Text

Kids Across the Spectrums: Growing Up Autistic in the Digital Age

---

An ethnographic study of diverse children on the autism spectrum and the role of media and technology in their everyday lives.

In spite of widespread assumptions that young people on the autism spectrum have a “natural” attraction to technology—a premise that leads to significant speculation about how media helps or harms them—relatively little research actually exists about their everyday tech use. In Kids Across the Spectrums, Meryl Alper fills this gap with the first book-length ethnography of the digital lives of autistic young people. Based on research with more than sixty neurodivergent children from an array of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds, Kids Across the Spectrums delves into three overlapping areas of their media usage: cultural belonging, social relationships, and physical embodiment.

Alper's work demonstrates that what autistic youth do with technology is not radically different from their nonautistic peers. However, significant social and health inequalities—including limited recreational programs, unsafe neighborhoods, and challenges obtaining appropriate therapeutic services—spill over into their media habits. With an emphasis on what autistic children bring to media as opposed to what they supposedly lack socially, Alper argues that their relationships do not exist outside of how communication technologies affect sociality, nor beyond the boundaries of stigmatization and society writ large. Finally, she offers practical suggestions for the education, healthcare, and technology sectors to promote equity, inclusion, access, and justice for autistic kids at home, at school, and in their communities.

---

Availability

No copy data

Detail Information

Series Title

-

Call Number

-

Publisher

Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press., 2023

Collation

-

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

9780262374002

Classification

NONE

Content Type

text

Media Type

computer

Carrier Type

online resource

Edition

-

Subject(s)

children of the autism
The role of media and technology

Specific Detail Info

-

Statement of Responsibility

Meryl Alper

Other Information

Cataloger

umi

Source

https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5626/Kids-Across-the-SpectrumsGrowing-Up-Autistic-in

Validator

-

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/14152.001.0001

Journal Volume

-

Journal Issue

-

Subtitle

-

Parallel Title

-

Other version/related

File Attachment

Comments

---

You must be logged in to post a comment