Pupils: Dyslexia

(asked on 3rd May 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what comparative estimate he has made of the number of school children with dyslexia who were subject to (a) education, health and care plans and (b) statements under the previous SEN and learning difficulties assessments in each of the last five years.


Answered by
Nadhim Zahawi Portrait
Nadhim Zahawi
This question was answered on 14th May 2018

We publish the number and proportion of pupils with special educational needs (SEN), including the type of need in the annual ‘Special educational needs in England’ statistical release. This is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-special-educational-needs-sen.

SEN pupils are recorded according to their primary type of need. The current types of need do not include a specific breakdown for autism alone. These cases are expected to be recorded under ‘Autistic Spectrum Disorder’. No estimates of the number of children with autism within this category have been made.

The current types of need do not include a specific breakdown for dyslexia alone. These cases are expected to be recorded under ‘Specific Learning Difficulty’. No estimates of the number of children with dyslexia within this category have been made.

The table below shows a breakdown of the number of pupils by each primary type of need available for the last five years (as at January each year).

Statements of SEN (and EHC plans from 2015)

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

Specific Learning Difficulty

10,480

10,045

9,665

8,938

8,390

Moderate Learning Difficulty

33,455

32,410

31,155

29,650

28,564

Severe Learning Difficulty

27,540

28,330

28,940

29,001

29,120

Profound & Multiple Learning Difficulty

9,715

9,810

10,010

9,955

10,010

Behaviour, Emotional & Social Difficulties

29,960

30,035

Social, Emotional and Mental Health

28,135

27,259

28,007

Speech, Language and Communications Needs

29,565

30,035

30,880

30,942

32,292

Hearing Impairment

6,285

6,180

6,100

5,937

5,985

Visual Impairment

3,540

3,490

3,450

3,330

3,239

Multi- Sensory Impairment

525

550

610

631

686

Physical Disability

13,345

13,080

13,025

12,873

12,742

Autistic Spectrum Disorder

47,225

49,975

54,245

57,211

60,832

Other Difficulty/Disability

4,395

4,540

5,150

5,228

5,727

SEN Support but no specialist assessment

285

268

359

Total

216,030

218,475

221,650

221,223

225,953

Note: The figures provided have been rounded in line with their presentation in the statistics publication 'Special educational needs in England'. Figures are rounded to the nearest five for year 2013 to 2015. No rounding is applied for 2016 onwards.

Source: School Census

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