For many decades people with disabilities have had to deal with many misconceptions in society that has interfered with their equal rights to live independently in their own communities.\u00a0 Myths are considered attitudinal barriers that are harder to overcome than architectural barriers.\u00a0 Many negative views can also lead to discrimination that is prohibited by law.\u00a0 There are several different types of attitudes that can be formed about people with disabilities.\u00a0 Examples of these attitudes are as follows: inferiority, pity, ignorance, stereotyping and fear.\u00a0 The so-called Spread Effect occurs when people view a person\u2019s disabilities as adversely affecting their other senses, abilities or personality traits.\u00a0 There are several ways we as a society can help break down attitudinal barriers such as being open minded, courteous, encouraging and taking the time to learn about disability issues.\u00a0\u00a0 Another way to help out is to speak up and reach out to make a difference.\u00a0 More importantly, help provide opportunities for people with disabilities ranging from social to employment situations.\u00a0 I feel I am doing my part of breaking down barriers through sharing my experiences.\u00a0 At first I was writing for several websites geared towards people with disabilities such as ebility.com then I\u00a0 moved on to newspaper writing\u00a0 where I not only share my stories but I get to investigate many community resources.\u00a0 My purpose is to shine light on disability issues with the life long goal of helping and inspiring people.\u00a0 Read about invisible disabilities in my column<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.masslive.com\/holyokeplus\/republican\/index.ssf?\/base\/news-6\/1275981613267390.xml&coll=1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For many decades people with disabilities have had to deal with many misconceptions in society that has interfered with their equal rights to live independently in their own communities.\u00a0 Myths are considered attitudinal barriers that are harder to overcome than architectural barriers.\u00a0 Many negative views can also lead to discrimination that is prohibited by law.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.carriewrites.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.carriewrites.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.carriewrites.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.carriewrites.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.carriewrites.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.carriewrites.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.carriewrites.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions\/94"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.carriewrites.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.carriewrites.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.carriewrites.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}