In this essay I consider the arts—created and performed by artists with disabilities—as a site of productive knowledge for educators willing to interrogate the limits of scientific ways of understanding disability. A sample of artists who deploy the arts for self-understanding and self-expression informed by their experience living with disability in contemporary society is included here. The artists represent all disability categories in an effort to encourage LDQ readers to probe the multiple possibilities that exist for researching learning disabilities by reflecting on the cultural meanings ascribed to disability experience, and, in particular, those meanings authored by individuals with disabilities. The cultural flashpoints described here reflect a shift in understanding the disability experience in the present moment and, as such, hold great promise for translation and application by researchers and educators.
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