system should condone that behaviour.

It's about providing a safe environment condusive to a class learning. And those plans being in place do not allow for that.

My question in the other post was about what happens in the american system when behaviour targets aren't met. Over here the standard plan for Senco's is to write "ongoing".

Pottage, the only thing that everyone in education seems to agree on is that the system doesn't work. Unfortunately when you suggest rebuiling it you get a whole host of contradictory plans. To answer your question on what would be a better system for SEND is linked to that.

fat-tony

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

If you're talking about normal weaknesses and ordinary misbehavior, I would agree -- there's no need to look for underlying problems for normal, ordinary behavior.

Your goalposts have just shifted. A post ago it was only if they were "generally succeeding in school" that we didn't need to look for underlying problems. Far from accepting normal weaknesses or ordinary misbehaviour you were claiming that "when kids are failing, for whatever reason, it's worth trying to figure out why" and arguing that while normal motives and circumstances may sometimes be responsible for the problem "far more often, there is a real impediment that is preventing the child from succeeding".

The difference between these two positions is the difference between a school able to refer students for expert counselling or to a doctor, and the all-pervasive SEN system that searches for kids to label and interventions to make because no child can possibly be unpleasant, stupid, lazy, or weak in one subject and not another. It is the difference between trusting teachers for their experience of children, or making up a pseudo-scientific explanations to justify short-comings and demonising teachers for not accepting these excuses.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by fat-tony:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
Originally posted by fat-tony:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Are these accommodations part of behavior plans that are designed to reduce the frequency of target behaviors?
Which of the behaviours listed above do you think is appropriate for a classroom?
I didn't say that any of the behaviors was appropriate for a classroom. I asked whether the accommodations are provided as part of a behavior intervention plan designed to eliminate the problem behaviors. If I thought the behaviors were appropriate, I wouldn't be asking whether there was a plan in place that was designed to eliminate them.

So would you mind answering my question?
Would it make a difference?

Would you mind answering my question?

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

If you're talking about normal weaknesses and ordinary misbehavior, I would agree -- there's no need to look for underlying problems for normal, ordinary behavior.
Your goalposts have just shifted. A post ago it was only if they were "generally succeeding in school" that we didn't need to look for underlying problems. Far from accepting normal weaknesses or ordinary misbehaviour you were claiming that "when kids are failing, for whatever reason, it's worth trying to figure out why" and arguing that while normal motives and circumstances may sometimes be responsible for the problem "far more often, there is a real impediment that is preventing the child from succeeding".

I haven't shifted goalposts, although it's more than possible that we're using the same words to mean different things, and so not understanding each other.

As I understand the words, normal weaknesses and ordinary misbehavior are not the same thing as failure. Normal weaknesses and ordinary misbehavior are not incompatible with being generally successful at school.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

quote:
Originally posted by fat-tony:
The issue is that many of these strategies involve a lowering of high expectations academically and behaviorally, often not only for the student involved but, through learned behaviour, the entire class. Here's some that have always stuck in my mind.
The time out card,

This one is recommended by CAMHS, specialist teachers and ed psychs. They can work, but they can be abused. We had a couple of students who didn't have their own time out cards, but teachers who taught them did - and a couple of teachers abused those! When the student arrived in the teacher's lesson, the student was immediately sent out.

quote:
Immunity from detentions,

Buses or taxis at a specific time that mean the students can't get home or students who were known to be thrashed at home if they had a detention, as in Social Care involvement for abusive home situations - those students got to do their detentions and break and lunchtimes. My attitude was that they did the crime they did the time, unless they were getting a detention for coming in late for a lesson when the student had had a good reason (eg appointment with specialist teacher)

quote:
Can swear at you once a lesson

Nope, never written that one into an IEP

quote:
Not expected to do any homework

Seen that one, parents would try for that one. The student with speech and language difficulties related to Cerebral Palsy (and difficulties walking) had that one in his IEP when I arrived. He was on P levels for English but level 3 for maths and science, so too able for the local special school. I am afraid I continued the removal from MFL and used the time to support homework. He liked being treated the same way as his classmates and would come to lunchtime clubs to make sure his homework was done - and willingly went to detentions if he didn't get it done, which was a total pain, as he had a booked taxi home.

quote:
Not expected to read

out loud in a lesson? or if the reading age was low, to be supported in reading, while also attending intensive reading support

quote:
Not expected to wear uniform

That one got written into a couple of IEPs, very reluctantly, for students originally from another school that was closed down and parents were pleading poverty for buying a second school uniform. But it was to give the parents time to bring the uniform in line, not a permanent solution. Also some students had doctor's notes that said they had to wear alternative footwear. The other proviso is severe eczema - students who have severe eczema may have their skin condition aggravated by specific uniform fabrics, so a similar alternative in cotton could be allowed.

quote:
Allowed to hit Teaching Assistants(not normally official policy but seen enough schools where it was definitely unoffical policy)

Never come across a Teaching Assistant who wouldn't have been up in arms and insisting the student wasn't going to be allowed to remain in school - with the union backing the TA

quote:
Allowed to swear continuously at classmates.
Allowed one "touch" of a classmate...
Being allowed to go to the toilet to masterbate (sic) once per lesson. (more if teacher is blonde female)..more importantly being allowed to announce to classmates this is where child is going.
Allowed to lie on class tables and cluck like chicken.

Seriously no to any of that lot, none of this is acceptable behaviour. I was very irritated to lose the Ed Psych time and my time to write a statement request, that the parents had insisted on, for a student who used to do things like cluck like a chicken and lie on the floor. There were really deserving cases to get the support who were put back because this lad jumped the queue for an unenactable statement because the student would not co-operate with any support. And that student was academically able with behaviour issues and a dysfunctional family situation - which the school could only suggest ways of addressing.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by fat-tony:
My question in the other post was about what happens in the american system when behaviour targets aren't met. Over here the standard plan for Senco's is to write "ongoing".

Here, that wouldn't pass legal muster. I'm not saying it never happens, the laws and regulations are intended to prevent that from happening for any IEP goals, whether behavioral or academic.

IDEA was developed in part as a reaction to the warehousing of kids with disabilities. Just saying, "Yeah, he still can't read" isn't legal. Nor is saying, "Yeah, he still throws chairs and spits and swears."

If a child isn't meeting goals, you have to figure out why, and change the programming so that he starts meeting them. That doesn't happen 100% of the time, but it's what the law requires.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by fat-tony:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
Originally posted by fat-tony:

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Are these accommodations part of behavior plans that are designed to reduce the frequency of target behaviors?
Which of the behaviours listed above do you think is appropriate for a classroom?
I didn't say that any of the behaviors was appropriate for a classroom. I asked whether the accommodations are provided as part of a behavior intervention plan designed to eliminate the problem behaviors. If I thought the behaviors were appropriate, I wouldn't be asking whether there was a plan in place that was designed to eliminate them.

So would you mind answering my question?
Would it make a difference? The target should immediately be no swearing/hitting/w~~nking. Anything less is just horsetrading.

Surely no plan should allow that behaviour to occur in a classroom?

No system should condone that behaviour.

It's about providing a safe environment condusive to a class learning. And those plans being in place do not allow for that.

Honestly, what sort of world do you live in? All sorts of things are inappropriate, shouldn't happen, and shouldn't be condoned. People should be nice to each other. Children should share. Kids shouldn't call each other names. People shouldn't lie or break promises. Kids shouldn't come to school hungry or sleepy because the adults in their house kept them up all night with their violent argument.

None of those things are OK, just like none of the behaviors in the post above are OK. And yet all of those things happen. Just like all of the behaviors in the post above happen.

The point is: what do you do about it? Do you simply keep shaking your head repeating "that's not OK, that shouldn't happen ever"? Do you look the other way and make up some excuse for the inappropriate behavior?

Or-- and I think this is what Josephine is saying-- do you come up with a concrete plan to eliminate what is unacceptable?

Seems pretty obvious to me.

Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :

quote:
Originally posted by fat-tony:
The issue is that many of these strategies involve a lowering of high expectations academically and behaviorally, often not only for the student involved but, through learned behaviour, the entire class. Here's some that have always stuck in my mind.
The time out card,
Immunity from detentions,
Can swear at you once a lesson
Not expected to do any homework
Not expected to read
Not expected to wear uniform
Allowed to hit Teaching Assistants(not normally official policy but seen enough schools where it was definitely unoffical policy)
Allowed to swear continuously at classmates.
Allowed one "touch" of a classmate...
Being allowed to go to the toilet to masterbate once per lesson. (more if teacher is blonde female)..more importantly being allowed to announce to classmates this is where child is going.
Allowed to lie on class tables and cluck like chicken.

These are all things that happen in SEN dept as a result of diagnosing "learning difficulties" in some children. Do you think millions should be spent to encourage this?

fat-tony

I disagree about what the issue is but then I am in a different system than you. I am not going to debate unofficial policy of hitting TA's because that is insane.

Time out card-very rare
Immunity from detentions-I have not seen nor heard of this.
Can swear once a lesson-again have not come across this
Not expected to do any homework*
Not expected to read-**
Not expected to wear uniform-We have a dress code I don't know of anybody who was given permission to break it.
Swear continuously at students-Excepting special turrets syndrome cases I can't even conceive of this.
Allowed one touch of a classmate-??? Can we say lawsuit.
Masterbate-??? Can we say lawsuit again.
More for blonde teachers-??? Bigger and more lawsuits.
Announcing to class-??? How many lawsuits can occur for one case. Lets not find out.
Lie on class tables and cluck like a chicken-??? never seen or heard of anything like that here. If lie on the table leads to laying on the table keep the eggs.

*Working with kids at risk to graduate I have to be careful with homework. I can assign it but it will not get done. I have to find other ways. But on the other hand at risk classes tend not to be quite as rigorous in some ways. Oh the students were usually classified at risk due to having previously failed.
**I had a legally blind(not blind but darn close) student once who had to have everything enlarged for him. It made more work for me but it allowed him to be in the class and receive the same rigor has everyone else.

Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :

quote:
Originally posted by fat-tony:
... apparently prefect American system...

I would hardly make the claim. I would suspect some things are school district by school district. One thing that I do like about the American system is that a certified regular education teacher must be part of the IEP process. Is this part of SEN as well?

Posted by Apocalypso (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
What puzzles me about the story of Mr. Red Crayon and his parents' aspirations for him to go to community college is this: does community college have the same mandate for inclusion that the K-12 schools do? And if not, how on earth is he going to pass his courses?

Community colleges in my state are required to accommodate students with disabilities. My understanding is that instructors don't change standards (don't shorten assignments, for example) but may change teaching methods or allow for more time on tests, etc.

Red Crayon will not be matriculating. If his parents insist on this college business (I plan to lobby against it), he'll probably audit 1 or 2 courses. He can't possibly take them for college credit, and he cannot pass them. And personally, if I were a student OR an instructor in any course he audits, and he distracted me by lunging out of his chair every 10 minutes, I'd complain mightily.

A couple of years back, a young woman with Down syndrome audited a course at the cc. She, however, had language, could read, and had enough smarts to get something out of the course (though she could not have passed it for academic credit). But she was also able to sit still and pay attention for the necessary stretches of time.

Posted by markprice81 (# 13793) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:

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.

I have been rather busy with work so have not had time to be able to give this point the fullness it deserves. Thankfully, most of the side issues have been dealt with.

The point I was making was that your arguments are the evidence that this may well be pseudo-science.

In particular, your insistance that a single, ancedoctal example proves that the science is valid together with a rejection of meta-analyses and any criticism of favourable research.

These are actually the same arguments put forward by people who believe astrology and homeopathy are valid science.

I would suggest that you look into how evidence based medicine works as you appear not to have an understanding of this. I second OldAndrew's point to read Bad Science as it provides a good, accessible account of the theory behind this.

Also with regards your particular example, I have said that it could easily be a placebo effect and certainly a lot of the reasearch presented so far by OldAndrew seems to suggest that this is likely.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

As I understand the words, normal weaknesses and ordinary misbehavior are not the same thing as failure.

You appear to be arguing against another straw man here. Nobody has said they are the same.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

Normal weaknesses and ordinary misbehavior are not incompatible with being generally successful at school.

