Warnock (1978)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages Membership, Contents, Introduction
Chapter 1 General approach
Chapter 2 Historical background
Chapter 3 Scope of special education
Chapter 4 Discovery, assessment and recording
Chapter 5 Children under five
Chapter 6 Schoolchildren with special needs: introduction
Chapter 7 Special education in ordinary schools
Chapter 8 Special education in special schools
Chapter 9 Parents as partners
Chapter 10 Transition from school to adult life
Chapter 11 Some curricular considerations
Chapter 12 Teacher education and training
Chapter 13 Advice and support in special education
Chapter 14 Other education service staff
Chapter 15 Health service and social services
Chapter 16 Relations between professionals, confidentiality and coordination of services
Chapter 17 Voluntary organisations
Chapter 18 Research and development
Chapter 19 Priorities and resources
Summary of recommendations

Appendices

Appendix 1 List of contributors
Appendix 2 Categories of handicapped pupils
Appendix 3 Possible grid as basis for statistical returns
Appendix 4 Organisation of health service
Appendix 5 Research project on services for parents of under 5s
Appendix 6 Research project on pre-school education
Appendix 7 Research project on employment experiences of handicapped school leavers
Appendix 8 Survey of teachers' views on special education

Index

Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the education of handicapped children and young people

London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1978
© Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

ISBN 0 10 172120 X

Chapter 1 General approach
[pages 4 - 7]

1.1 Ours was the first committee of enquiry specifically charged by any government of the United Kingdom to review educational provision for all handicapped children, whatever their handicap. The last such body to have terms of reference which approached our own in breadth was the Royal Commission on the Blind, the Deaf and Dumb and Others of the United Kingdom which reported in 1889. The Commission was originally appointed to consider the educational needs of the blind and although its remit was subsequently extended to the education of the deaf and dumb 'as well as such other cases as from special circumstances would seem to require exceptional methods of education' the last phrase was interpreted as meaning only the mentally handicapped. Subsequent ad hoc committees of enquiry in this field have had fairly narrow terms of reference, restricted to a particular group or groups of the handicapped. The establishment of our Committee, therefore, provided a formidable challenge as well as a unique opportunity to take a comprehensive view of the way in which educational provision for handicapped children and young people, as well as arrangements for their transition from school to adult life, have developed and should develop in the future.

1.2 With regard to our terms of reference, we should like to make three preliminary points. First, we have not felt it part of our business to go deeply into the factors which may lead to educational handicap. We are fully aware that many children with educational difficulties may suffer from familial or wider social deficiencies. While for most children their family life enhances their development, others show educational difficulties because they do not obtain from their families or their social circumstances the quality of stimulation or the sense of stability which is necessary for proper educational progress. But regardless of the cause of such children's problems, familial or social, unless part of their educational provision is designed to compensate for the deprivation they have suffered, they will be unable to benefit from education in the ordinary sense. One cannot always keep these different strands apart. Secondly, we did not regard the problems of highly gifted children as falling within our remit, except insofar as these problems may result in emotional or behavioural disorders similar in effect to the problems of other children with whom we are concerned.* Thirdly, we have not attempted to offer comprehensive guidance on necessary improvements in special educational provision for each specific disability. Much of the content of our report and most of our recommendations are of a general nature, and references to particular types of disability and difficulty are mostly illustrative rather than comprehensive. It may well be that in the future, as in the past, working groups or committees will need to be set up to consider particular disabilities in more detail. Intensive study of each disability, however, was beyond our scope and indeed our competence.

*Procedures for identifying gifted children and various forms of provision for them are discussed in a recent publication Gifted children in Middle and Comprehensive Secondary Schools. Department of Education and Science HMI Series: Matters for Discussion 4 (HMSO, 1977).

1.3 The focus of our enquiry has been the EDUCATION of handicapped children and young people. It is natural that we should have worked with certain presumptions and presuppositions of a very general kind about what education is. We have not been concerned to draw absolute distinctions between education and neighbouring concepts such as training, therapy and care. Indeed we have endeavoured to take account of these other concepts wherever they bear upon our subject. We have, however, looked at the problems of handicapped children always with their education primarily in mind, and this has led us sometimes to distinguish between education and other related concepts.

