About the power of the effect of language in the discourse of special needs education

Abstract

The power of the effect of language determines the discourse of special needs education and its approach towards the phenomenon of 'handicap'. With the help of the psychoanalytic theory of Lacan and the interactionist constructivism of Reich it may show, that the search for the certainty of what we call 'handicap' must fail, because the symbolic order is mixed with the imaginations and what Lacan calls the 'real register'. The knowledge that the phenomenon 'handicap' is not describable without ambiguity may contain a chance for the discourse of special needs education to reduce the structures of power, caused by the determination of the symbolic order.

Keywords

• special needs education
• handicap
• psychoanalysis
• constructivism
• language
• power