Research on children with disabilities has found that they tend to have fewer friends than children without disabilities, that the more children without disabilities get to know them, the less they like them, and that, in general, children without disabilities are not so much mistreated in classrooms as they are ignored.
What a horrible thing it was that I just said! Don't mothers always tell children that, "Once they get to know what you are really like, they'll want to be your friend"?
Actually, though, when children are in special classrooms, the other children in the school are told, "Don't pick on the kids in Ms. _____'s class" and that is about as much thought as the special education students get. When they are in the regular classroom and they interrupt, don't take turns, break things, can't keep secrets and talk about subjects that most people think are taboo, the other children don't like them.
Children with learning disabilities and other "invisible disabilities" are more likely to suffer from self esteem and be outcasts because they lack social skills. Other children don’t necessarily understand the differences between themselves and a child with a learning disability and therefore don’t understand why Joe won’t share or take turns or listen and because of that they don’t want to play with Joe. When a child who has Down syndrome or another visible disability blurts out something wildly inappropriate in the sixth grade,
"I saw you kissing Raymond! Are you two having sex?"
The other students usually realize that the child has a disability and did not intentionally mean to be hurtful. When a child with a learning disability, ADHD or a traumatic brain injury makes a similar statement, there is often an assumption that the child is just being mean on purpose - and no one wants to be friends with mean people who say things that are hurtful and embarrassing.
By learning social skills, children with learning disabilities will be more likely to succeed socially as children and throughout their lives.
Vygotsky (a famous psychologist) once said that the difference between children with mental retardation and other children is that children who are mentally retarded need to be directly taught things that other children just learn. The same could be said of children with many different disabilities.
Next page: Teaching social skills - what can you say and when can you say it