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Comparing Indigenou s Approaches to Autism with Western Approaches to Autism
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Comparing Indigenous Approaches to Autism with Western Approaches to Autism Anna Wilson, University of Alberta On United Nations World Autism Day 2015, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon encouraged policymakers, professionals, employers, service providers, and caregivers to create an inclusive society by recognizing the strengths of people with autism, instead of focusing on their weaknesses (para. 6).Unfortunately, more than 80 per cent of adults with autism are unemployed globally (2015, para. 11). In order to reach World Autism Awareness Day’s goal of empowering people impacted by autism it is imperative to challenge Western society’s medical model of autism as a disease with the empowering Navajo view of autism as a beautiful difference. This envisions people with autism as a source of social capital instead of a social burden raising awareness into Library and Information Studies. The World Health Organization supports librarians’ roles by claiming that “E-learning approaches, and innovative models for engaging” (Ki-moon, 2014, para. 11) people with autism to share their valuable experiences through a variety of digital mediums can be facilitated by library professionals. Librarians can challenge societies’ stereotypes of autism through helping people impacted by autism to share their stories through creating online digital stories, digital library collections or websites. This paper addresses these objectives through the following steps: Firstly, autism and transformative learning will be defined in the context of the research questions. Secondly, a comparative analysis of case studies will be given. Thirdly, the healing stories within these case studies will be synthesized through transformative learning. Fourthly, future research implications for library and information studies will be critically analyzed.
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- Date created
- 2015-06-02
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- Conference/Workshop Presentation