ABSTRACT
Pupils whose special educational needs derive from the presence of physical and sensory impairments are at present educated in a range of settings, such placements being influenced not only by their individual requirements but also by local resources and priorities. Which pupils are being referred to in these terms? The process of decategorization stresses the individual needs of children, and moves away from medically orientated groupings, but the terminology has always been gross. Physically disabled children, for example, may have orthopaedic conditions affecting mobility, cerebral conditions affecting both movement and speech, or chronic disabling illnesses; deaf and hearing-impaired children have long been differentiated, but their functioning may be further diversified by early experiences of a communicating background, age at onset of the condition, and ability to use a hearing aid; the term ‘visually handicapped’ is now frequently used to refer to the whole continuum of possible sight levels from total congenital blindness to useful but defective vision. Nevertheless there remain some approaches to environmental and educational factors that are shown by such pupils, and an understanding of these forms an invaluable background against which the specific needs of individual children can more easily be both understood and met. In this context the somewhat generalized terms of ‘physical’ or ‘sensory’ handicap, the effect of ‘physical’ or ‘sensory’ impairment, are used as signposts to help to clarify the paths through the complexities of terminology, not as labels to categorize particular children.
