Special education in Denmark and integration of visually handicapped children in normal classes in the public school

Experience over the last decade in integrating severely visually handicapped pupils in normal school classes is encouraging. We have learned that a visual handicap, no matter how severe, can be compensated for through materials, educational support, cooperation between the persons involved so that the child can be taught in the local school where he belongs and live as normal a life as possible. We are also aware of how things can be improved, but this is a question of economics and to some extent emotional attitudes in the pupil's environment. Although much is done to inform as many as possible in the child's milieu about what blindness is and what to do about it, we still meet problems of full acceptance of the handicap. It takes more than a decade to change emotional attitudes and because of this and because the first demand to any kind of teaching must be flexibility, the integrated education of the visually handicapped will never be a question of neither/nor but always a question of either/or.