View the Table of Contents. Read the Introduction.

"The writings of Rubin, Mukhopadhyay, and all of the contributors are testament to the need to embrace a 'disability consciousness' in seeking educational and therapeutic options for autistic persons so that they can achieve their full potential. While Biklen refrains from extensive analysis of his contributors' words, his book is truly valuable in its straightforward presentation of the voices of autistic persons speaking not only for but as themselves."
--"Disability Studies Quarterly"

"Disagrees with the common picture of autism, presenting chapters written by those with autism themselves--including those considered most severely disabled within the world of autism--to present a personalized view of how autism is experienced by those diagnosed. . . . A 'must' for any who understand the autistic experience."
--"Bookwatch"

"Biklen's tenacity is to be admired."
--"CHOICE"

aThe prevailing view of autism and disability is redefined in this beautifully written book. Can you ask for more than to inform, inspire, challenge, and help to create new ways of understanding? "Autism and the Myth of the Person Alone" forces us to confront misunderstanding, misperceptions, and lack of knowledge, and to rethink disability and autism. It demands that we embrace people who act, communicate, and socialize differently. I love this book!a
--Jan Nisbet, Director, Institute on Disability

aAustism and the Myth of the Person Alone is one of those rare professional books that causes one to pause and consider what it tells us about our literature, our field, and, perhaps, ourselves...Biklen has given us a fascinating, thoughtful and, most important, essential book by including insights, experiences, and perspectives of individuals with autism to add to the canon.a
--"American Association on Mental Retardation"

Autism has been defined by experts as a developmental disorder affecting social and communication skills as well as verbal and nonverbal communication. It is said to occur in as many as 2 to 6 in 1,000 individuals. This book challenges the prevailing, tragic narrative of impairment that so often characterizes discussions about autism.

Autism and the Myth of the Person Alone seriously engages the perspectives of people with autism, including those who have been considered as the most severely disabled within the autism spectrum. The heart of the book consists of chapters by people with autism themselves, either in an interview format with the author or written by themselves. Each author communicates either by typing or by a combination of speech and typing. These chapters are framed by a substantive introduction and conclusion that contextualize the book, the methodology, and the analysis, and situate it within a critical disability studies framework. The volume allows a look into the rich and insightful perspectives of people who have heretofore been thought of as uninterested in the world.

The Thing. Daredevil. Captain Marvel. The Human Fly. Drawing on DC and Marvel comics from the 1950s to the 1990s, and marshaling insights from three burgeoning fields of inquiry in the humanities--disability studies, death and dying studies, and comics studies-- Jose Alaniz seeks to redefine the contemporary understanding of the superhero. Beginning in the Silver Age, the genre increasingly challenged and complicated its hypermasculine, quasi-eugenicist biases through such disabled figures as Ben Grimm/The Thing, Matt Murdock/Daredevil, and the Doom Patrol.

Alaniz traces how the superhero became increasingly vulnerable, ill, and mortal in this era. He then proceeds to a reinterpretation of characters and series--some familiar (Superman), some obscure (She-Thing). These genre changes reflected a wider awareness of related body issues in the postwar U.S. as represented by hospice, death with dignity, and disability rights movements. The persistent highlighting of the body's "imperfection" comes to forge a predominant aspect of the superheroic self. Such moves, originally part of the Silver Age strategy to stimulate sympathy, enhance psychological depth, and raise the dramatic stakes, developed further in such later series as "The Human Fly, Strikeforce: Morituri," and the landmark graphic novel "The Death of Captain Marvel," all examined in this volume. Death and disability, presumed routinely absent or denied in the superhero genre, emerge to form a core theme and defining function of the Silver Age and beyond."

The first volume presents a collection of exciting papers exploring several new areas of disability research. The contributions include: examination of the media representation of disability and coverage of disability policy issues which gives an understanding of the far reaching impact of the fourth estate; an historical analysis of the correspondence between the identifier of Down syndrome and Darwin that lends insights into the development of interpretations of mental retardation particularly Down syndrome as a throwback to the more primitive nature of man; analysis of hospital discharge data which demonstrates that persons with chronic conditions and impairments are more likely than those without to need hospitalization for injuries resulting from violence; and an overview of voting behavior among persons with disabilities. Subsequent volumes will focus on specific subjects related to disability issues.

Amit Patel is working as a trauma doctor when a rare condition causes him to lose his sight within thirty-six hours. Totally dependent on others and terrified of stepping outside with a white cane after he's assaulted, he hits rock bottom. He refuses to leave home on his own for three months. With the support of his wife Seema he slowly adapts to his new situation, but how could life ever be the way it was? Then his guide dog Kika comes along . . .

