“School's Not Really a Place for Reading”: A Research Synthesis of the Literate Lives of Students with Severe Disabilities

Abstract

Developmental and connectionist research describing a student's development of competent reading and writing skills commonly evokes the image of a normative ladder to literacy. Each rung of the ladder is believed to constitute certain sets of increasingly complex subskills. It is believed that cognitive mastery is required prior to the next step up the ladder. For people labeled with severe mental retardation, subskill mastery is often considered an intellectual impossibility. Hence, literacy is denied. In this research synthesis, however, we suggest that people with severe intellectual limitations can be understood as symbolic, and specific literacy skills can be supported. We use the term research synthesis to describe the textual weaving of two sources of understanding: (a) qualitative stories garnered from six students who were research participants and (b) published autobiographical and biographical stories by people with disabilities or their parents. These two sources of understanding underscore that a deeply caring relationship characterized by intimacy is of central importance when constructing as symbolic and literate a person labeled as having severe mental retardation.

Disqualified in the human race: a close reading of the autobiographies of individuals identified as autistic

“…For example, many students have been denied access to typical classrooms and rich curricula on the basis of perceived notions of incompetence (Biklen 1992;Kliewer 1998;Kliewer and Biklen 2001;Rubin et al 2001). Understanding how individuals with these labels make sense of their own competence in relation to these cultural norms will add to the educational literature on autism.…”

“…However, his failure to comply with the examiner's expectations led to a presumption of incompetence. Rather than relying on the local understanding (Kliewer and Biklen 2001) of parents and caregivers, the experts in this study were assessed and labelled by 'professionals' operating from an etic, or outsider, perspective (Goode 1992).…”

Sight Word Instruction for Students with Autism: An Evaluation of the Evidence Base

“…Indeed, the ability to read is a necessity for social and economic advancement in our society (Snow et al 1998). Although previous reports have described the exclusion of students with autism from traditional classroom literacy programs (Kliewer and Biklen 2001;Mirenda 2003), more recent conceptualizations of the curriculum for students with ASD include reading as a critical component (Kluth and Chandler-Olcott 2008).…”

“Why Not Have Fun?”: Peers Make Sense of an Inclusive High School Program

“…The objective within each setting was to investigate the experiences of students with significant disabilities within inclusive classrooms. The relevance of this effort stems from the growing body of research that has testified to the pivotal role of relationships in the lives of individuals with significant disabilities (P. M. Ferguson 2003;Kliewer & Biklen, 2001). The successful participation of these individuals in mainstream living is premised on shared experiences with social partners that afford opportunities for collective meaningmaking.…”