Are people with learning disabilities still invisible to society?

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Are people with learning disabilities still invisible to society?

What is a disability?

  • The medical model – “A strong emphasis as seeing disability as an individual tragedy”. (Barie & Yuill, 2008, p. 204)  There is a belief that the disabled are incapable of functioning effectively without assistance and intervention from specialists.  As a result, power and decision making is in the hands of the professionals.  This model is implicitly negative in its depiction of disabled people. (Barie & Yuill, 2008)
  • The social model – A belief that “prejudicial attitudes, disabling environments and cultural barriers socially create disability.” (Barie & Yuill, 2008, p. 204)  There is a focus on self help and it encourages the disabled to be empowered to make their own decisions regarding the support and services they receive.  There is a strong belief that disabled people are equally capable as non-disabled people to live a productive and fulfilling life.  This model is implicitly positive in its portrayal of people with disabilities. (Barie & Yuill, 2008)    

What is a learning disability?

The World Health Organisation defines learning disabilities as:

 

  • 'A state of arrested or incomplete development of mind' (Northfield, 2004, p. 1)

Somebody with a learning disability is said also to have

  • 'significant impairment of intellectual functioning' (Northfield, 2004, p. 1)
  • 'significant impairment of adaptive/social functioning' (Northfield, 2004, p. 1)

This means that the person will have difficulties understanding, learning and remembering new things, and in generalising any learning to new situations.  These impairments are present from childhood, not acquired as a result of accident or following the onset of adult illness. (Northfield, 2004)

There is a difference between a learning disability and a learning difficulty.  Dyslexia, ADD and Autism are forms of learning difficulties.  These learning difficulties typically affect a student's motor skills, information processing and memory. (Northfield, 2004)

How well are people with learning disabilities integrated into society?

  • Less than 1 in 5 people with a learning disability work (compared with 1 in 2 disabled people generally), but we know that at least 65% of people with a learning disability want to work. Of those people with a learning disability that do work, most only work part time and are low paid.
  • Just 1 in 3 people with a learning disability take part in some form of education or training.
  • Children with a learning disability are often socially excluded and 8 out of 10 children with a learning disability are bullied. 
  • 1 in 2 families with a disabled child live in poverty.
  • 75% of GPs have received no training to help them treat people with a learning disability.
  • Less than a third of people with a learning disability have any choice over who they live with, and less than half have some choice over where they live.  
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How have people’s attitudes towards people with learning disabilities changed?

  • Pre 18th century - literacy was in less demand than labouring skills, so mild learning disabilities could easily go unnoticed.  Children with profound physical disabilities would have been unlikely to survive beyond early infancy.  References to village idiots.
  • 1834 Poor laws and asylums.  An attempt to improve conditions but quickly became overcrowded and attitudes towards the ‘inmates’ changed and they were regarded to be dangerous and a drain on society.
  • Segregation continued into the 1900’s.  People with intellectual disabilities were seen as needing to be segregated ...

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