The impact of early special educational needs provision on later hospital admissions, school absence and education attainment: A target trial emulation study of children with isolated cleft lip and/or palate

In the population of children with CLP without further major congenital anomalies, assignment to receive or not receiving early SEN Support appears to have no harmful impact on the rates of unplanned hospitalisation or persistent absences, but to increase rates of medical absences, whilst reducing rates of unauthorised absences. For the sub-populations of children with key stage results, such hypothetical intervention does not appear to completely reduce the observed disadvantage in KS1 and KS2 mathematics scores. These results relate to the impact of the intention to intervene not the actual delivery of actual SEN Support provision as this information is not available in school administrative records. Furthermore, we cannot discount the impact of unaccounted confounding factors, such as parental education and early home learning environments, particularly for the education attainment results.