This appears to be a basic error of reasoning. This does not mean that not being generally successful at school can't be a result of normal weaknesses and ordinary misbehaviour. In fact, it almost always is.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

Or-- and I think this is what Josephine is saying-- do you come up with a concrete plan to eliminate what is unacceptable?

Seems pretty obvious to me.

It seems to me that people who come up with "concrete plans" and then force teachers (and classes) to go along with them (without bearing the responsibility when they inevitably don't work) are the major cause of problems in the SEN racket.

I have to agree with fat-tony, why should it matter if there is a plan or not? A futile plan is no excuse for accepting the unnacceptable. I think one thing that people don't appreciate if they aren't mainstream classroom teachers in England is that the SEN interventions for behaviour never, ever work and nobody is ever held to account for it because all that matters is that the written paperwork exists; the actual outcome is irrelevant.

Posted by JonahMan (# 12126) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I think one thing that people don't appreciate if they aren't mainstream classroom teachers in England is that the SEN interventions for behaviour never, ever work and nobody is ever held to account for it because all that matters is that the written paperwork exists; the actual outcome is irrelevant.

I sense from your posts that you are not entirely in favour of SEN as a concept or how it is practiced. However, saying that SEN interventions never ever work seems a rather strong claim. Can you prove it?

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Any behaviour plan needs consistent application - as any parent knows who has had a child play parents off against one another. If the whole school follows a behaviour plan, so all the teachers in a school, then the consistency will work because students know what happens when they don't follow the rules. Individual teachers who are consistent in what they do, and follow through have fewer behaviour issues in their lessons. Those teachers who don't feel their head of department will back them up and so don't apply sanctions have more behaviour issues and then make it much harder for all the other teachers teaching that class.

Any teacher rubbishing IEP requirements and not following it is going to mean that those accommodations aren't going to work. These behaviour kids need even more consistency and follow through that kids who can behave because usually they have no consistency in their home life and it takes more work to get that through to them.

[ 22. September 2010, 20:28: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I think one thing that people don't appreciate if they aren't mainstream classroom teachers in England is that the SEN interventions for behaviour never, ever work and nobody is ever held to account for it because all that matters is that the written paperwork exists; the actual outcome is irrelevant.
I sense from your posts that you are not entirely in favour of SEN as a concept or how it is practiced. However, saying that SEN interventions never ever work seems a rather strong claim. Can you prove it?

I apologise if I phrased that poorly. I meant only to claim that from the point of view of a mainstream classroom teacher the SEN interventions never, ever work.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Any teacher rubbishing IEP requirements and not following it is going to mean that those accommodations aren't going to work.

As ever the claim is that because there are doubters they must have sabotaged the intervention and only when everyone has converted to the true faith in SEN will the promised miracles happen.

Do you not get that the only treatments that require faith in order to work are placebos?

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

Or-- and I think this is what Josephine is saying-- do you come up with a concrete plan to eliminate what is unacceptable?

Seems pretty obvious to me.
It seems to me that people who come up with "concrete plans" and then force teachers (and classes) to go along with them (without bearing the responsibility when they inevitably don't work) are the major cause of problems in the SEN racket.

I have to agree with fat-tony, why should it matter if there is a plan or not? A futile plan is no excuse for accepting the unnacceptable. I think one thing that people don't appreciate if they aren't mainstream classroom teachers in England is that the SEN interventions for behaviour never, ever work and nobody is ever held to account for it because all that matters is that the written paperwork exists; the actual outcome is irrelevant.

If, in fact, it is true that such plans "never, ever work" then yes, you are right-- on this point and most others you've made here. And again, I have no experience of the UK system to dispute your claim. So let me just say I find it very hard to believe.

The fact that plans are made by others to be implemented by the teachers is the nature of specialization and consultation. When a pediatrician makes a prescription (e.g. stinging eye drops that have to be inserted into the eyes of a squirmy toddler) is s/he gonna be the one that has to catch said toddler, hold him or her down, and try to keep the eye open long enough to receive the drop? No. Does that mean s/he is a "bad" doctor or the treatment plan is unworkable? No, it's simply the reality of consultation.

In an American IEP meeting there are several people at the table with varying kinds of expertise, all providing resources to help teachers and parents correct the very kinds of "inappropriate" behaviors that have been mentioned here. It will fall to the teachers and parents to implement. But that in and of itself does not mean the treatment plans are meaningless. In many cases (definitely so in both my sons' very different cases) it was a godsend for us and the teacher.

Perhaps the SEN system is different. But I doubt as unilaterally so as you suggest. If I am wrong, my apologies.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

The fact that plans are made by others to be implemented by the teachers is the nature of specialization and consultation. When a pediatrician makes a prescription (e.g. stinging eye drops that have to be inserted into the eyes of a squirmy toddler) is s/he gonna be the one that has to catch said toddler, hold him or her down, and try to keep the eye open long enough to receive the drop? No. Does that mean s/he is a "bad" doctor or the treatment plan is unworkable? No, it's simply the reality of consultation.

If the doctor had less qualifications than the average parent, the parents were threatened, bullied and demonised until they let the doctor stick the drop in their child's eye, and there was no evidence to think the drop would do any good (and some to suggest it might be harmful) then you might have a relevant analogy.

The SEN racket is not about expert consultation dealing with obscure complaints that only a specialist can identify. It is about labelling 1 in 5 kids. It employs vast numbers of barely qualified people. They routinely interfere in the classrooms of people who are more qualified and more experienced than they are.

I'm getting a bit fed up with you telling me that you know nothing about the English system, and then going on to imply it can't be like I say. You've had long enough to find out how it works, and you have instead spent your time having a go at anyone who tries to tell you.

Posted by JonahMan (# 12126) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I think one thing that people don't appreciate if they aren't mainstream classroom teachers in England is that the SEN interventions for behaviour never, ever work and nobody is ever held to account for it because all that matters is that the written paperwork exists; the actual outcome is irrelevant.
I sense from your posts that you are not entirely in favour of SEN as a concept or how it is practiced. However, saying that SEN interventions never ever work seems a rather strong claim. Can you prove it?
I apologise if I phrased that poorly. I meant only to claim that from the point of view of a mainstream classroom teacher the SEN interventions never, ever work.

So, you've asked every single mainstream teacher in the UK, have you, and they have all confirmed that SEN interventions never work? Not even by chance? For someone who is keen to direct people to Ben Goldacre's excellent book Bad Science (which I think should be compulsory reading for everyone) you seem to be exhibiting a poor grasp of the way in which claims need to be evidenced.

Also, I can't see any real difference in your original "poorly worded" phrase and this one. Are you saying they do work from some other perspective? If so, whose?

Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :

quote:
Originally posted by markprice81:

Also with regards your particular example, I have said that it could easily be a placebo effect and certainly a lot of the reasearch presented so far by OldAndrew seems to suggest that this is likely.

No research presented thus far indicates anything other than the research done has not been good research. This includes the meta-analysis but does not include things like blogs which are undeniably not research. Please do not use research that has words like, poor quality, when it describes the data it uses.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Any teacher rubbishing IEP requirements and not following it is going to mean that those accommodations aren't going to work.
Do you not get that the only treatments that require faith in order to work are placebos?

I don't think Ck is saying that the treatments require faith in order to work. Ck is saying that the treatments must be used in order to work.

One would have thought that would go without saying, but apparently it needs to be said.

As does one more thing: I have, for some time now, been trying to understand your take on the SEN system in the UK, what you think is wrong with it, and what you think would work better. Your posts have consistently been full of strong opinion and outright hostility, but you do not provide either the information or the reasoned arguments that would be required to let anyone who doesn't already agree with you to understand why you hold the opinions you do, much less ever persuade them to change their minds.

If others, in an attempt to verify understanding and move the conversation forward, restate your apparent position, you say "You're wrong" or "that's a straw man" or "for pity's sake." You say that the other posters, if they don't understand what you say, should ask for clarification. But when asked for clarification, you refuse, saying you have no need to write essays.

But if you want to persuade others to your point of view, sometimes it takes writing an essay. At the very least, it takes engaging respectfully in honest discussion. You aren't doing that. You are simply venting your anger and hostility.

I don't have time for that.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
[QUOTE]

I'm getting a bit fed up with you telling me that you know nothing about the English system, and then going on to imply it can't be like I say. You've had long enough to find out how it works, and you have instead spent your time having a go at anyone who tries to tell you.

I repeat it to try to be clear that I know the boundaries of my knowledge and not overstep or overstate. I'm sorry that's annoying to you.

The fact of the matter is you and pretty much you alone are presenting one picture of SEN, a picture that is very much at odds with that presented by several other UK educators and parents who have posted on this thread. So yeah, I didn't just imply I said it explicitly: I have trouble believing your solitary assertion that SEN treatment plans "never ever work" in the face of multiple testimonies that at least some of the time they get it right.

And, again, as I said before, I could be wrong, and if that is the case, I will apologize.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I apologise if I phrased that poorly. I meant only to claim that from the point of view of a mainstream classroom teacher the SEN interventions never, ever work.
So, you've asked every single mainstream teacher in the UK, have you, and they have all confirmed that SEN interventions never work?

Another ridiculous straw man.

I said from the point of view of a mainstream classroom teacher.

quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:

Not even by chance? For someone who is keen to direct people to Ben Goldacre's excellent book Bad Science (which I think should be compulsory reading for everyone) you seem to be exhibiting a poor grasp of the way in which claims need to be evidenced.

I mentioned Bad Science when it was suggested we establish medical facts by using personal anecdotes and dismissing meta-analyses as "not hard science".

Personal experience is not to be established in the same way. I thought it was worth mentioning when people were appealing to "plans" as a reason for teachers to accept the unnacceptable to point out that in my experience the plans don't ever seem to work. I was trying to establish the unfairness of the imposition, not the national situation. How would you feel if somebody tried to obstruct you in doing your job, and the only justification given was that your personal experience of them doing the same thing for the same reason in the past couldn't be generalised?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Any teacher rubbishing IEP requirements and not following it is going to mean that those accommodations aren't going to work.
Do you not get that the only treatments that require faith in order to work are placebos?
I don't think Ck is saying that the treatments require faith in order to work. Ck is saying that the treatments must be used in order to work.

My point was that it was not simply non-compliance but teachers "rubbishing IEP requirements".

As ever the existence of dissent was being equated with sabotage, and then used as an explanation of failure.

The net result is we have an intervention where anyone who sees it not working is suspected of being the reason it failed.

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

As does one more thing: I have, for some time now, been trying to understand your take on the SEN system in the UK, what you think is wrong with it, and what you think would work better. Your posts have consistently been full of strong opinion and outright hostility, but you do not provide either the information or the reasoned arguments that would be required to let anyone who doesn't already agree with you to understand why you hold the opinions you do, much less ever persuade them to change their minds.

If others, in an attempt to verify understanding and move the conversation forward, restate your apparent position, you say "You're wrong" or "that's a straw man" or "for pity's sake." You say that the other posters, if they don't understand what you say, should ask for clarification. But when asked for clarification, you refuse, saying you have no need to write essays.

But if you want to persuade others to your point of view, sometimes it takes writing an essay. At the very least, it takes engaging respectfully in honest discussion. You aren't doing that. You are simply venting your anger and hostility.

I don't have time for that.

We appear to have gone full circle don't we?

Complain about my tone; tell me I have failed to write essays; ignore the evidence I have either linked to directly or alluded to.

Anything to move away from serious argument.

Do you think that I haven't noticed that last time we were talking you had (after all the evasion on this thread) actually acknowledged your position that anything other than general success at school required a diagnosis?

It is our fundamental point of disagreement. It is also the point on which your ideology is exposed as a belief in the perfection of children rather than some kind of humanitarian concern for the afflicted.

No wonder you want to avoid discussion around this point, and no wonder your excuse for flouncing is to blame me.

Posted by markprice81 (# 13793) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:

quote:
Originally posted by markprice81:

Also with regards your particular example, I have said that it could easily be a placebo effect and certainly a lot of the reasearch presented so far by OldAndrew seems to suggest that this is likely.
No research presented thus far indicates anything other than the research done has not been good research. This includes the meta-analysis but does not include things like blogs which are undeniably not research. Please do not use research that has words like, poor quality, when it describes the data it uses.

