Special Educational Needs SIG Survey Feedback

Special Educational Needs SIG Survey Feedback (Date: 16th April 2018)

Q 1. Do you assess competency for your Orthoptists who provide the SEN service?

The majority of orthoptists did not assess competency for their orthoptists who provide the SEN service.

following discussion it was felt that peer review of one session per year by another member of staff would be sufficient. This is because all orthoptists are competent to assess patients of all abilities but that an orthoptist leading an SEN service or solely responsible for this patient group may benefit from peer review to document their competence.

Q 2. Do you have existing guidelines or pathways for your SEN service that you would be willing to share?

12 departments follow existing guidelines and pathways for their SEN service while 17 do not, three departments were developing these or keen to do so.

The steering group agreed to share example pathways and guidelines on the BIOS website. These would not be a gold standard due to the local needs and arrangement of each department.

Q3. Do you have audit information about your service that you would be willing to share with the SEN sig?

The majority of departments do not have audit information about their service that they could share.

The steering group agreed that existing audit tools would be shared on the BIOS website as examples for use.

Q4. Do you use social stories for your patients with social communication difficulty that you are willing to share?

The majority of departments did not use or were developing a social story to use for patients that would benefit from this.

Social story examples to be shared on the BIOS website for members to use.

Q5. Do you record goals and outcomes for the patients attending your SEN clinics/appointments such as patient reported outcome measures, goal attainment scores etc?

One department records goals and outcomes for their patients attending the SEN service. Two other departments provide functional goals for vision support.

The SEN sig would like to collect some data with regards to outcomes in order to further prove the important work that we do in this area. We propose a pre and post assessment questionnaire which measure the parent stress index. This is based on previous research to show that assessment of vision and providing this information reduces parental stress levels. To email SIG members for their interest within departments.

Q6. Do you use questionnaires/question inventories in your clinics to assess functional abilities? If so, please specify.

Eight orthoptists use questionnaires/inventories to assess functional visual abilities such as those used to aid diagnosis of CVI.

Functional vision assessment document available via BIOS to use for functional assessment (designed as a combination of assessment and questions). The steering group agreed to put example CVI question inventories onto the BIOS website.

Q7. Do you use a standardised approach to the qualitative assessment of vision in children with profound learning disability? If so, please comment

12 departments use a standardised approach to the qualitative assessment of vision in children with profound learning disability 16 do not.

It was felt that much of this assessment is often adapted to the needs of the patient and what is possible to assess. We felt that a national standardised approach would not be required but that it may be typical that this type of assessment was standardised across a department such as the use of a Bradford Visual Function Box or set of generic testing equipment.

Q8. Have you any local guidelines on Orthoptic input to the Education Health Care Plans that you would be willing to share?

No departments had a local guideline for the orthoptic input to the EHCP.

An example document on how orthoptists may be expected to complete this form will be provided on the BIOS webpage as an example.

Q9. Who writes the clinic letter to the child's Paediatrician? Tick all that apply

A.Orthoptist

B.Ophthalmologist

C.Optometrist

D.Other

The majority of clinic letters were written by the orthoptist or ophthalmologist to the paediatrician.

This was expected

Q10 and 11 What information do the clinic letters contain? Tick all that apply

A.Functional vision

B.Visual Acuity

C.Strabismus

D.Prescription

Other

Does your clinic letter to the Paediatrician have a standardised format?

Information contained in clinic letters to paediatricians was as expected, the majority containing information about visual acuity and strabismus, not all included function vision and prescription.

Example letter templates will be provided on the BIOS website however, these are not a gold standard as individual departments differ.

Q12 Are you able to share any of the information described above? If so please email details to louise.allen@liverpool.ac.uk

Thank you very much to those who left their contact details and provided information. This survey helped guide what information was already available and what we could provide/develop on the website as support and guidance.

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