Disability Over the Life Course: The Unique Experiences of Little People and Their Parents

• In Event: 418 - Section on Aging and the Life Course Paper Session. Disability over the Life Course

Abstract

This paper will explore the unique experiences of little people, as a particular group within the disability community. It grapples with questions from disability studies, bioethics, and medical sociology – such as the question of whether to utilize growth hormones to normalize a child’s height, the gendered blaming of mothers for the disability experiences of their children, and the changing experiences of little people over the life course. The methods for the paper involve both auto-ethnography (the author technically meets the description of little people, but is undiagnosed and her two children have both been diagnosed with pituitary dwarfism) as well as fieldwork with two organizations: the MAGIC Foundation and the Little People of America. While these fieldwork locations nominally engage with the same population, the ages of their target audience are vastly different – the first deals with children, the second largely with adults. The paper highlights some of the differences in outlook and approach of these two organizations.

Author

• Anna Neller, University of Toledo