I wasn't counting the blogs.

I am convinced that you really have no experience of academic research works.

Criticism of other research studies is acceptable and a normal part of research. If you discount any research which says that another study was not rigrous or poorly organised science would never progress.

The reason meta-analyses are used is to deal with issues around population size. It is quite rare that medical trials can be carried out on enough people to ensure that they are statisically significant. A meta-analysis gets round this issue by combining trials using various statisical techniques. As part of this process the authors will critique the research they are using.

Please go and speak to someone who understands this. It is a very basic issue in how science works and anyone with some experience in this area will be able to explain it to you.

The fact that there the only conclusion from this is that there is no research showing that Irlene's syndrome is real pretty much proves my point that it is not based on any scientific basis but is dressed up as science to convince guillable people to buy the miracle cures associated with it.

Posted by markprice81 (# 13793) on :

quote:
Originally posted by markprice81:
As part of this process the authors will critique the research they are using.

TO expand on this, part of the meta-analysis involves the amount of weighting that should be put on the various trials and if they have poor quality data then they need to be given less weight than a trial which was well run and has good data.

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

quote:
Originally posted by fat-tony:
Pottage, the only thing that everyone in education seems to agree on is that the system doesn't work. Unfortunately when you suggest rebuiling it you get a whole host of contradictory plans. To answer your question on what would be a better system for SEND is linked to that.

fat-tony

I think I've gleaned enough from the thread (and perhaps more from the reading and asking around IRL that it has prompted me to do) to appreciate that the current system is a cause of considerable frustration and waste. It seems to address some needs that don't really exist, and to leave some who have genuine needs floundering without the help they need. Even when it is addressing a genuine issue it sometimes seems to provide ill considered and ineffective help.

But even in my limited investigations, and indeed even on this thread, I have seen evidence that it does also (however inefficiently) sometimes address the problems of children with undeniable learning needs and produce an outcome they are happy with. That alone tells me that there should be A system, just as clearly as what you have posted tells me that it shouldn't be THIS system.

I gather from what you post that there is no shortage of proposals for systems of provision that would be better, although none that everyone, or even a substantial minority of interested parties seems comfortable to get behind. That's no surprise in the circumstances. For the uninitiated, or the newly initiated, can you draw out any principles that are features of these alternatives? If you were going to answer the call for submissions to the green paper (and maybe you are) what would you be recommending?

Posted by JonahMan (# 12126) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I apologise if I phrased that poorly. I meant only to claim that from the point of view of a mainstream classroom teacher the SEN interventions never, ever work.
So, you've asked every single mainstream teacher in the UK, have you, and they have all confirmed that SEN interventions never work?
Another ridiculous straw man.

I said from the point of view of a mainstream classroom teacher.

quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:

Not even by chance? For someone who is keen to direct people to Ben Goldacre's excellent book Bad Science (which I think should be compulsory reading for everyone) you seem to be exhibiting a poor grasp of the way in which claims need to be evidenced.
I mentioned Bad Science when it was suggested we establish medical facts by using personal anecdotes and dismissing meta-analyses as "not hard science".

Personal experience is not to be established in the same way. I thought it was worth mentioning when people were appealing to "plans" as a reason for teachers to accept the unnacceptable to point out that in my experience the plans don't ever seem to work. I was trying to establish the unfairness of the imposition, not the national situation. How would you feel if somebody tried to obstruct you in doing your job, and the only justification given was that your personal experience of them doing the same thing for the same reason in the past couldn't be generalised?

Apologies, I parsed "the point of view of a classroom teacher" as "the point of view of a generalised classroom teacher" rather than "one specific classroom teacher" i.e. you. If you had said "in my experience" it would have been clear.

It certainly sounds as if the way SEN is implemented at your school is ineffective and inappropriate. My own experience is almost the opposite, which perhaps indicates how difficult it is to generalise.

Diagnosis was a reasonably lengthy process, done by professionals. Interventions are jointly agreed between parents, headteacher (or other senior staff), class teachers and sometimes the appropriate external professional. The effectiveness of the interventions are monitored and they are changed if they don't work, or more commonly if they do work and it becomes possible to address other more minor issues. There is a little extra support available in terms of staff time but the aim is for the child to integrate fully into the class and receive the same education as the other children. Appropriate behaviour is expected and is part of the deal and exceptions are not tolerated but are dealt with. However the manner in which they are dealt with may be different to other children - this doesn't mean he gets away with anything, simply that it's recognised that the best way of improving the behaviour or resolving the situation is not necessarily the same. Of course this is partially true of all kids, some respond better to one approach than another.

This is for a child who is academically and intellectually at the same level as his peers but has social and communication difficulties, which I think qualifies under the original topic of the OP ie diagnosing mild learning difficulties. Clearly the Red Crayon guy is out of place, there are obviously limits to how much differentiation within a class is appropriate.

Finally I should say that my experiences are all within a primary school setting. It may well be different in secondary schools, though I hope not in our case. Clearly it is easier to have a consistent practice with one main teacher and a handful of others than with a whole bunch iof subject teachers. On the other hand my son will be older by then and hopefully will have learned to manage himself better, as he already is doing. I think this is a result of the combination of the interventions and models of dealing with him as well as him getting more mature, but of course I can't prove it either way. I can say that the particular methods of handling him are much more effective in the short term.

Sorry, slightly rambling post here! What the best thing for all concerned (teachers, children with learning disabilities, their peers, parents, the treasury) is obviously very difficult to discern. Case studies of good and bad practice, and examples of how things work well or terribly can be illuminating though, so long as we can unpick why something works or doesn't.

Jonah

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:
What the best thing for all concerned (teachers, children with learning disabilities, their peers, parents, the treasury) is obviously very difficult to discern. Case studies of good and bad practice, and examples of how things work well or terribly can be illuminating though, so long as we can unpick why something works or doesn't.

Jonah

Well said Jonah. I find that if teachers, specialists and parents work together then the best outcome possible is usually reached.

I am currently working with two students who have dyslexia and it is marvellous to see their progress now that we are all 'singing from the same hymn sheet'. These two are highly intelligent and would outstrip any of their class mates if they could take the exams verbally. So it is my job to help them to become more confident writers and spellers, and to help their teachers to make appropriate accommodatons.

It's really important, I believe, that they are not put in lower sets as they would be very quickly bored. Better that they record their work and knowledge in different ways and learn to write and spell outside the main lessons imo.

Things are so much better these days with small laptops, voice recognition and voice recorders. there are many ways of working now available to willing teachers.

Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :

quote:
Originally posted by markprice81:

The fact that there the only conclusion from this is that there is no research showing that Irlene's syndrome is real pretty much proves my point that it is not based on any scientific basis but is dressed up as science to convince guillable people to buy the miracle cures associated with it.

But you are wrong. The conclusion starts

quote:
Due to the poor quality, and limited number of included studies identified in
this review

This strikes me funny. It also includes

quote:
The studies
included and discussed in this review reported both significant improvement
and complete lack of improvement of reading, which was not clarified by the
combining of data in a meta-analysis.

What reading for comprehension tells me is that the meta-analysis failed. Something to do with the not clarified by the combining of data in the meta-analysis. From there the researches start making judgments that are not part of a meta-analysis. When a real scientist sees that a result is not clarified by an experiment they assume the experiment was faulty and try to run a different experiment. A different experiment to find clarification was apparently not ran. Oh yeah I know enough about research to read the conclusion or the abstract. And a question is this adequate research? Oh I might mention that the US National Library of Medicine seems to have some articles supporting Scotopic sensitivity/Irlen syndrome.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

I have Irlen syndrome. The biggest effects for me are in spacial awareness and visual stress. I have very poor spacial awareness and often miss the table when putting a glass down, bump into things, fall upstairs etc - and always have. (I don't fall downstairs as I hold on!)

When I put my Irlen contacts in the whole visual field moves and adjusts - especially the middle ground - and I no longer get bruises on my legs from bumping into tables. I had no idea how stressful driving was for me until I got my lenses and suddenly 'knew' distances properly for the first time in my life.

I don't need research to tell me they work - I can count the effect myself in cups of coffee not spilt.

[Smile]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I repeat it to try to be clear that I know the boundaries of my knowledge and not overstep or overstate. I'm sorry that's annoying to you.

My complaint is not that you acknowledge your ignorance, but that it is selective.

Your knowledge was enough to declare (when the discussion had barely begun) that claims that interventions were ineffective were unsubstantiated and that you couldn't abuse a system where formal diagnosis was slow. It was enough for you to feel justified in attributing opinions to me that I hadn't actually expressed and to insult me. It was enough for you to dismiss my descriptions of the system as "BS" while accepting factually inaccurate information from Curiosity as "useful and helpful". It was enough to declare that the accurate diagnosis of sensory disabilities would be a matter of reforming the system rather than replacing it. It was enough for you to defend the awful situations fat-tony described and comment on what is hard to believe.

However, while your knowledge of the system is enough for you to be openly hostile to anyone who criticises the SEN racket, it is apparently too slight for you to actually defend your attacks except with ad hominems and complaints that every opinion you disagree with is not convincing enough.

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

The fact of the matter is you and pretty much you alone are presenting one picture of SEN, a picture that is very much at odds with that presented by several other UK educators and parents who have posted on this thread.

In what parallel universe has the debate you are describing been ocurring?

Even if you hadn't been having a go at fat-tony recently when he dared described the same things I do, you seem to have completely missed the fact that OFSTED have (while this argument was going on) confirmed my description as accurate.

You are choosing what you want to believe, and are hostile to anyone who dares contradict it. I guess that's acceptable here, but it is the height of hypocrisy to then complain that not enough people have contradicted you.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

oldandrew, if I have been factually inaccurate on this thread I have apologised and clarified. If there is anything you can point to that I haven't already discussed, then please point it out.

I have also made it clear that I don't think the system works, but I don't think dismantling the SEN system without looking at and considering the underlying assumptions that make it necessary is going to help. If the policy is to educate all students in mainstream, which it is, then teachers, particularly in secondary need support in understanding SEN and differentiation, and to accept the need for this. My experience of working in mainstream and with students who have not succeeded in mainstream means I know that a significant number of teachers would prefer not to teach students with special needs, both learning and in particular behavioural. Unfortunately, the way these teachers go about it quite often counterproductive. As a SENCo I was trying very hard to get some students more appropriate placements, but to do that I had to prove that the interventions recommended by the specialist teachers, who came in to advise, and the educational psychologist's or those from the professionals at CAMHS' suggestions did not work after using them. When several teachers did not implement those accommodations, the advisers insisted that we couldn't show that the interventions didn't work so we couldn't prove a case.

As back up for this, the Educational Psychologist and I put on a training session for all teachers on P levels (achieving below 5 year old level) to try to support teachers in teaching a number of students at this level. This session wasn't made a part of CPD (continuing professional development) and the attendance was poor, to put it mildly. This was to support students already in the school, although one I was working with the local special school to support and was hoping to persuade that student that he liked that school better, and hopefully convince his mother he would be better placed there.

You may disagree that students with behavioural difficulties should be seen as having special needs, but the legislation includes them. Working with these students there is usually, but not always, an underlying learning difficulty and they've learnt to misbehave as an easier option than dealing with school work. It's a difficult issue, because you can't tell from the primary school meetings which of their behaviour students are going to disappear without trace into mainstream and succeed, and which of those students who have mild learning difficulties and have coped in primary, won't in secondary. I have seen students come into year 7 with a behaviour label and be taken off the register within weeks. An attempt to observe students in primary and make sure they were given additional support as they arrived in secondary gave some students an undeserved bad name although it did support some others.

My comment about consistency in behaviour policies was that whole school policies have to be applied across a school to work. Working with students with behavioural difficulties means even more consistency and following through. That doesn't mean shouting, it means consistently applying the same sanctions and rewards. Teaching a class is a whole lot easier when you know how the policy works and how to follow through - and do it, if the head of department doesn't.

