ETA 16 (1) pp.

115–128 Intellect Limited 2020

International Journal of Education Through Art

Volume 16 Number 1
© 2020 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: https://doi.org/10.1386/eta_00020_1

Jennifer Watt
University of Manitoba, Canada

Splashes of light: Parents

of children with dyslexia
explore experiences through
visual arts

Abstract Keywords
This article examines the critical disability praxis grounding a research study that dyslexia
explored the lived experiences of parents of children with dyslexia through in-depth critical disability theory
interviews and arts-based focus group. The participants engaged in visual arts prac- arts-based research
tices to create provoking images of the issues facing themselves or their families. This arts-based pedagogy
multimodal experience became an opportunity for the participants to raise awareness parent experiences
of the needs of families with learning disabilities. This article focuses on two parent- visual arts and learning
artists who created visual pieces that shared a thematic focus on darkness and light. disabilities
Both pieces contribute to a deeper understanding of the challenges and difficulties that
these parent-artists encountered, but also gave them the opportunity to voice the more
affirmative and empowering aspects of their experiences.

An invitation in arts
The grey light of a cold Saturday afternoon in April on the Canadian prairies
poured through the windows of the Faculty of Education art studio, illuminat-
ing the long tables filled with canvases, acrylic and water colour paints, chalk,
pastels, baskets of found/recycled objects, boxes of magazines, pencils, different
sizes and kinds of papers, collage paste, scissors, and glue guns. An invitation

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Jennifer Watt

had been extended; and here in the materials, space, newly formed focus group
community, and time away from busy, demanding and sometimes unpredicta-
ble life routines was an opportunity to explore the following research questions:
How can arts-based practices help participants explore their lived experiences
of being parents of children with dyslexia and articulate the issues facing their
families? How can parent participants’ narratives and art generate and expand
critical disability theory within the contested context of dyslexia studies? In this
article, I explore how this invitation to arts-based research came to be, who took
it up, why they chose to do so and how critical disability theory was enacted
through the prompting, making and analysis of visual art.
This research study was prompted by my own fairly recent experience of
the identification of dyslexia and other specific learning disabilities for one
of my children. Although I did not include my own experiences or artwork
in the study, as part of the informed consent process I was up-front with my
participants about my intersecting identities. I shared with them that I was a
parent who was beginning to figure out the disputed terrain of dyslexia, but I
was also a former Grades 6–12 English-language arts teacher who often felt
uncertain about how to address the needs of my students with learning disa-
bilities. My uncertainty provoked me to pursue graduate studies and led to my
current roles as teacher, educator and researcher in the area of language and
literacies. My integrated roles changed what kinds of questions I asked, how I
listened, the ways I responded, what I noticed and resonated with in the visual
art pieces, and how I designed and supported the art process so that the non-
obvious aspects of learning disabilities might become more obvious.

Seeing, hearing and feeling critical, lived experiences:

Arts-based research practices
Both as a teacher and as an educational researcher, I have experienced many
powerful moments when making visual art and/or creating within other artis-
tic modes. As I have worked side by side with participants and/or students,
I noticed how the process of making art provokes open, expansive, and multi-
perspectival conversations. Art, when it is engaged in as methodology or as
pedagogy, holds within its processes the ‘profound possibilities’ to ‘jar people
into seeing things differently, to transcend differences, and to foster connections’
(Leavy 2009: viii). Arts-based research practices, whether engaged in during data
collection, analysis, interpretation or representation align with critical disability
theory’s goals of ‘accessing subjugated perspectives, challenging stereotypes and
dominant ideology, raising critical consciousness, fostering empathetic under-
standings, and building coalitions’ (2009: ix). Ware argues:

In much the same way that art can inform all of our lives, among those
whose lives are marked by the difference disability makes, the arts can
be of particular value for exploring a unique life experience authored
by disability. For individuals who produce contemporary art informed
by lived disability experience, as well as for those who consume this
art, disability serves as a symbolic network that intersects with identity,
ideology, language, politics, social oppression, and the body.
(Ware 2011: 195)

