3:56.   Where children have severe or profound and multiple learning difficulties, the LEA will be able to draw upon a considerable body of existing knowledge arising from assessments and provision made by child health and social services, who may have been involved with children and families from a very early stage.  Many children with severe or profound and multiple difficulties will have additional secondary disabilities, and assessment arrangements should take account of the possibility of such disabilities.

The child's learning difficulty

3.57   The LEA should seek clear recorded evidence of the child's academic attainment and ask, for example, whether:

i.   the child is not benefiting from working on programmes of study relevant to the Key Stage appropriate to his or her age, or is the subject of any temporary exception from the National Curriculum under section 19 of the Education Reform Act 1988

ii.   the child is working at a level significantly below that of his or her contemporaries in any of the core subjects of the National Curriculum - for example, under the current ten level graduation of achievement, an eight year old child who is working towards Level 1 or a 13 -year old working at Level 2

iii.   there is evidence that the child is falling progressively behind the majority of children of his or her age in academic attainment in any of the National Curriculum core subjects as measured by National Curriculum assessments, other standardised tests and teachers' own recorded assessments of a child's classroom work, including any portfolio of the child's work

iv.   there is any evidence of impaired social interaction or communication or a significantly restricted repertoire of activities, interests and imaginative development

v.   there is evidence of significant problems in the child's home or family circumstances or in his or her school attendance record

vi.   there is evidence of significant emotional or behavioural difficulties, as indicated by clear recorded examples of withdrawn or disruptive behaviour; a marked and persistent inability to concentrate; difficulties in establishing and maintaining balanced relationships with his or her fellow pupils or with adults; and any other evidence of a significant delay in the development of life and social skills

vii.   there is any evidence of contributory or remediable medical problems or evidence from assessments or interventions by child health or social services.  Information from such assessments and interventions will be particularly important in the case of children with severe or profound and multiple difficulties, whose needs are unlikely to be appropriately assessed without an interdisciplinary perspective.