Matching Items (32)
Description
From Impossible Angles Towards Strategic Ones: Narratives of Death, Life, and Disability in La Muerte me Da and El Huesped The glamour of single-handedly overcoming adversity, sidestepping obstacles, or defying the odds makes for great mystery or adventure fiction, but fails to do justice (poetic or otherwise) to lives that are both physically and conceptually "marked" by more complex challenges. From a theoretical view, a similar desire to escape or maintain the perceived "dividing line" between fact and fiction, nature and nurture, mind and body, is confronted by a diverse set of human experiences, all of which have come to be defined, and continue to define themselves, along both sides of such a divide. Disability, typically viewed as an "emerging" branch of literary and cultural critique, is perhaps the most pervasive. Hidden under the covert language of the "grotesque", "monstrous", "doppelgänger", "freak", "eccentric" or "queer", disability has historically represented something other than itself. Two texts that attest to both the real and imagined possibilities of resignification and new modes of articulation surrounding disability are La muerte me da (2007) by Cristina Rivera Garza and El huésped (2006) by Guadalupe Nettel. From different points of departure, both texts offer a narrative approximation towards the disabled mind, body, and perceptual experience. In ways that are both similar and different, these narratives question one's perceived access to that which is otherwise understood to be the physically and conceptually "inaccessible" or "illegible" space of disability. Such approximations towards, and articulations of, the disability experience are processes that move, largely unnoticed, both within and beyond texts. As this construct continues to transform itself from both within and outside itself, disability acquires intellectual and practical value while requiring the "experts" in fields beyond the narrow scope of medicine, education, and rehabilitation to (re)consider their own approaches to, and apprehensions of, disability in order to redefine what or who is accessible or viable for literary and cultural debate.
ContributorsNewland, Rachel Renee (Author) / Tompkins, Cynthia (Thesis advisor) / Urioste-Azcorra, Carmen (Committee member) / Rosales, Jesus (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Autism has a unique history. The definition has broadened and changed over time, from an emotional disturbance with psychogenic origins to a neurodevelopmental disability with suspected environmental and genetic origins. Diagnosis occurs later than children born with obvious disabilities such as cerebral palsy or Down syndrome, but earlier than milder, high-incidence disabilities such as dyslexia or attention deficit disorder. Historically, parents have advocated for changes in the way children with autism receive services and how federal funding and educational services are provided. There is often tension between these parents and the medical establishment. There can also be tension between the community of parents and the community of adults who have high functioning autism and Asperger syndrome. Studies have examined individual aspects of autism, from the diagnosis, caring for a child with autism, educational interventions, and genetics to characteristics of the internet community of adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). This study includes interviews with mothers whose children were diagnosed with autism between 1974 and 2004, observations of appointments with developmental pediatricians at which diagnoses were given in 2010, and an analysis of media representations of autism over the same time period. These different data were analyzed together to create a new understanding about the history and present state of autism diagnosis.
ContributorsHornstein, Shana (Author) / Swadener, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) / Mathur, Sarup (Thesis advisor) / Cheatham, Gregory (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
According to national data, there continues to be an ongoing achievement gap between students with disabilities and their non-disabled peers (USDE, n.d.b). This data is representative of a continued disparity in academic performance for students in local Arizona school districts. To address this gap, many districts have implemented inclusion models in which students with disabilities spend increasing amounts of time in general education classrooms, in some cases for the majority of or all of their school day. However, the persistence of the achievement gap suggests that general education teachers working in inclusion models may be lacking systematic instructional methods for ensuring access to the curriculum for those with disabilities and other diverse learning needs.
The purpose of this action research study was to examine the impact that a series of professional development workshops had on teacher beliefs and understanding of disability, intelligence, and accessible pedagogy. The study was conducted over the course of a school semester at a kindergarten through 8th grade school in a large, semi-rural school district in southeastern Arizona. Ten teachers from a variety of grade levels and subject areas participated in the study along with a school psychologist and two school administrators. Theoretical frameworks guiding this project included critical disability theory, growth mindset, universal design for learning, and transformative learning theory. A mixed-methods action research approach was used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data in the form of surveys, interviews, and written reflections. The workshop series included five modules that began with activities fostering critical reflection of assumptions regarding disability and intelligence and ended with pedagogical strategies in the form of universal design for learning.
The results indicate that the innovation was successful in reshaping participant views of disability, intelligence, and pedagogy; however, changes in classroom instruction were small. Implications for future research and practice include more extended sessions on universal design for learning and a more diverse sample of participants. Workshop sessions utilized a variety of active learning activities that were well received by participants and will be included in future professional learning plans across the district.
