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Disability in the Media: Are We Just Being Too Sensitive?

On September 25, 2005, an article appeared in the New York Times Sunday magazine featuring an anonymous blind man. The author, Gabrielle Hamilton, interviewed him for a position as a line cook in her restaurant. The man never disclosed his disability or requested any accommodations, and as a result, he failed the interview miserably. The article is rife with disability slurs and stereotypes, beginning with the description of the man’s eyes as “rolling around in his head like fish in the aquarium of a cheap motel lobby” and continuing to describe his spilling salt on the counter, fries on the floor, and almost burning his hair over the grill as he tried to see the meat. Ms. Hamilton focused on her first-person account of her reactions to the applicant, admitting that she was at first awed by him, then frustrated, and finally she failed to tell him the real reason he did not get the job.

I was a 20-year-old college student when that article made the rounds. My eyes have always moved uncontrollably, and the article felt personal. So, I put my homework on hold, and wrote a detailed complaint letter to the editor. Several other blind folks did the same. But, far from pulling the offensive article or even apologizing, the editor sent a form reply to all of us, stating, in brief, that “we do not feel that Hamilton’s story was insensitive to the blind…..We believe the story was a poignant and sensitive slice-of-life about a difficult subject. And we hope you will reconsider your thoughts about our judgment.” Instead of taking responsibility for any unintentional offense caused, the editor put the responsibility on us to just not be so sensitive. And, the article is still online Check out some responses from blind people

On October 3, 2008, a film called “Blindness” was released. An adaptation of the award-winning novel by the same name, Blindness features a society plagued by a sudden epidemic of “white sickness.” Everyone goes blind, and can only see a fuzzy white light. The people are quarantined, and the social order collapses. Among other things, the book and film feature blinded individuals literally defecating in the streets or their beds because they cannot get themselves to the toilet; an armed gang of blinded men terrorizes the others, stealing food and valuables and abusing the women; and the social order is saved by one woman who mysteriously avoids becoming blind.
Several of us organized informational protests at movie theaters on the film’s opening night. In discussions, however, it became clear that some people thought we were, again, being overly sensitive. I was told, by both blind and sighted people, that I shouldn’t be upset by this film because it wasn’t about “real” blindness. Instead, the term “blindness” was just being used as a metaphor for the depravity that can rise up in society when we fail to cooperate. The awful living conditions in the film were supposed to be analogous to life after a natural disaster. I was told that the blinded characters in the film were different from the “real” blind people who inhabit this earth. Intelligent viewers, I was told, would be able to make the distinction. I explained that I could see little difference between people who go blind suddenly from “white sickness” and my friends who went blind suddenly from illness or accident. I explained that one of the characters, who actually became the gang leader for a time, was congenitally blind and used braille. And, I explained that even if people can consciously distinguish between movie characters and people they meet on the street or around the conference table, we all have unconscious, implicit prejudices and associations that can be activated by these kinds of depictions. Fortunately, the film did not perform well and only stayed in theaters for a few weeks, although this probably had little to do with the blindness community.

Finally, just this week, I read this article about an ad for a powdered “green” juice product called Zuma Juice. One of the characters in this ad was a woman sitting in a power wheelchair, shoveling cheese puffs into her mouth and washing them down with soda. She was presented as a stark contrast to a fit woman making the juice. As David Perry states in his critique, the ad played on two of the worst stereotypes toward wheelchair users: that their disability is due to unhealthy choices, and that they’re just using the chair out of laziness rather than a real mobility need.

At first, dialogue with Zuma went similarly to the dialogue with NYT and the Blindness filmmakers. Zuma reps apologized, but said that “There are a lot of people out there who use power chairs who don’t need them,” a comment that ignores those individuals who need power chairs but can’t afford them. Zuma reiterated that their company was “all about inclusivity and positivity,” implying, again, that as long as they didn’t mean to be offensive, there was no problem.

Eventually, however, Zuma listened to the disability community, and removed the wheelchair user from the ad. “We did damage, and we realize it now” they told Mr. Perry. I commend Zuma for their honesty and humility, but at the same time, I wish they had come to this realization before 300,000 people viewed the ad.

