MNLEND Research Day

How can a successful disability justice initiative scale up? What do autistic students say they need most in school? In the quest to reach more families with resources for early intervention around developmental delays, can barber shops help?

These were just a few of the research questions presented in the Minnesota Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (MNLEND) program’s first research poster event, held April 24 at the Institute on Community Integration. Fellows created posters representing the projects they developed over the course of their experience that seek to address concerns community members have raised. Much like other professional research poster sessions, they gave short pitches about their work to each other and to attendees at the event.

“These projects are designed intentionally to engage the community in the work LEND fellows are doing,” ICI Director Amy Hewitt said. “The fellows are doing work in which the community has identified a need, while they are acquiring interdisciplinary training for the longer term in their careers. And they get experience tying all this work together in a professional presentation.”

ICI is a lead partner for the MNLEND program, but it spans more than 16 disciplines across the University of Minnesota, including the departments of educational psychology and pediatrics, and speech language and hearing sciences. The program also recruits community fellows from a variety of fields, forming a cohort for an academic year. Many fellows combine the experience with their studies in occupational or physical therapy, dentistry, pediatrics, education, and many other fields. Since 2009, MNLEND has trained more than 600 fellows, many of whom have taken on leadership roles in the field of neurodevelopmental and other disabilities.

"The MNLEND fellows showcased their deep engagement in research and outreach activities that spanned methodologies and topics with real impact on the community," said Jessica Simacek, MNLEND research director.

Paige Richmond (MNLEND 2024-25) and Rachel Lieberman (MNLEND 2024-25) presented Telling Stories of Disability Identity: Applying narrative inquiry to creative writing by adults with NDD and IDD. Richmond proposed a qualitative study evaluating ways that disability identity is enacted and acknowledged during creative writing classes produced by Cow Tipping Press for adults with developmental disabilities.

Richmond, a doctoral education student who has taught Cow Tipping classes, said the project aimed to propose research that affirmed disability identity within the realm of disability justice and not as an intervention model. That aligns with Cow Tipping’s mission to focus on changing how society sees and includes disability, Lieberman said.

“It is competency based and creates a writer’s workshop environment that is not skills based, which is so different from my experience as an elementary school teacher in how we teach writing,” Richmond said. “Disability identity shows up in their writing and they often write about restrictions imposed on them and how that becomes who they are. I was looking for frameworks about what disability identity means, and I coded [students’ writing] for awareness of an impairment and feeling social restrictions, and we observed how elements of disability identity are affirmed or challenged.”

For example, she said, support professionals often over-coached students, wanting them to perform well in the writing exercises, rather than fostering creativity.

Studying how that affects expressive freedom and the level of control exerted over people with IDD would be valuable, Hewitt said.

“It’s also interesting to consider how you could scale something like Cow Tipping Press to teach creative writing and disability justice at younger ages. Kids with disabilities often don’t realize they have a disability until they are older, and then we wonder why we see communication challenges and behavioral issues as they get older. So, getting at this at younger ages could really help people with and without disabilities.”

Jill Pring (MNLEND 2024-25), an educational consultant who supports students receiving special education services, was part of a team that interviewed young autistic adults about their K-12 educational experiences. The testimonials are meant to shape and strengthen training for educators, among other aims.

“It’s important to understand that what works for one student with autism isn’t going to work with all students with autism, and so it’s about designing better interventions,” Pring said. After talking with students about what works and doesn’t, patterns emerged. “Adults make a lot of decisions for kids, and this gives them more of a voice,” said Pring.

Andrea Lawson (MNLEND 2024-25) presented Cuts, Conversations, & Connections: Community-Led Strategies for Promoting Early Childhood Development Outreach through Barbershops, Schools, and Family Education Programs to Advance Early Screening Awareness. Lawson developed this project to promote early developmental monitoring through Learn the Signs. Act Early, a national public awareness campaign focused on developmental delays in young children. Lawson partnered with a local barbershop to distribute campaign awareness materials.

ICI’s Jennifer Hall-Lande, part of the MNLEND leadership team, said the fellowship projects, year after year, have made significant strides in building awareness about early screening.

“MNLEND brings ICI’s mission to life by developing leaders while also addressing real needs in the community,” Hall-Lande said. “It’s a powerful model for connecting academic training to lived experience of disability and for amplifying the voices of autistic youth and adults.”