The purpose of this action research study was to examine the impact that a series of professional development workshops had on teacher beliefs and understanding of disability, intelligence, and accessible pedagogy. The study was conducted over the course of a school semester at a kindergarten through 8th grade school in a large, semi-rural school district in southeastern Arizona. Ten teachers from a variety of grade levels and subject areas participated in the study along with a school psychologist and two school administrators. Theoretical frameworks guiding this project included critical disability theory, growth mindset, universal design for learning, and transformative learning theory. A mixed-methods action research approach was used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data in the form of surveys, interviews, and written reflections. The workshop series included five modules that began with activities fostering critical reflection of assumptions regarding disability and intelligence and ended with pedagogical strategies in the form of universal design for learning.
The results indicate that the innovation was successful in reshaping participant views of disability, intelligence, and pedagogy; however, changes in classroom instruction were small. Implications for future research and practice include more extended sessions on universal design for learning and a more diverse sample of participants. Workshop sessions utilized a variety of active learning activities that were well received by participants and will be included in future professional learning plans across the district.
ContributorsLeckie, Adam (Author) / Hermanns, Carl (Thesis advisor) / Rotherum-Fuller, Erin (Committee member) / Rupard, Jane (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Hispanic Narratives of the Ill or Disabled Woman: A Feminist Disability Theory Approach, is a comprehensive study that delves into the topic of the ill or disabled female in the narratives of Hispanic female authors who either have a disability or who have been affected by a chronic or terminal illness, causing debilitation. In order to address this topic, this thesis investigates disability identity by utilizing feminist disability theory by Kim Q. Hall, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, and Susan Wendell, amongst others, and at the same time reviews current disability policies in both Latin American and Spanish societies. By providing a critical view of this theme from a feminist standpoint, this study places emphasis on the lived experiences that ill or disabled Hispanic women face, doubly marginalized, not only based on their illness or (dis)ability, but also their gender.
This in depth analysis of Fruta Podrida (2007) and Sangre en el ojo (2012) by Lina Meruane, Diario del dolor (2004) by María Luisa Puga, Clavícula: (mi clavícula y otros inmensos desajustes (2017) by Marta Sanz, Diario de una pasajera by Ágata Gligo (1997), Si crees en mí, te sorprenderé (2014) by Ana Vives, and The Ladies Gallery: A Memory of Family Secrets by Irene Vilar provides relevant information on societal norms, policies and current debate about healthcare and women’s rights in various Hispanic countries and the United States. At the same time, it emphasizes the disabled female as subject, and investigates the societal perpetuation of disability. This dissertation discusses various concepts from disability studies, such as the illness/disability narrative, corporeal invisibility, normalcy, medical pathologization, stereotyping, and ableism, and investigates them in relation to both chronic and terminal illness or physical and mental disability in relation to the ill or disabled Hispanic female.
This in depth analysis of Fruta Podrida (2007) and Sangre en el ojo (2012) by Lina Meruane, Diario del dolor (2004) by María Luisa Puga, Clavícula: (mi clavícula y otros inmensos desajustes (2017) by Marta Sanz, Diario de una pasajera by Ágata Gligo (1997), Si crees en mí, te sorprenderé (2014) by Ana Vives, and The Ladies Gallery: A Memory of Family Secrets by Irene Vilar provides relevant information on societal norms, policies and current debate about healthcare and women’s rights in various Hispanic countries and the United States. At the same time, it emphasizes the disabled female as subject, and investigates the societal perpetuation of disability. This dissertation discusses various concepts from disability studies, such as the illness/disability narrative, corporeal invisibility, normalcy, medical pathologization, stereotyping, and ableism, and investigates them in relation to both chronic and terminal illness or physical and mental disability in relation to the ill or disabled Hispanic female.
ContributorsKnupp, April M (Author) / Urioste-Azcorra, Carmen (Thesis advisor) / Tompkins, Cynthia (Committee member) / Foster, David W (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Coming out from under the shadow of sight, blindness has a story to tell. From Tiresias to The Miracle Worker, literary and visual representations of blindness are cornerstones of compelling tales of loss and overcoming. In support of the inherent value of sight, these conventional narratives overshadow the stories and lived experiences of blind people themselves. In light of this misrepresentation, I explore what it means to read, write, and see blindness, as well as consider the implications of being blind in present-day Latin America. I achieve this through a transnational and interdisciplinary analysis of novels, short stories, film, and photography by blind and sighted artists and writers whose work has been published or exhibited after the year 2000. In this context, I will demonstrate how blindness can serve as a lens through which the production and reception of narrative and visual culture can be critically evaluated from a blind person’s perspective. Most importantly, this dissertation showcases the critical and creative work of blind people in order to demystify stereotypes and contextualize anxieties surrounding blindness, perception, and identity.
