MYTHOLOGIZING ASPERGER SYNDROME: EXPLORING IMPACTS ON SOCIAL JUSTICE FOR CHILDREN IN OUT-OF-HOME CARE
Abstract
While the majority of children affected by autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) remain at home and within their communities, a minority are so badly affected that they require out-of-home care. This article draws on some of the findings of the author’s doctoral thesis. Social justice discourse and critical disability studies have alerted researchers to the foregrounding of privileged ideas in society. For this study, texts were analyzed using ideas from Foucault and Critical Discourse Analysis. Textual analysis revealed that the discourse of Asperger Syndrome comprises an association with high intelligence, special talents (especially in maths or computing) and possibly with genius. There is also a prevailing belief within the discourse of Asperger Syndrome that it is a “mild disorder”. The voices of children who are seriously affected by Asperger Syndrome, to the extent that they may need out-of-home care, are absent. A field study that examined the views of potential and newly recruited child care practitioners demonstrated the ways in that incomplete messages from the discourse of Asperger Syndrome can affect practice.
Downloads
Metrics
Authors contributing to the International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies agree to release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 Unported license. This licence allows anyone to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it for non-commercial purposes provided that appropriate attribution is given, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear.
Authors retain copyright of their work and grant the journal right of first publication.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Rights Granted After Publication
After publication, authors may reuse portions or the full article without obtaining formal permission for inclusion within their thesis or dissertation.
Permission for these reuses is granted on the following conditions:
- that full acknowledgement is made of the original publication stating the specific material reused [pages, figure numbers, etc.], [Title] by/edited by [Author/editor], [year of publication], reproduced by permission of International Journal of Child, Youth & Family Studies [link to IJCYFS website];
- In the case of joint-authored works, it is the responsibility of the author to obtain permission from co-authors for the work to be reuse/republished;
- that reuse on personal websites and institutional or subject-based repositories includes a link to the work as published in the International Journal of Child, Youth & Family Studies; and that the material is not distributed under any kind of Open Access style licences (e.g. Creative Commons) which may affect the Licence between the author and IJCYFS.