I have also agreed that it is a lot easier knowing the individual students well enough to use the accommodations to support them in class when it's a primary classroom and there are only 30 students to get to know well, rather than 150 to 600 students, depending on subject. Neither have I disagreed that LSAs are not always effective and I have said that it is known that students in mainstream with an LSA planted next to them and never budging can deskill that student. We are currently working with one such and the first thing we have to tackle is getting him to work independently.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
it is a lot easier knowing the individual students well enough to use the accommodations to support them in class when it's a primary classroom and there are only 30 students to get to know well, rather than 150 to 600 students, depending on subject.

This is very true. One of my case study children is in high school and there is an enormous difference for him, especialy finding the time for his specialist lessons.

A friend of mine, on the same SpLD course as me, has just moved from being a Primary school class teacher (Y1) to a post as English teacher in a High school. She will have some tales to tell us! [Eek!]

Like you say, CK, maturity can make a huge difference - and a change of school etc. And children's needs change over time.

The best thing we can do, whatever age we teach ot specialism we have, is to remember that each one is an individual.

After all - every single last one of us has special needs.

My husband was a High school teacher, moved to Primary and became headteacher. He left when the paperwork overtook the time spent with teachers and children - he works for a charity now. But I always remember what he says about teaching and management.

"Be warm and demanding. If they know you genuinely care about them, value them and expect the highest of standards they will give you the moon."

I have found this to be true, even in deepest Manchester.

[ 24. September 2010, 08:45: Message edited by: Boogie ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
I apologise if I phrased that poorly. I meant only to claim that from the point of view of a mainstream classroom teacher the SEN interventions never, ever work.
So, you've asked every single mainstream teacher in the UK, have you, and they have all confirmed that SEN interventions never work?
Another ridiculous straw man.

I said from the point of view of a mainstream classroom teacher.

quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:

Not even by chance? For someone who is keen to direct people to Ben Goldacre's excellent book Bad Science (which I think should be compulsory reading for everyone) you seem to be exhibiting a poor grasp of the way in which claims need to be evidenced.
I mentioned Bad Science when it was suggested we establish medical facts by using personal anecdotes and dismissing meta-analyses as "not hard science".

Personal experience is not to be established in the same way. I thought it was worth mentioning when people were appealing to "plans" as a reason for teachers to accept the unnacceptable to point out that in my experience the plans don't ever seem to work. I was trying to establish the unfairness of the imposition, not the national situation. How would you feel if somebody tried to obstruct you in doing your job, and the only justification given was that your personal experience of them doing the same thing for the same reason in the past couldn't be generalised?
Apologies, I parsed "the point of view of a classroom teacher" as "the point of view of a generalised classroom teacher" rather than "one specific classroom teacher" i.e. you. If you had said "in my experience" it would have been clear.

Again you misunderstand me. I meant it was my experience of what the point of view of a classroom teacher is. Not that it was only my point of view.

In my experience mainstream secondary classroom teachers report never, ever, having seen an SEN intervention for behaviour working. I can't claim that it is proof that the interventions never work, or that no mainstream classroom teacher has ever had a different experience, but it is what, in my experience, teachers say.

quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:

It certainly sounds as if the way SEN is implemented at your school is ineffective and inappropriate.

I've worked at several schools, and although they varied, SEN was basically ineffective and over diagnosed in all of them.

quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:

My own experience is almost the opposite, which perhaps indicates how difficult it is to generalise.

I assume you are not in England then?

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
[QUOTE]
In my experience mainstream secondary classroom teachers report never, ever, having seen an SEN intervention for behaviour working. I can't claim that it is proof that the interventions never work, or that no mainstream classroom teacher has ever had a different experience, but it is what, in my experience, teachers say.

At the almost certain risk of yet again incurring the Terrible Wrath of Oldandrew, I would have to say that even this much more modestly qualified statement I find very hard to believe. fwiw.

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
[QUOTE]
In my experience mainstream secondary classroom teachers report never, ever, having seen an SEN intervention for behaviour working. I can't claim that it is proof that the interventions never work, or that no mainstream classroom teacher has ever had a different experience, but it is what, in my experience, teachers say.

At the almost certain risk of yet again incurring the Terrible Wrath of Oldandrew, I would have to say that even this much more modestly qualified statement I find very hard to believe. fwiw.

It doesn't match with the testimonies of the secondary school teachers I know, I have to say.

Posted by JonahMan (# 12126) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:

My own experience is almost the opposite, which perhaps indicates how difficult it is to generalise.
I assume you are not in England then?

I am currently living in Scotland, but only moved here less than two years ago. So most of my experience has been with schools in England. For what it's worth, the differences between the Scottish and English systems in this respect have not been significant.

oldandrew, am I correct in thinking that you believe that good teaching is what is required to replace SEN interventions? If so, would you might unpacking that a bit - what does this look like? And how would you deal with children with, say, relatively mild autism?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

I don't need research to tell me they work - I can count the effect myself in cups of coffee not spilt.

Again, placebos work.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
oldandrew, if I have been factually inaccurate on this thread I have apologised and clarified. If there is anything you can point to that I haven't already discussed, then please point it out.

I mentioned your error from before because it illustrated the extent to which cliffdweller takes sides over factual matters relating to the English system, despite at other times claiming to know nothing about it.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

If the policy is to educate all students in mainstream, which it is, then teachers, particularly in secondary need support in understanding SEN and differentiation, and to accept the need for this.

The present government have explicitly rejected this policy, and the past government, when ministers where quizzed by the education select committee, also said it wasn't their policy.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

My experience of working in mainstream and with students who have not succeeded in mainstream means I know that a significant number of teachers would prefer not to teach students with special needs, both learning and in particular behavioural.

Many, I suspect most, teachers would prefer not to teach students whose poor behaviour or low achievement has been sanctioned by the SEN racket. That is not the same thing as not wanting to teach students with special needs.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

Unfortunately, the way these teachers go about it quite often counterproductive. As a SENCo I was trying very hard to get some students more appropriate placements, but to do that I had to prove that the interventions recommended by the specialist teachers, who came in to advise, and the educational psychologist's or those from the professionals at CAMHS' suggestions did not work after using them. When several teachers did not implement those accommodations, the advisers insisted that we couldn't show that the interventions didn't work so we couldn't prove a case.

A bureaucratic nightmare. But not evidence that SEN does any good, or that when it doesn't it is the fault of teachers. It is simply evidence that the system is based on forcing teachers to do things they don't want to do even when you know it doesn't work.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

As back up for this, the Educational Psychologist and I put on a training session for all teachers on P levels (achieving below 5 year old level) to try to support teachers in teaching a number of students at this level. This session wasn't made a part of CPD (continuing professional development) and the attendance was poor, to put it mildly.

This is a shock to you?

Who in their right might would willingly attend SEN inset in their own time?

After all, it is not as if the interventions that teachers are instructed to comply with do any good.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

This was to support students already in the school, although one I was working with the local special school to support and was hoping to persuade that student that he liked that school better, and hopefully convince his mother he would be better placed there. You may disagree that students with behavioural difficulties should be seen as having special needs, but the legislation includes them.

The 1981 Education Act said that special schools would still be necessary for “those with severe emotional or behavioural disorders who have very great difficulty in forming relationships with others or whose behaviour is so extreme or unpredictable that it causes severe disruption in an ordinary school or inhibits the educational progress of other children;”.

The 2001 Special Needs and Disability Act, like the 1996 Education Act before it, qualified the right to be included with the words "unless that is incompatible with … the provision of efficient education for other children." And the explanatory note for the act clarified that “In practice, incompatibility with the efficient education of others is likely to be where pupils present severe challenging behaviour that would significantly disrupt the learning of other pupils or place their safety at risk.”

So I don't think it can be maintained that the legislation alone forces us into this situation.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

Working with these students there is usually, but not always, an underlying learning difficulty and they've learnt to misbehave as an easier option than dealing with school work.

The point, confirmed by OFSTED, is that these diagnoses are often wrong.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:

My own experience is almost the opposite, which perhaps indicates how difficult it is to generalise.
I assume you are not in England then?
I am currently living in Scotland, but only moved here less than two years ago. So most of my experience has been with schools in England. For what it's worth, the differences between the Scottish and English systems in this respect have not been significant.

Is it that you are primary then? Your description doesn't resemble the secondary SEN system in any school I've ever heard of.

quote:
Originally posted by JonahMan:

oldandrew, am I correct in thinking that you believe that good teaching is what is required to replace SEN interventions?

No. I believe that was a straw man somebody came up with because I said that, for reading difficulties, there was no evidence that children needed to be taught differently based on diagnoses, they all just needed good teaching.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
It doesn't match with the testimonies of the secondary school teachers I know, I have to say.

Feel free to elaborate.

Posted by JonahMan (# 12126) on :

I'm not (currently) teaching in schools, though I am involved in education. My son with Asperger's is still at primary school, so that's where my experience of SEN lies, from a parental perspective.

Posted by markprice81 (# 13793) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:

quote:
Originally posted by markprice81:

The fact that there the only conclusion from this is that there is no research showing that Irlene's syndrome is real pretty much proves my point that it is not based on any scientific basis but is dressed up as science to convince guillable people to buy the miracle cures associated with it.
But you are wrong. The conclusion starts ...

I think you misread me there I was refering to your conclusion not the meta-analysis.

But are you now accepting that meta-analysis and critique of other research are actually valid?

I am only concluding the later since it would be very odd to assume you can critique but not experts in the field.

Also, I looked at the papers and a lot of them do not have control groups and a significant number are not statisically significant (around 30 participants). Most of the ones with a control group find no effect and one even goes so far as to comment on the strong placebo effect.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

I don't need research to tell me they work - I can count the effect myself in cups of coffee not spilt.

Again, placebos work.

Nope.

I knew nothing of the effect on spatial awareness when I went for my Irlen test, I wanted the cloured lenses to help with visual stress. When I put the glasses on and went outside I will never forget the view. For the first time ever I was seeing in 'all round' 3D. I looked at a laurel bush for ages, just enjoying the sensation of seeing which leaves were in front and which were behind the others. Seeing steps was also amazing.

I knew nothing of this part of Irlen syndrome before I got the lenses, yet it is now - to me - the most important, the easing of visual stress has paled in comparion.

I am an artist and, interestingly, I take the Irlen glasses/contacts (I have both so that I can look 'normal' at work) off to paint - the fact that everything looks 'flat' or photograph like' to me helps me to paint better.

I was brought up in South Africa and, as a child, I know they were concerned about my visual perception as I was constantly being taken to the eye hospial and asked questions like which is nearer, the lion or the tree etc. But when we got back to England all that stopped until I found out for myself many years later.

[Smile]

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:

[QUOTE]Originally posted by JonahMan:

oldandrew, am I correct in thinking that you believe that good teaching is what is required to replace SEN interventions?
No. I believe that was a straw man somebody came up with because I said that, for reading difficulties, there was no evidence that children needed to be taught differently based on diagnoses, they all just needed good teaching.

So here we are, days later and scores of posts later, and all we know is that oldandrew really, really doesn't like SEN. Still not even the vaguest clue what he would suggest, if anything, in it's place.

Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :

quote:
Originally posted by markprice81:

But are you now accepting that meta-analysis and critique of other research are actually valid?

I am only concluding the later since it would be very odd to assume you can critique but not experts in the field.

Also, I looked at the papers and a lot of them do not have control groups and a significant number are not statisically significant (around 30 participants). Most of the ones with a control group find no effect and one even goes so far as to comment on the strong placebo effect.

Meta-analysis, my main point was that anybody can rightly say most research is faulty. Critique, my points were that you can and do have critiques that say anything and everything and critiques of research are not really research. Old Andrew sited a study that used meta-analysis that used limited studies for the meta-analysis. From my understanding you should have more than a limited amount for you to do a meta-analysis.

The research Old Andrew sited seem to be from statisticians and comes from a place that specializes in telling people what they want to here(that is how you get renewed to continue your studies). I sited the US National Library of Medicine. I trust the medical doctors more. Also alot had control groups and alot had more than 30 subjects. And I could actually find mine in the first five pages of a Google search. I never crossed Old Andrews. I could have posted tons more research but chose to post anything that seemed to have a connection to anything like an official Irlen's program.

Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

I don't need research to tell me they work - I can count the effect myself in cups of coffee not spilt.

Again, placebos work.

So you agree that other things besides good teaching works.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:

quote:
]Again, placebos work.
So you agree that other things besides good teaching works. [/QB]

True... from a practical matter (which seems to be oldandrew's primary concern) if a placebo works, why not use it?

There's some Family Systems Therapists, for example, that will take a couple entrenched in habitual quarreling and try an intervention-- any intervention, doesn't matter-- just to break out of the pattern. One therapist I studied gave couples a long list of random, somewhat silly steps they had to go thru before completing any quarrel. The steps were absolutely meaningless-- except that they were cumbersome enough to be not worth the effort unless the issue was really significant-- which then cut the quarreling down 70% and got to the heart of the real issues that had previously been lost in a sea of petty stuff.

Similarly, if a child has a pattern of negative classroom behaviors, it can have a similar chain reaction where the bad behaviors draw a certain understandable response from the teacher which draws a predictably inappropriate response, and so on. Breaking into that pattern in almost any way-- even if it's something ridiculous and random-- is like to be helpful if for no other reason than it stops the pattern and causes both parties to stop and think.

[ 25. September 2010, 03:48: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
Again, placebos work.
Nope.

I knew nothing of the effect on spatial awareness when I went for my Irlen test, I wanted the cloured lenses to help with visual stress. When I put the glasses on and went outside I will never forget the view. For the first time ever I was seeing in 'all round' 3D.

I get that whenever I get a new lens prescription.

I'm afraid that nothing you say here does anything to suggest that there is a genuinely effective medical treatment going on. Even in large scale, controlled, medical studies then people are meant to avoid reaching conclusions about beneficial effects other than those that were expected, just because some will occur just by chance if you look widely enough.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
So here we are, days later and scores of posts later, and all we know is that oldandrew really, really doesn't like SEN. Still not even the vaguest clue what he would suggest, if anything, in it's place.

I am getting fed up with the way that your posts always make silly claims about me rather than responding to what I actually say.

For your information, I have discussed what I would do to replace the system, in this:

http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=014949;p=4#000180

and the subsequent replies.

Perhaps the next time you invent a new line of attack on me you could at least check it hasn't already been done.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

After all - every single last one of us has special needs.

Somebody else who would have benefitted from watching The Incredibles:

Helen: Everyone's special, Dash.
Dash: [sullenly] Which is another way of saying no one is.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

I don't need research to tell me they work - I can count the effect myself in cups of coffee not spilt.

Again, placebos work.
So you agree that other things besides good teaching works.

What is it that you imagine I claimed about good teaching?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:

quote:
]Again, placebos work.
So you agree that other things besides good teaching works.
True... from a practical matter (which seems to be oldandrew's primary concern) if a placebo works, why not use it?

Honesty.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

Every one of us has special needs - and all our needs are different. Some will need specialist help, some never will. Some will find that they cope for 40 years - then extra stress brings their particular need to the fore.

Some have special needs because they are exceptionally gifted.

My argument is to treat everyone as an individual, each with an incredibly wide range of strengths and weaknesses, gifts and talents.

Above all I advocate that we value each student and expect the highest of standards from each one.

[ 25. September 2010, 06:24: Message edited by: Boogie ]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Every one of us has special needs - and all our needs are different.

Do you think that repeating it, makes it any less absurd?

"Special needs" was always a bizarre term, because you can only need something for a purpose and yet diagnoses of special needs never identified a purpose. However, at least the word "special" helped to clarify that it was not addressing needs we all have, and instead referred to people who lacked usual capacities and abilities. You now appear to be making the word "special" meaningless as well as the word "needs".

Posted by Japes (# 5358) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
[QUOTE]
In my experience mainstream secondary classroom teachers report never, ever, having seen an SEN intervention for behaviour working. I can't claim that it is proof that the interventions never work, or that no mainstream classroom teacher has ever had a different experience, but it is what, in my experience, teachers say.

At the almost certain risk of yet again incurring the Terrible Wrath of Oldandrew, I would have to say that even this much more modestly qualified statement I find very hard to believe. fwiw.
It doesn't match with the testimonies of the secondary school teachers I know, I have to say.

It doesn't match with the experience I have of working within mainstream primary and secondary schools, and also the FE sector with children and young people with behavioural issues, as a specialist LSA, alongside teachers.

I'm at the stage of the year where I'm being constantly told what I do won't make any difference, I know by Christmas if I'm removed from the area in which I'm currently working there will be requests for my return by the February half term.

I know the system isn't perfect, I know there are a number of youngsters I've worked with who are lazy, rather than needing genuine support.

But, I love my work, and know I make a difference to those with whom I work, pupils and staff.

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

Reinforcing Trudy's earlier Host posts.

Folks, you know our desire to let these discussions run as hot as possible consistent with Purg guidelines and 10C's. This thread looks as though it may be getting a bit over-heated again. Please leave out the personal jabs and stick to the arguments. Or get as personal as you like in Hell.

If the cap fits, wear it. Next time, folks get named.

Barnabas62
Purgatory Hosts

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
It doesn't match with the testimonies of the secondary school teachers I know, I have to say.
Feel free to elaborate.

Oh OK. As I said, this is not research - this is just what secondary school teachers have been telling me recently, and I know the pupils and the parents involved, and they think the same things...

(random three examples)

a) Pupil A (dyslexic) was failing to pay attention in classes, getting really verbally angry, refusing to attend, not handing in assignments. Original school brought in Mum to tell her that in their view he was just being defiant. He had outside dyslexia support. Mum changed him to a different school. The new school put into place a behaviour intervention plan. He is now polite, pays attention in nearly all lessons, hands in assignments, and has achieved better in his exams than was originally every believed possible. He's now working towards going into a healthcare career. He says he needed that first school to have understood what sort of difficulties he had, and give him the chance to cope in ways he could handle.

b) Pupil B, (autistic) behaved extremely badly in his first secondary school. Rude to teachers, disruptive in class, wouldn't attend lessons, truanted frequently. School expelled him. Next school put into place a behaviour intervention plan alongside specialised autism support outside school, which has resulted in him settling down, working well, and he is now doing a course in accountancy. He doesn't have anything good to say about his first school, but is so proud of being able to make progress in the next one.

c) Pupil C (dyspraxic, dyslexic) showed extreme avoidance of sports, craftwork, technology lessons, practicals etc etc and was extremely difficult to work with in the classroom. She has always had specialised tutoring out of school. Behavioural interventions in the school then resulted in her settling down and working well. She is now going on to do a sports inclusion course at 6th form college.

That sort of thing, really.

Dept for Education Studies on Behaviour Interventions showing positive results are interesting to read, too. Available on the website. For some reason it won't accept the URL link though.

[ 25. September 2010, 08:04: Message edited by: amber. ]

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

<snip> in response to me saying: If the policy is to educate all students in mainstream, which it is, then teachers, particularly in secondary need support in understanding SEN and differentiation, and to accept the need for this.
quote:
The present government have explicitly rejected this policy, and the past government, when ministers where quizzed by the education select committee, also said it wasn't their policy.
The SEN legislation has always said that the most disabled students will have special schools. But ... the Children's Act (1988) also says that parents are paramount and that parental views have to be taken into account. Secondly, if the Local Authority has shut down most of their special schools then there is nowhere else for that student to go. If a parent wants a mainstream school to take their statemented student the school then has to work extremely hard to say why that's not appropriate. I've written the letters to do this and it means going through the statement with a fine toothcomb and explain point by point why the school will not be able to meet that student's needs, even when the child is operating at P level 3 and 4, has no social skills, bites and kicks when they can't get their own way and has no friends. (Yes, I am thinking of a real case here - that one I won.)

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
My experience of working in mainstream and with students who have not succeeded in mainstream means I know that a significant number of teachers would prefer not to teach students with special needs, both learning and in particular behavioural.
Many, I suspect most, teachers would prefer not to teach students whose poor behaviour or low achievement has been sanctioned by the SEN racket. That is not the same thing as not wanting to teach students with special needs.
You are making a sweeping generalisation here, saying that poor behaviour has been sanctioned by what you call the SEN racket. Poor behaviour is unacceptable; however, if there are reasons why the student is becoming frustrated in a situation, then accommodations to support improvements in behaviour or support for the learning difficulties are not saying the student should be allowed to misbehave, but saying that with the frustrations removed they should be working towards behaving.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
As back up for this, the Educational Psychologist and I put on a training session for all teachers on P levels (achieving below 5 year old level) to try to support teachers in teaching a number of students at this level. This session wasn't made a part of CPD (continuing professional development) and the attendance was poor, to put it mildly.
This is a shock to you?

Who in their right might would willingly attend in their own time? After all, it is not as if the interventions that teachers are instructed to comply with do any good.
No,it really didn't surprise me, but I would rather hope that when the school had a number of students operating at P levels and all teachers had to comply with reporting P levels that they might like to know how to do their job. This wasn't a session on interventions, it was a session on what P levels looked like, and then where to take the next steps.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
This was to support students already in the school, although one I was working with the local special school to support and was hoping to persuade that student that he liked that school better, and hopefully convince his mother he would be better placed there. You may disagree that students with behavioural difficulties should be seen as having special needs, but the legislation includes them.
The 1981 Education Act said that special schools would still be necessary for “those with severe emotional or behavioural disorders who have very great difficulty in forming relationships with others or whose behaviour is so extreme or unpredictable that it causes severe disruption in an ordinary school or inhibits the educational progress of other children;”.

The 2001 Special Needs and Disability Act, like the 1996 Education Act before it, qualified the right to be included with the words "unless that is incompatible with … the provision of efficient education for other children." And the explanatory note for the act clarified that “In practice, incompatibility with the efficient education of others is likely to be where pupils present severe challenging behaviour that would significantly disrupt the learning of other pupils or place their safety at risk.”

So I don't think it can be maintained that the legislation alone forces us into this situation.
The students working at P levels were for the most part not behaviour issues. But they needed a lot of support and accommodation to cope in a mainstream classroom.

Again, I'll say that students with behavioural difficulties are extremely lucky to get into an EBD unit - there were about 60 places county wide, for boys only, and there were never places available. We tried incredibly hard to get two students into EBD units - one was the knife-wielding student who set things on fire when not supervised at all times, the other got an emergency place at the PRU for the usual two terms and then we got him back.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Working with these students there is usually, but not always, an underlying learning difficulty and they've learnt to misbehave as an easier option than dealing with school work.
The point, confirmed by OFSTED, is that these diagnoses are often wrong.

What diagnoses? I've only described diagnoses as given by CAMHS, Specialist teachers and Ed Psychs, anything I put on an IEP were factual information - reading age and when tested, CATs and SATs scores, comments about observed behaviour - and strategies as discussed with parents, primary school and other teachers, including SMT. I wasn't diagnosing a student on a piece of paper that went to parents and could come back and haunt me later.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
So here we are, days later and scores of posts later, and all we know is that oldandrew really, really doesn't like SEN. Still not even the vaguest clue what he would suggest, if anything, in it's place.
I am getting fed up with the way that your posts always make silly claims about me rather than responding to what I actually say.

For your information, I have discussed what I would do to replace the system, in this:

http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=014949;p=4#000180

and the subsequent replies.

Perhaps the next time you invent a new line of attack on me you could at least check it hasn't already been done.

Followed your link. Read your posts. Found that:
1. You think SEN should be dismantled and get out of the way of classroom teachers
2. Asking you for anything more specific than that entails "writing an essay" and that's just far too onerous for an online discussion

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:

quote:
]Again, placebos work.
So you agree that other things besides good teaching works.
True... from a practical matter (which seems to be oldandrew's primary concern) if a placebo works, why not use it?

Honesty.

Not necessarily. The examples I gave did not require deception.

Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
What is it that you imagine I claimed about good teaching?

I read

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
All I said was that for students who are poor readers there was one single treatment.

