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 3 The scope of special education
[pages 36 - 49]

INTRODUCTION

3.1 We were appointed to review educational provision for children and young people handicapped by disabilities of body or mind. In this chapter we consider the meaning of handicap in an educational context and its usefulness as a concept. We urge the merits of a more positive approach, based on the concept of special educational need. We then turn to the need for a new system to replace the present statutory categorisation of handicapped pupils and conclude by advancing a broader view of special educational provision as a basis for a new framework of special education.

I HANDICAP IN AN EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT

3.2 In Chapter 1 we called attention to the wide range of things which a child needs to learn as part of his education. Besides his academic studies he must learn, for example, how to accommodate himself to other people. He must also learn what will be expected of him as an adult. Any child whose disabilities or difficulties prevent him from learning these things may be regarded as educationally handicapped, and it is with all educational handicaps that we are concerned in this report.

3.3 There is no agreed cut and dried distinction between the concept of handicap and other related concepts such as disability, incapacity and disadvantage. Neither is there a simple relationship between handicap in educational terms and the severity of a disability in medical or a disadvantage in social terms. Thus a boy with one leg suffers a gross and obvious physical disability which excludes him from many activities, but which may not prevent his making as good academic progress as his non-handicapped fellows. On the other hand, a child with impaired fine motor movements in his fingers has a physical disability which, though far from obvious and possibly not significant medically, may constitute a considerable handicap educationally since he will find great difficulty in writing. Again, a child suffering from extremely adverse social conditions may not have any difficulties in learning, whereas one whose home conditions seem only mildly unsatisfactory may nevertheless on starting school experience considerable educational difficulties.

3.4 Nor is there necessarily any direct relationship between handicap in educational terms and the degree of permanence of a disability or disturbance. For example there are some sensory disabilities which may be only temporary yet, while they last, have significant educational implications. An intermittent hearing loss or a partial hearing loss which becomes more severe at certain times may, for relatively short periods, be so handicapping to a child in school that intensive help in the form of specialist equipment and teaching techniques is necessary if he is to make educational progress. Moreover, the educational implications of a disability may vary at different stages of a child's development. A conductive hearing loss (one which is likely to be temporary and can respond to treatment) will affect an older child's' understanding of language far less seriously than that of a younger child, whose vocabulary and skill in 'guessing' at sentences are less well developed.

3.5 Whether a disability or significant difficulty constitutes an educational handicap for an individual child, and if so to what extent, will depend upon a variety of factors. Schools differ, often widely, in outlook, expertise, resources, accommodation, organisation and physical and social surroundings, all of which help to determine the degree to which the individual is educationally handicapped. Within a single school the impact of even a severe physical disability may vary from child to child according to its origin, the child's temperament and personality, his home circumstances, including the quality of the support and encouragement he receives within the family and neighbourhood, and the activities available to him out of school. In the case of maladjustment the relationship between a disability and the social setting in which it occurs may be even more complex.

3.6 It is thus impossible to establish precise criteria for defining what constitutes handicap. Yet the idea is deeply ingrained in educational thinking that there are two types of children, the handicapped and the non-handicapped. Traditionally the former have generally been thought to require special education, and the latter ordinary education. But the complexities of individual needs are far greater than this dichotomy implies. Moreover, to describe someone as handicapped conveys nothing of the type of educational help, and hence of provision that is required. We wish to see a more positive approach, and we have adopted the concept of SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEED, seen not in terms of a particular disability which a child may be judged to have, but in relation to everything about him, his abilities as well as his disabilities - indeed all the factors which have a bearing on his educational progress. We discuss this concept further in the following section.

