[nfbwatlk] FW: How Disability Simulations PromoteDamaging Stereotypes

Thu Oct 24 00:43:45 UTC 2013

That's very well said.

Kaye
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nightingale, Noel" <Noel.Nightingale at ed.gov>
To: "NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List" <nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2013 4:29 PM
Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] FW: How Disability Simulations PromoteDamaging 
Stereotypes

> I, too, think that Toby has very well presented the issue about disability 
> simulation.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbwatlk [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Mello, 
> Michael (DSB)
> Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2013 4:08 PM
> To: nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org
> Subject: [nfbwatlk] FW: How Disability Simulations Promote Damaging 
> Stereotypes
>
> Good afternoon,
> I thought this topic would be an interesting discussion for our list.
> Thanks.
>
>
>
> Michael J. Mello | Adaptive Technology Specialist Washington State 
> Department of Services for the Blind
> Direct: 206-906-5552
> Toll Free: 800-552-7103
> Mobile: 206-605-7332
> Fax: 206-721-4103
> Michael.Mello at dsb.wa.gov
> 3411 South Alaska Street
> Seattle, WA 98118
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Adreon, Mark (DSB)
> Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2013 2:49 PM
> To: DSB DL Vocational Rehab Group
> Cc: MacKillop, Michael (DSB); Adreon, Mark (DSB)
> Subject: FW: How Disability Simulations Promote Damaging Stereotypes
>
> Please read the information  below as this has been an area of concern for 
> a while now and might deserve some DSB conversation.
>
> Even if we agree upon a disclaimer, it might support a stronger 
> perspective without supporting false assumptions.
>
>
>
> Mark Adreon
>
> Program and Employment Specialist
>
>
>
> 3411 South Alaska St.
>
> Seattle, WA   98118
>
> 206.906.5502
>
> mark.adreon at dsb.wa.gov Check our web site at :       www.dsb.wa.gov
>
>
>
> From: Olson, Toby (ESD) [mailto:TOlson2 at ESD.WA.GOV]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2013 11:54 AM
> To: GCDE-INFO at LISTSERV.WA.GOV
> Subject: How Disability Simulations Promote Damaging Stereotypes
>
>
>
> How Disability Simulations Promote Damaging Stereotypes
>
>
>
> October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month and Disability 
> History Month here in Washington State. Disability awareness events held 
> in October often include disability simulation exercises, in which 
> participants who don't have a disability will spend some time using a 
> wheelchair, or wearing a blindfold. More sophisticated exercises might 
> also include headphones with white noise generators to simulate a hearing 
> loss, or boxes in which participants can attempt to perform tasks while 
> watching their hands reflected by a series of mirrors to provide a sense 
> of the effects of a specific learning disability.
>
>
>
> While these exercises are popular and can help the participants to become 
> more aware of some of the environmental barriers people with disabilities 
> encounter, many people with disabilities and disability organizations are 
> concerned that they create an inaccurate perception of the experience of 
> living with a disability. The fear is that simulations actually reinforce 
> the inaccurate negative stereotypes that often limit opportunities for 
> people with disabilities in education and employment.
>
>
>
> If you participate in a simulation, what you experience will not be at all 
> like a slice from the life of a person who has lived with that disability 
> for any time. The difference will not be because you'll know that you'll 
> be taking off the blindfold or walking away from the wheelchair at the 
> end. The difference will be because, without any of the coping skills and 
> techniques people with disabilities create and master throughout their 
> lives, the best you will be able to manage will be to emulate the 
> experience of being the single most hapless, incompetent individual with 
> that particular disability on the face of the planet.
>
>
>
> Participants in disability simulations experience their adopted 
> disabilities as a series of discoveries of things they can't do. They can 
> leave the exercise imagining an unbroken string of those discoveries 
> stretching out for a lifetime. Those who have had a disability all our 
> lives haven't experienced our disabilities that way. For those who have 
> acquired a disability, that experience is usually a relatively brief 
> transition phase. The long term experience of living with a disability is 
> more aptly characterized as adapting, adjusting and developing new ways to 
> do things when the usual ways don't work. It is more commonly the active 
> pursuit of an expanding life, not mourning for a contracting one.
>
>
>
> I have heard simulations compared to putting on blackface, but disability 
> simulations have nothing to do with the contempt and ridicule that were 
> the essence of the minstrel shows. Most people in the disability community 
> appreciate that simulations represent a sincere interest in improving 
> understanding and a willingness to put time and effort toward that goal. 
> Still, we cannot help but be concerned that participants who leave a 
> simulation imagining life with a disability as an endlessly shrinking 
> spiral of frustration and loss might be even less comfortable associating 
> with people who have disabilities than they were before. Those whose take 
> away from the exercise is frustration at the inability to complete simple 
> daily activities, could, as a result, be less able to recognize the 
> substantive contributions a job applicant with a disability is ready make 
> to their organization's bottom line.
>
>
>
> If there is one thing about the experience of disability that everyone 
> needs to understand, it is that the chronic unemployment and resulting 
> poverty that are far too common among working-age people with disabilities 
> are not natural consequences of disability. The best exercise for 
> improving awareness on that issue is the one where we all recruit, hire 
> and work alongside people who have disabilities. That exercise has the 
> added benefit of allowing us to discover what people who have so much 
> experience devising innovative, practical solutions to unusual problems 
> can add to our organizations' strengths.
>
>
>
> Toby Olson
>
>
>
>
>
> Toby Olson, MPA
>
> Executive Secretary
>
> Governor's Committee on Disability Issues and Employment
>
> 360-725-9547
>
> tolson2 at esd.wa.gov
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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