I imagined that your one single treatment was good teaching(some phonics system if I remember another thread correctly). I do not nor do I intend to say good teaching(phonics or otherwise) is not needed to treat students who are poor readers. But, I do think that more than one thing can help the teaching. In other words I disagree with the one single part in favor of in tandem treatments when they could help.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Japes:

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

In my experience mainstream secondary classroom teachers report never, ever, having seen an SEN intervention for behaviour working. I can't claim that it is proof that the interventions never work, or that no mainstream classroom teacher has ever had a different experience, but it is what, in my experience, teachers say.

At the almost certain risk of yet again incurring the Terrible Wrath of Oldandrew, I would have to say that even this much more modestly qualified statement I find very hard to believe. fwiw.
It doesn't match with the testimonies of the secondary school teachers I know, I have to say.
It doesn't match with the experience I have of working within mainstream primary and secondary schools, and also the FE sector with children and young people with behavioural issues, as a specialist LSA, alongside teachers.

That people involved in making behaviour interventions think they are working is not in dispute.

The point was difficulty in finding any mainstream secondary school classroom teacher who could say they have seen an effective behaviour intervention.

quote:
Originally posted by Japes:

I'm at the stage of the year where I'm being constantly told what I do won't make any difference, I know by Christmas if I'm removed from the area in which I'm currently working there will be requests for my return by the February half term.

As the government's research showed, and what many teachers' experience will confirm, TAs make a difference to classes. What they don't do is successfully help the students on the SEN register they are meant to be supporting.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:
It doesn't match with the testimonies of the secondary school teachers I know, I have to say.
Feel free to elaborate.
Oh OK. As I said, this is not research - this is just what secondary school teachers have been telling me recently, and I know the pupils and the parents involved, and they think the same things...

(random three examples)

a) Pupil A (dyslexic) was failing to pay attention in classes, getting really verbally angry, refusing to attend, not handing in assignments. Original school brought in Mum to tell her that in their view he was just being defiant. He had outside dyslexia support. Mum changed him to a different school. The new school put into place a behaviour intervention plan. He is now polite, pays attention in nearly all lessons, hands in assignments, and has achieved better in his exams than was originally every believed possible. He's now working towards going into a healthcare career. He says he needed that first school to have understood what sort of difficulties he had, and give him the chance to cope in ways he could handle.

b) Pupil B, (autistic) behaved extremely badly in his first secondary school. Rude to teachers, disruptive in class, wouldn't attend lessons, truanted frequently. School expelled him. Next school put into place a behaviour intervention plan alongside specialised autism support outside school, which has resulted in him settling down, working well, and he is now doing a course in accountancy. He doesn't have anything good to say about his first school, but is so proud of being able to make progress in the next one.

This is not what we were talking about at all. We were talking about mainstream classroom teachers seeing behaviour interventions work.

If the child changed schools then (unless their teachers changed schools at the same time) no teacher will have seen the change. All you have is one school saying a child's behaviour is bad and another saying it is good.

This happens all the time, with or without a behaviour intervention plan.

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

c) Pupil C (dyspraxic, dyslexic) showed extreme avoidance of sports, craftwork, technology lessons, practicals etc etc and was extremely difficult to work with in the classroom. She has always had specialised tutoring out of school. Behavioural interventions in the school then resulted in her settling down and working well. She is now going on to do a sports inclusion course at 6th form college.

That sort of thing, really.

This is more like it, but you appear to have missed the important details, i.e. what the intervention was, when it happened, and which mainstream classroom teachers saw it work.

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

Dept for Education Studies on Behaviour Interventions showing positive results are interesting to read, too. Available on the website. For some reason it won't accept the URL link though.

It is not a good sign that having made a claim about the testimony of teachers and none are mentioned, and instead you end up quoting the department for education.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
The SEN legislation has always said that the most disabled students will have special schools. But ... the Children's Act (1988) also says that parents are paramount and that parental views have to be taken into account.

So? It doesn't make it true, and if it were true it is unlikely to mean more inclusion.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

Secondly, if the Local Authority has shut down most of their special schools then there is nowhere else for that student to go.

That doesn't make it policy though does it? That makes it neglect.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

If a parent wants a mainstream school to take their statemented student the school then has to work extremely hard to say why that's not appropriate.

You have a habit of describing the things you do to overcome the system as if they justified the system.

Perhaps you are taking criticism of the SEN racket too personally, so that even when I am clearly saying that the system itself is wrong you think I am denigrating the efforts teaching staff make to get round the system.

If you have fought the system then well done, but that is not a defence of the system.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
My experience of working in mainstream and with students who have not succeeded in mainstream means I know that a significant number of teachers would prefer not to teach students with special needs, both learning and in particular behavioural.
Many, I suspect most, teachers would prefer not to teach students whose poor behaviour or low achievement has been sanctioned by the SEN racket. That is not the same thing as not wanting to teach students with special needs.
You are making a sweeping generalisation here, saying that poor behaviour has been sanctioned by what you call the SEN racket. Poor behaviour is unacceptable; however, if there are reasons why the student is becoming frustrated in a situation, then accommodations to support improvements in behaviour or support for the learning difficulties are not saying the student should be allowed to misbehave, but saying that with the frustrations removed they should be working towards behaving.

Again you are making excuses for poor behaviour (the usual "frustration" is being told to behave and work) and asking people to accept the unacceptable in the short term without actually giving anyone any reason to believe it will be different in the long term.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
As back up for this, the Educational Psychologist and I put on a training session for all teachers on P levels (achieving below 5 year old level) to try to support teachers in teaching a number of students at this level. This session wasn't made a part of CPD (continuing professional development) and the attendance was poor, to put it mildly.
This is a shock to you?

Who in their right might would willingly attend in their own time? After all, it is not as if the interventions that teachers are instructed to comply with do any good.
No,it really didn't surprise me, but I would rather hope that when the school had a number of students operating at P levels and all teachers had to comply with reporting P levels that they might like to know how to do their job. This wasn't a session on interventions, it was a session on what P levels looked like, and then where to take the next steps.

The idea that SEN inset gives teachers useful information about how to do their job is the very one I was challenging.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
This was to support students already in the school, although one I was working with the local special school to support and was hoping to persuade that student that he liked that school better, and hopefully convince his mother he would be better placed there. You may disagree that students with behavioural difficulties should be seen as having special needs, but the legislation includes them.
The 1981 Education Act said that special schools would still be necessary for “those with severe emotional or behavioural disorders who have very great difficulty in forming relationships with others or whose behaviour is so extreme or unpredictable that it causes severe disruption in an ordinary school or inhibits the educational progress of other children;”.

The 2001 Special Needs and Disability Act, like the 1996 Education Act before it, qualified the right to be included with the words "unless that is incompatible with … the provision of efficient education for other children." And the explanatory note for the act clarified that “In practice, incompatibility with the efficient education of others is likely to be where pupils present severe challenging behaviour that would significantly disrupt the learning of other pupils or place their safety at risk.”

So I don't think it can be maintained that the legislation alone forces us into this situation.
The students working at P levels were for the most part not behaviour issues. But they needed a lot of support and accommodation to cope in a mainstream classroom.

Then they are not relevant to my point.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

Again, I'll say that students with behavioural difficulties are extremely lucky to get into an EBD unit - there were about 60 places county wide, for boys only, and there were never places available. We tried incredibly hard to get two students into EBD units - one was the knife-wielding student who set things on fire when not supervised at all times, the other got an emergency place at the PRU for the usual two terms and then we got him back.

Again you are describing work done to overcome the system as if it is a defence of the system.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Working with these students there is usually, but not always, an underlying learning difficulty and they've learnt to misbehave as an easier option than dealing with school work.
The point, confirmed by OFSTED, is that these diagnoses are often wrong.
What diagnoses? I've only described diagnoses as given by CAMHS, Specialist teachers and Ed Psychs, anything I put on an IEP were factual information - reading age and when tested, CATs and SATs scores, comments about observed behaviour - and strategies as discussed with parents, primary school and other teachers, including SMT. I wasn't diagnosing a student on a piece of paper that went to parents and could come back and haunt me later.

I am talking about the diagnosis of "underlying learning difficulty". These are often (in my experience usually) nonsense.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Followed your link. Read your posts. Found that:
1. You think SEN should be dismantled and get out of the way of classroom teachers
2. Asking you for anything more specific than that entails "writing an essay" and that's just far too onerous for an online discussion

You appear to have found only what you wanted to find then.

Let me know if at any point you want to discuss what I actually said.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
True... from a practical matter (which seems to be oldandrew's primary concern) if a placebo works, why not use it?

Honesty.
Not necessarily. The examples I gave did not require deception.

Then it could be asked if they are actually placebos.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
What is it that you imagine I claimed about good teaching?
I read
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
All I said was that for students who are poor readers there was one single treatment.
I imagined that your one single treatment was good teaching(some phonics system if I remember another thread correctly). I do not nor do I intend to say good teaching(phonics or otherwise) is not needed to treat students who are poor readers. But, I do think that more than one thing can help the teaching. In other words I disagree with the one single part in favor of in tandem treatments when they could help.

Well go ahead, what other than good teaching can help?

Posted by amber. (# 11142) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
...It is not a good sign that having made a claim about the testimony of teachers and none are mentioned, and instead you end up quoting the department for education.

You simply said "Feel free to elaborate".

You got some elaboration by way of three random examples. There's plenty more. I quoted the DfE only as an additional thing of interest, since it outlines major studies where behavioural interventions were found to work, and gives people the detail you are now asking for.

Did you mean to say "Amber, I need complete case histories of the individuals in question with extensive detail on the interventions used and teacher reports detailing from them exactly their views"

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

OK, so from your last answer to me, oldandrew, do I understand you are only challenging students with behavioural problems?

Of the students we've taught over the past few years, some have stopped attending school, some the school have asked to stop attending. A good 50-70% of those students struggle to read and write and are reading at low primary levels; many do not have the basics in arithmetic - number bonds to 10, times tables, an ability to decompose to subtract. These are year 10 and 11 students, who have been through 8 or 9 years of mainstream education. I would call that having learning difficulties if they haven't mastered the basics at age 14 or 15. Those the school have asked to stop attending are usually students with behaviour issues.

I am not saying that the SEN system is perfect and works brilliantly, but I think that a school system and national curriculum that pushes kids ever onwards to the next stage when they haven't mastered the basics is failing those students. I have said this in earlier posts - that an entitlement curriculum and a chronological moving on of students means we have a SEN system papering over the cracks - either by providing additional booster classes and by sitting in support in a class to hopefully differentiate the work to a point the student can learn something.

Actually, I am not taking this personally, as in a personal attack, I hear what you are saying and feel for the students who are facing an attitude that says they should not be in mainstream when they can't behave. However, following students around to observe them it's interesting seeing where they do behave, and what works to help them behave. Some classes and teachers struggle with behaviour, others do not and some students do not behave, whoever the teacher is. You cannot making sweeping generalisations for all students in this way.

I think the entire system needs looking at, not the SEN system, which is a symptom of a deeper malaise.

My comment about special schools, and I've made this earlier too, with parental choice in the mix, the fewer able-bodied students in the local special school, the more reluctant any parent was to send a child to that school if their child looked 'normal', whatever their level of ability or chance to thrive in a mainstream school. The local special school (it was close enough to have very good links) only taught up to National Curriculum level 2 - so the expected achievement for a 7 year old. If a child was expected to achieve that or more, they were placed in mainstream.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

I think the entire system needs looking at, not the SEN system, which is a symptom of a deeper malaise.

I agree with this entirely. Having been a class teacher in the system for many years, always in 'challenging' schools, I can certainly see the difficulties fro the inside.

But what I have seen is that SEN children are the ones who suffer the most from the testing, targets and tables system we have.

The worst thing we can do, as teachers, is to blame the children and their parents. We need the parents on our side - not to be classed as 'over fussy' if they push for help for their child, or 'uncaring' if they don't.

Parents, in my experience, do the best they can - and when they know you are rooting for their child they will work with you above and beyond expectations.

[ 26. September 2010, 08:38: Message edited by: Boogie ]

Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:

quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
What is it that you imagine I claimed about good teaching?
I read
quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
All I said was that for students who are poor readers there was one single treatment.
I imagined that your one single treatment was good teaching(some phonics system if I remember another thread correctly). I do not nor do I intend to say good teaching(phonics or otherwise) is not needed to treat students who are poor readers. But, I do think that more than one thing can help the teaching. In other words I disagree with the one single part in favor of in tandem treatments when they could help.
Well go ahead, what other than good teaching can help?

