We welcomed Donna with her Guide Dog Tobi to campus to speak to us about life with a guide dog. While there are many similarities between Service Dogs and Guide Dogs in terms of the intensity of the training, Donna highlighted several differences. For example, her training at Guiding Eyes lasts about a month. She shared what her partnership with her Guide Dogs is like:
    • Loves “how dogs connect with you in a way you wouldn’t expect.”
    • “The freedom she gives me to make me feel like a part of society. “
    • “She’s my best friend. If I thought she was being threatened, I would protect her.”
    • “People like me are grateful for people like you.”
    • “From the bottom of my heart, I’m grateful.”
    • “We’re never alone, we’re never lost out there “
You can listen to her talk here:

Switch on Life is a unique free online learning platform which covers many aspects of hearing loss and hearing technology in plain English. Discover the world of sounds in this interactive hearing game. Get started here.

A nice example of what different hearing loss “sounds” like using the Flintstones.

This fall, the DEI team is focusing on the topic of ableism. Ableism is discrimination in favor of able-bodied people. As an organization that serves and interacts with people of different disabilities, we want to make sure we are being inclusive and kind with our language and behaviors, as well as a better understanding of our clients’ experiences.

The DEI team came up with an interactive way for the NEADS staff to understand some of the difficulties some of our clients and other wheelchair users face: the Wheelchair Experience.

We provided a wheelchair and a set of obstacles that mimic challenges that wheelchair users face. These are some of the different challenges we tried:

  • CHALLENGE #1: Get in the wheelchair, go downstairs using the elevator, go into the parking lot, and make your way back upstairs
  • CHALLENGE #2: Get in the wheelchair, go downstairs using the elevator, go into the parking lot, and make your way back upstairs while having oven mitts on your hands. The oven mitts help replicate the poor dexterity some of our clients have.
  •  CHALLENGE #3: Get in the wheelchair, go downstairs using the elevator, go into the parking lot, and make your way back upstairs while having oven mitts on your hands and the chest strap around your chest and wheelchair. Some of our clients have poor range of motion and are unable to bend over or turn from their waist up without falling or becoming unbalanced.
  • CHALLENGE #4: Get in the wheelchair, grab a cup, fill the cup with water, and bring the cup of water across the room
  • CHALLENGE #5: Do any combination of the first four challenges!

Service Dog organization that we are, some of our staff tried the challenge to understand what, if any, additional difficulty maneuvering with a dog at your side would bring. Here, Apprentice Trainer Leah demonstrates Challenge #2 with Service Dog in Training Buckley.

 

REFLECTIONS. Our staff had 100% participation and gained a lot of perspective. Here are some of our staff’s reflections on the experience.

  • This was a great activity for perspective. We did a great job designing for accessibility. Even still, everything felt a little narrow, but I felt like I could independently navigate in and out of the building.
    There was a bump at the front entrance that was a little harder to get over with oven mitts on. Also it was tougher to push the buttons.
  • This challenge gave me a better appreciation for my health. Trying to pivot the wheelchair the right way to go toward the direction I wanted was a challenge.
  • The parking lot was also surprisingly uneven, which I didn’t notice when walking on it.
  • This made me wonder just how difficult things like this must be for someone with limited mobility.
  • This would be very scary in a fire drill.

For more NEADS staff DEI initiatives, please feel free to explore our website.

We welcomed Robert Chalmers with his NEADS Service Dog Cohen to campus to speak to us about his autism disability. His talk was a great testimony to how his life is impacted by his disability and how much his Service Dog assists him. He was joined by his family, who also spoke about the impact Cohen had on the whole family. You can listen to his talk here:

 

Fathering Autism has a really unique and honest perspective on life with an autistic daughter/family member. The channel is run by dad, Asa, and is filmed in a vlog style of their day-to-day. A lot of it focuses on his daughter, Abby, who is autistic and non-verbal. We’ve selected a few videos below that seemed interesting to us, but really the whole channel has good tidbits in each video that can give a new perspective on autism/accessibility with autism.

How A Girl With Autism Talks

Real Autistic Stimming

Afternoon Routine For Autistic Teenager

Why We Do What We Do

Didn’t Know How Bad it Was For Them

Fostering an equitable work environment starts with raising awareness, and so our objective is to highlight visible and invisible disability, barriers that individuals in the workplace face, focusing on capability and ultimately shift how we discuss disability.

 

What is the wheelchair experience?

