What is Anti-Ableist

In this chapter, the authors propose that Universal Design for Learning can be a way to resist and reframe pervasive deficit thinking in exceptional education. While UDL is based on a radical framework, it has been taken up in practice in a diluted way, de-emphasizing the radical conception of learners at its core. In this chapter, the researchers argue that in order to eliminate deficit thinking in UDL, users and scholars alike will need to 1) interrogate gaps and erasures in UDL professional development that affect its anti-racist and anti-ablest potential and 2) provide professional development that can challenge deficit thinking. This chapter describes findings in two studies working towards these goals. The first preliminary study investigates gaps in the conceptualization of the “user” of UDL in professional texts on UDL. The second study reports on how a professional development course on UDL actively disrupted deficit thinking about disability.