An Effective Knowledge-Based Modeling Approach towards a “Smart-School Care Coordination System” for Children and Young People with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

Abstract

There is a significant need for a computer-aided modeling, effective information analysis and ontology knowledge base models to support both special needs children and care providers. As this research work correlated to the symmetry scope, it proposes an innovative generic smart knowledge-based “School Care Coordination System” (SCCS), which is established on a novel holistic six-layered data management model. The development of the Smart-SCCS adopts a methodology of ontology engineering to transform the given theoretical unstructured special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) code of practice into a comprehensive knowledge representation and reasoning system. The intended purpose is to deliver a system that can coordinate and bring together education, health and social care services into a single application to meet the needs of children and young people (CYP) with SEND. Moreover, it enables coordination, integration and monitoring of education, health and social care activities between different actors (formal, informal and CYP in the education sector) involved in the school care process network to provide personalized care interventions based on a predefined care plan. The developed ontology knowledge-based model has been proven efficient and solved the enormous difficulties faced by schools and local authorities on a daily basis. It enabled the coordination of care and integration of information for CYP from different departments in health, social care and education. The developed model has received significant attention with great feedback from all the schools and the local authorities involved, showing its efficiency and robustness.

Keywords

• care coordination
• special needs children
• children and family act
• special educational needs and disability code of practice
• ontology modeling
• knowledge base