Westwood (1995) usefully reviews recent research and thinking.

Teachers’ actions and reactions … are greatly informed by what they believe about the characteristics of their students, the nature of learning and the causes of learning difficulty … If teachers expect that a student with a learning problem … will be unable to do certain things, or will always achieve poorly, there is a danger that they will treat the student in ways which make that assumption come true. The negative impact that this ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ can have on students’ learning outcomes has been recognised for many years. (eg Rosenthal & Jacobson 1968) However, negative expectancy is not an easy factor for teachers to bring under their voluntary control, and therefore it still influences the way some students with special needs are treated. (ibid.p. 19)

Jordan et al (1993) discuss teachers’ beliefs and the fundamental effect they have upon teaching methods. They claim that teachers are either ‘traditional’ or ‘alternative’. Traditional teachers, they claim, believe that a problem is inherent to the student and that a pathology, a diagnosis, should be sought. Teaching will be narrowed to fit the diagnosis, and expectations will fall, in the face of pathology. Alternative teachers, in contrast, believe the problem is external to the student - they believe it is likely to be the inevitable fallout from the complex environmental and interpersonal interactions inherent in living. Their teaching approach will centre on student problems and abilities rather than on a ‘deficit’. No pathology will be sought. Johnston (1985) similarly describes teachers as falling either into ‘processing deficit’ models or ‘alternative models’ depending on the characteristics they attribute to students. The former attribute students with ‘characteristics which are resistant to education’, the latter with ‘characteristics which potentially can be changed with education’.

Westwood’s research (Westwood 1995) shows that some 75 per cent of teachers’ belief systems fit the traditional, rather than alternative, model, claiming that ‘… teachers still attribute most learning problems to factors within the student’ (ibid.p. 20) He also says (ibid.p. 19) that

While at times some forms of differential treatment are highly appropriate for such students [those with learning difficulties], and actually reflect an attempt to adapt instruction to their special needs, problems do arise when the treatment is influenced by false assumptions concerning the students’ potential for learning. (My emphasis)

For those who tend to seek pathology (and dyslexia comes seductively to mind, of course) Westwood offers many common, everyday and plausible alternative explanations for learning difficulties and many hopeful suggestions as to how these may, in general terms, be overcome. So does Johnston (1985) and so does Chan (1994 & 1996). Westwood (1995) claims that ‘… the deficit model is alive and well’ and also that ‘The belief that most learning problems can be blamed upon the student militates strongly against the student’s best interests.’ (ibid.p. 21) He goes on to quote Ginsburg, saying that ‘The most effective strategy for dealing with learning problems is to improve the quality of instruction.’ (ibid.p. 21). Vivienne Smith (2004) writes a devastating account of teacher & pupil disempowerment germane to this debate.

Some general categories of alternative explanations suggested by Westwood, explanations not invoking pathology or deficit, are: ‘an extremely inefficient approach to learning’ including a lack of ‘appropriate teaching methods or the selection of unsuitable curriculum content’; the likelihood that, for some students, ‘… the actual content of the program does not match their existing cognitive skills, is not real to them or is not relevant to their needs’. He suggests that ‘… instruction in meta-cognition, explicit training in task-approach strategies and the teaching of self-instruction and self-monitoring’ have produced promising results (ibid.p. 20). Chan (1994 & 1996) demonstrates the important effects of meta-cognition and the ‘… close relationship between motivation and strategic learning proposed in recent meta-cognitive theories’ (Chan 1994 p. 319). Johnston (1985 p. 174) says that:

Rather than the neurological and processing deficit explanations currently in vogue, we need to consider more seriously explanations which stress combinations of anxiety, attributions, maladaptive strategies, inaccurate or non-existent concepts about aspects of reading and a huge variety of motivational factors.