DISABLED PEOPLE AND SOCIETY

DISABLED PEOPLE AND SOCIETY

According to the “China Disabled Persons’ Career Development Report (2017)”, the total number of various types of disabled people in China is 85 million, which occupies 6.16% of the overall Chinese population (1.38 billion, 2016). From 2008 to 2013, the total funds invested by the central government for the disabled were about 11 billion Yuan. The local fiscal investment was 85.2 billion Yuan. However, the government spends a massive amount of funds for the improvement of disabled people life, and it was seldom to see them on the street because many particular facilities were seized by non-disabled people, such as tactile paving. In the same way, many public toilets did not have accessible facilities; and it was hard to find an elevator beside the stairs. Those problems forced them to stay at home and hinder social activities.

Lack of attention and stereotyping was the reason for marginalization of disables people. Having equality in popularized public facilities is having respect to the vulnerable population and a measuring point of social tolerance. Disabled people have rights to be part of Society. Still, most people are not aware of the importance of

Tactile paving was occupied

their safety, which means universal design for disabled people needed to be improved immediately. Still, many new problems occurred because non-disabled designers would misunderstand many specific issues that disabled people faced. After all, they might not experience the difficulties to adopt and observe the environment.

Meanwhile, non-disabled designers always considered a common disability and ignore minorities, which caused embarrassing situations and further difficulties for them. Sinead Burke realized many practical details about inconvenient designs every day; those designs were located everywhere, such as checkout counter, public toilet facilities, shoe decoration and clothes. Her height was the “problematic” reason Sinead found: she was about 105 centimetres (or 3′ 5″) tall, it limited her to access the public facilities; she could not reach the checkout counter, it was hard for her to find the suitable design in children’s clothing, even accessing the toilet was tricky because it was somehow higher for wheelchair users. However, those problems were invisible, and it was hard for able people to notice them because they would not substitute the same feelings of the minority. Therefore, she said that sometimes she forgot her height, but handicaps always reminded her disability, so the design should provide diversity because it impacts all lives and uphold the dignity and human rights; the plan does not only represent beauty and convenience, it was also an enormous privilege and more significant responsibility.

The importance of design diversity for disability was to bring advantages for all lives because some inventions were initially designed for disabled people. In 1808 an Italian inventor called Pellegrino Turri invented the unique machine, to help his childhood friend Contessa Fantoni. Fantoni was blind and wished to communicate with the world. Thus, Turri’s invention allowed him to type words and contact with others. That machine was the earliest typewriter.

In the same way, Dr Chieko Asakawa lost her sight due to a swimming pool accident when she was fourteen. Still, her experience ignites innovation for her to develop technology for blind people. In the 1990s, Chieko was inspired by the popularity of the internet. She came up with a method for the blind to use technology; she developed a digital Braille editor, digital Braille dictionary, and a digital Braille library network. As a result, every student who was visually impaired were to use their mobile devices to read the book in Braille or invoice. Specific needs for blind people encourage this technology to develop and consequently form today’s digital publication.

Moreover, disabled designers had better observations because they always adopt the environment and solve problems on sideways. Usually, they came up with a better solution than healthy people. Elise Roy was a disability rights lawyer and design thinker who lost her hearing at the age of ten. Still, she believed her capacity was a gift that brought her unique thinking about universal design. When solving a problem, she would think in five steps: firstly, understand the problem; secondly, observe the situation; thirdly tried to come up with hundreds of ideas; then test and refine assumption; lastly, implement. On her own experience, when she was making woodworking with a tool, she has difficulties to continue, because when the operation was wrong, she would not listen when tools or wooden pieces make noise. To solve that problem, she invented a pair of safety glasses that contained visually alert, so it could test the error of the tools before the human ear could catch up.

Safety glasses designed by Elise Roy

She said, “The energy it takes to accommodate someone with a disability can be leveraged, moulded, and played with as a force for creativity and innovation.”  Therefore, disabled designers always solve problems with a difference but more comprehensive perspective; in the other way, the design for minority group or disable people was provided, not only for improvement for their life but also created possibilities for everyone to benefit from its products.

However, the importance of design diversity for disable people were ignored by everyone; biasness towards disabled people was still there, non-disabled people thought of them as passive and dependent, they communicated to them badly; they asked them “How did you get like that?” without noticing it was an impolite question, and that bridging their privacy. For example, non-disabled people considered wheelchair as a symbol of

tragedy, but disabled used wheelchair represents their independence, to show how they don’t require other people’s assistance to move around; Slack said: “My wheelchair is my best friend – I wheel it with pride and confidence. It takes me around the world” (Slack 1999: 35). Meanwhile, non-disabled people consistently carried unnecessary empathy toward disabled people; they were driven to compare themselves with others naturally and raise pity to be sure that disabled people deserved sympathy and charity, even sometimes they felt fortune about themselves because they did not get impairment, but those standpoints were easily changed: if disabled people wore ordinary medical devices, non-disabled people might show sympathy to them or pretend eye-contact with them; if disabled people decorated the medical devices, they started to praise that action and believed it was optimism. For instance, Journalist John Hockenberry was a wheelchair user for almost forty years, every time he rolled on the road, some people would point him and assume his tragic accident, but after his little daughter asked him to install flashy wheels on his wheelchair, everyone called that an excellent wheelchair and they were willing to make a conversation with John; even some little children asked him for a ride. Then, different experiences let John noticed that the critical point was intent: flashy wheels transfer him as a victim to an optimistic person. “I chose to change the situation — I’m the Commander of the Starship Wheelchair with the phase wheels in the front. Right?” Said, John. Therefore, impairment did not cause problems regularly in their life; bias from non-disabled people was more likely to bother them. Still, sometimes design diversity for disability could protect disabled people’s dignity in such a stereotypical world.

