What kind of information should be available here?

  Where is disabilities information available on the internet?

8 responses total.

Empathy instead of Sympathy?  Peer Support for Individuals and Family
members?  Assistive Technology devices to help remove handicapping barriers?
Facts of life and this is how it is type of conversations to enable emotional
adjustments?   (Just a few thoughts, and THANKS!)

Maybe an item where someone with a particular disability would be
willing to candidly answer questions asked by interested or just 
durious others.  (Make that curious others).  I myself
have multiple scloerosis  (MS)  and would be happy to field questions
to help others understand.  Sometimes family members of someone with a
disability could benefit from talking to others who would be willing
to answer potentially difficult questions.

  Anyone wishing to start items like the one suzi describes (or anything
else) simply needs to type "enter" at the o.k. prompt to begin an item.
You will be given a chance to write a long introduction, and then a one
line title, and a final "ok" will start the item. I will start a general
discussion item focused on "sharing personal experiences" of disability. 
I think specific topics like suzi suggests could go in separate items,
titled so they could be identified as to topic by using the "browse"
command.  I hope you start an item, and I hope many "curious" people find
their way to it. 

I am an AK amputee. Ditto on the fielding questions.

Wonderful suzi!   I will never face the prospect of "old-age" deafness. Since
the age of ten, my eyes have been my "ears".  It is a social handicap much more
than a physical disability!  Also, perhaps the most limiting because it limits
acquistion of language for those born deaf.  I agree with the idea of sharing
and helping families through the traumatic prospect of facing a child who will
never hear Mom or Dad's voice.  In fact, 90 % of deaf persons have hearing
parents.  Only 2 % of these parents learn sign language! I welcome questions. 
Will prepare an article for mwarner's suggestion soon.

Ray, I bcame interested in some of the challenges faced by people who are
handicapped after employeing two deaf people.  Each became deaf in early
childhood through illness. One sad  story I heard was from a
young woman about being sent to a regular kindergaten when she was
deaf...20 years ago, in the south, there was no accomodation for a deaf
child; you either sent them to a special boarding school, or they suffered
in a regular classroom. 

I arranged for the enitre office to take a semester course in ASL from
a Gallaudet instructor, who came to the office, during working hours,
twice a week for a couple hours.  What a difference the course made!

I have trouble coping with my MIL, who is getting deafer and deafer due to
age. As a "hearing person" she will neither use a hearing aid nor any of
the common aids used by deaf people, such as phones that make lights flash
when they ring. 

I have offered to pay for these things, but she won't let me get them.
To me, they are tools like the phone itself, but to her, they are one more
proof that she's not "perfect" any more (she has parkinson's too).
Those of you who have learned to cope with what life has dealt you have my
deepest admiration.    As my eyese  ahve become more aware of the obstacles 
around, my amazement at the abilities of handicapped people, rather 
than at their diabilities, grows.

PS I once read a moving article by a man who put himself in a wheelchar to
evaluate how our seat of pwer, Wash, DC, conformed to laws regarding
access...this was before the ADA.  His froustration levels, together with his 
frank admission that it's differentknowing he can walk away from the 
wheelchair, were really surprising.  I now see curbs and distances 
differently.

An old adage..."Know first thyself" could go one step further a.k.a. raywms
"Accept thyself first that others might accept likewise". The stage of denial
is not limited to drug addicts.  When your friend remembers that he/she is the
most qualified to be him/her and the whole package is what the deal is about,
on a take-it or leave-it basis, perhaps then the aural dificiency will be less
important and the love-of-self will emerge to create one beautiful self-assured
individual!   Until that time....the denial will continue.

From: JILL.MCMAHON@um.cc.umich.edu
To: mwarner@cyberspace.org
Subject: People in Motion Mini-Series

 

From: Nikki Stauber <nikkis@u.washington.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <doitsem@u.washington.edu>
Subject: People in Motion Mini-Series

        Electronic format Viewer Guides are available for the PBS 
three part mini-series, People In Motion (see end of message for 
information on how to obtain electronic versions). 
DO-IT also has a limited number of hard copy Viewer Guides. 
        As Bill Einreinhofer, executive producer of the mini-series 
writes, "First and 
foremost, this is a mini-series about people.  Not "disabled people," not 
"special people," not "heroic people," but..."everyday people."  At some 
point in our lives, either directly or with a loved one, all of us will 
confront disability.  People In Motion isn't about "them."  Rather, it's 
all about "us." 

The programs are scheduled to air on the following dates, check your local
listing for times in your area:
Ways to Move                    March 31, 1995  9 p.m. (ET)
Ready to Live                   April 7, 1995   9 p.m. (ET)
Redesigning the Human Machine   April 14, 1995  9 p.m. (ET)

The Viewer's Guide is available in electronic format from the following 
sources:

* The gopher server at hawking.u.washington.edu
* e-mail versions can be obtained by sending a request to 
doit@u.washington.edu
* ABLE INFORM Bulletin Board System: (301) 589-3563 (8-N-1)

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