Vol. 20 Issue 4 (2026): Review of Disability Studies: An International Journal 

Editorial 

 

Volume 20 Issue 4 

Editorial 

The editorial for Volume 20, Issue 4 suggests Alice Wong’s quote that people can learn from disabled people’s experiences about the importance of shared vulnerability and interdependence is truer than ever, and it outlines this issues' content. It closes with an invitation to the 41st Annual Pacific Rim International Conference, at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, May 28–29, 2026. 

 

Research Articles and Essays 

 

A Genealogy of the Council for Exceptional Children Advanced Preparation Standards

Laura N. Sarchet 

This study examines how special education standards include (or exclude) neurodivergent (a brain that works differently from most people's) teacher candidates, and how those standards shape the way students with disabilities are understood and treated. 

 

 

Interview Survey on Provision of Assistive Technology Services for Students with Disabilities under the COVID-19 Pandemic

Takashi Watanabe, Hiroyuki Fujii, Tomoko Hosho, Yuji Asaishi, and Mamoru Iwabuchi 

This study explores how assistive technology services for students with disabilities were delivered during COVID-19, finding that a hybrid (a mix of two different things) approach combining in-person and remote support can be effective. 

 

 

Beyond Words: Reception of Audio Description in Public Places Complicated by External Factors

Matt Bullen, Brett Oppegaard, Megan Conway, Sajja Koirala 

This study goes beyond how audio descriptions are written to highlight overlooked barriers — like delivery methods and background noise — that prevent people from fully accessing public experiences. 

 

 

Disability Arts as Disability Justice: Racialized Disabled Artists Navigating the Arts in Canada

Kelly Fritsch and Amy Li 

This article examines the added barriers faced by disabled artists in racialized (treated as a racial group by society or systems of power) communities, and how activist art (art made to push for social or political change) and community support can help address them. 

 

Book Reviews 

 

We Were Never the Problem: Reclaiming Disability Through Indigenous Worldviews: A Review of Indigenous Disability Studies, edited by John T. Ward 

Kenika Lorenzo-Elarco 

This review, written from a Native Hawaiian perspective, explores how a book on Indigenous (the original people of a land, before others arrived and settled) Disability Studies reframes disability through cultural and relational worldviews, including the Hawaiian belief that disability is a form of sacred ability. 

 

Disability, Sexuality, and Gender in Asia: Intersectionality, Human Rights, and the Law Ratan Sarkar 

This review covers a book exploring how disability intersects with gender and sexuality across Asia, centering the experiences of stigma (unfair shame or judgment), exclusion, and resistance, with relevance to the Global South (poorer, less powerful nations, mostly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America). 

 

Interviews

 

An Interview with Scot Danforth, Author of An Independent Man: Ed Roberts and the Fight for Disability Rights 

Raphael Raphael

This interview with biographer Scot Danforth explores his eight-year journey writing about Ed Roberts, a founding figure of the disability rights movement, and why that fight for rights remains urgent today.

 

Dissertations and Abstracts 

 

Dissertation & Abstracts v 

Sandra Oshiro 

The following provides a listing of select recent citations of dissertations and theses relevant to disability studies.