Among other things, my aim for this site is to ensure that parents love their children exactly as they are, right now. Not how they will be one day when they are “fixed” or “cured.” I didn’t come to this position on my own accord. I learned it from years of watching my sister get bullied on the playground because she was disabled. I learned from my disabled friends and colleagues who told me how they wanted to be not just talked about and described, but also allowed to feel pride in how their disability makes them unique. That someone can come into this world and deserve to be loved, respected, valued, and given the upmost autonomy just by virtue of being alive should not be a controversial position.
But it is.
Children shouldn’t have to earn unconditional acceptance and love. Over the last 15 years, tremendous progress has been made to educate parents to wholeheartedly accept, embrace, and cherish their child who reveals they are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, questioning, pansexual, or asexual. So too do disabled children need to be loved and nurtured, exactly as they came into this world. They do not owe anyone conformity as a condition of love and acceptance. Their bodies and their minds should be valued and welcomed as a natural occurrence of the human condition.
If you’re here, chances are you have a child with a developmental disability, or you might work with children in some capacity. Whether you’re a school teacher or social worker, a mom to medically complex kids, or a caregiver for autistic children who are regularly disregulated, there’s something for you on the tabs to the left. Take a look and let me know what I forgot.
Early Childhood Education
Affirming books you will love: Just Ask by Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor and Why Johnny Doesn’t Flap: NT is Ok!
Tenet 1: Racism and ableism are interdependent and operate in often obscured or neutralized ways to uphold notions of normalcy
Tenet 2: Identities are multidimensional and cannot be reduced to singular categories or dimensions (e.g., race or dis/ability or class or gender)
Tenet 3: Though race and dis/ability are social constructions, they manifest in material consequences for those for whom these constructions place them at the margins
Tenet 4: The voices of marginalized populations should be honored and privileged as experts of their own experiences and as knowledge generators
Tenet 5: We should attend to the legal and historical aspects of race and dis/ability and how they have been used separately and jointly to deny rights
Tenet 6: Whiteness and ability are property that have been denied to people of Color and people labeled with dis/abilities; gains in rights have largely been due to interest convergence with white, middle-class citizens
Tenet 7: Activism is required for equity and social justice and all forms of resistance should be recognized
Teacher Candidates Talking (but Not Talking) About Dis/ability and Race in Preschool
In the context of U.S. early educational systems in which ableism and racism operate to construct oppressive notions of normativity, young children are actively making meaning. Indeed, as early as age 3 years, young children may internalize deficit-based messages, form prejudicial attitudes, or act in discriminatory ways with regard to both dis/ability (Diamond & Tu, 2009) and race (Johnson & Aboud, 2017). Children’s conceptualizations of normativity and deviance do not simply emerge as a “natural” stage of development but are constructed through social processes in young children’s lives (Farago et al., 2017). Said differently, ableism and racism do not suddenly manifest in adulthood; these intersecting ideologies are animated by social interactions and discourses in early educational contexts, perpetuating harm for intersectionally marginalized young children. Therefore, we situate our study within a body of work that recognizes that the messages educators send about dis/ability and race matter as young children make meaning of their worlds.
Overrepresentation and Disproportionality
Whiteness as Property: Innocence and Ability in Teacher Education
There is a vast overrepresentation of children of color in the disability categories of learning disabilities (LD), intellectual disabilities (ID, formerly known as Mental Retardation), and emotional disabilities (ED) (Donovan and Cross 2002). These are considered high incidence disabilities because the majority of children in special education are given these labels (Losen and Orfield 2002). These designations also rely on the judgment of school personnel, many who do not share the racial, ethnic, and cultural background of their students (Artiles et al. 2010). Importantly, this pattern of overrepresentation does not occur in medically defined disability categories2 (e.g., blind, deaf) (Harry and Klingner 2006). Therefore concern is significant when children of color are overrepresented in disability categories that rely on the judgment of adults, who may conflate differences with internal deficits (Arzubiaga et al. 2008).
