Q:
Are you willing to share your answers to EHCP section B? If yes, please make sure you remove personal data, such as names.
SEND Kids
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25 Mar 2021
A: SenseCheck
- 11 Yes
- 0 No
- 1 Other
- 17 Jan 2022
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Yes
Complex
PART B – SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS
[EHCP: Amended Final Following Appeal Hearing and 1st Tier SENDIST Decision]
Communication needs (what can [child] do now and what does he find difficult)?
[child]’s impaired language and communication skills are significant areas of needs for [child] and are affected by his attention and sensory regulation. His speech is intelligible when using single words though his pronunciation of phrases can be less clear. His volume and intonation during speech are not always correct.
Expressive Language
He is able to communicate using a range of ideas and can greet people and name objects. He is able to say “No”. His communication skills can become significantly impaired when he is dysregulated. [child] will sometimes make noises or repeats rote phrases. One of [child]’s strengths is that he does have a relatively wide knowledge of single words such as common and personally relevant nouns. He can also use basic verbs and adjectives.
A language and communication assessment in October 2020 found [child] to be a developing communicator. His use of vocabulary and grammar are delayed. His use of expressive language and grammar was found to have developed to an age equivalent to that of a two to two and half year old, which is over five years below his chronological age.
At school [child] communicates by verbal and non-verbal means. He will lead an adult to something that he wants. He does not yet use pointing. He has significant difficulty naming labelling actions. At home he will use the names of things he wants to make requests, e.g. ‘water’, ‘toast’. He will also repeat back words modelled by an adult when motivated to do so and is beginning to use short, learnt phrases in the correct context, e.g. “Can I have ….”. He will only communicate verbally when motivated to do so and his speech can be unclear at times. If he is not understood, he can become frustrated; he shows this by screaming and crying. He will occasionally say a word or phrase repeatedly to himself.
Understanding of Language – Receptive Language
[child] understands more than he can say. However, he presents with significant comprehension difficulties. He is able to understand simple instructions in the context of familiar routines; however, he needs prompts to complete the required action. Within the classroom [child] is very visually aware of what is happening but needs to be prepared and regulated. He responds well to signing and the use of visual symbols and a visual timetable to support his understanding of what is required throughout the day or expectations within each activity.
When assessed in October 2020 he was found to be able to understand a large number of words including nouns and verbs. He is able to process sentences containing 2 or 3 key words. He understands a small number of simple concepts, e.g. ‘big’ and ‘small’, ‘in’ and ‘on’. However, [child] finds it difficult to understand and respond to a range of simple ‘wh-‘questions such as ‘who?’, ‘what doing?’ and other concepts, e.g. ‘same’/’different’, ‘all’, ‘in front’, ‘behind’ and ‘under’. He understands simple ‘who’ and ‘what’ questions relating to a picture. However, he is not able to respond to ‘where’, ‘what happened’, ‘how’ or ‘why’ questions.
Social communication
[child] is significantly impaired in his social interaction skills. Being relaxed and motivated can assist with his interaction skills. He will tend to play alongside other children rather than play with them. He prefers solitary activities and will generally not interact with adults without support. When [child]’s requests are not responded to, he can become distressed; this can result in him already being in a state of distress before an adult is able to support him.
When regulated, his social interactions skills improve, though unexpected changes in routines and unmanaged social situations with large groups of people can be triggers for him. The results of the speech and language therapy assessment in October 2020 lead to the conclusion that [child] has severely disordered language and social interaction skills which are part of his autistic spectrum disorder; his language skills were found to be more than 5 years behind his chronological age.
Education and learning needs (what can [child] do now and what does he find difficult)?
Academic Attainment
When assessed by a specialist teacher in October 2020, [child]’s academic attainment was found to be 4 to 5 years behind age related expectations. The specialist teacher assessing him is of the view that he has academic skills above and beyond that which could be confirmed during this assessment. His special educational needs of high levels of anxiety, rigidity of behaviour and periods of sensory and emotional dysregulation at school do prevent him from demonstrating his full academic ability and developing these skills further.
When prompted and supported, he is able to compose a simple short sentence; his transcription skills are better developed than his compositions skills. [child] has difficulties with his mathematical abilities. He knows number bonds to 10 and can read write and represent numbers to 100. [child] has a good knowledge of shapes and can name all the basic shapes. He is aware of the clock and can read the time to the hour.
Attention and Listening
[child] was diagnosed with ADHD in January 2020. He presents with significant attention and listening difficulties which significantly impair his ability to engage in the curriculum successfully. [child] presents with difficulties processing and organising sensory and other information. These difficulties impair his ability to participate in the classroom activities; they affect [child]’s ability to achieve a ‘just right’ state concentration for learning.
[child]’s ability to attend to adult-led activities is dependent on the type of activity. He can be adultled and will comply with a range of adult-led activities for short periods of time when working one-to-one with an adult. He can be distracted by his environment but is able to refocus if provided with appropriate sensory strategies and with a high level of one-to-one support, such as visual, verbal and some gentle physical prompts. He will sit with the whole class for carpet sessions if supported by an adult, but he has limited focus and will look around the room.
He demonstrates an ability to attend to highly motivating adult-led activities on a 1:1 basis, such as ‘Look Listen Do’/Attention Autism sessions. During this activity, he will sit, wait, share engagement with an adult and look at all items.
Whilst [child]’s listening and attention skills are impaired, they are better when he is relaxed and motivated. He demonstrates increased focus and attention for self-chosen activities, e.g., with the iPad or sensory toys. He is not yet able to work independently at a learning task; he is reliant on an adult prompting him at each stage. He finds it difficult to make choices; for example, choosing which coloured pencil to use from a selection. He responds well to the use of a ‘now/next’ board to support transition between activities.
Physical and sensory needs (what can [child] do now and what does he find difficult)?
[child] appears in good health and is able to walk and run, although his gross motor movement can lack fluidity. [child] presents with severely disordered sensory processing affecting all areas of schooling and daily living. He has significant difficulties with the receipt, organisation, processing and response to sensory information. These difficulties manifest as poor attention and concentration, impulsive, aggressive and protective responses, sensory seeking behaviour and difficulties with planning and formulating ideas, all of which undermine his ability to engage in the curriculum successfully.
[child] has a low threshold for visual and auditory information and could notice and can become distracted by this information within his environment.
[child] displays sensitivity to certain noises. He is quite specific as regards which noises, he finds difficult to cope with; he will place his hands over his ears for certain songs and certain letter/sounds during Jolly Phonics sessions, but he copes well with some loud noises. He also demonstrates sensitivity to strong smells. His mother has noticed that he finds certain environments distressing and thinks this may be due to certain lighting conditions. His sensory impairments are exacerbated by tiredness.
[child] is sensitive to some types of tactile input; however, his profile is complex, and he also has high thresholds, which results in him seeking other types of tactile and proprioceptive input. [child] constantly seeks and needs additional proprioceptive information as it provides calming and regulating feedback for his out of sync sensory system. [child]’s tactile and oral sensory seeking behaviours are due to his difficulties with proprioception. He likes the swings and the trampoline. At times he runs up and down repetitively. When he is excited, he goes on to his tiptoes and flaps his hands. He enjoys hugs.
[child] displays a fluctuating threshold for vestibular input. He requires a lot more effort to organise the information that comes in through these pathways to elicit an appropriate neuronal response. [child] has poor interoception, which is the ability to understand the internal workings of the body and the ability to recognise related feedback such as hunger, thirst etc. He can engage in dangerous behaviours and requires constant supervision and support. [child]’s weak manipulative skills impact on his independence and self-care skills as well as his development of pre-writing skills and tool use.
[child] has weak fine motor skills and poor fluidity. He does not hold a pencil in the conventional manner, and he finds it difficult to apply enough pressure to make his letters legible. [child] does not like writing [child] is able to use his fingers to feed himself. He is fastidious about what he will eat; he eats mainly dry, crunchy foods. He has poor co-ordination with cutlery. It takes him a long time to eat his meals. He requires support at lunchtimes to prompt him to eat; it is necessary to hand him each piece of food, or place just a small selection at a time in front of him. He likes to explore his food with his hands before he eats it. [child] requires assistance to feed, dress and toilet himself at school. [child] is not fully toilet trained and is generally able to let an adult know when he needs to use the toilet, though this is an area that can cause him to become challenging; however, he still needs some prompts to use the toilet, as he tends to hold on until his fidgeting indicates that he needs to go; he needs support with toilet hygiene.
