A child's characteristics and family background provide important indicators of whether they are more likely to have special educational needs (SEN), a Cardiff University study concludes.
Academics analysed data from 284,010 pupils attending schools in Wales. Males, pupils of White ethnicity, pupils who were persistently absent, those from households with a lower socio-economic background all showed an increased likelihood of being identified as having SEN.
Researchers say the study could help inform the development of more inclusive and effective support strategies under the new Additional Learning Needs (ALN) framework in Wales.
Lead author Dr Jennifer Keating from Cardiff University's School of Social Sciences completed the study while based at the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data (WISERD) and Administrative Data Research Wales (ADR Wales). She said: "This study emphasises the importance of considering the environmental context, namely the family and school context of the child in addition to their individual characteristics in order to gain a more accurate and holistic understanding of their needs. Although these findings echo previous research studies into this area, there has not been a Wales-specific study on this scale with population-level data to inform policy and educators."
As Wales transitions to a new system for supporting children with additional learning needs, this research comes at an important time. It is vital that support is targeted in the most effective way, so that all children in Wales are given the best opportunities to learn and thrive.
For this study, academics combined Census data from 2011 with administrative education data from the older SEN system in Wales.
Under the old system, approximately 20% of learners in Wales were identified with SEN each year. However, as the paper notes, this number has declined significantly since the introduction of the new Additional Learning Needs (ALN) system in Wales, reaching 11.2% in January 2024.
The ALN Code for Wales, which informs the current system, identifies four broad areas of need which children may have: communication and interaction, cognition and learning, physical and/or sensory needs, and behaviour, emotional, and social development.
Dr Keating added: "There has been a drastic fall in identification under the new ALN system in Wales. In order to be able to consider why this might be the case and to monitor the new system going forward, it is important to first establish how children were likely to be identified under the previous SEN system. Our study provides an important baseline for understanding how provision for young people has changed, with future research planned to track this transition."
The paper, What individual, family, and school factors influence the identification of Special Educational Needs in Wales? , is published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology.
