Identifying Special Needs in the Early Years

Kay Mathieson

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN:
  9781412929073
  9781412929066
• eBook ISBN:
  9781446229972
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Inclusive Education

With increasing expectations from parents and practitioners for inclusive early years settings, many practitioners are anxious about identifying and accommodating children?s individual needs as early as possible.

Through simple step-by-step instruction, this book will:

o increase practitioners? confidence in identifying individual needs;

o give practical advice on involving parents;

o provide clear links to existing guidance and legislation.

This is a valuable guide for practitioners in all early years settings including Day Nurseries, Pre-schools, Children?s Centres, Nursery Schools and infant schools.

CHAPTER 1

Early identification

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Working in partnership with parents is something which needs to be worked at and continually developed as a two-way relationship. Observation and assessment procedures can be used effectively to meet all children’s needs. Using structured ‘can do’ statements can provide a positive starting point for realistic target setting. The adult role is crucial and needs to be planned for in as much detail as the next steps.

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What do we mean by early identification?

Early identification and early intervention for children with additional or special needs are talked about a lot these days, but I’m not sure we are always clear about what we mean by either phrase. In order to help all children make the most of their learning opportunities it is the role of the adults who care for them to look for ways to help make it easier for them to make sense of the world around them. In the first instance, at home parents care for, spend time with and provide interesting activities for children. These activities of talking to babies, showing them toys, tuning in to their needs, likes and dislikes are very important in supporting future learning. Parents are the adults who know individual children best and are their first educators. All children develop at different rates and in different ways. For example, we don’t all walk or talk at the same age. However, generally speaking there are stages of development which roughly map out a child’s progress in those early years. The Birth to Three Framework (Sure Start, 2002) gives good indications of the developmental progress of young children. All practitioners working in day nurseries and pre-schools will also have their training in child development to guide their view of children’s development. As well as this general knowledge it is important that we use our knowledge of the individual child to identify progress and ways to help. One of the best ways to make sure that this view is accurate for each child we are working with is to share our evidence and thoughts with parents from day one of our involvement with the child. By working alongside parents from day one we gradually build up a picture together of the children as individuals and personalities. We can then plan together to use the children’s developing interests and skills to help them explore and learn from the environment around them.

To enable this positive and proactive relationship with parents it is useful to review the information we provide for parents before their child joins us. Whatever we provide leads the parents to have expectations of what we can offer to them and their child as well as the way we will react to both them and their child. Sometimes it is helpful to decide as a staff group what impression you would like to make on parents during that first communication. Once you have agreed your priorities you can then improve your current information and contact with parents by focusing on how to communicate your priorities. Every opportunity you can find to get feedback from parents, both those who go on to place their child with you and those who decide not to, will help you to ensure that your setting is welcoming to your local community. Inviting parents into your setting for a variety of reasons and at a variety of times will help to keep you in touch with their views about your setting and support the continuation of positive relationships. It is such a powerful message for children to see their parents and caregivers from the setting working and communicating together in a positive way.

This establishment of an open, positive relationship with parents which is developed through mutual care and interest in the child is the most supportive context for a child’s learning and development. In the context of this relationship it is possible to celebrate achievements, identify next steps for learning and share evidence of achievement. You may not always agree on every issue, but you have a context in which to have a professional and purposeful discussion with the mutual goal of the child’s best interests at the centre of the relationship.

Good practice in early years settings is based on observation, assessment and planning for children’s learning experiences. Good practitioners are able to evidence children’s current learning and to link this evidence with planning for the child’s next steps in learning. Clear systems are in place to document the observations for individual children and the ways in which their learning experiences are being supported. Sharing this information and talking through how and why decisions have been made ensures that parents have confidence in the practitioners caring for their child. It also helps to link opportunities for learning at home with current next steps in the setting. Sharing information about the child’s responses to situations, new toys, relationships, etc. at home and at the setting can help parents and practitioners to celebrate and problem solve together as appropriate. In order to make this effective the routines in the setting need to be flexible enough to provide place and time for sharing information, ideas and concerns. Making such discussions a regular and frequent part of the child’s and parents’ experience of your setting helps to confirm confidence in the fact that everyone is working together for the child’s best interests and that even if things are not going as smoothly as we would like, we can work together to suggest and try different ways to help.

