Welcome to My major assignment #2 here you will find a research article that I wrote and conducted the studies for on my own. The focus of this research article is the communication between the disabled vs. the abled
Research article draft
Mackenzie Feltner
Dr.Murdock
3 March 2020
Major Assignment #2
Communication between the disabled vs. the abled
51.0% of working aged people 18-64 have a disability and 35.2% 65 and older have a disability. Those numbers do not include the average working aged person with no disability. In this research project I am hoping to learn how the communication between the two discourse communities of the abled and the disabled varies. Not everyone understands how to communicate with different people. Some different people might be deaf and have to use sign language for communication or some people might even just need it broken down into simpler terms.
During my research I hoped to find the answer to one main question and that was
- How is the communication between adults with disabilities different from communication with adults who do not have a disability.
In order to find answers to this question I decided to conduct field observations as well as interviews with individuals I knew had experience with this topic. The age range for my participants varied from around the age of 21 to 31. Using participants that have a wider age gap I felt would provide me with better results because then I could not only see how people treated them but also how they treated them based off of age and their differences. However they were all located here in Cincinnati, Ohio.
In this paper I will discuss the outcome of the interviews done with my participants as well as observations performed and also discuss overall information and data I found by doing basic online research.
Methods
All 3 of my participants are individuals that I have had the opportunity to cross paths with while being a part of a discourse community that is more of a support group for individuals with disabilities. Before conducting the interviews I reached out to my participants through social media to make sure they agreed to participate with me. All of my participants vary in age and gender but as far as location they are mainly in cincinnati.
As I mentioned above this study consisted of an interview portion as well as an observation portion in which. Having all of my participants close by I was able to conduct the interviews in person instead of via. Email or video chat.
Case Studies
In this portion I will share some of the information my participants shared with me during the interviews that took place while also keeping my participants anonymous.
Case one: 21 year old female
Q: Share some basic information that you have about the main research question.
- people within the community of having a disability are looked at differently and sometimes not in a good way.
- Average people think we constantly need prayers because we are different than they are
- Average people think that we always need help and they think we can not be independent and do things for ourselves.
- Younger kids especially school aged kids think they can bully people like us because they see us as less of a person than they are.
Case 2: 27 year old female
Q: share some basic information that you have about the main research question
- I 100% feel treated differently by society and feel as if I am seen as less because of my disability. Sometimes it makes me angry because people do not understand that we are just as much human beings as they are.
- The way parents teach their children than we are less and not as good as them is ridiculous. They should be teaching them good morals and not negative ones.
- Because reasons like them are the main reason that we become depressed and go through rough patches because as if we did not already have it hard enough medically they have to ruin the peace and harmony between our social life and communication as well.
Case 3: 31 year old male
Q: share some basic information that you have about the main research question
- From an early age my parents realized that people were not gonna change their behavior around me just because I was different than they were
- Because my parents realized this before it was too late meant that they were able to raise me in a way where I was always being taught not to care what other people thought about me.
- In today’s world I was scared to go out and get a job because of the stereotype that is associated with being disabled I was afraid that they were going to not hire me because of differences and therefore I waited until they hired me to tell them about my disability.
Research
A research article shares the communication styles for young adults with disabilities in Bolivia where 20% of the population is the disabled. They often come from the more poor areas and in the beginning stages are not able to communicate because they have no way of communication. Here in America we have different testing that babies are put through as soon as they are born so medical professionals are able to tell if they are going to have issues communicating later in life. Unfortunately in Bolivia they do not have the same medical equipment that we have here so they are not able to catch it as early as we are in America. However as soon as they notice issues with their communication they are able to help them seek resources such as sign language classes as well as speech and communication therapy.
Another research article talks about the communication of people who have hearing or visual impairments. People who have visual impairments are able to use resources such as braille as well as an audio recorder so they can listen extra closely to things. People who have hearing impairments have the option of sign language as well as seeking hearing aids and reading and writing. Studies have shown that people who have seeing or hearing impairments are really good at the opposite things. For example someone who has visual impairments has proven to be really good at listening because that is how they learn and for people who have hearing impairments they have proven to be very good at seeing things because that is how they learn without being able to hear.
Works Cited
Common myths and stereotypes about disability -HUPT, Hupt, https://hupt.hr/engleski/what-are-paraplegia-and-quadriplegia/common-myths-and-stereotypes-about-disability, Access date 12 March 2020
Anonymous case study interviewees
Communicating with people with disabilities, Nln.org, http://www.nln.org/professional-development-programs/teaching-resources/ace-d/additional-resources/communicating-with-people-with-disabilities
Meeting the communication support needs of children and young people with intellectual disabilities in the Bolivian Andes – Susan Buell, Darren Chadwick, 2017 ,https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1744629517707086 , SAGE Journals Kirsty Best, Disability and Communication: A Consideration of Cross-disability Communication and Technology, Dsq-sds.org, https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/3290/3179 |
Question
How does having a disability affect someone’s self esteem and their day to day life ?
Working Research Questions
How does having a learning disability affect someone’s self esteem and everyday life ?
How is the upbringing of kids with disabilities affected as they transition to adulthood ?
How is the communication between children with disabilities different from the communication with non-disabled children ?
Revised Research Question FINAL
How is the communication and interactions between abled body children and disabled children vary across the different communities ?
Audience
My audience for this would be the general public as I feel that they are the ones that need to be educated on this kind of stuff the most and I also feel that they are the most judgmental towards disabled people.
Reason
I chose this research topic because being an individual with a disability I know how kids with and without disabilities can interact in positive and negative ways and I want to make people aware of the separation between the two so that they can help to hopefully resolve it and make it a comfortable environment for whomever might want to be there with positive communication and getting along.
Research plan
- Field observations – Talking with children or the parents of children with disabilities and talking with children or the parents of children without disabilities about how their communication is different from each other.
- Survey- I would then conduct a survey or complete an observation in an atmosphere in which both groups of children interact.
- Methods – explaining in my essay what I did for my field observations and a little background about the people I used to collect my data
- Research from the library– using the UCBA library to gather more information on to help with in the gaps with more information.
- Summary of findings- tying all loose end together and summarize everything included earlier in the essay.
