From
SUU News at Southern Utah University:
Students and community members got to experience how people with disabilities live day-to-day by participating in an obstacle course that also gave them a chance to win an iPod.
The event took place as part of Ability Week in the Sharwan Smith Center Mall last week, which was sponsored by the American Disabilities Association. The course had various things that people could try and experience how those who have that disability themselves might feel on a day-to-day basis.
Student Council for Exceptional Children President Marybeth Stevens and the council's vice president Erika Jones operated the obstacle course.
Activities in the obstacle course consisted of experiences with schizophrenia, dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, arthritis, blindness, hearing loss and being confined to a wheel chair.
For the dyslexia and ADHD activity a participant had to trace the lines of a star with a pencil on a piece of paper with a metal shield above it that blocked the person's vision from being a straight down look at the paper. While the person traced the star Stevens and Jones would encourage or try to rush the person to finish.
Liz Haight, a freshman theatre major from Salt Lake City, did the activity while Jones said, "good job keep going," and Stevens, said, "hurry up or teacher won't let us go to recess."
Haight said the activity was "really, really difficult."
She said it was completely opposite from what she usually does.
Haight said the activity taught her to be a lot nicer to those with disabilities and that she understands what they go through.
The wheelchair activity requires the participant to wheel into the bathroom, get a paper towel and come back.
Some people get lucky and have a friend or someone else open the door for them, Jones said.
The arthritis activity required the participant to thread a needle with gloves on, the blindness activity required a mask that covers the eyes and the participant walks down the hall a few feet and back and the deaf activity required ear plugs inserted in the ears while Jones or Stevens tries to talk to the participant.
Stevens said letting people know what is going on in the disability world was the purpose of the obstacle course as well as other activities that take place during the week.
She said the activities open people's eyes to things they never thought of before.
Stevens said that she also wants the week to be a positive thing for people to think about the abilities that they do have and take advantage of.
Jones said the activity opened people's minds.
"Not everyone knows about the disabilities so it makes them think twice," she said.
She said the difference she has noticed thus far people have been willing to help.
Carter Crosland, a junior history education major from Fillmore, was born with Multiple Congenital Anomalies, a rare syndrome that is differentiated by growth problems.
Because of the syndrome Crosland's arms and legs did not fully develop.
Crosland's way of getting around campus is an electric wheel chair. The ability to do things, he said, has to be shown to a person to understand.
"I have to show (someone) rather than tell them," he said.
Crosland said he wants people to know that just because someone has a disability doesn't mean, "we're not still people, too."
He said when he goes throughout campus he gets different reactions to his appearance.
"Some people ignore me or don't say anything if they do look," he said.
From SUU News at Southern Utah University: