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Disability Awareness

The most formidable barrier facing individuals with disabilities, is often found in the behavior of others. If a person considers another individual to be 'deviant' than what he/she considers to be the 'norm,' that person will treat the 'other' often times negatively, including ignoring or otherwise discounting the other person's existence.

Such behavior may be due to a lack of understanding or knowledge about what disabilities are and what it means to have one. Awareness programming, a goal of RDS, is one method to address these negative perceptions regarding individuals with disabilities by providing information that hopefully fills in the blanks for others unfamiliar with the disability experience.

Individuals with disabilities, too, may have specific misperceptions as to what it means to have a disability. RDS attempts to provide disabled students with relevant information so they continue to acquire the knowledge to negotiate their place in society successfully.

The links below will give you information about some of the efforts directed towards educating others about people with disabilities, with an emphasis on disability as part of the human condition, not deviant from it.

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