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HANDICAPPED CHILDREN: A CHALLENGE

The International Year of Disabled Persons not only concerns the disabled persons themselves and their organizations, but also to a high degree those working with children's literature. We need more and better books for disabled children, and we need books that give them information and possibilities identification.

It is not only a matter of improving education, but also of providing opportunities for leisure-time activities. Most handicapped children live in a sterile environment. Like all other children, however, they need cultural stimulation to help build up their awareness of their own "ego" and to facilitate and enrich their contact with other people. This is especially important for those who feel different and isolated. Reading will always increase one's knowledge of words and reduce the distance between the handicapped person and his surroundings. Helen Keller expressed it this way: "Books not only give me the pleasure and knowledge which other readers obtain, but also the information others receive through sight and hearing".

We have been accustomed to using the concept handicapped. The United Nations has now chosen the word disabled, probably because the old notion has acquired a negative meaning and because a new word should make us think in a new way. Regardless of which word we choose, the expression itself is a relative one. It reflects our view of people and societies, and it also reflects how narrow of broad is our view of normality. It is actually wrong to use the concept "handicapped" without defining handicapped in relation to what and in which situations. First and foremost, one is just a person. There is more that unites than separates us.

Handicapped children are, above all, children, with children's needs, reactions and individual differences. There are just as wide variations within groups with the same general disorder as there are among other children. Each child is unique, with needs of his own as well as capacities, problems and possibilities.

Blind children are handicapped only in relation to printed books, but not to books in braille. Those who are deficient in reading find it hard to read books set in ordinary type, close print, and with long sentences. They are handicapped in relation to these books but not to books with simple language and easily read typography. One who is mentally retarded is as a rule handicapped in relation to intellectually demanding books, but not necessarily in relation to books sufficiently simple in content and layout.

For the blind child it is natural not to see. For the deaf child it is just as natural not to hear. It is unnatural for our eyes and for our ears because we are accustomed to experiencing the world around us with our senses of sight and sound. For many people a handicap is something rare, because most of the deaf, blind, mentally and physically handicapped are not in the streets or in the shops, in our homes or places of work at conference tables with authors and publishers, or at book fairs.

In many economically developed countries an unfortunate segregation policy has for a long time caused handicapped children to be placed in large institutions or more or less isolated in their home surroundings. A whole and constructive community consists of all types of people. Integration has now become a slogan. What does it mean then - to integrate handicapped persons into ordinary society?

It does not mean - as most of us would like to think - that the handicapped are now allowed to join us in order to become as "normal" as possible - that is, like us. Integration is something totally different. It means that you are allowed to keep your own identity and become an independent part of a larger unit. Integration means that you contribute something to the unit. Ordinary schools, families and local society need the handicapped ones just as much as the handicapped have a natural and justified claim to belong to the society into which they are born.

When integration has often proved so difficult in practice, part of the reason is that we lack the right material for instruction in our schools. This includes good children's books for different levels of speech and reading and for children with sensory defects. Even the thought of integration clashes with efficiency, productivity and speed upon which society places such importance. It takes time to change our attitude when we know so little about the lives of the disabled. We are all afraid of the unknown. Lack of knowledge produces anxiety, and the distance between anxiety and aggression is alarmingly short. A society can always use scapegoats. We need literature to prepare and produce nearness.