Marking

With extensive studies done in the field of labelling, especially in the area of labelling theory, it has become evident that there is a possible damaging impact of diagnostic labels and name calling on children with regard to their self-esteem (Guskin& MacMillan 1974). It is observed that when a label is attached to a child, all succeeding interactions with the child will be distorted by the existence of that label. However, psychologists have pointed out that using labels is helpful in terms of classification, diagnostic, and treatment sequences. Most of the research articles that talk about labelling have focused more on the negative consequences of it. They looked at how the self-esteem of individuals are negatively affected by labels and special education placements.

Effect of Labelling on children

Labelling theory gives emphasis on societal reaction as equally or more important in the development of a deviant behaviour (Gove,1980). The labelling theory talks about how those who are deviant get labelled which ultimately results in the isolation from the society. Labelling draws a distinction between breach of rule and deviance with deviance being that breach of rule that is identified and labelled. Especially in special setting labels follow a student throughout his or her academic pursuit and some are labelled without proper analysis.

There is a great amount of prejudice in labelling (Levinson, 1982). One disadvantage is that the teachers of special need children are often faultily informed about students’ capability and they tend to put lower hope on them. But then again, the conscious and responsible use of labels aimed for the wellbeing of the children is good and it helps the children’s schooling better. The tag “Special Education” can become a self-fulfilling prophecy and performance in school may get worse as the student internalizes a feeling of lower self-worth (Stinson, Anthony, Logel, Shepherd &Zanna 2011). According to labelling theory there can be an alteration to one’s identity when a surrounding group defines a label in a particular way and applies that label to the person.

In the past in most of the countries these under privileged children did not get standard education, as there was a scarcity of trained teachers and training centres to take care of children with special needs. It was common to believe that training was impossible for them, they were believed to be excessively uncontrollable, making it impossible to teach, and were put in organizations that are better prepared to handle special children. Government funded educational system which considered it is the right of children of all learning levels to get access to a Free and Appropriate Education particularly in nations like India, pays little mind to their misfortune and allocate various resources for the overall growth of them. The peer pressure, that special need children experience outside their school setting in connection with their placement in the special school, will be capable of producing negative effects on the identity and personality of them.

In some situations, labels could serve as a benefit. A label can give information to peers of why and how a specific student is very different than them. And sometimes it motivates peers to give attention to these special children’s particular needs. Labels additionally help instructors with respect to the direction and teaching methods when extra consideration is required for each and every student in very a very individual way as the strategies are to be applied, differ from one student to the other. For teachers it is easy to use the label if they want to refer children to others professionals. It may not be a wise idea to constantly refer to the signs and symptoms associated with the specific disability each time when it is easy to use the label. In spite of the fact that there are negative connotations coupled with labels, they help to give support to students who battle intellectually, physically, emotionally and socially. Even in the case of diagnostic labels too, label attracts others at least to think about the negative impacts of the disabled children, mostly this is the after-effect of any formal and scientific medical classification (Reynolds &Janzen, 2004).

Self-esteem of children with Learning disabilities

Nowadays many hold the view that disability labelling is a pointless labelling of children with special needs, and it can have a very serious impact on the self-esteem of children. In many cases, in order to learn and understand things better special need children require only little more attention than normal children.

Rosenberg and other social learning theorists defined self-esteem in terms of worthiness or a firm sense of personal worth which is measurable by self-report testing (Rosenberg, 1981). Self-esteem is also viewed as a relationship between one’s worthiness and one’s competency. The act of labelling has very negative influence on children with special needs.

There are non-constructive descriptive words that generally makes everyone feel ambiguous about children who have LDs. Some of the example could be lazy, unmotivated, slow etc. It is equally bad to consider them having a behaviour problem or calling them slow or unproductive. These are not just derogatory terms but words that can have harming impacts in life of special need children.

In spite of being diagnosed with a disability, in a few schools children may remain in normal classes as opposed to being offered access to a special education program that would better suit their necessities. When they battle to keep up with other children, there is a probability that their companions ridicule them; a sort of badgering that can prompt behavioural issues, loss of self-esteem. Ultimately, these special children drop out of the school altogether.

Some factors that might contribute towards the development of emotional problems include feeling of rejection and lack of peer acceptance (Georgiadi, Kalyva, Kourkoutas, &Tsakiris, 2012). Conley, Ghavami, Von Ohlen and Foulkes conducted a study in 2007 on students with learning disability, emotionally disturbed and normal students in a class room setting. The results showed that the students with learning disabilities and those who were emotionally unstable were found to have a lower self- esteem that the students of regular classes. Similar results were found by Little & Kobak in 2003. From these studies it is clear that exposure to increased stressful experiences creates extreme demands on the need of coping abilities for special need children.