He is developing his dressing and undressing skills and can do some tasks himself; e.g. he can pull up his trousers. He will try and undo his buttons. He finds the action of pulling a jumper or T shirt over his head difficult and he needs assistance with some dressing tasks.
Social and emotional needs (what can [child] do now and what does he find difficult)?
[child] struggled with the transition from infants’ school where he had become familiar with his teachers at [name] Junior School. He is now being educated in a room on his own at [name] Junior school, in part because of concerns about his behaviour (which can be challenging) and dysregulation.
[child] struggles with self-regulation and this is a significant barrier to his learning. [child]’s impaired social communication and sensory impairments are sources of anxiety for [child]. The larger the group size the more challenging it is for [child] to remain sensorially regulated as there become many more demands on his senses and with the feelings of loss of control [child] becomes very anxious.
[child] is inflexible and finds it difficult to manage his emotions when there are changes to his routine; he can become challenging, upset and cry. Even small changes upset him; for example, if the teacher changes the format of a carpet session in order to extend the learning.
[child] uses facial expressions to indicate when he feels happy or upset. He is able to identify and label the emotion ‘sad’ correctly in a picture. When regulated, [child] can focus and be gentle and affectionate.
- 19 May 2021
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Yes
Other
Section B: My Special Educational Needs
[child] is described as a very kind and thoughtful boy who is always eager to please and do his best. He has struggled to access the curriculum throughout his school life. He presents as dyscalculic and struggles particularly with developing an understanding of the relationships between numbers beyond simple counting. Poor comprehension skills are masked by his reading skills which are good.
[child] struggles to understand some basic language concepts and as a result isn’t able to join in with the everyday conversations of school life which affects his ability to interaction with his peers.
[child] has special educational needs in the following areas:
• A genetic condition [chromosomal details deleted] which is associated with cognitive difficulties and speech & language difficulties.
• Dyscalculia
• Expressive and receptive language difficulties
• Peer relationships and interactions due to his language difficulties
• Concentration and inattention.
• Slower speed of processing
• (Reading) Comprehension
• Social vulnerability.
• Making and maintaining friendships – belonging
• Some self-care difficulties (dressing)
Communication and interaction
Strengths:
[child] is a kind, thoughtful and caring boy who is very sociable.
Summary of Needs:
[child] is a hardworking boy who always tries his best. Despite this he does not understand a lot of what is being said in class due to poor understanding of vocabulary and therefore misses large chunks of learning. He struggles to retain new vocabulary and requires lots of prompts and pre-teaching.
[child]’s poor speech, understanding and concentration impact on all aspects of his development including his learning.
[child] has significant language processing difficulties. He has the most difficulty when he is asked to retain, understand and apply linguistic information. This results in weak comprehension of classroom tasks. His very weak language processing will significantly undermine his access to curriculum learning where tasks are explained and pupil output is expressed through language.
Despite being very sociable, [child]’s social relationships appear to be affected by his difficulties communicating and he is “set apart” from his peers, often observed to be on the periphery of social groups.
[child] will respond when spoken to but will never initiate a conversation. He appears bewildered and will stand still unless spoken to by name.
Cognition and learning
Strengths:
[child] is motivated to do his best and has good imagination. He has a range of interests including cooking. He is also learning to play the drums.
Summary of Needs:
[child] has difficulties with concentration and inattention in class. He appears to be “in a world of his own” at times and therefore misses a great deal of what is being taught. [child] can appear to be mentally absent for long periods of time. Consequently, he is significantly behind his peers in all areas of learning.
[child] has a short working memory, which impacts his ability to retain information and instructions. [child] can read fluently, but has little comprehension of what he has read. His fluent reading skills mask his difficulties with comprehension. [child] is often unable to apply taught skills. He is highly reliant on adults to repeat instructions and scaffold each step of tasks. He can produce work that is completely irrelevant to what has been asked of him.
[child] presents as dyscalculic – he has difficulty understanding simple number concepts, lacks an intuitive grasp of numbers, and has problems learning number facts and procedures. [child]’s Mathematical skills are significantly delayed. His computational skills in adding, subtraction and multiplication are stronger than his reasoning skills and this may be due to the increased language demands of reasoning problems. [child] appears to have developed strategies to help him mask his difficulties and complete tasks, such as copying the work of others and listening to the answers of others.
Social, emotional and mental health
Strengths:
[child] is sociable and always enjoys engaging with people. He is quite emotionally resilient.
He doesn’t appear to have any issues with his self-confidence although quiet around peers.
Summary of Needs:
[child] finds it tricky to maintain and contribute towards meaningful friendships as he doesn’t have the language or conversational skills to keep up with his peers. He is easily led and desperate to please others, for example, he will give away his money.
He desperately wants to be part of a social group but cannot keep up with what is happening with the group and therefore can’t contribute. He also says strange things for his age, but doesn’t realise they are odd. [child] appears younger than his years and is potentially vulnerable in social situations. He usually gravitates towards much younger children or teenagers - those who may be more patient with him. [child] becoming more aware of his difficulties.
Sensory and/or physical needs
Strengths:
[child]’s general health, hearing and vision are good.
Summary of Needs:
[child] has some poor gross motor skills/core strength. [child] often lays with his head on the table and regularly has to be encouraged to sit up. He finds physical activity difficult, appears lacking in energy and stamina, and complains of tiredness. [child]’s hands and lower legs can appear swollen.
[child] snorts every day. It is unclear whether this is habit or due to allergy or nasal congestion, although there is no change with the seasons. He also bites his nails a lot. [child] has always been a lot smaller than other children.
Self-care and independence (including preparation for adulthood)
Strengths:
[child] is capable of looking after himself and generally has good self-care skills.
Summary of Needs:
[child] tends to get fixated on things and eat excessively. He is always hungry (he does eat a balanced diet but always wants more). [child] relies on adult prompts very often to get dressed. - 13 May 2021
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Other
Other
Other ...:
[removed at request of parent]
- 07 May 2021
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Yes
Other
Section B
Primary area of need: Cognition and learning: Down’s Syndrome with Moderate Learning Difficulties (MLD)
Additional areas of need: Communication and interaction / Social Emotional and Mental Health / Sensory and Physical needs.
Communication and Interaction Strengths
- [child] demonstrates adequate attention in both the 1:1 setting and the small class group setting. He is happy to complete tasks as requested.
- [child] is able to reflect on his skills and say what he feels he is good at, and what skills he would like support to develop, with familiar adults.
- [child] is able to use language to ask questions, make comments, express needs, feelings and opinions, and to explain and justify ideas.
- [child] is able to make simple predictions and inferences about stories.
- [child] is able to respond to higher level questions, such as ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions, with guidance from an adult.
- [child] is able to engage appropriately in conversation with familiar adults and peers, demonstrating strong social skills such as eye contact, turn taking and demonstrating interest in his conversation partner.
- [child] feels confident about having conversations with familiar peers and adults, and people in the community that he knows well.
- [child] is independently able to use strategies to help familiar conversation partners understand his speech- for example, slowing down, repeating what he has said, and giving written information when it is provided for him by an adult.
- [child]’s speech is mostly intelligible to familiar listeners, but not always and very often not on the telephone.
Needs
- [child] presents with severe receptive and expressive language difficulties and social communication needs in the context of a diagnosis of Down’s Syndrome and MLD. He demonstrates reduced clarity of speech.
- [child]’s communication difficulties as assessed with the CCA are presenting as clinically significant in the home and community settings. He demonstrates sound pragmatic language skills, but difficulty with structural elements of language and with social engagement.
- [child] presents with a profile of below average expressive language skills, including significantly below average spoken and written language. He is able to produce basic sentences in conversation with largely accurate grammar, however, has difficulty deriving the appropriate form of more complex vocabulary.
- [child] demonstrates mixed receptive language skills. He is able to understand basic directions and questions in conversation, though with some misunderstanding at times, and presents with vocabulary knowledge on the lower end of the average range. However, he demonstrates limited understanding of figurative language or more complex language in conversation. [child] also demonstrates difficulty with higher level reasoning tasks.