Paxton-Buursma and Mariage propose that ‘art and arts-based educational

research create[s] additional semiotic spaces to develop, share, contest, resist,

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 Splashes of light

Figure 1: Daralyn Davidson, Images of Visual Art-Making Process in Focus Group Setting (2018). Photographs.

and distribute our individual and collective learning’ about ‘diverse learners
and society’ (2011: 206). For many of the same reasons, Penketh claims that
‘the combination of disability studies and art education can […] be a force to
be reckoned with’ (2014: 291).
In hopes that this research study would become a force to be reckoned with,
I purposefully recruited participants through dyslexia support organizations
and tutors in my Canadian province. I did so because I wanted to recruit
participants who self-identified as being a parent (which I broadly defined as
being a biological, adopted, or foster parent or a grandparent/relation acting in
a parenting role) of child with dyslexia (which I purposefully did not define, so
that potential participants could identify with and interpret the term in their
own way). I also stipulated in the recruitment process that the child may or
may not have had a formal diagnosis of dyslexia, but should still be engaging
in K-12 schooling. This research study was conducted in two phases and the
participants were given the option of participating in both parts or just the
initial open-ended interview.
In the first phase of the study, eleven participants (ten mothers, one
father) participated in 60–90-minute individual interviews (although, in
one case I interviewed the father and mother together). The interviews were
transcribed and then the participants were given the opportunity to check
the transcriptions – adding, deleting or changing to ensure their inten-
tions were documented accurately. The participants in the first phase of the
research study each brought unique stories of their family contexts and their
children’s schooling journeys. After the first phase had been completed,
I extended an invitation to participate in the second phase of the research
study.
In my preliminary searches of the literature, I could not find any studies
in which arts-based research methods were used to explore lived experiences
of children, adults or parents of children with dyslexia. Instead, I drew upon
a study by Welsby and Horsfall (2011) in which they ‘centered’ five women
who have an intellectual disability ‘as experts of their own experiences’ (796).
Although they engaged in a series of in-depth interviews, they also used a
series of workshops that were ‘co-facilitated by an experienced art teacher’
(798). The women were given choice and self-determination within the
workshop space. Welsby and Horsfall did not use the art that was created
within the workshops as primary data, but instead viewed ‘art-making’

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as the ‘vehicle for women to tell stories about their lives’ (798). Although
I ultimately decided that the artwork created by my parent-participants
would become primary data, I shared similar observations to Welsby and
Horsfall during my participants’ art-making session: ‘While working on
individual works, around a large table, stories were shared and discussed and
the conversation flowed from topic to topic, creating a sort of collaborative
introspection that stimulated individual storytelling and the sharing of
experiences’ (798).
For the second phase of my research study, six participants (all moth-
ers) consented to attend a full-day arts-based, data-generating focus
group. Four teacher education students with a focus in visual arts served
as co-facilitators of the event in order to provide technical/artistic support,
talk through visual ideas and options, and to ease any tension or anxiety the
participants might feel about engaging in art-making. The day began with
introductions and then a focus group interview, in which the six partici-
pants responded to some key questions and themes that had emerged from
the individual interviews. Participants then had a chance to collectively
explore metaphors and/or strong visual imagery by doing a ‘gallery walk’
through a variety of anonymous quotes from the first phase of interviews.
After lunch, the visual arts teacher education students demonstrated a few
watercolour and sketching techniques and then participants were invited
to create a visual art piece using a variety of possible media (photography,
paint, collage, sculpture, etc.). The final activity of the day was an informal
sharing circle in which each participant was invited to explain what her
image(s) meant to her and what she could see, feel or understand in others’
images.
When I designed the research study, I hypothesized that incorporat-
ing art would give parents the opportunity to create provoking images
of the issues facing their children and/or themselves in order to advo-
cate for the needs of families in our Canadian province. I predicted that
the interview data and stories of the participants from the first phase of
my research study would be compelling on their own, but I believed that
‘visual art inherently opens up multiple meanings that are determined not
only by the artist, but also the viewer and the context of the viewing’ (Leavy
2009: 215). Within the process of making visual art, the participants would
have the opportunity to create images that could disrupt previously held,
often deficit-defined assumptions about dyslexia and become a catalyst for
change. Important themes emerged through the art production and were
articulated when the parent-artists described what their images meant to
them. I would not have seen, heard or felt these themes in the interview
or narrative data alone. Art invited me to re-enter the data and consider
how participants’ earlier told stories could be re-seen within their produced
images and how the art created its own meanings that were beyond narra-
tive. For this article, I focus on two parent-artists who produced and inter-
preted art through a focus on darkness and light. The art pieces contribute
to understanding the challenges and difficulties that these parent-artists
encountered, especially when dyslexia was denied as a concept. However,
producing art also gave the parent-artists the opportunity to voice the
more affirmative and empowering aspects of their experiences, especially
as they and their children journeyed further into an understanding and
embracing dyslexia.

