ABSTRACT
Crucial to understanding difficulties in learning and behaviour and ways to address these is familiarity with common frames of reference within which that learning and behaviour is viewed. There is an important, though in some ways simplistic, distinction that we can make between the view that the mind is a passive recipient of knowledge and merely reacts to outside influence, and the view that it is pro-active in interpreting and constructing the world. In terms of frames of reference from educational psychology, a passive view of the human mind is most commonly reflected in the behaviourist model. Here all behaviour is assumed to be learned. Underlying behavioural principles is a basic concern with observed events, that is what people actually do, not on assumptions about intentions or statements about behaviour and its effects. In the world of special needs provision individual education plans have often been drawn up with interventions designed to shape learning and behaviour that are ‘done to’ the child. The opposite view of the human mind, that it is active in reaching out and constructing meaning, is reflected in frames of reference most commonly associated with constructivist and socio-cultural views of learning.
