Newbery Books Lack Characters with Disabilities, Study Says

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By Debra Lau Whelan May 5, 2011

Although there have been more kids with disabilities portrayed in Newbery Medal-winning titles in recent years, there still remains a huge discrepancy between the number of characters in Newbery Award-winning books and how many children in the general population attend special education classes, says a new report.

Researchers also discovered that white students with disabilities were overrepresented (83 percent) in these books, while black and Hispanic students were underrepresented (17 percent). Meanwhile, Asian/Pacific Islander and American Indian/Alaskan Native students with disabilities were nowhere to be found in books given the highest literary award in children's literature.

"So, if a teacher wants to get a good book on a Hispanic boy with a learning disability, it's going to be really hard to find," says Tina Taylor Dyches, a lead researcher and professor of special education at Brigham Young University.

Another concern? Characters with disabilities often were eliminated through death, were sent away, or recovered by some miraculous cure. In most cases, the disabled character wasn't the protagonist and was often used in supporting roles that facilitated the emotional growth of other characters.

"Newbery books represent quality literature that has a profound social-emotional impact on its readers, yet these books have not been systematically evaluated for their portrayal of characters with disabilities," says the report, "Newbery Award Winning Books 1975-2009: How Do They Portray Disabilities?" As a result, parents, librarians, educators, and school officials should choose books that accurately and positively portray characters with mental or physical handicaps, say researchers Dyches, Mary Anne Prater, and Melissa Allen Heath of Brigham Young University's Department of Counseling Psychology & Special Education, along with Melissa Leininger, a school psychologist at Utah's Davis School District.

Since award-winning books are found on the shelves of most schools and public libraries, kids reading them will encounter many characters that face a range of struggles, like making friends, fitting in, doing well in school, dealing with loss, and being happy despite difficult situations. When "non-disabled students identify with characters with disabilities, they may begin to understand that they have more in common with their classmates with disabilities than they previously thought," the report says, adding another huge plus is when children with certain impairments can relate to characters in books who help them work through their challenges.

The researchers examined 31 Newbery Award-winning and Honor books from 1975-2009, which portrayed 41 main or supporting characters with disabilities. They include Laura Amy Schlitz's 2008 Newbery winner Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village (Candlewick), which has a character suffering from mental retardation and another with an orthopedic impairment; Kate DiCamillo's 2004 Newbery Honor, The Tale of Despereaux (Candlewick, 2003), which features a supporting character with a hearing impairment; and Gennifer Choldenko's 2005 Newbery Honor Al Capone Does My Shirts (Putnam, 2004), which has a supporting character with autism.

Although the overall portrayal of characters with disabilities is increasingly positive, the study says the representation of Newbery characters with disabilities is out of sync with the current U.S. population of students with disabilities—and that the racial representation in these books doesn't depict the diversity of students in general. The U.S. Department of Education reports that nearly seven million students with disabilities attend public schools in the United States, representing more than 13 percent of the student population.

"Students with speech or language impairments, other health impairments, mental retardation, emotional disturbance, developmental delay, and autism also make up a large percentage of students receiving special education," the report says, adding that 96 percent of students with disabilities—such as speech or language impairments—are educated in general school buildings and more than half of these students are educated for most of the school day in general education classrooms. Students with mental retardation, multiple disabilities, and autism, on the other hand, are least likely to be educated in general classes, the report says.

"Given this trend of including students with disabilities with their nondisabled peers in and out of school settings, school personnel have an obligation to help those without disabilities better understand the needs and capabilities of students with disabilities," the report says.

Dyches (left) says her interest in this subject started in the 80s, when her mother handed her Please Don't Say Hello (Human Sciences Press, 1975) by Phyllis-Terri Gold, a story about a nine-year-old autistic boy who emerges from his shell with the help and support of his family and friends.

"This was a high-functioning kid who was sent to a residential school across the state, instead of being educated with his peers," Dyches says. "I remember thinking, if this is all there is in our libraries about kids with autism, then what are non-disabled kids thinking?"

Dyches and Prater are deeply passionate about the subject and co-founded the Dolly Gray Award, sponsored by the Developmental Disabilities Division of the Council for Exceptional Children and Special Needs Project, which is given biannually to authors and illustrators for their portrayal of developmental disabilities, primarily intellectual disabilities, and autism in children's books. The two have also co-authored the book, Teaching About Disabilities Through Children's Literature.

Dyches says she had noticed several studies examining the subject of age, race, and sexuality in Newbery Award-winning books, but there was nothing focusing on disabilities, so she decided to take up the noteworthy subject.

In 2006, the researchers discovered only 11 Caldecott-winning titles or honor books from 1938 to 2005 that portrayed children with disabilities—and found that physical impairments such as blindness—were more prevalent than those that weren't visible, such as learning, emotional, or intellectual disabilities. "There's just not a lot out there of autism being portrayed pictorially," Dyches says.

The recent Newbery study was broken down into two parts: books from 1975 to 2009, and another that will examine titles from the award's inception in 1922 to 1975. It's expected for release in the next six months.

Before passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Act [IDEA] in 1975, U.S. public schools educated only one out of five children with disabilities, and many states had laws that explicitly excluded children with certain types of disabilities from attending public school, including those who were blind, deaf, and labeled "emotionally disturbed" or "mentally retarded."

"We are hoping that this will be a call to authors," says Dyches. "We've got so many wonderful authors in the world, and we would love to see more inclusive characterizations in high-quality books, where kids with disabilities are being recognized for who they are and not just for the limitations of their disabilities."

This article originally appeared in the newsletter Extra Helping. Go here to subscribe.

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