ContributorsNewland, Rachel Renee (Author) / Tompkins, Cynthia (Thesis advisor) / Foster, David W. (Committee member) / Urioste-Azcorra, Carmen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
The purpose of this study was to trouble existing conceptions of disability that ground music education literature and practice. I sought plausible insights into how disability is experienced in, through, and/or around music by participants who are disabled persons/persons with disabilities (DP/PwD). Insights gained might allow readers to complexify and trouble taken-for-granted assumptions about disability. Questions included: (a) How do participants experience disability in, through, and around music? (b) What plausible insights related to disability can be gained by attending to participants’ experiences of disability in, through, and around music? (c) What plausible insights related to inclusion can be gained by attending to participants’ experiences of disability in, through, and around music? The inquiry approach was grounded in Buberian relational ontology, phenomenology, interactional theories of disability, and narrative.
Seven DP/PwD participated in this study: (a) Erica, a 14-year-old diagnosed with a developmental disability of unknown etiology; (b) Duke, a drummer diagnosed with Williams syndrome; (c) Birdie, an abstract visual artist with epilepsy who used music to inform her art; (d) Daren, a b-boy/breakdancer diagnosed with Tourette syndrome, (e) Sienna, a legally blind social work college student who played banjo in a music therapy-based bluegrass band and participated in musical theatre; (f) Ice Queen, an undergraduate flute player recently diagnosed with Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); and (g) Culann, an adult counselor and music listener with ADHD and mood disorders. Data generation included conversational interviews, observations, artmaking, and serendipitous data.
Data co-generated with participants were crafted into narratives of their lifeworlds, including description of their experiences with disability in, through, and around music and in other aspects of their lives. An envisioned conversation among all participants demonstrates the shifts and complexities in the meanings of disability and unpacks different ways participants describe and understand disability and the myriad roles that music plays in their lifeworlds. The final chapter of the study offers discussions and suggestions regarding thinking about and approaching disability (i.e., interactional theories, intersectionality, and identity), inclusion (i.e., belonging, suggestions by participants, and anti-ableist pedagogy), and research/writing.
Seven DP/PwD participated in this study: (a) Erica, a 14-year-old diagnosed with a developmental disability of unknown etiology; (b) Duke, a drummer diagnosed with Williams syndrome; (c) Birdie, an abstract visual artist with epilepsy who used music to inform her art; (d) Daren, a b-boy/breakdancer diagnosed with Tourette syndrome, (e) Sienna, a legally blind social work college student who played banjo in a music therapy-based bluegrass band and participated in musical theatre; (f) Ice Queen, an undergraduate flute player recently diagnosed with Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); and (g) Culann, an adult counselor and music listener with ADHD and mood disorders. Data generation included conversational interviews, observations, artmaking, and serendipitous data.
Data co-generated with participants were crafted into narratives of their lifeworlds, including description of their experiences with disability in, through, and around music and in other aspects of their lives. An envisioned conversation among all participants demonstrates the shifts and complexities in the meanings of disability and unpacks different ways participants describe and understand disability and the myriad roles that music plays in their lifeworlds. The final chapter of the study offers discussions and suggestions regarding thinking about and approaching disability (i.e., interactional theories, intersectionality, and identity), inclusion (i.e., belonging, suggestions by participants, and anti-ableist pedagogy), and research/writing.
ContributorsRathgeber, Jesse (Author) / Stauffer, Sandra L (Thesis advisor) / Mantie, Roger (Committee member) / Schmidt, Margaret (Committee member) / Solís, Ted (Committee member) / Tobias, Evan S (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Medical policies, practices, and definitions do not exist solely in the clinical realm; they show up in the lived experiences of patients. This research examines how people with the chronic illness called myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) define their own illness experiences. They have situated knowledge about their illness onset, search for care, and clinical encounters. Their knowledge complicates and challenges the existing norms in clinical practice and medical discourse, as the experience of searching for care with ME reveals weaknesses in a system that is focused on acute care. Patient narratives reveal institutional patterns that obstruct access to medical care, such as disbelief from clinicians and lack of training in chronic illness protocols. They also reveal patterns in physician behavior that indicate the likelihood of receiving effective care. These patient narratives serve as a basis for continued examination of ME as well as further reconstruction of medical practice and procedure.
