Designing is Imagining: What Futures and Identities Do Activists With Developmental Disabilities Imagine When Designing For Learners With Developmental Disabilities?

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Sedgwick, M. & Fuller, S. (2024). Designing is Imagining: What Futures and Identities Do Activists With Developmental Disabilities Imagine When Designing For Learners With Developmental Disabilities? Disability Studies Quarterly, 43(2). https://doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v43i2.8879

Publication date: 1 Mar 2024 Added to AutiHub: 22 Aug 2026 Type: Article Article language: English
OpenAlex source Publisher source (DOI)

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Authors

Publication authors
2
Publication authors identified as autistic
2 / 2 (100.0%)
  1. Marrok Sedgwick *
  2. Stephanie Fuller *

Abstract

As learners engage in learning environments, they constantly co-develop ideas about who they are (their identities), and who they can become (their futures). Designers of learning activities make assumptions about what learner identities and imagined futures learners will ultimately take up. Learning activity designers with developmental disabilities who identify as activists may make assumptions about learners with developmental disabilities that other designers would not. Working from a critical disability praxis orientation, the research was led by a person with a developmental disability. This study utilized a grounded theory approach to discourse analysis to analyze the design talk between two adult activists with developmental disabilities while they engaged in a co-design process to create a learning activity intended for learners with developmental disabilities who use Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC). The activity was a game that explores inductive logic. Discourse was analyzed to understand what imagined futures and learner identities these activists assumed learners with developmental disabilities might take up. These activists imagined learners with developmental disabilities who use AAC as being inquisitive, interdependent, and ableism literate, and capable of achieving futures that were validating, inquisitive, accessible, and ableism-literate. These futures and identities suggest that future participatory design research with adults and youth with developmental disabilities might yield innovative curriculum designs.

Bibliography cited by this reference

Cited references are imported from external metadata sources when they are available. The list may be partial.

Cited bibliography overview

These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 22 Aug 2026 19:25.

Cited references
29
With a DOI
14
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
15
3 / 29 (10.3%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
12 / 29 (41.4%)
References with detected author names
17 / 29 (58.6%)
Without detected author names
12
Without a structured title
1
Without a stable identifier
15
References with raw author names still to review
12
References with external metadata lookup issues
0
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
34
From DOI or external metadata
30
From validated raw bibliography text
4
Raw names already validated
4
Raw names still to review
20
7 / 34 (20.6%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 27 / 34 (79.4%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
4 / 34 (11.8%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 4 / 7 (57.1%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 3 / 31 (9.7%).
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