Where were all the special needs students when we were at school?

Rosalyn69

I think “special needs” is very over used. My son is high functioning autistic with ADHD but was never “special needs”. He was different from the other children for sure.
I feel that so many children diagnosed as “special needs” may well have other much simpler problems.

My AC has high functioning autism and definitely has special needs. He encountered huge problems at school as people didn't understand his thought processes; he was expected to conform just 'because', he is actually intelligent and thoughtful with a wide knowledge of various subjects, but some teachers just didn't want to acknowledge that he was different. Special needs might just mean having some one-to-one help to keep on track; it doesn't imply that the child is intellectually less able. (It used to be called sub-normal but is NOT now)

When I was a child we were aware that there were special schools for those with 'learning disabilites', though the derogatory word 'backward' was sometimes heard then - a neighbour's child went to one. We also had A, B and R classes at junior school. The R class went on to the bottom stream at the Secondary Modern where apparently they were given the same lessons every year, with no attempt to improve these children.
When my children were at school, there was a local school for children with 'behavioural difficulties'. I think a lot of these children had ADHD or autism but I had not heard those terms back then.
I have spoken to older teachers who said that years ago they could tell the difference between a child who was boisterous (and often labelled naughty) and one who would nowadays be diagnosed with ADHD or autism but there was no help for them back then.

I think “special needs” is very over used. My son is high functioning autistic with ADHD but was never “special needs”. He was different from the other children for sure.
I feel that so many children diagnosed as “special needs” may well have other much simpler problems.

I have a GC who has high functioning autism, they are in mainstream school, the only problems they encounter are fellow pupils who bully and teachers who have no idea of them being on the spectrum (appalling in school communication) DiL has laminated several information sheets for GC to carry in school bag to show teachers when they are unable to explain how they are feeling/reacting in certain circumstances.

This seems to be working at the moment and the Head Teacher is finally being supportive of the info-sheets (it is a very large senior school which is very much results driven)

I lived in a working class school catchment area and apart from one boy labelled “fidget Fraser McIntyre” by the teacher because of his restless behaviour I was unaware of any child with special needs.
I also believe that we all left primary school able to read, write and do simple arithmetic. We had to read out loud and give answers orally to mental arithmetic questions daily.
The brighter children went on to the local Academy or Secondary school and the less bright to Junior Secondary.
When you read Mumsnet you get the impression that there are huge numbers of children these days with special needs.
Like you OP I wonder why.

When I think back 70 years to my primary schooldays, I remember the two or three boys who invariably sat at the bottom of the class. Two of them almost certainly were dyslexic and always got everything wrong. Unenlightened teachers sometimes used the belt to try to enforce learning. Another may well have had ADHD as he was always in trouble. I sometimes wonder how life has treated these misfits. I hope that, released from school, they survived in the wider world.

Grammaretto what an appalling thing to say to the father of that child.
I entirely agree re Camphill. It's a wonderful place. I always thought that if, by any chance, I had child with a Learning Disability I'd fight for the local authority to admit them there.

Isn't the thread about having our own views?
Surely? We read, we listen, we hear and then we join in if we think our contribution will add something extra into the discussion.

This topic interests me because of several people I have known who have special needs and had to negotiate difficult childhoods.
When their residential home closed in the 1990s. 2 ladies aged about 65 who had been in there since they were small girls, were at last able to live in supported housing together. It became clear to their carers that there wasn't much wrong with them intellectually but one was deaf and the other born with a hare lip and cleft palette. Their speech was difficult to follow. The carer who introduced me to them (I taught them pottery) explained how they had been "put away" as small children and had become completely institutionalized.

Both have died since but I like to think they enjoyed a few happy years.

In a different circumstance the DM of a Downs syndrome boy was desperate that he shouldn't go to the special school which offered no teaching at all but rather to be with more able students so that he was stimulated and encouraged. Eventually he was moved into the Steiner/Camphill system where he has thrived.
www.camphillscotland.org.uk/the-camphill-movement/like
Incidentally when my df told her father that the child had Downs Syndrome, he told her it must be the result of some wickedness she had committed.

timetogo I have ADHD and I was a star pupil at school. I’m also pretty successful in my chosen field - that doesn’t mean that my condition isn’t incredibly difficult to live with. I’m constantly finding workarounds to function and when I was a child my parents definitely had a different experience of me than school did!

My DH has dyslexia. He was put in the 'dunce class' at school even though he was intelligent. He hated school and had no help. He got the impression that the whole class was seen as a lost cause in terms of their future prospects. He went on to run his own successful business.

Since we met (30 years ago) I have encouraged my husband to read more. He never read for pleasure. I understand but find this very sad as I am an avid reader.

I do remember the special schools when I was young.

Also, my great aunt was sent to a 'mental institution' as a teenager. She was 'slow' and was sent there when she was about 13 after smacking a woman who she saw smacking a child. She was there until she died in her 70's. I used to visit her with my Grandma. She was a lovely lady.

(Words in quotes as those were the words I remember being used at the time - don't mean to offend).

There was a county infant and primary school that I went too. A catholic infant and primary school over the road. A special school where children with different physical or speech problems went too. All the schools were built early 1960s children in our school with spelling reading and writing problems went for separate lessons. My two brothers and sister had separate lessons because of their spelling reading and writing.