Media portrayals of disabled people matter. They matter just as much as portrayals of ethnic minorities, women, LGBTQ people, homeless people, and any other group that has been historically devalued. But as long as journalists, filmmakers, novelists, advertisers, and others deny the importance of how they portray disabled characters, stereotypes and stigmas will continue to be reinforced.

It’s said that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I know it is difficult for companies to do damage control after something is released. But disabled people are around, and we’re available to evaluate media that involves us before it gets released to the public. Perhaps by contacting us first, the people who want to include us in print media, in film, or in commercials can start off on a good foot.

I recognize that often people who portray us negatively don’t do so out of malice. They usually have some other goal that has the potential to conflict with disability justice. But by talking with us, it is possible to find a way to reconcile your non-disability-related goals with positive disability depictions.

For example, Gabrielle Hamilton wrote about the challenges of interviewing a visibly disabled job applicant who chose not to disclose his disability. That is a genuinely challenging situation, one that deserves consideration. But, if she had talked with us, she could have found a way to present her dilemma without relying on demeaning stereotypes and clichés. She could have even had an ADA expert write an addendum to the article, discussing the legal ramifications of her situation and what she was or was not allowed to ask him about his disability. She could have done well, at least, to cut that sentence about the guy’s eyes rolling around like aquarium fish. Similarly, there are ways to create metaphor and allegory without exploiting real conditions, and to sell products or raise money for charities without playing on people’s stereotypes and fears.

Are you a journalist or blogger writing about disability? The National Center on Disability and Journalismhas some great resources, including a list of national disability organizationsContact the presidents of these organizations to gain perspective on how the piece you are writing might impact their community; and keep in mind that, as in the Blindness film, there can sometimes be debate even within a community. Even if not everyone agrees, though, I’ll bet they’ll be glad you asked.

ableism, Family, Solidarity2

Oh, Gnats!

In May 2010, a young couple welcomed the birth of their first baby girl. As Mom prepared to nurse baby for the first time, she struggled to position baby correctly on her breast. For a moment, her breast blocked baby’s nose, and baby began to turn blue. Mom called her nurse, who helped reposition baby, assuring Mom that it’s common for new mothers to need a little help getting the hang of nursing, and all was well.

But a few hours later, a social worker was contacted. Concerns were raised about the parents’ abilities to care for a newborn. Two days after her birth, baby was placed in a foster home, where she would stay until she was nearly two months old.

Why would a brief nursing mishap lead to the removal of a newborn from her parents? Especially when Mom was responsible enough to ask for help?

Because, you guessed it-Mom and Dad are both blind.

When the social worker first arrived, she bombarded the new parents with questions about how they would feed, change, transport and care for an infant. Mom and Dad, despite sure exhaustion from the birth process, answered the questions capably. Even so, the social worker ultimately stated that “I just can’t, in good conscience, send this baby home with two people who are blind.” For the next 57 days, Mom and Dad could only visit their newborn baby three times per week. Baby missed out on her mother’s milk, while her parents missed the feel of her first snuggles and the sound of her first giggles.
Click here to read more about this case

This story of Erica Johnson, Blake Sinnett, and their daughter Mikaela rocked the blind advocate community, especially the young adults like me. But thousands of disabled parents have their own stories, variations on this similar theme. Their disability becomes tied up in questions about their fitness as parents, and once the child welfare system becomes involved, proving their fitness can be an uphill battle. And the threat doesn’t end once parents take their newborns home from the hospital; well-meaning neighbors, strangers on a bus, even relatives may call the child welfare agency in at any time. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) protects disabled parents’ rights, but many states still have outdated child welfare laws allowing social services to consider a parent’s disability as an automatic strike against their parental fitness. The consequences of this presumption can be tragic for families. Baby Mikaela got to come home to her parents, but too many cases end in the termination of the disabled parent’s rights.
According to a National Council on Disability report, disabled parents may be more than three times as likely as nondisabled parents to have their parental rights terminated. The removal of children from disabled parents is perhaps one of the most serious instances in which good intentions, combined with a fundamental misunderstanding of disability, lead to grave harm for both the parents and their children.

