Future talk: parenting for a digital future for young people with a disability

Meryl Alper says the relationship between disabled children and the digital future is a complicated one. In this post, she looks at one U.S.-American family’s story and discusses how it’s characteristic of many parent’s talk of the future, digital media and its role in their disabled child’s paths and plans. She is a PhD candidate at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, and author of Digital youth with disabilities. Meryl’s work focuses on the social and cultural implications of communication technologies, with a focus on disability and digital media, children and families’ media use and mobile communicatio

Digital Youth with Disabilities

An examination of media and technology use by school-aged youth with disabilities, with an emphasis on media use at home.Most research on media use by young people with disabilities focuses on the therapeutic and rehabilitative uses of technology; less attention has been paid to their day-to-day encounters with media and technology—the mundane, sometimes pleasurable and sometimes frustrating experiences of “hanging out, messing around, and geeking out.” In this report, Meryl Alper attempts to repair this omission, examining how school-aged children with disabilities use media for social and recreational purposes, with a focus on media use at home. In doing so, she reframes common assumptions about the relationship between young people with disabilities and technology, and she points to areas for further study into the role of new media in the lives of these young people, their parents, and their caregivers.Alper considers the notion of “screen time” and its inapplicability in certain cases—when, for example, an iPad is a child's primary mode of communication. She looks at how young people with various disabilities use media to socialize with caregivers, siblings, and friends, looking more closely at the stereotype of the socially isolated young person with disabilities. And she examines issues encountered by parents in selecting, purchasing, and managing media for youth with such specific disabilities as ADHD and autism. She considers not only children's individual preferences and needs but also external factors, including the limits of existing platforms, content, and age standards

Transmedia Play: Literacy Across Media

Transmedia play is a new way to understand how children develop critical media literacy and new media literacies through their interactions with contemporary media that links stories and structures across platforms. This essay highlights five characteristics of transmedia play that make it particularly useful for learning: resourcefulness, sociality, mobility, accessibility, and replayability, and explains how each characteristic relates to digital and media literacy education

Reimagining the Good Life with Disability: Communication, New Technology, and Humane Connections

Many deeply cherished notions of “the good life” are based on limiting notions of humans, things, and their environment. In particular, “the good life” is often imagined as a realm beyond illness, impairment, and especially, disability. This view is informed by deficit models of disability, which individualize disability rather than explore the “socio-cultural conditions of disablism” (Goodley, 2011, p. 29). With contemporary communication and new media, disability is even more seen as an impediment, barrier, or tragedy, to be overcome with digital technology. Regrettably, the widely shared experience of disability and its complex relationships with communication are only rarely seen as a resource for how we achieve “the good life,” in our own lives and societies, now and in the future. Accordingly in this chapter, we take up pressing yet sorely neglected questions of disability and communication in order to illuminate how we might see “the good life” in much more enabling, humane, and democratic ways.Australian Research Counci

Reimagining the Good Life with Disability: Communication, New Technology, and Humane Connections

Many deeply cherished notions of “the good life” are based on limiting notions of humans, things, and their environment. In particular, “the good life” is often imagined as a realm beyond illness, impairment, and especially, disability. This view is informed by deficit models of disability, which individualize disability rather than explore the “socio-cultural conditions of disablism” (Goodley, 2011, p. 29). With contemporary communication and new media, disability is even more seen as an impediment, barrier, or tragedy, to be overcome with digital technology. Regrettably, the widely shared experience of disability and its complex relationships with communication are only rarely seen as a resource for how we achieve “the good life,” in our own lives and societies, now and in the future. Accordingly in this chapter, we take up pressing yet sorely neglected questions of disability and communication in order to illuminate how we might see “the good life” in much more enabling, humane, and democratic ways.Australian Research Counci

Supporting children with complex communication needs

Many children face significant challenges communicating, expressing themselves, and sharing their creative thoughts and ideas with others. Interactive technologies are playing an increasing role in addressing these challenges. This workshop will be an opportunity to discuss design, implementation, and evaluation methods, the needs of specific communities, as well as experiences in previous and current projects

Open Science, Closed Doors?:Countering Marginalization through an Agenda for Ethical, Inclusive Research in Communication

The open science (OS) movement has advocated for increased transparency in certain aspects of research. Communication is taking its first steps toward OS as some journals have adopted OS guidelines codified by another discipline. We find this pursuit troubling as OS prioritizes openness while insufficiently addressing essential ethical principles: respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. Some recommended open science practices increase the potential for harm for marginalized participants, communities, and researchers. We elaborate how OS can serve a marginalizing force within academia and the research community, as it overlooks the needs of marginalized scholars and excludes some forms of scholarship. We challenge the current instantiation of OS and propose a divergent agenda for the future of Communication research centered on ethical, inclusive research practices.</p