The year 2014 marks an important milestone for the SENCo role. It is the 20-year anniversary of the requirement for schools to have a named person as lead for special educational needs. This article, by Catherine Tissot from the University of Reading, explores the vision of the role as seen in Government guidance and documents and compares this…

Social, emotional, and behavioural disorders of children, within the context of a whole-school approach to inclusion as adopted by Hong Kong, can be challenging for teachers and parents. Based on a comprehensive review of the literature and feedback from a range of experts and parent groups in Hong Kong, specific scales were developed to measure…

Parents play a significant role in the education of children with special needs. Recent national policies have aimed to improve support for students with specific learning difficulties and their families in Hong Kong. Literature on the experiences of children with specific learning difficulties in Hong Kong is scarce. This study, by Kim Fong…

Young learners with severe visual impairments are restricted in many ways, and psychologists and special needs teachers require information about the nature and extent of the possible educationally handicapping effects. This article, written by Michael Tobin, Emeritus Professor of Special Education within the School of Education at the University…

Monitoring mechanisms of support services for students with special needs can be broadly classified as external and internal. Resembling the UK model, Hong Kong has adopted an internal mechanism through the establishment of the SENCo post. This investigation, written by Dr Kim Fong Poon-McBrayer, of the Hong Kong Institute of Education, explores…

This article, written by Meng Deng of Beijing Normal University and Kim Fong Poon-McBrayer of the Hong Kong Institute of Education, reviews and analyses the reform of special education in China, the challenges confronting Chinese special education provisions, and how the Chinese inclusive education model, namely "Learning in Regular Classrooms",…

The nurture approach is a form of educational intervention for children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD). Utilising a unique example of a state-run, special "nurturing" primary school, Corinne Syrnyk, of St Mary's University College, Calgary, presents a case study of the experience of being a "nurture teacher" in this…

This study, authored by Dominic Griffiths and Rachel Dubsky, both of Manchester Metropolitan University, considers the impact of the new National Award for Special Educational Needs Coordinators (NASENCo) in one English local authority. Data on the impacts upon both SENCos' personal professional development and upon their schools are drawn from…

Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is the most common non-genetic cause of learning disability, affecting around 1% of live births in Europe, and costing an estimated $2.9 million per individual across their lifespan. In adulthood, non-reversible brain damage is often compounded by secondary disabilities in adulthood, such as mental health…

While increasing attention is being paid to the influence of specialist and traditional school settings on the emotional well-being and self-esteem of children with dyslexia, there appears to be a need for more attention to how different educational settings may impact adulthood. To respond to this gap, this study by assistant professors Blace A.…

The UK coalition Government's call to end the "bias" towards inclusion represents a shift in "policy speak" as the new administration attempts to re-narrate special education by putting forward a "reasonable and sensible" solution to the "problem of inclusion". However, implicit in the call is the assumption that there has, in fact, been a "bias…

Special education in England has over the past 25 years been subject to rapid development, not least in relation to the emergence of inclusive education. Alan Hodkinson of the Faculty of Education, Community and Leisure, John Moore's University, critically examines the development of inclusion in England and the barriers that can stall the…

Phonological awareness is a key factor in the development of literacy, and frequently presents itself as an area of weakness in pupils with reading difficulties. In this article, Anies Al-Hroub of the American University of Beirut sets out to define a distinguishing pattern of characteristics that supports the identification of pupils with…

In this invited article, Chris Marshall, teacher, educational psychologist, university lecturer, and a former book reviews editor for "BJSE" who has been a leading figure in Her Majesty's Inspectorate, examines the inspection of schools over a period reflecting the 35 years during which "BJSE" has been published. Chris Marshall provides here a…

In this article, Anies Al-Hroub, assistant professor of educational psychology and special educational needs at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, and David Whitebread, senior lecturer in psychology and education in the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education, discuss the identification, by teachers, of children who are gifted in…