22 Advocacy

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…

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,…

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,…

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…

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…

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…