Open Society

A look at the history and myth of the objective journalist and how this ideal has been used to silence marginalized voices.  In The View from Somewhere, Lewis Raven Wallace dives deep into the history of “objectivity” in journalism and how its been used to gatekeep and silence marginalized writers as far back as Ida B. Wells. At its core, this is a book about fierce journalists who have pursued truth and transparency and sometimes been punished for it—not just by tyrannical governments but by journalistic institutions themselves. He highlights the stories of journalists who question “objectivity” with sensitivity and passion: Desmond Cole of the Toronto Star; New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse; Pulitzer Prize-winner Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah; Peabody-winning podcaster John Biewen; Guardian correspondent Gary Younge; former Buzzfeed reporter Meredith Talusan; and many others. Wallace also shares his own experiences as a midwestern transgender journalist and activist who was fired from his job as a national reporter for public radio for speaking out against “objectivity” in coverage of Trump and white supremacy.    With insightful steps through history, Wallace stresses that journalists have never been mere passive observers. Using historical and contemporary examples—from lynching in the nineteenth century to transgender issues in the twenty-first—Wallace offers a definitive critique of “objectivity” as a catchall for accurate journalism. He calls for the dismissal of this damaging mythology in order to confront the realities of institutional power, racism, and other forms of oppression and exploitation in the news industry.  The View from Somewhere is a compelling rallying cry against journalist neutrality and for the validity of news told from distinctly subjective voices.

Like a lot of people, I’ve been losing sleep over the news of the last week. As a working journalist, I’ve been deeply questioning not just…

Couple of easy straightforward questions for us to chew on: 1. What is ‘objectivity’ supposed to mean? And 2. does it exist? Lewis Raven Wallace, a journalist and audiomaker fired from his public radio job over his blog post entitled ‘Objectivity is dead and I'm okay with it’, considers the principa

Request PDF | An Introduction to Critical ADHD Studies | With this chapter, we lay out—necessarily partially—some key elements of the ADHD research field. After summarizing research concerned, albeit... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

Aspie supremacists believe ‘aspies’ have extraordinary powers that not only make their existence worthwhile—but make them better than others.

Lab-based tasks suggest autistic people have increased perceptual capacity (i.e. process more information at any one time) compared to non-autistic people. Here...

As many as one in five children in the UK are neurodivergent, with the majority attending mainstream education. A major project is improving their experience in school.

Questioning breakfast and basic needs is just one small piece in a larger mosaic of reimagining and recreating education (and society). Published by Human Restoration Project, a 501(c)3 organization restoring humanity to education.

The Rehabilitation Services Administration of the United States Department of Education announced this week that $251 million will be awarded to 27 businesses around the country. The money is being…

Before I introduce The Neurodiversity Smorgasbord, I would like to acknowledge that this framework which I started to develop in 2022 has been inspired, shaped, influenced by movements that have come before as well as Mad, Disabled and Neurodivergent Indigenous and Black scholars, thinkers, writers

The data about the effectiveness of letting people choose remote work if they want to is at this point overwhelmingly in favor of remote work. Yet, a lot of managers and organizations like to say “…

"I remember one teacher who refused to let me go to the toilet so I deliberately crapped my pants in the class."

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — According to Whetstone High School students, using the bathroom has become a difficult feat. Freshman Nora Hardesty said the bathrooms at the Columbus City Schools (CCS) high school are dirty, mirrorless and frequently locked. She said those that are open require students to wait in long lines under teacher supervision, and […]

American public schools became “failing schools” exactly when they needed to, to fit the needs of the Fantasy Economy An education podcast from Human Restoration Project.

Nonprofit counts more than 1,300 U.S. schools where students beat the odds

sing option. However, well-designed studies are rare, and the apprehension about cardiovascular side effects from large doses continues to exist. Purpose The aims of this study were (1) to demonstrate the feasibility of treating aggression with high-dose propranolol using telehealth study visits and (2) to document cardiac safety. Methods This study utilized a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover design. Dosing was titrated up in a flexible but stepwise fashion until therapeutic response was obtained or up to 200 mg tid. Following washout, those who were assigned propranolol were crossed over to placebo and vice versa. Six participants between the ages 12–19 participated. The primary outcome measures were the final Clinical Global Impression Improvement Scale (CGI-I) and the Aberrant Behavior Checklist—Community Irritability (ABC-C/I) scores at 200 mg tid. Results The CGI-I indicated a 50% reduction in symptoms in the propranolol phase, while the ABC-I indicated a 37% reduction in comparison to placebo. The effect sizes (r) for the CGI-I and the ABC-C/I were large, −0.74 and −0.64, respectively. The average blood pressure was 122/68 during the placebo phase and 109/72 during the propranolol phase. All Holter monitor exams were unremarkable. Conclusion These results suggest that propranolol is an effective option in decreasing aggression in individuals with ASD. As this was a small study, a larger clinical trial is needed....

