ABSTRACT
Traditionally children who had difficulty with the school curriculum were thought of as ‘handicapped’ and might have been referred for ‘special educational treatment’ in a separate school. Their problems were seen as being wholly within themselves: they needed special treatment because of the kind of person they were and the kinds of difficulties they presented. The 1981 Education Act introduced a new concept: special educational needs do not simply reside within the children who show them; these needs arise from an interaction between the children’s difficulties and the educational environment in which they are placed. In legal terms children are said to have special educational needs if they require special educational provision because they have significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of children of their age or because they suffer from a disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of the educational facilities generally provided in schools in their area for children of their age (DES, 1981).