Blue tinted overlays or blue tinted glasses in some students. If they have a strong placebo effect then it helps whether or not it actually corrects any problems.

Posted by WhyNotSmile (# 14126) on :

I've been following this thread for a while now, but haven't commented yet. This is mainly addressed to OldAndrew, as he has been one of the most vocal people, but I don't want to limit it.

From what I've read, it seems that the current SEN system can be very helpful for some children, but can also be abused so that children who have no actual 'condition' are given lots of resources, to no effect.

I still haven't quite got to grips with some of OldAndrew's comments; am I right in thinking that your main objection to SEN is that children can be wrongly diagnosed and that this can be used as an excuse for bad behaviour?

Here's my question: if the current system is not working, what should be happening? I understand that the educational system itself has problems (eg insisting that students are taught in year groups no matter what their ability). But, given that that's not about to chance, what should be put in place?

To give a concrete example, let's say there's a child with an undiagnosed condition. He is intelligent, but doesn't like changes in his routine. Generally he behaves well and learns well, but when something changes (e.g. a new teacher, a field trip etc), he gets extremely stressed and anxious. Being 7 years old, he doesn't know how to tell anyone about this, so he cries and hits out at anyone who comes near him. This leads to him getting in trouble, and therefore he feels more anxious, and also confused about why he was punished.

It seems to me (and I admit no expertise in teaching) that intervention like SEN will at least give this child the chance to have needs identified. It may be that no action is generally needed, but when there is a trip coming up, someone needs to sit with him and explain what's going to happen; likewise, if there is a substitute teacher, it may be helpful for this child to be allowed to keep some distance from the teacher for a while, if he doesn't feel confortable talking to a new person. Beyond this, no special action is required.

Without such guidance, the child gets no real help. He may learn to deal with the anxiety in time, but still feels 'different'; he may be teased by other pupils for not fitting in.

So my question is, if SEN is so bad, what intervention should take place in this case?

Let's not, for the moment, get into the possibility of the system being abused and used to excuse bad behaviour etc. Once we figure out what would work, then we are in a better position to talk about how to prevent problems in it.

Posted by wild haggis (# 15555) on :

I have been scanning down the comments in this thread. Some are excellent and some................!!!!!!! I do wish people would actually find out what they are critising before they open their computers. I am writing this from a British/English perspective. The situation in the States is different.

I speak as someone who has a specific learning difficulty (dyslexia) in spelling. I am also a primary teacher with 38 years experience of teaching in State schools in Scotland and England, schools abroad and Independent schools, including on specialising in teaching Dyslexic children. I have a Masters from Kings London. I think I know a wee bit about what I'm spouting.

I was thumped every night at home as I never got more than 0/10 (usually -10) for dictation. I know children who are still thumped for not doing well today!My Higher(A level in Scotland) English was marked down from an A to a B because of my spelling. I was branded stupid because I couldn't spell. I would never wish this on a child!! I wasn't diagnosed until I was 30. I wish someone had helped me earlier to see why I appeared to be failing and that I wasn't stupid.

The funny thing is my so-called brilliant sister who could spell beautifully is not so well academically qualified as me now! So is spelling that important? English isn't a phonetic language and is jolly difficult to learn to spell, ask any foreigner learning the language.

So yes SEN does exist. My son has inherited my difficulties but at 26 his spelling age is only 8.9 years.He didn't receive much help because he was in classes of 30 children and there was no money for extra help to engage in different learning styles with him at school.But I did work with him at home.

There are real SEN conditions (do I need to enumerate - maybe I do as some contruibuters seems to think it is only ADHA that is an SEN category), about that there is no arguement. However there are some, particularly middle class parents, but also others, who seek to excuse their bad parenting by giving their child a title of ADHD. The real condition is awful and can can drive very good parents to distraction.

The probelm in State schools in England is that you often have to wait 18 months for a physcholigist's report before you can get any real targetted help. And even then it is a lottery. As stated already, the individual or group help often given in primary schools is by an unqualified TA who has no idea how to do staged developmental teaching or kinistic teaching. It's really too late by the time the child has got to Secondary stage and by then has been branded as stupid and often developed self esteem problems,and may even be even compensating by behaving badly or opting out. By the way in England schools do not refuse to teach children and just throw them out wiley niley. They may be excluded for a named time but then there is usually a referal to a centre. The problem is that sucessive governments have not put enough money into these so they are few and far between.And because there are not enough Educational Welfare Officers (funding) when a child doesn't attend, often in collusion with parents, nothing can be doen for some time as there is no man/women power to follow up the case.

Most problems could be solved by smaller classes of 12 - 20 at primary school. After all that is why Independent schools succeed. It's not necessarily "good teaching" Some of the worst teachers I have seen are in the Idependent sector (I've taught there!!) but because the school is selective and there are small classes they get away with it.

A good teacher with 30 Receptions and a TA only in the mornings, parents who do not practice reading at home with their children and who blame the school for everything, don't stand a chance. As to the constant pressure to meet so called tagets! (Who has deemed that this level is what is acceptable for a child for this age? When I started teaching in Scotland - then considered the best education in Europe - we didn't teach science in primary school an half the maths and English now taught was not done until secondary. Humph!) The curriculum is so overcrowed childen never have time to spend practicing the skills that you teach. No wonder most teachers only stay for 5 years in the profession

I have been regularly kicked and punched by many a Reception child, who doesn't like to be told what to do, in the last 20 years. Is this the fault of school? I think not - not at this stage. When I started teaching this was rare if not impossible to find, and I taught in a very run down Clydeside area with real deprevation.

Working with children is complex. There are those who learn in different ways, those with genuine SEN problems and those who come to school with no social skills, poor language accquisition and even in nappies today. We have politicians, pushy parents and know-alls who never come into schools to see what happens and believe myths perpetuated by the Red Tops who have a political axe to grind, or business people who forget what they were like at that age, presurizing teachers and stopping them doing what they do well. Let them try to run a class of 30, 5 year olds in a deprived estate, with a TA each morning who because of her paid hours, only comes in the moment the children do, fill in over 120 targets for each child,and have to write up every single thing they do during the day, almost, down to how many scissors they need for an activity - cast the first stone!

Please support teachers in the job they do. They work hard and no one seems to appreciate them.They get blamed for all the ills of society while no one dares critise parents or what politicians tell teachers to do.

We need small classes where teaching can be targetted to the needs of the children at the very beginning of their learning.Not smart alecs who never work with children telling us what to do with SEN or anything else.

Excuse spelling! I am a bear of litle brain!!!!!

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

Well said wild haggis [Smile]

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by amber.:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
...It is not a good sign that having made a claim about the testimony of teachers and none are mentioned, and instead you end up quoting the department for education.
You simply said "Feel free to elaborate".

The implication was that you might elaborate about the thing we were talking about, i.e. mainstream classroom teachers seeing SEN behaviour interventions work on their pupils.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
OK, so from your last answer to me, oldandrew, do I understand you are only challenging students with behavioural problems?

I don't even know what exactly you mean by that, let alone where it came from.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

Of the students we've taught over the past few years, some have stopped attending school, some the school have asked to stop attending. A good 50-70% of those students struggle to read and write and are reading at low primary levels; many do not have the basics in arithmetic - number bonds to 10, times tables, an ability to decompose to subtract. These are year 10 and 11 students, who have been through 8 or 9 years of mainstream education. I would call that having learning difficulties if they haven't mastered the basics at age 14 or 15. Those the school have asked to stop attending are usually students with behaviour issues.

The question is over cause and effect. I have no doubt that very badly behaved children don't learn. It does not mean they have "underlying learning difficulties". Bad behaviour prevents learning.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

I am not saying that the SEN system is perfect and works brilliantly, but I think that a school system and national curriculum that pushes kids ever onwards to the next stage when they haven't mastered the basics is failing those students.

Agreed. However, this is partly a result of the policy of inclusion that keeps kids in classes they can't learn from.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

I have said this in earlier posts - that an entitlement curriculum and a chronological moving on of students means we have a SEN system papering over the cracks - either by providing additional booster classes and by sitting in support in a class to hopefully differentiate the work to a point the student can learn something.

I agree that this is part of the reason the SEN system exists and part of the reason it doesn't work.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

However, following students around to observe them it's interesting seeing where they do behave, and what works to help them behave. Some classes and teachers struggle with behaviour, others do not and some students do not behave, whoever the teacher is. You cannot making sweeping generalisations for all students in this way.

Not quite sure what generalisation you have in mind.

However, I do not accept that if a student behaves badly only for some teachers it makes it more acceptable. In fact that just makes it clear that it's a matter of choice, not a special need.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

I think the entire system needs looking at, not the SEN system, which is a symptom of a deeper malaise.

I agree that the whole system needs looking at, but the SEN racket is a major problem.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

I think the entire system needs looking at, not the SEN system, which is a symptom of a deeper malaise.

I agree with this entirely. Having been a class teacher in the system for many years, always in 'challenging' schools, I can certainly see the difficulties fro the inside.

But what I have seen is that SEN children are the ones who suffer the most from the testing, targets and tables system we have.

Those are something politicians put in because they thought the system wasn't working and have kept in pretty much for the same reason.

I would consider them a symptom of the problem not a cause. Personally I am happy when my students are tested, it shows that my teaching methods work.

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by WhyNotSmile:

From what I've read, it seems that the current SEN system can be very helpful for some children

Do we have good evidence for this?

quote:
Originally posted by WhyNotSmile:

, but can also be abused so that children who have no actual 'condition' are given lots of resources, to no effect.

I still haven't quite got to grips with some of OldAndrew's comments; am I right in thinking that your main objection to SEN is that children can be wrongly diagnosed and that this can be used as an excuse for bad behaviour?

If I had to simplify my complaint, it would be that it is mainly an exercise in creating activity rather than achieving anything.

Within that, the medicalisation of poor behaviour is a major problem, but so is the medicalisation of underachievement, the use of amateur diagnoses, the promotion of pseudo-science, the undermining of the professionalism of teachers, and the useless or harmful interventions.

quote:
Originally posted by WhyNotSmile:

Here's my question: if the current system is not working, what should be happening?

Resources should be allocated within the usual managerial systems without this bureaucracy, according to what would help kids be educated rather than through labelling.

Inclusion needs to end, particularly of badly behaved kids. Education, not social engineering, needs to be the point of the education system.

quote:
Originally posted by WhyNotSmile:

I understand that the educational system itself has problems (eg insisting that students are taught in year groups no matter what their ability). But, given that that's not about to chance, what should be put in place?

Why shouldn't it change?

quote:
Originally posted by WhyNotSmile:

To give a concrete example, let's say there's a child with an undiagnosed condition. He is intelligent, but doesn't like changes in his routine. Generally he behaves well and learns well, but when something changes (e.g. a new teacher, a field trip etc), he gets extremely stressed and anxious. Being 7 years old, he doesn't know how to tell anyone about this, so he cries and hits out at anyone who comes near him.

Oh for pity's sake.

Why does it always have to be really young kids who are upset that are used as examples of SEN intervention? This is not who the system normally deals with. That said, I think hitting people is unacceptable no matter how upset you are.

quote:
Originally posted by WhyNotSmile:

This leads to him getting in trouble, and therefore he feels more anxious, and also confused about why he was punished.

If he is unable to understand that hitting people is wrong then he should not be allowed near other children.

quote:
Originally posted by WhyNotSmile:

It seems to me (and I admit no expertise in teaching) that intervention like SEN will at least give this child the chance to have needs identified.

The point is that this has been tried and it doesn't work. The fact is that violent kids don't usually have any more "needs" than anyone else and setting up a bureaucracy to identify these needs just makes an excuse for the violence, and wastes resources that could be used to help kids with more obvious needs.

quote:
Originally posted by WhyNotSmile:
It may be that no action is generally needed, but when there is a trip coming up, someone needs to sit with him and explain what's going to happen; likewise, if there is a substitute teacher, it may be helpful for this child to be allowed to keep some distance from the teacher for a while, if he doesn't feel confortable talking to a new person. Beyond this, no special action is required.

