Blog #1

    My Experience on People with Disabilities

      As a health science major with a concentration in pre occupational therapy, I have had some but very little experience with people with disabilities. In the future I want to work with kids who have disabilities, therefore it is important for me to gain as much experience and insight with them as I can. For the past few months, I have been babysitting a 7 year old girl with autism. During this experience I learned a lot and saw how different she lives compared to other children. For example, she does not form sentences and communicated with just words. I also saw how she liked when I would repeat everything she said and noticed she had a photographic memory. When talking to the mom, she explained to me the triggers that she may have and things that also stimulate her and help her relax. I also found it interesting that she had a swing inside the living room that she used in order to help her relax. I hope to gain more knowledge about not just people with autism but all other sorts of disabilities and get more experience before going onto grad school.

    "Inspiration Porn"

    When looking at people with disabilities, it is common for people to see them as an "inspirations" and as "brave". Even though people do not say these things in a harmful way, those who have a disability may take it that way. I personally think that people need to word things differently and treat people with disabilities as you would treat anyone else. Especially in the Summer Paralympic Games, it is important to be inspired by them because they are such great athletes and not just focus on the part that they are disabled. They want to be recognized for their accomplishments just as anyone else would, but do not want to just be known as someone with a disability. They want to be known as the athlete they are. Of course it is amazing that these athletes overcome the challenges they face daily and are able to do these things such as sports, but I understand how it is important not to use the fact they have a disability as "inspiration porn". 

    Conclusion

    In conclusion, at the end of the day not all disabled people want to be seen as an "inspiration". It can come off as offensive and it is important to keep their feelings in mind especially when they accomplish certain things. This has helped me gain more insight for disabled people.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The "Fair" Paralympics

Image
"Classification" Sports classification can be a very difficult aspect. After reading the professor's remarks and the articles on the subject, it is clear that classification can easily lead to issues, particularly if a player is ineligible because of a disability or if they perform below their capabilities to be placed in a lower category to win. With classification, a player's confidence may be damaged if they are unable to participate in the game again. Some people, especially those who are disabled, already believe that their disability makes them less than perfect. If they are then excluded from playing a sport this can upset them even more. The world encourages treating everyone fairly and including everyone, but then we see the Paralympics exclude some individuals. I believe that including everyone with disabilities in the Paralympics is a good idea and that all athletes with any kind of disability should be included in any sport because of this. Those who are d
Read more

The Disabled Population and The Media

Image
  Media Coverage  The media is a big place and a very influential area. There are so many things that the media has exaggerated or falsely represented. People with disabilities are one of those. Like with other minorities, stereotypes about individuals with disabilities have been pushed and reinforced in the media. There are not enough persons with disabilities in the media, despite the fact that they are frequently misrepresented. This is a pressing global issue, particularly given that one in four Americans suffer from a disability. Considering those statistics, you may assume that disabled people are represented in the media more, however just 3.1% of characters on film are disabled (Tehranian, 2022) . A lack of understanding of people with disabilities may result from this lack of exposure, particularly with kids. We need to give the Paralympics and other sports for people with disabilities more media attention in order to solve this. This can be accomplished by featuring people wi
Read more