Re: Vygotsky and disability
Charles Bazerman (bazerman who-is-at humanitas.ucsb.edu)
Sat, 23 May 1998 14:02:01 -0700 (PDT)
One of the themes that runs through several of LSV's chapters in
Fundamentals of Defectology (Collected Works v.2. Plenum, 1992)is that
the ways of life societies offer, the cultural tools that are part of that
way of life, and the typical pathways of developmet that enable one to
participate geneally assume the usual complement of disabilities. The
problem of being blind is not not being able to see, but not being able to
see in a world designed by and for the sighted. ("The Blind Child" for
example). And thus the isolation, the being cut off from the collective,
is in being cut off from the communal means and practices of life. At the
end of the chapter on the Blind Child LSV projects the possibility of a
society of people without sight that get along quite well together and
provide a perfect community for unsighted children to grow up into. This
passage matches very closely the ideology of Gallaudet University, as
described by Oliver Sacks.
Elsewhere in this and other chapters LSV talks of other reasons
for the disabled child to be cut off from the collective, as through
stigmatization and assumptions about what abilities and disabilities
allow.
LSV's comments on the developmental difficulties arise out of the
disabled child's position with respect to the collective and the
collective way of life suggest myriad implications for the non-disabled
who nonetheless are not skilled, motivated, socially accepted, or
otherwise able or desirous of participating in various parts of the
communal life.
BTW, the title of the chapter Kelleen cites is "The Collective in
the development of the Abnormal Child."
Although there is some repetition in the Defectology volume, I
highly recommend those essays. The open up new dimensions of LSV.
Chuck Bazerman
On Sat, 23 May 1998, Kelleen Toohey wrote:
> I wonder if Vygotsky says this happens because of the cultural isolation of
> disabled children:
>
> Why do the higher functions fail to develop in an abnormal child? Not
> because the defect directly impedes them or makes their appearance
> impossible...Underdevelopment springs from what we might call the isolation
> of the abnormal child from his collective.
> (Vygotsky, 1993, p. 199)
>
>
>
> Kelleen Toohey, Associate Professor
> Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6
> ph. 604-291-4418 FAX 604-888-4623
>
>
>