Why Disability Awareness Matters for Everyone

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Here at Kapok, we spend most of our time talking about seniors and caregivers. Yet, there are other important topics to consider, including the idea of disabilities.

At the most basic, disability is a physical or mental condition that limits a person’s ability to engage with life. There are countless examples, including physical issues like multiple sclerosis, blindness, spinal cord injuries, and a variety of mental conditions.

Disabilities are, by definition, limiting. They make life more difficult in a variety of ways, yet they’re also just a part of who someone is. Even people with severe disabilities can thrive when they operate from a place of strength, with a focus on identifying and overcoming challenges, rather than only looking at their limitations.

The Importance of Disability Awareness

So, the term disability awareness really speaks for itself.

It’s about recognizing the presence of disabilities and understanding how they can impact different people in different ways. This includes understanding that some people’s limitations aren’t easy to spot.

Disability awareness has become much more important in recent years, as part of a larger trend towards creating an all-inclusive positive culture. You can find more information about disabilities from aging and disability resources.

The topic is a crucial one, as roughly 1 in 4 adults in the United States live with some type of disability. Close to 14% of adults have disabilities that include mobility challenges, while almost 11% face cognitive difficulties.

Why is awareness important?

The simplest answer is kindness.

As humans, we have a responsibility to help one another. This includes having empathy, along with learning the best things to say and do to make life easier for those who struggle. After all, we all need help now and again.

However, disability awareness isn’t about treating people as inferior or incapable because they have a disability. The focus is on compassion instead and providing support where it is needed.

How Disability Awareness Helps

Disability awareness refers to our own understanding of disabilities and also to the process of educating others.

Perhaps the most important part of this is to see people as individuals first, rather than making assumptions based on their disability. After all, two people with the same disability can be very different from one another, with their own preferences, strengths, limitations, and needs.

It Influences How We React

This is a critical field, as the biggest struggle for many disabled people isn’t their disability itself, but the way people around them react.

Sometimes people with disabilities face judgment and a lack of support, especially if their disability is invisible or is seen to be somehow their fault. Other times, a disabled person might find the reverse, where others try to help too much, without recognizing the disabled person’s need for independence.

Knowing more about disabilities and how to respond is also empowering. It gives us a sense of what to do and what to expect, which can stop us from feeling so overwhelmed.

Helps Us To Be More Intentional

Judgment and discrimination aren’t always intentional. Sometimes we interact in the best way that we know how, but are make others feel bad or suffer in the process.

Disability awareness helps us to see the effects of our words and actions, then learn new ways of approaching people with disabilities.

It Promotes Change

Awareness and change go hand-in-hand. We can’t hope to address challenges in our homes, our schools, and our workplaces, without first knowing what they are.

Acceptance is a fundamental element of growth in disability awareness. We need to realize that a person’s disabilities don’t make them less relevant in the workplace, in the home, or anywhere else.

Doing so will play a crucial part in breaking the social barriers. Today, many communities are changing their mindset and are accepting diversity, which makes disability awareness work easy.

Disability Awareness and Seniors

Disability awareness relates to seniors in a few ways.

The first is that seniors may face disabilities of their own. Their abilities may also be limited as the result of chronic conditions, which has many of the same effects as a long-term disability.

As such, many aspects of disability awareness are also relevant when supporting seniors and helping them through various challenges.

This type of awareness is something that some seniors may need to learn as well.

Generational differences mean that some seniors won’t be as accepting of disabilities. They may still have the perception that others should “pull themselves together” or “try harder” – particularly in relation to mental health.

Where Should We Begin?

Promoting disability awareness can start right from our homes.

Home is where we learn many attitudes, some that stay with us for the rest of our lives.

For parents, this means teaching your children about acceptance and ways to focus on what people with disabilities have, rather than what they lack.

Teaching your child about disabilities can help break social barriers and foster a wholesome approach towards other people. The most crucial factors while teaching a kid about the relevance of disability awareness are diversity, acceptance, and empathy.

Aging parents or care recipients can be helpful here, giving children an opportunity to learn more about compassion and to see that people with disabilities have many strengths. 

Other times, caregivers might find that they’re the teacher – perhaps needing to teach children and seniors about disability awareness. That’s because each generation grows up with a different set of values and social expectations. While inclusivity is becoming increasingly important now, seniors may have grown up with different values, such as pushing through and not talking about emotions.

Some Problems Faced By Disabled People

Part of disability awareness involves thinking about the various challenges faced by people with disabilities, including the following.

Accessibility

The physical environment presents many challenges, even for those of us with no disabilities. Many of these difficulties are amplified for people with disabilities. For example, uneven pavement is annoying for some, a trip hazard for others, and very difficult indeed for someone in a wheelchair.

Similarly, houses and stores that only have steps in their entranceways rather than ramps can be challenging for many people who struggle with mobility. Other problems can be found too, like small entryways, stairs, and a lack of handrails.