You seem to think that a child who hits people when he is upset has a special right to adults running round trying to stop him being upset.

No.

He needs to learn, through punishment, that hitting people is an unnacceptable way to react to being upset.

That's not to say his upset should be ignored, but it is no more important that similar feelings or problems on the part of non-violent kids.

quote:
Originally posted by WhyNotSmile:

Without such guidance, the child gets no real help. He may learn to deal with the anxiety in time, but still feels 'different'; he may be teased by other pupils for not fitting in.

Labelling kids, giving them special helpers is going to make those problems worse, not better.

quote:
Originally posted by WhyNotSmile:

So my question is, if SEN is so bad, what intervention should take place in this case?

Hitting should be punished. Upset children should be comforted. If the upset is very unreasonable then appropriate professionals should be brought in, but this should be through the pastoral system not through a special bureaucracy.

Posted by Cod (# 2643) on :

I didn't think teachers were allowed to comfort upset children any more.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
The question is over cause and effect. I have no doubt that very badly behaved children don't learn. It does not mean they have "underlying learning difficulties". Bad behaviour prevents learning.

So you don't think that learning difficulties can cause behaviour issues? If you find that consistently the majority of students with behaviour issues in school have low reading ages and low CATs scores in at least some areas, you are assuming that the student has prevented their own learning? Have you ever observed or worked with children in primary school for more than the two weeks observations you're expected to do? Because I think if you had, you would have a different view on this one. I have observed eager 5 year olds who struggled and got behind develop into 7 or 8 year olds learning bad behaviour to avoid facing the reading or other things they can't do.

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew in response to this from me

quote:
I am not saying that the SEN system is perfect and works brilliantly, but I think that a school system and national curriculum that pushes kids ever onwards to the next stage when they haven't mastered the basics is failing those students.
Agreed. However, this is partly a result of the policy of inclusion that keeps kids in classes they can't learn from.

So how does that not agree with my point that it's not SEN that's the main issue, it's this underlying system that's the problem?

quote:
posted by oldandrew in response to this from me:

quote:

However, following students around to observe them it's interesting seeing where they do behave, and what works to help them behave. Some classes and teachers struggle with behaviour, others do not and some students do not behave, whoever the teacher is. You cannot making sweeping generalisations for all students in this way.
<snip>

However, I do not accept that if a student behaves badly only for some teachers it makes it more acceptable. In fact that just makes it clear that it's a matter of choice, not a special need.

So the student's behaviour is totally their responsibility? What the teacher does has absolutely no impact on how a student behaves in a lesson? The work the student is presented with makes no difference at all?

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

If you follow a child (or a class of children) round a high school you'll find they behave, and work, totally differently for different teachers. They respond to the prevailing ethos.

For some teachers they are engaged, interested, hard working and motivated - getting good results, for others they play up virtually from the start of the lesson.

This tells us far more about teaching styles than anything. Some teachers struggle to own up to the idea that the change needs to come from them, not the students.

Posted by fat-tony (# 13769) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:

quote:
Originally posted by fat-tony:
Pottage, the only thing that everyone in education seems to agree on is that the system doesn't work. Unfortunately when you suggest rebuiling it you get a whole host of contradictory plans. To answer your question on what would be a better system for SEND is linked to that.

fat-tony
I think I've gleaned enough from the thread (and perhaps more from the reading and asking around IRL that it has prompted me to do) to appreciate that the current system is a cause of considerable frustration and waste. It seems to address some needs that don't really exist, and to leave some who have genuine needs floundering without the help they need. Even when it is addressing a genuine issue it sometimes seems to provide ill considered and ineffective help.

But even in my limited investigations, and indeed even on this thread, I have seen evidence that it does also (however inefficiently) sometimes address the problems of children with undeniable learning needs and produce an outcome they are happy with. That alone tells me that there should be A system, just as clearly as what you have posted tells me that it shouldn't be THIS system.

I gather from what you post that there is no shortage of proposals for systems of provision that would be better, although none that everyone, or even a substantial minority of interested parties seems comfortable to get behind. That's no surprise in the circumstances. For the uninitiated, or the newly initiated, can you draw out any principles that are features of these alternatives? If you were going to answer the call for submissions to the green paper (and maybe you are) what would you be recommending?

Sorry i've been away so long, but workload in education is ridiculous and I'm just grabbing a quick 20 minutes before Governors. I have submitted to the green paper, but i'll quickly explain my fear, as a slight lefty(very slight). When you look objectively at the whole education system and the policy of inclusion/SEN provision, what works and what doesn't you will sometimes find examples of good practice. However they are mainly in a primary environment when the Headtacher has shunned books, IT resources and other facilities(but has a huge building, a throwback to when teh school was bigger maybe) in favour of over staffing teachers so that classes are smaller, teachers get more release time, and then placing a non centrally directed TA or 2 in the class; and probably an inculsion unit and many learning mentors. The teacher then can really make a difference, use their professional judgement, skills and passion and you get these wonder stories of inclusion. That are not recognised by any secondary school teacher I know. We try and mimic them and end up in the mess we've got.

The case of good practice in secondary schools is much rarer. You get incidents like those I mentioned being tolerated and condoned by the system on a daily basis. Now someone suggested that we should make all classes smaller, a lovely idea that even if you could staff by cutting budgets elsewhere, you wouldn't be able to house them(wrap around schools with a moveable timetable would possibly work). If I were to try that at my school and put a maximum clas size of 20 I'd need to loose a third of my pupils. I also am not going to go down the route of blame the secondary school teachers for not being up to the standards of primary teachers. It's not the same job, ask even a primary school teacher whose just moved a few years up into year 6(top of primary) and they'd say teh job they have is different to any other year group. Secondary education, comprehensive schools are trying to do too much. They try to have many smaller schools all under one roof, with a homogenous staff. Inclusion is not just about pupils going to mainstream as opposed to special schools or not excluding the badly behaved, it's about having the right course for all pupils under one roof, yet with a tiny budget, and it effectively becomes a bandaid job. The expertise is spread too thinly around schools, as every school needs a teacher who can do this, or do that. The more you go down this route the more the idea of many smaller schools specialising, a concentration of expertise, and more choice seems the logical option. Which is where my political views jump up and down. Even though more choice for parents, more specialised smaller secondary schools seems to be the answer, I'm too aware that it will simply mean more social division. More avoidance of stigma and the poorest getting a rough deal.

Sorry it's rambling, I probably could have done with an hour or 2 to write that properly. But need to rush off.

fat-tony

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew:
The question is over cause and effect. I have no doubt that very badly behaved children don't learn. It does not mean they have "underlying learning difficulties". Bad behaviour prevents learning.
So you don't think that learning difficulties can cause behaviour issues?

It depends what you mean by "cause", but certainly I do not think you can address behaviour by attempting to diagnose learning difficulties.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

If you find that consistently the majority of students with behaviour issues in school have low reading ages and low CATs scores in at least some areas, you are assuming that the student has prevented their own learning?

My experience is that although the majority of children who behave very badly are behind academically, the majority of children who are behind academically don't behave very badly.

So if I had to explain cause and effect then it is more likely that bad behaviour prevents learning than learning difficulties cause bad behaviour.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

Have you ever observed or worked with children in primary school for more than the two weeks observations you're expected to do? Because I think if you had, you would have a different view on this one. I have observed eager 5 year olds who struggled and got behind develop into 7 or 8 year olds learning bad behaviour to avoid facing the reading or other things they can't do.

I think that just highlights the absurdity of the claim. If a teenager has been misbehaving habitually since they were 7, then it seems absurd to suggest that their behaviour could be addressed by addressing the learning difficulty they had when they were 5. The bad behaviour habit needs to be broken first. The original learning difficulty is likely to be insignificant compared with the cumulative effects of years of not behaving.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

quote:
Originally posted by oldandrew in response to this from me

quote:
I am not saying that the SEN system is perfect and works brilliantly, but I think that a school system and national curriculum that pushes kids ever onwards to the next stage when they haven't mastered the basics is failing those students.
Agreed. However, this is partly a result of the policy of inclusion that keeps kids in classes they can't learn from.
So how does that not agree with my point that it's not SEN that's the main issue, it's this underlying system that's the problem?

I don't think you can separate the SEN racket and inclusion in this way. The SEN racket is the bureaucracy in charge of pretending inclusion is working.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

quote:
posted by oldandrew in response to this from me:

quote:

However, following students around to observe them it's interesting seeing where they do behave, and what works to help them behave. Some classes and teachers struggle with behaviour, others do not and some students do not behave, whoever the teacher is. You cannot making sweeping generalisations for all students in this way.
<snip>

However, I do not accept that if a student behaves badly only for some teachers it makes it more acceptable. In fact that just makes it clear that it's a matter of choice, not a special need.
So the student's behaviour is totally their responsibility?

Yes. Human beings are responsible for their behaviour. (Assuming they are sane and the actions are not involuntary, like a sneeze or a baby crying.)

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

What the teacher does has absolutely no impact on how a student behaves in a lesson?

That is not the same thing. Teachers have a responsibility to manage behaviour, but they are not responsibile for the choices of others.

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

The work the student is presented with makes no difference at all?

Of course it makes a difference. A child is more likely to misbehave if they are expected to work harder than they'd like.

So what? Are we going to appease the badly behaved students by expecting less effort? That would certainly ensure that they develop learning difficulties.

Posted by Pottage (# 9529) on :

Actually Tony that's interesting. I've looked back through the thread and I think it's true a majority of cases where positive outcomes for the SEN system have been described do relate to primary rather than secondary education.

I can imagine that there will be numerous reasons why that might be. Primary school education is more controlled, with classes remaining together and in the same place all day, rather than splintering and reforming in different permutations for each subject. Teachers and any available TAs have a year's consistent daily contact with the class. And primary schools are commonly on a more manageable scale too. My children went to a fairly large primary school because it was the product of a merger, but the year groups in their (average-sized) comprehensive school are four times larger.

So the chances are much greater in primary that teachers will be able to identify a child who is not learning at an expected pace or in a "usual" way. They won't just see the child's performance in one subject once or twice a week. So too are the chances of any strategy to address a child's particular learning difficulties being able to be applied consistently if it is the same handful of staff who will be doing that throughout the year.

I don't think it's feasible to have petite and homely high schools. The trend, if anything is apparently towards still larger schools. So do you think there are things that big high schools can do? Splitting the school into houses is an old fashioned practice, but does it help? My daughters' school preserves the four houses they had generations ago as a (smaller) grammar school, but also divide up the houses as well so there's no more than thirty to forty children from any year group in each sub-house. Based on these smaller sub-house groupings they also have 'vertical' tutor groups for all registration and pastoral purposes which contain just an average of three children from each year (7-13). From my perspective it's hard to judge whether it is effective (in the context of this thread anyway). Is that sort of thing a viable strategy?

Posted by oldandrew (# 11546) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
If you follow a child (or a class of children) round a high school you'll find they behave, and work, totally differently for different teachers. They respond to the prevailing ethos.

For some teachers they are engaged, interested, hard working and motivated - getting good results, for others they play up virtually from the start of the lesson.

This tells us far more about teaching styles than anything. Some teachers struggle to own up to the idea that the change needs to come from them, not the students.

This is inevitably how it goes when people start putting children on a pedestal.

Firstly, their bad behaviour, poor effort or low ability is the result of an undiagnosed disability. Then, when that argument strains credibility to breaking point (usually because most children's SEN varies between lessons and subjects) the finger of blame moves to their teachers. "He never acts up for me", they say, "it's because I have a good relationship with him".

Of course, children do behave differently in different lessons for different teachers. They will behave better where they are afraid. They will behave better where they enjoy the subject. They will behave better where their peers behave well. They will behave better where their low expectations are not challenged. They will behave badly where their teacher is new. They will behave badly where they know the school will not support the teacher. They will behave badly where their peers behave badly. They will behave badly where they don't get their own way.

Teachers dread managers who try and simplify these sorts of things so that they are all down to the classroom teacher, never the kids, never the school. It's called a culture of blame and it is all you need to know about why most qualified teachers don't stay in teaching.

UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0