Over the last few decades, developments have taken place at international, national and local levels that have encouraged more inclusive forms of educational provision. However, many practising teachers remain concerned that they lack the knowledge, skills and expertise necessary to support an increasingly diverse range of learners in their…

The legacy of defectology, Vygotsky's theoretical work on children with disabilities, still offers a useful approach in disability research. Vygotsky understood disability as an incongruence between the individual's psychological structure and the structure of cultural forms. The incongruence describes a dialectical relation between the person…

The aims of the current study were (i) to explore the extent to which pupils with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) were effectively included in lessons, compared with pupils with dyslexia (DYS) or no Special Educational Needs (CON) and (ii) to understand how the presence of a teaching assistant (TA) influences the inclusion/exclusion process. One…

Perspectives on academic and social aspects of children's school experiences were obtained from deaf and hearing children and their (deaf or hearing) parents. Possible differences between (1) the views of children and their parents and (2) those of hearing children and their parents compared to deaf children and their parents were of particular…

The purpose of this article is to introduce a research design, which aims to find useful pedagogical adaptations for teaching pupils with autism. Autism is a behavioural syndrome characterised by disabilities and dysfunctions in interaction and communication, which is why it is interesting to explore educational processes particularly from an…

The processes around the identification of special educational needs (SEN) should mean that those pupils who need most help receive it. However, there are concerns that this process is not working and there is an over-identification of pupils with SEN. Previous international research has shown that summer-born children are more likely to be…

The education of pupils with special educational needs in Ireland has generally been influenced by national and international inclusion policy and legislation so that the majority of these children now take their place alongside peers in mainstream classrooms. In Ireland, a support network comprising the teacher and additional classroom assistance…

This article is based on the text of the Gulliford Lecture given by Professor Harry Daniels at the University of Birmingham in October 2005. Professor Daniels takes, as his starting point, Ron Gulliford's assertion that teachers need to learn from their experience of trying to teach children who are "hard to teach". He goes on to look at the…

Anthea Asprey and Tricia Nash both belong to the Children's Hospice South West Research Group, based at the University of Exeter. In this article, they report one aspect of a research project designed to determine the adequacy of support for young people with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions in the education system. They describe here…

In this article, Anne-Marie Wright, lecturer at the University of Chester, considers the current situation for students with severe learning difficulties in general colleges of further education. She presents findings from a critical review of the literature and a small-scale preliminary investigation which set out to explore the idea that,…

Education in the early years is a key element in the Government's current strategy. Recently, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) funded a major study of Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE). The Early Years Transition and Special Educational Needs (EYTSEN) Project developed from the EPPE research and was also funded by…

In this article, Andrew Martin, deputy head teacher at Greenside School in Stevenage, provides an outline of the development of the P scales as an assessment tool for pupils working below Level 1 of the National Curriculum. He recounts the difficulties his school found in using P scales to track pupil progress from year to year and describes and…

John Olav Myklebust is Professor of Sociology at Volda University College in Norway. In this article, he discusses his analysis of data emerging from a longitudinal study of 494 young people with special educational needs who have been followed over a period of six years. This analysis focuses on the attainments of these students during their time…

The importance of parental choice, and parents' participation in educational processes, continue to be highlighted in strategies, acts and policies around the world. Partnership with parents is given an even higher profile in relation to educational opportunities for children with special needs. Yet many trainee teachers have only limited…

This article discusses teachers' views of their own learning. Two groups of teachers attending graduate programmes in Seattle, Washington in the United States of America (USA) and Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom (UK), participated in a project that encouraged them to discuss examples of effective professional development. The teachers from the…