I think welabel children too quickly these days,examlpe,a child i know was dificult at home beyond words,the child was labeled at having ADHD,yet at school the child was a star pupil and a pleasure to teach,REALY ?.
When i was at school i only remember a few children were slow learners/naughty/a bit thick and the teachers dealt with them.
I think some parents are at fault today,too busy to sit and talk/play with them and allowing them to play on i-pads/lap tops etc that keeps them quiet,sad as it is.

JaneJudge It was very interesting reading your views and experiences. I have dyslexia and was thought of probably as a ‘bit thick’ but was lucky enough to have a private tutor while not identifying the dyslexia (don’t know that mainstream teachers knew much about it then) she did teach me to read phonetically and I improved in leaps and bounds and ended up enrolled at a grammar school. When I was finally diagnosed (paid privately for a test) I cried with relief as an adult. Some rather unkind comments here from I think disability sceptics who would perhaps prefer and out of sight out of mind approach to disabled children. I have a friend with a child with Angelmans syndrome and she receives similar comments on a weekly basis.

JaneJudge, please come back, your views and experience are very welcome to some of us.

Yes what a waste, complete loss not to hear Jane's views, but to be honest in my experience a lot of people arent really interested in listening to the actual reality. They just want to put forward their own theories.

nanna8

I posed a question, didn’t mean that I believe that. It is ignorant to pre suppose that. Extremely rude and judgemental. For the record, I think very few of these children show signs of autism because of their parenting but you just go on judging people if it makes you happy and content. I am appalled.

I actually apologised. I wont contribute any more to the thread, which is your loss as I know a lot about it

Looking back and relating to today’s standards there were a lot of children in the C and D streams that had learning difficulties of one sort or another.
There did not appear to be any active help to overcome any disability, they just progressed at a slower pace, when they left school the went into the unskilled and manual trades, we seem to import migrants today to do that work.

There was an R class for each year at my primary school it usually had up to 6 children. The rest of the year was streamed into 4 classes. By the time I was 2nd year junior (Y4 now), we knew that some children in there, ‘got very angry’, or ‘thought we were too noisy’. Some came into assembly, some came out at playtime and they looked quite ‘normal’ to us. I have no idea what happened to them, except for a boy called Percival from the R class who went to grammar school with my brother.
I don’t think parenting causes the current ‘isms’ and ‘ias’, but we are more aware they exist.
I do think it’s hard for us to tell the difference between a child having a tantrum because mum said ‘no’ to their demand for something, which stops when the child gets the object, and a child screaming who is soothed by being given something the parent knows will help, in the case of my DGS, headphones which my DD now carries with her.
Best not to judge.

The large institutions for the "Mentally Handicapped" housed many people with varying degrees of disability. Behavioural issues were often a reason for admission and children soon became institutionalised. I worked with Social Care in the 70s moving some of those children now adults from hospitals into the community.
There were so many misconceptions by the public we had to overcome.

No child at my primary school was diagnosed with having any additional needs, but some certainly had. They’d an awful time at a school where children as young as five were hit and yelled at for the slightest thing. We’d a particularly lovely ritual on a Friday afternoon where we all stood against the wall in the hall and were tested in turn on mental arithmetic and spelling. Get your answer wrong and you moved down the line. The bottom four or five got hit, and a lot of abuse about how “stupid” they were. The same children every week.

I really don’t know what happened to these children at secondary level. I just hope they were treated better and that their needs were recognised. But somehow I doubt it.

There was a little girl with special needs in my class at Primary School. I remember her very well, even after 65 years. She could be a bit disruptive and hard to settle but she didn’t seem to be that much of a problem to my 8 year old self. Her name was Catherine and she just disappeared one day. We were told she had gone to a different school. We were a class of 40 and there must have been others who would have achieved more had they had some support. I don’t remember any TAs or special needs teachers taking children out of the class or coming in.

I do remember one girl who I was friendly with at junior school, who in spite of being intelligent was a slow reader and constantly berated for her poor handwriting. I wouldn't mind betting she was dyslexic but that condition had not been classified, at least I don't think it had, when I was at school.

I used to run a group for special needs children. It was very interesting. One young lady could name the day of the week you were born almost instantly if you told her your birthdate. Amazing. I was reluctant to run this group initially because they were so mixed ability wise and diagnostically but I really grew to love all these children and the group ran for several years in the end. Have to say some of the parents were difficult and more demanding than their children but then they had obviously had a lot of stress in their lives, most of them.

I remember a Thora Hird character responding to this question, 'We didn't have special needs children in my day. They just sat at the back with raffia.'
When I started work with people with learning disabilities there were 850 residents at the hospital. Every town had these large institutions. Mothers were told it was for the best. When our hospital was closing we assessed all of the residents and were appalled to find some perfectly able people who had epilepsy or other physical issues but who weren't LD. Sadly we found women who'd been admitted years back as 'moral cripples' - they'd had a baby out of wedlock (most likely after abuse). Out of sight out of mind.

The thing is families with children with additional needs hear those ideas all the time. As well as facing many many challenges it appears their other unpaid job is to bean ongoing education service for people who dont understand any of the issues.