Developing Decision-making with Children and Young People with SEN

A Practical Guide For Education and Associated Professionals

Jane L. Sinson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000037012
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

We all make decisions every day, but are you aware of the process you use to make a decision? This essential practical guide for education and associated professionals, using education-focused case studies throughout to illustrate key points, explains the mechanics of decision-making, introducing the associated language and concepts. It presents both a practical decision-making framework based in the Mental Capacity Act decision-making process, and a decision-making syllabus, from which education professionals can create their own curriculum.

Being able to make decisions is an important life skill, which can have a positive impact on well-being. However, many children and young people with SEN will need direct teaching and guidance to develop this ability, from the earliest age. The book explores the types of important decisions children and young people may need to make in relation to their education, with particular focus on choosing a new educational placement, providing practical guidance about how education professionals can support young people to make this decision. There is reference throughout the book as to the ways in which practitioners can work in partnership with parents to support and develop children and young people's decision-making ability. Appendices provide completed decision-making frameworks and associated guidance.

PART 1
DECISION-MAKING

Chapter one
MAKING DECISIONS

We all make decisions every day of our lives; many of those are what could be termed small decisions – everyday decisions – what to eat, what to wear, etc. Other decisions are bigger and perhaps better made after giving the matter some considerable thought. As you are perusing this, you have decided to acquire the book, and now, to find the time to read it. In the author’s opinion, that is a good decision; hopefully, you will agree. But, are you aware of the process that you use to make a decision? Perhaps thinking about a recent decision – choosing a sandwich, booking a holiday, buying new clothes – will assist. Write down the process you went through, which, all being well, closely resembles the procedure described later in the chapter.

What is decision-making?

Decision-making is a cognitive process. Research has shown that people tend to think about making decisions in the same way, suggesting there is a common set of cognitive skills (Hastie and Dawes 2001, cited in Beresford and Sloper 2008). The dictionary defines decision-making as ‘the process of making choices, especially important choices’.¹ Analysing this indicates the process can be described as ‘a series of actions or steps taken to achieve a particular end’² – the ‘choice’. The implication being that it is an active procedure, which may involve several different actions to arrive at the outcome, suggesting it may take time to arrive at the choice. The definition suggests that this process is more likely to be applied to choices that are perceived to be important; conceivably, for some decisions, importance is a subjective assessment. Choosing a sandwich could be considered a small decision, perhaps not one needing to be subjected to a lengthy decision-making process. However, for diabetics or those with other special dietary needs, picking a sandwich may need to be given more careful consideration. Probably, most people would agree that making a choice that results in a big change to a person’s life or involves a significant financial outlay, or personal risk, is an ‘important’ decision requiring the careful consideration indicated by the definition.

Essentially, the above has presented a theoretical model of decision-making, which gives little clue as to how to make this into a functional framework to assist education and associated professionals in teaching and supporting children and young people with SEN to make their own decisions. Perhaps the starting point for this process would be to scrutinise the heart of decision-making – the choices on offer. Being given a choice implies there are at least two options to consider. The dictionary defines ‘choice’ as ‘a range of possibilities from which one or more may be chosen’.³ Beresford and Sloper (2008) highlighted that the options offered needed to have a positive value to the person making the choice. They considered that if a person was being given a choice between something they really liked against something they disliked, this was not a real choice. Whilst an admirable aspiration, in real life there are times when the choices are not all highly desirable, or there may be only one real option. Think of Henry Ford’s offer to customers – you can have any colour so long as it is black.⁴ This is known as Hobson’s choice – a situation where there appears to be a choice between different options, but, in reality, there is only one choice.⁵ For some children and young people this may be the case in relation to some decisions about their education.

Pondering the attributes of choices gives food for thought in relation to teaching children and young people with SEN to make their own decisions. Intuitively, in the initial stages of teaching the process, it would seem appropriate that the options are all seen as positive, to show the child or young person how to evaluate the choices. However, if decision-making is a life skill, then there is an argument for introducing choices that are not all desirable, as we do not always have a choice between highly desirable options. This perhaps applies more to ‘important’ decisions than everyday ones. An ‘important’ decision children and young people will be involved in making is choosing their next education institution; in this case the options may not all be seen positively, but all must be seriously considered. Consider 11 year old Marvin’s dilemma, which is based on a real situation the author encountered, many years ago, when working as a local authority educational psychologist (EP). How would you have helped him make the decision?

