Suchergebnisse

Julia Miele Rodas offers Autistic Disturbances: Theorizing Autism Poetics from the DSM to Robinson Crusoe as a tome of resistant literary praxis. So that we might allow 'disordered' to claim poetic voice- that we might recognize the celebration of this voice in our culturally treasured texts, and rather than require retroactive diagnosis, we simply allow these voices to be recognized as worthy- and Autistic. At last, a text which explores autistic language: allowing for its ironies without claiming it to be paradoxical; giving shape to its cultural consistencies without constraining it to a pathologized rigidity; allowing for both meaning where a reader might suspect none and none where a reader might insist on inserting one; and all while refusing to stigmatize, pathologize, medicalize, problematize, or even to diagnose.

Facilitated Communication (FC) is a technique of supported communication for non- speaking people with motor movements commonly understood as spasmodic, dyspraxic, or otherwise unruly. FC is a contentious site of scientific conflict where highly circumscribed quantitative experiments have been unable to reckon with the lived reality of typers. The debate over the efficacy of FC centers around broader arguments of what counts as scientific rigor and validity. In this paper, I remind readers that experiential data is, in fact, empirical. Qualitative analysis is scientifically rigorous. Adopting technologies of analysis from Chela Sandoval's "Methodology of the Oppressed," I explore a rhetorics of evacuation deployed by skeptics that result in the erasure of FC user agency, testimony, and experience. I invite readers to explore how these rhetorics extend beyond FC and into the wider field of education research.

'Unspoken' is a point-of-view documentary directed by Emma Zurcher-Long, Geneva Peschka, and Julia Ngeow. The film explores Emma's relationship with spoken and written language, and challenges viewers to disrupt their preconceptions about autism and autistic people. Emma, a 14-year-old Autistic girl with "unreliable speech", engages us not just through typed words, but through the artistry of film-making and music - inviting us with all the senses we might have to access the fullness of her voice debut.

'Deej' is a documentary film which throws popular assumptions about non-speaking autistics' capacities into sharp relief-- exposing viewers to their biases and preconceptions-- challenging audiences to reframe what they think they know about people which society has labeled 'unincludeable'.