Below is a personal essay from Jo Pinto, a novelist and mom to a 9-year-old girl. Jo is blind. From her writings on parenting, it is clear that she is a good, responsible, involved mom. Yet she recounts the continual fear of child welfare’s involvement in her family life, and how an innocent misfortune like some gnats in her daughter’s lunchbox can trigger a cascade of worry. Yet she persists and prevails with confidence. This is what she says:

Oh, Gnats!

My nine-year-old daughter Sarah burst through the front door and shoved her soft-sided lunchbox into my lap full force, right on top of the braille book I was proofreading. “Mom! Bugs flew out at me! I opened the zipper, and a cloud of bugs just poofed out at me!”

“What? Wait, what?” I set aside my work, took the lunchbox, and like any respectable mom, shifted immediately into sleuth mode. “Start from the beginning. Bugs flew out of your lunchbox? What did the bugs look like? What did you do?”

“Tiny black bugs. They were disgusting. I screamed—eeeww! Then my friend Lily saw them and she screamed, and this boy Darien saw them and he screamed, too. The lunch lady ran over, and she thought the bugs were gross. so she got the custodian to clean out my lunchbox. And I didn’t want to eat the food, so I got another lunch.”

I kept calm on the outside, but I felt a familiar terror gripping my heart, mercilessly, like a cruel, crushing hand. The hand let go of my heart as my thoughts whirled; then it slid upward to my throat, digging viciously into my windpipe, cutting off my breath.

Who else had seen those bugs fly out of my daughter’s lunchbox? Surely everybody had noticed, especially since Sarah had been such a drama queen about it. What if the custodian or the cafeteria supervisor decided Sarah’s blind mom couldn’t keep a clean kitchen, since she sent her little girl to school with bugs in her lunchbox? I was almost sure the bugs were harmless. They were probably just common house gnats, but still. EEEWW!

“I’m sorry about the bugs.” I forced myself to speak calmly, although I was fighting like mad to keep from hyperventilating. “That must have been embarrassing. But gnats are harmless. They’re just annoying little critters that eat fruit. They probably stowed away on the pineapple or the bananas we bought last night. I’ll make sure your lunchbox is nice and clean for tomorrow.”

I washed the lunchbox out with antibacterial soap, and when Sarah’s dad came home from work that night, he flushed the kitchen and bathroom drains out with vinegar and hot water, just in case.

“Drink up, boys!” he said cheerfully. “That should take care of the gnats for a while.”

But it would take a lot more than vinegar and water to wash my fears away. Blind parents are three to four times more likely to be referred to Child Protective Services (CPS) than their sighted peers are. I couldn’t keep from wondering if the gnats in Sarah’s lunchbox would be the next issue that prompted some well-meaning school official to pick up the phone.

The first time I had to face down CPS, someone had called me in because I had a “big black mean-looking dog”—and you never know, a dog might harm a crawling baby if her mom couldn’t keep watch on the situation every moment. Ballad, my second guide dog, would never have hurt a fly. Sarah used to sit on her head now and then, and Ballad would hardly wake up from her nap to shrug off the annoyance. The case was closed, unfounded.

The second time a social worker and a police officer appeared on my porch, I had brought home some groceries on a sweltering summer day. I was trying to unlock my front door, juggling a guide dog, a cranky toddler, a heavy backpack, a sack of canned goods, and a gallon of milk. Something had to go. What went was the gallon of milk, which was the reason I had gone to the store in the first place. Splat! All over the front porch. I cursed. My daughter cried. The dog began lapping up the milk, which ran like a river over my feet and down the porch steps. I dropped the bag of canned goods in the puddle. It was my turn to cry as I rushed into the house. An hour later, I had a police officer and a social worker on my still milky doorstep, informing me that an anonymous caller said “the blind lady wasn’t coping well.” I told them I would have coped a whole lot better if the anonymous caller had come to my aid, mop and bucket in hand, maybe with a listening ear besides, instead of calling the social workers and the police. The case was closed, unfounded.