II THE EXTENT AND DIFFERENT FORMS OF SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEED

The extent of special educational need

3.7 The extent of special educational need is very difficult to assess. Some indication is given by the figures for the children ascertained as requiring special education IN THE TRADITIONAL SENSE OF SEPARATE SPECIAL PROVISION. Thus in January 1977 in England and Wales 176,688 handicapped children or 1.8 per cent of the school population were attending special schools or special classes designated as such by local education authorities, were placed by authorities in independent schools catering wholly or mainly for handicapped pupils, were boarded in homes, were receiving education otherwise than at school or were awaiting admission to special schools. In Scotland 15,119 children or 1.4 per cent of the school population were receiving separate special educational provision in the session 1976-77. However, the scale on which children are ascertained as being in need of special education varies widely from one authority to another. In England and Wales in January 1977 the prevalence of children ascertained as requiring special education ranged from below 120 per 10,000 of the school population in a handful of predominantly rural authorities to above 300 in a small number of counties with large conurbations. In only 44 out of 105 authorities was the figure within a range 10 per cent above or below the average of 183. The prevalence of children ascertained as having particular handicaps varies even more widely between authorities; for example in one London borough in January 1977 ten times as many children were ascertained as maladjusted as in another. In Scotland a similar pattern is revealed. In the 1975-76 session the prevalence of children receiving special education ranged from 50 per 10,000 of the school population in a rural region to over 206 in a region with a large conurbation. Four out of nine regions were within a range 10 per cent above or below the national average of 120. (1) Some of the variations between authorities may reflect variations in local policy and the strength of assessment services, but they also suggest a relationship between the rate of ascertainment and the availability of special provision.

3.8 Any estimate of the extent of the need for special education has also to take into account the children who spend at least part of their time in special classes set up on the initiative of individual schools. In 1976 classes of this kind were attached to 10,845 maintained schools in England and Wales - nearly 40 per cent of all maintained primary, middle and secondary schools. They made provision, for varying periods of time each week, for 494,248 pupils, of whom 458,087 (4.7 per cent of the school population) had difficulties in learning, or problems of an emotional or behavioural nature, or both. The great majority (82 per cent) of the 458,087 spent less than half, and only 12 per cent spent more than three quarters, of their time in these special classes. (2)

3.9 Evidence from surveys of the proportion of children with special needs is variable since different surveys use different criteria of need. The most detailed study of the incidence of intellectual and educational retardation, psychiatric disorder and physical handicap was that carried out in 1964-65 on the Isle of Wight. (3) It covered the 2,199 children on the island aged between 9 and 11 years. For the purpose of the survey intellectual retardation meant an IQ of 70 or less; educational retardation meant a reading comprehension or accuracy 28 months or more below the child's chronological age or, in the case of specific reading retardation, 28 months or more below the level predicted from the child's age and IQ; psychiatric disorder was defined as an abnormality of behaviour, emotions or relationships sufficiently marked and prolonged to cause a handicap to the child himself or distress or disturbance in the family or community; and physical handicap was defined as a physical disorder which was chronic (lasting at least one year) and associated with persisting or recurrent handicap of some kind.

3.10 Of the 2,199 children, 354 were found to have one or more of these four types of handicap, that is 16 per cent or roughly one child in every six of those in the middle years of their schooling. A quarter of the 354 had at least two handicaps: more precisely, 90 per cent of the intellectually retarded, 43 per cent of the educationally retarded, 36 per cent of those with psychiatric disorder and 29 per cent of those with a physical handicap had another handicap or handicaps. (4)

3.11 It is possible that the figures from the Isle of Wight survey may be an underestimate rather than an overestimate when applied to the country as a whole. The prevalence rates in other age groups generally are unlikely to be much lower and, as we explain below, may be considerably higher than for 9-11 year olds alone, while the social circumstances of the families studied on the Isle of Wight are likely to be typical only of populations living mainly in small towns where many of the adverse environmental circumstances associated with inner city areas are absent.

