Exploring the perspectives of adolescents with moderate learning difficulties on their special schooling and themselves: stigma and self‐perceptions

Constructive Instruction and Learning Difficulties

“…• Classroom interactions in which teachers are very directive, and where the pupils ask few questions, and are relatively passive, make few contributions, may pretend to understand, need frequent reassurance, and show low levels of engagement (Good and Brophy, 1991;Wang, 1991;Bennett, 1991;Wood, 1991) • Tasks which are unengaging, and make low intellectual demands, indicating that expectations of pupils are low (Bennett, 1991;Watson, 1996) • Highly organised and tightly planned curricula which lack coherence and intrinsic interest, or, at the other extreme, complex ones which may be overwhelming (Vaughn and Schumm, 1996;Goddard, 1997;Zigmond, 1996) • Solitary learning, a relative lack of the social and intellectual stimulation of learning with peers (Dyson, Millward and Skidmore, 1994;Riding and Read, 1996;Hart, 1992) • Insufficient attention to metacognition, learning strategies, and generalisation of learning (Wang and Reynolds, 1995;Riding and Read, 1996;Male, 1995) • Practice that leads to negative motivation, low self-esteem, feelings of incompetence and lack of control (Ames and Ames, 1991;Galloway, Rogers, Armstrong and Leo, 1998;Norwich, 1997) These observations may be the legacy of behavioural approaches which emphasised repetition, simplification and clarification within structured learning programmes made up of small steps. What pupils are missing has become more obvious and there have often been disappointing results in terms of pupils' confidence, competence and general knowledge.…”

Specific language impairment and school outcomes. II: Educational context, student satisfaction, and post‐compulsory progress

“…On first consideration, we might expect individuals who perform below average to have negative responses. However, research with children with moderate learning difficulties (including some participants with co‐morbid language impairments) indicates that those receiving special education tend to be aware of their distinctiveness and to reflect a mixture of negative and positive self‐regard as they resolve the tensions associated with constructing an understanding of their exceptionality (Norwich 1997, Kelly and Norwich 2004).…”

Ascertaining the views of people with profound and multiple learning disabilities

“…In line with this trend, views held by children and young people with learning disabilities in relation to their education, and indeed other aspects of their lives, are now solicited (e.g. Norwich 1997). A variety of creative solutions have been devised to enable them to participate in the interview process or to express their views in other ways (e.g.…”