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 Splashes of light

Dyslexia and learning disabilities: Non-obvious,

contested and deficit defined
There can be profound and long-lasting consequences for individuals and their
families when dyslexia and other learning disabilities are not acknowledged,
identified or supported. However, learning disabilities are characterized as
complex because they vary in severity and in the areas that they affect cognitive
processing. Learning disabilities are experienced differently in terms of their
impact for each individual (Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning 2015).
Devlin and Pothier (2006) remind us ‘that disabilities range from the highly
visible to the highly invisible’, arguing that visibility often depends on the
context: ‘many disabilities are not apparent unless specific activities impacted
by the disability are being engaged in’ (15). Unlike more visible disabilities
(for example, one requiring the use of a wheelchair), learning disabilities often
remain hidden, unnoticed, or misunderstood by the individuals experiencing
them, their caregivers and their teachers.
Due, at least in part, to its complexity and non-obvious nature, the term
dyslexia is ‘contentious’ (Nugent 2007: 52) in both academic scholarship and
many Canadian K-12 school settings. As Stein (2008) writes, ‘every ten years
or so someone repeats the claim that dyslexia does not really exist at all;
that it is only a middle class excuse for laziness or a cover for bad teaching’
(56). He then goes on to assert that

what these arguments neglect however is the large amount of genetic

and neurobiological evidence that dyslexia is more than just a problem
with acquiring phonological skills and reading, but it is associated with
clear brain differences in other areas as well.
(Stein 2008: 56)

Van Bergen et al. (2011) make the case that ‘dyslexia is commonly seen as a
complex, multifaceted disorder with numerous genes involved that interact
with one another and the environment’ (4). Due to the complexity of these
interactions, dyslexia presents differently for different individuals (Manis and
Bailey 2008), which makes creating a clear definition that is agreed upon
between medical, psychological and educational researchers and professionals
difficult. Rather than using the term dyslexia, The Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) uses the term ‘Specific
Learning Disorder with Impairment in Reading’ to encompass any difficulties
with word-level accuracy or reading rate, fluency or comprehension (American
Psychiatric Association 2013; Foss 2013; Manitoba Education and Advanced
Learning 2015).
Parents and educational professionals continue to debate whether defin-
ing and/or identifying dyslexia – and other learning disabilities – is a neces-
sary or helpful endeavour, especially within the school context (Griffiths et al.
2004; Norwich et al. 2005). Numerous studies have indicated that ‘raising and
educating a child with dyslexia is a challenging task for parents’ (Multhauf
et al. 2016: 1204). Compared to other parents, parents of children with dyslexia
reported higher rates of depression, family stress levels, parental disagree-
ments and anxiety (Antshel and Joseph 2006; Bonifacci et al. 2014; Karande
et al. 2009; Snowling et al. 2007). Other studies indicate that parents often
found the diagnosis or identification process positive and reassuring (Griffiths