But Kika’s stubbornness almost puts her guide dog training in jeopardy – could her quirky personality be a perfect match for someone? Meanwhile Amit has reservations – can he trust a dog with his safety? Paired together in 2015, they start on a journey, learning to trust each other before taking to the streets of London and beyond. The partnership not only gives Amit a renewed lease of life but a new best friend. Then, after a video of an irate commuter rudely asking Amit to step aside on an escalator goes viral, he sets out with Kika by his side to spread a message of positivity and inclusivity, showing that nothing will hold them back.

From the challenges of travelling when blind to becoming a parent for the first time, Kika & Me is the moving, heart-warming and inspirational story of Amit’s sight-loss journey and how one guide dog changed his world.

'...this book makes a cogent yet impassioned argument that the discourse of care and caring is inappropriate...It deserves to be widely read, discussed and acted upon.' - Journal of Gender Studies;'The author...has produced a piece of research that not only needs to be read and acted upon by as many people as possible, but which is written in a style that is digestible and enjoyable to read.' - Jim Thomas, Nursing Times;'This is the clearest, most compelling book on what disabled people want from 'community care' that I have ever read,...it is destined to become one of the most influential pieces of writing in this area.' - S. Baldwin, Director, Social Policy Research Unit, York 'This is an important study which examines independent living both as the expressed wish of disabled people and as a central objective of Government policy...Let's hope all those involved in community care don't just read it but make sure it changes their provision and practice.' - Michael Oliver, Professor of Disability Studies, University of Greenwich 'This is quite simply a marvellous text. It will boost the morale of disabled people, and widen the thinking of non-disabled policy-makers and professional

Disability and Inequality:Socioeconomic Imperatives and Public Policy in Jamaica explores the lived experiences of persons with disabilities (PWDs) in Jamaica, examining measurable socioeconomic deficits that establish PWDs are more likely to experience inferior education, training, and labor market outcomes compared to persons without disabilities. The author provides an evidence-based, theoretically grounded, and implementable public policy framework, called Framework of Key Determinants for Political and Socioeconomic Inclusion of PWDs, which advances anti-discrimination legislation and a twin-track policy schema with interconnected enablers of human rights. Using this framework, Jamaica, the Caribbean, and other Southern countries looking for methods and strategies to fulfill commitments set out by the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will find approaches to sustain existing progress, and address structural systemic deficits which continue to deny PWDs long-term sustainable development.

What can society learn about disability through the way it is portrayed in TV, films and plays?

This insightful and accessible text explores and analyses the way disability is portrayed in drama, and how that portrayal may be interpreted by young audiences. Investigating how disabilities have been represented on stage in the past, this book discusses what may be inferred from plays which feature disabled characters through a variety of critical approaches.

In addition to the theoretical analysis of disability in dramatic literature, the book includes two previously unpublished playscripts, both of which have been performed by secondary school aged students and which focus on issues of disability and its effects on others. The contextual notes and discussion which accompany these plays and projects provide insights into how drama can contribute to disability education, and how it can give a voice to students who have special educational needs themselves.

Other features of this wide-ranging text include:

• an annotated chronology that traces the history of plays that have featured disabled characters
• an analysis of how disability is used as a dramatic metaphor
• consideration of the ethics of dramatising a disabled character
• critical accounts of units of work in mainstream school seeking to raise disability awareness through engagement with practical drama and dramatic texts
• a description and evaluation of a drama project in a special school.

In tackling questions and issues that have not, hitherto, been well covered, Drama, Disability and Education will be of enormous interest to drama students, teachers, researchers and pedagogues who work with disabled people or are concerned with raising awareness and understanding of disability.

This volume examines the shift toward positive and more accurate portrayals of mental illness in entertainment media, asking where these succeed and considering where more needs to be done. With studies that identify and analyze the characters, viewpoints, and experiences of mental illness across film and television, it considers the messages conveyed about mental illness and reflects on how the different texts reflect, reinforce, or challenge sociocultural notions regarding mental illness. Presenting chapters that explore a range of texts from film and television, covering a variety of mental health conditions, including autism, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and more, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, cultural and media studies, and mental health.

This timely book is about raising awareness of the rights of disabled people to full equality and participation in all areas. It aims to show that disability is an issue of concern to all of us. It is for university faculty staff teaching courses on education law and policy and serves as a resource for students conducting research, government officials, and professionals in these fields.

