Mr. Logsdon
AP Language and Composition
16 November 2019
Translucent Maladies
You know, I was on twitter recently and I saw a tweet where someone was discussing their view on a political issue and she said: “as a disabled person.” People in the comments got riled up about her not using the people-first language and saying “as a person with a disability.” The problem here obviously is not telling a disabled person that she is wrong but assuming she preferred to be labeled as a person with a disability. There are so many labels surrounding disability, between “disabled person,” “person with a disability,” “handicapable” “differently-abled,” “specially-abled,” “special needs,” and so on. As a person with a disability, she has the right to define herself and pick which label she would prefer to be referred to if any label at all. We’ve made progress in allowing members of the LGBTQ+ community to choose their gender or sexuality label, but we haven't given this freedom to the disabled community yet. We don’t treat each person as an individual but rather as a member of a community of like people with similar needs and feelings. We don’t mean to but we often simplify groups of people like this. In reality, each person with a disability is an individual with a different disability and has different needs and different life experiences, leading to different thoughts and feelings and different passions in life. Some of these disabilities have no outward indication and we can end up assuming that just because someone looks “normal” that they are healthy and have no disabilities. However, these people with invisible disabilities need to be heard and understood as disabled but also as individuals. Today, I will be focusing on the differences between the treatment of invisible and visible disabilities in school. Students tend to think of peers with invisible disabilities as better for having overcome a challenge while putting down peers with invisible disabilities for “being lazy”.
First, what is the difference between visible disabilities and invisible disabilities? A visible disability is any disability that has an external, visual indication of disability. Often times, this is indicated by aids such as a wheelchair, a cane, or hearing aids, or by a physical feature caused by the disability, such as with achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism (Disabled World 1-2). According to Disabled World (2), a health and disability news source, an invisible disability leaves no outward signs of illness. This can be seen in disabilities such as chronic fatigue, mental illness, chronic pain and chronic illnesses such as diabetes or sleep disorders. An invisible disability can also be seen in the visually impaired or the hearing impaired who choose not to use hearing aids or a cochlear implant. According to the World Health Organization, 15% of the world’s population is disabled in some way. This is over a billion people. Invisible disabilities make up a large portion of this group. According to Disabled World (2), “96% of people with chronic medical conditions live with an illness that is invisible.” These two groups face different conditions based on society’s perception of them. I will be focusing on school, as I mentioned earlier.
Students with visible disabilities are sometimes held in higher esteem than the average student. According to Longoria and Marini (23), two psychologists, most students, when shown a picture of a girl in a wheelchair, believe that she “would likely work, marry, have children, and attend college.” This shows that non-disabled students believe that disabled students can have a normal life. Longoria and Marini also found that, when shown a picture of a girl in a wheelchair and a picture of a non-disabled girl, more students think the girl in the wheelchair is passing her courses and fewer students thought the girl in the wheelchair had done something wrong. (23) This shows a level of glorification of students with visible disabilities and their actions and intelligence. According to Davis (197), an expert in bioethics, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 made important strides in allowing disabled people medical access and making public buildings such as schools and work more accessible to people with disabilities. However, people with invisible disabilities are often overlooked in the execution of this act, due to the inability of those responsible to understand a disability they can’t see.
Students with invisible disabilities tend to be looked down upon by classmates. Sometimes, this results from students believing a child with a developmental or mental disability is holding them back intellectually. A study of gifted students, average students, and students with mental disabilities showed that gifted students were more likely to look down on their developmentally challenged peers as holding them back intellectually (Litvack et al. 484). Students with invisible disabilities are also sometimes looked down upon because some of their peers don’t believe they have a disability. Jessica Kellgren-Fozard, a deaf and disabled YouTuber, was diagnosed with three invisible disabilities when she paralyzed both of her arms at the age of 17. After her diagnosis, when she was eventually able to go back to school, she found new social and physical hardships to work through. She would be sitting in class and look back to see the backs of her arms black and blue from bruises. The students behind her had been pinching the backs of her arms to see if she really was paralyzed. She also had trouble climbing stairs so she had to take the elevator to get to her upstairs classes. Unfortunately, her school refused to turn on the elevator, so she couldn’t go to her upstairs classes. Clearly, there is a deep divide between the acknowledgment and accessibility given to people with visible disabilities and invisible disabilities.
So how do we bring more awareness to people with invisible disabilities and ensure they get the medical access they require? One change we could make is incorporating invisible disabilities into pop-culture. How about a TV show with a character who has chronic fatigue or a nerve condition? What about a movie with a deaf character or a blind character who breaks the stereotype by not wearing dark sunglasses? Another slight change is changing the handicapped parking sign. This seems like a tiny change, but even this simple icon can have an impact on society’s views. Seeing as such a large portion of the population has one or multiple disabilities and most of these disabilities are invisible, this disparity between care and awareness of these groups must be addressed.
Works Cited
Davis, N. Ann. “Invisible Disability.” Ethics, vol. 116, no. 1, Oct. 2005, pp. 153–213. EBSCOhost,
doi:10.1086/453151.
“Disability and Health.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, 16 Jan. 2018,
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/disability-and-health.
Disabled World. “Invisible Disabilities: List and General Information.” Disabled World, Disabled
World, 8 Nov. 2019, https://www.disabled-world.com/disability/types/invisible/.
Kellgren-Fozard, Jessica. “Being Disabled in School.” YouTube, 2 June 2017,
https://youtu.be/kTEZYTC3WTk.
Litvack, Marla S., et al. “High- and Average-Achieving Students’ Perceptions of Disabilities and of
Students With Disabilities in Inclusive Classrooms.” Exceptional Children, vol. 77, no. 4,
Summer 2011, pp. 474–487. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/001440291107700406.
Longoria, Leonel, and Irmo Marini. “Perceptions of Children’s Attitudes towards Peers with a
Severe Physical Disability.” Journal of Rehabilitation, vol. 72, no. 3, July 2006, pp. 19–25.
EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&AuthType=ip,uid,cpid,url&custid=s1176192&db=a9h&AN=22337374.
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