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Dyslexia in SNS: An Exploratory Study to Investigate Expressions of Identity and Multimodal Literacies

Published: 06 December 2017 Publication History

Abstract

The paradigm of neurodiversity provides a theoretical scaffold to challenge the idea of dyslexia as a deficit, by considering how difficulties related to literacy may reflect possible cognitive strengths and opportunities for learning. In this paper we adopt this perspective which associates dyslexia with strengths in visual, oral and three-dimensional thinking. Our goal is to understand if and how the multimodal affordances of SNS mediate participation and new literacies for dyslexic youth, and how these affordances interact with identity work. Seven young people struggling with literacy were interviewed about their use of SNS. Our results show that the visual affordances of SNS enable new forms of participation and expression, furthering our understanding of visual literacies. Nonetheless, despite the pervasive use of visual affordances to perform identity work, we also find that young people's learning differences are not always obviated but re-constructed, or even confronted in SNS.

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cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction  Volume 1, Issue CSCW
November 2017
2095 pages
EISSN:2573-0142
DOI:10.1145/3171581
Issue’s Table of Contents
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 06 December 2017
Published in PACMHCI Volume 1, Issue CSCW

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Author Tags

  1. dyslexia
  2. inclusive design
  3. learning difficulties
  4. neurodiversity
  5. social model of disability
  6. social network sites
  7. visual literacies

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Cited By

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  • (2024)Social media use by young people with language disorders: a scoping reviewDisability and Rehabilitation10.1080/09638288.2024.232503946:26(6240-6250)Online publication date: 9-Mar-2024
  • (2023)Understanding the Role of Socio-Technical Infrastructures on the Organization of Access for the Mixed-Ability CollaboratorsACM SIGACCESS Accessibility and Computing10.1145/3584732.3584739(1-1)Online publication date: 15-Feb-2023
  • (2022)Defining affordances in social media research: A literature reviewNew Media & Society10.1177/1461444822113518725:11(3165-3188)Online publication date: 23-Nov-2022
  • (2022)Understanding the Role of Socio-Technical Infrastructures on the Organization of Access for the Mixed-Ability CollaboratorsProceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3517428.3550410(1-6)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2022
  • (2022)The Invisible Labor of Access in Academic Writing Practices: A Case Analysis with Dyslexic AdultsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35129676:CSCW1(1-25)Online publication date: 7-Apr-2022
  • (2021)How Online Tests Contribute to the Support System for People With Cognitive and Mental DisabilitiesProceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3441852.3471229(1-15)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2021
  • (2019)Designing emerging technologies for and with neurodiverse usersProceedings of the 37th ACM International Conference on the Design of Communication10.1145/3328020.3353946(1-10)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2019

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