- [child] also demonstrates some difficulty producing more complex sentence structures containing greater information. [child] has further difficulty with higher level expressive language tasks, including difficulty with defining words or using words flexibly in different contexts and producing word opposites.
- [child] has mild to moderate bilateral hearing loss caused by waxy build-up and psoriasis. This impacts his ability to hear instructions in the classroom and to join in conversation. [child] needs to develop his ability to identify when he cannot hear and to use self-help strategies such as asking the speaker to repeat or asking to be seated closer to the speaker.
- [child] needs to develop his ability to independently use repair strategies in conversation when he has not understood or remembered what his conversation partner has said, e.g. ‘what does x mean’, ‘could you repeat that?’, and to use polite forms i.e. ‘could you slow down please’ rather than ‘you’re speaking too fast’.
- [child] needs to develop his skills and confidence when having conversations with less familiar peers- for example starting and maintaining conversations. He expresses anxiety about this and reports that he usually separates himself rather than joining in. At school he avoided the 6th form common room as although everyone was pleasant to him he felt isolated and unable to join in conversations.
- [child] needs to develop his confidence talking with familiar and less familiar adults- for example, in shops and ticket offices.
- [child]’s speech can be harder to understand for unfamiliar listeners, and when [child] is tired, nervous, or when there are high or competing task demands. He has difficulties producing specific speech sounds (l, sh, ch, j) in isolation and in words, and difficulties articulating longer words. He sometimes speaks quietly. [child] would like to continue to develop his speech intelligibility by targeting specific speech sounds.
- [child] needs to develop his ability to monitor the intelligibility of his speech and use strategies to help unfamiliar conversation partners understand his speech, such as asking if the listener has understood.
- [child]’s vision, even when corrected with glasses is not good and we have been told his corrected vision is below the legal requirement for driving. He needs regular vision checks and in a classroom situation to be placed near the front where he can see.
- [child] needs to develop his ability to independently carry out tasks of daily living, such as packing his bag, cleaning, doing laundry, looking after his personal hygiene, using public transport and preparing food. [child] has identified that he would like to focus on learning how to cook a boiled egg.
Cognition and Learning Strengths:
- [child] has a positive attitude towards learning and tries his best to do well.
- [child] is highly motivated and an enthusiastic learner.
- [child] has a good phonic code
- [child] benefits from work being broken down into small, manageable steps to aid his learning
- [child] has a good basic knowledge of written sentence structure
- [child] is able to write independently but his writing is very slow and laboured and he often forgets his train of thought half way through writing. He is developing his proof- reading skills with adult support but has some way to go.
- [child] enjoys numeracy and maths games but finds them challenging. He cannot do times tables at all and cannot do sums in his head other than extremely basic sums.
- [child] works well in small groups
- [child] enjoys contributing to class discussions
- [child] is confident to ask for support when needed.
- [child] benefits from repetition and over-learning to aid his understanding
- [child] understands the concept of time although he cannot accurately read it from a clock face. He is also aware of the sequence of months and seasons of the year
Needs:
- There exists a significant gap between [child]’s language based skills as measured by the verbal comprehension index of the WAIS-IV, as opposed to the perceptual reasoning index which measures non-verbal or visual based ability. This is indicative that [child]’s language skills may superficially appear more advanced than his overall cognitive ability.
- Although [child] has developed some level of independence that cannot be underestimated and can perform certain, individual tasks himself, he continues to require a high level of support in order to be successful academically and socially.
- [child] has difficulties maintaining focus and engaging in lessons without adult support
- At times [child] finds it difficult to keep up with the pace of lessons and requires adult support to remain on task.
- [child] finds it difficult to complete tasks independently and requires support to plan and sequence his work.
- [child] finds it difficult to plan his writing without adult support.
- [child]’s numeracy skills are very delayed.
– [child] has difficulties with his organisation skills and ensuring that he is fully prepared for lessons.
– [child] finds writing slow and tiring and needs a scribe in lessons and exams. He also needs other strategies such as typing.
Social, Emotional and Mental Health
- [child] has a happy and positive disposition
[child] has a caring nature
- [child] has high self-esteem
- [child] is reasonably socially confident and is able to initiate conversations with a wide range of familiar adults and children. However, he finds it hard to prolong conversations and very quickly gets left out or overlooked, especially in a group.
– [child] is popular amongst his peers but did not have any real friends at school.
- [child] has exemplary behaviour and manners.
- [child] has a very engaging sense-of-humour.
- [child] is highly empathetic and emotionally intelligent.
Needs:
- [child] has difficulties understanding and recognising dangers.
- [child] is able to make some straightforward decisions. However, he may be influenced by others when making sensible decisions and could not make decisions about money.
- [child] is a vulnerable young man and is easily influenced by his peers.
- [child] requires support when accessing the community and requires a carer to be with him the majority of the time. There are concerns about [child]’s safety to travel independently due to concerns about his ability to problem solve if something unexpected were to happen.
- [child] cannot go out on his own with friends and finds establishing and maintaining relationships with his peers challenging.
- [child] lacks confidence with unfamiliar adults and peers.
- [child] gets left out in groups of able bodied peers and needs opportunities to socialise with people with similar learning disabilities to enable him to have real friendships with people like him.
- [child] remains vulnerable in the community as he has yet to learn independence. [child] has not yet developed road safety and travel awareness
Sensory and /or Physical needs Strengths:
- [child] has an understanding of his Down’s syndrome diagnosis and the impact that his diagnosis has.
- [child] enjoys practical tasks/performances
- [child] is eager to do well and overcome challenges that he faces to the best of his ability.
Needs:
- [child] has a diagnosis of Down’s Syndrome
- [child] has a fluctuating hearing loss and needs regular hearing checks at the ENT hospital.
- [child]’s hearing is affected by background noise.
- Within standardised testing [child] displays significantly poor overall results for visual perception (<1st percentile). This affects his ability to understand information presented visually.
- [child] also has significantly poor visual motor integration (<1st percentile).
- [child] displays poor pencil control and when the demands for control increases, his poor control of the pencil and poor dexterity means he is unable to produce an appropriate motor response.
- [child]‘s vision is impaired and he needs regular ophthalmology checks.
- [child] lacks confidence to tell people when he cannot see or hear clearly when in a group situations,
- When tested by an Occupational Therapist in October 2017, [child] scored between the significantly poor (<1st percentile) and poor range (3rd percentile) for:
• Copying.
• Visual Motor Speed.
• Visual Motor Search.
• Form Constancy.
• Figure Ground
- [child] has low muscle tone which affects both his gross motor and fine motor skills impacting on his stamina to complete day to day activities
- [child]’s difficulties with low muscle tone can make him very tired.
- [child] displays weakness within his trunk resulting in poor trunk stability. This affects [child]’s posture and causes him to tire faster than his peers He has low tone, hyper-mobility and ligamentous laxity. As a result he suffers from joint pain, which prevents him from engaging in motor tasks for long periods.
- [child] experiences joint pain and can find it difficult going up and down stairs.
- [child] has poor planning skills and has difficulty performing sequential and reciprocal gross motor movements.
- [child] presents with fine motor difficulties and struggles with tasks tasks that require manual dexterity like cutting with a sharp knife, using scissors, cutting his nails, doing up shoelaces, writing and doing up button fly trousers.
- [child] relies heavily on adult support to meet his self care needs
- [child] lacks independence and has not yet developed the skills necessary to complete daily tasks without adult support. this includes being mindful of nutritional requirements and portions.
- [child] is able, but only with prompting and supervision, to carry out many tasks of daily living, such as getting up in the morning, brushing his teeth, using the internet, making a cup of tea and answering the telephone. When he answers the telephone it causes problems as he may put the telephone down if he does not recognise the person and missed an important appointment message as a result of putting the telephone down on an unfamiliar person. With some support he is able to dress, pack his bag in the morning, and ask for items in a shop. - 30 Apr 2021
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Yes
Other
Section B: Education
Background
[child] has a rare chromosomal disorder [xxx] with moderate to severe learning difficulties; severe communication difficulties, sensory and physical difficulties and delayed self-skills; difficulties maintaining emotional regulation and in generalising skills across different people and contexts all of which affect [child]'s participation in his education, activities and ability to develop independence. [child] attends [school] academy as a residential student, boarding Monday to Friday in term time. He spends Monday to Thursday after school evenings and nights at school where he is supported by a team of residential assistants who work closely with teaching and therapy colleagues and together support him in developing his skills, learning and independence throughout the waking day and to keep him safe and engaged. A team of Speech and Language Therapists including dysphagia specialists, Occupational Therapists and a Physiotherapist support [child] with direct and indirect therapy in class and in the residential setting through the provision of one-to-one and small group work and programmes delivered by class and residential assistants.
