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UMBC’s first Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence shares unique research on neurodiversity in language teaching and learning

College students sit around a table discussing a book

Neurodiversity inclusion and representation have been at the forefront of Michael Canale’s 20-year career in the disability services and education field. Canale, M.A. ’24, intercultural communication, is the assistant director of UMBC’s Office of Student Disability Services and teaches the first-year seminar Introduction to Disability Studies. “Sometimes parents of neurodivergent students worry that their child is incapable of learning another language,” says Canale. “I work with parents to ease their fears by showing them how their child can excel in college with the proper individualized accommodations.” These can include note-taking software, counseling services, tutoring, time management support, and more.

A blind college student uses a personal tactile map of a campus neurodiversity Michael Canale (r) has been working with Ph.D. students in human-centered computing to create personal tactile maps of campus for blind students at UMBC, like Shawn Abraham ’24, political science. (Marlayna Demond ’11/UMBC)

When Canele, who also received his post-master’s certificate in college teaching and learning science, heard that UMBC’s first Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence, Jules Buendgens-Kosten,would be teaching Language Learning and Special Education – Advanced Special Topics in Education, he was quick to enroll. The course, part of UMBC’s teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) master’s program, was designed for anybody planning to work with heterogeneous groups of learners, including those of different neurotypes, both in special education and mainstream education settings. 

Buendgens-Kosten, a research assistant at the Institute of English and American Studies at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Germany,began theirpartnership with UMBC as a research collaboration with Shannon Sauro, associate professor of education.Sauro recognized that Buendgens-Kosten’s expertise in English language teaching and teaching neurodivergent populations in Germany would add an international and non-U.S.-based perspective to UMBC’s TESOL program and education department. 

My uni (@UMBC) just got so much geekier and cooler.

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