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Approaches to neurodiversity and disability

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Students working in the CSM library

In undertaking this project I’m conscious of my own positionality. I’m not disabled or neurodivergent and I’m not professionally trained in this area. My motivation comes from a desire to remove barriers to learning and to address systemic factors which marginalise different groups of people. Coming from a student-centred pedagogical background and now working in the digital learning environment, I feel we are well placed to address these digital accessibility barriers from a practical point of view and from a social justice perspective we have a moral imperative to do so. I also feel strongly that this is about more than digital accessibility (although this is important), but about using Moodle to help create a more level playing field for everyone, including other marginalised groups, and acknowledging the intersectional nature of many of these barriers.

There is more about my rationale in Rationale: Moodle, disability and social justice. Here, I thought it would be useful to briefly look at some of the different perspectives on neurodiversity and disability, particularly in higher education.

Neurodivergence is a complex term and those who are neurodivergent are best placed to determine the language and their own preferences in terms of how they identify. Bearing that in mind, neurodivergence is, however, often used to describe neurological difference such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia and ADHD, or Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD) and according to ACAS ‘Being neurodivergent will often amount to a disability under the Equality Act 2010, even if the person does not consider themselves to be disabled’.  (ACAS n.d.)

The use of the term neurodiverse is an approach which aims to describe and include a wide range of neurodevelopmental conditions, without pathologising them.

‘Neurodiversity is a relatively new term. It helps to promote the view that neurological differences are to be recognised and respected as any other human variation. It is used to counter negative social connotations that currently exist and to make it easier for people of all neurotypes to contribute to the world as they are, rather than attempting to think or appear more ‘typically’.’

(Neurodiversity and co-occurring differences, n.d.)

I’m not sure how useful it is to list common differences here, not least because neurodivergence is precisely about divergence and acceptance, and listing common differences might be a blunt tool as they will only apply in some cases. In addition, there is an argument where, since I am not a ‘disability expert’ it is more appropriate and useful in this context to focus on the common functional challenges neurodivergent people often face. I have discussed this, with clear examples, in another post ‘UX design for neurodiverse, visually impaired and disabled users‘.

As well as neurodivergent participants, I also asked for visually impaired or disabled students to contribute to my project and 3 of the 6 participants were visually impaired in different ways. Again, this is a particular area of disability where digital tools can be used in a functional and supportive way. For example creating material that is readable by a screen reader, navigable via a keyboard, ensuring good colour contrast, using an appropriately sized font and making good use of clear, graphical images or icons. It would also have been interesting to see what else we could do to meet the needs of people with a wider range of disability. This is something we will need to look at in future.

I would guess that neurodiverse students often ‘go under the radar’ in HE and are expected to find workarounds a lot of the time. Some people won’t have a diagnosis or don’t wish to declare, as well as those who are accessing support from the Disability Service but who don’t want to ‘stand out’ or be different from their peers.

‘Currently the onus is too often on neurominority students to find a longer way around to meet neuro-normative expectations. To transform practice, learning and teaching must be  designed for a neurodiverse student body, and learning contexts created in which neurodivergent students are seen, understood and enabled to thrive.’

(Hamilton and Petty, 2023, p.3)

I’m not sure how much this is true for people who are blind or have mobility impairments. I suspect it’s still true, but in a slightly different way, where staff assume they are getting the help and support they need from the Disability Service and perhaps don’t consider what else can and should be done to remove potential barriers. Hamilton and Petty talk about the need to move away from this ‘medical paradigm’ and pathologising language, and towards a Universal Design for Learning approach, in which ‘…students, and especially those in minoritised groups, flourish in learning environments in which they feel that they belong and are valued.’ (Hamilton and Petty, 2023, p.4). This would include practical shifts like flexibility in the mode of assessment, presenting information in a variety of modalities, taking regular breaks, but also a shift in perspective where diversity is valued and nurtured.

Erevelles and Minear also talk about this deficit model of disability and align disability with other socially constructed ‘categories’;

‘CRT scholars (like other radical scholars) have mistakenly conceived of disability as a biological category…Disability studies scholars, on the other hand, have critiqued this ‘deficit’ model of disability and have described disability as a socially constructed category that derives meaning and social (in)significance from the historical, cultural, political and economic structures that frame social life.’

(Erevelles and Minear, 2010, p.7)

Erevelles and Minear also discuss the role of disability as a, or the, critical category when looking at intersectionality and its impacts. They highlight the fluid nature of the terms used to describe or diagnose some disabilities and they argue that Critical Race Theorists have not sufficiently acknowledged disability within intersectionality.

The National Autistic Society website highlights the intersectional difficulties faced by some people who are both black and minority ethnic and autistic, making it harder to get support when they need or want it. They quote Iqra Babar, an autistic artist;

“I love being an autistic, Muslim Pakistani woman. My identity in itself is so diverse, which I am really proud of! It does make it harder to live so freely however, with all of the stigma and discrimination that surrounds both autistic people and Muslims. Race and autism intersect a lot and talking about race in autism conversations is so important.”

(Autism and BAME people n.d.)

