Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Understand models of disability
Attitude towards disability
Attitudes about people with disabilities
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Understand models of disability
A person with visible disabilities can sometimes be treated differently than others. People may look down at them. They can be stared at, avoided, and ridiculed. Occasionally, a kind soul will step up and offer to help. How does this non-judgemental, helping viewpoint help the person? How did it help Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor in My Stroke of Insight and José in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales? The way people treat those with visible disabilities can be seen in almost any public place. Take a piano recital, for example. A family walks in the door and greets the teacher, who is standing next to the piano. With the family is a tall girl who looks like she is in her late teens. She looks around, sees the large number of people sitting on the chairs, and panics. She clings to her mother and …show more content…
The mother immediately apologizes and explains that her daughter gets panicky when she sees new faces. The teacher says that they do not need to apologize and offers to help them find a spot where the girl can listen to the music calmly. In the end, the girl was seated in a corner away from the new faces that scared her, where she could see the piano, but not see the face of the person playing. At the end of the recital, her family is relieved that the event went by without a hitch. Not all people are as understanding as the piano teacher from the story above. Many people with visible disabilities are treated like lesser human beings. They have to deal with taunting, gawking, and so much more. In My Stroke of Insight, Dr. Taylor tells how she was treated in a grocery store while she was recovering from her stroke. “It was easy for others to see I was a woman with some sort of problem. My face had that glazed-over look, and my movements were very deliberate and in slow motion when compared to the normal shopper. Many people rushed their
In Jessica Shea’s article “The Invisible Crutch”, a few items that she listed are taken for granted by nondisabled people but could apply to Sharon and Karen. “9. If I ask to speak to someone ‘in charge’, I can be relatively assured that the person will make eye contact with me and not treat me like I am stupid’ (Shea, p. 40) is the first example. While the last part does not always apply to nondisabled people, it certainly applies to the disabled. In the account of Sharon, she was talked to like she was stupid by medical staff and her own family. This is a very common thing the disabled have to deal with. My grandfather deals with this on a daily basis and he works in the IT department at Colorado State University. The next example is, “19. My daily routine does not have to be carefully planned to accommodate medication or therapy schedules” (Shea, p. 40). Nondisabled individuals can plan their day however they see fit according to work, prior engagements, or hobbies. For disabled people—maybe even Sharon—therapy and medications are a normal part of their day. Going without them means being in high amounts of pain, falling behind on progress made in therapy, or risking their health in general. There is a lot that the nondisabled take for granted whether it is realized or
She told her readers that she has a muscle-wasting disease and she could only move three fingers on her right hand. She wrote that the reactions she got from most people were “Decidedly negative” (Johnson p.98) She wrote that she would hear thing such as “I admire you for being out; most people would give up.” And “You don’t let the pain hold you back do you?” (Johnson p.98) There is often talk about how popular culture teaches people to both see and not see the people with disabilities. Comments such as these are an example of such blindness. When a child sees a disabled person a parent’s first reaction would be to tell them not to stare. We teach children that it is impolite to be curious about people who live life differently than others. We carry the “its-not-polite-to-stare” idea into adult hood therefore when we come across a disabled we try not to make eye contact not as if we are being rude but because we are taught that it would offend them. All curiosity and attempts to understand are shut down at a young age for fear of offending someone. Therefore, any attempt to encourage is met with a deep misunderstanding of how the life of someone with disabilities truly works. Just because a person has a disability does not mean they are incapable of enjoying
Most people feel relatively uncomfortable when they meet someone with an obvious physical disability. Usually, the disability seems to stand out in ones mind so much that they often forget the person is still a person. In turn, their discomfort is likely to betray their actions, making the other person uncomfortable too. People with disabilities have goals, dreams, wants and desires similar to people without disabilities. Andre Dubus points out very clearly in his article, "Why the Able-bodied Still Don't Get It," how people's attitudes toward "cripples" effect them. It's is evident that although our society has come a long way with excepting those with physical disabilities, people do not understand that those with physical disabilities are as much human as the next person
...ive most of their life as a perfectly able-bodied person until a tragic accident one day could rob you of the function of your legs, and you have to learn how to cope with being disabled. Mairs illustrates that being disabled is more common than the media portrays, and it’s hard to deal with feeling alienated for your disabilities. These three authors have evoked a sense of sympathy from the reader, but they also imply that they don’t want non-handicapped people to pity them. The goal these authors have is to reach out to the able-bodied person, and help them understand how to treat a disabled person. The disabled people don’t want to be pitied, but they still need our help sometimes, just like if you saw someone with an arm full of grocery bags having difficulty opening their car door. They want us to accept them not as a different species, but as functional people.
