Society's Limitations

 Society's Limitations

I believe that to better educate others about disabilities, the key is just exposure. Lots of people know about disabilities, but not in depth. People do not fully understand what disabilities are, how they affect the disabled, and how it is a part of the disabled person’s life. People see someone with a disability, and immediately will feel sorry for the person. People don’t know how to approach, or even talk to people with disabilities. I believe this can be solved through education. While children are growing up they can be insensitive, and harsh, making it difficult for children with disabilities to be friends with them. I believe that educating people from a young age will give them enough experience, and understanding of disabilities. As of 2014, there were 1 billion people with disabilities in the world, as the population has continued to increase the number of people with disabilities has increased with it (Disability and The Body). There is no reason why people should not be educated from a young age about disabilities. 

Disabilities aren’t just physical limitations, or an intellectual impairment. Disabilities used to be defined as “a physical incapacity; either congenital or caused by injury, disease, etc., especially when limiting a person’s ability to work” (Oxford Dictionary). It was recently redefined to acknowledge society’s part. For example, places not being wheelchair accessible is a limitation society places on the disabled. It is not just physical limitation society puts onto the disabled, people viewing the disabled in different perspectives than as just people. For example in “Talk To Me | Physical Disability Awareness” we hear Phoebe’s, an eleven year old with cerebral palsy, plead to be treated like the person she is. She often has people talking to her as if she is a baby, if they even talk to her at all instead of her parents. She talks about how her disability is just an everyday part of her, and she has hobbies she enjoys like swimming, and skiing. Another example of this is a quote by Paralympic gold medalist swimmer, Jessica Long, “I don’t see myself as being disabled. It’s just something I have to deal with, just like everyone else has something in their life they have to overcome or deal with on a daily basis; it’s not just a handicap, it’s what makes us unique, makes us who we are. How we deal with it, how we get past it, how we make ourselves and those around us better, that’s how we are defined.”

All of society’s impact on the disabled could be fixed by educating people from a young age. Exposing young students to people with disabilities in a proactive way, will give students the ability to learn, acknowledge differences in a respectful way, and be able to go forward in their life seeing people with disabilities as people.



(PDF) disability and the body. (n.d.-b). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275340804_Disability_and_the_Body

7 Stream Media. (n.d.). TALK TO ME | Physical Disability Awareness. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL8GMxRW_5Y&t=115s

Oxford English Dictionary. (n.d.-a). https://www.oed.com/ 


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