ABSTRACT
In terms of special needs, to use the phraseology of a now past era, it explodes 'the fallacy of the simple, single handicap'. It follows that children's needs should be looked at 'in the round', which is the essence of a multi-professional approach. The quality of the decisions reached may be difficult to cost and the outcomes too long-term for precise correlation. In the middle 1970s, that part of the service concerned with 'handicapped children' was awaiting the outcome of the Warnock Committee's deliberations. In reality, children's educational progress is affected by — and can affect — their social situation and health; and their intellectual development interacts with their emotional development and vice versa. The political process judges and rewards success in these positions by the individual initiative and 'profile' displayed by the incumbents rather than by the amount of cooperation shown to others.
