Collaborative working practices in special schools

Abstract

Webster, 1992), which is a developmental curriculum dovetailed into the National Curriculum. The children's individual goals were then included in a team teaching plan where the speech and language therapist worked in the classroom with the teacher.One particular reception class had six children aged from 5 years to 9 years old, with a wide range of physical, behavioural and emotional abilities. Two of these children had Down's syndrome. This article intends to highlight the progress they made. The interaction of the various children's disabilities and personalities meant that their communication behaviour varied from one situation to another. Their communication on a one to one basis was often totally different to that in the classroom. It also depended on which class members were present.The class teacher was supported by a nursery nurse and occasional volunteers. The teacher requested that the speech and language therapist used her allocated time, for these children, within the classroom and joined the class for half an hour three times per week.The communication lessons were very tightly structured. The children were seated around a table and the adults were positioned deliberately between the children. As part of the lesson, the children were expected to stay seated at the table for a set length of time. Trials had shown that lessons involving real objects were the most successful. In addition, one child was visually impaired and it was planned that every child should be fully involved with all the materials at their own personal level of emerging skills. The lessons were broadly based on a variety of commercial language programmes but not specifically on one model. The children's existing skills were made a priority in each session. For example, the words that a child was known to use already were combined with work on new vocabulary and particular communication skills. That is the children's strengths were used to enable them to meet their identified needs.Oliver was 7 years old, academically he was the brightest child in the class but his expressive language development was lagging behind his understanding of language. He understood questions involving a choice of two things and responded to simple sentences referring out of the immediate context. He was using two element sentences, such as 'where mummy', and knew about 50 words, including nouns and verbs. He used questions and commands. However, no formal assessment of his linguistic abilities was possible as he did not respond to formal testing and could not co-operate with the Derbyshire Language Scheme, even at a Rapid Screening Test level. It was apparent that he had a low level of language, which is an unusual pattern of language acquisition.David was 8 years old and one of the more able class members. His understanding of language was difficult to assess, in context he appeared to know a lot but on assessment without contextual cues, he did not. It was felt that he really only understood very simple sentences at a two word level. His expressive c...