“There’s Many Ways That I Know That He Can Read”: Towards an Asset Model of Childhood Disability and Children’s Media Use

• In Event: ICA Plenary Interactive Paper/Poster Session III
  In Interactive Paper Session: Children, Adolescents, and the Media Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

The role of media and technology in the lives of youth with developmental disabilities has grown increasingly complex in recent years, yet remains significantly understudied by children and media researchers. As part of a larger qualitative study on parental management of communication technology use among US children with significant communication impairments, this paper examines how parents of non-speaking and minimally-speaking children ages 3-13 (N = 20) interpret their child’s engagement with new media and popular culture as an expression of the very skills in which the dominant culture often presumes them to be deficient—specifically socioemotional, cognitive, and verbal aptitude. As a result, I discuss the need for public perceptions of both disability and children’s popular culture to shift away from having to do with deficit and deficiencies (i.e. disability as an individual lack of ability, kids’ media culture as lacking educational value) and instead towards more asset-oriented models.

Author

• Meryl Alper, U of Southern California - Annenberg School for Communication