Daniel Goodley (born 1972) [1] is a scholar in the field of critical disability studies. As of 2024, he is a Professor of Disability Studies and Education in the University of Sheffield's School of Education. He also co-directs the university's iHuman research group, [2] [ non-primary source needed ] which explores the intersections of the following disciplines: "science and technology studies, sociology of health and illness, critical disability studies, or co-production". [3] [ non-primary source needed ]
Mind-blindness, mindblindness or mind blindness is a theory initially proposed in 1990 that claims that all autistic people have a lack or developmental delay of theory of mind (ToM), meaning they are less able to attribute mental states to others. According to the theory, a lack of ToM is considered equivalent to a lack of both cognitive and affective empathy. In the context of the theory, mind-blindness implies being unable to predict behavior and attribute mental states including beliefs, desires, emotions, or intentions of other people. The mind-blindness theory asserts that children who delay in this development will often develop autism.
Michael James Hoiles Oliver was an English sociologist, author, and disability rights activist. He was the first Professor of Disability Studies in the world, and key advocate of the social model of disability.
Mitzi Waltz is a scholar of media and disability studies. As of 2020, she is a research associate at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Estimates vary for the number of people with disabilities in Nigeria, ranging from under 3 million people to over 25 million. Nigerian law prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities. Some discrimination occurs due to prevalent superstitions.
Caetextia is a term and concept first coined by psychologists Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell to describe a chronic disorder that manifests as a context blindness in people on the autism spectrum. It was specifically used to designate the most dominant manifestation of autistic behaviour in higher-functioning individuals. Griffin and Tyrell also suggested that caetextia "is a more accurate and descriptive term for this inability to see how one variable influences another, particularly at the higher end of the spectrum, than the label of 'Asperger's syndrome'".
Arie Rimmerman is an Israeli academic in disability policy research. As of 2018, he is the Richard Crossman Professor of Social Welfare and Social Planning at the University of Haifa, Israel and was the founder Dean of the Social Welfare and Health Sciences faculty. He has been a distinguished Professor at the Newhouse School of Public Communication, Syracuse University, and has also lectured at Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, and Charles University, Prague.
Mad studies is a field of scholarship, theory, and activism about the lived experiences, history, cultures, and politics about people who may identify as mad, mentally ill, psychiatric survivors, consumers, service users, patients, neurodivergent, and disabled. Mad Studies originated from consumer/survivor movements organized in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and in other parts of the world. The methods for inquiry draw from a number of academic disciplines such as women's studies, critical race studies, indigenous epistemologies, queer studies, psychological anthropology, and ethnography. This field shares theoretical similarities to critical disability studies, psychopolitics, and critical social theory. The academic movement formed, in part, as a response to recovery movements, which many mad studies scholars see as being "co-opted" by mental health systems. In 2021 the first academic journal of Mad Studies, The International Journal of Mad Studies, was launched.
Jos Boys is an architecture-trained, activist, educator, artist and writer. She was a founder member of Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative and co-author of their 1984 book Making Space: Women and the Man-Made Environment. Since 2008 she has been co-director of The DisOrdinary Architecture Project with disabled artist Zoe Partington, a disability-led platform that works with disabled artists to explore new ways to think about disability in architectural and design discourse and practice.
Eva Kahana is an American sociologist.
David William Eastham (1963–1988) was a Canadian autistic author and poet. Despite being nonverbal for his entire life, he began learning to type in 1979 using a communication aid and facilitation, reportedly making him the first person with autism to do so. His mother, Margaret Eastham, also played a major role in teaching him to communicate, including through the use of Montessori methods and other techniques, some of which were similar to facilitated communication. His 1985 book, Understand: Fifty Memowriter Poems, has been identified as the first autobiography written by someone who identified as autistic. He died in 1988 of drowning, at the age of 24. In 1990, his mother published Silent Words, in which she described the techniques she used to teach her son to type, speak, and use sign language.
Alison Kafer is an American academic specializing in feminist, queer, and disability theory. As of 2019, she is an associate professor of feminist studies at the University of Texas, Austin. She is the author of the book Feminist, Queer, Crip.
The theory of the double empathy problem is a psychological and sociological theory first coined in 2012 by Damian Milton, an autistic autism researcher. This theory proposes that many of the difficulties autistic individuals face when socializing with non-autistic individuals are due, in part, to a lack of mutual understanding between the two groups, meaning that most autistic people struggle to understand and empathize with non-autistic people, whereas most non-autistic people also struggle to understand and empathize with autistic people. This lack of mutual understanding may stem from bidirectional differences in dispositions, and experiences between autistic and non-autistic individuals, as opposed to always being an inherent deficit.
Critical autism studies (CAS) is an interdisciplinary research field within autism studies led by autistic people. This field is related to both disability studies and neurodiversity studies.
M. Remi Yergeau is an American academic in the fields of rhetoric and writing studies, digital studies, queer rhetoric, disability studies, and theories of mind. As of 2024, Yergeau is an Arthur F. Thurnau associate professor of Digital Studies and English at the University of Michigan.
Psychiatry Under the Influence: Institutional Corruption, Social Injury, and Prescriptions for Reform is a 2015 book by Robert Whitaker and Lisa Cosgrove. The book discusses the use of psychiatric medication in the United States and is critical of the drug industry influence on the field of psychiatry.
Janice Barbara Wearmouth is a British education academic and author, and is a full professor at the University of Bedfordshire, specialising in special educational needs in schools. She was previously Professor of Education at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.
Shelley Lynn Tremain is a philosopher whose work focuses on disability, feminism, bioethics, and Foucault. She has authored Foucault and Feminist Philosophy of Disability (2017), which won the 2016 Tobin Siebers Prize for Disability Studies in the Humanities, and edited Foucault and the Government of Disability (2005/2015).
Tanya Titchkosky is a disability studies scholar. As of January 2025, she is a professor of disability studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
Jay Timothy Dolmage is a Canadian academic in the fields of rhetoric, composition, disability studies, and critical pedagogy. As of 2025, he is the Chair of English at the University of Waterloo. He is also the founding editor of Canadian Journal of Disability Studies.
Rod Michalko is a Canadian scholar in the field of disability studies.