Handicapped Children
The children who are suffering from physical and mental handicaps are handicapped children. Handicapped children mean the children who are disabling. In our country, we find a lot of children handicapped. Their number is huge. There are a variety of diagnoses: mentally handicapped, physically handicapped, autistic, deaf, blind, partially sighted, cerebral palsy, brain damage, and many more.
A handicapped child may suffer physically or mentally. Physical disabilities are mostly found among handicapped children. They are living in our society as a burden. People from outside their family do not treat them well. While we concentrate on the theme of the role of children’s literature in integrating handicapped children into everyday life, it is not the handicap itself that interests us but the effect the handicap has on the development of speech and the ability to read and understand books. Most often people ignore them well. Most often people ignore them. They try to avoid such types of children. Handicapped children are bereft of many facilities of the society. Every they are deprived of the affection and sympathy of their neighbors.
Most handicapped children will be delayed in their language development. Consequently, they will probably have problems with their emotions as well as with their social development. And they may have reading difficulties as well. As individuals, we should do something for them. We should behave well with them. We should not avoid them as they are part of our society. We should associate with them. We can help them in various ways. We should show our sympathy towards them. We also have all the children who are functioning as language deficient and reading retarded, as, for example, immigrant children and the increasing number of culturally deprived children. These groups together amount to a large percentage of all children in the world.
Society can play an important role to make the lives of handicapped children better. These children should not be neglected in society. All should be affectionate to them. Experience has shown that lullabyes and rhymes may stimulate language for those who can hear the human voice, and that picture books as well as stimulate language development for those who can see. All children need books. But our handicapped children need them even more than do other children. An educational institution can be set up to educate handicapped children. They can be provided with training. If society comes forward to save them, their life would be easy and comfortable.