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et al. 2004; Norwich et al. 2005). The identification of dyslexia seemed to take
away some of the blame parents were feeling and gave them renewed hope.
As Norwich et al. argue (2005), ‘the dyslexic identity can turn a private trouble
into a shared issue’ and the identification of dyslexia became a ‘comforting
confirmation of unarticulated worries’ (159). Whereas parents found the
identification process as positive and needed, many teachers conceptualized
the naming of specific learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, as ‘labelling’,
which they believed would have ‘negative consequences for the students’
(Griffiths et al. 2004: 425). Teachers feared that this labelling process would ‘at
worst, make the child ashamed or uncomfortable or, at best, act as an excuse
to hinder effort’ (425). The disconnect between the parents feeling relieved
and reassured by the label and school professionals being reluctant to use
the name often caused tension and unclear communication between home
and school. The darkness of this tension can be seen, heard and felt in the
following two stories that are quoted directly from how the featured parent-
artists introduced themselves to the other mothers and the research team on
the morning of the arts-based focus group. However, it also becomes clear
that these mothers were able to move towards a light-filled, affirmative view
of dyslexia.

Stacey’s story
I’m Stacey and I’m very grateful for this research project because I know as
parents we feel like we don’t have enough people interested, especially in
[our province]. I have a daughter who is now 22 and she’s dyslexic. I have
an adopted son who is now 9. He’s dyslexic. I think it’s like I’ve lived two
lives already. My daughter Robyn is turning 23 and I knew she was dyslexic
in kindergarten, so we’ve now been on a seventeen-year journey. I knew she
was dyslexic because every time I looked on the internet to find an explana-
tion for how Robyn was learning, it was dyslexia. And year after year, I’d say,
‘It’s dyslexia’. And year after year the school would say, ‘No, it’s not dyslexia,
Stacey. No, it’s not’.
It was grade one and Robyn would cry and say, ‘This is too hard’. I would
think, ‘But isn’t this supposed to be fun? How is grade one hard?’ By the time
Robyn was in sixth grade, I was done. I was done listening to other people’s
opinions. And my daughter was starving. She was starving for what she
needed to show what she knew, and show it in literacy. It was horrible for her.
She was quitting school.
She was finally diagnosed in sixth grade. I started tutoring her myself and
in six months I felt it was a moral obligation to open a tutoring centre. So, I did.
That was my first journey. That was my first chapter. Because I was able to get
Robyn what she needed, her literacy matched grade level in grade eight. She
was reading and spelling at grade eight because we had two intense years of
what she needed, as opposed to what the system was forcing her to get. Right?
And now my son has been with me six years […]. When he hit kinder-
garten, it was a different story. Because with Robyn I was fighting and I was
trying to be heard. Even though I was just a mom, I still knew what I was talk-
ing about. But back then I didn’t believe it. With my son, it’s different. Because
I knew it and I did it differently right out of the gates. So now, who he is as a
person is so different from who my daughter was at that age. His power hasn’t
been taken away. He’s felt smart right from the beginning. He just knew it had
to be different and he did it that way and there has never been a problem.

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Julie’s story
My name is Julie. I am a teacher, as well as parent. But right now, I’m home-
schooling my youngest daughter. She was diagnosed with dyslexia and dyscal-
culia in grade 2. And I have an older daughter who is 15 who has never been
tested, but I believe is dyslexic too. But I believe she is much milder. She does
really well with intentional teaching. You can’t make assumptions with her.
And then I have a son and sometimes I look at him and I think, ‘I don’t know
about you’. [Laughter in group]
I’m also dyslexic. I’ve had that experience growing up and I know what
that felt like in school. So, as a teacher I always tried to be pretty aware of
kids who struggle. But going through the process of home-schooling Emma, I
didn’t really have a clue of what I was doing. I mean patience and extra prac-
tice, but truly knowing when it comes to language how to really teach it and
break it down. It has been a really cool journey. My teacher brain has loved it.
Emma is moderately to severely dyslexic, so there are lots of times when I look
at her and I just think, ‘Are you not in the mood for this Emma? Or, does this
really not make sense to you?’ I always say that she’s a complicated learner.
To be part of this research project is hopefully to make people a little bit
more aware of dyslexia and to appreciate it better. I was just talking to a friend
last night and he said, ‘Oh, my one daughter had dyslexia in kindergarten and
grade 1, too. But then she outgrew it’. [Big laughter from group]. And I thought,
‘Uh huh’. [Big laughter again.] You just realize how little people know, myself
included.