3.12 A study carried out in 1970 to compare the rates of 'behavioural deviance' and psychiatric disorder in 10 year old children living in an inner London borough with those of children of the same age living on the Isle of Wight found that they were twice as high in the former as in the latter. The rate of 'behavioural deviance', as assessed by the teachers' questionnaire, was 19.1 per cent in the inner London borough compared with 10.6 per cent on the Isle of Wight; while, on the basis of parental interviews, 25.4 per cent of children in the inner London borough were estimated to show signs of psychiatric disorder compared with 12.0 per cent on the Isle of Wight. (5) A study extending over the whole of inner London conducted by the Inner London Education Authority Research Unit using the same questionnaire found that the high rate of 'behavioural deviance' was not specific to the one borough in the other survey. The average rate was found to be 19 per cent with rates in different parts of inner London ranging from 14.2 per cent to 25.3 per cent. (6) The comparative study of children in the inner London borough and on the Isle of Wight also found that the rates of general reading backwardness (that is 28 months or more backward in either accuracy or comprehension) and specific reading retardation were over twice as high in the inner London borough as on the Isle of Wight: 19.0 per cent compared with 8.3 per cent and 9.9 per cent compared with 3.9 per cent respectively.

3.13 Other studies have used rather broader criteria in trying to establish the proportion of children with special needs. A study of an infants' school in a good residential area in England found that of the 500 children who left the school over a six year period 16 per cent needed some additional help or consideration on account of learning, behaviour or emotional problems. (7) In 1971, after discussions with teachers, the Inner London Education Authority estimated, without attempting any breakdown, that between 12 per cent and 20 per cent of children of primary and secondary school age presented problems at some time or other in their school career and needed special attention for varying periods of time. (8)

3.14 The findings of the National Child Development Study with regard to the prevalence of special educational need nationally are broadly in line with those of local studies. The Study has followed up at the ages of 7, 11 and 16 years those children born in the week 3-9 March 1958. It found that at the age of 7 years 0.4 per cent of the children were attending special schools; 5 per cent of the children were receiving help within the ordinary school because of educational or mental backwardness; while there was a further 8 per cent who, their teachers considered, would benefit from such help. (9)

3.15 At the age of 16 years 3 per cent of the young people who were medically examined as part of the follow-up had been ascertained as currently in need of special education. 1.9 per cent were attending maintained or non-maintained special schools. Of the young people in the sample who were in ordinary schools, 7 per cent were receiving special help within the school because of educational or mental backwardness, 5 per cent because of behavioural difficulties and 1 per cent because of a physical or sensory disability. Special help in school was considered desirable by their teachers for a further 5.5 per cent. (10) Thus some 20 per cent appeared to need some form of special educational help. This may even be an underestimate, for it proved impossible to obtain information about all the children for the follow-up, especially about those who had been receiving special education at the age of 11, were illegitimate, or had been in care by the age of 7.

3.16 The evidence of the Isle of Wight survey, the inner London survey, the study of the infants' school and the National Child Development Study broadly suggests, therefore, that at anyone time about one child in six is likely to require some form of special educational provision. This is not of course an exact figure. It will vary from area to area according to local circumstances and will be influenced particularly by housing and other social factors and the character of individual schools, including their location, buildings, organisation and staffing, the effectiveness of their teachers and their approach to discipline. All these may affect the incidence of special educational need, especially in the realm of behaviour. Nevertheless the figure of one in six represents what we believe to be a reasonable judgement on the evidence and, indeed, is in line with the estimates of the number of children who might be expected to require special education which were given in 1946 and to which we referred in the last chapter.

3.17 While the special needs of some children will continue for relatively long periods and, in some cases, permanently, those of other children will, if promptly and effectively met, cease to exist. It follows that the proportion of children likely to require some form of special educational provision at any one time will be rather less than the proportion who may be expected to require such provision in the course of their school career. In the light of the information available to us, including the estimate made by the Inner London Education Authority in 1971 after discussions with teachers, we estimate that up to one child in five is likely to require special educational provision at some point during his school career. This means that a teacher of a mixed ability class of 30 children even in an ordinary school should be aware that possibly as many as six of them may require some form of special educational provision at some time during their school life and about four or five of them may require special educational provision at any given time. Again, we should stress that these figures will vary from class to class, school to school and area to area. The figures will however be an essential guide for planning purposes and we recommend that the planning of services for children and young people should be based on the assumption that about one in six children at any time and up to one in five children at some time during their school career will require some form of special educational provision.

