ABSTRACT
Language development is inseparable from the social learning and social context and the emotional climate in which learning in the wider sense takes place. Much of the curriculum for children with special needs is founded on the belief that refinement of language and its enrichment can only come through teaching language skills. Acquiring language is a natural, creative process and English work should be seen to offer creative extensions and a creative discipline to a child's existing language through art-discourse. Language patterns can be seen to emerge complementary to aspects of encounter within the developing relationships of a given group. Language functions in the classroom context to convey meanings and these arise as interpretations and are placed upon the behaviour of others, including the teacher. The therapist and the teacher are both mediators of the symbolic function, to the silent, to the unspeaking, to those who passively ignore or actively deny her presence, or the presence of the 'other'.