Furthermore, design diversity for disabled people was not only included social service facilities, but medical devices were also essential. Due to the misunderstanding from non-disabled people, many patients were bothered by other’s sympathetic greetings. For instance, mallet fingers, this was an injury which caused the finger bone stretched or torn, so patients could not straighten the end of their fingers fully; if the damage was not appropriately treated, it might cause long term problem. The medical treatment was to wear fingertips-shaped splints, which helped the end joints slightly bent backwards and kept fingers straight. If patients took the braces off and turned their fingers during the healing process, the treatment was probably to be restarted from the beginning, so it was complex to heal. A regular splint was made from plastic and easy to be identified as medical devices. That caused non-disabled people to ask mallet finger patients about their injury and disability, which was impolite and unrespectable. A customer called Paulette Yager posted her comment on a splint online shopping website: “Most patients would rather just bear the deformity than look conspicuous.” that explained the stereotyping overview effected on disabled people negatively and caused them overly concerned about their disability, even making them quit their proper treatment. To solve that problem, an occupational therapist named Cynthia Garris invented splint rings; they were custom-fitted double-loops, with stylish decoration and single but prettier design, which made them looked more like ordinary jewellery. Generally, the splint ring had two categories: swan neck splints and boutonniere splints; the swan neck prevented hyperextension of the joints, and the boutonniere straightened the bones. They had the same function as a standard splint, but it feature was not that obvious. Usually, those splint rings were made from silver and gold, which provided lighter weight, unprecedented fit, durability, and better protection than plastic. With that material, usually, a splint ring could be used for more than ten years.

Once mallet fingers patients wore the rings, people around them started asking where they got the “fancy jewellery”. As a result, the splint ring could provide confidence to the patients because its decorations were more attractive, and that helped to reduce prejudice and embarrassment from outside. Even though splint rings changed people’s stereotype of medical devices and reduced their attention to “take care” disabled people, it did not mean injured was miserable and wore a standard finger splint was passive. To raise awareness on disabled people was not expected to change the medical devices’ designs to make them look prettier and hide the identity of disability, people needed to respect them and accept their impairments. In the same way, medical devices were also part of the social designs that protect disabled people’s dignity.

In China there was co-dependency between the families and people, The prejudice against disabilities were influenced by Buddhist suspicion, where it was considered shameful to give birth to imperfect offspring (Pattberg, 2007).children with disabilities were taught to rely on themselves and be healthy so that they can save their family name, “when you become strong enough, what other people say won’t be of problem to you” Ms Wu once said: “I might be paralyzed, I do have a job, and I can also give a hand to our family, I am far much better than many healthy ladies, who are discriminating me? I can do all of this because my mum taught me how to survive like a healthy person.” Nevertheless, mostly discrimination came from those people who were close to you like family members and friends, just in case you can’t afford to go out as a disabled person. This was a big challenge for them since they always depend on the family if they wanted to support, if they get discriminated, they have to have a positive thoughts by consoling themselves that “am loved by family members, and they understand my situation very well, and they might just being impatient, and I believe and trust they will never disown me or look down on me”. And when they were asked about them being discriminated, they will tell you that how they were treated was not discriminatory fashion at all. However, still, we will see everything on their face and expression; their unusual tone will speak how upset and sad they are. They were tagged as “burden”,” curse”, “crap” or even “monsters” by the family members. The way family members and strangers see them, make them burst into tears, felled with a lot of regrets and shame.

More so, most of them lived on denial; most of them were avoiding to discuss their situation in public or even tell anyone because it made them feel worse about themselves. This denial gave them a chance of preventing other people from knowing how being disabled makes them feel inadequate and inferior. Let’s take an example of Mr Zheng who couldn’t walk for since he was 17 years. His father was never proud of him, just because of his disability, because he had hopes that maybe one day his son will be of help to the family soon, but instead he became a burden to the family, Mr Zheng was told by his father, “let us to the street together and get hit by the car, for the suffering to stop.” This was the scariest moment for him, but he came with the conclusion that “My father doesn’t hate him but just upset, my father cares about me.” This kind of thinking brings comfort to him, and he always felt relaxed.

Conclusion

In conclusion, everyone’s life was significantly impacted by design, and it was a way to include every group in the world; plan for disabled and vulnerability was the key to be diverse because it represented the minority was also considered and protected them from being marginalized by non-disabled people. To confirm that every disabled people could have favourable social activities, the presently accessible facilities must be improved, and their designs should be considered from a different perspective. Thus, disabled designers needed to be encouraged because they had better observation and a unique thinking process to solve problems on a sideway; then, they could understand vulnerable group’s feelings due to their own experiences. As a result, their inventions were suitable and beneficial for every human being, even more, improved, which explained why design diversity was a great responsibility. However, the government invested a massive amount of funds for disabled people, there were still problems existed, such as ignorance or bias toward them, or others occupied their facilities, and the most annoying difficulty was personal prejudice about their impairments. To resolved those issues, some services were designed unobvious and decorated to less attracted people’s attention, to helped disabled people be confident and optimistic; those designs were protections to them and provided opportunities to get involved in Society. But the real problem was people needed to raise their awareness and be respected to minority groups; everyone should change their attitudes about using stereotypical points of view to treat them, disability did not represent passive or dependent, they also had their human rights and individual consciousness.

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