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Re: What would you look for in a school club related to disabilities? -
August 13th 2017, 08:17 PM
As a person with various disabilities myself, I can't stress enough about these two things: AWARENESS and ACCESSIBILITY!
AWARENESS - Gather educational material on all the well-known disabilities, and this can be emotional, intellectual, developmental, physical... you name it, get information on it to share in your group. It's so important in my opinion for people to become aware that there's more than just blindness and someone who requires wheelchair. Deafness goes beyond that 30 db hearing level (oh, I have bad hearing... but you don't wear hearing aids...?) or intellectual disabilities... help shame words and prejudices, like retard or "spazzo" or any derogatory terms or misconceptions. Make it clear that these people (and they will be in your group from what I can tell) are just like everyone else. At the same time, though, don't single out the ones with disabilities or make it "privileged abled people" stuff. Make it inclusive and educational to everyone, even people with one disability may not understand other disabilities.
ACCESSIBILITY - personally, this mainly applies to deaf people or visually handicapped people. What are you going to do when someone can't hear the discussion or are unable to see the diagrams clearly? If you want people to feel included, this is definitely something to consider. Perhaps make 'friendly' accessibility options or give teaching exercises. My favorite saying from one of the deaf groups I am in on Facebook is this: "Anyone can become deaf, but not everyone can travel the world." and the gist is basically it's important to teach sign language in the classroom rather than just Spanish, French, etc.
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