Ann Simmeborn Fleischer
- PhD in Disability
Research
Ann is doing research about students with Aspergers syndrome (AS). The purpose of the study is to create new knowledge about how students with AS within higher learning environments experience their daily lives. The study focuses on three students’ own stories about the present, the past and the future and creates a foundation to be able to understand how students with AS experience their daily lives. This is explored in terms of how they interact with their surrounding environment, with consideration of their rights to institutional and social supports.
Students with AS experience two aspects of disability – at times an "invisible" functional disability, and in others situations a very apparent functional disability/impairment - that creates challenges for them in their daily lives and studies. People with AS have always existed in our community, but have become a more visible group in the postmodern era. In the current century, both children and adults are being diagnosed with AS at a higher rate and frequency than in previous times.
Background
Ann is a trained mental care worker, and has worked in psychiatric and community caretaking for about 20 years. She has a Masters degree in Media and Communication, a university Bachelors degree in Disability, and a Basic Course in social psychology and sociology. She is currently working as a Junior Lecturer and has been a doctoral student in special pedagogy since 2003, under the tutelage of Professor Mats Granlund Jönköping University and Professor Berth Danemark, Örebro University.