Next, a nosy neighbor had threatened to call CPS because I regularly took my little girl to the swimming pool by myself at the condo complex where we lived.

“Some of the other moms and I, we’ve been talking,” she told me. “We think it’s dangerous for you and Sarah to be at the pool alone.”

Instead of asking her why she and the other moms didn’t come hang out with us at the pool—which, in hindsight, might have been a really good question—I assured her that my daughter had worn flotation devices since infancy, that I’d been a competitive swimmer in high school and was competent in the water, that I stayed right next to Sarah as she swam and kept in verbal and physical touch with her at all times, and that I wasn’t about to let the fears of the neighborhood moms limit my little girl by keeping her home from the pool I helped pay for with my HOA dues. I believed that learning to swim, at least enough to save herself from drowning, was not only a great opportunity for my daughter but also an important precaution I needed to take for her safety. So if the neighborhood moms felt the need to call CPS, they could do what they had to do and I’d take on that battle when it landed in my lap. I never heard another word about it.

Nevertheless, as a blind mom, the nagging worry about CPS lurks constantly in the back of my mind. When my daughter gets a new teacher at school or joins a different Sunday school class at church, I feel happy for the opportunity. Then she inevitably does something goofy—and perfectly normal—like wear a raggedy old jacket that’s two sizes too small. You know, the kind of jacket you thought you threw in the box of cleaning rags under the kitchen sink. And the worry in the back of my mind flares up into a hot flame of fear. What if the new teacher thinks I can’t dress my daughter properly? What if she decides to make the dreaded phone call? Fortunately, the teacher laughs off the incident when I explain that my kid has a very unconventional fashion sense and that she’s a hoarder in training. and the flame of fear dies down to a nagging worry once again—till next time.

Thankfully, the gnats disappeared easily from my kitchen, and nobody from the school made a big deal about them. But raising kids in a fishbowl is a sad reality for disabled moms in our society. We have set incredibly narrow standards of what motherhood should look like. When people see moms who deviate from those standards, suspicion and judgment tend to be their first reactions. Most people soften their views with familiarity and education, but blind moms and those with other disabilities unfortunately get used to parenting under pressure as their children grow up and navigate the normal scrapes and scuffles of life. The good news is, I’ve found that most of the issues my daughter and I face are no different than the ones sighted parents and their children deal with every day. I know I’m a good mom, so in spite of the nagging worry about CPS that lingers in my mind and flares up into full-blown fear now and then, I have the confidence as a parent to face down any obstacles that come my way. Be they gnats or nosy neighbors or unknown trials of the future, I’ll prevail against them one by one.
[Reprinted from Blind Motherhood]
Click here to read about blind parents raising their children

research

Disability Simulations: What Does the Research Say?

When I was in high school and college, I sometimes got invited to speak to younger students about blindness. Sometimes, when I would talk to teachers ahead of time to plan lessons, the teachers wanted to blindfold the kids and have them try to do things without using their sight. This “disability simulation” practice always unsettled me, though I did not know why at the time. Generally I was able to persuade teachers not to do these disability simulations. However, as I got more involved with disability advocacy, a clear tension became evident to me. Many educators thought that disability simulation was an engaging, effective way to teach about disabilities. Yet many disability activists urged caution and argued that these simulations could unwittingly increase misunderstanding. In all of this back-and-forth, though, compelling research evidence was absent.

On this week’s blog post, I want to reprint an article I wrote for the NFB’s Braille Monitor. In it, I outline the results of two research projects I have conducted on disability simulations, along with some complementary research published by my colleague and friend, Dr. Michelle Nario-Redmond. The early research suggests that disability simulations can have an impact, for better or worse, on people’s beliefs about disabilities. The lessons these simulations teach depend critically on how the simulations are done and what kind of emotional impression they leave on participants. A well-organized simulation activity, ideally one planned and executed by people with disabilities, can potentially instill positive beliefs, but the kind of unstructured simulation that is too often implemented can have real negative impacts. It is important to emphasize that this research is just beginning, and there is still much more we need to learn about the best ways to teach disability wisdom.

