IDENTIFICATION OF SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS

Developing forms of learning in the primary school are contributing towards a new understanding of what is conducive to learning and of assessing pupils' performance. The focus has shifted to encouraging each individual pupil to achieve all that he or she is capable of - guided by the learning requirements for the respective school grade.

In order to do this, it is necessary to monitor the individual development and performance of each pupil as well as their working and social behaviour, on a constant basis - and assess these factors comprehensively. This is valid for pupils with special educational needs as well.

Assessment is always based on syllabus requirements and the knowledge, abilities and skills acquired in a particular class or learning group. Assessment is carried out by the teacher in charge of lessons, who is educationally responsible for his or her decision. Each pupil's performance or development is set out in a twice yearly report in the middle and at the end of the school year. The evaluation of a pupil's performance is a pedagogical process, but is also an administrative act based on legal and administrative regulations. More or less in all Länder the establishment of IEPs is compulsory – yearly or twice a year. Standardised achievement tests to assess pupils' performance or learning development in certain subjects or grades are not given at Land level.

Continuous assessment of performance for pupils with special educational needs takes place in special schools in a similar form to that of general schools. In the case of intellectually disabled or very severely disabled pupils, assessment is confined to reports on personal development.

Assessment for special educational is based on multi-disciplinary reports. Parents can make applications for assessment. If an institution makes an application, the parents have to be informed and consulted. Parents can object to a placement decision. Special education is divided into categories relating to the particular requirements of the pupils concerned and operates on the basis of special educational principles.

In Lands with corresponding laws, the education of pupils with special educational needs is more and more accepted as a common task for all types of schools. This means a changing attitude towards disabled students and their way of education. Furthermore this means in particular a changing view of educational assessment and diagnosis. Special educational needs is less institution-related or focussed than before. It centres upon individual, personal and ecological aspects of learning and the living environment.

To give the pupil appropriate support, it is not sufficient to be informed about the child's intellectual and behavioural deficits - knowledge about his or her abilities, stage of development and relation to his or her own educational and social environment is of great importance. Educational systems have to be competent in arranging special educational provision - in special schools as well as in mainstream schools. That is the reason why a profound discussion about the process of changing diagnosis criteria has taken and is still taking place in the different Länder of the Federal Republic of Germany.

The "Recommendation for Special Education in the Schools of the Federal Republic of Germany" Empfehlungen zur sonderpädagogischen Förderung in den Schulen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, passed by the KMK (1994) clarifies the necessity of overcoming traditional categories of people with handicaps, on behalf of more differentiated approaches of support and individual development. Thus qualifications and perspectives of basic developmental levels have to be involved in the "analysis of child and environment" Kind-Umfeld-Analyse. Consequently eight key-elements for identification and diagnosis of pupils and students with special educational needs have been established: motor, perception, cognition, motivation, communication, interaction, emotion and creativity.

In terms of specific content the main emphasis of diagnosis and subsequent support is upon:
-  learning capacity and behaviour, especially scholiast learning and the ability of coping with the disability in the learning process
-  speech, speaking, the communicative act, handling speech problems
-  emotional and social development, experience and self-control, dealing with disturbances  
   inexperience and behaviour
-  intellectual development, handling intellectual retardation
-  physical and motor development, dealing with severe disabilities in movement and with physical handicap
-  hearing, auditory perception, the ability to handle a hearing impairment
-  vision, eyesight, visual perception, the ability to deal with a vision impairment
-  state of health and state of mind, the ability to cope with a long term illness.

The diagnosis of special educational needs must be a precise definition of individual special needs as well as guiding the decision about the process of education and the place of support. To ensure appropriate support measures, it is necessary to get a qualitative and a quantitative profile of the pupil. Thus information from the following areas is important:
- development of learning and behavioural strategies
- perception and the process of perception
- social relationships
- communication and interaction
- individual and educational circumstances in life
- the school environment and the possibilities for change
- the vocational environment and the necessary supporting factors.

In general the criteria for identification of SEN are more or less similar for early years education and transition period. Caused by different and other levels of responsibilities, medical and psychological assessment may play a supplementary role.