The whole idea of labelling can have many advantages as well as disadvantages. Labels used in the special education school setting are not harmful to the life of children. But the use of these labels out of context can create problems. Proper use of labels can promote life of special children thereby leading societal progress. The labels sometimes act as justification if a child behaves in an embarrassing way because of the disability. The label encourages people to put up with that strange behaviour when people get to know that the cause is a disability rather than an uncontrollable behaviour, which is not acceptable in the society.

It is very important to note that when the idea of labelling special children was proposed it was not meant to be used as defining characteristic. But rather the sole purpose of it was to make the life of special children better by allocating various sources for them.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Perception of labelling in children

Embry and Anthony (1996) conducted a study in order to study the relationship between labelling and the peer beliefs among elementary school children. It was hypothesized that the more name-calling children experienced, the more negative their belief about the peer would be and the lowers their sociability. The study was conducted on 48 second graders and 70 sixth graders. 58 of the participants were boys and 60 were girls. In order to measure beliefs about peers the Peer Beliefs Inventory was used. The antisocial items are reverse PBI scores range from 12 to 60 with higher scores indicating more positive beliefs about peers. The Calling Survey (NCS) was constructed to find the types of names that students are seen to be called. The NCS was administered at a public school. The results showed that over 80% students at the school who completed the questionnaire reported that was a problem for their peers, and 46% reported that name-calling was a personal problem. The data was analysed using a three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) in order to find whether there exists any interaction between factors like race, sex and grade level. The results show that the more names children reported having called in the past, the more negative their beliefs about peers. It was also seen that the children that belong to the second grade reported more events of being called names than sixth grade students, which further shows that name-calling may decrease in frequency as children become more mature.

A study conducted by Sowards (2015) spoke about how labelling effects students’ self-esteem, factors leading to this effect, and the stigma of labelling by collecting data on labelling. The sample included 93 participants where 25 students were from special system of education background and 68 participants in the research were in general education system. Among the many variables measured in the survey, the self-esteem had been measured using a scale developed by sociologist named Dr. Morris Rosenberg, (1979). Results show that there was no significant difference in the results of self-esteem across the participants of the general education students when compared to special system education students but children who received general education seemed to express negative outlook towards students that had labels, making those children feel that they are less liked by others thereby making them feel lonely.

Jonathan Cohen (1986) conducted a study to find how the experience of being disabled in the field of learning can became an element of the development process. He selected around 25 participants who were youngsters who came to him for comprehensive diagnostic in neuropsychological evaluations and in psychotherapy. They were 10 learning disabled boys and 15 adolescents among which 12 were males and 3 were females with learning disability. He went on to compare the sample with another group of general school education receiving children. In addition to affecting the psychosocial functioning, learning disability also prevents the children to recognise themselves and organise their strengths and capabilities in the right way and discover themselves. The results of this study showed that there exists a particular interaction between the fear of failure and problems in perception or thinking that may be caused due to the series of events, conscious or unconscious interpretations, of various self-experiences and emotional issue that they face. These series of events and responses had interwoven their character and the evaluation of their identity as a person.

The study by Level (2015) examined the self-awareness about self-esteem among students and its enhancement. The sample for the research consisted of 22 boys and 20 girls. The age range of the sample was from nine to eleven years of age. The method of sampling used was convenience sampling, meaning that the researcher selected the sample based on availability and ease of access. The research was conducted based on 5 stages that are: 1. Diagnosing, 2. Action Planning, 3. Taking Action, 4. Evaluating and 5. Specifying Learning. The results indicated that the students were unaware of the fact they had low self-esteem and that the use of psycho-educational drama and cooperative learning strategies in the 2nd stage helped them overcome the problem.

Hammer (2012) conducted a study to examine how labels affect adolescents on different levels like the stigma associated with the label, the mitigation effects and the lowering of the beliefs of teachers of the ability of these students. This study was a qualitative research and was measured by observational method where 88 elementary teachers were considered. They were divided into 4 groups in which group A was told that the children were normal and were asked to be objective, group B was told that the children were normal but no instruction about being objective was given, group C was told that the students had learning disability and was told to be objective, were as group D was told that the students have learning disability but did not provide them any instructions regarding being objective. The results showed that when the teachers heard that the students were labelled they refused to teach them or was not objective and the teachers perceived still more deviance when the child was labelled.

