ABLE-BODIED INSTRUCTORS AND STUDENTS WITH PHYSICAL-DISABILITIES - A RELATIONSHIP HANDICAPPED BY COMMUNICATION

Although students with disabilities are not intellectually different f rom their able-bodied peers, their presence in the classroom can negat ively affect instructors' behavior. Many instructors are uncomfortable interacting with and offering instruction to students with disabiliti es. The communicative relationship between instructors and students wi th physical disabilities was examined using participant observation Th e observations took place over six weeks and included 66 class meeting s for a total of 84 hours of observations. Through these observations, four roles were identified to describe and explain how able-bodied in structors communicate with physically disabled students: the avoider, the guardian, the rejecter, and the nurturer. Each role is described a nd illustrtated with events that happened in classrooms. The authors c onclude that able-bodied instructors communicate differently with stud ents with physical disabilities than with able-bodied students. The im plications of this study are discussed for instructors, able-bodied st udents and students with disabilities.