Dec 24, 2021
Dr. Kara Ayers is the Associate Director and an Assistant Professor at the University of Cincinnati Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCCEDD), which is a part of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
She's also co-founder of the Disabled Parenting Project and researches parenting with a disability. Dr. Ayers infuses the mantra, “Nothing about us with out us,” into her scholarly and community-based pursuits. She and her husband are disabled parents to 3 children, ages 4, 11, and 14.
The Disabled Parenting Project seeks to inform social policy through the development of resources, created by and for the disabled parenting community, and to promote social justice for disabled families. Dr. Ayers' mission is to increase visibility of disabled parents and the need for more inclusivity for parents with a disability.
On this episode we discuss her motherhood journey, the different challenges parents with a disability face, and the creative strategies they use to overcome them. The misconceptions, scrutiny, biases and surveillance of parenting with a disability. The importance of positive representation of people with disabilities in movies, TV & books, teaching our children to be kind to people who are different than them, and much more!
You can connect with Dr. Kara on Twitter, and Instagram and you can learn more about the Disabled Parenting Project here.