The Panel Presentation: Writing Disabled Life

It’s hard being disabled because there are disadvantages in everyday tasks. Although many disabled people are extremely successful, the American dream for some is accomplishable. The American Dream is the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. It is often easier for corporations and businesses to hire nondisabled people because of the accommodation for those with special needs. Also many special needs individuals don’t have the freedom or receive the same respect as those without disadvantages.

Adults with learning disabilities can be very vulnerable and when they are accommodated in supported living, it is possible that they become exposed to further difficulties. Although the principles of the MCA set out to promote the independence of adults with learning disability whom obtain capacity, as outlined earlier, whilst they are living within supported accommodation they may have a loss of freedom and/or a reduction in choices and decisions, because although an individual may have the capacity to identify their needs and establish what they would ‘like’ to do, it is not always possible, again because of austerity measures and cut-backs which effectively impact staffing levels.

In the video “Inclusion, belonging, and the disability revolution” (TEDTalks, 2014), speaker Jennie Fenton opens with describing situations where people with disabilities are segregated and excluded from their communities, sent to live together away from society, or even treated as lesser humans. She then proceeds to introduce her family, including her six-year-old daughter that was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Jennie admits to previously having negative or frightened thoughts about having a child with a disability, but with her “seven realizations,” she learned that her daughter was merely on a different path than others, but that no one should ever feel broken or not a whole person (TEDTalks, 2014). After she explains that there are roughly one billion people with a disability throughout the world, Jennie states that she believes in possibility over disability. If a person’s

In her essay “On Being a Cripple”, Nancy Mairs presents her audience with an honest inside view of her life and perspective as a cripple, a word she openly uses to define herself. She brings her world to us by discussing a wide variety of things including language, family, and humor, and how these all relate to her life. Through various stories and insights, she allows her readers to gain an understanding and acceptance of people with disabilities. She examines the public’s view of the disabled, as well as the views they have of themselves, and compares them to her own. She makes it clear that she is not to be defined solely by her disability. In discussing honestly her views, as well as

Stella Young’s TedTalk “I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much” discusses the various ways in which those living with a disability are often viewed differently for doing the same mundane things those living without a disability do. In her speech, Young claims that people are lied to about disability. She tells a story about how she was teaching and a student raised his hand asking when she was going to begin her inspirational speech since the only interaction with a person with a disability prior to her class revolved around a person giving an inspirational speech. Young then goes on to state that the world is deceived by “Inspiration Porn” and which leads to the idea that those living with a disability are “objects of inspiration”. She jokes that no matter how long she sat at the bottom of the stairs having positive thoughts that would not get her to the top of the stairs. Young concludes her speech by saying she wants to live in a world where disability is considered the norm and not the exception.

In her essay, “On Being a Cripple”, Nancy Mairs, an essayist with multiple sclerosis, writes about her experiences with her disease. She wants her audience of able-bodied people to stop pitying towards disabled people and instead show acceptance. Mairs achieves her purpose by presenting herself as similar and relatable to her able-bodied audience with many anecdotes and a blunt tone. This discussion of her condition removes the discomfort about disabilities felt by her audience and allows for them to accept disabled people. While Maris’s primary audience is an able-bodied person who supports disabled people, other readers, like someone with her condition, may be drawn towards this essay as well. Unlike an able-bodied person, a disabled person

Unspeakable Conversations by Harriet McBryde Johnson is an article about her experience visiting Princeton University to exchange views and challenge Peter Singer, a professor who strongly believes that all disabled people, like herself, are “better off” not been born at all. The article provides an insight into Johnson’s life as a disabled person. She takes the readers on a journey that explores both sides of her own and Singer’s contrasting beliefs. She protests the prevalent stigma and prejudice of disabled people and gives voice to this marginalized community. Johnson challenges stereotypes of disability, uses her a personal experience to better understand the world and help others, and attempts to directly address oppression by arguing against Professor Singer’s theory and assemble a group of diverse and like-minded people for social change.

Lost in a Desert World relays the story of the life of Roland Johnson, a man born with an intellectual disability and placed in an institution who eventually went on to be the president of Speaking for Ourselves, a group that encourages those with disabilities to stand up for themselves and their rights. This memoir offers a rare first-person, nonfiction account of the life and experiences of someone with an intellectual disability. Though filled with the harsh realities of the treatment of those with intellectual disabilities, the book is also one of passion, strength, and hope.

