Teachers who are overly sympathetic to children with learning difficulties or physical disabilities can hold them back in the classroom, new Scottish research has found.
Teachers who are overly sympathetic to children with learning difficulties or physical disabilities can hold them back in the classroom, new Scottish research has found.
A study by academics at Strathclyde University revealed that teachers who did not feel "overwhelmed with sympathy" were more likely to challenge disabled pupils, and to expect more from them.
The report also found that attitudes of teachers towards children with learning difficulties were not improved by training programmes.
The study, which assessed 199 Scottish teachers on levels of sympathy and their classroom attitudes, was conducted as part of attempts to discover whether the policy of mainstreaming is working in Scottish schools.
The policy, which makes it easier for children with disabilities or behavioural problems to attend standard schools, was enshrined by the former Scottish Executive as part of the Standards in Scotland's Schools Act in 2000.
The idea was to give schools a better social mix, with supporters arguing that those with additional needs and the rest of the school population benefit from being educated together.
However, a majority of teachers and some parents believe that it has not worked, with one of the primary concerns being that school staff do not understand the needs of the children because they have not been properly trained.
Dr Lisa Woolfson, director of the Doctorate in Educational Psychology at Strathclyde, said: "We wanted to see how broader views about disability might connect with the views of mainstream teachers and, in turn, how they might interact with pupils who were physically disabled or those with learning difficulties.Sympathy is a good thing, but what this study showed was that when that sympathy dominates a teacher's attitude it is unhelpful, and can be counter-productive.
"Feeling sorry for someone means that you are treating them differently from other pupils in the classroom and that is not necessarily helpful."
Dr Woolfson said teachers with greater levels of sympathy tended to be less positive about the ability of children with disabilities to progress. She added that training courses did not make much difference.
"A lot of money is being spent on these courses, which will have some value, but they are not changing underlying attitudes and therefore they are not changing classroom experience," she said.
Shona Pinkerton, principal of the National Autistic Society Scotland's Daldroch House School and Continuing Education Centre, welcomed the report.
"All mainstream schools should expect to teach children on the autistic spectrum, and have the understanding, resources, training and specialist support to meet their needs. Where training and resource needs are not met, the principle of inclusion can be undermined," she said.
"School can be a scary place for a child with autism and a child can experience great anxiety and stress which is aggravated when teaching staff do not have the skills and knowledge to provide the appropriate support."
The study found that teachers who did not feel overwhelmed with sympathy "saw the children's difficulties as less stable and therefore more amenable to change".
"A person who feels a great deal of sympathy may respond to the disabled individual differently from non-disabled people," it said.
"If a teacher sees a learner as not being in control, the teacher is more likely to provide help. If help is provided on a task that the learner does not see as challenging, the help could be interpreted as . . . transmitting to the learner the message that they are of low ability and likely to need help."