Different forms of special educational need

3.18 Our conclusion that up to one child in five is likely to need special educational provision in the course of his school career does not mean that up to one in five is likely to be handicapped in the traditional sense of the term. The majority will be unlikely to have such a long-term disability or disorder. Their learning problems, which may last for varying periods of time, will stem from a variety of causes. But, unless suitable help is forthcoming, their problems will be reinforced by prolonged experience of failure. We refer to the group of children - up to one in five - who are likely to require some form of special educational provision at some time during their school career as 'children with special educational needs'.

3.19 In very broad terms special educational need is likely to take the form of the need for one or more of the following:

(i) the provision of special means of access to the curriculum through special equipment, facilities or resources, modification of the physical environment or specialist teaching techniques;

(ii) the provision of a special or modified curriculum;

(iii) particular attention to the social structure and emotional climate in which education takes place.

3.20 Special means of access to the curriculum may be required by children with impairments of sensory or motor functioning, including visual, hearing, speech and physical disabilities. For example, children with severe visual disabilities may need reading material translated into braille. A special or modified curriculum is likely to be required by children who are currently described as educationally sub-normal. Some children may have particular difficulty in meeting the social and emotional demands and adjusting to the constraints of an educational regime organised in the usual way. In their case special attention will need to be paid to the emotional climate and the social structure and organisation within the school, for example as regards the relationship between the teachers and the ancillary and child care staff and that between the adults and children. Moreover, particular care will need to be given to the setting of limits to behaviour.

III A NEW SYSTEM TO REPLACE CATEGORISATION

The present system of categorisation*

*The statutory categories of handicapped pupils are listed in Appendix 2.

3.21 It follows from what we have said about the different forms of special educational need that the particular form presented by an individual child is not necessarily determined by the nature of any disability or disorder suffered by him. Yet the principle of categorisation of handicapped pupils by type of disability or disorder has long been enshrined in education legislation in England and Wales and in Scotland. Moreover, it has exercised a powerful influence in practice on the ways in which assessment reports have been framed and educational provision has been organised.

3.22 It is generally accepted that in the early post-war years the list of statutory categories helped to focus attention on the existence and needs of different groups of handicapped children and offered a broad framework for planning special school provision which was generally found useful by local education authorities. There are some who believe that categorisation is still a valuable safeguard of the rights of a handicapped child to an education suited to his needs. They would probably accept that categories add nothing of substance to the existing general legal safeguards, such as those in Sections 8 and 34 of the Education Act 1944 (which require local education authorities in England and Wales 'to secure that there shall be available for their area sufficient schools' and 'to ascertain what children in their area require special educational treatment') and those in the equivalent Section of the Education (Scotland) Act 1945; but they argue that categories nevertheless underline the duties of local education authorities towards handicapped children. We return to this argument in paragraph 3.30.

