Logics of Ability
Opportunity versus Capacity for Career Development amongst Individuals with Autism
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Francesca Dansereau, Tara Flanagan
In the early 1990s there was an increase of individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). One response was to facilitate early intervention and support with the hopes of increasing positive post-high school outcomes and vocational opportunities (VanBergeik, Klin, and Volkmar, 2008). However, very little research has focused on vocational outcomes, especially regarding the environmental influences on these. The individual characteristics related to negative outcomes have been extensively researched (e.g., neurology, processing speed, executive functioning, language and communication, learning disabilities, and psychiatric comorbidities) though the environmental and societal contributors have been largely ignored. This proposed research will contribute to the field by addressing the notions of self-determination and vocational maturity, by furthering the concept initiated by Super in 1957 that a person’s diversified opportunities support career development. This mixed method study will focus on the career trajectory of individuals with ASD without intellectual disability by looking at their vocational maturity during late adolescence and young adulthood. We will use a Self-Determination framework to explore these concepts. By using the AIR self-determination questionnaire and case studies of vocational trajectories, we plan to evaluate the amount of opportunities available to individuals with ASD and to explore the availability of supports and resources that promote their vocational readiness and career development. The potential implications are to highlight the supports and resources available to other individuals with ASD and to encourage professionals in the field to further their knowledge regarding career development.
The Impact of Mixed Ability Sailing on Executives’ Attitudes and Workplace Behavior: Can Contact Change Attitudes?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Grace Brown
This research focuses on building positive attitudes towards physical disability in the workplace by assessing the impact of the intervention on able-bodied executives’ attitudes. We tested intervention impact with an overall hypothesis that “working as an equal alongside people with differences, in an 'out of comfort zone' environment, will bring about positive changes in attitudes towards disability and potentially other kinds of diversity encountered in the workplace.” In addition, we investigate whether intervention impact differed between those with and without previous contact with disability. Attitudes towards disability are likely to improve through more frequent interactions between disabled people and non-disabled people. This assertion is held up by numerous studies which have supported the "contact hypothesis" (Pettigrew 2000). This states that stigma may be reduced by equal status contact between majority and minority groups in the pursuit of common goals (Allport 1954). The intervention provides ideal conditions for the contact hypothesis to take place. Quantitative results from a questionnaire and implicit association test show a statistically significant increase in positive attitudes towards disability post-intervention. Qualitative data gained from interviews and focus groups provide an understanding of how this change in attitude takes place, through themes of trust, permission, and a focus on individual's strengths rather than weaknesses. Overall this research contributes to an understanding of how organizations can increase inclusive practice on the basis of fostering positive attitudes between individuals and groups characterized by social difference.
Acceptance as a Negative: A Conversation of Ableism and Identity within Disability Rhetoric
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session D'arcee Charington Neal
Twenty-seven years ago the American with Disabilities Act became the law, cementing a foundational promise to people with disabilities nationwide. What occurred however, was quite the opposite. As a unified society, it is generally understood that against traditional ideologies, racism, as a commonly negative signifier would be met with rightful indignation and linguistic disdain for its use of lazy, culturally loaded verbiage rooted in openly discriminatory practice. But in contrast, as a more pervasively subtle idiom, ableism or the idea of overvaluing the material world and circumstances that benefit people without disabilities solely for the perception of normality as a collective, is seen as inherently trivial; a kind of accusatorial leverage held by the pseudo-privileged, and the neoliberal creation of a psychologically sensitive public. However, it is this very rhetoric that lays the foundational discord inherent in the language of disability and the public’s relation to it. Today, as disabled people emerge from the shadows demanding autonomy and independence, an equally assertive demand for linguistic accountability comes with it. My paper confronts modern ableism as it exists within subconscious rhetorical devices, comparing societal views against those of two prominent ideals of disabled rhetoric: person-first language versus identity-first language. By examining both the historical and common views of these ideas, my argument in favor of a demand for the examination of modern ableist rhetoric, comes at a critical moment in American conversations on progress.