4.1 Communication and Interaction:
Strengths:
[child]'s functional comprehension within everyday environments is much better than when tested formally. He can follow simple instructions, generally at a two to three or more word level, in individual situations and in the classroom environment. Although not formally assessed [child] has a wide receptive vocabulary, which is evident through the use of his communication book which has approximately 2000 symbols. He also demonstrates an understanding of vocabulary within specific categories such as food and places. He is able to scan through the book to a category page or item when communicating. He has some understanding of linguistic concepts such as shape, colours and also understands basic 'wh' - questions (who, where, what, when). He has a better understanding of time (days of week, morning/afternoon, past/future, but he cannot tell the time) and a very good recall of past and future events.
[child] communicates primarily with speech, although this tends to be with a few single words unless prompted to make full sentences; his ability to speak in full sentences to get his needs met depends on who he is with. He has particular members of staff who he likes to talk to and is always keen to communicate with adults, but he is working on communicating more with some of his peers. He is able to answer 'who?', 'what?', 'where?', 'when?' questions e.q. when talking about his weekend. He uses his News Book and photos on his iPad to communicate about the places he has been and things he has done, and when motivated is able then to answer simple questions related to these. He is beginning to engage more in whole class work and will join in discussions when he is given directed questions and prompted for an answer. He is very difficult to understand for those who don't know him very well, but if he is not initially understood, he uses his communication book or iPad particularly if prompted by adult; he wears his communication book around his neck or carries his iPad which are essential as back up to his communication.
[child] uses eye contact and a range of gestures and facial expressions to support his communication.
SEN:
Understanding:
[child]'s understanding of day to day conversation and instructions is relatively good compared to his expressive communication but he can need extra processing time and repeated prompting to complete simple tasks or instructions and his ability to follow instructions is highly dependent on his motivation and ability to use contextual and visual cues effectively. His understanding of more abstract questions such as 'how' and 'why' is poor, though improving. His understanding of language is also highly influenced by his variable attention and listening skills.
Expression:
[child]'s expressive language remains limited and he requires structured support to maintain an interesting conversation. He is able to make his needs and opinions known through a combination of speech and MC namely either his Communication Book or Proloquo2go communication app on his iPad. He has a tendency to use repetitive questions or statements on a limited number of topics and enjoys teasing staff with particular responses. He finds it difficult to wait whilst someone else is talking and will sometimes shout, interrupt, grab to gain attention if adults are ignoring him. He has a communication book which he is directed to use along with speech if he is communicating in an inappropriate way. [child]'s has significant difficulties with the pronunciation of speech sounds and presents with a disordered pattern of development. His difficulties are largely attributed to low facial muscle tone which makes many oral motor movements challenging for him. On previous assessments, he was unable to move his tongue on command or after a model, he also has poor lip closure which can lead to dribbling at times. He makes errors in the pronunciation of a large number of sounds including v, f, d, n, I; he also has difficulties in producing the correct number of syllables in a word (syllable deletion). Due to reduced intelligibility, he can have difficulty getting his message across to unfamiliar people. Although year on year, his clarity of speech has improved.
4.2 Cognition and learning:
Strengths:
[child] enjoys playing one-to-one literacy games using a bank of vocabulary words or literacy apps on the iPad. He likes having time in the library, sharing books with others. He loves to read his news books to staff with hand over hand support to direct his gaze and relies on adults to read difficult words. He can read the school menu and is able to tell staff what there is for tea. He enjoys scribbling independently and writing with hand-over-hand support, usually attempting to verbalise what he is writing. His supported writing is becoming more legible.
If [child] is in his work-bay, he can work for up to 20-25 minutes unless it is a familiar task then he can work for up to 40 minutes. In group work he can take turns in 5 minute intervals. His concentration is better when he is given short tasks and knows what the next activity is after completing them although he will concentrate for long periods on his favourite activities such as on literacy activities at home. He will take part in a very practical curriculum and with support, carries out tasks which involve using cooking, gardening and art equipment where he matches and selects coins, counts items and measures ingredients; however, he is often reluctant to participate and requires repeated instruction and may show resistance. He still requires individual support to achieve his academic potential, but when given this support, he is able to operate at the same level as other students in his class that initially appear more able. He responds well to visuals especially the written word, his communication book and iPad. He is resourceful and will get out the equipment that he needs with minimal support if it something he wants to do.
[child]'s functional literacy is at a relatively good level. He needs a lot of prompting when writing sentences and needs to be encouraged to stick to the sentence structure, but he is able to do this with hand-over-hand support. His functional numeracy is almost non-existent although he is able to hand over money when out in a shop and understands the difference between one and lots.
SEN:
[child] can skip past words when reading and whilst he reads familiar words out loud, many are difficult to understand. He continues to need hand-over-hand support to write meaningfully and legibly. He struggles to use the computer and is not at all interested in using it at school or home. However, he enjoys and is skilled at using his iPad to view photos, play literacy games, to communicate using P2G and, with support, to type and search the internet for pictures of places. He does not understand the meaning of numbers. [child] is easily distracted, needing reminders to stay focussed on a task. He lacks motivation especially with activities that he has no interest in or if they are physically more demanding, pushing away the task or asking for the toilet to indicate his resistance and to avoid participating; he still dislikes PE and dance and does not like taking part in these kinds of activities. He can be unwilling to focus on a group task even with support and prompting and will take any opportunity to get out of what he doesn't want to do. He does not find it easy to generalise skills between different people and across settings so needs staff to use the same strategies throughout the day.
Section B: Education
4.3 Social, emotional and mental health:
Strengths:
[child] is very sociable, seeks out the company of others and chooses to be with preferred adults and children. At home, he interacts with adults and children for example asking them to take pictures of him and makes himself understood by those who are familiar with him. At school [child] will try to interact with his peers if prompted. He is aware when he has not been nice to staff and will point this out in his book.
Symbols and verbal prompts are used to remind [child] of what he has to do next, although he has a very good memory and knows what is happening on a daily basis. [child] is able to put his dirty dishes in the dishwasher and go the cupboard or drawer to get a bowl or spoon at breakfast time.
SEN:
[child] prefers to interact with adults. His peers do not understand his limited language and staff have to translate what he is trying to say. He can annoy other students by unwanted attempts to interact or by irritating them.
[child] is constantly seeking attention and when he does not get attention or if a member of staff gets temporarily distracted, he may shout or grab them. When distressed he can display behaviour which impacts upon his learning such as pulling his jumper over his head. However, he responds well to adult support and with appropriate support and strategies in place he is able to manage his difficulties with emotional regulation. He displays obsessive interest in particular areas, e.g. currently he is interested in taking pictures on his iPad, talking about certain preferred places such as [location] and continues to be interested in catalogues (especially travel, sportswear and estate agents' catalogues) and stationery.
Whilst [child] can navigate his way around the school, he still needs support to ensure that he arrives where he should be during transition times or while navigating his way around the' building.
4.4 Sensory and/or physical:
Strengths:
Gross motor:
[child]'s balance is developing, and although he remains unsteady on his feet over obstacles or unusual surfaces, he is steadier than he looks at first sight. He can walk up and down stairs with the support of the handrail. He accesses a tricycle at school but cannot pedal himself and is building up his stamina to go longer distances. At home, he goes for long walks and cycle rides on an assistive tandem and swims long distances.
Fine motor: [child] enjoys fine motor activities, especially cutting and writing and has developed ways of using his hands for some more refined fine motor tasks.
[child] is able to safely eat a variety of foods and makes use of specialist cutlery and plates, which increases his level of independence during mealtimes. He will cut his food with a knife if given hand-over-hand support. He is able to drink from an open glass. He is attempting more to dress himself and having trousers with an elasticated waist has helped him to be able to pull his trousers up on his own. He is able to put on and pull his socks up himself. Once he has received support to manage fastenings he is able to use the toilet with support and prompting. He uses an electric toothbrush with hand-over-hand support.
