My View on the History of Disability

-

    After learning about history of disability, there are many main parts that stuck out to be quite absurd in today's time. In the Early 20th century, people with varying disabilities were seen as a waste of space. Their lives did not matter to the rest of the world, and they went by "out of sight, out of mind" mentality. Continuing throughout the years, legislations have been passed to treat people with disabilities as normal human beings with civil rights. 

    For me, the most significant part happened when Kennedy became president and all the strong willed women in his life fought for the  wrongs to be made right with the community of the disabled. It took a person in the so called 'spotlight' to finally be a voice, but the mothers of these children were the real voices fighting for their child's rights. Initially, these people were referred to as idiots, morons, and imbeciles. They were seen as criminals or a waste of money, and no one thought that any of these people with disabilities were able to function properly to be in the "real" world.  This is probably due to lack of education or access of information about these things. However, they never put forth the effort to try. This is evident that there are people in today's time who still use the "r" word, and there are individuals that stare but never make conversation due to differences in appearance. 

    After reading over this material, I now understand the strides we have taken to make sure people with disabilities have rights. This makes me proud to know how far we have come, but we still have so much further to go. Going forward, I know that I play a big part in advocating for this community and my profession. I cannot wait to see what progress we make in the near future.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Intervention for Feeding

-
Image
       Recently, I created a a tool to use in an intervention for a client with a spinal cord injury at the T3 level. When going through the process of deciding what I would like to address, eating seemed to be one of the main things he was struggling with due to his dominant hand and arm being in a cast. He struggles with fine motor skills in his left hand, which creates messy feeding. So, I wanted to work on tuning those movements to make them smoother and easier.      When deciding how I wanted to make this, I wanted to make it as inexpensive as possible. So, I used an empty box of parchment paper/aluminum foil box that was laying around the house. The colorful pom poms were bought at Dollar General, and I found a spoon at home.     When using this tool, the client will hold the spoon, and try to spoon up as many pom poms as possible. Repetition is one way to reinforce fine motor skills and make it easier on the client. When discussing the "just right challenge," there are
Read more

Mobility and Transfers in OT

-
Image
     When discussing restoring confidence in mobility, clients want to be as independent as possible for their daily demands. So, the hierarchy of mobility skills helps to guide and give ideas of what level a client is at during treatment. Bed mobility is the lowest on the hierarchy of mobility skills because it has the biggest base of support. Ultimately, bed mobility is the ability for the body to perform activities in bed whether that be supine, prone, side lying, or sitting. These functional skills allow for the client to engage in ADL’s, sleep, and provide pressure relief to avoid pressure injuries. Bed mobility is the basic skill needed in preparation for transfers. These skills are needed in order to build on to one another to become more independent and more mobile.               The pyramid continues with mat transfer, wheelchair transfer, bed transfer, functional ambulation for ADL, toilet and tub transfer, car transfer, functional ambulation for community mobility, community
Read more