This blog will form a series of blogs I have named ‘Profoundly ….’, with the first one entitled ‘Profoundly Over-coded’. The different aspects of this series relate to conceptualising and reconceptualising PMLD as well as the phenomenon central to my PhD thesis, which is the ‘process of learning’. These blogs are particularly aimed towards those who work with and care for those with PMLD but also, I hope they will have meaning more broadly for those who work with and care for people with intellectual disabilities.

The concept of ‘code’, presented here, belongs to French philosophers, Deleuze and Guittari. For the purposes of this blog it can be considered as the way in which we order the world; the components that fix the ‘identity of the whole’ (Delanda, 2016 Pg. 22). So, for the purposes of my research, it refers to the policy and statutory guidance that encompasses education and special educational needs and disabilities. They incorporate ‘the written rules and standard procedures’ that affect all organisations within the system (Delanda, 2016). Put simply, schools can be considered as ‘the whole’ and the statutory requirements form ‘the components’ that fix it. Within the limits of a blog, I will refer specifically to the recent review of statutory assessment arrangements for students below the national curriculum tests (The Rochford Review 2016) and subsequent assessment guidance for students with PMLD, the engagement model (Standards and Testing Agency 2020). 

The engagement model guidance (STA 2020) frames PMLD as learners ‘with serious cognitive impairments and learning difficulties’, operating ‘at very early stages of cognitive, physical, social and emotional development’ (Pg.7). The five areas (initiation, persistence, exploration, anticipation and realisation) contain the following concepts; evaluative conditioning (stimulus-response), generalisation, attention and contingency awareness (cause and effect). Even a cursory review of PMLD literature will reveal that these concepts pervade it (see Imray and Hadfield, 2019; Imray and Colley, 2017; Imray and Hinchliffe 2014; Barber and Goldbart, 1998). Reference to PMLD and learning within statutory guidance have long been dominated by these concepts (See The P Scales 2014; Routes for Learning 2006). The development of policy and guidance are processes that seek to normalise learners and as such the identity of students with PMLD has become fixed (Feely 2016). Deleuze and Guittari (1988/2004) define this as over-coding.  

Van Manen (2015) states, “The theoretical language of child ‘science’ so easily makes us look past each child’s uniqueness toward common characteristics that allow us to group, sort, sift, measure, manage and respond to children in preconceived ways” (Pg.62). The common characteristics of evaluative conditioning (stimulus-response), generalisation, attention and contingency awareness (cause and effect) distort the uniqueness of a student with PMLD. Uniqueness within the Rochford Review (2016) is considered as atypical, while Imray (2019) further considers learning of students with PMLD as abnormal. It provides further evidence for the over-coding of PMLD through totalization, creating binary relationships such as typical/atypical, normal/abnormal (Deleuze and Guittari 1988/2004). I am not suggesting that there is not a difference. I am not subjecting myself to political correctness nor am I aiming to deny the realities of impairment (cognitive, sensory or physical). However, what I am arguing is that the landscape of educational achievement and pedagogy is framed by a technical or scientific discourse, whereby philosophical debate in society has been eclipsed(Wrigley 2019). 

The Engagement Model (STA 2020) exists within this technical or scientific discourse, it states, “Observational assessment is central to understanding what the pupil knows and what they can do. It is the most reliable way of building up an accurate picture of the pupil’s progress.” (Pg.13) Furthermore it claims that through observations teachers can establish the nature of responses, whether or not acts are intentional, if acts are a direct response of a stimulus or if the specific qualities of a stimulus result in a response (STA 2020). In addition, it claims that the model is unique, provides insight into provision and it is learner-centred focused on abilities rather than disabilities (STA 2020). As this is stated in policy and guidance it is then subsumed into practice as fact. It does provide a perspective, but it is not the only one. 

Wrigley (2019) considers approaches evident in the engagement model guidance as behavioural reductionism. It is defined by the focus on “causal relations between stimulus and response as observable components of behaviour” and “almost completely forgets emotional, social, and cognitive aspects of experience.” (Reich et al, 2016 Pg.1002). In addition, there is an increasing interest in connecting neuroscience to the education of students with PMLD by utilising brain scans as a means to understand thinking and assumes learning as brain centred (Bakhurst 1997; Wrigley 2019). This asserts that, for the student with PMLD, the process of learning and the practice of assessment is disembodied. 

For students not following a subject based curriculum the approach to assessment relies on understanding causality through observation. Sayer (2000 Pg.14) states “The conventional impulse to prove causation by gathering data on regularities, repeated occurrences, is therefore misguided: …What causes something to happen has nothing to do with the number of times we observe it happening.” In which case, the teacher as intervener or teacher as ‘navigator of learning’, no longer seem justifiable. I am more interested in the dynamic interactions between myself and my students which is semiotic rather than technical (Wrigley 2019). In other words, I view pedagogy as a process that involves the production of meaning. 

