Classroom observation instruments exist in abundance. American authors, writing from an American perspective, have spoken of 120 systems as an underestimation. Galton (1979) surveyed 41 native British systems currently in use. Evans and Wragg (1971) did adapt Flanders' system to investigate laguage in an ESN(s) school, but, as Beveridge (1976) points out, there have been relatively few naturalistic studies of the classroom behaviour of children with severe learning difficulties. We were certainly unable to find an observational schedule for use with such children and therefore developed our own instrument to allow us to observe a range of pupil behaviours.

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