The Health Handbook for Schools

Adrian Brooke

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781134141494
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This handbook allows rapid reference to conditions commonly encountered in school-aged children, and to rare diseases as well. It focuses particularly on the impact of the condition on the child's ability to access the curriculum, and suggests educational approaches that should help. In this way it is hoped that education and medicine can work hand in hand to allow each child to achieve their potential.

The book offers: essential information on medical conditions and the way they affect learning; up-to-date descriptions of symptoms, signs and current key concepts; current educational approaches taken to accommodate children with the conditions and problems listed; and advice on diagnosing and responding to acute illness such as meningitis (what to do with a child who might have it, what happens to the rest of the school if it is diagnosed in one child).

1 The language of medicine and education

The language of medicine

It is estimated that doctors learn more new words in their undergraduate education than foreign language students. Medicine and medical practice has developed over thousands of years and the language has, consequently, grown with it. Many medical terms are derived from Latin or Greek, although other conditions take their name from still different languages. The complexity of human health and disease requires an enormous vocabulary to describe it accurately, adequately and reliably to other health professionals. Many medical terms have found their way into the general language and therefore become used in a different way. An example would be ‘chronic’. Doctors use this word to describe conditions that last a long time, whereas others might use it to describe how severe a condition was. Herein lies a potential communication problem between doctors and their patients.

Patients sometimes describe symptoms using medical words, assuming that they are helping the doctor by doing so. However, this might in fact serve only to confuse the issue if the doctor has a different understanding to the medical word or phrase that the patient uses. For example, a child may be described by the parent as being ‘hyperactive’, or even just ‘hyper’. To the doctor the term ‘hyperactive’ means a high level of motor activity that is defined by many behavioural, environmental and developmental criteria. It is therefore easy to see that the parent’s description of the child might not echo the assessment of the doctor, even though they may both be using the same medical words.

Whilst the highly developed language of medicine is useful for communication between professionals, it can be used to exclude those who do not understand the language fully. In these circumstances the language acts as a barrier to effective communication and care rather than an aid.

It is in an attempt to explain some of the medical terminology and medical conditions that this book has been written. It is hoped that by demystifying some of the (sometimes arcane) language of medicine, communication between educationalists and health professionals can be improved to the benefit of the children concerned.

The language of education

Education, like many professions, has evolved its own language including its specialised terms and phrases. It comprises jargon, which is useful to teachers and others in education, but can be less than helpful to outsiders. Children, parents, carers and colleagues do need to communicate with teachers and others working in the field of education. At times the educational jargon used by some teachers is not helpful and the technical terms used by some specialist educationalists can be impenetrable.

Teachers and educationalists use a language that blossomed in the twentieth century and is littered with the words and ideas that come from within the various influences that have come to bear on education. Many teachers will use words borrowed from the disciplines of sociology, psychology and, more rarely, philosophy. Added to this are words derived from the ‘speak’ of the most recent ‘gurus’ of business and commerce, as successive governments have sought to apply the tools and methodologies of the market place. It is not unusual therefore to hear teachers using words associated with business management, accountancy, architecture and the military, for example, to describe things in schools. Teachers together might be quite comfortable exchanging views on ‘opportunities for open learning in a child-centred setting’ or, ‘interactive strategies’, or the importance of the school’s ‘resource deployment capability’. This use of jargon between the initiated is possibly quite useful for teachers, and confirms belonging to the group with an awareness of current educational issues. However, when this kind of belonging means denying access to others, it is unlikely to be of benefit to those for whom the language has been developed.

Teachers who use jargon unnecessarily are not helping communication or their relationships with non-educationalists. It is very important for all teachers and others involved in education to use plain English and to take pains to be good at simple communication both in and out the classroom.

A list of some words and terms that have caused confusion or required explanation

AEN Additional Educational Needs

Appropriate education When a child is taught in the way and at the rate that the child learns best

Assessment A systematic way of finding out what a child can and cannot do

Attention span The length of time that someone concentrates on a task without being distracted or losing interest

Audit Stocktaking or listing provision or things in a financial sense

Auditory association The ability to understand, comprehend and use spoken language appropriately

Auditory discrimination The learned ability to recognise and understand differences in sounds. This is to do with interpreting what is heard rafher than what has actually been heard

Auditory figure-ground Ability to pay attention to one sound and shut out unimportant background noise

Auditory memory The ability to remember and recall what has been said. Short-term auditory memory is the ability to recall what has been said immediately before; long-term auditory memory is the ability to recall what has been said more than a minute previously. Sequential auditory memory is the recall of a number of pieces of information in the correct order

Auditory perception The ability to understand that which is heard

Baseline assessment The assessment of a child’s aptitude and ability on starting school

Benchmarking A standard or a point of reference against which pupil achievement can be assessed

Body awareness Being aware of where the body is in relation to space, movement and other objects

Broad and balanced curriculum All subjects need to be taught: English, Mathematics, Science and Information Technology are most important and should take up a large part of a pupil’s time, but other subjects must have sufficient time spent on them

CAN (Complex Additional Needs) The description of pupils and students with sensory impairment and other serious conditions

Carer The person with parental responsibility

Casework officer An officer of the Local Education Authority who liaises with the parents and others during the process relating to Statutory Assessment and the making of a Statement of Special Educational Needs

Circle time A technique for raising pupils’ self-esteem in school

The Code of Practice There are various codes of practice. In the context of special education, this includes the detailed procedures for the assessment and recording of special educational needs

Cognition The mental process or act whereby knowledge is acquired

Cognitive skills Skills related to knowing and understanding such as perception, intuition and thinking

Cohort A group of pupils

Communication disorder A disorder that prevents communication or understanding of communication

Conceptualisation The ability to see a number of linked items and form an idea about them, such as recognising attributes of colour, shape or size

Connexions Connexions brings together a full range of youth support services so that young people aged 13–19 years can overcome barriers to their education, training and employment opportunities. Every young person will have access to a ‘Personal Adviser’ to assist them in making a smooth transition to adult services

Cross dominance Where the preferred eye, hand, foot or ear is on different sides of the body; for example, a child might write with the right hand but play tennis with the left

Decoding The ability to obtain meaning from written words, letters, numbers or symbols

DfES Department for Education and Skills

Differentiation Work presented at a variety of levels to suit pupils’ different levels of ability in group or class settings

Discrimination The ability to notice the differences and similarities between various things

EBD Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties

EDP Education Development Plan A requirement by the government for local plans for educational development

Encoding The ability to find the right words, numbers or symbols and use them to form ideas or to produce them in writing or speech

EP Educational Psychologist

EWO Education Welfare Officer

Expressive language The ability to communicate appropriately using body language, speech or writing

FE Further Education

FEFC Further Education Funding Council replaced by the Learning Skills Council

Fine motor The use of small muscles for a detailed series of actions such as writing or doing up shoelaces

Gross motor The use of large muscles for actions that involve larger parts of the body such as walking and running

Hand–eye coordination The ability to use both eyes and hands together to perform a task such as writing, drawing, cutting paper doing up shoe laces

HE Higher Education

HI Hearing Impairment

ICT Information and Communication Technology

IEP Individual Education Plan Short-term learning targets set down for a child with special educational needs; this is usually put together by the SEN Coordinator, teache...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Acknowledgements
• 1 The language of medicine and education
• 2 Recent legislation
• 3 Working with other agencies
• 4 A-Z entries
• Further reading