The term sen education refers to the provision of support, either through a school or a Local Authority (Local Authorities are responsible for SEN provision in their area), which is designed to help meet a student’s additional needs. These additional needs could include a difficulty with thinking or learning; emotional and behavioural difficulties; speech, language and communication difficulties; physical disabilities.
Our qualitative research, carried out in schools 1 and 2, showed that students without SEN benefit from participating in interactive learning environments with peers with SEN, which produce unique conditions for both academic learning and cognitive development. This has been identified by teachers in both schools interviewed and also by students in the focus groups.
SEN Education: Bridging Gaps and Empowering Learners
Specifically, students develop positive attitudes as they learn to respect others’ differences, accept people with different abilities, and develop empathy toward those with a disability. Moreover, they develop social skills such as patience and the ability to provide help and assistance to their classmates; and cognitive skills, including an awareness of multiple perspectives and the capacity to interact with diverse people.
This is important not only for students with SEN, but for all students, as attitudes towards diversity and inclusiveness have been linked to many aspects of life, including social and economic success. Moreover, some of these positive attitudes have been linked to specific educational outcomes such as social inclusion and academic achievement. This is the case, for example, of a recent meta-analysis by Szumski, Smogorzewska and Karwowski (2018), which found that students without SEN are more likely to achieve higher grades when they learn with students with SEN.