This paper condenses our conclusions from an extensive review
(see ref. (1)) of published evidence concerning teaching
strategies used with children with learning difficulties. The
review was carried out in 1999–2000 and has parallels with
‘best evidence’ reviews in medical education. In summary, in
this approach the researchers make a trawl through published
international research literature for papers pertaining to a
specific topic, identify those reports that meet particular criteria
(such as, in our case, the inclusion of details about teaching
method), evaluate the findings from the papers that meet these
criteria and come to some conclusions about this body of
evidence. In the course of our review, we scrutinised some
150 papers from international academic journals and books.
We examined 55 of these in further detail as they met our criteria
(see above) . These papers were then divided by type of report
(e.g. review, experimental study) and also by SEN group focus
(e.g. dyslexia, moderate learning difficulties). This generated
both a matrix of relevant papers identified by key criteria and
an associated annotated bibliography