ABSTRACT
The term ‘support’ is used to describe various groups of people offering advice and skills to aid the integration, and general education, of children with difficulties in learning. We read of schools having a ‘Support Department’ with ‘support teachers’ who offer ‘learning support’ or ‘curriculum support’, or ‘special needs support’. Non-school based services often use the term ‘special needs support team’ or ‘support service’ as in ‘peripatetic support service for children who are visually impaired’. However, Hart (1986) states that there is ‘no generally agreed definition of support teaching’. Support services and support/advisory teachers are discussed as if there is a nationally agreed definition, whereas in reality support services differ according to their function, role, development, personnel and the Local Education Authority who employs them. The variety of jobs undertaken by learning support teachers can vary from making a Christmas cake with a group of children with language difficulties to running round the track with an educationally blind child. More examples are given by Booth et at. (1987).
