Ask the Children. Experiences of physical disability in the school years
Nicola Madge and Meg Fassam (1982)
London: Batsford.
How does it really feel to be young and disabled? And how do able-bodied children view their disabled peers? Seeking answers to these and other questions about the experience of disability, the authors decided to ‘ask the children’. The result is a fascinating study which fills a number of gaps left by the existing literature and has important implications for future policy and practice. In particular it makes a valuable contribution to the current debate about the merits of integrated versus segregated education for the handicapped.
The children, aged between 7 and 16 and drawn from both special and ordinary schools in London, were questioned first about their understanding of their own and others’ disability: how much had they been told by adults about their own condition, for example? They were then invited to talk about such fundamental aspects of their lives as friendship, experience of school and family, social life and their ambitions for the future.
One of the most original features of the research is its examination of the attitudes of able-bodied as well as disabled children – a major section, describing the reactions of both groups to disability in six hypothetical but commonplace school situations, is particularly illuminating in this respect.
But the appeal of the book lies above all in its evocation of the children’s lives in their own words – a record at once direct, realistic, critical, humorous and poignant.