3.23 These considerations have some force, but the use of statutory categories also has a number of disadvantages, as was pointed out by contributors to the written evidence, of whom a majority, although not an overwhelming one, favoured their abolition. First, their use pins a single label on each handicapped child and each special school. Many children suffer from more than one disability and this can present intractable problems of classification, especially as the major disability from a medical point of view may not, as we have pointed out already, be the most significant educationally; it also means that a wide variety of schools is required, with some catering for combinations of disabilities. Moreover, labels tend to stick, and children diagnosed as ESN(M) or maladjusted can be stigmatised unnecessarily for the whole of their school careers and beyond. More important, categorisation promotes confusion between a child's disability and the form of special education he needs. The idea is encouraged that, say, every child with epilepsy or every maladjusted child requires the same kind of educational regime. The confusion is heightened by the fact that only two categories - blind and deaf pupils - are defined in terms of educational methods positively required, whereas the other categories are defined in terms of disability which makes the pupils unsuited to the normal regime of ordinary schools. Moreover, although most local education authorities provide special help for children who in their opinion need it, even if these children do not readily fit into any of the statutory categories, a strict construction of Section 33(1) of the 1944 Act, or in Scotland Section 62 of the Education (Scotland) Act 1962 as amended, would prevent a child from being regarded as handicapped unless he came within one of the categories defined in regulations. However carefully a scheme of categorisation of handicaps is drawn up, there are always likely to be some children in need of special educational provision who will be excluded because they do not fit into any of the categories.

3.24 Whatever the weight attached to the preceding arguments, we believe that the most important argument against categorisation is the most general one. Categorisation perpetuates the sharp distinction between two groups of children - the handicapped and the non-handicapped - and it is this distinction which we are determined, as far as possible, to eliminate.

3.25 Furthermore, categorisation focuses attention on only a small proportion of all those children who are likely to require some form of special educational provision. We believe that the basis for decisions about the type of educational provision that is required should be not a single label 'handicapped' but rather a detailed description of special educational need. We therefore recommend that statutory categorisation of handicapped pupils should be abolished.

Future forms of description of children with special educational needs and of special schools

3.26 We recognise, however, that for the sake of convenience descriptive terms will be needed for particular groups of children who require special educational provision. While the continued use of the existing forms of description for children with physical or sensory disabilities seems acceptable, we consider that it would be preferable to move away from the term 'educationally sub-normal' or in Scotland 'mentally handicapped', terms which can unnecessarily stigmatise a child not only in school, but when he comes to seek employment. 'Educationally sub-normal' is, in any case, open to criticism on the grounds that it is imprecise and assumes agreement on what is educationally normal with regard to ability and attainment. It also suggests that a child so described suffers from an intrinsic deficiency whereas often the deficiency has been in his social and cultural environment. We recommend that the term 'children with learning difficulties' should be used in future to describe both those children who are currently categorised as educationally sub-normal and those with educational difficulties who are often at present the concern of remedial services. Learning difficulties might be described as 'mild', 'moderate' or 'severe'. Children with particular difficulties, such as specific reading difficulties, might be described as having 'specific learning difficulties'. It will be argued that the practical effect of our proposal will be only to replace one label by another. We believe, however, that the term we have proposed, which will be used for descriptive purposes and not for any purpose of categorisation, is preferable to the existing label because it gives more indication of the nature of the child's difficulties, and is less likely to stigmatise the child.

3.27 The term 'maladjusted' is also open to objection on the grounds that it can stigmatise a child unnecessarily; in addition, it can be criticised on the grounds that the concept of maladjustment itself is such a relative one that the description is meaningless without details of the child's circumstances. Worst of all, it tends to suggest a permanent condition and fails to give any indication of the type of special educational provision required. However, although there is a good case for referring to children as having emotional or behavioural disorders, we think that the term 'maladjusted' also remains a serviceable form of description and should be retained. Indeed, we consider that the implication of this term (namely that behaviour can sometimes be meaningfully considered only in relation to the circumstances in which it occurs) is an advantage rather than a disadvantage. This consideration in our opinion outweighs the possible harm of stigmatisation.

3.28 Our suggestions as to the form of description of children apply also to the description of special schools. We hope, however, that our recommendation in Chapter 6 that each local education authority should produce a handbook giving details of special educational provision in its area will mean that knowledge of the facilities offered by particular special schools will be so widespread that in practice it will be unnecessary to describe them in terms of the pupils for whom they cater. It is already common practice in many areas to refer to special schools by a simple title, without mention of a particular disability, and we hope that this practice will become universal.