The DEI team is currently focusing on the topic of ableism. Ableism is discrimination in favor of able-bodied people. As an organization that serves and interacts with people of different disabilities, we want to make sure we are being inclusive and kind with our language and behaviors. The DEI team came up with an interactive way for the NEADS staff to understand some of the difficulties our clients (and all wheelchair users) face. The wheelchair experience gives staff a chance to use a wheelchair and try different tasks to better understand the difficulty of being a wheelchair user.

How does the wheelchair experience work?

There are 5 different challenges you can try

CHALLENGE ONE: Get in the wheelchair, go downstairs using the elevator, go into the parking lot, and make your way back upstairs

CHALLENGE TWO: Get in the wheelchair, go downstairs using the elevator, go into the parking lot, and make your way back upstairs while having oven mitts on your hands. The oven mitts help replicate the poor dexterity some of our clients have.

CHALLENGE THREE: Get in the wheelchair, go downstairs using the elevator, go into the parking lot, and make your way back upstairs while having oven mitts on your hands and the chest strap around your chest and wheelchair. Some of our clients have poor range of motion and are unable to bend over or turn from their waist up without falling or becoming unbalanced.

CHALLENGE FOUR: Get in the wheelchair, grab a cup, fill the cup with water, and bring the cup of water across the room

CHALLENGE FIVE: Do any combination of the first four challenges!

Do I win anything?

The DEI team is doing a raffle! For every challenge you complete, fill out a slip and put it in the dog bone tin. On October 28 at the staff pet dog parade, a slip will be pulled, and a winner will be chosen! The winner gets a pie of their choice made by Melissa!

The DEI team wants everyone to try the wheelchair experience. If your department has 100% participation, your department will win a pizza party! No matter how many times you complete the wheelchair experience, please put ONE sticker next to your department.

Nearly everyone faces hardships and difficulties at one time or another. But for people with disabilities, barriers can be more frequent and have greater impact. The World Health Organization (WHO) describes barriers as being more than just physical obstacles.

Continue reading the article for details.

“Don’t assume that the student in the wheelchair requires assistance; always ask the student if they would like your help before giving it. It’s good to establish a method of how and when the student would like your assistance. Have this one-to-one conversation.”

Continue reading the article for more helpful information.

The Guardian asked seven people to keep diaries for a month to document the reality of being disabled in Britain today. Author Frances Ryan reflects on the issues that arose – public transport, employment, housing, attitudes – and meets four of the diarists. An interesting and insightful read!

NEADS staff recently had the opportunity to hear from and chat with client Naomi, who spoke about living with a disability. She, along with her husband and Service Dog Charlie, joined us at a brown bag lunch roundtable. In case you missed it or want to hear again, listen now:

A podcast that shares insights to help us better understand neurodiversity and how to better navigate it, as neurodiverse individuals, or as those who work with them.

Assuming people with disabilities are at a disadvantage is counterproductive and toxic — here’s how to dismantle this workplace issue.

Ableism is one of the -isms that society doesn’t pay enough attention to. If you’ve never thought about ableism in the workplace, it’s time to do just that.

Self-advocate Michael Tollefsrud shares his history with misophonia – a condition where people have negative emotional responses to specific oral sounds (eating, breathing, talking).

Michael A. Tollefsrud is a 25-year-old graduate of North Carolina Central university with Master’s Degree in General Psychology. Having suffered with Misophonia for years, Michael made it the focal point of his master’s thesis “Obsessed with Sound: An Investigation into Misophonia And Its Relation To Memory”.

This animation seeks to preempt misconceptions among young audiences by shedding light on the real challenges dyslexic children face whilst also acknowledging their strengths and potential.

This video covers…

  • What is neurodiversity?
  • What neurological conditions does it encompass? (such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, Tourette’s syndrome)
  • What is it like to be neurodiverse or neurodivergent?
  • How can neurodiversity be supported in the workplace?

At 32, Jessica McCabe’s ADHD brought her to the darkest point of her life thus far. At 34, she was thriving both personally and professionally, producing a successful Youtube channel about living with ADHD. In this deeply personal talk, Jessica describes how she turned things around through community and education.

Focus. Productivity. Relationships. Distraction. Neurodiversity. How do you know if you have ADHD? How can you get others to understand your ADHD brain? 

When a woman discloses that she’s autistic, the reaction is often, “But you don’t look autistic,” or even a straight denial, “No you’re not.” This insightful and moving series of portraits and interviews by photographer Rosie Barnes allows the voices and experiences of autistic women to be heard.

An invisible disability is a physical, mental, or neurological condition that can’t be seen from the outside. But it can impact someone’s movements, senses, or activities.

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Ableism refers to bias, prejudice, and discrimination against people with disabilities. It hinges on the idea that people with disabilities are less valuable than nondisabled people.

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