Chosen area of practice:- Adults with Learning Disabilities

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Working with Service Users and Carers: Adults

SW3021

Chosen area of  practice:- Adults with Learning Disabilities

A critical analysis of debates concerning the social construction of Adults with Learning Disabilities

A critical awareness of the impact of salient legislation and policy on adults with learning disabilities

A critical analysis of the impact of equality and discrimination

A critical examination of how service user movements have contributed to recent debates around the development of welfare services in respects of adults with learning disabilities

A critical analysis of debates concerning the social construction of Adults with Learning Disabilities.

The World Health Organisation defines learning disability as:

Mencap 2002 in their article ‘Changing attitudes to people with a learning disability’ highlights the difficulties that this can cause, stating:

Has the social construction of people with learning disability advocated the attitudes of intolerance and a lack of understanding?  Defining Social Construction one dictionary declared:

Historically, social construction has contributed to the lack of social integration in society of people with learning disabilities and has perpetuated entrenched attitudes down to our day.  This gives rise to the need for pro- active legislation, encouraged often by Service User themselves, to promote a shift in public attitudes.  Why can this be said?

Pre 18th century, religious zeal deemed people with learning difficulties as suffering from a punishment for Adam’s original and other sins. Martin Luther (1483-1546) recommended the killing of impaired infants believing that their souls had been possessed by demons.

This created a feeling of fear and guilt among the parents and common people of such infants.  There were references to ’village idiots’ in pre Industrial Britain.  The terminology used, at that time gives us our first glimpse of public attitude!  (Grant, Goward, Richardson & Ramcharan, 2005, pg69)

The creation/readjustments of the Poor Laws in 1834 meant that poorer people with learning disabilities were placed in Poor Law work houses.  The following excerpt from (1909) article highlighted what any person may reflect as madness; adding to the growing public and private attitudes of intolerance and a lack of understanding, she states:

The Lunatic Asylums Acts 1853 encouraged justices of every county/borough to provide asylums for the ‘pauper lunatic thereof ’.  A lunatic encompassed ‘every person being an idiot’. The subsequent building of asylums and institutions segregated people from society - continuing into the early 20th Century.  

Randall Smith (2005) noted that the overview of the history of official responses to mental stress included the term ‘lunatic’ and demonstrated that:

Could this terminology explain how the ideology that was being compounded by the growing capitalist state, which demanded removal and control of those who could not contribute to the new working practices, was given credence by the populace? This being coupled with Darwin’s Origin of the species, published in 1859, justified the application of the principle of natural selection, and segregation.  Morris (1997) highlighted that:

Giving rise to early Eugenics, the founder Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin.  He believed that the ‘quality of the national stock’ had to be protected by preventing the breeding of such feebleminded people. (Grant, Goward, Richardson & Ramcharan, 2005, pg40)

We could certainly argue that contemporary society has not changed its ideology Grant, Goward, Richardson & Ramcharan, 2005, provide some model examples of this in a period of legislation we call ‘Valuing People’:

The idea of segragation was supported by the leading people in Society, the home secretary, Winston Churchill, 1910, said:

The idea of segregation still live on Grant, Goward, Richardson & Ramcharan, 2005, confirm this by their examples:

The Mental Deficiency Act 1913 classified defectives, each case the condition had to be present "from birth or from an early age", and compounded the attitudes of the early eugenics.

These four categories were:

Classification creates a label as a means to identification. The impact/implications of being labeled should not be underestimated.  They have the potential to create negative influences, to stigmatize and affect the person who is being labeled.  The ‘People First Groups’ who are people with Learning Difficulties:

Labels can causes oppression and discrimination.  However, there is a need to label a person to enable them to receive a service, but does the stigma attached to these label encourage social stereotyping?  Goffman (1961) suggested that labelling ‘creates deviance or abnormality because the individual adjusts his behaviour to that label.’  (cited in Thomas and Wood 2003, pg 25)  

Becker (1964) and Lermert (1967) highlighted a danger and made this statement:

Becker continued his argument explaining that the impact of labeling can be used to explain some aspects of human and social behaviour. Human behaviour is affected by social expectations, labels are often a negative process and do not explain deviant behaviour, labels can lead to exclusion through ignorance, mistrust or a misinformed understanding, and professionals have the power to place labels on certain members of society and have a radical influence on that persons life. (Thomas and Wood 2003, pg 27)

This is illustrated by, Wolfenburger (1972), who demonstrated eight myths that supported the eugenics and segregation ideologies within contemporary services to people with learning difficulties namely:

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Wolfenburger highly medical terminology highlights the traditional thought that a disabled person’s medical condition was the root cause of their exclusion from society, an approach now referred to as the medical or individual model of disability. Encouraging social exclusion by introducing inadequate policies, legislation, promoting inappropriate attitudes, a poor stereotyped media image, inaccessible buildings and information.

We can see then how the social construction of people with learning disability has advocated the attitude of intolerance coupled with a lack of understanding!

Oliver (1990) suggested the medical model, which focuses on how the body works and ...

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