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The psychological aspect of visual impairment as a central understanding in the development of inclusion
Peter Rodney
Danish Institute for the Blind
2900 Hellerup
Denmark
This is not a scientific article. It does not rely on namedropping and quotes from related research areas. The content is based on personal thoughts, in part strongly influenced by Vygotsky's writings, in part based on my experiences from thirty years of work with different groups of disabled individuals. Of these, the past ten with visually impaired persons.
In order to find a theoretical psychological frame that actually incorporates a person's disability in the development of identity, I turned toward Vygotsky. His writings from 1924-32 were created in a special historical setting, where many essential beliefs were being questioned. His writings on the psychological aspect of disability and especially on visually impairment in my opinion are fundamental if we want to establish inclusion as the new paradigm for the education and training of visually impaired students.
Vygotsky's concept of defectology corresponds more or less to the current concept of special needs education (SNE), however, he does not include children with socio-emotional difficulties. This is mainly a reflection of the primary focus of the discipline on immediately visible impairments. Today, the concept has connotations of mechanical approach, but in this article I hope to show that this is not the case, and that this perception may also include the less visible disabilities.
The basic point is that a child whose development is disabled by a congenital defect should not be seen as less developed when compared with his/her peers. If, for example, the child's intelligence, interpreted narrowly, is measured at 65, one cannot simply say that the child's intellectual capacity is 65% of that of a normal child. Or, if the child is blind, one cannot say that the child's sensory perception is reduced by 70%, simply because sighted people receive 70% of their perception of the world through vision. Instead, the disabled child has developed differently, and development has taken place through different developmental channels.
Vygotsky sees the shift from the thesis of quantitative development views to qualitative ones as the essential justification for defectology as a science. Basically, we do the same today, but Vygotsky does go further. For just as the normal child at every developmental level possesses a qualitative uniqueness, i. e. a specific individual organic and psychological structure, the disabled child's development is represented trough a unique organisation of these areas.
In the child with a disability, development takes place via different organs and sensory paths. Alternative developmental paths appear or are created. These paths may be more or less accessible or passable to the child. The form and direction of the development depends on a range of factors in the surrounding environment, but the disability in itself does not cause retardation or a limitation of this dynamic compensatory development. In this view, compensation should be seen as a continuous dialectic process. Traditionally, compensation has been seen as something that has been completed once various conditions have been resolved.
It is in the child's encounter or interaction with the environment that the conflicts and difficulties surrounding the impaired (defect) functions arise. But this is also where the basic need for a compensatory development arises. A physical or mental impairment may cause limitations and difficulties in relation to the child's development, but at the same time, the impairment prescribes the possibilities or the directions for the compensatory processes.
Thus, the development of the individual is not simply blocked by the impairment, the development will seek out other paths, other organs and other psychological processes/structures for expressing itself. Here, development should be viewed as a dynamic concept. If it is blocked in one area, it will find new paths. Development does not stop once, for example, the child's intellectual peak has been reached. The compensatory processes may create or develop special capacity areas (overcompensation), for example a highly trained sense of hearing. (Here, Vygotsky refers to A. Adler, among others.[1])
Disability and mind
In order to understand the connection between a disability and its psychological consequences, a thorough assessment of the dynamics between the disability and the compensatory processes is required.
The compensatory process may be seen not just as a developmental process where one physical function replaces another. The compensatory process should be seen as a complex interaction of all the individual's physical and psychological function. The disability is not bypassed, like a river that finds a new course if the way ahead is blocked by an obstacle. The variations or developmental deviations, i.e. the alternative compensatory paths, are embedded in or become a part of the ongoing physical and psychological development. What we perceive as the personality is created in the meeting with the environment and, thus, also in the clash with the difficulties that the disabled person encounters in the environment. Identity and compensation become two sides of the same coin.
This is to say that the personality structure and type are constructed or shaped through the paths that the compensatory processes take in overcoming the problems created by the environment. Thus, the personality development in an individual who is disabled by an impairment is the product of a complex physical and psychological process.
The content of this process goes beyond conventional disability-compensating education. In blind persons, the compensation is not a matter of training of tactile perception or refined hearing, but of communication or social interactions with the sighted world. As a result, the child with a disability becomes something more than just the sum of under-developed functions and qualities. The child becomes a person via the compensatory constructions. Thus, the formation of the personality becomes the product of physical as well as psychological conditions.
Problems in the compensatory process:
The compensatory processes do not always run equally smoothly. The end result is not always adequate in relation to the needs posed by the environment. The people surrounding the child often describe the consequences of the "poor" outcome (i.e., the poor or inadequate compensation) through the following characterisations of the child:
The person does not always see him/herself in the same way. The features or qualities that are mentioned are understandings or impressions expressed by the surroundings. Obviously, frequent statements from others concerning a person's appearance at some point impact that person's self-perception. If other people frequently describe someone in a certain way, that person will tend to come to see him/herself in that way. But the basic point is that the individual disabled person cannot see or understand the personality traits that others see.
What conditions, then, influence the development of the compensatory processes? I have divided the conditions into four categories:
The following characterises conditions 1 and 2:
On the intra-psychological level of the compensation process, i.e. the child's personality and psychological structure, the development is invisible to the child. The child is not able to assess the character or the scope of his/her disability. The child is only able to reflect on the practical difficulties caused by it and is thus unable to observe the meaning that the compensation process has for, e.g. the child's social positioning. But all biological dispositions and their meaning in the social reactions have a consequence on the psychological level. This means that the way that the child goes through the compensation and interprets its social implications has an impact on the formation of the personality. This, for example, is what others perceive and interpret as a sense of inferiority in the child.
The following characterises condition No. 3:
Here, the conditions and, thus, also the restrictions or limitations that the environment poses for the child and his/her interaction with this environment determine the development. For example, the family's special care may constitute an element that causes social isolation. But the way that institutions act towards the child also make a difference. Here, I am thinking, for example, of the teacher's assistant who assumes responsibility for the child's actions in school or the institution that believes that a child with a disability is unable to fetch his/her own food at the cafeteria counter.
Thus, the social-psychological realisation of the person's resources or potential helps form the personality. The disability in itself is not decisive. This explains why individuals with the same visual impairment develop so differently. It is important to emphasise that the compensatory processes may be hampered both through active and passive behaviours. An example of active behaviour is when the adult caretaker consistently does those things that give the child difficulty, which causes the child to never gain experiences of his/her own. An example of passive behaviour could be if the adult caretaker avoids bringing the child into situations where difficulties may be experienced or felt.
The following characterises condition No. 4:
In the non-disabled child, a fusion of personality development and cultural inclusion takes place. See, for example, the way that young children include media characters when they play. This happens without any special initiative or considerations. This cultural integration, however, cannot be taken for granted in the case of the child with a disability. Many conditions of both a perceptual and a physical nature, e.g. accessibility may act as obstacles here.
On an immediate level, this means that there has to be special focus on accessibility or access to cultural areas, for example concerning blind persons' access to the Internet. In more general terms, one might say that being able to incorporate interpersonal functions trough ADL-training and the ability to master and internalise psychological mechanisms such as emotions determines the degree of cultural and societal inclusion that the child with a disability will experience.
What should be included in the education of the child with a disability? What is SNE practice in the inclusive school?
The basic didactic and psychological belief underlying inclusive education is that there is no difference between the educational needs of the child with a disability and the other children. They have one common goal: social inclusion. It is essential to a child's development to be actively involved in the creation of the social life of the surrounding environment.
The general characteristic of all higher-order mental activity is that the necessary battle with and overcoming of the obstacles posed by the environment enhance a person's potential and strength. In the end, it is this battle that creates development. If the environment, i.e. the institutions and the families, see it as their task to solve all the problems or remove all obstacles in the child's developmental path, both physical and psychological ones, one will contribute to hampering actual personal development. If a person were to live in a world completely free of obstacles or conflict concerning the essential human functions, he/she would not be able to develop or progress to higher functional levels, since there would be no incentive or motivation for such progress.
In an educational framework, therefore, it is important to take advantage of the child's own development potential or areas. Special needs education should shed previous inclinations towards individualist or charity-based approaches and focus on methods that address the unique potential in these children. This will create the necessary socio-cultural structure to support the child's development in areas where the environment has been posing difficulties for the child with a disability.
Inclusive special needs education, therefore, must be based on "social education", which at the same time must be able to embrace both psychological[2] and curricular aspects. This is different from the practice in existing understanding of integration, where a child's disability and, thus, his/her educational needs are often only described in physical and curricular terms. In the inclusive school the social-psychological aspects are included as specific goals for the educational effort.
Blind students in inclusive settings
Blindness is often defined as the absence of vision. But the eye is also a social organ that links the individual to his/her surroundings. Even if blindness may have a biological cause, the education should not address these levels alone, but, rather, should focus on the social consequences of blindness in all relevant contexts. Psychologically, blindness does not limit the mental processes. Where, for example, efforts to train the blind person's sense of hearing have their limitations, the same is not true of the mental and social development.
The education of blind students should also be based on social considerations. For example, in this sense, light is not only a physical, but also a social phenomenon. The child should know that if he/she is standing in a room with the lights on, he/she is visible from the street. The awareness of light and visual phenomena, key aspects of the world of sighted people, are important concepts in the development of the blind child and should therefore be part of the "curriculum".
In a psychological sense, a physical impairment is a social disorder, for which the special needs education of the inclusive school is to compensate. The goal of the special needs education, therefore, is not only to alleviate the primary difficulties and strengthen the existing competences. The goal is, rather, to prevent or compensate for secondary psychological and social difficulties.
In many ways, social compensation is more important than biological compensation. Consciousness and reflection are the functional tools that we use to create our social world. Physical stimulation, for example via light, does not create an image of reality. Instead, it is interpretation and understanding of this reality that creates meaning for the individual. Blindness only cuts off the physical stimulation, it does not close the social window to the world. To a blind person, the interpretation and perception of the world takes place through alternative channels. In social interaction, for example, an insight into the psychological constitution of others is more important than knowledge about the other person's appearance.
Blindness is thus an alteration of the common path towards social adjustment and social skills. The special needs education in the inclusive school, therefore, should aim at ensuring that development continues to focus on that which is commonly human. The goal is to correct[3] previous social deviations by opening or finding other paths, using compensation to reshape social relations. Special needs education for the disabled child should provide support for the compensatory processes as well as for the expectation of social adjustment.
The result of this effort depends on the relevance, timing, complexity and quality of the work. SNE practices in the inclusive school should not just be a "light" version of general education. The education should be carried out by specially trained staff, able to create this corrective environment.
The content of the education should be cultural integration, conversations with adults and active inclusion in the social life of the peer group. These ways of working include both curricular and psychological aspects. In fact, they are inseparable. It is not possible to have curricular activities in the morning and social-psychological training in the afternoon. The two aspects should be seen and treated as a joint and simultaneous concept. In fact, the two together are what makes up inclusive education, where the psychological dimension of the education, for example the motivational aspect, and the social-psychological learning dimension, for example reflection, support each other.
The educational approach towards the blind child and the fully sighted child, thus, becomes the same. That is to say that the education should be based on the same set of didactic and psychological expectations. Only the paths towards inclusion in the social life may be different. In this sense, special needs education in the inclusive school is a corrective pedagogical approach towards this social goal.
Blindness and personality
Blindness is not a disorder, but a normal condition for the child. The child indirectly experiences his or her special character through social experiences. That is to say that the child's experience of blindness depends on the realisation or impact of the disability in the environment. Conditions like grief, loneliness, isolation and melancholy, which make us "feel sorry for" the child, stem from secondary social factors, not from biological ones.
If we see special features or tendencies in the ways that certain groups of people with a disability go trough the compensatory processes, then what we see is types or categories of behaviour with special social constellations. But the key point is that it is the blindness in itself that conditions these developmental categories. A child with a disability does not have to become a disabled child.
In 1924, a scientist[4] described two types of blind people:
In Vygotsky's perspective, these two categories are the result of different outcomes of the compensation process: success and failure. It is therefore wrong to think that a blind person belongs to a special category of persons, if this categorisation is based solely on the psychological appearance of the individual, as this categorisation is constituted through the person's interaction with the environment.
Rather, we should talk about types of reactions to specific disabilities, which then in turn create types of compensatory processes. With an individualistic disability view, this is what may, wrongly, come to appear as types of persons with disabilities.
A child with blindness is not "a blind child". A child without vision is not "a blind child". Vygotsky predicted that in the future we would be ashamed to use the term "the impaired child". Socialisation and cultural inclusion override the physical impairment and, in that sense, makes the term "defect" incomprehensible. The blind person is blind and nothing more. The blindness in itself does not disable the person, but places the person in a difficult and decisive social position. The compensatory effort in the inclusive school has as its goal to overcome this difficulty. The curriculum should include developmental paths with this dimension in mind. If these social developmental strategies are to be successfully created, it is necessary to include the psychological dimension. Didactics and educational approaches will not suffice.
Selected literature:
Lev Vygotsky: revolutionary scientist / Fred Newman and Lois Holzman. - London: Routledge, 1993. - x, 240 p.
Vygotsky and Pedagogy/ Harry Daniels, Paperback - 208 p. (26 October, 2001) Routledge Falmer; ISBN: 041523767X
The collected works of L.S.
Vygotsky. - New York : Plenum Press, 1987-
Vol. 2 : The fundamentals of defectology (abnormal psychology and learning
disabilities) - 1993. - xii, 349 p.
The individual psychology of Alfred Adler : a systematic presentation in selections from his writings / ed. and annotated by Heinz L. Ansbacher and Rowena R. Ansbacher. - New York : Basic Books, 1956.
Part 2: Abnormal psychology and related fields
Links:
http://www.bgcenter.com/vygotskyProject.htm
http://www.kolar.org/vygotsky/
http://www.massey.ac.nz/%7EALock/virtual/project2.htm
Lev Vygotsky: The Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology: A Methodological Investigation http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/crisis/index.htm
[1] A survey at a school for the visual arts revealed that 70% of the students had various forms of visual difficulties.
[2] The blind person does not perceive this psychological dimension him/herself, as there is no basis for comparison. The person only experiences the social consequences of the impairment, e.g. as isolation.
[3] The Institute of Defectology in Moscow is now called the Institute of Corrective Pedagogy
[4] Buerklen, A. Blindenpsychologie, Leipzig 1924
[5] This has consequences for the concept "disability identity". The ideal is not a disability identity, but an identity!
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