Labels often help to qualify and quantify the needs and wants of related groups of individuals, but often they can also add to issues eg the attitudes of others to the label, rather than understand the individual. The labels "learning disability" and "learning difficulty" have come to replace other labels such as "mental handicap" and change continues with the arrival of "learning differences".

The social model of disability proposes that systemic barriers, negative attitudes and exclusion by society (purposely or inadvertently) are the ultimate factors defining who is disabled and who is not in a particular society. It recognises that while some people have physical, sensory, intellectual, or psychological variations, which may sometimes cause individual functional limitation or impairments, these do not have to lead to disability, unless society fails to take account of and include people regardless of their individual differences.

Sometimes the labels are bundled - "Learning Disabilities & Difficulties" (LDD).

One of our volunteers, Steven Reynolds, has been exploring the definitions and implications of "learning disabilities" and "learning difficulties, and his findings are presented here in the form of a series of PowerPoint presentations.

This work has been uploaded onto the PASTEL webship to serve as an introduction to the area, stimulate thought and point to some authorative "experts" . Once digested it becomes apparent that these issues are not "cut and dried".

We are not born as clones of each other and this applies equally to the brain. We are not all "wired" the same way...some are "left-handed" while others are "right-handed". Everyone has disabilities and abilities...

We need to be careful of judging someone by a label, which may have different interpretations and a broad coverage.

PASTEL assesses the individual - their character and their curret and potential abilities, given the correct support and encouragement.

• For the PASTEL General Introduction to LDD, please click here.

We hope this work is both of interest and use to others, and should you have any comments, queries or suggestions for the continuing improvment of this work, then please e-mail don.tricker@pastel.org.uk