Communication and Social Order: A Mother’s Critical Autoethnography of Life with a Child with Down Syndrome

Abstract

This study brings the concept of power and authority in the center of my communicative performance as a mother to a child with Down Syndrome (DS). Through a critical autoethnography, I delved into my experience as a mother raising a child with DS as we interact with the family, the medical institution and the educational institution. My narrative, reconstructed from a recollection of past experiences and aided by well-kept documents and records, was used to uncover knowledge about the social order and how this is surfaced in communication. In making sense of my experience through my narrative, the marginalization of the social order against my child with DS emerged. The communication that the medical and educational institutions relegated my child to the margins - in the words that were spoken, in documents, and in practice. The social order was to keep the child with DS in her place in the margins of society. My inquiry revealed that this marginalization shaped my communicative performance as a mother into three constructs: family at the core of the social order, reclaiming power from the medical institution and negotiating with the power of the educational institution.