Autism and Classical Myth: Disabled students in Higher Education

Why classical myth and autism?

Why classical myth and autism?

The idea for this project started to take shape at a meeting in 2008 with a special needs teacher, who mentioned that, in her experience and those of her colleagues, autistic children often enjoy classical myth. I began to wonder why this might be the case, and whether – as a classicist who researches, and loves, classical myth – there was anything I could contribute. I started this blog to report on my progress which was often sporadic until the launch of the Warsaw-based European Research Council-funded project Our Mythical Childhood (2016-22) to trace the role of classics in children’s culture.

My key contribution to the project is an exploration of classics in autistic children’s culture, above all by producing myth-themed activities for autistic children. This blog shares my progress, often along Herculean paths, including to a book of lessons for autistic children focusing on the Choice of Hercules between two very different paths in life. The image above, illustrating the homepage of this blog, is one of the drawings by Steve K. Simons, the book's illustrator, of a chimneypiece panel in a neoclassical villa at Roehampton in South West London. The lessons centre on this panel.

Friday 26 March 2010

Disabled students in Higher Education

Once again, I am beginning a posting with an apology for a lack of activity on my part, this time for several months. Again the reason is that I am continuing to complete my book for OUP in a addition to other duties, which include the role of Academic Disability Coordinator for the School of Arts at Roehampton. With this latter hat on, I have proposed, together with a fellow Disability Coordinator, a workshop for a forthcoming learning and teaching conference, the abstract for which reads as follows:

How to make learning happen for disabled students in Higher Education

‘Making learning happen’ is an apt phrase to use when thinking about disabled students in higher education and the growth of disability studies. As well has having increased access to higher education for disabled students, the Disability Discrimination Acts (DDA) are impacting upon the practice of all staff, who need not only respond now to the needs of individual students, but also to make anticipatory adjustments on the expectation of teaching disabled students with a range of impairments. This workshop will consider how the social model approach adopted by the DDA, while a step forward in enabling participation, has not yet gone far enough in removing barriers to learning and teaching in the classroom. Through a review of the research into experiences of disabled students in higher education, we will reveal a mixed picture that points to several areas for further development.