[child] responds well to regular physio, massage and relaxation sessions. He is becoming better at tolerating music which he dislikes.
SEN:
Gross motor:
[child] has very poor body awareness and reduced muscle strength, especially in his core muscles and finds large, anti-gravity movements effortful and difficult to coordinate and control. Together with poor motivation it places his gross motor skills significantly behind those of his peers and he needs encouragement, prompting and hand-over-hand support to carry out tasks. His physical restraints of his mobility such as hand grip and strength, also impact on his willingness to engage in some activities. He often walks slowly and he needs prompting to ensure that he reaches the correct destination. He does not pay attention to his feet or the ground in front of him and lacks sufficient motor planning to negotiate large obstacles or significant changes in surface safely without help. He is unable to carry large objects or containers whilst walking and requires assistance to carry out activities for daily living such as clearing plates though this is improving. He has flexion contracture at his knees and staff carry out daily stretches on him to manage this. [child] has a pronounced lordosis (arch in his lower spine) and scoliosis and wears a body suit or TLSO spinal brace 23 hours daily, providing him with a level of postural support. He wears AFO splints and rises in his shoes. The splints both serve to lengthen his hamstrings and improve his gait, partially correct his pronation and lack of heel strike. He makes use of a specialist chair alternating with a standing table when undertaking tabletop activities. He also has a gym ball in class to sit on during quieter activities and uses one for recreational time when in residential provision.
Fine motor:
[child] has difficulties with his fine motor skills. When cutting, he has a tendency to hold his scissors in a pronated/grasp (thumb down) due to his lack of wrist rotation and has reduced fine motor skills due to dysmorphic fingers and variable of muscle, poor proprioception, poor organisation of his movements and inability to grade his strength to tasks and materials and will tear the paper with the scissors. He cannot cut on lines, but he has a go at this. Although he uses his two hands together, he is unable to co-ordinate them and grade the movement required to be effectual in the outcome of his activity without support.
[child] needs his food to be cut up finely and he needs to be encouraged to drink fluids before and after eating and throughout the day. He has difficulties managing food that needs a lot of chewing. He needs reminders to eat slowly. He still needs full support with doing up buttons and zips due to his poor fine motor skills; it is felt that [child] is quite capable, but he lacks motivation, especially towards the end of the week when he is getting tired. [child] can't brush his teeth without staff support. He is verbally and physically prompted during bathing tasks, although once prompted he is able to carry out the task with minimal independence; only washing the aspect of the body part he can see. He is unable to wash his hair. He is unable to operate the shower or bath as he is unable to work the taps or judge the heat of water or when to stop it. He suffers with constipation and needs to be given time in the toilet; he has a tendency to use the toilet as a diversion tactic and is prone to wetting himself at night and the bed. He has no sense of warmth or cold and cannot judge what clothes to wear.
Assessment of [child]'s sensory processing using the Sensory Processing Measure indicated 'Some Problems'. This is one standard deviation away from the norm. The areas he has the most difficulties are with planning and ideas indicating a significant difficulty with praxis and knowing how to carry out certain tasks or coming up with new ideas for activities (praxis). His poor body awareness (proprioception) and balance will contribute to his difficulties with praxis. He seeks various different 'tactile' input and has much higher pain threshold than most and does not express pain; by seeking tactile input, he gains a greater awareness of his body in space (proprioception). He has poor grading of force and at times may hold or touch objects with too much force.
[child] has low arousal which means that he under registers sensory input to deliver an appropriate response. At school, he requires a high level of sensory input for him to be able to attain a 'calm alert' state of arousal required when participating in activities and learning.
He is not independent in his self-care and daily living skills. He is unable to dress or undress himself independently; He cannot prepare food independently (other than breakfast foods which he can manage with minimal support); although he eats independently he is a messy eater and prefers to eats with his fingers and requires supervision as he may eat too fast. [child] is still unaware of having food around his mouth and on his lips and requires adult prompting to clean his face. If given a napkin, he will wipe his mouth, but his wiping is not precise. He needs prompting and support to use the toilet. He has no sense of danger; is unable to walk in public places without supervision as has no sense of road safety and no understanding of danger in the community. He can knock into people unintentionally and can be unstable on his feet. - 28 Apr 2021
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Yes
Other
B
Cognition and learning
Strengths supporting learning
• [child] is excited about learning and is keen to try new activities, particularly if he is working alongside a teacher.
• [child] is starting to show an awareness of letters and literacy. He is able to sing the alphabet song, and has very recently started to identify a few letter sounds
• [child] is curious about the world around him and is keen to discover more.
• [child]'s ability to concentrate and pay attention has increased considerably.
Special educational needs and how these affect learning
• [child] has a diagnosis of polymicrogyria involving both frontal and opercular regions
• [child]'s cognitive development is delayed and his knowledge base is behind normative levels. [child] appears to experience difficulties with his memory and recall. He manages to retain only some information and at times it appears that he is guessing and/or copying others and different experiences.
• [child] asks the same questions often and repeatedly; demonstrating no evidence of having been told or taught anything beforehand.
• [child]'s problem solving skills are limited, he struggles with simple things like puzzles, building etc. He finds some of the academic and problem solving tasks available in the classroom to be very challenging
• Although [child] is typically able to correctly recite numbers when counting up to 10, but does not seem to have a concept of what most of the numbers mean. [child] has learned to tell people that he is four but does not seem to have a concept of what this might mean
• [child] is able to engage in some limited imaginative play, however, this is very simple and highly repetitive. For example, [child] can pretend that something is a gun or car and make corresponding sound effects, but would not expand on the play to say that he is driving somewhere or racing someone etc.
Communication and interaction
Strengths supporting learning
- [child] can attend for 25 minutes in a one to one context
- [child] listening skills are good and he follows simple instructions well, with little reminding
- [child] expressive abilities have developed well over the past year.
- [child] is using a maximum of 5-6 words together in English and 2-3 in French. He has a great understanding of who he can speak French with and who he can speak English with I and finds it easy to shift between the two languages
- [child]'s ability to articulate himself verbally is much improved and [child]'s vocabulary has increased and his use of sentences, personal pronouns, tenses etc is much better
Special educational needs and how these affect learning
- [child] presents with ongoing difficulties with regard to his auditory memory .
- [child] found it difficult to understand instructions in the 'Concepts and Following Directions' e.g. 'point to the monkey and then to the bird'), and achieved a scaled score of 2 (normal range is 7-13). This score equates to a percentile rank of 0.4.
- [child] has difficulties in understanding the structure of sentences e.g. 'point to: the girl has a big spotted, black and white dog' and 'They like to make biscuits', and he achieved a scaled score of 5 for this subtest (normal range is 7-13). These difficulties with keeping words in his auditory memory will significantly impact on [child]'s ability to follow instructions in a busy classroom environment and to access the Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 curriculum
- [child]'s understanding is based on the present and finds abstract concepts or situations more difficult to understand
- [child] does not predict what is happening next in stories and can only answer basic questions about familiar stories.
- [child] is unable to answer open-ended questions. For example, when asked "What do you think the weather is like in this picture?" [child] does not respond. Yet, when asked to point to the sun in the picture, [child] successfully does so
- [child] has ongoing difficulties with expressive language will affect his ability to express his needs and ideas in everyday interactions with peers and teachers and may impact his confidence in the longer term.
- [child] has difficulties with pretend play skills this will impact the development of his symbolic understanding which in turn will affect his language learning abilities.
Sensory and/or physical
Strengths supporting learning
- [child] has grown to be much more confident and stable on his feet. He manoeuvres obstacles well and navigates his way through the classroom with ease.
• [child] enjoys joining in with physical games with friends which is important for his social development.
• [child] is increasingly independent and he can manage his toileting and hygiene needs as well as feed himself and dress himself for the outdoors.
•[child] is able to drink from a cup and use a spoon.
•[child] has adequate fine motor skills for peeling a mandarin and picking up small beads to put them into a funnel.
•Despite [child]'s diagnosis of Polymicrogyria he is not known to have had any seizures.
