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Disability Access Services Blog

Archive for the ‘Awareness’ Category

Bird Brained?!? Brief history and thoughts on treatments for mental illnesses

Thursday, February 7th, 2013

The other day I went to a game night among friends. Among the games available was a recent edition of “Operation”. For those unfamiliar with the game, the basic premise of the game is that players have to remove small objects with tweezers from wells without touching the sides. Each object is supposed to represent [...]

Census statistics show that 18.7% of Americans have a disability

Thursday, August 30th, 2012

The United States Census Bureau has released updated statistics on the population of people with disabilities in the U.S. According to the new figures, 56.7 million Americans (18.7% of the population) have some type of disability. Of this number, an estimated 38.3 million (12.6%) have a disability characterized as “severe.” The findings, which are contained [...]

Ableism and Language

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

What is ableism? Ableism is manifested in our society in a variety of ways. Thomas Hehir, a disability activist and scholar describes ableism as “the devaluation of disability that, resulting in societal attitudes that uncritically assert that it is better for a child to walk than roll, speak than sign, read print than read Braille, [...]