As human beings, we like to make sure never to offend or judge anyone. We even have sayings like “never judge a book by its cover”. A metaphor that is often said whenever trying not to judge someone based on their outward appearance; however, it is not often that people practice what they preach. We judge people based on external factors within seconds. Even though we know what people see on the outside is not a defining factor or who we are as people. Nancy Mairs, author of On Being a Cripple, has to live through this every day. She knows this truth very well, and lives proudly with the fact that as she is disabled. Mairs is admirable for choosing to call herself a “cripple” and not be ashamed of it. Though the word is derogatory and a word that is avoided by society, Mairs identifies herself as a cripple because that is what she is. In explaining her disability, she says, “I haven’t always been crippled, ... to be whole of limb is ... infinitely more pleasant and useful. and if that knowledge leaves me open to bitterness … the physical soundness I once enjoyed is well worth the occasional stab of regret” (Mairs 186). What really
The author writes, "People–crippled or not–wince at the world "cripple", as they do not at "handicapped" or "disabled." (Perhaps I want them to wince. I want them to see me as a tough customer, one whom the fates/gods/viruses have not been kind, but who can face the brutal truth of her existence squarely. As a cripple, I swagger." (194) This quote shows the author's strength and sense of humor. These are the two things which allow her to honestly face the truth of her situation as well as how other people react to it. She does not want pity from people who see her limping down the street with her cane, nor does she want them to shy away as though she is some ...
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat Written By: Dr. Oliver Sacks. Although the title suggests a comical book, Oliver Sacks presents an entirely different look at the mentally challenged/disturbed. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is a book that explains why a patient shows signs of loss, excesses, transport, and simplicity. Coincidentally, the book opens with its titling story, letting the reader explore the mind of an accomplished doctor who seems to have lost his true sight of life.
I was always the person to shy away from a disabled person because I didn’t know how to handle it. I always thought if I avoided them I wouldn’t have to face the truth, which is I was very uncomfortable with disabled people. However, since our discussions in class, reading the book, and going to the event my views on the disabled have changed drastically since then. I learned that people with disabilities can do the same things, if not more, that a person without disabilities can do. I realized that I need to treat people with disabilities just like any other person, like an equal. People shouldn’t be ostracized for something that they cannot control. Everyone should treat disabled individuals with respect, dignity, and concern. This is why from now on I will not shy away from a disabled person I will welcome them with open arms because they are no different than
The two essays “On Being a Cripple” by Nancy Mairs and “A Plague of Tics” by David Sedaris are excellent pieces of work that share many similarities. This paper would reflect on these similarities particularly in terms of the author, message and the targeted audience. On an everyday basis, people view those with disabilities in a different light and make them conscious at every step. This may be done without a conscious realisation but then it is probably human nature to observe and notice things that deviate from the normal in a society. In a way people are conditioned to look negatively at those individuals who are different in the conventional
In fact, most of the handicapped people in society do not appreciate being treated in a way different from anyone else. They just want to be accepted as human beings.
Helen Keller is probably the most universally recognized disabled person of the twentieth century. (Others such as Franklin Roosevelt were equally well-known, but Keller is remembered primarily for her accomplishments which are disability-related.) Those of us who have grown up in the last half of this century have only known Keller as a figure of veneration. We know her primarily through popularized versions of her life such as the play "The Miracle Worker," or through her autobiographical works such as The Story of My Life (Keller, 1961 [1902]) and The World I Live In (Keller, 1908). Most of us have come away with the image of a more-than-human person living with the blessed support of an equally superhuman mentor, Annie Sullivan Macy.
She probably doesn't have one," Another student dared to shout. And from somewhere near the back, She heard a daddy say, "Looks like another deadbeat dad, Too busy to waste his day. " The words did not offend her, As she smiled up at her Mom. And looked back at her teacher, Who told her to go on.
It is said, that a good book is a breeze to read. " The man who took his wife for a hat" (1985) written by Olivier Sacks was exactly the opposite, an incredibly hard text. Professor of neurology asks himself - and a reader - what defines the human nature. It is not a book about clinical cases with rare diseases; it is about ordinary people whose life suddenly went wrong and the world around them has changed irreversibly.
The first thought that crosses the mind of an able-bodied individual upon seeing a disabled person will undoubtedly pertain to their disability. This is for the most part because that is the first thing that a person would notice, as it could be perceived from a distance. However, due to the way that disability is portrayed in the media, and in our minds, your analysis of a disabled person rarely proceeds beyond that initial observation. This is the underlying problem behind why disabled people feel so under appreciated and discriminated against. Society compartmentalizes, and in doing so places the disabled in an entirely different category than fully able human beings. This is the underlying theme in the essays “Disability” by Nancy Mairs, “Why the Able-Bodied Just Don’t Get it” by Andre Dubus, and “Should I Have Been Killed at Birth?” by Harriet Johnson.
People with disabilities are still people, they are people with hearts and they are actual physical beings; people with disabilities do their best to live every day to their fullest, yet that is still not enough for others. I feel like as a whole, humans are generally uncomfortable with people who have disabilities. Let’s think of it this way, people live their life every day in their normal lives and then they come across a person with a disability and suddenly their life is interrupted, like it is such a barrier in their flow of life to come across someone different from themselves.