The process of learning for students with PMLD can be understood through the interaction between learner and environment (STA 2020; Ware 2003). I do not question the sensory approaches applied within a curriculum for students with PMLD. However, in the western world, the body is perceived as an object with the mind taking precedence; evident in such idioms as ‘mind over matter’ (Burkitt 1998). Perceiving the process of learning in this way, through evaluative conditioning, generalisation etc. presents issues for us in understanding how students make meaningful connections. It creates a dualism, one being a rational mind and the other being a sensorial body (Stolz 2015). 

In response to over-coding, Deleuze and Guittari (1988/2004) suggest we “decode,” or put these processes in flux. By doing so we shift from fixed theories that define PMLD, to the concept of ‘becoming’. This involves the exploration of the connections between the student and all forms of matter, both human and non-human (as provided in a sensory curriculum) and provides multiple ways for the process of learning to emerge. Hickey-Moody (2008) suggests by applying the concept of ‘becoming’ to intellectual disability it “offers a method for thinking about difference that is positive and productive because it reads bodies in relation to their contextual positioning and the actions they take.” (Pg.365). This method challenges fixed notions of PMLD, or external notions of learning, to understanding ‘the universe is always in motion’ and always ‘becoming’ (Feely 2016).  

Ultimately, I want to move away from fixed identities that limit an understanding of the lived experiences of students with PMLD. Shifting thinking from what students can ‘become’ (e.g. fixed outcomes) to the concept of ‘becoming’, or from ‘predetermined’ to ‘emergent’ changes our understanding of assessment. Therefore, the process of learning is no longer mechanical and technical but instead affective, embodied and material. 

References

Bakhurst D (1997) Activity, consciousness, and communication. In: Cole M, 

Engestrom Y and Vasquez O (eds) Mind, Culture and Activity: Seminal Papers from the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 147–163.

Barber, M. and Goldbart, J. (1998) Accounting for learning and failure to learn in people with profound and multiple learning disabilities: Published in Lacey P & Ouvrey C [1998] People with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities: A Collaborative Approach to Meeting Complex Needs David Fulton Publishing 

Burkitt, I.  (1998) Bodies of Knowledge: Beyond Cartesian Views of Persons, Selves and Mind. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 28

Delanda, M (2016) Assemblage Theory. Edinburgh University Press 

Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1988/2004). A Thousand Plateaus. Bloomsbury

DfE (2014) P scales: attainment targets for pupils with SEN Crown Publication 

The Rochford Review: Final Report (2016) Review of assessment for pupils working below the standard of the national curriculum tests. Crown 

Feely, M. (2016) Disability studies after the ontological turn: a return to the material world and material bodies without a return to essentialism, Disability & Society, 31:7, 863-883 

Hickey-Moody, A.C. (2008) Deleuze, Guittari, and the Boundaries of Intellectual Disability Pg.353-370 in Gabel, S.L. and Danforth, S. (2008) Disability & the Politics of Education Peter Lang Publishing

Imray, P. (2019) Is it a good thing to identify people as having profound and multiple learning disabilities? PMLD Link Vol 31 No 2. Issue 93

Imray. P, and Colley. A, (2017) Inclusion Is Dead: Long Live Inclusion. Routledge Focus 

Imray, P and Hadfield, M. (2019) EQUALS Pre-formal (PMLD) Curriculum EQUALS 

Imray, P. and Hinchcliffe, V. (2014) Curricula for Teaching Children and Young People with severe and profound and multiple learning difficulties: Practical Strategies for educational professionals Routledge 

Reich, K., Garrison, J.  & Neubert, S. (2016) Complexity and Reductionism in Educational Philosophy—John Dewey’s Critical Approach in ‘Democracy and Education’ Reconsidered. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 48:10, 997-1012, 

Sayer A (2000) Realism and Social Science. London: SAGE.

Stolz, S.A. (2015) Embodied Learning. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 47:5, 474-487

Standards and Testing Agency (2020) The Engagement Model Crown Publishing

Van Manen, M. (2015) Pedagogical Tact: Knowing What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do. Routledge 

Ware, J. (2003) Creating a responsive environment for people with profound and multiple learning difficulties 2nd ed. David Fulton Publishers 

Welsh Assembly Government (2006) Routes for Learning: Assessment Materials for Learners with Profound Learning Difficulties and Additional Disabilities. Cardiff. Welsh Assembly Government.

Wrigley, T. (2019) The problem of reductionism in educational theory: Complexity, causality, values. Power and Education 2019, Vol. 11(2) 145–162