This collection brings together scholarship and creative writing that brings together two of the most innovative fields to emerge from critical and cultural studies in the past few decades: Disability studies and performance studies. It draws on writings about such media as live performance art, photography, silent film, dance, personal narrative and theatre, using such diverse perspectives and methods as queer theory, gender, feminist, and masculinity studies, dance studies, as well as providing first publication of creative writings by award-winning poets and playwrights. This book was based on a special issue of Text and Performance Quarterly.

Parenting is always a vital and challenging task. Even more vital and challenging is the task of parenting a child with a disability. When there is more than one child in the family, all parents want to share their time, energy, and love with all their children--and all siblings sometimes wonder if they are being treated fairly. When one child in a family has a disability, all this becomes more complex. Parents and sisters and brothers often feel that for them, It isn't fair.

Selected and compiled from two decades of The Exceptional Parent magazine, "It Isn't Fair " reveals first-hand the myriad feelings of normal brothers and sisters at all stages as they grapple with caretaking, frustration, powerlessness, jealousy, guilt, and worry about their special siblings. Breaking the wall of silence that deference has imposed on their experiences, here are the siblings of the child with autism, the child injured at birth, the child institutionalized after many years at home. Parents offer their own experiences and perspectives on their children, and they illustrate the importance of sharing information within the family. The editors also include professional commentary.

Disability Studies and the Inclusive Classroom integrates knowledge and practice from the fields of disability studies and special education to provide readers with a comprehensive understanding of inclusive education. Now in its third edition, this critical volume has been revised and updated to include expanded discussion of disability models and contemporary perspectives on disability. Each chapter features a dilemma to capture the complexities of the field of educational practice to inspire critical thinking and contemplation of inclusive education.

This volume addresses a range of philosophical and ethical issues in adapted physical activity and disability sports participation more broadly. It is comprised of a range of essays by international scholars whose backgrounds embrace different traditions of philosophy, pedagogy and adapted physical activity. The principal aim of the symposium was to open up and critically explore a range of conceptual and ethical issues and perspectives that have arisen with respect to the engagement of persons with dis/abilities in a range of physical activity contexts including, but not exclusively located in, mainstream sporting activities. This book was published as a special issue in Sport, Ethics and Philosophy.

Locates social attitudes towards blindness in a personal and cultural landscape. Is interdisciplinary in its crossing of lines among education, the humanities, and the social sciences. Includes case-studies from Canada, Cyprus, India, Indonesia, Italy, Poland, the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, South America, and Spain.

From the critique of 'the medical model' of disability undertaken during the early and mid-1990s, a 'social model' emerged, particularly in the caring professions and those trying to shape policy and practice for people with disability. In education and schooling, it was a period of cementing inclusive practices and the 'integration' and inclusion of disability into 'mainstream'. What was lacking in the debates around the social model, however, were the challenges to abledness that were being grappled with in the routine and pragmatics of self-care by people with disabilities, their families, carers and caseworkers. Outside the academy, new forms of activity and new questions were circulating. Challenges to abledness flourished in the arts and constituted the lived experience of many disability activists. Disability Matters engages with the cultural politics of the body, exploring this fascinating and dynamic topic through the arts, teaching, research and varied encounters with 'disability' ranging from the very personal to the professional. Chapters in this collection are drawn from scholars responding in various registers and contexts to questions of disability, pedagogy, affect, sensation and education. Questions of embodiment, affect and disability are woven throughout these contributions, and the diverse ways in which these concepts appear emphasize both the utility of these ideas and the timeliness of their application. This book was originally published as a special issue of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.

This approachable study explores experiences of physical and mental impairment in Britain since the Industrial Revolution. Using literary, visual, and oral sources to complement documentary evidence, Anne Borsay pays particular attention to the testimonies of disabled people. Disability and Social Policy in Britain since 1750: - places disability policies within their historical context - examines citizenship and social exclusion from a historical perspective - sketches the key characteristics of modern industrial societies - focuses on the shifting mixed economy of welfare, the development of social rights and the construction of identity - assesses institutional living in workhouses, hospitals, asylums, and schools - appraises community living with reference to employment, financial relief and community care - reviews social policies post-1979 Borsay argues that disabled people were excluded from the full rights of citizenship because they were marginal to the labour market and suggests that history may play a role in raising personal and political consciousness. Containing illustrations, and clearly structured, this book is an ideal guide for all those with an interest in the history of disability and social policies.

