Abstract
Editor's note.
This article first appeared in ‘Education Today’ in 1981. At that time issues of classification and categorisation of children with special educational needs were being debated in many countries, and in England an enquiry into the education of children with disabilities had recommended the abolition of categories of disability in favour of the concept of special educational need (
). Today, as the government consults on the reintroduction of disability categories, it seems appropriate to reconsider this concept and the thinking that led to its adoption.
The use of the male pronoun has been retained in this article for fluency of reading. ‘He’ and ‘his’ should be understood as ‘he or she’ and ‘his or her’.
The article is reprinted with the kind permission of the College of Teachers –
http://www.collegeofteachers.ac.uk
.