SEN is a broad area with lots of different kinds of need.
Some children may have SEN in a specific area or need a little extra support to make progress. Whereas other children may have a range of needs or need a lot of support. Sometimes these are called complex needs.
All children and young people with special educational needs are entitled to extra support with learning at nursery, school or college.
There are four main areas of special educational need:
- Cognition and learning
- Communication and interaction
- Sensory and physical
- Social, emotional and mental health
Your child may have difficulties in one area, in a few areas, or in all of them.
Devon’s SEND Local Offer website has more information about the different areas of SEN. This includes the kinds of support school might give for each type of need.
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This is about how your child learns and thinks. Some learning difficulties may be obvious, whereas others aren’t. Children with cognition and learning difficulties usually learn at a slower pace than other children in their year group.
If your child has a cognition or learning need they may:
- find reading, writing, literacy and maths more challenging than other children
- have specific difficulties such as literacy difficulties or issues learning new skills
- have strengths or difficulties with memory, organisation or planning
- have a reduced ability to learn because they have difficulty managing their emotions
This is about how your child communicates with others, their relationships and social skills. This kind of need includes:
- speech and language issues
- difficulty communicating with others, such as not being able to say what they want to, or having difficulties understanding what’s being said to them
- not understanding or using social rules
- problems understanding how relationships with other people work
- autism (ASD)
These are physical and sensory things (over/under sensitive senses such as hearing) that could make it more difficult for your child to learn in a usual school environment. This might include:
- difficulties with hearing or sight or multi-sensory impairment
- sensory triggers or processing difficulties
- any physical disability
- problems with fine motor skills, such as picking something up between thumb and fingers and using it, or gross motor skills such as running and jumping.
These kinds of difficulties can show in lots of ways, such as a withdrawn or isolated child, or challenging and disruptive behaviour. This area of need includes things like:
- social anxiety, phobias or refusing school
- mental health difficulties such as anxiety or depression, self-harming or an eating disorder
- attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD)
- attachment disorder or difficulties or early development trauma
- self-esteem and confidence issues
- if they have tantrums or meltdowns or times when they seem to ‘lose it’
Page updated: May 2023
Page due for review May 2025