Transitioning to adulthood: autism and biological citizenship

The concept of 'Biological Citizens' is one that has increased in popularity in recent literature. Several considerations have been made of it in relation to enhancing our understandings of disability and impairment (Hughes, 2009), specific labels such as bi-polar affective disorder (Rose and Novas, 2005) and autism (Orsini, 2009). In this paper we further explore the concept of 'Biological Citizens' and extend considerations of it to our understandings of autism. We draw on online discussion list exchanges by people with autism, parents of people with autism and professionals working with people with autism in exploring the crafting of communities based on biological and neurological differences. The concept of neurological difference has been a long standing issue for autistic advocates, who frequently draw on neurology as a way of warranting difference between people with autism and ‘neurological typicals’. In doing so clear arguments are presented which serve to position autism as a difference rather than a deficit. In this paper we seek to further explore the concept of biological citizenship for these online groups and what identification with this may mean for young people with autism transitioning to adulthood

Representations of autism: Implications for community healthcare practice

The work presented in this paper is part of a larger project in which online asynchronous discussion groups were employed to examine how a range of contributors - including people with autism, parents of people with autism, and professionals working within the field of autism - view and understand autism. In this paper, we focus on the voices of people with autism. The terminology used in the paper takes its lead from the writings of people with autism, who frequently use the term 'AS' to refer to autistic spectrum and Asperger syndrome and 'NT', which refers to neurologically typical people without autism. We examine a key theme identified in the online discussion groups - the representation of individuals with autism as occupying a separate world of autism. In doing so, we question an apparent goal of therapeutic interventions - to bring people with autism out of their 'separate world' and integrate them into a more typically 'social world'. We present an alternative understanding of autism that argues for valuing diversity and viewing autism as a difference rather than a deficit. We will discuss some of the implications that this may have for working with people with autism in health and social care practice

Suffering children, dead babies and the appeal of the universal child

Images of vulnerable or damaged children are common in media invocations of ‘natural’ disasters and military conflicts around the world. The suffering of children invokes strong feelings in those witnessing the image, where the face of the injured or damaged child ‘personifies injustice’ (Thorne, 2003:261), for example in anti-war demonstrations in 2003 during the Iraqi war, a commonly used image was of a badly injured child with the text ‘This is the face of collateral damage’ (Thorne, 2003). The increasing (but partially experienced) effects of globalisation and mass media serve to compress time-space (Harvey, 1989, in Ackroyd and Pilkington, 1999) so that events around the world become experienced as immediate. In this short paper, I will discuss the British media’s daily reporting of the elevated ‘Middle East’ crisis at the end of July 2006, and the ways in which dead and damaged children were powerfully used in the reporting. I will illustrate some of the arguments of critical psychology in the construction of childhood to discuss my concerns with representing universal childhoods to explain contextualised children

Child language brokers’ representations of parent-child relationships

This paper reports the analysis of qualitative data from a broader study of young people’s representations of conflicting roles in child development. Just over a quarter of the group, bilingual students who spoke a variety of first languages, had had personal experience of child language brokering (CLB). Employing vignette methodology, they were invited to reflect on the implications of an adolescent boy’s language brokering activities for, among other things, his relationships within his family. In this paper we will present brief case studies to illustrate different positions that members of the group adopted in relation to developmental scripts emphasizing independence and interdependence between young people and their parents (Dorner et al. 2008). Through an analysis of individual CLB case studies, we illustrate various ways in which individual young people reported the balancing of the demands of autonomy and connectedness in their analysis of relationships between young people and their parents

Using the vignette methodology as a tool for exploring cultural identity positions : European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) Special Interest Group 21: Learning and Teaching in Culturally Diverse Settings: Moving through cultures of learning

In this paper we will examine how the vignette methodology can aid understanding of cultural identity. Vignettes are typically short stories about a fictional character or fictional scenario appropriate to a particular study. The story places the behaviour of the character in a concrete context and allows the researcher to explore participants? positions and perspectives on the issues arising from the situation. We argue that within a framework of cultural development theory and the dialogical self theory (Hermans, 2001) identity positions can be explained in relation to the sociocultural context. To do so we report on part of wider study about representations of children who work. In particular this paper will focus on language brokering which involves translating or interpreting on behalf of family members who do not speak the host language. Language brokering requires the child to engage in both the cultural contexts of the host culture and the home culture and as such, the child must negotiate new cultural identities. Those interviewed were young people aged between 15-18 years, some of whom were brokers and others who were not. When looking at the language broker vignette scenario these young people often positioned the parents, teachers and friends of the language broker in the scenario in particular ways. Through notions of adequacy and inadequacy, visibility and invisibility, theoretical ideas around cultural identity theory and the dialogical self theory can provide an understanding of how the young people moved through different (often conflicting) identity positions

