Siblinghood through disability studies perspectives: diversifying discourse and knowledge about siblings with and without disabilities

‘I don't live with autism; I live with my sister’. Sisters’ accounts on growing up with their preverbal autistic siblings

“…For Milton, concepts of her theory such as marginalisation, powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence towards autistic people are the roots of ableism in autism research and clinical thinking. In line with the latter, we echo Meltzer's and Kramer's (2016) voice who argue for the application of more materialist, feminist and inclusive perspectives in siblinghood and disability research. While examining that the inductive reasoning and individual experiences matter and inform future research and the design of sibling support models, the siblinghood experiences of autistic people may also enrich the ways we conceptualise disability in family research and inform further social and mental health policies.…”

“…The potential of disrupted or damaging sibling relationships has often been over-emphasised by the previous research in siblinghood and disability research and adopted an individualised and marginalised approach. Meltzer & Kramer (2016) suggests that this focus is related to a long history of institutionalization of people with disabilities, as protecting siblings' wellbeing was one of the reasons that parents were encouraged by professionals to send their children with disabilities to institutions in the 1940s and 1950s.…”

“…----- Table 1 around here-----Drawn from a research history of psycho-medical approaches to determining the impact of having a brother or sister with a disability (Meltzer &Kramer, 2016 andMeltzer, 2018) siblings' experiences are often taken for granted and interpreted within Western medical model assumptions, providing very little about the meaning that they give to their experience of living with an autistic brother. According to Galvin and Todres (2013), returning to the elements of understanding what it is to be human by exploring these 8 humanising dimensions offers a base and foundation from which we may begin to examine the meaning that sisters give to their lived and living experiences more in depth.…”

That time I punched a boy in the forehead: sibling stories ahead of research

“…This concern for our mental health pathologizes, classifies, and individualizes our sibling relationships, as Meltzer and Kramer (2016) explain. To pathologize our family relationships undermines the intersections of disability and mad studies that might critique such inquiry as ableist and sanist in its utter disregard for the socio-cultural and intersectional circumstances under which our stories unfold.…”

“…The need for sibling stories in research I tell my story with gratitude for researchers who facilitate sibling storytelling (Burghardt et al 2017;Guse and Harvey 2010;Meltzer and Kramer 2016). Sibling disability research is an understudied area that has room for the cultivation of radical methodological approaches.…”