As information about the child’s achievements and development builds up, a pattern will begin to emerge about the personality and likes and dislikes the child has in a variety of contexts. This will build from special toys, music, ways of being cuddled as a baby through to ways in which the child communicates their needs and wants. Finding out about the child’s communication and being able to identify their needs quickly and effectively will help to ensure that the child will feel secure and relaxed with you. Checking out this information and sharing this knowledge and understanding with colleagues makes sure that everyone has the opportunity to respond consistently and supportively to the child even if their keyworker is not present.

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Which of your children prefer to learn outside?

From this bank of knowledge and information, the adults involved will begin to predict how children will react in certain situations. They will develop shared expectations of what children will like as an activity, preferred ways of communicating if they don’t want something and who they will like to be with at a particular time.

There is sometimes a feeling that if we don’t voice our concern about a child’s progress, then we won’t need to do anything about it; if it is that important, someone else will do something about it. This view usually comes from either uncertainty about what to do or fear and anxiety about the reaction we may get from parents. The easiest ways to counteract these barriers are to have frequent conversations with colleagues about different concerns which are identified, clarify the procedures in the setting which need to be followed if you have a concern, and most importantly to attend local training. By attending local training as an individual you will become more confident and knowledgeable about the local support and advice which is available and how this support can be accessed.

The fear and anxiety which is experienced by practitioners with regards to talking to parents about concerns relating to children’s progress can be broken down on an individual and setting level. On an individual level it is a significant part of our role in caring for children to establish and maintain positive relationships with all parents. Inevitably there will be some parents with whom we find this easier than with others but by taking on the professional role of working in childcare we must accept the responsibility to take the lead in the relationship with parents, for the benefit of the children in our care. The characteristics of this relationship are crucial and need to be regularly reviewed with opportunity for feedback from parents about ways in which we can improve. To be effective the relationship needs to be based on professional priorities. Being friends might make things easier on a day-to-day basis but can mean that we find it harder to initiate more difficult conversations. The relationship needs to be explicitly two way: parents can bring concerns to us as well as us sharing concerns with them. The ideal is to have clear opportunities for extended discussion in an appropriate place, with the professional setting the tone of a joint problem-solving approach to the discussion. Basic things which can help to build this context and relationships with parents are to:

• ask current parents for feedback about their first experiences of the setting
• ask for suggestions of ways to make the setting information more accessible
• check that the first contacts with parents invite further discussion and involvement
• check through the year’s events in the setting calendar and have parents and families identify ways in which they could be more involved
• discuss with staff concerns and anxieties about talking to parents, identifying ways in which these can be addressed either through training, mentoring or changes in setting practice
• identify what you consider to be good practice in relationships with parents and families, sharing this with parents and asking for feedback and suggestions about ways to improve and make the experience more consistent
• review the ways in which building positive relationships with parents is included in your induction for new members of the staff team
• review as a staff team everyone’s expectations of individual responsibilities in working in partnership with parents and families.

The starting point for some of these discussions with staff could be to consider that every relationship with parents and families should begin with the expectation that at some point in the future there will be a need for a difficult conversation. If we start out thinking everything is always going to go smoothly, we often begin to make assumptions about how others think which are based on very little real information. These assumptions then become a reason for not keeping parents involved, for example thinking parents don’t have time to talk, don’t want to talk, don’t spend enough time with their children, don’t know enough about their children, have an unrealistic view of their children. These assumptions are often ‘don’t’ or ‘can’t’ phrases and tend to be statements which enhance our own role by implication: where parents can’t or don’t we think we can and do. If these assumptions begin to characterise ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• How to use this book
• About the Author
• 1 Early identification
• 2 Child development
• 3 Sharing the learning journey with parents
• 4 Language development
• 5 Behaviour
• 6 Social communication
• 7 Able and talented
• 8 Medical diagnosis
• Useful websites
• Bibliography
• Index