Special educational needs and how these affect learning
•[child] does not run with agility or great confidence. His pattern of movement is asymmetrical and he moves one arm much more than the other while running. [child] runs with his feet very close to the ground and trips over frequently.
•[child]'s pencil control skills are developing slowly and he is working hard to improve these though his skills are not yet at the expected level. This means that [child] is behind in terms of his literacy learning.
•[child] experiences difficulty and seemingly pain when exposed to increased volumes of noise. He is far less tolerant than his peers of loud sounds and even only a small increase in volume is distressing and uncomfortable for [child]. He is distracted by auditory and visual stimuli within his environment.
•[child] has a squint and wears glasses for this.
•[child] is not yet writing his name independently, only tracing over letters with hand-overhand guidance
•[child] understands what scissors are used for, but struggles to open and close the scissors consecutively to cut
•[child] dribbles excessively which distracts him from his work, especially if it falls on his activity, but which also has the potential to be socially damaging. [child] wears a neck scarf a1 El Who keep his clothes dry and will go through two or three neck scarves per day. It has only been in the last week that [child] has started to show an awareness that the neck scarves are wet. [child] is not yet able to wipe his mouth[child] refuses to engage with messy materials and strongly dislikes these types of sensory activities. This extends to paint too, though
- [child] has recently been prepared to use watercolour paints. Unfortunately, this holds [child] back from accessing this aspect of the curriculum.
•[child] requires assistance with dressing and undressing and fastenings.
•[child] is not yet fully toilet-trained and uses nappies at night, he can indicate to his parents when he wants to open his bowels and to urinate but struggles with wiping especially with bowel movements. t{is parents reported the [child] is quite clumsy when it comes to using the toilet.
•[child]'s sleep pattern is not yet settled. He settles easily, although late at night, but wakes up once or twice each night and wants to be cuddled when he awakens or cries to get attention and will often climb into his parents bed when he awakens.
•When sitting at a table, [child] will begin with an upright posture but will end up leaning back onto the chair or forward onto the table, or will slump in his seat.
•[child] also has an aversion to wet textures such as paste, paint, skin creams, soap and hand sanitiser. He will not eat yoghurt. He hates getting his hair wet and finds the shower very distressing (he has a bath instead).
•[child] really struggles with ball skills. He does not move toward a ball that is kicked to him and cannot usually catch a ball. He can throw a ball but is not able to aim at a target or in a specific direction.
Social, emotional and mental health
Strengths supporting learning
• [child] loves attention has developed positive relationships with his teachers.
• [child] is a happy, confident child with a sunny disposition.
• [child] is self-assured and has great self-esteem which provides a strong base from which to learn and discover.
• [child] shows happiness in his successes and shows pride and pleasure in his achievements.
• [child] is happiest in the company of others and is drawn to other people, particularly adults and is very empathetic and understanding of their needs.
• [child] is a good friend and can share and take turns. This facilitates group learning and makes [child] a pleasure to teach and spend time with.
Special educational needs and how these affect learning
• Whilst [child] is interested in his friends, he does very little true collaborative play and shows a strong preference for adults.
• [child]'s insistence on the teacher's company can detract from his engagement with his peers and can be challenging for the teacher, particularly in terms of considering the needs of the wider group.
• [child]'s open nature has the potential to be dangerous and reflects no understanding of social boundaries.
• [child] finds it difficult to remain resilient in the face of fatigue or ill health and when faced with these situations, he becomes very emotional and almost inconsolable.
• Although [child] is usually compliant there are also times when he will stubbornly refuse to comply with adult requests ( e.g. to tidy up after himself)
• [child] can sometimes struggle to understand changes in his routine. - 28 Apr 2021
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Yes
Other
B: Summary of my strengths and Special Educational Needs
Overview of [child]'s strengths and what can be built on:
[child] is a generally happy young man who is attending [x] nursery. He enjoys interacting with adults and is beginning to show an interest in his peers at Nursery since he has settled into the setting more. [child] is showing an ability to make choices and makes his basic wants and needs known. He shows a strong desire to express himself and share attention with others, though it is as yet unable to produce clear words. He is able to vocalise with communicative intent to attract attention and respond when spoken to. He has demonstrated the ability to learn from observing others and is responsive to attempts to engage him in adult-directed learning activities for limited time periods. [child] enjoys being in the garden and using his tricycle. He shows a willingness and interest in communicating and benefits from having non-verbal signs and visuals to support his ability to express himself. He understands a wide range of words including nouns and verbs, demonstrated by him pointing at or reaching for named objects or pictures from a three / four. [child] has shown the ability to quickly learn new vocabulary introduced to him and is also learning incidental vocabulary that has not been specifically taught. He is developing his understanding of categorising objects and using everyday concepts. [child] is able to follow verbal instructions containing up to two key words.
Overview of [child]'s needs:
[child] has a diagnosis of evolving hypotonic cerebral palsy and therefore has difficulties with his motor and physical skills. Additionally, he has difficulty with his speech and language development. [child] shows developing skills and knowledge in a range of areas but It is important to consider the significant limitations that his physical and communication skills place on his access and development, and as such current assessments are based on what [child] can currently demonstrate. He requires support for the majority of time in order to be able to continue to access and engage with the learning environment and to manage the barriers that his physical and communication difficulties place on him.
Cognition and Learning
1. [child] is easily distracted by what is going on in his surroundings.
He can get distracted not only by others around him but also by something an adult has done within the activity that he has found funny and struggled to refocus from. Additionally, now that his physical skills permit him to reach out and explore objects and materials it is likely that [child] is motivated to engage in exploratory play with new materials and resources that he is presented with. [teacher] reports such responses during her individual work with [child] but shared that on subsequent presentation of the same resources he demonstrated an ability to use them functionally. [child]'s attention can be variable and very much dependent on how he is feeling at any particular time.
2. [child] is academically behind his peers.
EYFS tracker:
PSED within 22-36 months
PD within 8-20 months
CAL entering 22-36 months (speaking is significantly delayed at 8-20 months)
[child] experiences difficulty with slotting shapes into associated holes due to his motor difficulties but can slot items when a larger space is provided. Similarly, [child] is able to match the pictures when working on inset puzzles but requires support to get the pieces into the correct place. (Ability to share knowledge is significantly impacted by physical difficulties and so it would not be possible to indicate an accurate level for this area.)
It's difficult to ascertain [child]'s drawing skills without accounting for the physical barriers he has to such activities. For example, he is not able to copy when mark making due to limited control of his hands. (Ability to share knowledge is significantly impacted by physical difficulties and so it wouldn't be possible to indicate an accurate level for this area.)
Communication and Interaction
3. There is evidently a discrepancy between [child]'s receptive and expressive language skills and this may be the cause of frustrations when he is not able to express his thoughts and feelings in a meaningful way or beyond the signs or pictures for single words.
[child]'s understanding is in advance of his expressive language abilities by approximately two years. [child] needs a little time to process language. [child] appears to follow conversational language really well and is able to indicate 'yes/no' to questions, and most of the time his responses show that he has understood the question. There are times when his responses are not always accurate, which may suggest that his is not always understanding some of the little words used in a sentence that can alter the meaning.
[child] has been introduced to the PODD Communication Book which should enable increased opportunities to express himself but requires further exposure and repetition in order to be able to use it in a meaningful way. He is not yet able to communicate his feelings or needs by using this independently, but he is still developing his working knowledge of the PODD.
4. [child] is making vocalisations but not yet saying any words at Nursery.
[child] did on one occasion make some sounds when working with [teacher] on a one-to-one basis in a quiet area. At home [child] is reported to say 'Mumma' when prompted and says 'go' and 'baby' but not necessarily within the correct context. At Nursery [teacher] is trying to encourage [child] to say 'go' after she says 'ready steady' when he is about to move on his tricycle. He is not yet responding to this. [child] uses vocalisations in both contexts to get an adult's attention. At Nursery, it is generally on a one-to-one basis. However, [teacher] reports that recently he vocalised during a larger group to gain her attention. At home, if someone else is talking and he is asked what he thinks, [child] will sometimes make vocalisations. At home, he has clear sounds for likes and dislikes. At Nursery [child] generally vocalises when he likes something e.g. his lunch (10-14 months). Those familiar with [child] can interpret his sounds and understand if he is happy or sad.
