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Finding Books
People with Disabilities
HV1551-3024
Disabilities in Education
LC4001-4806.5
Children's Literature
King Library, Ground Floor, IMC; Regionals , ask at desk
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Articles and Other Resources
Rethinking disability: the social model of disability and chronic diseaseAbstract: Disability is commonly viewed as a problem that exists in a person’s body and requires medical treatment. The social model of disability, by contrast, distinguishes between impairment and disability, identifying the latter as a disadvantage that stems from a lack of fit between a body and its social environment. This paper describes the social model of disability and then considers how it might deal with chronic disease or impairment and why medical professionals should learn about disability perspectives to improve their practice.
Lived experience: Deaf professionals’ stories of resilience and risksAbstract: Navigating a phonocentric and audistic society can be challenging for Deaf people, yet some of them adapt and exhibit resilience. Although there is a plethora of resilience studies, Deaf people’s narratives are largely unexplored. This phenomenological study explored from a Deaf cultural-linguistic lens 10 Deaf professionals who use American Sign Language in the United States and their observation of other Deaf people’s lived experience. The study focused particularly on their experiences in overcoming significant barriers in their lives and the factors that strengthen Deaf people’s resilience. Based on qualitative data gathered from narrative interviews, three main themes emerged from this study: (a) Barriers to Incidental Learning: The Dinner Table Syndrome; (b) Importance of Family Involvement; and (c) Protective Role of the Deaf Community as a Second Family. The stories in this study highlight how Deaf professionals and other Deaf people navigate barriers and manifest resilience.
The Neurodiversity Approach(es): What Are They and What Do They Mean for Researchers?This paper presents the concepts of "neurodiversity" and the "neurodiversity approaches" towards disability and discusses how confusion regarding the meaning of these concepts exacerbates debate and conflict surrounding the neurodiversity approaches. For example, some claim the neurodiversity approaches focus solely on society and deny contributions of individual characteristics to disability (a controversial stance), whereas this paper joins other literature in acknowledging the contributions of both individual and society to disability. This paper also addresses other controversies related to neurodiversity, such as uncertainty regarding the scope of the approaches – to whom do they apply? – and their implications for diagnostic categories. Finally, it provides recommendations for developmental researchers who wish to carry out neurodiversity-aligned research: scholars are urged to study both individual neurodivergent people and the contexts around them; to consider both strengths and weaknesses; to recognize their own biases; and to listen to and learn from neurodivergent people.
Blind but Not Inferior to OthersPresents a speech by Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, given to New College at the University of Oxford in Oxford, England, dealing with blindness, quotas, and the disadvantages of civil rights.
Putting an End to the Idea of Working Twice as Hard: How Leadership Can Affect Change in the Workplace for People Who Are BlindThe article explores the role of upper management in creating a harmonious workplace for blind employees. It discusses the importance of ensuring equity in the workforce by providing the tools and resources needed to do one's job as well as the tools by which the employee is measured in performing that job. It also describes the features of an accessible workplace, including tactile floor plans and ubiquitous braille use.
'It's a gift...and a curse': How COVID Reframed Our Understanding of Disability as an Intersectional IdentityMore than any event in recent memory, the COVID pandemic compelled people worldwide to confront how decisions made at the top levels of institutions led to devastating consequences and exacerbated inequalities. People who typically experience a great deal of societal privilege were forced to reckon that the systematic failure of structure could impact them directly in previously unimagined ways. This article explores how COVID was both a gift and a curse for those who live at the intersection of invisible disabilities and other social identities. For individuals with class privilege and invisible disabilities, COVID required employers to accommodate work-from-home and flexible scheduling options on a scale previously unavailable to most workers. While this may have supported productivity for some individuals, those gains were not available to all. Given that we do not yet know how many survivors of COVID will experience long-term side effects, societies will continue to wrestle with supporting large numbers of workers who find themselves in the disabled category for the first time. This article examines how invisible disability intersects with existing social statuses in a way that holds up a mirror to society more broadly, forcing it to confront its able-bodied privilege