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Ableism in the Academy Resources

Talks from the Ableism in the Academy Workshop: Books:Dolmage, Academic Ableism (available here as a free PDF)Brown, Lived Experiences of Ableism in Academia: Strategies for Inclusion in Higher EducationBrown and Leigh (eds), Ableism in Academia: Theorising Experiences of Disabilities and Chronic Illnesses in Higher EducationMcMaster…
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September 22, 2024
black and white image of a storm cloud
22 Advocacy

Preferential option for the weak, poor, and disabled

I've noted before (for instance, here and here) about how ableist metaphors and assumptions find their way into what churches say, sing, and affirm in their liturgies. Such language reflects what Amos Yong calls ‘normate biases’–"the unexamined prejudices that non-disabled people have toward disabilities and…
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November 8, 2022
image of #ActuallyAutistic hashtag
22 Advocacy

Learn from autistics

One of the unfortunate things about how parents usually receive diagnoses for their autistic children is that almost all of the resources they're given are about rather than by autistic people. This is especially problematic for folks who don't know autistic adults. While doctors, therapists,…
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May 9, 2022
22 Advocacy

Autistic Exclusion at Churches

I've written and talked about how churches are often among the most unwelcoming places for disabled folks. HERE is an excellent post on how churches often make autistics feel unwelcome. While this may be unintentional, that doesn't mean it's not a problem. In my experience,…
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August 20, 2021
22 Advocacy

IEP training meeting handout

Earlier this summer, I advocated for a local family. They'd been stonewalled repeatedly by their local public school district and got my name from a FB group. We had a five hour IEP meeting where I was able to help the family get nearly everything…
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July 12, 2021
screen capture of a question from the Vineland-3 Adaptive Behavior Scales
22 Advocacy

Requiring dehumanization as the means to support

David Perry has again written something absolutely fabulous, about how our social systems require us to think of, quantify, and characterize disabled children in order to get support. Over the past few nights, I've been slowly working through the Vineland-3 Adaptive Behavior Scale, which is…
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March 9, 2021
22 Advocacy

Isolation

My friend Ellen Stumbo recently wrote this excellent post, which unfortunately captures so much of our experience. I strongly recommend you read the whole post. But here's a taste: Over time, as my two children with disabilities have become older, the isolation has continued to…
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February 9, 2021
22 AdvocacyUncategorized

A Sibling’s Perspective

Our kids are in the "love Lego" stage of life (which I hope they never grow out of). For the past few years, we've given them Lego Advent calendars, which they greatly enjoy. This year, we got them one and my parents got them another.…
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December 14, 2020
Michigan Department of Education logo
22 Advocacy

IEPs and CLPs (Contingency Learning Plans)

Earlier this week, the Michigan Department of Education released this document with guidance following MI's Return to Learn Roadmap specifically for students with IEPs. As a number of articles have pointed out, many disabled students seem to have been disproportionately disadvantaged by the switch to…
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August 27, 2020
photograph of Bogota's skyline at night
Talks & Lectures

Podcast on Free Will

Last summer, I was able to take an amazing trip to Bogota to be part of this fabulous project, teaching down there for two days. While there, I recorded a podcast about some of my work; you can listen to it here (and find the…
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August 21, 2020
A grey-scale icon of Jesus, three children, a woman, and a man. The icon, by Tom Clark, is at the top of the cover of Kinard's book.
22 AdvocacyBook Reviews

Of Such is the Kingdom

Yesterday I stared reading Summer Kindard's new book, Of Such is the Kingdom: A Practical Theology of Disability. I'm a little over 100 pages in (out of a total of around 260) and so far it's perhaps the best single book I know of on…
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February 16, 2020