People with disabilities are not completely gone. They are still there and have a mind of their own. They feel emotions and sometimes have a more complex mind than others. Two authors help enlighten this idea that disabled people are much more than helpless bodies. Both Christy Brown and Jean-Dominique Bauby perfectly illustrate their lives and what it is like to be disabled, and they prove by their stories that they think and feel, and can even develop enough to share what they feel with the world. My Left Foot is about the journey of a boy suffering from cerebral palsy. His entire life he was labeled as a loss cause by doctor after doctor, but his mom never gave up hope. Slowly, he started showing signs of development by random movements responding to certain situations. In the end he ends up being able to communicate with his left foot. The next story, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, is about an individual who suffered a stroke at the age of 43, leaving him paralyzed, only able to blink his left eye as communication. He develops his own alphabet inspired by the French language in order to exchange conversations with others. His thoughts in the story jump from the present, him currently disabled, and the past, when he was not. Both memoirs, with very different stories, show the lives of two individuals that are not like others. One who had their disability since birth, and the other who obtained one after a tragic event. In My Left Foot by Christy Brown and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby, both authors use characterization to show readers the struggles of disabled people and help them understand that just because they can’t use motions such as hand gestures to express how they feel, doesn’t mean that they don’t think and feel.

Living life to its fullest capacity was a very important goal for Nancy Mairs. In “On Being Crippled” she examines depression, direction, choice, and family as she went through her battle with Multiple Sclerosis. Not only did she examine her own battle with MS, but she analyses the views that society has on anyone with a debilitating or handicapping disease. For this reason, it is clear that Mairs is speaking to society. She outcasts herself from the rest of society by her comfort with the word “cripple” towards herself. Mairs is able to pull this essay off because she herself has MS and therefore can provide valid evidence on her experiences and those similar to hers.

Those with disabilities have to accept their lives as being deprived of some joyful instances that may never happen. Individuals with handicaps may not be able to be active with their (or other’s) children, dream jobs may not be within grasp, memories may not be accessible while other’s take them for granted and shun those who desire that which they’ve already acquired (“People With Disabilities”). Provided, life is hard with a disability but additionally, those with handicaps must suffer isolation which is unfavorable in multiple ways. With isolation the person has no help, no support, no companionship, and feel ultimately rejected shutting them down in a social manner (“People With Disabilities”).

A lot of non-disabled people go through life carelessly, thinking, “What does it matter if I just sit back and do nothing?” Or think that they can do anything they want and everything will still be fine, just taking life for granted. There are people out in the world like Peg a girl from the narrative “The Incomplete Quad”, who can't even go through everyday life by themselves. The narrative “The Incomplete Quad” goes into the lives of people like Peg and Dale and shows us how much they actually go through or rather how much they can't. The story's main focus is on the lives of Peg and a guy named David, C average slacker who thinks he can get through life Doing nothing. He goes to college at Kent state and is roomed with a guy named Dale but when Dale moves back home David’s roomed with Peg. The story follows their lives and the journey of David coming to realize that he needs to change his ways because there are people out in the world like Dale and Peg who would kill to be in his position and be able to live life with half the freedoms he has. In “The Incomplete Quad”, David Sedaris shows that non-disabled people take life for granted by using characterization, humorous diction and the climax and resolution of the story

In my essay you will learn about Jamaican and Haitian culture and their outlooks on disability. Laster on you will see the comparisons between those two cultures and the American culture. I selected the Jamaican culture because it has always been a dream of mine to visit Jamaica. I selected Haiti because I am not well educated on their culture.

ICF stands for International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. It views disability in terms of body functions and structures, activities, participation and important contextual factors, as stated in the ICF PowerPoint presentation (Francaviglia). At the top of the diagram, shown in the ICF PowerPoint presentation, the health condition is described as any disability, disorder, injury, or trauma, but also includes important conditions such as pregnancy or aging (Francaviglia). Moving to the next level of the diagram, the body structures may include the specific limb or organ deficiency, functioning defect, or impairment from the health condition. These body structures effect “the execution of a task or action by individual”

be protected by the A.D.A. this person must have a long standing record of this