ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the view that, to understand properly the learning processes of children with handicaps requires serious considerations to the cognitive view. Mentally handicapped children are fairly readily identified by the experienced clinical eye, and even a very brief encounter indicates that these children have learning difficulties of a very generalised sort. Serious empirical work relating learning theory to mental retardation did not really begin until the late 1940s and early 1950s. Attention in the learning process may then be seen as a means by which relevant aspects of the environment come to be perceived. Operant learning on the other hand requires that the child emit some voluntary behaviour or operate on the environment in order to produce certain consequences. In conclusion, learning must be seen as an active, dynamic process in which the learner is involved in transactions with teaching.
