“No! Turn the Pages!” Repositioning Neuroqueer Literacies

Journal of Literacy Research, Volume 52, Issue 2, Page 113-135, June 2020.
Recent literacy research has made substantial contributions to expanding definitions of literacies beyond stringent parameters of decoding print. These inquiries have intersected with topics such as multimodality and critical literacy in general education literacy classrooms. However, students in isolated special education settings labeled with dis/abilities such as autism or intellectual disability often only receive reading instruction emphasizing functional skills and sight words. The data for this study emerged from a secondary isolated special education classroom where students identified as significantly dis/abled responded to inclusive picturebooks. Analysis is framed by the scholarship on neurological queerness. Findings illustrate how students engage in literacy practices via neuroqueer asocial actions and embodied inventions when they are presumed as competent by teachers and staff. These findings challenge deficit orientations guiding special education literacy instruction and offer implications and openings for continuing to expand who counts as literate and what counts as literacy.
Source: Journal of Literacy