“I Wanted to Do Everything Perfectly, Because I Knew I Couldn’t Be”: Critical Disability Studies, Learning Disabilities, and the Transition to University

Abstract

To date, critical disability studies (CDS), learning disabilities (LD), and transition research have occupied completely different spaces. The transition from high school to university is a critical stage characterized by academic, social, and emotional challenges. The intersecting elements related to the post-secondary transition require resources and skills that are challenging for all students but pose a distinct challenge for those with LDs. CDS works to theorize a simple, yet powerful idea: disability is understood as a phenomenon, associated with the discrimination of people with physical, cognitive, and sensory impairments (Oliver & Barnes, 2012). Questions still remain how those with LDs experience their disability and how, crucially, others experience and respond to it as well. The current study fills the aforementioned gap by including the voices of those who are most academically and socially vulnerable. This study examined the transitional experiences from eight first year university students with a diagnosed LD. The results have several implications. By analyzing the results through a CDS framework it can be understood how disability is not an individual tragedy or flaw but a matter of public discourse. This study provides a space for the experiences and perspectives of students with LDs to be heard in an effort to make visible, and hopefully disrupt, systems of power and privilege that work to marginalize. The personal narratives will provide valuable knowledge to educators, parents, case workers, and other support staff members on the importance reclaiming and centering disability in order to provide a positive transition for students with LDs.