Critical disability theory and the arts: An affirmative

understanding of dyslexia
Parents like Stacey and Julie, researchers, educational professionals, artists
and individuals with dyslexia engage in critical disability praxis when they
strive to expand the conceptualization of dyslexia to include more affirmative,
strength-based perspectives; value and make visible the complex lived expe-
riences of individuals with dyslexia and their family members; and challenge
socially created structures or barriers for those with learning disabilities. In
opposition to medical or deficit models, which are often imposed upon indi-
viduals with disabilities, the social model of disability emerged directly from
the voices, experiences and advocacy of people with disabilities (Hughes and
Paterson 1997). Instead of understanding disability as an impairment or defi-
cit of the individual, disability becomes conceptualized as the limitations and
barriers created by social, cultural, and political infrastructure, policies, and
discriminatory attitudes (Swain and French 2000). Swain and French proposed
an affirmative, ‘non-tragic’ model of disability, which ‘encompasses positive
social identities, both individual and collective, for disabled people grounded
in the benefits of life style and life experience of being impaired and disabled’
(569). Although the affirmative model shifts the conceptualization of
disability to a more positive interpretation, Devlin and Pothier (2006) assert
that there is no neutral or apolitical way to conceptualize disability. They
argue that disability itself is ‘manufactured’ from what is valued and what
is considered ‘defective’ in various sociopolitical, historical and cultural contexts
(5). Therefore, they advocate for critical disability theory to explicitly address
politics and power.
Social, affirmative, and critical theories radically change the conversa-
tion about dyslexia, affecting how parents of children with dyslexia are able

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to frame and make sense of their own experiences. Eide and Eide draw upon
extensive neurobiological, genetic and qualitative sociological research to
‘expand the view of dyslexic processing so that it encompasses both the chal-
lenges that individuals with dyslexia face and the abilities they commonly
demonstrate’ (2012). The authors state that the critical goals of their work
are ‘to help individuals with dyslexia recognise [their] many wonderful
advantages, so they can enjoy the full range of benefits that can come from
having a dyslexic brain’ and ‘to help them think more broadly about what it
really means to “be dyslexic”’ (2012: xvii). In connection to arts education,
Hickman and Brens (2014) highlight the ‘growing body of research’ that
focuses on the ‘potential link’ between dyslexia and ‘creativity, artistic
expression, and spatial reasoning’ and makes ‘claims [that] students with
dyslexia are more prevalent in disciplines such as art and design, engineering
and architecture than in other areas’ (339). Within this affirmative framework,
Hickman and Brens conducted a three-year qualitative study with approxi-
mately twenty arts teacher education students who identify as dyslexic. This
study demonstrated how these novice arts educators ‘have been able to
translate their own struggles, triumphs, and experiences with dyslexia into
current teaching strategies’ (2014: 342).
Foss (2013) argues that it is important to use the word disability when
it comes to describing and naming dyslexia both for the ‘legal rights and
protections that come with the term’ and because ‘the word disability is one
that generation of people fought to create’ (41, original emphasis). He argues
that to further understand an individual’s disability profile one must look at
whether the disability is innate (something someone is born with) or acquired
(something that occurs sometime after birth) and whether the disability is
obvious or non-obvious (2013: 41–42). While Devlin and Poethier (2006) argue
that ‘hidden disabilities leads to possibilities (and politics) of passing’ (15), Foss
suggests that individuals who choose to hide their non-obvious disabilities
often do so at the expense of a more positive self-concept. Since dyslexia is an
innate, non-obvious disability, Foss argues that many people with dyslexia are
‘likely to hide a part of themselves for much of their lives’ (2013: 42). He then
goes on to state:

No wonder there can be such a river of shame flowing under the surface.
My experience is that the way to deal with this is to make all disabilities
obvious by talking openly about it. This draws people toward you and
you then have an opportunity to create community.
(Foss 2013: 42)

The critical disability praxis of drawing people together to talk openly about
their lived experiences of dyslexia grounded my arts-based research study.