Statistical returns

3.29 Statutory categories of handicap have been used as a basis for statistical returns to the Education Departments from local education authorities and special schools. These returns show the special schools and special classes in existence and the number of handicapped children who are attending them or who have been placed by authorities in independent schools, hostels and so on. In England and Wales they also show the number of handicapped children awaiting places in special schools. The returns in England and Wales are misleading, in that all the children in a school for, say, delicate children tend to be shown simply as delicate, whereas the principal handicap of some may be, in current terminology, maladjustment and of others educational sub-normality; and there is no scope for showing additional handicaps. If, as we recommend, statutory categories of handicap are abolished, a new framework for statistical returns will be needed. We consider in the next chapter what form such a framework should take.

A system of recording children as requiring special educational provision

3.30 One argument in favour of categorisation of handicaps which does still weigh with us is that identified in paragraph 3.22, namely that it provides a valuable safeguard of the right of a child who fits into one of the categories to an education suited to his needs. We recognise that our recommendation that statutory categories of handicap should be abolished may give rise to concern about how to safeguard the interests of children with severe, complex and long-term disabilities. We have found ourselves on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand we are aware that any kind of special resource or service for such children runs the risk of emphasising the idea of their separateness, an idea which we are anxious to dispel, and of limiting the notion of special education to the provision made for such children. On the other hand, unless an obligation is clearly placed on local education authorities to provide for the special needs of such children, there is a danger that their requirement for specialist resources will be inadequately met.

3.31 In order to resolve this difficulty, we have tried to devise a system which, while avoiding the disadvantages inherent in categorisation, will preserve the advantages which it confers. We recommend that there should be a system of recording as in need of special educational provision those children who, on the basis of a detailed profile of their needs prepared by a multi-professional team, are judged by their local education authority to require special educational provision not generally available in ordinary schools. We shall elaborate this in the following chapter. There will be many children in ordinary schools whose need for special educational provision can be readily met with appropriate support in the school they are attending; these children will not need to be recorded as requiring special provision, since it will be unnecessary to formalise the obligation on authorities to provide education for them suited to their abilities and aptitudes. Only those children who have been assessed by a multi-professional team and, in the light of the team's assessment of their needs, judged by the local education authority to require special educational provision will be recorded by the authority in this way. The system of recording will thus safeguard the interests of the minority of children with special educational needs who have severe and complex disabilities or difficulties.

3.32 Our proposed system of recording children as in need of special educational provision will differ from the present system of categorisation in several important ways. First, it will lay an obligation on a local education authority to make special educational provision for any child judged to be in need of such provision on the basis of a profile of his needs prepared by a multi-professional team, whatever his particular disability. Secondly, it will not impose a single label of handicap on any child. Thirdly, it will embody a positive statement of the type of special provision required.

3.33 At the same time this system will be part of a much wider scheme designed to ensure that the individual needs of all those children - up to one in five - who require special educational provision at any time during their school career are appropriately assessed and met and that their parents* are involved as fully as possible. We hope that this scheme, which is developed in the course of this report, will help to eliminate the notion of two types of children - the handicapped and the non-handicapped - both in theory and in practice.

*References to parents throughout this report include both natural parents and those who care for children in place of their natural parents.

IV A BROADER CONCEPT OF SPECIAL EDUCATION

3.34 The view which we have stated of the nature and range of special educational needs and our estimate of the proportion of children who are likely to have such needs during their school career amount to a much wider concept of special education than any currently in use. We must therefore consider the precise way in which special education may be delineated.

3.35 We start from the concept of 'special educational treatment' defined in Section 8(2)(c) of the Education Act 1944 as 'education by special methods appropriate for pupils suffering from disability of mind and body'. We note in passing that the definition is in the context of education in schools, and that there is no equivalent formulation applicable to further education. It has an institutional connotation, being linked to the provision of schools (principally special schools) and fixes the framework for later provisions in the Act for the ascertainment, categorisation and placement of the pupils covered by it.

