As a person who is vision impaired, hearing is a substitute for eyesight in so many contexts. The assumption is that if you are without sight, your other senses must be sharpened. This is, of course, complete nonsense.
Following community outrage at the decision to portray disability in this way, the studio has offered the standard empty “sorry to those who were offended”. But the damage is done. Movie-going children in their millions, whose world views are being actively shaped, will now associate limb difference with being scary and dangerous. They’ve learned a powerful, early lesson that disability is gross and scary.
Despite her record as a writer and activist, what may have begun as a joke has gained traction, and should make us ask questions that go beyond the credulity of Gen Z
I have lived over 50 years with my lifelong disabilities. I thought my understanding of disability was fully formed and realistic. But I think that in the long run, what I will remember most vividly from this pandemic is the lessons I am learning about disabled people and their true place in American society.
Managing this neurological condition can be really tiring and difficult. But Zoe and Fergal have their own ways of dealing with it. Zoe wants us to know that having Tourette’s isn’t all funny, while Fergal finds giving it a nickname helpful.
The field of disability services and advocacy is changing. One of the most significant shifts over the last few decades has been the rising prominence of actual disabled people within the disability field. While this is a positive development overall, it should prompt non-disabled people interested in serving disabled people to rethink their position and approach.
Eleanor Beidatsch has a passion for palaeontology, but that’s not as strong as her passion to see more people with disability accepted and succeeding in the sciences. “When I look around a room, I don’t often see anybody else like me. In all the time I’ve been at university I’ve never seen another student in a wheelchair and I’ve seen only a couple with other sorts of disabilities. It can get lonely sometimes.”
More than 4 million Australians live with a disability and they all have a story to tell. The ABC is partnering with International Day of People with Disability to tell a range of stories by and about people with disability across ABC Online, Radio, TV and iView.
Research has shown that the biggest barriers people with disabilities face are the negative and limiting attitudes held by the general community. This is something the Attitude Foundation has decided to tackle head on.
In a confronting and honest story, the ABCs disability affairs reporter Nas Campanella tells how she’s been told she shouldn’t exist because of her disability. She’s sharing the story to mark the ABC’s week of coverage to mark International Day for People with Disability, designed to increase public awareness, understanding and acceptance of people with disability.
The new series of The Crown is extraordinary in two ways. Not only does the storyline include Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon, the Queen’s cousins who both had a learning disability, but it has also cast actors with a learning disability in those parts.
Many people experience hearing loss – from mild to disabling – but COVID-19 face masks are making communication even harder for people with hearing impairment
“I just thought, stuff it, I’m going to just employ people with disabilities top to bottom and show how good they can be within a workplace,” Alcott said. “We’re not doing this for CSR and we’re not doing it to do the right thing. We’re doing it because people with disabilities are bloody good employees.”
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are global guidelines for the accessibility of websites and web pages for people with disability. Learn how to comply.
Whether permanent, temporary or as result of age, millions of Australians will experience a form of disability. How do we make tech more inclusive? Meet some of the innovators with lived experience of disability driving tech innovation in Australia.