Neurodivergent children educated in mainstream classrooms too often face poor outcomes compared to neurotypical peers. These may be caused, or exacerbated, by t...

In this article, we engage in a critical conversation with scholars of neurodiversity. We emphasize the transformative role neurodiversity has in creating a cru...

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Autism diagnoses in adulthood have risen substantially over recent years. While providing potential benefits, many autistic adults struggle to navigate their ne...

Background: Controversy regarding the neurodiversity movement (NDM), the social and medical models of disability, autism intervention goals, and causal attributions of disability contributes to divides in the autistic and autism communities. The present study investigates the views of autistic and non-autistic autistic and autism community members on these topics. We explored whether these views are shaped by having close relationships to autistic people with intellectual disabilities (ID) and nonspeaking autistic (NSA) people. Methods: A total of 504 autistic and autism community members (278 autistic, 226 non-autistic) completed an online survey about theoretical models and intervention goals. Participants reported whether they had one or more close relationships with NSA people, autistic people with ID, neither, or both. Results: Overall, there was considerable consensus regarding desired intervention goals: normalization goals were generally opposed, while participants generally supported well-being, societal reform, supportive environment, and adaptive skill goals. While autistic participants reported less support for normalization and adaptive skills goals than non-autistic participants, they expressed somewhat more enthusiasm for societal reform and supportive environments than non-autistic people. Autistic people supported the NDM more and the medical model less than non-autistic people. Those close to autistic people with ID gave higher ratings to adaptive skill goals. On average, participants not close to autistic people with ID saw the challenges of those without ID as being slightly more due to environmental/social factors than the challenges of those with ID; there was no such statistical difference among those close to autistic people with ID. Conclusion: Further research investigating community views, with the inclusion of more autistic people with ID and NSA people themselves, is needed, but the results of this study suggest that the broader autistic and autism communities see NDM-consistent intervention goals as appropriate for all autistic people, including NSA people and those with ID. As autism interventions have often pursued unpopular normalization goals, this suggests directions for reform.

Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research is an international peer-reviewed journal aiming to disseminate innovative, high quality, social research on disability, which enables critical reflection on the position of people with disabilities in different societal contexts.The journal’s defining characteristic is a focus on the relationship between people with disabilities and their environments. It is multi-disciplinary in scope, incorporating research from a variety of perspectives - such as sociological, historical, cultural studies, health and social policy - which share a commitment to recognising that disability is not a property of the individual person, but something shaped by social relations and structures.The journal was established by the Nordic Network on Disability Research (NNDR), an association who actively facilitate the sharing and dissemination of social research on disability in the five Nordic countries.Read more about the journal here.

utism aligns with the definition of “profound” autism. Using the National Survey of Children's Health, we sought to (1) estimate the prevalence of parent-reported severe autism, (2) identify child characteristics that are associated with severe autism, (3) compare health care utilization, and (4) compare caregiver stress and resilience between families of children with severe versus mild/moderate autism. Methods: Parent responses on the 2018 to 2019 NSCH were used to compare school-age children with parent-reported severe autism and those with mild/moderate autism. Descriptive statistics, χ2 tests, and logistic regression were used for statistical analysis. Results: Among parents of 1,368 US children with autism, 10.1% characterized their child's autism as severe, a prevalence of 1 in 333. Parents of children with severe autism were more likely to report ID (45% vs 12.1%, p 0.001), language delay (88% vs 58.7%, p 0.001), and difficulties in dressing and bathing (67% vs 19.2%, p 0.001). Children with severe autism had more behavioral problems and co-occurring conditions but were no more likely to see specialists or receive autism-specific behavioral therapy. Their caregivers reported more stress and less resilience. Conclusion: The characteristics of “profound” autism and parent-reported “severe” autism significantly overlap, allowing the use of the NSCH for studies of this vulnerable population. Children with profound/severe autism could benefit from more behavioral therapy, specialty care, and family support....

Controversies regarding the neurodiversity movement may be exacerbated by confusion over its meaning. For example, some suggest neurodiversity entails acceptanc...