ABSTRACT
The context of the educational assessment of children with learning difficulties is heavily politicised. Where once such assessments were strongly – often exclusively –oriented to diagnostic purposes, these assessments are now part of procedures with quite different objectives. This chapter provides a brief discussion of the political context of the assessment of children with learning difficulties. It then reviews thinking about the nature of such assessment, drawing on recent work in developmental and cognitive psychology. The chapter discusses a range of classroom approaches and strategies that might be used with pupils with learning difficulties; these range from broadly based classroom observations to focused pupil-adult conferences. The overall emphasis is on 'authenticity' in the contexts of the classroom and the school when assessing pupils with learning difficulties, a group of pupils that encompasses those with mild learning difficulties, for example in reading or mathematics, as well as pupils with severe and generalised cognitive difficulties.
