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The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) defines a disabled
person as someone who has a physical or mental impairment
that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his or
her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.
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Physical disability: pertains to total or partial loss of a
person’s bodily functions or a total or partial loss of a part of
the body
Learning Disability: a reduced intellectual ability therefore
reduced ability to learn new skills and difficulty with everyday
activities.
Causes: genetic factors, infection prior to or after birth, brain
injury at birth or after birth or due to an unknown reason.
Severity
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Child disability is an emerging global health priority.
Constitute about 4-6.5% of the population in many countries
(Rosenbaum, 2009)
In the UK, 7.3% of children aged under 18 years are reported
to be disabled as defined by the Disability Discrimination Act
(DDA).
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Physical disabilities include : Muscular dystrophies, Acquired
brain and spinal injuries hearing and visual impairment
Cerebral Palsy (CP) is the most common physical disability in
childhood (Croot, Grant, Cooper, & Mathers, 2008).
Approximately 1 in 400 babies born in the UK has some type
of CP.
Learning disabilities: can be divided into two groups children
with a general or specific learning disability,
It is estimated that there are 286,000 children (180,000 boys,
106,000 girls) age 0-17 in the UK with a learning disability.
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A child or young person has special educational needs if they have a
learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational
provision to be made for them
Organisation of Services for children with SEN.
 The system of support available to children and young people with SEN
and disabilities is very complex.
 Many problems prevent children and young people with SEN/D from
getting the support and services they need. Support should be available
to ensure they have the same opportunities as everyone else and that
they receive the necessary support to move smoothly into adulthood.
 To do so, an effective, transparent and accountable system of support
for children and young people with SEN/D is needed.
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Part 3 of this act is for Children and Young People In England
with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities.
It places duties on local authorities and other services in
relation to both disabled children and young people and those
with SEN.
It also places a duty on local authorities to identify all the
disabled children and young people in their area and all the
children and young people their area who have or may have
special educational needs.
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Replace statements of special needs and learning difficulty
assessments with an education, health and care (EHC) plan for
children and young people with complex needs.
Following an EHC assessment, the local authority must decide
whether it is necessary for special educational provision to be
made in accordance with an EHC plan.
This decision will be based on whether the education
institution can be reasonably expected to provide the special
educational provision that a child or young person needs.
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The Act places a duty on the local authority to ensure that a child
or young person with an EHC plan is educated in a mainstream
setting.
Exceptions - goes against the wishes of the young person or the
child’s parent, or would impact on the efficient education of others
and there are no reasonable steps that could be taken to overcome
this.
Essential that mainstream schools are provided with sufficient
funding to support children as overall, 89% of children with
moderate learning difficulty, 24% of children with severe learning
difficulty and 18% of children with profound multiple learning
difficulty are educated in mainstream schools (People with
Learning Disabilities in England, 2011)
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Additional funding is available for local authorities to support
children with SEND
Funding will be £45.2 million for 2014-15 and an estimated
amount of £31.7million for 2015-16.
This funding is in addition to the £70million SEN Reform grant
that local authorities have already received in 2014-15.
(Council for disabled children)
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to meet their needs, children with SEN are entitled to: core
provision from the core funding which is for all children,
element 1;
up to £6,000’s worth of extra provision, funded from the
school’s notional SEN budget, element 2;
extra provision funded by top-up, from the local authority’s
high needs block.
(Council for disabled children)
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Most special schools receive £10,000 for each child with SEN
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Top-up funding will then be provided if necessary
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This regime applies to maintained special schools, academy
special schools, and non-maintained special schools.
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All base funding for post-16 students with high needs will
receive funding that post 16 students will normally receive.
With an additional £6,000 for each planned high needs place.
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Some organisations include funding for children with physical
and learning difficulties. These organisations support disabled
children and young people in the UK.
Some examples include:
 Able kidz
 Action for kids
 Children today
 Mencap
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Mencap is the UK’s leading charity for children and adults with
learning disability.
