Comparing Indigenous and Western Approaches to Autism

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Anna Wilson MEd.

• This poster challenges the dominant narrative in Western society’s medical model that views autism as a ‘disease’ by defending the empowering Navajo view of autism as a ‘difference’ in Indigenous Research Methodologies (IRM). This envisions people with autism as a source of social capital instead of a social burden. The healing Indigenous people experience through community sharing can also help non-indigenous people with autism heal in their communities. The healing stories of people with autism provide a wealth of experience to the Library and Information Studies Field. The World Health Organization (WHO) values librarians’ inclusion of people with autism through developing informative autism web sites and sharing their valuable experiences through digital stories (Servili, & Saxena, 2013).  Librarians can challenge societies’ stereotypes of autism through promoting appropriate autism websites and critiquing inaccurate websites. This poster examines how five autism organization websites challenge the Western medical view of autism as a disease through alternative Indigenous methods of coping with autism. These refreshing stories of people with autism reveal how nourishing their strengths enables them to flourish creatively as authors of their own destiny.

• Date created

  2015-02-06

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Indians of North America--Attitudes
  • Navajo Indians with disabilities
  • Indigenous peoples--Attitudes
  • Sociology of disability
  • Cross-cultural studies
  • Autistic people--Public opinion

• Type of Item

  Conference/Workshop Poster

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3QN5ZF7M

• License

  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International