Podcast Series: Research & Perspectives

Identification Challenges in Special Education

Episodes explore disability, inclusion, systemic barriers, and educational equity. Explore the Podcast → 

Featured Guide  

Shared Language Does Not Always Mean Shared Meaning: What Does Inclusion Really Mean?

In schools, inclusion is often defined by placement—but experienced through interaction. This guide examines how communication, participation, and belonging take shape in everyday moments, particularly for students who are non-speaking. Read the Guide →

Ayumi Furusawa is an early childhood special educator, practitioner-scholar, and parent advocate whose work explores disability, inclusion, belonging, and educational equity through public scholarship, narrative, and reflective practice. Drawing from classroom experience, systems thinking, and lived experience alongside neurodivergent individuals and families, her work examines how language, institutional structures, and everyday interactions shape participation and belonging in schools and communities.

Through podcast conversations, educator guides, and future narrative projects such as Wonderland Within, she aims to create spaces where disability is understood not through deficit, but through relationship, context, and human diversity.

Continuing the Conversation

afurusa1@jh.edu