Disability Science

In Case Studies in Disability Driven Innovation, Robert Ludke reveals how disability-driven innovation is transforming the global economy while creating lasting value for society. Through compelling stories of entrepreneurs, business leaders, and innovators with disabilities, he demonstrates that the mindset of disability inclusion spurs innovation and creativity, drives market opportunities, and generates sustainable profits.

This is the real-life story of Owen Suskind, the son of the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind and his wife, Cornelia. An autistic boy who couldn't speak for years, Owen memorized dozens of Disney movies, turned them into a language to express love and loss, kinship, brotherhood. The family was forced to become animated characters, communicating with him in Disney dialogue and song; until they all emerge, together, revealing how, in darkness, we all literally need stories to survive.

Blind Visionaries and AI: Seeing Differently explores how people living with vision loss are reshaping their lives through artificial intelligence and other technologies. Edited by Dagmar Jamieson, who lost her sight to cone-rod dystrophy, and Mark Rawleigh, diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, the book gathers the voices of blind and partially sighted artists, scholars, and researchers who have embraced AI tools in creative and practical ways.

If you grow up in a world where wrinkles are practically illegal, going bald is cause for a mental breakdown, and women over size zero are encouraged to shoot themselves (immediately), what the hell do you do if you're, gasp... disabled? Whatever body you’re born into, the pressure to be normal is everywhere. But have you ever met a normal person? What do they look like? Where do they live? What do they eat for breakfast? And what the **** does normal mean anyway?

When her daughters are born deaf, Rosner is stunned. Then she discovers a hidden history of deafness in her family, going back generations to the Jewish enclaves of Eastern Europe. Traveling back in time, she imagines her silent relatives, who showed surprising creativity in dealing with a world that preferred to ignore them. Rosner shares her journey into the modern world of deafness, and the controversial decisions she and her husband have made about hearing aids, cochlear implants, and sign language.

David Paterson overcame severe disability and racial prejudice to become a state senator, lieutenant governor, and - unexpectedly - governor of New York. Paterson was the first and only blind governor - other than a man who held the title for 11 days in 1975 - and the fourth person of African descent to hold the office of governor in American history. Paterson may also be the only governor in history to have been arrested outside the governor's office prior to his service.

For hundreds of years, humans and animals have had special bonds with each other. We've lived side-by-side through thick and thin - these relationships are not just about raising pets and farm animals. In Animal Kind, Emma Lock of YouTube fame shares stories of the incredible ways that animals keep us healthy and happy, physically and mentally. You'll be inspired by the tales of remarkable recovery, from vision-impaired individuals who have gained independence with the help of seeing-eye dogs, to the woman who found new life as an equestrian champion after an arm amputation.

For more than 40 years, professionals in the field of disability studies have engaged in debates over the use of aversive interventions (such as electric shock) like the ones used at the Judge Rotenberg Center. This book is a historical case study of the Judge Rotenberg Center, named after the judge who ruled in favor of keeping its doors open to use aversive interventions.

He Called Me Tin is a story of triumph and perseverance. From childhood distress to an attempt at suicide to being scarred by religion to being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis to the strife of racism and discrimination as a government employee to being assaulted and nearly kidnapped abroad, she has overcome in peace....

We think of Alexander Graham Bell as the inventor of the telephone, but that’s not how he saw his own career. As the son of a deaf woman and, later, husband to another, his goal in life from adolescence was to teach deaf students to speak. Even his tinkering sprang from his teaching work; the telephone had its origins as a speech reading machine. The Invention of Miracles takes a new look at an American icon, revealing the astonishing true genesis of the telephone and its connection to another, far more disturbing legacy of Bell’s.

There Plant Eyes probes the ways in which blindness has shaped our ocularcentric culture, challenging deeply ingrained ideas about what it means to be “blind”. For millennia, blind­ness has been used to signify such things as thoughtlessness (“blind faith”), irrationality (“blind rage”), and unconsciousness (“blind evolution”). But at the same time, blind people have been othered as the recipients of special powers as compensation for lost sight (from the poetic gifts of John Milton to the heightened senses of the comic book hero Daredevil).

Despite the progress of decades-old disability rights policy, including the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act, threats continue to undermine the well-being of this population. The U.S. is, thus, a policy innovator and laggard in this regard. In Politics of Empowerment, David Pettinicchio offers a historically grounded analysis of the singular case of U.S. disability policy, countering long-held views of progress that privilege public demand as its primary driver.

As a boy, severely disabled after contracting polio as a baby in working class Liverpool, Bert Massie found himself wondering why disabled people were expected to adapt to the world around them, and not the other way round. In his teens, he began to campaign for rights for disabled people, and having battled his way through prejudice and the education system to become a Bachelor of Arts and a qualified social worker, he became a prominent figure in the fight for fair treatment for disabled people leading to the ground breaking Disability Discrimination Act.

Ben Mattlin lives a normal, independent life. Why is that interesting? Because Mattlin was born with spinal muscular atrophy, a congenital weakness from which he was expected to die in childhood. Not only did Mattlin live through childhood, he became one of the first students in a wheelchair to attend Harvard, from which he graduated and became a professional writer. His advantage?

Boldly claiming a space in which people with disabilities can be seen and heard as they are-not as others perceive them - About Us captures the voices of a community that has for too long been stereotyped and misrepresented. Speaking not only to those with disabilities, but also to their families, coworkers, and support networks, the authors in About Us offer intimate stories of how they navigate a world not built for them.

An inclusive and empowering manifesto for change in women’s healthcare – exploring the systemic and deep rooted sexism within medicine, and offering actionable ways for women to advocate for ourselves and others and get the diagnosis and treatment we need. Have you ever been to a doctor and felt like you were being fobbed off or ignored? Did they belittle or overlook your concerns about your health? Ever been told you’re just ‘hormonal’? You’re not alone.

Ableism is embedded in our daily lives. Social life, education, work, and, especially, mental health have been organized around rigid ideas of the "ideal" and the "normal" citizen—ideas that always exclude neurodiversity. In this pathbreaking book, Chantelle Jessica Lewis and Jason Arday argue that the neurodiversity movement offers ways to mobilize against not only ableism but also other "isms" including racism and capitalism.

In 1959, at the age of 21, Max Starkloff was in a car accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. His doctors doubted he would live longer than a few days, and, if he survived, the hope for his quality of life would be minimal. How did this young man with barely a high school education become the leader of a powerful disability rights movement and the founder of the Starkloff Disability Institute? This is his remarkable story.

In Disability Pride, disabled journalist Ben Mattlin weaves together interviews and reportage to introduce a cavalcade of individuals, ideas, and events in engaging, fast-paced prose. He traces the generation that came of age after the ADA reshaped America, and how it is influencing the future. He documents how autistic self-advocacy and the neurodiversity movement upended views of those whose brains work differently. He lifts the veil on a thriving disability culture showing how the politics of beauty for those with marginalized body types and facial features is sparking widespread change.

Disability and Political Representation explores how disabled people experience the various stages and aspects of the representation process, drawing upon extensive empirical research and a variety of qualitative and quantitative data. It discusses why increasing the number of disabled politicians matters, not only as a matter of justice and equality but also to better represent the issues and interests of importance to disabled people.