1.4 We hold that education has certain long-term goals, that it has a general point or purpose, which can be definitely, though generally, stated. The goals are twofold, different from each other, but by no means incompatible. They are, first, to enlarge a child's knowledge, experience and imaginative understanding, and thus his awareness of moral values and capacity for enjoyment; and secondly, to enable him to enter the world after formal education is over as an active participant in society and a responsible contributor to it, capable of achieving as much independence as possible. The educational needs of every child are determined in relation to these goals. We are fully aware that for some children the first of these goals can be approached only by minute, though for them highly significant steps, while the second may never be achieved. But this does not entail that for these children the goals are different. The purpose of education for all children is the same; the goals are the same. But the help that individual children need in progressing towards them will be different. Whereas for some the road they have to travel towards the goals is smooth and easy, for others it is fraught with obstacles. For some the obstacles are so daunting that, even with the greatest possible help, they will not get very far. Nevertheless, for them too, progress will be possible, and their educational needs will be fulfilled, as they gradually overcome one obstacle after another on the way.

1.5 Broadly, our task has been to consider how teaching and learning can best be brought about wherever there are children who have particular obstacles to overcome, whether these are primarily physical, sensory, intellectual or emotional. For education, though concerned with the acquiring of knowledge, cannot be thought to be something which takes place only at school. Many children learn things without anyone specifically teaching them. They learn to walk, to speak, to get on with their companions by trial and error or by imitation. Learning these things may be regarded not as part of education, but merely as a normal part of the kind of learning which goes on for all of us all through life. But for some children, such knowledge will not be spontaneously acquired and has to be elaborately taught. For these children, education must start early and continue at home and at school and into adult life. Parents, as much as teachers, must see themselves as active educators, and both parents and teachers may need the help of other professionals in their endeavours. At every stage of our discussion, the contribution of parents and non-teacher professionals to the education of the child has been at the front of our minds.

1.6 The criterion by which to judge the quality of educational provision is the extent to which it leads a pupil towards the twin goals which we have described, towards understanding, awareness of moral values and enjoyment and towards the possibility of independence. His progress towards these goals which alone can justify a particular course of education for anyone, whatever his abilities or disabilities. For some children, enjoyment and understanding may be confined to the hard-won, taught capacity to recognise things and people, and perhaps to name them. For some, independence may in the end amount to no more than the freedom of performing a task for oneself rather than having someone else do it, even if the task is only getting dressed or feeding oneself. For others the concepts of imaginative understanding, enjoyment and freedom have an infinitely richer content. But the direction of progress is the same.

1.7 Though the general concept of education may remain constant, its interpretation will thus be widely different in the case of different children. There is in our society a vast range of differently disabled children, many of whom would not have survived infancy in other periods of history. In the case of the most profoundly disabled one is bound to face the questions: Why educate such children at all? Are they not ineducable? How can one justify such effort and such expense for so small a result? Such questions have to be faced, and must be answered. Our answer is that education, as we conceive it, is a good, and a specifically human good, to which all human beings are entitled. There exists, therefore, a clear obligation to educate the most severely disabled for no other reason than that they are human. No civilised society can be content just to look after these children; it must all the time seek ways of helping them, however slowly, towards the educational goals we have identified. To understand the ways in which help can be given is to begin to meet their educational needs. If we fail to do this, we are actually increasing and compounding their disadvantages.

1.8 Moreover there are some children with disabilities who, through education along the common lines we advocate, may be able to lead a life very little poorer in quality than that of the non-handicapped child, whereas without this kind of education they might face a life of dependence or even institutionalisation. Education in such cases makes the difference between a proper and enjoyable life and something less than we believe life should be. From the point of view of the other members of the family, too, the process of drawing a severely handicapped child into the educational system may, through its very normality, help to maintain the effectiveness, stability and cohesion of the family unit.

1.9 We have been concerned, however, not only with the severely handicapped but with all those children who require special education in any form. The help needed may range from continuous support from specialist services, including an intensive educational programme in a special school for a child with severe and multiple disabilities, to part-time assistance from a specially trained teacher for a child with mild learning difficulties. It is perhaps useful to regard this range of special educational need as a continuum, although that is a crude notion which conceals the complexities of individual needs.

1.10 Our concept of special education is thus broader than the traditional one of education by special methods appropriate for particular categories of children. It extends beyond the idea of education provided in special schools, special classes or units for children with particular types of disability, and embraces the notion of any form of additional help, wherever it is provided and whenever it is provided, from birth to maturity, to overcome educational difficulty. It also embodies the idea that, although the difficulties which some children encounter may dictate WHAT they have to be taught and the disabilities of some HOW they have to be taught, the point of their education is the same.

1.11 Whatever else may come out of our report, we hope that one thing will be clear. Special education is a challenging and intellectually demanding field for those engaged in it. More research is needed, more experiments in teaching techniques, in curriculum development and in cooperation between different professions. Those who work with children with special educational needs should regard themselves as having a crucial and developing role in a society which is now committed, not merely to tending and caring for its handicapped members, as a matter of charity, but to educating them, as a matter of right and to developing their potential to the full.