In this essay I am firstly going to write about what is meant by the term special educational needs; then I will talk about the history of my chosen topic which is autism; when it was diagnosed, who diagnosed it, how labelling can affect a child suffering from autism, and what treatments are available to assist autistic people in leading some-what normal lives. I will also write about the medical and social model, what they are and how they relate to SEN, I will then write about the SEN Code of Practice and special educational needs coordinators and touch upon the 1987 Warnock report.
The definition of SEN according to the 1996 Education act is, a child has special educational needs if he/she has a learning difficulty which calls for special educational requirements to be made for them (Farrell, 2003). A child is said to have a learning difficulty if they have a considerably greater struggle in learning than most children of the same age and they have a disability which prevents or stops from making full use of their educational facilities provided for children of the same age in schools within the area of the local educational authority (Farrell, 2003).
I have chosen to discuss how the education support has changed for children suffering from the autistic spectrum disorder. The word ‘Autism’ first came about in 1911 by a Swiss Dr named Eugen Bleuler (Freedman, 2009) the term was based on the Greek word ‘autos’ meaning self; the actual disorder he was referring to was schizophrenia. Autism was later identified in 1943 by Dr Leo Kanner (Freedman, 2009) he believed mental and biological element played a key role in autism.
Autistic spectrum disorders are usually present from birth or early stages of development (NRC, 2001). Autism is a disability that