Possible Benefits of Labeling

• Labeling is required to be included for special education. Under current law, to receive special education services, a child must be identified as having a disability (i.e., labeled) and, in most cases, must be further classified into one of that state’s categories, such as mental retardation or learning disabilities. In practice, therefore, a student becomes eligible for special education and related services because of membership in a given category.
• Labeling recognizes meaningful differences in learning or behavior and is a first and necessary step in responding responsibly to those differences. As Kauffman (1999) points out, “Although universal interventions that apply equally to all, . . . can be implemented without labels and risk of stigma, no other interventions are possible without labels. Either all students are treated the same or some are treated differently. Any student who is treated differently is inevitably labeled. . . . When we are unwilling for whatever reason to say that a person has a problem, we are helpless to prevent it. . . . Labeling a problem clearly is the first step in dealing with it productively”.
• Labeling may lead to a protective response in which children are more accepting of the atypical behavior of a peer with disabilities than they would be of a child without disabilities who emitted that same behavior.
• Labeling helps professionals communicate with one another and classify and evaluate research findings.
• Funding and resources for research and other programs are often based on specific categories of exceptionality.
• Labels enable disability-specific advocacy groups (e.g., parents of children with autism) to promote specific programs and spur legislative action.
• Labeling helps make exceptional children’s special needs more visible to policymakers and the public.

Possible Disadvantages of Labeling

• Some educators believe that the labels used to identify and classify exceptional children today stigmatize them and serve to deny them opportunities in the mainstream.
• Because labels usually focus on disability, impairment, and performance deficits, some people may think only in terms of what the individual cannot do instead of what she can or might be able to learn to do.
• Labels may stigmatize the child and lead peers to reject or ridicule the labeled child. Not all labels used to classify children with disabilities are considered equally negative or stigmatizing. One factor possibly contributing to the large number of children identified as learning disabled is that many professionals and parents view “learning disabilities” as a socially acceptable classification.
• Labels may negatively affect the child’s self-esteem.
• Labels may cause others to hold low expectations for a child and differentially treat her on the basis of the label, which may result in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Such differential treatment could impede the rate at which a child learns new skills and contribute to the development and maintenance of a level of performance consistent with the label’s prediction.
• Labels that describe a child’s performance deficit often acquire the role of explanatory constructs (e.g., “Sherry acts that way because she is emotionally disturbed”).
• Even though membership in a given category is based on a particular characteristic (e.g., deafness), there is a tendency to assume that all children in a category share other traits as well, thereby diminishing the detection and appreciation of each child’s uniqueness.
• Labels suggest that learning problems are primarily the result of something wrong within the child, thereby reducing the systematic examination of and accountability for instructional variables as the cause of performance deficits. This is an especially damaging outcome when the label provides a built-in excuse for ineffective instruction (e.g., “John hasn’t learned to read because he’s learning disabled”).