What's In A Name

WHAT'S IN A NAME? THE LABELS AND LANGUAGE OF SPECIAL EDUCATION

Do the labels and language of Special Education stigmatized students?

Considering the fact that any student treated differentlyfrom others is inevitably labeled, the answer could be positive. Labeling is bad because it focuses on the child's deficits, making it more likely that others will expect poor performance or badbehavior from the child, and labels may damage the child's self-esteem, being here where the labeling became to be something unsettling, not positive. For example, describing a child as a "physicallyhandicapped boy" places too much emphasis on the disability when the "impairment" of the child which is widely recognizable does not need to be pointed. Referring to the language, we cannot speak ofdifference or special needs without words (labels) every child depending their disability have their own way to learn and is in fact, necessary to use a particularly language once the educator is teachingthem some matter and help their understanding about it, as the same that teachers needs an explicit language (argot) to detect the disability of the child, using terminologies and descriptions thatimprove the understanding of the disability. Retaking the position of Judy Heumann, about the use of the term "person with a disability" we could say that the language is in one point stigmatizing thestudents who are clearly learning how to improve their capacities and their surviving. Is not possible dismiss their disability as she says but not for that they have to be treating "specially" in theway to minimize their capacity when they are able to learn how to do wherever any another "normal" person do as Shawn Heimlich has been showing along their career.

Changing the label or words todescribe a disability will not lessen prejudice or stigma. Changing the term will make people happy. That happiness will quickly fade when the new term is used as a pejorative. The beginning of a...