Helping Five to Eight Year Olds with Special Educational Needs

This book is a companion volume to "Teaching Five to Eight Year-Olds", published by Basil Blackwell in 1987. It aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the main issues relating to the development and education of children with special educational needs between the ages of five and eight. The volume opens with a discussion of how best to identify children with special needs in this age group and provides practical advice on how to assess these needs. The authors then look at different school approaches to special needs and highlight the planning of practical programmes for both learning and behavioural difficulties. Methods of charting both individual progress and the success of particular programmes are illustrated through the discussion of case studies. In bringing together the findings of a number of recent research projects the authors emphasize practical considerations relating the role of home, school and support services in helping young children with special needs.
The book also deals in some depth with wider issues such as the implications of current efforts to integrate children with special needs into the mainstream education system and how this may be affected by the new National Curriculum. Written in non-technical language, this book should be of value not only to teachers and other concerned professionals, but also to parents and students.