Disney And The Magical World Of Writing; How Combining Creativity With Learning Disabilities Can Promote Academic Success

Abstract

Through a Disney perspective, this author discusses how students can use creative strategies to cope with learning disabilities in secondary, post-secondary and even graduate levels of academic achievement. In particular, the paper will be presenting how the author, who has an infinity for “everything Disney”, chose to use both Disney Characters and Disney Song titles from movies and television shows, as a creative strategy in the organization of her master’s research thesis. The research study entitled “Why is it so hard to go a good thing? The Paradox and Dilemma of Parental Advocacy within the Individual Education Planning Process” took a qualitative, phenomenological approach to investigate the experiences of parental advocacy and to seek out macro/micro factors that may have contributed to positive or negative outcomes within the IEP process. The author used Disney song titles as an adaptive tool not only to help in the organization of the findings of the research, but also to help illuminate the phenomenological existential themes that were revealed through the analysis. The paper hopes to demonstrate that through the use of creative strategies in otherwise conventional academic expectations, students experiencing disabilities may increase the potential of achieving academic success.