Royal Mencap Society is funded by a mixture of income generated
from providing statutory services to individual people with learning
disabilities and by receipt of donations and grants from individuals
and organisations.
Donations such as:
◦ £12 could pay for one Bag of Ability so a family can tell sensory stories at
home
◦ £20 could pay for a bag of books that can be used for a number of
storytelling sessions
◦ £40 could pay for all the resources needed for two sensory storytelling
sessions
What is Augmentative and Alternative
Communication ?
AAC covers a vast
range of techniques
which support or
replace verbal
communication
Aided Vs. Unaided
Communication
Signing
What is AAC?
Gesture
Voice Output
Communication
Aids (VOCAs)
High Tech Vs. Low
Tech
Communicati
on Books
Symbols
Communication
Boards
Who Uses AAC?
Individuals who cannot effectively use
conventional speech to communicate may
use augmentative and alternative
communication (AAC) systems to
compensate for a lack of speech or to
replace, or augment, unintelligible speech
(Ganz et al., 2012)
AAC is typically prescribed when children
are struggling with learning to
communicate with speech or if they are at
risk for having delayed speech
development because of a diagnosed
condition such as Down syndrome or
autism.
Who requires AAC in the paediatric
population?
Congenital
Acquired
Progressive
neuromuscular
Stroke
Friedreich’s Ataxia
Syndromic conditions
Head injury
Muscular dystrophy
Profound and multiple learning difficulties
Myasthenia gravis
ASD
Cerebral palsy
Cleft palate and craniofacial malformations
Developmental delay
The Benefits of AAC
Improves quality of communication
Improves the effectiveness of communication
Reduces challenging behaviour
Increases assertiveness
- Increased educational
opportunities
- Increased social opportunities
- Improvements in quality of
life and independence
AAC in the SEN Paediatric Population
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Communicate
Make friends in and out of school
Participate in and out of school
Build relationships with family and
friends
Inclusive education of
students with AAC needs is
possible and desirable,
with clear benefits for the
focus students, their
peers, parents, and the
school community at large
Soto, Muller, Hunt
and Goetz, 2001
’Most children
interviewed reported
that their AAC system
was useful to them
Clarke, McConachie,
Price and Wood,
2010
• Be able to make choices
• Learn and explore the world
around them
• Being able to communicate
effectively and make choices will
undoubtedly have an impact on
behaviour
The Pressing Need for AAC
“Without communication
no-one can ever really
know you”.
Martin Pistorius
Communication is crucial.
Recognising that is right in terms
of equity for those in need and
right in the national interest as we
all wish to cut the costs of failure
and increase the productiveness of
our country.
Bercow Report, 2008
Just over 0.5% of the UK
population could benefit
from some kind of AAC
provision
Of this 0.5% of people,
0.05% would benefit
from some kind of
powered AAC device.
That means 529/1000
people. This population
mainly includes people
with complex conditions.
97.5% of the population
requiring AAC is
dominated by those with;
Alzheimer's/dementia,
Parkinson’s, ASD,
Learning disabilities,
stroke, cerebral palsy,
head injury, profound
and multiple learning
disabilities and motor
neurone disease.
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Children with SEN are amongst the most needy and vulnerable
They have the most severely limited life choices.
It is important that they gain as much funding as possible to
improve quality of life for them and their carers.
The school years are the most integral for learning and have
more structure than the preschool years, therefore increased
funding is needed for both mainstream and special schools
for children 5 +.
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AAC provision has been identified by the government as having the most
problems in service provision.
There are many references in the literature related to funding difficulties
for the provision of powered communication aids.
There are few studies which examine the benefits that AAC brings to
users however those that do demonstrate measureable benefit.
• Funding arrangements for services and equipment is the issue of most
concern for AAC users, communication partners and professionals
• Frustration relating to the time taken to identify that they would benefit
from AAC
• Funding difficulties in provision of communication aids
• Lack of support
• Disparity in provision