ContributorsCutler, Carmen (Author) / Oliverio, Annamaria (Thesis advisor) / Mann, Annika (Thesis advisor) / Behl, Natasha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Unmanned aerial vehicles have received increased attention in the last decade due to their versatility, as well as the availability of inexpensive sensors (e.g. GPS, IMU) for their navigation and control. Multirotor vehicles, specifically quadrotors, have formed a fast growing field in robotics, with the range of applications spanning from surveil- lance and reconnaissance to agriculture and large area mapping. Although in most applications single quadrotors are used, there is an increasing interest in architectures controlling multiple quadrotors executing a collaborative task. This thesis introduces a new concept of control involving more than one quadrotors, according to which two quadrotors can be physically coupled in mid-flight. This concept equips the quadro- tors with new capabilities, e.g. increased payload or pursuit and capturing of other quadrotors. A comprehensive simulation of the approach is built to simulate coupled quadrotors. The dynamics and modeling of the coupled system is presented together with a discussion regarding the coupling mechanism, impact modeling and additional considerations that have been investigated. Simulation results are presented for cases of static coupling as well as enemy quadrotor pursuit and capture, together with an analysis of control methodology and gain tuning. Practical implementations are introduced as results show the feasibility of this design.
ContributorsLarsson, Daniel (Author) / Artemiadis, Panagiotis (Thesis advisor) / Marvi, Hamidreza (Committee member) / Berman, Spring (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Students with disabilities are entering higher-education institutions at increasing rates, but they are not being adequately prepared for this transition. Transition plans have been created by Special Education teams in the K-12 system, but oftentimes, the student is not an active participant in the development of these plans for their futures. A huge gap in preparing for the transition to post-secondary education is a student’s self-determination skills. Self-determination is a belief that you control your own destiny and are motivated to create your own path in life. This study explores how students with disabilities can improve their self-determination skills through guided practice and small group collaboration. Participants included (n=4) freshmen students with disabilities who were actively engaged with their institution’s Disability Resource Center at a 4-year public research institution in the West. A qualitative practical action research study was designed to explore the impact of implementing a self-determination innovation to support college students with disabilities in improving their self-determination skills. The innovation developed for this study was adapted from Field and Hoffman’s Steps to Self-Determination curriculum. Findings from this study illustrate the need to support transitioning college students with disabilities in understanding their disabilities and how it can and will impact them in the college environment and beyond. Providing students with a safe space to explore their disabilities and the challenges they have encountered in their lives, allows them to identify the barriers to their growth and build a support system of similarly situated students that provide them with a sense of belonging and camaraderie they have not usually experienced in their lives. This study demonstrates how supporting students in improving their self-determination skills can help them build their confidence and self-advocacy skills to persist in higher education institutions.
ContributorsVioli, Patricia Kathryn (Author) / Markos, Amy (Thesis advisor) / Rotheram-Fuller, Erin (Committee member) / Thierfeld-Brown, Jane (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Institutions of higher education pride themselves on their commitments to access, inclusion, and care. However, when motivated by neoliberal goals of productivity, such initiatives may confuse inclusion with normative assimilation by attempting to align all individuals with an ableist status quo. In other words, neutral documents, discourses, and design practices may contribute to the rhetorical and material circulation of systemic ableism by encouraging compulsory alignment with able standards and norms. To examine how the systemic force of neoliberal ableism may move across higher educational spaces, this dissertation engages understandings of rhetoric as complexly circulating across trans-situational, everyday sites in universities. Further, I show that neoliberalism relies on the rhetorical circulation and normalization of ableist rhetorics across seemingly neutral university documents, discourses and design practices like those aimed to promote access, inclusion, and care. This dissertation thus follows the social justice call in technical and professional communication to interrogate participation in documentation, design, and discursive practices that may contribute to larger systems of oppression. Specifically, I apply a mixed-methods, qualitative approach of corpus linguistic analysis, semi-structured interviews grounded in user-experience design, and thematic, concept, and in vivo coding to examine and disrupt the circulation of ableist rhetoric across composition program mission statements, self-care documents, and digital classroom interfaces. Drawing from technical and professional communication, rhetoric and composition, disability studies, rhetorics of health and medicine, social justice, and disability justice scholarship, this dissertation explores theoretical frameworks for interrogating ableism’s material-discursive implications and provides guidelines for university stakeholders to engage in more equitable communications. Ultimately, I offer a theory of “cripistemological coalition” that calls for transdisciplinary, coalitional measures that position disability as integral to university inclusion, access, and care.
ContributorsBennett, Kristin (Author) / Daly Goggin, Maureen (Thesis advisor) / Long, Elenore (Committee member) / Hannah, Mark A. (Committee member) / Rose, Shirley K. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022