Splashes of light: Exploring the visual art of parent

participants
Devlin and Pothier argue that critical disability theorists should interrogate
‘a system of justice that is based on a politics of “just us”’, which is why
they believe ‘context is so important in critical disability theory, because it
is theory that emerges from the bottom up, from the lived experiences of
persons with disabilities’ (2006: 9). In this spirit, I purposefully privilege
the participants’ analysis as the most foundational part of the interpretive

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 Splashes of light

Figure 2: Stacey (Pseudonym), Growing to the Light (2018). Felt markers on paper.

process. The direct juxtaposition of these participants’ art and interpretations,

without interruption of the researcher’s voice also becomes what MacDonald
describe as a process of ‘openings’, allowing for and/or critical disability
educators and researchers to consider the following questions (2017: 173):
What do you see in the images? What do you hear in the parent-artists’
interpretations? How do you interpret the images? How do you see themes
developing across the visual art pieces? How does this expand your under-
standings of the relationships between art and critical disability theory?
How does making art and talking about it contribute to making non-obvi-
ous learning disabilities more obvious and more likely to draw together a
community of support?

Growing to the Light

I always think in words, that’s just how I work. It started with being alone.
Stress. Worry. Being unhappy. And then there was a marker that said, ‘Okay,
now this is going to change’. It was the unknown for me. It created upset.
No voice. I felt unheard. There’s indecision, arguing, tears, anger. There
were all of those emotions around the unknown. Then what made the
transition was this decision. I decided: we’re going to learn, we’re going to
be open, we’re going to gain knowledge. But we have to do. I took action.
Action led to routine, structure, teaching. And all of those led to ability,
which then led to confidence, power, happiness, self-worth. (Stacey, Focus
Group Interview)

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Jennifer Watt

Figure 3: Julie (Pseudonym), Northern Lights (2018). Watercolour on paper.

Northern Lights
I thought about art that represents how I feel about dyslexia and that I often
think of the northern lights. So, that was what I was trying to do. It’s just
a sense of darkness. But I’ve never really seen it as a black darkness, but it
is a darkness. With the struggles and how you feel about yourself and your
self-esteem. And I was thinking about working with my daughter for the last
couple of years and just how many rays of hope and light. You’ll be doing
something and you’ll think, ‘Oh crummy, this kid will never learn basic math
facts’. And now, all of a sudden, she’s almost faster with 7 + 8 than my other
two kids can be. So, just these splashes of light. There is lots of hope. I’m curi-
ous: I’m going to go home and talk to her about if she can recognise how she
feels now as opposed to before. Hopefully she feels more of the light, too.
(Julie, Focus Group Interview)

The art of moving towards critical disability analysis as

parents and educators
The participants’ artwork and interpretations capture both difficulties and
challenges, as well as the moments of hope and light that coexist within the
experiences of parenting children with dyslexia. In the first image, we see a
progression from dark to light, both in word and colour choices, as Stacey
becomes more informed, equipped and empowered because of her journey
with her children. For Julie, the darkness and difficulties of living with a learn-
ing disability, both her own and her children’s, are integrated and entangled
with glimmers of light that come from personal breakthroughs in her child’s
learning or through meaningful relationships and connections developed
within the dyslexia community. Exploring both the dark and light experi-
ences helped these artist-participants, and the others involved in the study,
to clearly name the kinds of support and education that they most needed for

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 Splashes of light

their families – and to do so directly and on their own terms. By making art,
parents were able to critically engage in collective witnessing and, as Welsby
and Horsfall noticed, ‘collaborative introspection’ (2011: 98) of the lived expe-
rience of dyslexia for the whole family.
This special issue is grounded in the important purpose of connecting
ideas of critical disability studies to art education/research and vice versa. It
offers readers a unique opportunity to explore best practices and lived exam-
ples of how to engage in visual, arts-based, participatory methods (Leavy
2009) within the framework of critical disability studies. And it challenges us
to think about how to ethically and responsibly analyse artworks after they
have been created through this process. Leavy offers an important reminder:

When amateurs are invited into the art-making process, certainly they
cannot be expected to possess artistic ability or training. Therefore, in
participatory projects the aesthetic quality of the resulting visual art takes
a back seat to the other advantages of the methodology […] the visual art
produced by research participants can still be quite powerful with respect
to conveying emotion and the multiple meanings articulated via the art.
(Leavy 2009: 227–28)

This causes me to pause and wonder: Are analysis frameworks or art critique
methods that are more commonly used for other educational or research
purposes appropriate when I am interpreting and analysing the work of
participants who may ‘not possess artistic ability or training’? (Leavy 2009:
227). Is external analysis of the product (analysis conducted by the researcher
or someone other than the artist-participant) appropriate or ethical when the
art has been created to elicit personal insights into lived experiences? Would
my analysis of the artwork, as researcher (or for others, as art educators), take
away from the participants’ ability to become ‘centre’ as the ‘as experts of their
own experiences’ (Welsby and Horsfall 2011: 796) and therefore work against
the principles of critical disability theory?
I continue to grapple with how to go deep with the art, while also making
sure that the perspectives of participants remain at the centre. Penketh (2014)
raises questions that may provide a particularly apt frame for an arts-based
critical disability analysis. This frame shifts the analysis away from a critique of
the participant’s art product towards an analysis of the response that the art
evokes for the viewer/educator/researcher:

Why do these drawings [visual art pieces] shock or destabilize me?

What does this say about my own awareness and understanding of
difference? What role might drawing [visual arts] play in […] education?
[…] Why am I uncertain about what the person knows and what he or
she depicts? How might I learn from the ways that they represent their
experience? How do I ensure that these experiences are valued?
(Penketh 2014: 297)

Due to length limitations, I can only raise these questions as a process for
my own critical disability analysis of the art that I share here. Hopefully, by
sharing my questions around appropriate, ethical and responsible analysis,
I can invite other critical disability theorists and art educators/researchers
to enter into their own thinking around these visual pieces and other
disability art.

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The parents who accepted my initial invitation to enter the studio, make
art with the materials, and share stories, tears and laughter together in the
grey light of an April afternoon all seemed to recognize the power and poten-
tial of art as a method for research, pedagogy and advocacy. When the day was
closing, the supplies were being tidied and the artwork was being packed up,
Julie asked, ‘I wonder if they’ve ever done art projects like this with dyslexic
children themselves, maybe from ages 5–18? I wonder what they’d do. Would
they think as deeply? Would they think more? I’d be curious’. This kind of
curiosity shows the potential of aligning arts-based research methods with
critical disability theory – a praxis that allows those who live with or along-
side learning disabilities to show and tell, to make visible, and to provoke new
critical conversations through visual arts.

Acknowledgement
Jennifer Watt is appreciative of the hard work and creative support of her
research assistant team: Ashley Bielus, Daralyn Davidson and Whitney Zyluk.

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Suggested citation
Watt, Jennifer (2020), ‘Splashes of light: Parents of children with dyslexia
explore experiences through visual arts’, International Journal of Education
Through Art, 16:1, pp. 115–28, doi: https://doi.org/10.1386/eta_00020_1

Contributor details
Dr. Jennifer Watt is an assistant professor of language and literacy at the
University of Manitoba. Her current research focuses on how multiple and
inclusive literacies contribute to well-being and well-becoming in schools and
beyond. She would like to acknowledge and thank her team of undergradu-
ate research assistants for their artistic expertise and support of this project:
Ashley Bielus, Daralyn Davidson and Whitney Zyluk.

www.intellectbooks.com   127
Jennifer Watt

Contact: University of Manitoba, 236 Education Building, Winnipeg, MB,

R3T 3C5, Canada.
E-mail: jennifer.watt@umanitoba.ca

Jennifer Watt has asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that
was submitted to Intellect Ltd.

128   International Journal of Education Through Art

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