ABSTRACT
In this chapter Chris Goodey reflects on the diagnosis, assessment and categorisation procedures employed by ‘professionals’: doctors, psychologists, teachers and administrators. He argues that such procedures and the decisions about a child’s acceptability within mainstream education which may follow from them, are underpinned by competing philosophies about a child’s acceptability as a human being. It is this philosophy, he argues, rather than a body of technical knowledge, which drives the behaviour of professionals in their interactions with parents. He supports these contentions with the words of parents of children with trisomy 21 whose reactions to, and following, the birth of their children belie the simplified professional stereotypes which he sets beside them. He concludes by suggesting that membership of the group that accepts children with disabilities as full members of the human tribe, is open to all.
