Beyond disordered brains
Beyond Disordered Brains and Mother Blame
Patty DouglasB
randon University
Estee Klar
York University
Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of critical issues in autism and mothering in order to open up a complicated terrain of mother blame, deficit understandings of autism and biomedical regulation of mothers. We first briefly introduce the reader to historical currents in autism and mothering, tracing the emergence of autism as a brain-based difference and mothers’ labour as the presumed “fix” for the disorder. Along the way, we meet the “refrigerator mother” – that “cold” mother of the 1950s whose destructive love was thought to cause autism – as well as the “mother therapist” and “mother warrior” of today who must shore up all her resources to wage war against autism in her child. Next, the chapter introduces neurodiversity, feminist disability studies and critical autism studies as academic and activist movements that challenge this fraught terrain and offer new possibilities to understand “autism” more positively and to be in relation with those who have attracted the label of autism. Finally, we recommend future research directions that centre lived experience, embrace difference as fundamental to life, and value interdependence as both an ethics and a politics. The chapter also provides recommendations for further reading.
This is the final author copy of a chapter that was published in the Routledge Motherhood Companion.
Recommended Citation:
Douglas, Patty & Estee Klar. (2019). Beyond disordered brains and mother blame: Critical issues in autism and mothering. In Lynn O. Hallstein, Andrea O’Reilly, and Melinda Vandenbeld Giles (Eds.). Routledge Motherhood Companion. Routledge.
Re-storying autism
Re-storying autism: A body becoming DSE approach
Patty Douglas
Brandon University
Carla Rice
University of Guelph
Katherine Runswick-Cole
University of Sheffield
Steacy (Anthony) Easton
Independent Artist and Writer
Margaret F. Gibson
York University
Julia Gruson-Wood
York University
Estee Klar
York University
Raya Shields
York University
Abstract
This paper presents and analyzes six short first-person films produced through a collaborative multimedia storytelling workshop series focused on experiences of autism, education and inclusion. The aim of the project is to co-create new understandings of autism beyond functionalist and biomedical ones that reify autism as a problem of disordered brains and underpin special education. We fashion a body becoming disability studies in education approach to proliferate stories of autism outside received cultural scripts – autism as biomedical disorder, brain-based difference, otherworldliness, lost or stolen child and more. Our approach keeps the meaning of autism moving, always emerging, resisting, fading away and becoming again in relation to context, time, space, material oppressions, cultural scripts, intersecting differences, surprising bodies and interpretative engagement. We argue that the films we present and analyse not only significantly change and critique traditional special education approaches based on assumptions of the normative human as non-autistic, they also enact ‘autism’ as a becoming process and relation with implications for inclusive educators. By this we mean that the stories shift what autism might be and become, and open space for a proliferation of representations and practices of difference in and beyond educational contexts that support flourishing for all.
This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by the International Journal of Inclusive Education available online at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2018.1563835.
Recommended Citation:
Douglas, P., C. Rice, K. Runswick-Cole, A. Easton, M. F. Gibson, J. Gruson-Wood, E. Klar & R. Shields. (2019). Re-storying autism: A body becoming disability studies in education approach. International Journal of Inclusive Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2018.1563835
Disturbing behaviours
Disturbing behaviours: O Ivar Lovaas and the queer history of autism science
Margaret F. Gibson
University of Waterloo
Patty Douglas
Brandon University
Abstract
This paper “queers” the history of autism science through an examination of the overlap between the regulation of autism with that of gender and sexuality in the work of Ole Ivar Lovaas. Lovaas is the founder of Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA), the most commonly used and funded autism intervention today that seeks to extinguish autistic behaviors, primarily among children. Less commonly recognized is Lovaas’ involvement in the Feminine Boy Project, where he developed interventions into the gender identities and behaviors of young people. Turning to Lovaas’ published works, we perform a “history of the present” and argue that a queer disability studies lens opens up the richness of autism as a cultural nexus, and deepens understandings of intersecting and contested histories of science, professional scopes of practice, and dominant futurities. The article makes a significant and timely contribution to understanding the disabling material effects of autism science in the lives of autistic persons. In particular, this case study highlights the need for feminist science studies to further investigate the historical and contemporary links between dominant scientific constructions of disability, gender, and sexuality.
Keywords: autism, gender, sexuality, history of science, queer theory, disability studies
This is the final author copy of an article published in Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience
https://doi.org/10.28968/cftt.v4i2.29579
Recommended Citation:
Gibson, Margaret F. & Patty Douglas. Disturbing behaviours: O Ivar Lovaas and the queer history of autism science. (2018). Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, 4(2). https://doi.org/10.28968/cftt.v4i2.29579
Autism strategy masks exclusion
Autism strategy masks societal exclusion of autistic Ontarians
Estee Klar
York University
Patty Douglas
Brandon University
Anne McGuire
University of Toronto
This is an Op-Ed that was published in the Ottawa Citizen.
Recommended Citation:
Klar, Estee, Patty Douglas & Anne McGuire. (2016). Autism strategy masks societal exclusion of autistic Ontarians, Ottawa Citizen, 19th April. http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/klar-douglas-and-mcguire-autism-strategy-masks-societal-exclusion-of-autistic-ontarians