Flinging mud at the walls
Some children’s needs are pretty clear cut – they have a diagnosis or a clear history which makes the things they struggle with very obvious. Other children are more of an enigma. So what do you do when your child is an enigma?
Schools often try very hard to support their children. They may have a raft of different interventions - support methods that can be put in place to support children who are struggling. It might be extra phonics sessions, extra literacy, maths support, a nurture club for lunchtimes if they find playtime a struggle, sensory circuits before school, art or play therapy, typing lessons, a learning mentor, maths clubs to extend the more able, the list of things available in mainstream schools can be extensive.
In the absence of a clear diagnosis or history, both parents and school often engage in a bit of a guessing game, trying things out to see if they will work. It’s a bit like the saying that if you throw enough mud at a wall, some of it will stick.
What are the consequences of this? There’s every possibility that none of the mud will stick. If the underlying problem isn’t common, none of the interventions might work. Every day, week or year that goes by is one more step towards your child getting further and further behind.
Take the case of C – who was struggling to read, write and keep up at school. Despite parents doing lots of work at home, and extra literacy sessions and support at school, nothing was making a difference. Until one day when he was asked to finish question 10 on the whiteboard, he said “I can’t see question 10.” A swift trip to see an ophthalmologist and it became apparent he has an unusual form of Irlen’s which means he cannot see anything in a horizontal plane below a certain point. He had spent 8 years of his life not realising that what he could see through his eyes was not normal.
So, for how long do schools and parents continue to throw mud at the wall before they do things a different way? Assessment of a child’s difficulties is sometimes the only way to uncover the barriers to learning. Severe speech and language difficulties have been masked by or confused with dyslexia, dyslexia has been masked by giftedness and left undiagnosed, the list goes on.
If your child is struggling, there is no obvious reason for the struggle, and normally available support isn’t have the impact it should, it is entirely possible there is a more complex underlying reason that hasn’t yet been identified.
The SEN Code of Practice requires schools to take ‘relevant and purposeful action to identify, assess and meet the special educational needs of the child.’ Best practice is to review all support and interventions to ensure it is having an impact, and if it isn’t to try something else. Within a 39 week year, there is scope for perhaps 5 – 6 different interventions to be tried. If none have the desired impact, perhaps it is time for something more scientific.
