“Should all deaf children learn sign language?” This seemingly innocuous question was the theme of a roundtable article published in the influential journal Pediatrics in 2015, which compiled responses from a range of stakeholders, including otolaryngologists, linguists, educators, and parents of deaf children. Understandably, this broad diversity also delivered a range of responses: while educator Nancy Mellon and surgeon John …
Tag Archives: Disability
Visions of Black Futurity Amidst the Double Pandemic of COVID-19 and Police Brutality
This article is part of the series: Dispatches from the pandemic
When I ask Willow, an Afro-Puerto Rican young woman in her 20s, if quarantine has helped reduce the stigma of mental illness, she responds:
…I think it will because now we have something to compare it to. When we’re talking about having a hard time or feelings of not being able to escape ourselves, we can say, “Well, how was
Disability Justice and Material Needs: Reflections on the Experiences of Autistic New Yorkers Living Under Covid-19
This article is part of the series: Dispatches from the pandemic
As a member of NYU’s Disability Equity in the Time of COVID-19 research team during the summer of 2020[1], I had the opportunity to conduct seven virtual interviews by Zoom or phone with autistic adults living in the New York metro area about their experiences during the pandemic, what our team is calling “COVID Chronicles.” I also conducted …
Interpreting Sexuality: Intellectually Disabled People and “Special” Educators in India
This article is part of the series: Reworking the Cognitive Bias
“Why does she like putting the glass bottle near her pee-hole? She couldn’t talk and tell us what was going on…what did she exactly want? What was in her mind?… [I]t was very hard to figure that out…but I had to keep working on this because we work with special children and we are special educators.”
Savita, a special educator …
Intimate connections and singular embodiments: disability in times of the Covid-19 pandemic
This article is part of the series: Dispatches from the pandemic
In Brazil, most state governors and city mayors in Brazil have been following the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines and, in defiance of federal government protocol, have adopted policies of social isolation and distancing. To stay home with our families, going out only when necessary is an effective policy for care and prevention aimed at the “general population.” Still, when …
What the experience of Covid-19 tells us about disability, work, and accessibility
This article is part of the series: Dispatches from the pandemic
The ‘new normality’ in the world of work:
Bernardo, one of the authors of this piece, has Larsen’s Syndrome, a rare genetic disease. Because of this, he has difficulty traveling long distances and needs accommodations. He says that on the first day of work on January 2020, in an effort to find the classroom where he would teach courses on …