One of the things that stuck out the most to me was that throughout the recording, Ms. McManus consistently challenged the normal language and words associated with disability. She talked about the importance of differentiating between "impairment" and "disability" as she goes on to share that the former insinuates that the person is unable to do something. Just the subtle change in language can affect the way that we approach disability as a society. To unlearn much of the stigma that surrounds disability it starts in changing thinking and one of the best ways to do that is to change the words we use and the context in which we use them. Ms. McManus shared that she's had to not only work with students, but also with parents and I had never thought about that before. The parent's experience of raising a child with a disability presents a whole new set of challenges, especially if that parent has never experienced that disability before. By making conversations about disability and accessibility part of everyday conversation if would open up so many more people to an awareness that they had never thought of before.
I think this is very well put Maddie! The language awareness also stuck out to me as I was watching. It reminded me of what you said in class the other day about we as a people have to "unlearn" the way we say things and do things. I juts think this is a very important step into understanding and relating more to the disability community.
Very well said. I agree about opening up everyday conversation to discussions of disability and accessibility in order to increase awareness. I also think that by doing this it would help lessen the stigma around disabilities.
I definitely agree! Language awareness is super important and also having stigma barriers around disabilities is something that needs to be undone. I think it is important to make everyone feel included and not to have stigmas that honestly probably make them feel even more secluded.