ABSTRACT
The focus of this chapter is the use of strategies to promote effective communication for children who have special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and are being taught in mainstream classrooms. The perspective adopted here integrates medical and social models in an interactionist approach, considering three principal dimensions of inclusion: what the child brings, the skills and attitudes of those who interact with the child and the context within which the child functions (Lewis and Norwich 2005; Lindsay et al. 2008). Children with special educational needs have always been educated in mainstream classrooms, whether or not they were labelled as such, and teachers since the dawn of time have differentiated their approaches to suit children with different aptitudes, interests and needs. So teaching for inclusion is nothing new – it has always been there. However, it is true to say that in the twenty-fi rst century our understanding of differing needs is structured in a way that makes particular demands on teaching staff, and there are specifi c challenges and possibilities inherent in the current system for children who learn and interact with others in unorthodox ways. We know that school staff are positive and committed to the principle of inclusion, but that many feel that they lack a basic understanding of language and communication, and the specialist knowledge needed to make inclusion work (Mackenzie 2009; Sadler 2005; Sheehy et al. 2009).
