This current issues piece will explore how autobiographies written by people with autism can help identify sensory processing differences that might be viewed as possible attributes in an enabling society, but for which ableist perceptions are often negative. In concrete terms, these constructions may be preventing people from entering employment…

Through a close reading of Three Days to Walk, a memoir of disability by Chinese writer Zhang Yuncheng, this paper develops a new understanding of self-narrated life writing and its intersection with disability consciousness in the contemporary Chinese context. It examines the changing nature of disability life writing since the end of the early…

Even though disabled children are targets of various forms of abuse, such issues remain mostly undocumented open secrets in many countries including Ghana. The article is based on a qualitative data provided by three key informants. Six stories emerged from the data and are discussed in terms of four main forms of abuse. Labelling theories are…

In 2001 the UK Government launched its strategy "Valuing People". The strategy, underpinned by the Human Rights Act 1998 (Ministry of Justice 1998), the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (Home Office 1995) and social inclusion claimed to outline ways for services to work, to meet the needs of individuals with learning disabilities . In…

In this paper, the author explores how children with impairments can act as self-monitoring, autonomous individuals in their play in a community playground. In addition, the notion of children with impairments as creative agents in their play is examined. The evidence presented in this paper is derived from the views and perspectives of children…

Western governments have emphasized paid work as a key route to social inclusion for disabled people. Although the proportion of disabled people in "mainstream" employment has increased in recent decades, rates remain significantly below those for non-disabled people. Moreover, disabled workers continue to face discrimination and a lack of…

Inclusive education can help facilitate the inclusion of students with disabilities in mainstream schools. Inclusive education has proven to be a key benefit for disabled children as an end in itself and as a means to an end of greater social acceptance of difference and disability. However there needs to be greater awareness-raising measures at…

We live in a world of vast social differences. People of different ages, cultures, religions, gender and sexual orientation have, and indeed are expected to have, distinct differences in their behaviour, and in the way that they see the world. Asperger's syndrome (AS) is no different. People with AS have different personality types and have…

The prevalence of learning disabilities amongst South Asian communities in the United Kingdom is thought to be almost three times higher than in any other community. Despite this, service utilisation amongst this group remains low and working cross-culturally can pose unique challenges for service providers. The experiences of South Asian families…

This current issue piece aims to address the harmful exclusion of people with disabilities in the Iranian media. In a case study, this author collected news related to statistics of HIV-positive people covered by popular news websites written in the Persian language between June 2011 and June 2012. Within the analysed electronic texts, no…

This case study describes the manner in which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill--the first state-funded institution of higher education in the United States--publicly addressed the disability civil rights movement just before and after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. An analysis of archived documents,…

Parents of children with autism have played a prominent role in controversies surrounding this condition. Parental voices were critical in challenging the "refrigerator mother" theory and more recently have attracted public attention for claims that autism may be caused by childhood vaccinations and that "unorthodox biomedical" treatments may…

This paper is about mothering, young learning disabled people, their sexualised and relationship lives and normalisation--not through the lens of the disabled person, but via a mothers perspective and theoretical discussion. As a mother who has a learning disabled daughter, a feminist and an academic my own mothering experience, my Ph.D. research…

With so much unknown about autism, the disability tends to reflect the sociocultural preconceptions people project onto it. The predominant narrative in Western society of autism as a "disease" within the medical model contrasts with the more positive, empowering view of autism as a "difference" in the social model and neurodiversity movement.…

Existing historical understandings of disability are dominated by European and American experience and tend to assume Judeo-Christian ideas of stigma and exclusion are universal norms. This paper emphasises the unique experience of disability in India and the role of poverty, gender, caste and community in compounding the marginalisation felt by…