Every day in class our teacher has a read-aloud time that I dread. I do not read well and I am slow when I read aloud. It takes me time to figure out how to pronounce some of the words. I can hear kids in my class whispering and laughing about me. My teacher doesn’t say a word. Why don’t they help me instead of making me feel so bad?
- 6th Grade Student
The Negative Impact of Disabilities in the United States
Approximately 56 million (19%-20%) of the United States population have some kind of disability – learning, behavioral, developmental, or physical. This constitutes the largest minority group in the country. Disabilities have no boundaries; they cross the lines of race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status.
A multitude of studies demonstrate that people with disabilities have the highest rates of unemployment and poverty and the lowest level of education of any minority group; are twice as likely as the general population to be the victims of violent sexual assault and other violent crimes; are far more likely than people without disabilities to be excluded from social and professional opportunities; and are teased, bullied, and harassed at work and in school.
In all, a disability has a widespread short- and long-term impact on a person’s level of achievement and safety, treatment, acceptance, and economic well-being. It has been demonstrated that these problems can be mitigated by disabilities awareness training that changes attitudes and brings respect, understanding, acceptance, and opportunity to people with all kinds of disabilities. Understand why by reading The Key to Effective Awareness Training is Changing Attitudes. (This link will open a 39kb pdf file to be read in Acrobat Reader.)
Treatment of people with disabilities is a civil rights issue, and awareness is just a start.