Meeting disability needs is still too often seen as an extra, something more to add to the workload, rather than something positive and creative. This is particularly challenging in the market-driven higher education environment in which we operate. However, I feel that there is a lot of scope for creating a more compassionate, inclusive environment at CSM but we need to be having these conversations more often in more teams and with more students. As Hamilton and Petty say, ‘Educators have a unique opportunity to cultivate compassion within the learning environments that we create.’ (Hamilton and Petty, 2023, p.4)

Bibliography:

ACAS (n.d.) What disability means by law: Definition of disability Available at: https://www.acas.org.uk/what-disability-means-by-law#:~:text=Attention%20deficit%20hyperactivity%20disorder%20(ADHD,consider%20themselves%20to%20be%20disabled (Accessed 17 January 2024)

British Dsyslexia Association (n.d.), Neurodiversity and co-occurring differences, Available at: https://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/dyslexia/neurodiversity-and-co-occurring-differences. (Accessed: 17 January 2024)

Erevelles, N., & Minear, A. (2010). Unspeakable Offenses: Untangling Race and Disability in Discourses of Intersectionality. Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies 4(2), 127-145. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/390395. (Accessed 20 October 2023)

Hamilton, L. and Petty S. (2023) ‘Compassionate Pedagogy for Neurodiversity in Higher Education: A Conceptual Analysis’. Frontiers in Psychology 14 (16 February): 1093290. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1093290. (Accessed: 17 January 2024)

National Autistic Society (n.d.) Autism and BAME people Available at: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/what-is-autism/autism-and-bame-people (Accessed 17 January 2024)

Ethical Enquiry forms

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Please see my EES forms below, versions 1-3 with feedback from my tutor, Rachel Marsden.

Version 1: With comments from Rachel

V1-ESS-Amy-Urry-RM-comments.cleaned

Action taken: I think the first time I filled this in, I didn’t really have a clear idea about what was required, and I also had a lot of questions about which courses to focus on, etc.. Once I started reading more about ethics and had the first tutorial, it became clearer that I needed to be a lot more detailed.

I went through and addressed each of Rachel’s feedback points. On my miro board that I use for resources, I added all the links and made sure I’d read them all. As a result of this, I changed lots of the detail on gaining consent and managing the process of data collection. I also added a lot more information about the potential risks to participants and question 7 about working with vulnerable adults.

See below:

Version 2:

V2-ESS-Amy-Urry.cleanedDownload

Version 2: Feedback from Rachel

Hi Amy, 

Thanks for sending over your latest draft – it’s comprehensive, detailed and responsive to your ARP and so very nearly there! Brilliant to hear about the contingency planning too. 

 In terms of feedback: 

  • In section 1, I think these are more your research aims than objectives (the latter are usually the actions you’ll do to achieve the aims, which is AR here). 
  • Action taken: I amended the objectives to focus on the forms of data collection.
     
  • In terms of the additional information on the focus group task stated in a side comment, I think it’s helpful to include this in the ethical enquiry form or a blog post that you signpost out to? I’ll leave this up to you. 
  • Action taken: I’ve added a quote and referenced Standpoint theory in the form.
     
  • I’d embolden/make the please complete the participant consent form area stand out on the information sheet as it gets a little lost in the main text. If thinking about it in the context of accessibility and visibility too… 
  • Action: I’ve made this bigger and bolder!

I’d be happy to sign off on all this once the updates are made so send over a final form that you’ve signed when ready and I’ll get it signed off. Also do upload the final form, with relevant links to your blog as a reference/record too.

Well done on this milestone Amy, you should be really pleased. 

Rachel 

Final version:

FINAL-ESS-Amy-Urry-signed.cleanedDownload

Context and background

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My name is Amy and I’m a Senior Digital Learning Coordinator at Central Saint Martins. I’ve worked at CSM since 2020, starting online in the middle of the pandemic. It was a big culture change for me as I had previously spent 17 years as an English Language Teacher and teacher trainer, most recently, 14 years at a Further Education College in North London. I worked with immigrant communities for a really long time and I am committed to breaking down barriers in education.

I realised during the course of this unit that I have had some barriers of my own, albeit not obvious ones. I always felt on the outside of academia, despite having a degree, good school exam results and family links to higher education. I realised my experience of almost failing my A-levels for want of a bit of study skills instruction, and dropping out of my first university, feeling invisible and unanchored, have perhaps helped shape some of what I want to do now to make students feel more welcome, to remove obstacles and make support more obvious and available.

In addition to this, in my professional life I come from a very student-centred pedagogy, where it’s all about listening to the students, providing guidance and support and trying to give them agency and independence. I think this has also shaped the way I’ve gone about this project (albeit very imperfectly, no doubt).

