Entries tagged with disability

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Vision Australia article. Tactile maps help blind people with independence and navigation.

https://visionaustralia.org/community/news/13-04-2018/tactile-maps-make-navigating-around-easier

Article by Vision Australia from 13th April 2018. Tactile 3D maps made by 3D printing, and audio maps help blind people and people with sight loss gain independence and navigate their way around the Vision Australia office building in Victoria without getting lost.

The maps include touch, large print and Braille to make navigating easier.

Tactile maps and sound maps are used around the world.

Tactile maps and audio maps have supported children and adults with sight loss with going to school, work and health appointments and reaching appointments on time.

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Book anthology review: Invisible. Edited by Jim C. Hines.

Invisible is a powerful anthology edited by Jim C. Hines on sexism, disability rights, gender and sexual orientation. All of the articles are thought provoking, eloquent and intelligent. They're all moving - sometimes funny and uplifting - sometimes sad and heartbreaking. My personal favourites were the ones by Ada Hoffman ( on autism) and Michi Trota (on race). You can buy Invisible on Amazon and on Kindle. Highly recommended!

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Cool links on multiculturalism and racism/sexual harassment prevention. :) Backing someone up.

http://alltogethernow.org.au/news/category/discussing-racism/ All together now.org promotes multiculturalism and prevention of racist behaviour through social marketing. :) The people there seem quite nice and inclusive, and explain things in ways that are easy to understand. There are videos on people's experiences in Australia regarding multiculturalism and racism. Some videos include "Were you expecting racism only to be welcomed, which made me happy. Other videos include L Fresh the Lion's (the great hip hop artist) thoughts on racism.

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's website seems to be down for somereason.:/ They can be contacted for questions on how to address racism on a smaller or larger level.

For the state of NSW in Australia:you can speak to your human resources department. They can explain if further action can be taken. If they are helpful, then that's great. ( Read more... ).

For multiculturalism resources in the state of Victoria, in Australia: http://justitia.com.au/race-discrimination/racism-in-the-workplace This link has other links to the Fair work commission, Fair Work Ombudsman,Vic lawyers Health Line. It also has much needed information on how racism affects people's lives (in the workplace and your legal rights.

http://jimhines.livejournal.com/647393.html Jim Hines'fantastic post. This post is extremely helpful and important reading. On addressing sexual harrassment the right way. Backing someone up and Not Creeping.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/18/the-big-idea-michelle-sagara/ A lovely article/post by John Scalzi. On portrayals of female friendships, Aspergers, and great female characters.

http://msagara.livejournal.com/72872.html#com
Quote from Michelle Sagara's informative and helpful post on Asperger's:"I get a little bit tired of having Asperger's brought up as an excuse for harassment. It's not. My son is fully aware that he doesn't always parse or notice social signals ( Read more... )Holding someone else responsible for the "wrongness" of his thoughts would never even occur to him."

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Resources for survivors of burns/acid attacks and people with disfigurements

http://www.cbtrust.org.uk/support/index.shtml The Children’s Burns Trust website is a valuable resource on keeping your children and loved ones in general safe from burns. This website page focuses on the Do’s and Don'ts of keeping children and adults safe from burns / scalding.

Katie Piper is a courageous and positive survivor of a vicious rape and burns attack. She has started the Katie Piper Foundation to support people who have survived burns attacks and disfigurements. You can help support Katie’s amazing work at her website here: http://www.katiepiperfoundation.org.uk/support-links/

( Read more... )

I’ve been unable to find equivalents of services in Australia that assist acid attack survivors and burns survivors (apart from Burns Units in various hospitals). If anyone can find information on the Australian equivalent, please let me know. Thank you.

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Parkinson's Unity Walk and Parkinson's Australia

30 people are diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease every year. Anyone from any age group can get it.

From the PNSW website: Parkinson's disease is a movement disorder typically presenting with symptoms such as slowness of movement, muscle rigidity, instability and tremor. It was named after an English doctor, James Parkinson, who first described cases of a "shaking palsy" in 1817.

More support groups for different parts of Australia are springing up. Parkinson's NSW is a non profit community based organisation. It has books, videos and merchandise on Parkinson's. There are seminars that you can attend, and a phone support line where people can offer advice and counselling. You can also help others by taking part in clinical trials.

The Parkinson's NSW website is here:

http://www.parkinsonsnsw.org.au/

You can volunteer or donate to Parkinson's Australia here: http://www.parkinsonsnsw.org.au/support-us/donations/

The Parkinson's NSW Unity Walk occurs every year on 31st August, so if you come that'll be great!

