Beyond Inclusion

If the question is ＂How do you raise anti-ableist kids?＂ the answer is ＂Become anti-ableist and then model it through intention and action for your children.＂

Parents want to be inclusive of their disabled and neurodivergent neighbors and want to pass these values along to their children. What holds them back is not having the education or experience on how to appropriately do this. Beyond Inclusion breaks down fifteen common forms of ableism, with explanations, examples, and first-person accounts. Doing better starts with knowledge.

Author Carrie Cherney Hahn offers activities and perspectives that help parents understand the ableism that exists within them and supports their ability to process and dismantle it so that they can model anti-ableist practices for their kids. Each chapter offers children’s resources that parents can use to nurture informed and anti-ableist ideals in their kids.

Inclusion is actually the bare minimum. Our work is to show our children how to become more understanding, more accepting, and more appreciative of disabled and neurodivergent people.

Carrie Cherney Hahn is a pediatric speech-language pathologist and mother. She has served children of a variety of ages in a variety of settings such as an autism support group for parents, distribution of a parent education newsletter, and talks at conferences and for family advocacy groups. She now has her own practice serving clients through direct therapy and indirect support, and also uses her business page to share information about disability and neurodivergence. Hahn is the mother of two neurodivergent children, one of who also has physical disabilities. Her professional and personal lives have intensified her passion for education and advocacy for making a safer and less ableist world.