Race

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UAL Dashboard – Awarding gap 21/22

I found it hard to bring these different sources together into one, so I’ve recorded my thoughts about each. They were really illuminating reads and I need to look at them again, particularly the first two. Sorry it’s a bit long…

Hahn Tapper (2013) ‘A pedagogy of social justice education: social identity, theory and intersectionality’, Pp. 411-417

I found this excerpt from Hahn Tapper really fascinating, partly because it succinctly brought together several interconnected theories and discussed both uses and pitfalls, and partly because I feel this discussion of power dynamics is really lacking in education. I come from an English language teaching background where within a lesson you might have 9 or 10 different nationalities. There were certainly power dynamics at play, not least with me as their white, middle class teacher.

I realise now that the positive results we were aiming for there were based on interpersonal interaction (the Contact Hypothesis), and the hope that this would somehow break down barriers. To some extent this happened but there was always a reversion to group (usually, but not always, based on nationalities), outside the classroom.

I noticed it last week too, that in a session we did with students at CSM, there were dominant groups and it was tricky to know how to handle it, particularly as we had only one session with these students. Although the session was fine, and we received positive feedback from the individuals, I came out with the feeling that the dynamics of the group were rather dysfunctional and unsatisfying. I guess if they were my class, I would try and break down these barriers and encourage greater mixing of the social groups as well as sharing work (Social Identity Theory). I think this would be more effective with some kind of overt acknowledgement of power dynamics, and group dynamics in the room, but doing this would require a lot of skill as the stakes are high. I wonder if it’s something you could more effectively address after you’ve earned the students’ trust, as a tutor, and after you’ve established a student centred approach to your classroom. Or perhaps this would be too late, I’m not sure.

In any case, I agreed with Hahn Tapper about the need to create the space to take account of multiple group identities, and also interpersonal interactions.  

‘Retention and attainment in the disciplines: Art and Design’ Finnigan and Richards 2016

This article was just what I was looking for. Being relatively new to Art and Design education, and to UAL, I’ve been struck by the amount of talk there is about inclusivity, social justice and race equality but also by how often this doesn’t appear to be the experience of individual, or groups of students (and even staff). I’ve looked at the data dashboards and seen the awarding gaps and also seen the work that goes on to try and address this. However, there seem to be very obvious gaping holes in this work and huge power imbalances. I found this quote fascinating:

Finnigan and Richards 2016, p. 3 cite Hatton (2015): Art education has generally been conservative, repetitive and exclusive. Art education theorists have even described art education as Eurocentric, racist and imperialist and have called for curriculum reform and social change.

Also the discussion of deliberate vagueness and ambiguity was useful to me, as well as the comments about aesthetic preferences. I work in an area where we are mostly trying to pin down information and communicate it to students. These discussions helped me to see why this is so difficult and also (as far as I’m concerned) vindicates my point of view that it’s necessary. I would have found it useful to have more discussion of this report on the unit.

‘Witness unconscious bias’ TED Talk – Josephine Kwhali

I couldn’t agree more with Josephine Kwhali’s views on unconscious bias in the HE sector – that’s willful ignorance. It’s interesting to hear what she says about white middle class women, that there have been changes made, notwithstanding the ongoing unconscious bias against white, middle class women. It hasn’t prevented change. Why not for black women or working class women?

Shades of Noir

I haven’t looked at all the SoN journals in one place before now, but I can see there are a lot of compelling topics. I’m really interested in Discourse: The power of language and communication. I read one article about someone who is deaf and gay and how this intersectionality impacted on their experiences and expectations and how they see this now. In addition, I’m really interested in the language teacher talking about the ‘language of power’ and how this is an enormous cultural barrier. She talks about the experience of international students and how their use of language is viewed. I’m familiar with this as I regularly hear course staff say about students, ‘they can’t really speak English’ which somehow has an implicit meaning which is more than ‘this student could improve their language skills’ and certainly isn’t ‘how can I help them’.

From the Shades of Noir publication ‘Whiteness, I see you’, I read a few different articles which represented a range of thoughts and feelings I am familiar with, although of course still interesting. The one that stood out to me though was ‘Shedding whiteness – Forming the shell’ by Jon Straker, about a Korean child adopted by a white family and their relationship with their own skin, appearance and identity. It is shown through a series of artworks, including one showing their white self devouring their yellow self. He says, ‘At times, my existence felt like a yellow stain on a white shirt’. I found this a very powerful piece about identity in a social context.

References:

Tapper H. (2013) A pedagogy of social justice education: social identity, theory and intersectionality, Pp. 411-417

Kwhali, J. TED Talk (2016) Witness unconscious bias. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6XDUGPoaFw (Accessed: June 2023)

Richards, A. and Finnigan T. (2016) Embedding Equality and Diversity in the Curriculum: An Art and Design Practitioner’s Guide. The Higher Education Academy

Shades of Noir (2018) Peekaboo, we see you: Whiteness. Available at: https://issuu.com/shadesofnoir/docs/peekaboo_we_see_you_whiteness (Accessed: June 2023)

Hello PG Cert!

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So…my first blog. I was/am excited to be a student again and to have a chance to think about teaching, especially in this new-ish HE context. I enjoyed the induction, but I think I’d be a bit floored by myblog if I’d never used it before. It was nice to sort of see/meet our classmates. I’m not sure what I’m meant to be saying here, so I’ll stop but it’s a start.