Primary School Children's Understanding of Severe Learning Difficulties

Abstract

This paper reports two studies in which non‐handicapped (NH) children (7‐ and 11‐year‐olds) were interviewed about their understanding of severe learning difficulties (SLD). The NH children, 19 7‐year‐olds and 32 11‐year‐olds, had been involved in a year of fortnightly or weekly (respectively) link sessions with children with SLD. The NH children's understanding of SLD can be interpreted in terms of three conceptual changes, identified by Katz (1982) and Aboud (1988), occurring during the primary school years. These changes are: a shift in focus from concrete to abstract characteristics of children with SLD; increasing recognition of intra‐SLD group differences and inter (mainstream‐SLD) group similarities; and acknowledgement of the irrevocability of the key cues of SLD. These changes are discussed in the broader context of the development of social cognition.