3.36 Our concept is not tied to particular educational methods or particular categories of children. Nor is it associated with any particular institutional setting; the majority of children who are likely to require special educational provision in the wider sense that we are advocating will be in ordinary primary and secondary schools, which are not approved as providing a particular kind or kinds of education. The traditional view of special education as exclusively separate full-time provision in special schools or classes has in any case been substantially modified by recent practice, and has been explicitly called into question by Section 10 of the Education Act 1976 (which embodies the principle that handicapped pupils should be educated in ordinary schools wherever appropriate). This Section is to come into force in England and Wales on a day to be appointed by the Secretary of State for Education and Science. We consider its implications at length in Chapter 7.

3.37 We have already remarked on the negative quality of the definitions of most of the categories of handicapped pupils requiring special educational treatment, given as they are in terms of disability that makes the pupil unsuited to the normal regime of ordinary schools. The definition of special education in the Education (Scotland) Act 1969, although it has the merit of using terms which clearly apply to children with emotional or behavioural disorders as well as those with physical or intellectual disabilities, is similarly negative in tone: 'education by special methods appropriate to the requirements of pupils whose physical, intellectual, emotional or social development cannot, in the opinion of the education authority, be adequately promoted by ordinary methods of education'. Such a definition conveys nothing of the qualities or features which make special education 'special'.

3.38 Our view of special education is much broader and more positive than that contained in any of these definitions. It encompasses the whole range and variety of additional help, wherever it is provided and whether on a full or part-time basis, by which children may be helped to overcome educational difficulties, however they are caused. It thus embraces educational help for children with emotional or behavioural disorders who have previously been regarded as disruptive, as well as for children who have hitherto been seen as requiring remedial, rather than special, education. Both these groups in our view require special education.

3.39 At present 'remedial' groups include children with a variety of difficulties which, though different in origin, are frequently treated alike. There are children who have been absent from school and need to make up work which they have missed; children with physical or sensory disabilities, sometimes temporary, sometimes permanent; children with varying degrees of learning difficulties and children who need to be temporarily withdrawn from the normal class for specific purposes. The term 'remedial', like the term 'treatment', suggests that these children have something wrong with them that can be put right. It is true that some of them are suffering only a temporary learning difficulty and, given appropriate help, are able to return rapidly to their previous classes having completely overcome their disability. Others, however, require special help and support throughout their school lives and to say that these children require 'remedial' education is misleading. Children in these so-called 'remedial' groups have a wide variety of individual needs, sometimes linked to psychological or physical factors, which call for skilled and discriminating attention by staff - in assessment, the devising of suitable programmes and the organisation of group or individual teaching, whether in ordinary or special classes. For these children the provision of special support is just as important as for those who have been ascertained as requiring special education. We conclude that a meaningful distinction between remedial and special education can no longer be maintained.

3.40 In attempting to delineate special education, we have sought to identify those features which make up its distinctive character wherever it is provided. Our approach is based upon the principle that if it is to be special, special education should afford access to teachers with additional training and, where appropriate, to other professionals; or access to an educational or physical environment appropriate to a particular child's special needs - for example, an environment where adequate physical support is available, or one in which a particular educational regime is followed. We propose that special educational provision for the children with whom we are concerned should, therefore, be understood in terms of one or more of three criteria:

(i) effective access on a full or part-time basis to teachers with appropriate qualifications or substantial experience or both;

(ii) effective access on a full or part-time basis to other professionals with appropriate training; and

(iii) an educational and physical environment with the necessary aids, equipment and resources appropriate to the child's special needs.