Disability Simulations: What Does the Research Say?

Disability simulations are one of the most popular activities used to teach about disabilities. They generally involve having people perform everyday activities with a temporary disability, such as a blindfold, earplugs, or a wheelchair. Notably, they are popular with educators, but highly controversial among disability activists, including members of the NFB. As blind people we are deeply concerned about how these simulations affect public attitudes about blindness, for better or worse.

Recently President Mark Riccobono wrote about the possibilities and pitfalls of simulations. He distinguished between simulation-based activities that invoke fear versus activities that give people useful information about alternative techniques and accessibility barriers. He argues that the former kind of learning activity can worsen public attitudes about blindness, while the latter can help improve public understanding. I want to describe some initial research that supports this argument. I also want to emphasize that more research on this topic is badly needed.

In the past I have written about my own research with blindness simulations. In brief, my colleagues and I conducted several experiments in which sighted college students performed simple activities either with or without a blindfold on, depending on the flip of a coin. Minimal instruction in alternative techniques was given. Afterward, they answered questions about how well they thought blind people could perform particular activities and how well they thought they would adjust if they became blind themselves. Consistently, the blindfolded students said they thought blind people couldn’t perform activities as well as the un-blindfolded students. For example, about half of the blindfolded students thought that blind people have trouble “living independently, in their own house or apartment,” but only about a third of the un-blindfolded students expressed this view. Further, when asked how well they would adjust to being blind themselves, the blindfolded students predicted that it would take them longer to adjust and that they would be more limited by blindness compared with the un-blindfolded students. It is clear that the blindness simulation focused attention on the initial hardship of becoming blind rather than the successful adjustment process.

Just this month my colleague Michelle Nario-Redmond published two studies of multi-disability simulations (Nario-Redmond, Gospodinov, & Cobb, 2017). In the first study college students went through stations where they had to read someone’s lips with earplugs in, pick up their lunch in a wheelchair, or read text written backwards (a crude dyslexia simulation). In the second study students read driving directions using low-vision goggles, read them backwards, and then listened to them read aloud with earplugs. Again, no instruction about alternative techniques was offered. Before and after each study, the students reported their moods as well as their comfort level interacting with disabled people. Dr. Nario-Redmond and her colleagues compared the students’ moods and comfort levels before versus after the simulations. They found that after the simulation activities, the students felt more confused, embarrassed, helpless, and (especially after the wheelchair simulation) more anxious than before. They were also more likely to agree with statements like “I am grateful that I don’t have such a burden” (of disability), and “I dread the thought that I could someday end up like them” (disabled people). In the second study, the students also reported feeling less comfortable interacting with disabled people in the future. Thus, the simulations not only made people feel negatively about disability but could also hurt their future interpersonal interactions.

Again, both of these research projects used the traditional type of disability simulation, which thrusts people into disability without any training in alternative techniques or changeable environmental barriers. Such simulations are designed to produce fear and distress to play up the plight of disability. As the above research suggests, they do a good job of that. Perhaps a different kind of learning activity, one that instructs people in useful alternative techniques, could have a different effect.

Recently, I tested this question by designing an activity for occupational and physical therapy students (Silverman et al., 2017). The students learned and successfully performed two activities: first transferring from a chair to a manual wheelchair and wheeling across the room, and then making a sandwich using their non-dominant hand and a variety of assistive aids. We deliberately set up the activities to expose the students to alternative techniques, without being so difficult that novice students would have a hard time completing them. Before and after the activity, we asked the students to rate how happy and healthy people feel who have paraplegia (unable to walk) or hemiplegia (unable to use their dominant hand). After the learning activity, the students thought that people with both disabilities see themselves as happier and healthier, compared with their views before the activity. The brief encounter with effective alternative techniques gave them a more positive sense of what life can be like with a disability.

