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Shed preconceived ideas…look, listen… A response to Sheridan's position on the spontaneous play of handicapped children
Author(s) -
SAWISCH LEONARD P.,
FITZGERALD HIRAM E.
Publication year - 1976
Publication title -
child: care, health and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.832
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1365-2214
pISSN - 0305-1862
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2214.1976.tb00242.x
Subject(s) - learned helplessness , psychology , valuation (finance) , social psychology , atmosphere (unit) , developmental psychology , physics , finance , economics , thermodynamics
SUMMARY Sheridan's article concerning the importance of spontaneous play for learning in handicapped children reflects both a historical and a contemporary negative valuation of ‘handicapment’. Specifically, the authors suggest that contemporary views of handicapment fail to take into consideration the social and cultural concomitants of handicapment and in fact create an atmosphere wherein learned helplessness and self‐fulfilling prophesies thrive. This state of affairs can only serve to perpetuate contemporary negative valuations of those individuals culturally labelled as ‘handicapped’.