Social, Emotional and Mental Health
5. At nursery [child] currently tends to opt out of group situations. [teacher] reports that he appears aware of what he can and cannot do and this may be having an impact on his confidence and subsequently his willingness to have a go. This is an area they are trying to support the development of with [child] currently as he tends to be more comfortable with adults.
[child] can imitate simple actions that are not limited by his physical difficulties. (18-30 months) [child] is engaging with make-believe play and for example, will make 'ssshh' sounds when rocking a doll and putting it to sleep. Although not keen on dressing up, [child] is reported to enjoy role play. At home, he has pretended to be driving a car and imitated putting on an imaginary seatbelt and driving using an imaginary steering wheel. He has also engaged in play where he pretends to be eating and drinking with imaginary food and drink. [child] appears to be engaging in longer sequences of play at home compared to Nursery. However, he currently only attends one afternoon a week, which is when there is more opportunity for free-flow play. Therefore, it may be due to opportunity rather than interest. (24-30 months)
6.Although [child] is generally a happy boy he does demonstrate frustration and sadness at times.
With the level that his communication skills are at, he is not yet able to express his emotions to those working with him. It is reported that it is usually evident from his facial expressions and demeanour when something is wrong. [child] opting out of activities at nursery may also be a way of him asserting some control over his experiences and engagement.
[child] currently requires one-to-one adult support at all times due to his physical and communication needs and so it is important to consider his needs in relation to opportunities for independence, personal space/privacy and downtime, as these are likely to impact on his overall well-being and confidence.
Sensory, Physical, Independence and Self-care
7. [child] has a diagnosis of 'evolving hypotonic cerebral palsy'. As a result of the associated difficulties he has delayed motor development. This is one of his main areas of need.
Therapy assessment findings indicate that [child] is dependent on adult support to meet his care needs.
[child] is reliant on adults to support him to complete self-care activities such as dressing.
[child] is able to push arms and feet into clothes with adult support to manage his posture.
With support [child] can access toilet timing. He can sit on the toilet with the support of an adult, and use of a high street ring reducer and step.
[child] sits in his specialist seating system for meal times and table top activities. He can self feed with his hands and drink from a cup. He is working towards using an (angled) spoon for feeding.
[child] can sit independently on the floor and explore a toy within his reach. He is able to roll from his back to his front independently. [child] can transition between lying and sitting
independently. He can high kneel to play at a low surface.
[child] is able to track, reach and grasp objects accurately. He can pass items between hands and demonstrate a range of appropriate grasps. [child] is able to point, give thumbs up and turn pages in a book independently. He has no restrictions in his use up his upper limb.
[child] has a specialist seating system that allows him to sit an engage in educational activities with his peers. [child] requires the assistance of an adult to transfer between positions and equipment e.g. his specialist seating system. [child] is able to participate well in standing transfers with the assistance of one adult. - 28 Apr 2021
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Yes
Other
B: Special Educational Needs
[child] has a diagnosis of Autism and associated difficulties which he received in November 2017.
Social, Emotional, Health and Wellbeing:
Strengths:
[child] is a happy little boy who has a good relationship with adults
His ability to interact with peers is developing. He demonstrates tolerance of others; he enjoys being in close proximity to other children. He tends to play alongside peers, but shows little interest in what they do.
[child] can express his emotions non-verbally through facial expressions.
[child] is able to state when an environment is too stressful for him, e.g. “It’s too busy” and he will remove himself from situations he finds overwhelming by walking away.
[child] is interested in other children and during motivating activities he shows some skills in sharing attention with others
[child] can respond to social experiences with differentiated emotion
During motivating activities he can demonstrate emotional expression appropriate to context.
[child] is starting to use his expressive language skills to support his emotional regulation, e.g. he will let his teacher, 1:1 LSA or parent know when an environment is “too busy” for him.
[child] continues to learn how to share and has made some progress in this area
[child] responds well to rewards and verbal praise
[child] has a current special interest in trains and this helps him to engage in his learning
[child] enjoys playing with Lego when he is alone to help him calm down
[child] prefers to spend time outside
[child] likes to help his teacher and do special jobs
Needs:
[child] presents with significant social communication difficulties in keeping with his diagnosis of ASD.
[child] at times exhibits volatile behaviour. He primarily does this at home, however school staff have been physically pushed, kicked, bit, pinched by [child] on a number of occasions
[child] Struggles to interact with peers, to understand social rules and expectations and to understand how to share in different contexts.
[child] struggles to regulate his emotions and how he responds to situations which are not of his choosing.
The impact of [child]’s receptive language difficulties on behaviour and well-being should also be considered. If [child] is not understanding what is said to him and others, this could lead to a considerable amount of frustration on his part and behavioural difficulties if his needs are not taken into account.
[child] struggles to regulate his emotions and how he responds to situations which are not of his choosing
When playing [child] tends to play alongside other children instead of joining in with their game.
[child] is at times unaware of the feelings or reactions of the other children, especially when they are only expressed verbally. [child] struggles to make sense of others’ body language and facial expressions
[child] struggles to engage in turn-taking games with a small group of other children and requires a high level of adult support to engage in it. [child] cannot sustain meaningful play with his peers. Play can lead to him feeling frustrated and becoming physical with his interactions.
[child] at times expresses himself through pre-symbolic means (e.g. facial expression, running away, aggression) and symbolic means (e.g. Short phrases).
[child] experiences difficulties regulating his emotions.
[child] is unable to identify when he needs support from others to regulate his emotions, without adult help he will not be able to manage his emotions and in turn access classroom learning.
[child] is calmer in school but each day is different
[child] can find it hard to make the transition from arriving at school to entering the classroom. It can take [child] up to 40 minutes to enter the classroom some mornings
[child] is calmer with the input of recommendations; however, his behaviour can still be unpredictable. He has communicated his distress in a physical way towards both peers and staff. There have been times when [child] has needed 2 members of staff to support him. [child] shows his distress at home through physical actions
[child] becomes very anxious when he does not know what is happening next or if plans change (even if they are positive changes)
[child] finds it difficult to understand and follow class rules
[child] can be affectionate towards a teacher but a hug can lead to him pinching his teacher
[child] struggles to understand that his peers/adults might have a different agenda to his
[child] struggles to develop friendships with children his own age
[child] can be impulsive and has little danger awareness
[child]’s behaviour is more challenging for staff following a holiday break. [child] will regress and bite and have more meltdowns immediately after a break and then gradually the behaviours reduce
[child] is not yet aware of the needs of his peers or of the impact the things he wants to do may have on them. He will pull play equipment out of their hands
[child] moves between both reception classes and will struggle to understand that he cannot do this when he moves to year 1
[child] found the transition to reception class extremely difficult - 28 Apr 2021
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Yes
Other
B: Special Educational Needs
[child] has a diagnosis of Autism and associated difficulties which he received in November 2017.
Sensory and/ or Physical Needs:
Strengths:
[child] can respond to sensory experiences with differentiated emotion.
[child] is beginning to demonstrate his ability to self-regulate at basic level
[child] is able to hold his pencil in a tripod grasp
[child] is able to use a fork for feeding and can cut up soft foods e.g. carrot
Needs:
[child] continues to struggle when he is faced with unexpected change to his routine He can be stressed by brand new events and situations. He may attempt to run away or will refuse to come back into the classroom from outside.
[child]’s sensory processing needs are apparent across the school day. He is sensitive to noise, especially hand-driers, there are also sensitivities to temperature.
[child] presents with sensory overload; his teachers report that he becomes frantic when overwhelmed.
[child] experiences difficulties with toileting, with wiping his bowels and prompts to wash his hands, and needs to develop this skill
[child] experiences difficulties with his dressing (e.g. orientating his trousers the right way round), and needs to develop his skills within this area
[child] has difficulty with holding onto cutlery appropriately and co-ordinating both hands together to use a knife and fork
[child] has difficulty with holding onto scissors appropriately and with cutting along a straight line
In a busy classroom environment the additional background noise of other children, pace of task, nature of task and size of group may all affect [child]’s attention and listening skills. This may impact on his ability to attend and access classroom learning. Without support and appropriate adaptations of the environment [child] will find it difficult to know what he should be doing and what he should be focusing on.
