Open Society

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

Neurodiverse individuals face conflicting expectations about emotional expression. Gus Walz's story reveals the bias and challenges around being authentic.

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

A test of AI for Australia's corporate regulator found that the technology might actually make more work for people, not less.

Speculative Care Futures is a report written from the perspective of of an imagined social care facility providing day services for adults described as having Profound and Multiple Learning Disabil…

The Core Principles of Media Literacy Education illuminate the dynamics between individuals, media, and structures that shape our world.

This study provides an analysis of how the term “media literacy” has been defined by authors of articles published in the Journal of Media Literacy Education. It generates answers to two questions: (1) To what extent does there appear to be a shared meaning for the term “media literacy” across authors who publish articles on this topic, and (2) When authors cite definitions of media literacy, which sources do they use most often? The findings of this content analysis reveal that there are a great many definitions being used for media literacy as well as a large number of sources being cited for those definitions. This study uncovered more than 400 definitional elements, which were then organized into a six-category scheme that reflects the full span of thinking exhibited by authors of the 210 articles published in this journal.

Sign up to Milanote for free with no time-limit: https://milanote.com/zoebee Media literacy is dead. ...or so I thought. Come with me as I recount ...

Most neurodivergent students attend mainstream schools; however, it can be difficult to make and keep friends, and it is common for neurodivergent people to fee...

While various screening instruments for autism spectrum disorders are widely used in diagnostic assessments, their psychometric properties have not been simultaneously evaluated in the outpatient setting where these instruments are used most. In this study, we tested the Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagno …

Adults are increasingly self-identifying as autistic, and reporting problems being referred for an autism diagnostic assessment. This scoping review aims to ascertain: (1) what research has been conducted on the self-identification process of autism in adults, who do and do not have a formal diagnosis of autism, and (2) which aspects of the self-identification process could be used to improve the referral and the diagnostic process of an adult autism assessment. The main themes identified were: the diagnostic process from a client´s perspective; the process of self-identifying as autistic from a lifespan perspective; an autistic identity; sexual identity and experiences, and the perception of autism as a difference or a disability. These themes could positively enhance the referral and diagnostic process.

1,201 likes, 23 comments - sylviaduckworth on August 9, 2020: "“Intersectionality” is a term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw to help explain how one’s identity markers intersect and effect one’s life experiences. The markers in this drawing are not complete as I was limited by space. What’s missing?".

Autistic people experience more co-occurring health conditions and, on average, die younger than non-autistic people. Despite growing awareness of health inequi...

This edited collection of contributions explores non-normative genders, sexualities, and relationality among Autistic people. Written within an explicitly neuro-affirmative frame, the collection celebrates the diversity and richness of Autistic identity, sexuality, gender, and relationships, exploring areas such as consent, embodiment, ink, kink, sex education, and therapeutic work. All editors and contributors are neurodivergent and members of the communities that the book focuses on, providing

Previously I’ve written about the importance of recognising and valuing different forms of communication and the need for us to allow for expressive as well as functional communication. In this pie…

For a long time I didn’t really understand what the big deal was about being with other people. Yes, they could be funny, kind and interesting. But frankly, as far as I was concerned, I was already…

This is what I’m currently calling my ongoing work in figuring out ways to describe, name, visualise and generally communicate autistic ways of being particularly autistic ways of playing, co…

Who We Are The U.S. Gender and Disability Justice Alliance (USGDJA or the Alliance) is a new disability justice-oriented collective convening women, nonbinary persons, and other gender minorities with disabilities from across the United States together to take action on issues important to our community. Mission Statement We aim to educate policymakers, related human and […]

Read writing from U.S. Gender and Disability Justice Alliance on Medium. Advocating for rights and justice at the intersection of disability and gender.

The photo is among several highly commended in this year's Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest

The Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL) has released an interesting study of the stressors that come with video calls, and outlined potential solutions that can help. The research is alre…

To understand how the anti-trans agenda could reshape all of our lives, The 19th set out to examine how the laws and rhetoric behind it are impacting Americans.

Autistic people continue to face considerable stigmatization. Much work remains to be done to identify and tackle the causes of this stigmatization. We identify two related assumptions that generate and perpetuate this stigmatization: one ontological; one epistemic. We argue that breaking the stigma around autism requires addressing these twin assumptions. The ontological assumption presupposes the pathologization of autism as a disorder. Addressing this first assumption requires taking neurodiversity seriously and moving away from neuronormativity. The epistemic assumption posits that “allistics-know-best” and prevents allistics from acknowledging the epistemic limits of their own perspective. Addressing this second assumption requires centering Autistics’ perspectives and experiences in the production, dissemination, and use of knowledge about Autistics. To make our case against these two problematic assumptions, we draw on the key epistemological notions of standpoint, ignorance, and epistemic injustice—which have implications for all fields that concern minoritized groups and the contents produced about or with them. Fruitfully connecting our original pluralist conception of epistemic agency (which centers crucial experiential knowledge beyond mere propositional knowledge) to 4E cognition (embodied, embedded, extended, enacted), we identify a new category of epistemic injustice: ecological epistemic injustice. We then illustrate the importance of addressing the widespread yet problematic ontological and epistemic assumptions underlying the stigmatization of autism by turning to the case of applied behavioral analysis (ABA), which instantiates both neuronormativity and epistemic injustice.

Flow state, as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, is a mental state of operation where a person is fully immersed in an activity

In this month’s research roundup Ann picks out some of the current big debates on Autistic lives, and showcases new and important research from teams and academics working within the field.

People often ask if I believe autism is overdiagnosed, if we’re just slapping a label on geeky kids who in previous generations would have been considered merely eccentric. I reply that I believe autism is still underdiagnosed in two groups: women and people of color. The cultural and class bias built into the diagnostic process was so pervasive in the 1980s that psychologist Victor Sanua claimed that autism is rare among families of color. The reality was that people of color often didn’t get decent healthcare.

The medical model of disability describes a widespread approach to disability common since the 1800s that views disabilities of all sorts as abnormalities that need to be cured or eradicated. Under...