Satcher and Dennis (1999) conducted a study on labelling and peer beliefs. The study was conducted on 191 students from a school in the southwest of US. Total sample consisted of 99 boys and 91 girls. These students were spread across classes 2 to 6. The instrument used in the study was The Name Calling Survey (NCS). The final score is obtained by summing up the total number of ‘Yes’ responses. The other instrument used was the Peer Beliefs Inventory (PBI). The children are supposed to answer 12 questions about their peers. The scores obtained by the child can vary from 12 to 60. The higher the score the better their peer belief is. The results of the studies show that children seem to experience name calling in similar levels despite the class they study in and also showed that there is no gender difference in the perception of labelling in children. However, it was found that girls who experience greater name calling become more isolated than boys.

These studies were able to confirm that there exists a sort of labelling in school situations but fail to put forth solutions or strategies to reduce this perception of labelling.

Developmental patterns in Children with Learning disability

Bear and Minke (1996), conducted a study to examine if there is a positive bias while evaluating academic work which has any association with children with disabilities in learning. The Self-Perception Profile for Children was administered for a sample of 84 involving third grade students with learning disability and normally achieving students, there were around 42 students who had learning disability and 42 general students. The analytical result showed that most children who has learning disability when compared to normally achieving children had perceived themselves of doing well in academics, this is largely based on the feedback of their performance in the classroom by the faculty. On studying the items, it was noted that children with learning disability had recognized their specific skill deficits. The results had also indicated the importance of teachers’ feedback and how to perceive a student while maintaining positive feelings towards them and how this has an effect on the level of the child’s self- worth feeling as they were with learning disability.

Kistner and Osborne (1987) conducted a longitudinal study to analyse the developmental patterns of adolescents gaining education through special schools and those who receive education through general schooling and analyse their response to the scale for Perceived Control for Children (PCSC). The study showed that the students with learning disability had more negative believes about themselves as compared to the general students. When the response of the students was analysed, it was found that majority of the students with learning disability were not characterised with continuous negative self- beliefs. Around 34 participants were general students and 48 students were disabled in the field of learning but they were follow-up with the instruction. It was noted that the learning-disabled children were more negative in their perceptions of academic and once abilities in the field of non-academic, the study showed that they were less satisfaction with themselves. But the results show that learning disability children has no signs of becoming more negative about themselves over time. This result may suggest that children with learning disability may know about ones capability and is realistic about their academic problems but this has no effect on their self- esteem.

Effect of Self-esteem on children with Learning disabilities

Cosden, Elliott, Noble and Kelemen (1999) conducted a study on self-understanding and self-esteem in children with learning disabilities. The sample size was of 95 students amongst which, 23 studied in elementary school while 72 were in junior high school and were interviewed very subtly about how self-aware were they about their own disability in the field of learning and if they did know about it what they did for the same. Quantitative method of survey was used. Two questionnaires, namely- Harter’s What I am like and Hayman’s Self-perception of learning disability (SPLD) were used. In this study, self-concept was used to determine individual perceptions on competence in certain domains. Various perceptions were used to examine learning disability and self-esteem to see if there is any connection with perceptions of non-academic competencies. It was concluded that increase in the knowledge about his or her own disability in learning did not allow any effect on the self-esteem of any participant.

Hiebert, Wong, and Margaret (1982), conducted a study on affective influences on learning disabled adolescent. The schools that were a part of this study were located in lower to upper middle-class areas that is, not very economically sound backgrounds. The sample size consisted of various ethnic groups. The IQ or standardized achievement test scores were not released and so, the subjects were selected after the mutual agreement with the school authority. The sample size consisted of 82 students from grades 8 and 10, out of which, 39 participants were learning disabled and 43 were normally achieving students. IQ’s were within the average range. Potential learning-disabled participants were identified jointly by the school counsellor(s), resource room teacher, and their respective English teachers. Normally achieving participants all demonstrated average to high grades on their report cards. Teachers tend to view them in a less favourable light than their normally achieving peers. However, teachers rated more positively the behaviours of learning disabled children who were receiving remedial help, that is, these students were found to be more cooperative, more responsible, and more likely to finish assignments and pay attention.

Though all these studies point toward the common fact that children with learning disability might have lower self-esteem, these studies need bring out ways in which the children who are at different levels in the cognitive development, can be made sensitized about their disability in ways that will maintain their self-esteem.

Research questions:

1. Does labelling effect both special children as well as normal children.
2. Does labelling effect the performance of special children.
3. How is self esteem influenced by labelling.