When a harrowing heart attack and cardiac arrest robbed Alan's brain of vital oxygen, he lost his abilities to read, write, walk, talk, think, and remember. In a flash, Alan went from being a successful physics professor to a brain injury survivor fighting to relearn everything he once knew. So began seven years of intensive rehabilitation, re-creation, and redefining priorities and goals. Alan also faced the huge challenge of shaping a new identity and life. Above all, our book is the story of a marriage that transforms and triumphs, but is never defeated by catastrophic illness. In a memoir brimming with information, Janet explores the mysteries and miracles of their new world from her perspective as Alan's wife, Interpreter of the World, and rehab partner. Alan shares his eloquent tour of the shattered and healing universe inside his brain as few people can. "Professor Cromer Learns to Read" shows that it is possible for a person with an injured brain to continue to heal and improve for years with the right treatment. It is possible for love to thrive and adapt to challenging circumstances. It is possible to build a life with meaning and gusto even with a devastating illness. Our process of gracefully and grudgingly accepting the roles of chronically ill person and caregiver will resonate with many families. The universality of our situation transcends diagnosis and age to salute the human spirit. Please visit www.janetcromer.com to read advance praise for the book.

Disability Incarcerated gathers thirteen contributions from an impressive array of fields. Taken together, these essays assert that a complex understanding of disability is crucial to an understanding of incarceration, and that we must expand what has come to be called 'incarceration.' The chapters in this book examine a host of sites, such as prisons, institutions for people with developmental disabilities, psychiatric hospitals, treatment centers, special education, detention centers, and group homes; explore why various sites should be understood as incarceration; and discuss the causes and effects of these sites historically and currently. This volume includes a preface by Professor Angela Y. Davis and an afterword by Professor Robert McRuer.

Drawing on new empirical research with disabled people in the UK, and considering the work of theorists such as Berlin, Habermas and Mouffe, Ellison's ideas of proactive and defensive engagement and Turner's 'sociology of the body', Angharad Beckett proposes a new model of 'active' citizenship that rests upon an understanding of 'vulnerable personhood'.

This book provides insight into the globally interlinked disability rights community and its political efforts today. By analysing what disability rights activism contributes to a global power apparatus of disability-related knowledge, it demonstrates how disability advocacy influences the way we categorise, classify, distribute, manipulate, and therefore transform knowledge. By unpacking the mutually constitutive relations between (practical) moral knowledge of international disability advocates and (formal) disability rights norms that are codified in international treaties such as the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the author shows that the disability rights movement is largely critical of statements that attempt to streamline it. At the same time, cross-cultural disability rights advocacy requires images of uniformity to stabilise its global legitimacy among international stakeholders and retain a common meta-code that visibly identifies its means and aims. As an epistemic community, disability rights advocates simultaneously rely on and contest the authority of international human rights infrastructure and its language. Proving that disability rights advocates contribute immensely to a global culture that standardises what is considered morally and legally 'right' and 'wrong', thereby shaping the human body and the body politic, this book will be of interest to all scholars and students of critical disability studies, sociology of knowledge, legal and linguistic anthropology, social inequality, and social movements.

This collection brings together scholarship and creative writing that brings together two of the most innovative fields to emerge from critical and cultural studies in the past few decades: Disability studies and performance studies. It draws on writings about such media as live performance art, photography, silent film, dance, personal narrative and theatre, using such diverse perspectives and methods as queer theory, gender, feminist, and masculinity studies, dance studies, as well as providing first publication of creative writings by award-winning poets and playwrights.

This book was based on a special issue of Text and Performance Quarterly.

This fully revised and expanded second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies takes a multidisciplinary approach to disability and provides an authoritative and up-to-date overview of the main issues in the field around the world today. Adopting an international perspective and arranged thematically, it surveys the state of the discipline, examining emerging and cutting-edge areas as well as core areas of contention. Divided in five parts, this comprehensive handbook covers: Different models and approaches to disability. How key impairment groups have engaged with disability studies and the writings within the discipline. Policy and legislation responses to disability studies and to disability activism. Disability studies and its interaction with other disciplines, such as history, philosophy, sport, and science and technology studies. Disability studies and different life experiences, examining how disability and disability studies intersects with ethnicity, sexuality, gender, childhood and ageing. Containing 15 revised chapters and 12 new chapters from an international selection of leading scholars, this authoritative handbook is an invaluable reference for all academics, researchers, and more advanced students in disability studies and associated disciplines such as sociology, health studies and social work. Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license at https://tandfbis.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138365308_oachapter6.pdf.