Children's Stereotypes of Visibly Physically Impaired Targets: An Empirical Study

Twenty-five primary school aged children with physical impairments from three special schools and matched able-bodied controls from three ordinary primary schools in the Greater Manchester area participated in the study. It was designed to explore the traits that each group would attribute to a visibly physically impaired target. It was assumed that if a set of traits were to be selected consistently then this might reflect an underlying social stereotype. The majority of able-bodied respondents assigned seven traits to the ‘disabled’ target and this finding was in line with that of researchers who suggest that children stereotype those who are physically impaired. Children who themselves had a physical impairment appeared not to hold stereotypical beliefs about those who were ‘handicapped’.