[child] is very sensitive to noise and movement. He actively moves away from busy and noisy areas in the classroom. He often opts to spend time in the outside area. His sensory differences make it hard for him to access learning in the busy mainstream classroom. - 28 Apr 2021
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Yes
Other
B: Special Educational Needs
[child] has a diagnosis of Autism and associated difficulties which he received in November 2017.
Cognition & Learning:
Strengths:
[child] is able to read at a whole word level.
[child] has an enquiring mind and his able to use and apply logic on a range of practical/ non -verbal tasks.
[child] is able to sustain his attention and interest on tasks which is of his choosing. He is good at counting and can read basic words at a whole word level.
[child] enjoys outdoor learning particularly the mud kitchen and the work bench
[child] likes handwriting and is interested in writing words
[child] is interested in reading and has recently begun to read for very brief periods with his class teacher
[child] has recently begun to complete a short 2-5 min task followed by a reward with adult support
[child] will look at his “now and next” board which helps to give him a pre-warning that he will need to transition to another activity
[child] can sustain attention on a self-chosen activity for up to 20 minutes
[child] can sit on a chair near the carpet to listen to a story at the end of the day when supported by an adult
Needs:
[child]’s difficulties with understanding will impact on his ability to participate in activities and access the curriculum as well as his ability to follow daily routines and familiar instructions at even a simple level. Misunderstandings may lead to behaviours or responses that are unpredictable
In the classroom [child] may find it difficult to follow unfamiliar or long and complex instructions.
[child] presents with mild delays in his vocabulary and severe delays in his grammar.
In the classroom, [child] will find it difficult to participate in activities and access the curriculum due to his limited functional communication and limited means to express himself.
[child] has struggled to develop his early literacy and numeracy skills.
[child] has struggled to learn his phonics, so support will need to continue to work at a whole word level
[child] struggles with whole class activities, during whole class story time at the end of the school day
[child] continues to have difficulty following adult-led teaching and instructions
[child]’s play skills are delayed
[child] experiences difficulties accessing the learning environment.
[child] is not yet an independent learner
[child] at times finds it difficult when transitioning from one activity to the next. He has a strong desire to continue with the task that interests him and will struggle to comply with the wishes of adults. It can take him up to 20 minutes to prepare himself to move on
[child] experiences difficulties understanding instructions and understanding language-based activities.
[child] is not fully accessing the Foundation stage curriculum.
[child]’s attention skills are limited to up to 5 mins on an adult-led task. This is if the task is highly motivating and followed by a reward
[child] is very self-led and engages in learning on his terms which makes it difficult for the teaching team to assess his learning and his current skills
[child] is motivated by his own agenda which leads to difficulties accessing the class learning
[child] does not yet have a sense of being part of the class. He is not following the class routine nor taking part in class activities - 28 Apr 2021
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Yes
Other
B: Special Educational Needs
[child] has a diagnosis of Autism and associated difficulties which he received in November 2017.
Communication and Interaction:
Strengths:
[child] can follow up to one key word instructions in context, e.g. “Put your shoes on”.
[child] responds well to instructions being supported by pictures.
[child] can answer simple “Who / Where/ What” questions.
[child] speaks in short, at times grammatically correct sentences and uses his language skills to request, protest and occasionally comment
[child] is able to show empathy to others. He can be a kind and caring child. [child] responds well to support provided. He is able to sit with his peers on the carpet although this can be for a limited period of time
[child] uses clear words, he is able to understand basic language and respond to requests at his own level.
[child] initiates interaction with an adult by taking them by the hand and by physically moving them.
[child] can verbally communicate his needs and ask for help when he is feeling calm
[child] can follow one step instructions when delivered to him individually when he is feeling calm
[child] has a wide vocabulary and will narrate some of his play
[child] can briefly display some friendly behaviours such as playing alongside another child
[child] will ask questions and give directions to others
Needs:
[child]’s attention and state of regulation significantly impact on his understanding of spoken language.
[child] shows moderate difficulties following instructions.
[child] may not understand what is said to him so may on occasions give unusual responses.
[child] expresses himself through pre-symbolic means (e.g. facial expression and vocalisations) and symbolic means (e.g. single words and sentences).
[child] communicates with intent to primarily request and protest.
[child] does not always use his communication to interact for social purposes or direct his communication towards someone. However when he does communicate to request comfort or a social game it is primarily through short sentences.
[child]’s expressive language difficulties will impact on his ability to verbally express himself in the classroom, e.g. to consistently answer the class teacher’s questions, explain what he has done or is going to do and express his thoughts, ideas and feelings.
[child]’s vocabulary delay will mean that he may find it difficult to use the correct words to express himself.
[child] requires support from those around him to give him time to communicate and interpret his use of communication, as at times he assumes that the other person can “read his mind” and already knows what he wants without him having said a word.
[child]’s difficulties with expressive language will impact on his ability to communicate with adults and peers in the classroom as he does not use his language for a range of purposes.
[child] currently requires others to interpret part of his communication.
[child] may not be engaged with activities in the classroom unless the proper supports are provided. If the correct supports are not provided, [child] will not have the opportunity to develop a more refined communication system that would allow him to express himself to others more clearly.
[child] continues to have difficulty following adult-led teaching and instructions. He works best when verbal information is broken down to aid comprehension.
[child] has significant social communication difficulties; this prevents him from making and sustaining friendships, understanding the intentions of others and making sense of social situations.
[child] does not always respond to social interaction from his peers. [child] walked away when a peer attempted to play alongside him
[child] has limited facial expressions and they are not necessarily congruent to the situation
[child] often repeats the same phrases and will also copy adults’ language
[child] tends to speak in statements or ask questions
[child] becomes frustrated when adults want to introduce a new way of using play equipment
[child] finds it hard to take turns and share equipment
[child] does not always wait for a response when he initiates an interaction with an adult. He will ask a question and walk away before receiving the answer
[child] will approach a child and impose his agenda on them without asking. For example, he will approach a child and tie them up with plastic chains to “arrest” them. - 25 Mar 2021
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Yes
Simple
Communication and Interaction
Strengths
My child now wears two hearing aids consistently throughout the day. He is becoming more vocal and appears to enjoy the sound of his voice. His voice has become clearer since having medical intervention to open his airway. He tries to sing songs and music is one means of communication used by him. My child greets adults and is asking more questions. He is more confident when speaking with a range of different adults.
Needs
His lack of communication will sometimes cause him frustration, particularly when he does not want something to happen or when solving conflicts with peers.
He needs to develop further signs to help him communicate. He needs familiar adults to be patient with him and allow him time to give an answer.
Cognition and Learning
Strengths
My child is learning and acquiring basic skills and concepts linked to the early curriculum. He can share books and offers key words based on the picture. He enjoys matching pictures and can rote count up to 10. He enjoys role playing in the kitchen and records video clips of himself whilst doing so.
His focus can last a while if he is interested in something. Music appears to capture his interest and he likes to make rhythmic noises with things. He knows the intonation of favourite songs and dances to these regularly.
Needs
My child has a very short attention span.
He needs repetitive tasks of short duration to sustain his interest. He finds it difficult to retain and recall new information, even with visual cues. He needs to practise lots of gross and fine motor skills to further develop his mark making abilities.
Social, Emotional and Mental Health
Strengths
My child is a happy boy, who is developing friendships within the class. He will alert the adult to tend to his needs. He recognises the correct behaviour and will call others names and say stop when they are doing the wrong thing.
Needs
He needs to develop key words and phrases that will help him express his mood and emotion.
Sensory and/or Physical
Strengths
My child has a moderate to mild upsloping hearing loss. He wears two hearing aids
His mobility has improved. He now wears insoles in his boots, which is helping. He is confident to roam around freely once up on his feet. He tries to run and is gaining speed. He is confident climbing on the apparatus and enjoys PE sessions. He is getting better at manipulating small objects in his hands.
He is getting better at eating and his appetite has improved.
Needs
My child can sometimes lose his balance when trying to run. Running is not yet a developed skill. His fine motor skills are still developing.
He sees a dietician to monitor his weight and he still has prescribed supplements to help his weight gain. The dietician also gives advice about foods to try increasing fat intake.
The Occupational Therapist provides advice for the daily use of his chair to help develop his core muscles.
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