Special Educational Needs and Disability blog

  • Undiagnosed

    In the UK, the average age of an autism diagnosis is four years old. There are many factors that affect when someone is given a diagnosis one of which is gender. Females – on average – are diagnosed later than males. This is not taking into account the emerging realisation that autistic people are more likely to be transgender as is becoming clear.

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  • Language acquisition with ASD

    Language acquisition is at the heart of children’s psychological development. Learning words underpins children’s ability to communicate with others and navigate the social world. However, word learning can be severely impacted by autism spectrum disorder (ASD).  

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  • Embracing the differences of the dyslexic mind

    As parents we want everything for our children. We want them to be creative and original thinkers, but, although we may know it’s not the be-all and end-all, we also want our children to make linear progress across the board and have no bumps in their life’s road.

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  • Play (the work of children)

    In classrooms up and down the land *we have all seen young children working hard to express themselves, we have seen them working hard to understand what is being asked of them and we have seen them working hard to maintain their attention on the task at hand, we see children in the playground working hard to make and maintain friendships and we know how hard this work is for some children.  

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  • Perspective of a therapist in a specialist SEN school

    With an ever-growing body of evidence suggesting high and increasing levels of mental health difficulties in children, alongside the significant majority of children with clinical levels of mental health need not being seen by mental health services, schools are under increasing pressure to provide mental health support themselves.

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  • Celebrating Neurodiversity

    Being an autistic student in mainstream education is not for the faint hearted. Setting aside the sensory overloads that come from being in a loud and bustling school environment, most autistic students spend their school lives being misunderstood.

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