Recent research on child language brokering in the United Kingdom

Recent patterns of migration and population change in the UK have led in some places to a need for child language brokering (CLB). Although there is only limited evidence on CLB in the UK, the research that has been published indicates the diversity of the phenomenon and suggests its frequency and significance in the lives of some families. In this paper we review a range of small scale studies from different research centres to illustrate that diversity. The research has highlighted ways in which language brokering often elides into cultural brokering with young children playing a brokering role within as well as outside their families. An important line of enquiry has been research on the CLB process itself, but detailed studies of how children and young people respond to the challenges of translation in different settings remain elusive, as do studies of the impact that the activity has on their interactions with others. A key issue for the children and parents involved is others’ perceptions of and reaction to CLB, including not only the professionals and officials with whom they deal but also their peers at school and elsewhere who are not involved in language brokering. Ultimately CLB is of theoretical interest not only for the light it throws on children’s language learning and acculturation but also for the challenge it presents to traditional notions of child development and family role

Ethical issues for qualitative research in on-line communities

Internet technology has developed rapidly in recent years, and offers new possibilities for researching, particularly when working with hard to reach groups who may benefit from a move away from more traditional methodologies. The research has been informed by various methodologies, and is flexible in its application and nature, varying from an analysis of the content of web pages (Jones, Zahlm and Huws 2001), to complex discourse analytic techniques of ‘electronic conversations’, (Denzin, 1999). One of the most common uses of the Internet as a research tool has focused on the use of online questionnaires, via web page delivery or e-mail, and has proved useful in providing novel insights into research questions (see for example Coomber’s ,1997 investigations of drug dealers) as have on-line focus groups, and real-time interviews (O’Connor and Madge, 2000)

Exploring the transitions of young people with autism from childhood to young adulthood

The aim of this paper is to review current positions in transition literature and to identify the role for a community psychological perspective in understanding the transitions of young people with autism. In doing this we would like to introduce a forthcoming project where we will be exploring the experiences of transitions of young people with autism, their families and professionals involved with the families, within a framework which strives to challenge the dominance of a deficit model of autism and explain and research autism from a perspective of valuing neurodiverse qualities and perspectives. The research will capitalise on some of the reported positive engagements with new technologies by people with autism and host synchronous online interviews with young people with autism (14-21 years), parents of young people with autism and professionals working with young people with autism. In addition to this, the young people with autism will be invited to join a synchronous discussion forum where they will be encouraged to collaboratively develop a wiki in order to produce a working paper of information and advice for policy makers reflecting their own voice within the management of the transition process. This is consistent with the overall approach of the project which is to work with young people with autism and draw upon their expertise and experience. The proposed research also poses the question of what transition services, based on understandings of autism as a form of 'neurodiversity', might look like and how services influenced by this re-framing might enable the young people and their families in the transition process. This project draws on two trans-disciplinary perspectives; disability studies and critical community psychology. Through synthesising these two perspectives, this research project will bring a necessary criticality and clarity of theory to understandings of transition to adulthood in a neurodiverse world. The project aims to apply these theories in very real professional, institutional and policy contexts

Introducing normative and different childhoods, developmental trajectory and transgression

This chapter discusses the difference and transgression through a series of empirical, conceptual and literature-based exemplars. It addresses the ways in which normative ideas about childhood impact on understandings of particular kinds of children and set up assumptions about the norms against which 'others' are judged. The chapters draws on a range of dimensions of difference, including how difference is manifested through geographical location; economic differentiation and identification through social class; embodied differences such as gender and disability; and through a developmental lens, which demarcates activities as congruent within a particular developmental age or as transgressive. It discusses these instances in ways that attend to the local, contingent and partial knowledges about contexts of development and movements through time. The introduction chapter then presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book

Conclusion: theorising transgressive developmental trajectories and understanding children seen as ‘different’

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book discusses the three interrelated themes to explore how they offer possibilities with which to refine and extend knowledge about non/normative development and 'different' childhoods. It has been structured around three core themes that speak to critiques of developmental psychology. The book discloses several issues that are relevant to understanding and developing theory about non-normative or different childhoods. It discusses geographical location as it intersects with understandings of nation, childhood and gender for child migrants in a host country; gender and role models within families and other care settings; the location of the child as a vulnerable subject; and development as located within particular understandings of mothers' work, food and social class. The book highlights that the construction of a child was in relation to the duties of adults to provide for and protect children and to ensure that they develop appropriately