
Based on our data, 15 percent of the total world population has a disability, both physically and mentally. That number is approximately equivalent to 1.1 billion people if we refer to the total world population currently in the range of 7.7 billion people.
Persons with disabilities who live side by side in the community are often underestimated and tend to be underestimated, for their inability to do certain things. It is this stigma or assumption, which then underlies the nature or wrong attitude of the community when interacting with people with disabilities.
Reporting from The Guardian, seven things should not be done or said to people with disabilities when meeting and interacting.
Call it brave
This statement is generally expressed when a person with a disability travels or does something alone without someone else’s company. For example, those who sit in wheelchairs and use public transportation alone, or a blind person who walks alone with his cane.
Never say, “How dare you?”
Why? Because that expression is the same as you discrediting the ability of a person with a disability and considers him too weak to do everything without the assistance of others.
Baby talk style
This baby talk style of speech is speaking slowly and slowly, sometimes also coupled with facial expressions and extra body language, with the intention that the interlocutors can more easily understand the sentences.
However, this should not be done to those who are deaf and use hearing aids.
Even without this style of speech, they can already understand what you are saying. Even if your sentence is unclear, they can ask you to speak more clearly, so that it can be received better.
So, stop communicating with hearing-impaired people using the baby talk conversation style.
Giving the wrong advice
Almost similar to the previous point, giving the wrong advice is also giving help without being asked. At this point, the help or advice offered by someone can be wrong, because they do not know exactly how the condition of the diffable.
For example, ordering a taxi for a blind person who is seen going to a place, even though the physically challenged person is heading to his car, and he has a driver waiting in the parking area.
Or at a banquet, ask the needs of a person with special needs to the friend who is next to him, because he thinks he cannot speak normally, or order a menu for himself though it is not necessarily true.
People who physically look imperfect, not mean defects in terms of communication, and so on. They are normal, like other perfect humans, and it’s just that they live differently with the limitations that exist in him.
Assume all people with disabilities are the same
Equating the views of all persons with disabilities is wrong. That is because each of them has different conditions, although both are seen as having no legs or cannot see, and so on.
As with normal people who have perfect limbs, although equally normal, but the situation of each person can not be equated.
Some people are obese, malnourished, and the strongest footstool is different, can not stand the cold, afraid of the dark, and so on.
So, expand your understanding of people with disabilities; blind people are not always about sunglasses and rattan canes.
Help without being asked
Never assist persons with disabilities without asking first. Your good intentions can be wrong because they unwittingly offend others.
Without your help, people with disabilities already have their own experience with their body condition, and they are accustomed to doing many things with imperfect conditions.
So when someone who has no hands feeds his mouth, he can do it himself, using his toes, for example.
In another case, when they ask you directly to help do something, it does not matter.
Define based on imperfections
What is physically visible cannot describe a person’s inner state and soul. The incomplete bodily or mental functions that a person has cannot be used to judge someone’s personality.
Existing physical disabilities can be inversely proportional to the enthusiasm, motivation, and inspiration that is in his mind.
They really can’t do everything perfectly, like normal people. However, there are many paths that they can take to make life far more meaningful and not as sad as what others see in themselves.