Adopting a Disability-friendly Attitude
We at the Nathan Ebanks Foundation want to take advantage of this blog to raise awareness about disabilities and the inclusion of children and young people with special needs. Frequently, we focus on policy development at the national level and education among other issues related to the subject. However, this time we would like to focus on our daily attitudes towards people with disabilities because we firmly believe this is the first step to work for the inclusion of ALL in society. That is the reason why, starting from this post, we will occasionally publish recommendations about how to “adopt a disability-friendly attitude” in different situations in life.
How to interact with people with disabilities
How is your approach when you meet someone with disability? Are you comfortable? Do you feel sorry? Or do you hurry up for helping?
The first friendly attitude would be “not giving so much importance to the disability condition”, always speaking in a good way. The first characteristic of a person with disabilities is, above all, that he or she is a person and needs to be treated as such. Prejudices or even “positive” attitudes can be harmful since the disabled condition dominates our interactions. Having a disability-friendly attitude means some of the following suggestions:
Try to avoid a pitying attitude
You meet a person with disabilities and you feel and express he/she is your hero because can be able to manage current situations with a disabled condition. Or worse, you feel sorry for them because of the difficulties he/she faces and has to overcome. This is the kind of situation where you are not looking at the person as a person. We encourage you to treat people with disability as persons in first place and then develop a helpful attitude, if necessary.
Be helpful but be respectful
We want to have a helping attitude with people with disabilities but please be aware that not only the intention is important. Knowing how to do it is also crucial. The first step to be helpful is not assuming the person always needs helps. Please ask before helping. If you look around and see that the streets, work environment or other public and private spaces are disability-friendly (unfortunately, this is not always the case) he or she can be as independent as you are. The person with the disability will probably let you know whether help is necessary. And definitely, please do not exclude people with disabilities because you assume their limitations will prevent them from, for example, attending a conference, restaurant or meeting.
Speaking
While speaking to a person with disabilities, there are a few ways to be respectful and inclusive. In case he or she is accompanied by a personal assistant, like for example a language interpreter, you do not need to speak with this assistant for communicating. The best way to respect the person is by addressing him or her directly.
Please avoid touching the individual’s wheelchair, taking into account that he or she may feel that you are violating their private space.
We would like to hear all of your comments about these attitudes and share your experiences. So, please feel free to contribute with your comments and suggestions!
You can learn more about how to adopt a disability-friendly attitude in:
