ABSTRACT
D. Biklen identified six common stereotypes of persons with disabilities in literature: menacing, extraordinary, incompetent, child-like, victimized, and ‘outsider and interesting scenery’. C. Mills noted that it is important to understand how disability is portrayed in the media for youth because ‘books for children about mental disability inescapably convey values about how we should respond to difference in intelligence’. Hence in lieu of the usual manner in which certain children literature and other narratives portray disabilities as inconsequential, minimizes the genuine challenges that persons with disabilities experience. Based on depictions of cognitive disabilities in literature for youth, Heim suggested five criteria on which books should be evaluated for quality: accuracy of information, lack of stereotypes, literary quality, confronting the disability and not ‘using’ characters with disabilities. Studies by Susan E. Brown, E. Arizpe and M. Styles emphasize on the effect of children’s literature and visual literacy on the formation of attitudes about disability.
