Book Review: The Disability Experience

 

The Disability Experience

Working Toward Belonging

by Hannalora Leavitt, ills. Belle Wuthrich

 Orca Book Publishers 

 Nonfiction (Adult)  |  Teens & YA 

Pub Date 13 Apr 2021 

I am reviewing a copy of The Disability Experience through Orca Book Publishers and Netgalley:

This beautifully written and illustrated book delves into the subject that is close to my heart, those with disabilities, and how the world often perceives those with disabilities in a negative light.  But this book shares the positives.p, but first to some statistics, according to a 2017 update on the Canadian Surveys on Disabilities (CSD) produced by Employment and Social Development in Canada 3.8 millions Canadians over the aged fifteen or over live with are living with a disability.  

The United States Census Bureau reported that 8.7 Percent of Americans sixty five or under were living with a disability, that’s approximately 29 million people, the survey covered the years 2013-2017.   Generally these surveys measures serious issues with walking, climbing stairs, cognition, hearing as well things like difficulty with personal care, and independent living.  

There are over 33 million people with Disabilities in North America, so why are we being marginalized?

It is important to note that most persons with disabilities have the same aspirations for their life as you do yours.  We struggle to figure out where we fit in like everyone else does.  

There are both visible disabilities, the disabilities we can see, and the invisible ones the ones we cannot see and often discount as not being real, or not mattering somehow.  But defining a disability in medical terms alone can be misleading, because there are social implications that come with living with a disability.

Anyone can become disabled we are all vulnerable, a car accident, an illness, a fall the wrong way can change a life in an instant.  

There are Congenital Disabilities which are often called Burt defects, generally caused by chromosomal defects, gene abnormalities and genetic factors interacting with the environment.  A smaller percentage of this  category can be linked to drug and alcohol abuse, or by infections. 

Acquired disabilities are the ones whose onset occurs after birth.  In this category head injuries, and spinal cord injuries are included.  

Persons with disabilities are as different from one another as are able bodied people, but are often lumped together under the term disabled.  

There are also intellectual disabilities as well as sensory disabilities, but they cannot be lumped into the same neat category.  Both blindness and deafness are sensory disabilities.  There are those that are both deaf and blind.  

We as a society have come a long way in accepting those with disabilities in society in the lass couple of centuries, but we have a ways to go.

Disability Culture is a newer term that came about in the early 1980’s.  This concept is used to give PWD’s a collective voice, therefore empowering them.  

If you are looking for a highly readable and easily understandable book on the Disability, I recommend The Disability Experience. And if you are an educator, I’d recommend you read this book with your students, and discuss it so they can better understand. 

I give The Disability Culture five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!