This book will be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in disability studies, childhood studies, medicine and health sciences, and sociology. It also provides insights that will be of use and value to professionals working with disabled children and adolescents in education, health and in disability-specific services.
Opening with four narratives that offer the reader a window into the lived experience of disabled children, adolescents and their families, subsequent chapters explore a range of issues facing disabled children from early childhood through to late adolescence. Topics include family life, early intervention, inclusive and post-secondary education, the right to play, digital participation, the effects of labelling and matters relating to agency and sexuality.
With chapters discussing research from Australia, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Mexico, New Zealand, Sweden and the UK amongst others, this book:
contributes to the existing body of knowledge about the lives of disabled children and adolescents, with a focus on socially created disabling factors provides the reader with analysis of issues affecting disabled children and adolescents according to different conceptual frameworks, national contexts and with regard to different types of impairments/disabilities highlights the main issues that confront disabled children and adolescents, their families and their allies in the early twenty-first century highlights the importance of actively listening to the perspectives of disabled children and adolescents
It provides a rich source of knowledge and information about the lives of disabled children and adolescents, and a variety of perspectives on how their lives are affected by material and non-material factors, social structures and cultural constructions.
1.The Lives of Children and Adolescents with Disabilities: An Introduction. 2.Kia ora from Ralph. 3.Childhood: magic or misery? Childhood: happy or sad? 4.The Tale of the Dancing Eyes. 5.The Trouble with ‘Normal’: Finding hope through resistance. 6.Disabled Children’s Active Participation in Early Childhood Education: A story of love, rights and solidarity from Aotearoa New Zealand. 7.Positioning the Views of Children with Developmental Disabilities at the Centre of Early Interventions. 8.A Minority Within the Family: Disabled children and parental perceptions. 9.Nature Play for Disabled Children – Muddy puddles for all? 10.Disabled Children’s Recreational Uses of Digital Technologies in the Context of Children’s Digital Rights. 11.The Individual Education Programme: Who knows best? 12.Digital Participation and Competencies for Young People with Intellectual or Developmental Disabilities. 13.Autistic Youth as Active Agents for Societal Change. 14.'Normal, different, or something in between’. Young people with autism and Down syndrome and psycho-emotional disablism. 15.We are Sexual Too: Sexuality in the lives of disabled adolescents. 16.Challenges of the Somos Uno Más [We are one of the same] Programme in the Access to Higher Education and Preparation for Adulthood of Young Persons with Intellectual Disability in Mexico.
Angharad E. Beckett, FRSA, is Professor of Political Sociology and Social Inclusion at the University of Leeds. She is a member of the Centre for Disability Studies (Leeds), where she was for many years Co-Director. She is a researcher and educator in the area of disability and social justice, with a primary focus on rights and inclusion for disabled children. She regularly advises national and international governments and civil society organisations on related matters. Anne-Marie Callus is Associate Professor in the Department of Disability Studies, Faculty for Social Wellbeing, University of Malta. She lectures, researches, and has published on disability rights, empowerment of persons with intellectual disability, inclusive education and disabled children’s rights, as well as cultural representations of persons with disability. She is Deputy Editor of Disability & Society.