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Effect of a Selection Procedure on the Placement of Children in Special Schools

Are children who are born at certain times of the year discriminated against in terms of their likelihood of receiving special educational treatment in a special school? This question raises complex proble1ns concerning the relationships between date of birth, intelligence, attainments and educational opportunity. A review of the literature in this field has recently been carried out by Chrimes (1970). The relatively poor attainments of summer-born children compared with children born during other seasons has been stressed in both the Plowden report and the Gittins report (DES, 1967a; 1967b). This might be expected to result eventually in a disproportionate number of summer-born children being allocated to various types of special schools and to schools for the ESN in particular. The. work of Williams (1964), Armstrong (1965), Freyman (1965), Bookbinder (1967) and Shearer (1967) indicates that this tends to be true both in special classes and schools for the ESN. If the imbalance occurs because a disproportionate number of handicapped children is born during the summer term, these findings would cause no undue concern. However, the evidence relating date of birth and incidence of handicap is conflicting. In normal children the relationship between seasonal influences and mental ability is summarised by Choppin's (1969) comment that 'If the effect is present at all, it seems to be a small one'. In mentally sub-normal subjects the situation is not necessarily the same. Several investigators suggest that a winter birth is less favourable than a summer-to-early-autumn date of birth, in terms of mental development (Orme, 1962, 1965; Lander et al., 1964; Berglund, 1967). However, the methodological difficulties in such investigations are considerable, and the researchers concerned express reservations about the generality of their findings.