Marvin's high school choice (part 1)

Marvin is in Year 6, he is a wheelchair user. He is the subject of an EHC Plan due a life-limiting degenerative physical disability and attends his local mainstream primary school. He, like his classmates, is choosing his high school. Most of his friends will be attending Clipper High School, but this school, having been built in the 1960s, has limited access for wheelchair users and no lift. Marvin is aware the local authority would like him to attend Trillian Academy, the resourced high school for pupils with physical disabilities, which is in another part of the city. Marvin’s parents took him to visit the school, during which he made his dislike of the school very clear. He was very reluctant to look at the different areas of the school. Clipper High School are willing to consider Marvin attending part-time for lessons he can access on the ground floor, but he would not have access to the first-floor science labs, computer and technology rooms. He would need another educational placement, such as the offsite provision for children and young people with medical needs, or for his paediatrician to state he was not well enough to attend school on a full-time basis. The Children and Families Act 2014 (SEND COP 9.85) has provision for children to have a dual placement, mainstream and a special school.

Marvin was being asked to choose between two options, his choice and the local authority’s preferred one. In other situations, there may be more than two choices, which raises the question about how many options should be offered to children and young people with SEN – all the actual choices or a reduced number? Mitchell (2012) found that parents facilitated their child making choices by limiting the options presented to those the parents thought best or most appropriate. In real life the number of options is likely to vary depending on the situation, but how will it be decided if all or only a few are offered? If it is a limited number, who will decide and what criteria will be used to determine which are offered? Is offering a restricted number of choices, thereby enabling some autonomy, better than overwhelming the child or young person with all the possible options so they are unable to choose? A rule of thumb for considering the choices being offered is for the education or associated professional or parent to stand in the child’s or young person’s shoes, that is to see the situation from their perspective, and consider the options the child or young person would wish to be given. The issues around choices will be revisited later in this chapter and throughout the book, particularly in Chapters two, five and the Epilogue.

In summary, the above suggests the issue of choices and the decision-making process could be considered a complex one, with many possible factors to be explored (Mitchell and Sloper 2011). This may now make you think teaching and supporting children and young people with SEN to make their own decisions is a daunting prospect. Perhaps the twentieth-century American cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner’s well-known hypothesis may help us see this is not necessarily the Herculean task it may seem. Bruner (1962, cited in Elkind 1975) stated: ‘We begin with the hypothesis that any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development’ (p245). Hopefully, the straightforward framework, founded in the MCA COP decision-making process, presented below, will assist education professionals, supported by associated professionals, turn theory into practice to achieve this important undertaking and help realise the aspiration that there is no decision about a child or young person’s education without their participation in some form.

How do we learn to make decisions?

Looking back to her childhood, the author can recall being given choices, and perhaps the first ‘important’ decision was selecting a high school, which was not straightforward. The fact the author can recall the process and feelings associated with this choice from all those years ago suggests the position she was placed in at a young age had an impact and, perhaps, helped her to be able to make difficult decisions. Can you recall your first ‘important’ decision? How did you make your choice?

Child development

From a child development perspective, decision-making is a cognitive process which develops from early childhood to young adulthood. Whilst it is aligned to certain areas of the brain, decision-making is a learned behaviour and is reliant on experience for its development. Imaging techniques have shown that the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain right at the front of the head, plays an important role in decision-making in relation to making advantageous choices when there is uncertainty. This part of the brain is not fully matured until young adulthood, but the area that processes rewards develops early (Levin et al. 2014). Understanding rewards is an important factor in learning, enabling skills to be taught such as decision-making.

