'Learning difficulty' does have meaning in the UK along the lines
that David Connor identifies in the U.S. - i.e. to cover all sorts of
reasons that may impede progress in school. This could include
emotional difficulties, i.e. problems stemming from from life
experience, and not just heavy-duty clinically defined conditions,
and other difficulties that might be transitory. The terminology
was proposed by the Warnock Report in 1978, and was undoubtedly a
very progressive attempt not only to get away from the previously
terminology of 'Special Educational Needs' but to abandon the notion
that children should be shoved into categories that would define and
limit them for the rest of their lives. Subsequent legislation
accepted the terminology, but only halfheartedly adopted the
underlying principles. The important point, however, is that all
this happened solely within the context of education, and it's only
within that context that the term 'learning difficulties' is
officially recognised in the UK.
Later, in the course of the 1980s, people who were then officially
deemed as 'mentally handicapped' increasingly spoke out against that
label. It was undoubtedly the Number One Issue for the self-advocacy
movement that emerged during the decade. No doubt people heard the
'learning difficulties' terminology being used in educational
circles, and also the 'people first' language that had first become a
campaigning point in Canada. They wanted to get away from the
connotations of 'handicap' as something medically defined and
permanent in nature. 'People with learning difficulties' seemed to
fit the bill. The government of the day couldn't bring itself to
accept this, but eventually agreed to the compromise of 'people with
learning disabilities'.
As far as I know, there's never been a survey of the people
themselves to know what label they prefer, but it was my very clear
impression at the time (as someone involved in a national advocacy
organisation) that they still wanted to be called 'people with
learning difficulties', as opposed to 'learning disabilities'. That
being so, it was depressing but not surprising to see many UK
organisations rapidly adopting the terminology chosen by the
government - a neat litmus test of their trues loyalties. These days
I sometimes hear people with learning difficulties using 'learning
disabilities' - whether this is a real change of preference, or
merely caving in, I don't know.
My basic position is that if people want to be called 'people with
learning difficulties', then that's good enough for me. As previous
discussions on the list have shown, these things change as the
context changes, and as each terminology becomes 'poisoned' with
negative connotations. (Like the organisation for people with cp
changing its name to Scope, with the result that 'scoper' is now in
common parlance a derogatory term.) Personally (he says,
abandoning the wise principle not to get involved in this), the
increasingly common 'learning disabled person' seems to me to be the
worst of both worlds. It isn't 'people first', yet the word
'learning' puts the focus on the person, and thus undermines the
value of 'disabled person' in pointing to the social model. I
suspect it's being promoted by professionals who a) can't be bothered
to say the people first phrase and b) reckon it makes their job
titles sound more grand.
Steve
>Hi,
>I found the discussions about disabled people/pwd really helpful
>and wondered what the arguments were for learning disability as
>opposed to learning difficulty (or vice versa).
________________End of message______________________
Archives and tools for the Disability-Research Discussion List
are now located at:
www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html
You can JOIN or LEAVE the list from this web page.
|