There are many changes in this area, with businesses and building companies often focusing on making places more accessible. Plus, many wheelchairs are robotized, making life much easier, and some buildings now offer private lifts to provide more flexibility.

Still, plenty of buildings aren’t well-suited to people with disabilities.

And, although designs are improving and old buildings are being retrofitted to suit people with disabilities, some issues are likely to remain. This happens because people vary in their needs, often quite dramatically.

Education

Education is a fundamental ideal, one that we often see as a right. In an ideal world, training would be free and accessible to everybody, as imagined by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore. Reality, of course, is a long way from that ideal.

An enormous number of disabled children need to stay out of school, which gives them less education and fewer chances for social engagement. Online education can be powerful in this area, but it is a far cry from attending a regular school.

Some educational establishments have been opened that focus on specific challenges, like schools that provide education in Braille. Similarly, regular schools are working towards being more inclusive and providing greater opportunities.

Similar challenges exist for adults with disabilities. Some can attend higher education campuses, while others need to rely on online approaches instead.

Medical Care

In a nation of 1.3 billion people, the medical care system now faces countless challenges. Accessing medical services can be difficult at the best of times, people with disabilities can find it more problematic still.

For example, 1 in 3 adults with disabilities don’t have a regular healthcare provider, while 1 in 4 didn’t have a routine checkup in the previous year.

These challenges often arise with seniors, who can face a variety of mobility issues and may not be able to safely drive themselves either. 

Even if a disability just makes it a little more difficult to visit the doctor’s office or go to the hospital, the effects can be dramatic over time. For example, a senior might put off going to the doctor’s office because doing so is difficult, so their medication may not be adjusted as often as needed and health problems may be missed.

There are also biases within the medical care field, which might affect the way a person is treated and the support that they receive. For example, some seniors find that doctors talk almost exclusively to their caregivers, even if the senior is perfectly capable of making their own healthcare decisions.

Mindfulness and compassion can help in this area.

Caregivers can support disabled family members by providing transport and support when needed, but still promoting independence and allowing the disabled person to take charge when they wish to.

Feeling Unwanted or Not Taken Seriously

Disabled people often find that others see their disability first, rather than seeing them as a person. This can be frustrating and demeaning. After all, a person is much more than their strengths and weaknesses.

The most powerful tool here is to stop focusing on the disability itself and engage with the person instead.

Listening is important too. Don’t dismiss what someone says about their disability, even if their experience makes little sense to you.

For example, some people live with invisible chronic illnesses. These can affect many aspects of their life and can even mean that they’re always in pain. This doesn’t mean that you need to always ask whether they’re okay. Instead, if they say they can’t do something or that it is too much – respect that.

Employment

There are protections in the law that stop employers from discriminating based on disability. But, even so, disabled people often don’t have the same employment opportunities as others.

For example, someone with a physical disability might not be able to work in a field that involves physical strength and lifting.

Others may find that their disability makes working full-time impossible. They need to find part-time work instead, which could be more difficult in some fields.

Disability can affect employment in less direct ways as well. For example, a disabled student who was mostly educated at home might lack the confidence and social skills to do well in the workforce. His educational history might be taken less seriously too. 

And, while the law protects against discrimination based on disability, such issues do still occur regularly.

Feeling Like A Drag

Maintaining friends is often difficult when you have a disability. Even when a disabled person has friends, they might be hesitant about spending much time with them, out of fear that they’ll slow their friends down.

It’s easy to see how a person might feel this way. The idea often has some basis in reality too, as a group of friends can’t do the same things if one of them is in a wheelchair.

This is another case where it’s important to focus on what can be done, rather than what cannot. The disabled person still brings a lot to the table and there are still many things that the group can do.

The Sense of Being Coddled or Manhandled

Sometimes, when we try to help people, we don’t do it very well.

If they’re struggling to do something, it often feels kindest to do it for them. Watching someone struggle to cut their food and eat can be difficult. Similarly, it’s tempting to push someone in a wheelchair, even when they don’t ask you do to so.

These patterns can be frustrating for people with disabilities. Many will ask if they need assistance but prefer to do things on their own whenever possible. This isn’t too surprising, as most of us look for independence. We don’t want our lives to be controlled, even by people who are trying to help.

Final Thoughts

Most features of disability awareness can be broken down into two main areas – compassion and respect.

Compassion doesn’t mean that you feel sorry for the person. Instead, it means that you are aware of their challenges and are available to help when needed.

Respect means that you treat the disabled person as an individual before anything else. That you focus on what they can do, not what they can’t, and that you respect their wishes.

Balancing these two areas takes time and practice. But, doing so isn’t just possible, it’s essential. If you have a disabled friend or family member, having an honest conversation with them can be a good starting point. This gives you the chance to discuss what they want, what they don’t want, what’s helpful, and what’s hurtful. Then, you have the information you need to move forward in the best possible way.