3.41 We have described the distinctive characteristics of special educational provision as we conceive it and the children who will require it. The delineation will need to be given statutory expression. So far as England and Wales are concerned this entails three changes to Section 8(2)(c) of the Education Act 1944. First, the term 'special educational treatment' will need to be replaced by 'special education'; secondly, there will be need to elaborate the references to children who suffer from disabilities in such a way as to establish that they include those with significant difficulties in learning, or with emotional or behavioural disorders, as well as those with disabilities of mind or body; and thirdly the reference to 'special methods appropriate for persons suffering from that disability' will need to be replaced by a reference to 'education by special means appropriate to their respective needs'. The last amendment follows from our view that the form of special educational provision that a child requires is not necessarily conditioned by his disability alone, but should reflect a full assessment of his individual needs. This general reference to special means would be associated with a separate provision (replacing Section 33(1) of the Education Act 1944) requiring the Secretary of State to make regulations as to the means. These would be based on the criteria set out in paragraph 3.40.

3.42 The changes which we have outlined in the preceding paragraph apply mutatis mutandis to Scotland. We therefore recommend that Section 8(2)(c) of the Education Act 1944 and Section 5(1) of the Education (Scotland) Act 1962 (as amended), which define the duties of local education authorities in relation to the provision of special educational treatment and special education respectively, should be amended to embody the broader concept of special education and the wider description of children which we have advocated in paragraphs 3.40-41.

3.43 The new delineation of special educational provision that we propose would provide the point of reference for a general duty on the part of local education authorities to ascertain which children in their area require it, on the analogy of Section 34(1) of the Education Act 1944. By ascertainment we mean the whole process of discovery and assessment as we describe it in the following chapter. We indicate in that chapter the procedure whereby the duty of ascertainment should be fulfilled.

3.44 Only a minority of children who have been ascertained as needing special education will be recorded by the local education authority, as we have already explained. Their needs will require assessment and formulation by a multi-professional team. We consider these procedures and the composition of the record in the next chapter. It is however convenient to indicate here our intention that the local education authority should be given the specific duty to record those children whose needs cannot be satisfactorily met within the resources generally available to county and voluntary schools, and to provide special education as prescribed in the record. In support of these provisions the Secretaries of State should be required to make regulations as to the resources deemed to be not generally available in county and voluntary schools, as to the composition of the multi-professional teams and as to the form of the record. In addition there will be need for statutory provision for the enforcement of multi-professional assessment and for safeguarding the rights of parents. In the next chapter we set out our various recommendations for new statutory provisions that will be necessary to give effect to our proposed system of recording.

CONCLUSION

3.45 Thus we are proposing a general framework of special education which is much wider than the present statutory concept, and within that, though an integral part of it, the means of safeguarding the interests of the minority of pupils whose needs cannot be met within the resources generally available in ordinary schools. This framework is intended to establish once and for all the idea of special educational provision, wherever it is made, as additional or supplementary rather than, as in the past, separate or alternative provision.

References

(1) Department of Education and Science and Scottish Education Department statistics. Note: The 1977 statistics for handicapped pupils in England and Wales quoted in this report are based on the returns to the Department of Education and Science, Schools Branch II, Special Education Division (SE1).

(2) Department of Education and Science statistics. (Comparable figures were not collected for 1977.)

(3) Rutter Ed M, Tizard J and Whitmore K Education, health and behaviour (1970).

(4) Ibid., pp 352-3. The figure for the total proportion of children with at least two handicaps (25 per cent) is lower than that for the proportion of such children in each group because the multiply handicapped children were all included in more than one group ie they were all counted more than once.

(5) Rutter M, Cox A, Tupling C, Berger M and Yule W 'Attainment and adjustment in two geographical areas: I The prevalence of psychiatric disorder', British Journal of Psychiatry, 126 (1975), 493-509.

(6) Cited in ibid., 506.

(7) Webb L Children with special needs in the infants' school (1967).

(8) As reported in the minutes of the meeting of the Inner London Education Committee, 17 September 1974.

(9) Pringle MLK, Butler NR and Davie R 11,000 Seven year olds (1966), pp 37-39.

(10) Fogelman KR (ed) Britain's sixteen year olds (1976).