A child’s development of their decision-making ability should be viewed against the backcloth of adults’ decision-making skills, which are variable. Jacobs and Klaczynski (2002) summarise the research into adult decision-making as showing adults are quite accurate making everyday decisions but they are affected by judgement biases, depend on what seem like inappropriate decision-making shortcuts and make less than good decisions across a variety of situations. Levin (2014) considers decision-making sometimes as being a fine balance between reflectiveness and more impulsive processes. This accords with the author’s view of her decision-making skill; she can think of poor decisions arrived at by focusing on unimportant factors or being influenced by the media, family, friends, or perceptions, as well as good decisions she has made.

Generally, in child development there are ages when it is expected a typically developing child will have acquired certain skills or behaviours. For decision-making, Levin et al. (2014) cite research supporting the idea that it is a child or young person’s cognitive (reasoning) abilities rather than age that is the more important factor in the development of decision-making ability. Jacobs and Klaczynski (2002) also felt trying to ascertain age differences in decision-making competence had led to studies focusing on what children could do under optimal conditions, rather than realistic conditions when there may be other factors such as personal goals, beliefs and prior experience to add to the consideration of a child’s decision-making ability. Jacobs and Klaczynski highlight that children’s development of decision-making is not a one-direction model of developing logic and efficiency. They consider there are two developmental changes from childhood to adulthood: the first is improvements in reasoning competencies, the second is the increase in the number of and frequency of use of heuristics (strategies); this includes judgement biases. Most researchers distinguish between what is referred to as ‘normative reasoning’, based on the rules of logic, and ‘heuristics’, based on the person’s own rules or beliefs.

Reasoning abilities

Whittaker (2014) presents an overview of children’s development of reasoning and problem-solving skills, including logical reasoning, which begins in infancy, and continues through the pre-school years; these cognitive skills underpin the development of decision-making. Reasoning begins in the first year of life, object permanence develops around the age of 9 months, which is when a child will begin to look for something they drop on the floor. By about a year old a child will find a hidden toy, such as a toy hidden in a cup (Sheridan 1975). Understanding cause and effect begins to develop between 9 and 12 months old (Whittaker 2014). From nursery age to Y1 (6 years old) a child develops the ability to reason and generalise what they find out from their own behaviour or experiences – inductive reasoning. From the age of 3 to 4 years children develop the ability to understand and make comparisons. During the same period children also develop the ability to use facts or general rules to draw conclusions, such as if X happens then Y will also happen – deductive reasoning. For example, a child can work out it is bedtime because they have been changed into their pyjamas.

Heuristics

The American Psychological Association website⁶ defines heuristics as ‘rules of thumb that can be applied to guide decision-making based on a more limited subset of the available information’. Gigerenzer and Gaissmaier (2011) explain heuristics as a reasoning process, conscious or unconscious, which ignores part of the information. The Oxford dictionary⁷ defines heuristic as ‘enabling a person to discover or learn something for themselves’. Unlike the decision-making process, which is considered to have a common set of cognitive skills, heuristics, the strategies used to arrive at a decision, vary between individuals. People will use different strategies for different decisions; there is a need to have a range of strategies to apply to decision-making (Beresford and Sloper 2008). Increases in knowledge of the social world lead to judgement heuristics and other biases as factors affecting decision-making. Overall, as age increases so do the number of heuristics and the situations to which they are applied (Jacobs and Klaczynski 2002).

Overlaying the changes in reasoning and heuristics from childhood to adulthood are other factors affecting an individual, such as social, motivational and emotional influences, which can b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Prolegomenon: setting the scene
• Part 1 Decision-making
• Part 2 Decision-making syllabus
• Part 3 The role of education and associated professionals
• Epilogue: reflections and steps forward
• Appendix 1: Completed decision-making framework for 'important' decisions for education and associated professionals or parents
• Appendix 2: Child or young person completed decision-making form
• Appendix 3: Statutory 'best interests' checklist and completed 'best interests' balance sheet
• Appendix 4: SEND Code of Practice preparation for adulthood outcomes
• Appendix 5: Guidelines for undertaking observations
• Appendix 6: Sample 'My Activity Passport'
• Appendix 7: Mechanics of the Talking Mats style approach
• Glossary
• References
• Resources
• Index