Dr. Cathery Yeh, Supporting Neurodiverse Students in Elementary Mathematics Classrooms
ROUNDING UP: SEASON 3 | EPISODE 14
What meaning does the term neurodiverse convey and how might it impact a student's learning experience?
And how can educators think about the work of designing environments and experiences that support neurodiverse students learning mathematics?
In this episode, we discuss these questions with Dr. Cathery Yeh, a professor in STEM education from the University of Texas at Austin.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Cathery Yeh is an assistant professor in STEM education and a core faculty member in the Center for Asian American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research examines the intersections of race, language, and disability to provide a nuanced analysis of the constructions of ability in mathematics classrooms and education systems.
TRANSCRIPT
Mike Wallus: What meaning does the term neurodiverse convey and how might that language impact a student's learning experience? In this episode, we'll explore those questions. And we'll think about ways that educators can design learning environments that support all of their students. Joining us for this conversation is Dr. Cathery Yeh, a professor in STEM education from the University of Texas at Austin.
Welcome to the podcast, Cathery. It's really exciting to have you with us today.
Cathery Yeh: Thank you, Mike. Honored to be invited.
Mike: So, I wonder if we can start by offering listeners a common understanding of language that we'll use from time to time throughout the episode. How do you think about the meaning of neurodiversity?
Cathery: Thank you for this thoughtful question. Language matters a lot. For me, neurodiversity refers to the natural variation in our human brains and our neurocognition, challenging this idea that there's a normal brain. I always think of… In Texas, we just had a snow day two days ago. And I think of, just as, there's no two snowflakes that are the same, there's no two brains that are exactly the same, too. I also think of its meaning from a personal perspective. I am not a special educator. I was a bilingual teacher and taught in inclusive settings. And my first exposure to the meaning of neurodiversity came from my own child, who—she openly blogs about it—as a Chinese-American girl, it was actually really hard for her to be diagnosed. Asian Americans, 1 out of 10 are diagnosed—that's the lowest of any ethnic racial group. And I'll often think about when… She's proud of her disabled identity. It is who she is. But what she noticed that when she tells people about her disabled identity, what do you think is the first thing people say when she says, "I'm neurodivergent. I have ADHD. I have autism." What do you think folks usually say to her? The most common response?
Mike: I'm going to guess that they express some level of surprise, and it might be associated with her ethnic background or racial identity.
Cathery: She doesn't get that as much. The first thing people say is, they apologize to her. They say, "I'm sorry."
Mike: Wow.
Cathery: And that happens quite a lot. And I say that because–and then I connected back to the term neurodiversity—because I think it's important to know its origins. It came about by Judy Singer. She's a sociologist. And about 30 years ago, she coined the term neurodiversity as an opposition to the medical model of understanding people and human difference as deficits. And her understanding is that difference is beautiful. All of us think and learn and process differently, and that's part of human diversity. So that original definition of neurodiversity was tied to the autism rights movement. But now, when we think about the term, it's expanded to include folks with ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, mental health, conditions like depression, anxiety, and other neuro minorities like Tourette syndrome, and even memory loss. I wanted to name out all these things because sometimes we're looking for a really clean definition, and definitions are messy. There's a personal one. There's a societal one of how we position neurodiversity as something that's deficit, that needs to be fixed. But it's part of who one is. But it's also socially constructed. Because how do you decide when a difference becomes a difference that counts where you qualify as being neurodiverse, right? So, I think there's a lot to consider around that.
Mike: You know, the answer that you shared is really a good segue because the question I was going to ask you involves so
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