It is evident that experiential activities need to include a clear teaching component with instruction in specific alternative techniques in order to have positive results. Disability simulation without instruction may intensify people’s preexisting fears and misconceptions about disabilities. But direct instruction, along with exposure to competent blind and other disabled role models, may be an effective way to promote accurate understanding and positive attitudes.

Other types of learning activities, as President Riccobono mentions, warrant further study. For example, President Riccobono suggests that observing a blind person navigating both accessible and inaccessible web content or dealing with custodial attitudes at the airport could be a positive learning experience. This is likely true but warrants further research to determine the most impactful ways of teaching about environmental barriers. Additionally, the long-term effects of disability education activities in general are unclear and deserve further study. Finally, as President Riccobono points out, simulations are often used for fundraising purposes. There is a need to think carefully about alternative fundraising strategies that don’t rely on fear and pity.

In conclusion, there is reason to advise caution when designing learning activities for sighted people that include blindfolds or other simulation equipment. The benefits of such activities may not outweigh the fear, discomfort, and doubt they can instill. Educators should be mindful of the learning objective for any activity and provide appropriate guidance to help reach that objective. In the NFB we know from our collective experience that teaching by example can be a powerful change agent in the minds of the sighted public. Regardless of the equipment used, our leadership in designing lessons about blindness is an important ingredient for their success.

References

Nario-Redmond, M. R.; Gospodinov, D.; & Cobb, A. (2017, March 13). Crip for a day: The unintended negative consequences of disability simulations. Rehabilitation Psychology. Available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rep0000127

Riccobono, M. (2017). Walking a mile: The possibilities and pitfalls of simulations. Available online: https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm17/bm1704/bm170402.htm

Silverman, A. M. (2015). The perils of playing blind: Problems with blindness simulation and a better way to teach about blindness. Available online:
https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/jbir/jbir15/jbir050201.html

Silverman, A. M.; Pitonyak, J. S.; Nelson, I. K.; Matsuda, P.; Kartin, D.; & Molton, I. R. (2017). Instilling positive beliefs about disabilities: Pilot testing a novel experiential learning activity for rehabilitation students. Disability and Rehabilitation. Available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09638288.2017.1292321

[Reprinted from: Braille Monitor, June 2017 ]

Disability history

Of Pictures, Voices, and Words: Making your Memories MultiSensory

On Memorial Day, my mom posted a picture of her dad, my grandpa “Pete”, on her Facebook page, mentioning he was a lieutenant colonel in WWII. Grandpa “Pete” died before I was born, and I never got to meet him. When I first discovered my mom’s post, I was struck by the fact that here on my computer screen was an image of a man who was genetically and spiritually close to me, yet because I am blind, I couldn’t interact with that image at all, or join the chorus of other friends and relatives commenting on his appearance. It was a lonely feeling.

On reflection, though, I realized this was another case of calling something a disability problem when it was really just a lack of imagination. Although I couldn’t *visually* study Grandpa Pete’s picture, I was mainly interested in the history of who he was, where he was and what he was doing at that moment. So, I wrote to my mom and asked her to tell me about his military career. I read the comments from friends of hers, who knew him, describing who he was. And I showed the post to my husband Jason, and felt the warmth of sharing another part of my family with him.

Storytelling and memory making are universal human activities. At first, the only way we could preserve memories was through oral storytelling. Then, written language allowed us to capture memories in words without needing to pass them directly from person to person. Once the camera was invented, we began to capture the visual aspects of our experiences, creating stories that were both verbal and visual in nature. Today, with the advent of social media, visuals often dominate the memories we share with others. But that doesn’t mean that blind people can’t participate. In fact, with a little forethought, we can create memories that engage multiple senses, and that are accessible to all.

Fortunately, I did know my other grandpa, “Dave”, who was alive until I was 11. A few years before his death, my dad and aunt interviewed him (on cassette tape) about his ancestry, his life, and his values. Recently the recording was digitized and shared within our family. This was of benefit to our entire family, not just to me. But it is especially powerful for me to hear his voice and connect with his stories in the absence of pictures. Video, too, can offer a real sense of being present in the moment for all, and if there is a good balance of dialogue and action, videos can engage people with visual or hearing impairments.