I attended the Parkinson's Unity Walk today and it was a total blast! It's all for a great cause. Lovely people, great weather and an energetic walk through bushland as well. Fingers crossed I can attend the one for next year!

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Fantastic resources on speech impairment and bullying

http://www.rousseaukiks.com/BULLY_FLYER.PDF This flyer is on martial arts, but it helps busts the myths on bullying. Learning martial arts is another great way to help bullying victims learn how to stand up to bullies. Totally agreed that there are many bullies out there that ignoring the bully usually doesn't work, as they are looking for control. Bullies have average or above average self esteem. A lot of bullies lack empathy, are aggressive and suffered poor parenting. Many victims are chosen because they are anxious, vulnerable (disabled, lacking friends, poor, from another minority group) or unable to retaliate.

http://www.safeworkers.co.uk/i-suffered-workplace-discrimination-case-study.html How people with speech impairments can get help and deal with work discrimination

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/parents/2011/01/speech-problems-in-children.shtml :
Speakability http://www.speakability.org.uk/About+Speakability A charity run by people with aphasia for others with aphasia.

the BSA and Talking Point are all organisations that can give advice to the parents of children with speech difficulties. Another good resource is Speech Teach UK. http://www.speechteach.co.uk/index.htm

Children's books about bullies and conflict resolution: http://www.childrensauthorsnetwork.com/author/dl/AO_Books%20About%20Bullies.pdf

http://www.hhdev.psu.edu/news/2011/bullying.html - The bullying epidemic - how speech pathologists can help stop bullying.

Speech Language Pathologists are present in virtually every school district across the country (there are more than 140,000 registered with the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association), putting them close to the action of many forms of bullying. What’s more, many of the children SLPs commonly work with—those with communication disorders—are typical targets of bullying.

( Read more... )

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Not cool, 2DayFM...

Sometimes the radio station 2DayFM can discuss issues in a compassionate manner. Other times, they ought to take a hard look at themselves and rethink what they say. This is one of those times. So I was listening to 2DayFM (while driving to work yesterday), when the hosts Kyle and Jackie O are mocking one of their staff Matt for his speech impediment. And his mother joined in on mocking him too.

Not cool.

On top of it all, his mother excused herself for not getting speech therapy for her son by saying"Oh, I thought his lisp was just part of his role for a musical when he was a kid!" What a load of rubbish. He lisps all the time, and you didn't notice?

Speech impediments are nothing to mock, and that woman is a weak excuse of a mother. A real mother wouldn't mock her child's speech impediment, or humiliate him on national radio. People have become severely depressed, anxious, suffered discrimination and bullying from having speech impediments. Rant over.

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Parkinson's NSW

Heya NSW Aussies,

Want to help people with Parkinson's disease? Well, you can - by supporting Parkinson's NSW! You can do this by donating, or volnteering your time and effort. You can also make a behest to Parkinson's NSW in your will. Learn more here: http://www.parkinsonsnsw.org.au/support-us/support-us/

Parkinson's disease is a neurological disease which makes it much harder for people to walk, move their limbs, grasp objects. It increases people's risk of falling, and incontinence. It can affect anyone (not just elderly people. Anyone over the age of 20 can get Parkinson's). The symptoms become gradually worse as time passes. There is no cure right now. Around 25 people are diagnosed with Parkinson's each day.

To keep up with Parkinson's related events (and attend events that raise money/awareness to assist people with Parkies) head to: http://www.parkinsonsnsw.org.au/about-parkinsons-nsw/calendar/

Parkinson's NSW is a great organisation that helps raise awareness of Parkinson's disease. It also sends out information and povides seminars/workshops on Parkinson's and treatments. They run carer groups for carers and people with Parkies, as well. There's also a phone line (1800 644 189) with counsellors, trained nursing and Allied Health staff. They can provide contact details of local neurologists (specialist doctors who are experts on Parkinson's), and local Parkinson's clinics with Allied Health staff who specialise in working with people with Parkinson's). Give it a look!

ETA: I do apologise for not posting about the Unity Walk earlier. The Unity Walk is a walk which raises money to find a cure for Parkinson's Disease. It usually occurs late August each year. It's a light easy walk - only one hour, (long route is about 3 km, short one is roughly 2 km). If you want to come, please do! Bring some family and friends, too, if you can. :)

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Video on eugenics

Hi everyone,

Thought some of you might want to take a peek at this. Definitely worth looking at. The video outlines the thoughts on eugenics by Sir Francis Galton (the father of eugenics), and why eugenics is so dangerous. Eugenics is a violation of human rights.

psychetruth's chilling and disturbing video on eugenics:

http://www.youtube.com/user/tile9943#p/a/f/2/8_l6gbgzwRY

Galton's book Kantsaywhere described a society built to breed fitter and smarter people.

His books support negative eugenics (segregation of those 'unfit' to have children, sterilisation). The man Neverwas gives his property to society of eugenics in Can't say where.

Galton supports these ideas in Kantsaywhere:

- 'unfit' people who have children are sent to work camps, and punished by undergoing surveillance. The 'unfit' were separated from their children. If the 'unfit' have children this is considered a crime.

-Galton considered people who were working class, physically unfit, disabled, mentally ill etc. to be people 'unfit' to have children

- segregation of people deemed unfit.

-selective breeding of human breedings

-donating money to 'fit' people, not disabled, poor or needy

-an elite group of 'fit' people controlling "unfit" people

-caste system where people are classed according to how fit they are to breed

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Lifeline Self Help Kits for traumatic situations

Hi all and sundry,

Check out these self help kits from Lifeline:

http://www.lifeline.org.au/find_help/info_service/toolkits

They're short and simple. Anyone can use them. They're more directed at ordinary lay people. But health professionals might also find them handy. The kits are aimed at Australians. I still think some of the advice can be applied to anyone, regardless where they're living, though. So if you've got spare time, please consider giving the kits a look over. It's seriously worth it.

They have information on which services to contact for specific traumatic or stressful situations, including natural disasters. There's also simple information on easy things you can do to assist someone going through a crisis. The self help kits include information on coping with:

-suicide
-stress
-natural disasters (droughts and bushfires)
-domestic violence
-mental illness
-depression
-ADHD

There are also Aboriginal Australian specific self help tool kits on how to help people dealing with depression, grief, loss and suicide.

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Sleight of mouth - Part 1

The following text in italics is an interesting article I found from wikipedia, which is about Sleight of Mouth. I'll post more on the use of Sleight of Mouth in Psychiatric settings, and my thoughts on this later:

Sleight of Mouth is a system of language patterns for persuasion. The concept was devised by Robert Dilts who modelled the argument and persuasion skills of Richard Bandler (the co-founder of Neuro-linguistic programming). By breaking down the methods, Dilts came up with 14 original patterns.^[1] Others, such as Steve and Connirae Andreas, have added even more patterns beyond these original 14.^[2]

As with other facets of the NLP system, the intention behind formalising the study of influence is to allow people to understand the process, and to duplicate those skills through the direct application of one or more of the Sleight Of Mouth patterns.

The name "Sleight of Mouth" builds off the phrase "Sleight of Hand" which refers to a magician's skills in making things happen which appear impossible.Ultimately, Sleight of Mouth focuses on influence by challenging, and thus changing, beliefs.

A brief description of the key patterns appears below. However, most of the understanding will follow from working through examples, and seeing how these are applied.

Intent: Focus on the intention behind the statement. This can be done by highlighting their positive intent behind the belief, or by challenging the negative intent.
Consequences: Find a consequence (even an unintended consequence) which results in the belief being challenged.
Another Outcome: Maybe people who XYZ need ABC.
Counterexample: Use an exception where their statement would not be true - which causes the belief that underlies the statement to be questioned.
Apply to self: Turn the comment back to them - by saying (or implying) that the consequence they suggest applies to you, actually applies to them for making the original statement.
Reality strategy: Challenge the belief based on the fact that beliefs arise from certain perceptions. Ultimately, this is about asking how they know their belief is true, or what aspects of the belief are really the issue. (This is like the Metamodel.)
Model of the World: Argue that they are saying that as a metaphor for something else.
Meta frame: Challenge the basis behind the belief, rather than the belief. Suggest that their belief presupposes something.
Change Frame Size: Extend the implications of the belief to a larger (or a smaller) scale; or to a larger (or shorter) time frame.
Hierarchy of Criteria: Challenge the belief based on more important criteria, suggesting something more important they should be considering.
Chunk Down: Look at a specific element and challenge the belief.
Chunk Up: Generalise in order to challenge the belief.
Metaphor/Analogy: Use an example which challenges the belief.
Redefine: Use similar words to say the same thing, ensuring that the implication is changed.^[1]
Timeline: Challenge the belief on the basis of how long it holds true. A challenge may initiate: "That's true today, what about next year? Still true?" ^[3]
Redirect: Attack the belief by questioning the underlying beneficial motives. Query "Yes, and what positive value leads you to believe that?" ^[4]