Who's afraid of the big bad woods? Fear and learning disabled children's access to local nature

Abstract

Children's access to the natural environment has been an issue of interest in policy and the media in recent years, with headline grabbing phrases such as “nature deficit disorder” (Louv, R., 2008. Last child in the woods: saving our children from nature-deficit disorder. Algonquin: New York) being applied to the consequences of contemporary children's absence from natural environments. This paper presents some of the initial findings of a research project seeking to address learning disabled children's relationship with the natural environment. Through conducting inclusive and direct research with learning disabled children,1 this paper presents unique findings concerning the accessibility of natural environments, particularly focusing on the perceived vulnerability of learning disabled children, and the supposed dangers of and in natural spaces. This discussion provides an alternative perspective from a usually silent group, which should be given weight in local environment management policies. The work also has value for the broader social science community, in illustrating the potential for the direct involvement of learning disabled children in research.

Keywords:

• childhood
• disability
• nature
• risk
• fear

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by ESRC studentship ES/G014906/1.

Notes

Throughout the paper the term “learning disabled” will be used. This term is preferred by disability academics and activists and those who use the social model of disability, as indicating that the person is disabled by external social and environmental barriers to inclusion, rather than as a logical outcome of their impairment.

There is also a US-centric tourism literature addressing disabled people's access to the natural environment which heavily emphasises the experience of wheelchair users in the wilderness (e.g. McAvoy 2001; Williams et al., 2004; Burns and Graefe 2007). For the sake of brevity this literature will not be expounded upon in this paper.

Permission has been granted to use the school's real name. Using the school's name acknowledges the school's contribution to the research process. Moreover, the use of the pseudonym would provide a false appearance of anonymity as simple internet searches using facts elsewhere in the paper would allow the reader to identify the school.

It is difficult to find a definition for different categories of learning disability, as there is widespread agreement that learning disability is a spectrum. The term is used differently internationally though, so it is important to emphasise that in this context the term refers to the WHO definition of “a state of arrested or incomplete development of mind”. The British Institute of Learning Disability (BILD 2004, p. 2) adds that “the person will have difficulties, understanding, remembering and learning new things, and in generalising any learning to new situations. Because of these difficulties with learning, the person may have difficulties with a number of social tasks, for example communication, self-care, awareness of health and safety”.

Almost half of pupils at Manor High School are entitled to free school meals, compared to the national average of 13.4% of secondary school pupils (BBC News 2009).

Researcher and author.

Where pupils have consent forms agreeing to the publication of their name, real names have been used. However, where this consent has not been given, the author has made up pseudonyms.

Of course the environment offered in a city park varies dramatically between parks, with offerings in Manchester ranging from playgrounds and small pieces of flat grass, to large expanses containing small petting zoos, woodland, open grassland and ponds. Indeed, Horton and Kraftl (2006, p. 261) argue that during childhood: “our local park … a windswept, nameless, perhaps nondescript patch of greenery, can really matter”.

In line with the ethos of movements such as Forest Schools.