Kids Across the Spectrums: Growing Up Autistic in the Digital Age

Summary

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Meryl Alper, Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Northeastern University, about her recent book, Kids Across the Spectrums: Growing Up Autistic in the Digital Age (MIT Press, 2023). In addition to being a professor, Alper is also an educational researcher who has worked over the past 20 years to make inclusive and accessible learning products with media organizations such as Sesame Workshop, Nickelodeon, and PBS KIDS. Vinsel and Alper talk about disability studies, the nature of Alper’s empirical work, the arc of Alper’s career, including her future projects.

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Lee Vinsel

Lee Vinsel is an associate professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society at Virginia Tech. He studies human life with technology, with particular focus on the relationship between government, business, and technological change. His first book, Moving Violations: Automobiles, Experts, and Regulations in the United States, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in July 2019.

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