When making memories for yourself, or for a loved one with a disability, think of how you can preserve moments in ways that engage multiple senses. Of course, photo, audio and video all capture moments in different ways. I like to involve my sense of touch by saving small items that remind me of a particular experience, like a souvenir from a vacation, or a ribbon or button I received from participating in an event. Or the clamshell ring holder that Jason gave me on our wedding day, that he apparently bought on his bachelor trip to Europe when we first started dating (and kept it a surprise for four years). Smells and tastes conjure memories, too; in fact, some studies suggest that smells can trigger more vivid memories than any other sense Some of the first meals I learned to cook were old family favorites that rewarded me with their familiar smells and tastes.

I want to conclude this post with some practical guidance for posting accessible photos and videos on social media. In a phrase: text captions. The beauty of today’s technology is that it can show words in either visual form (print), auditory form (text-to-speech), or tactile form (braille, if the reader uses a braille device). Presenting a brief verbal description alongside a photo or video allows people to learn about the content using the sense that works best for them. Even for people without sensory disabilities, captions can help set the scene and add additional context. Captions needn’t be long; I recommend a sentence or two describing the setting, important people pictured and their relationships (e.g., “picture of my family, my graduating class, etc.), and a brief explanation of any actions (e.g., my baby boy crawling), or props that are important to the story (e.g., if someone is wearing a silly costume or intentionally striking a weird pose). When you caption an entire album, your words become a story of its own.

Facebook has a built-in caption box as part of the uploader for individual photos and videos, and if you upload an album, you can return to each photo and caption it individually. On a website, captions can be included as part of the code next to the image. There is also a feature known as “alt text” which can be used in HTML to add image descriptions which are only “visible” to people using screen readers. This may be useful if you don’t want to clutter a page with printed text, but still want to make your images accessible. But, keep in mind that some people with low vision may not use screen readers, but might still appreciate a caption.

In closing, here are a few pictures representing my favorite memories, and one short audio clip, with captions. Enjoy!

Picture from my weekend on a farm during my study-abroad trip to Australia, 2007.

Silverman family photo taken sometime in the 1990’s, with our dog, Teddy.

This is the main piece of artwork in our apartment. My mother-in-law gifted us with a wooden plaque that has our wedding vows wood-burned on it, flanked by a tree of life (Jewish symbol) and Celtic knotwork (a symbol of Jason’s Welsh heritage).

Celebratory dinner after our Ph.D. graduation with Jason, his parents, and close friends from Arizona and Colorado.

Audio from beach hike in Seattle

Advocacy

Deaf patients struggle to get adequate interpreter services in ERs

For those of us with disabilities, access technology is key to our participation in life. It’s wonderful when I find public amenities that contain accessibility features. For example, I can now use talking machines to vote at the polls, and can get cash with the help of a talking ATM. These technologies give me the chance to vote and withdraw money privately, independently, and efficiently. Similarly, remote technology can allow a signing Deaf person to hold a conversation with a hearing person without having to bring an interpreter on-site, using the services of a remote sign language interpreter.

However, the technology is only as good as the humans operating it. One problem with access technology in public places is that because so few people use it, the people in charge of setting up the technology may not have practice setting it up when it is needed, or they may not notice maintenance problems in a timely fashion. Business owners and other managers of public accommodation may think they’ve covered their accessibility obligations by having the technology around, but may neglect the need for training and regular maintenance on the equipment. As a result, we may come to expect the technology, only to discover that it doesn’t work properly. There are other times when a piece of technology doesn’t meet our needs as well as a human assistant, for a variety of reasons.

When my voting machine or ATM doesn’t talk like it should, it’s an inconvenience. But imagine the stress involved in being a hospital patient and being unable to communicate with medical staff because the remote interpreting device isn’t working. As this article illustrates, failures in communication technology may explain, in part, the health disparities experienced by Deaf people and others with disabilities. It also illustrates that, sometimes, there is no substitute for the presence of face-to-face support.
Click here to read about some Deaf patients’ hospital experiences