“Misogyny across medical systems, which upholds ideas of female ‘hysteria’ and over-emotionality, means women are more likely to be disbelieved or wrongly diagnosed with personality differences and mental health issues. These diagnosis can then cause access issues to Autistic identification.
Professionals are not seeing the very real connection between what would be considered ‘disorders’ (what I prefer to call embodied self-preservation) and Autistic experience, which often includes consistent trauma. So, even when females are diagnosed with personality differences they are often overlooked for also being Autistic.
Access to diagnosis is also difficult for transgender and gender divergent individuals who wish to transition medically. Often these people are left to choose between being supported with their Autistic diagnosis or gender affirmation, but very rarely are they given the opportunity for help with both. Unfortunately, Autistic people are still seen as children who do not understand gender and therefore are not ‘really’ transgender. This infantilsation denies Autistic people gender affirming healthcare and many forgo an autism diagnosis so they can get help with the more immediate need of living their authentic gender.”
Problems with “evidence” relied upon to create services for disabled children (selected excerpts)
Scripting is not a symptom — It is speech
“Actions listed as “problematic” include tapping surfaces, licking objects, or moving away from adults—behaviours which, in many cases, reflect either communicative intent or age-typical regulation strategies. The study outlines a regime of behavioural suppression under the guise of “intervention,” with no exploration of the communicative function of these actions, no apparent consent or assent measures appropriate to the age and communication style of the children, and no inclusion of long-term impact measures relating to wellbeing, autonomy, or social participation…[To] suppress these expressions without first considering whether they are communicative in nature not only misrepresents the purpose of the behaviour but also risks violating these individuals’ legal rights. As the AGP reminds us, communication is not always verbal, nor is it always directed at others—it can be sensory, embodied, and self-regulatory. A child tapping their fingers rhythmically on a desk or walking away from a stimulus may be signalling discomfort, overstimulation, or simply exercising agency in a context that overwhelms. Treating such actions as disruptive rather than meaningful reveals an underlying deficit lens, rather than one grounded in either rights-based reasoning or developmental understanding.”
Resources discussing autistic masking created by an autistic person
“Masking is non-specific to Autistic people; groups who are marginalised and stigmatised in various ways have a tendency to respond in various ways, some similar to Autistic Masking, some specific to those groups. For a very long time terms like 'passing', 'the closet', 'concealment' and so on. All of those responses are a version of Masking, specific to that group in terms of the mechanisms and the reasons for their Mask to exist.
Autistic Masking is an action specific to Autistic people. Autistic Masking a psychological safety mechanism made up of complex layers of physical, emotional and social actions which an Autistic person is driven to use to self-protect and project an acceptable version of who they are.”
Research, diagnosis, and treatment of ADHD is in flux
“I’ve invested 35 years of my life trying to identify the causes of A.D.H.D., and somehow we seem to be farther away from our goal than we were when we started,” he told me. “We have a clinical definition of A.D.H.D. that is increasingly unanchored from what we’re finding in our science.” Despite the questions these scientists have begun to raise, the growth of the diagnosis shows no signs of stopping or even slowing down. Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 11.4 percent of American children had been diagnosed with A.D.H.D., a record high. That figure includes 15.5 percent of American adolescents, 21 percent of 14-year-old boys and 23 percent of 17-year-old boys. Seven million American children have received an A.D.H.D. diagnosis, up from six million in 2016 and two million in the mid-1990s. That ever-expanding mountain of pills rests on certain assumptions: that A.D.H.D. is a medical disorder that demands a medical solution; that it is caused by inherent deficits in children’s brains; and that the medications we give them repair those deficits. Scientists who study A.D.H.D. are now challenging each one of those assumptions — and uncovering new evidence for the role of a child’s environment in the progression of his symptoms. They don’t question the very real problems that lead families to seek treatment for A.D.H.D., but many believe that our current approach isn’t doing enough to help — and that we can do better. But first, they say, we need to rethink many of our old ideas about the disorder and begin looking at A.D.H.D. anew.”