Norway is
considered to be in the front line when inclusion is the objective, as we have
legislation from as far back as 1976 establishing every child’s right to go to
the nearest school, regardless of his or her special educational needs.
Still, voices
are heard, claiming that we need special schools, reflecting the difficulties
teachers and organizers experience in realising a school for all. There should
be an obligation on the authorities to provide the necessary tools to achieve
this aim. I will mention two such tools of those which have proved to be useful
for an inclusive practice.
The
Cognitive Assessment System ( CAS; Das & Naglieri
1997) is translated to Norwegian as a part of our INCLUES work. Unfortunately, it
was included late in the network period. Therefore, we have not had the
opportunity to report practice. The last months have demonstrated the need for
such aids, as the planned trainings in 2008 have room for only a few more participants.
This
system is based on the PASS theory, which reflects Luria’s neuropsychological
approach. It identifies the four cognitive process categories Planning, Attention,
Simultaneous and Successive processing, and provides tools to find the cognitive
strengths and needs of children and youngsters. The purpose then, is not to
categorise children, rather to provide aids to facilitate processes we know are
important for mental functions.
The book Dynamic
Assessment in Practice also merits to be recommended, (Haywood and Lidz, 2007). It makes valuable resources available, and
takes the readers step by step into a repertoire of tools for dynamic
assessment. By means of equipment already available within most schools and
kindergartens we are guided into processes allowing us to investigate what kind
of help, and how much of it, children need to carry out tasks, and how their
achievement rise from pre- to post-test. Again, it is not a question of how to
categorise children, but how to facilitate self regulation and self monitoring,
among other important cognitive processes. Carol Lidz
will give two days training in Norway August 2008. If this is of interest, you
can send an e-mail to pedverke@online.no
Gunvor Sønnesyn
INAP-Pedverket
Uttrågata 12
Postboks 115
5701 Voss
Tlf +47 56521820
Mobil +47 92291227
e-post gunvors@online.no