ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns human attitudes, prejudicial or otherwise, which shape the responses that individuals make to those who in some respect do not fit within the cultural boundaries set by a given social group. The recipients are those children who in our society we refer to as the disabled, mentally, physically and behaviourally, whose disability may or may not be educationally handicapping. Social relationship between the disabled and non-disabled develops in several characteristic stages. A training objective for ordinary teachers might well encompass the notion of several stage interactions by a process of self monitoring of their own perceptions and feelings in the teaching of a child who is severely disabled. Peter Mittler drew attention to the fact that research in special education had yielded little that would help policy makers but that all studies identify one phenomenon, that of teacher behaviour and teacher attitudes.
