Welcome to the official website for the 2024 TASH Conference!
Each year, the TASH Conference brings together our constituents to share resources and success stories, learn about field-driven best practices, and network within a community engaged in shared values. The Conference is attended by passionate leaders, experts, and advocates from every corner of the disability community. Conference attendees are influential in their fields and communities, and play an important role in the provision of services and supports for individuals and organizations around the world; and include professors and researchers from leading institutions; those involved in local, state, and federal governments and public policy; special and general educators, and school administrators; self-advocates, adult service providers; students, family members, and many others. This year’s conference theme is Celebrate Together: Let the Good Times Roll!
Click on the "Registration and More" tab for additional information about our Conference location, registration, reserving a guest room, sponsorship and exhibitor opportunities, and more! The full Conference schedule is now available for viewing. Registered attendees will receive an invitation to log in and create a personalized schedule.
Whether they have a disability or not, a person must identify with disability in order to fully engage with the movement for a more equitable and inclusive society. This presentations shares a grounded theory of educators’ conceptions of disability based on interviews with preservice general educators and teacher education instructors. The theory, identification with disability, is a bridge between narrative imagination (Nussbaum, 1997) and disability identity (Darling & Heckert, 2010; Forber-Pratt & Zape, 2017). Narrative imagination is the ability to understand and share the feelings and experiences of others, and a strong disability identity requires disability acceptance, alignment with the social model of disability, and involvement with collective social change. Educators and family members who identify with disability are most equipped to empower individuals with complex support needs and collaborate to create a more socially just, democratic, and inclusive society.
