Don't Judge a Book by It's Title
The following article is one such example of the effects a label can have on students with learning disabilities. It is a revelation on a study done on the effects of the label "LD", or Learning Disability on the performance of the students. The performance of the labeled students was compared to the performance of similar students with similar learning abilities, only without the label. | Stigma of a Label -- http://hsb.sagepub.com/content/54/4/462.full What amazes me about the findings in the article was the confirmation of how strong a label can be. It wasn't strangers having a skewed opinion on the students' expectancy to succeed based on their LD label, it was the opinions of the people closest to them in their lives that it had an effect on. If a label can overshadow a parent's expectation of their own child's abilities and blind them from what their child actually can do, then it must be very powerful. By judging a child by their label of a learning disability, or whatever else it may be, it can easily be ascertained that there is nothing more to that person than their disability, and that they have no chance of succeeding or going far because of that. It's like judging a book by it's title; If the title The Fault in Our Stars was the entire explanation of the book, I would expect it to be about the incorrect calculations and observations of our solar system. But it has absolutely nothing to do with the literal mistake of our solar system, and is so much more than just a metaphor. It's the same thing with labeling children with disabilities; there is so much more to them than their disabilities. Don't judge a book by it's title, nor a child by his or her disability. |