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Critiquing Representations Of Intellectual Disability In Occupation-Based Literature, Rachel Reparon, Pamela Block, Ann Fudge Schormans, Debbie Laliberte Rudman, Gail Teachman

Occupational Therapy Publications

Background: Within and beyond occupation-based scholarship, concerns abound regarding the pervasiveness of discourses that promote a negative, deficit-based view of intellectual disability and associated consequences for disabled people’s lives. Such representations risk reducing the complexities of human doing and being and can limit the occupational possibilities of this group. Yet, there is a lack of critically reflexive research exploring how disability is discursively constructed in occupation-based literature.

Aims/Objectives: This paper critically analyses representations of intellectual disability within occupation-based literature. It considers the influence of such representations on the occupational possibilities of people labelled intellectually disabled.

Methods: This review employed a …