Disability and Sports Blog #1

 




    As a senior Psychology student with a minor in Disability Studies, I have learned about inspiration porn and have watched the TedTalk presented by Stella Young a multitude of times. I am also a Registered Behavior Technician (RBT) and provide Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) to children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and many other different types of diagnoses. Taking disability studies courses and becoming an RBT this year has taught me so much about the disabled community and has opened my eyes to an entire phenomenon I was not aware of before. I personally identify as an able bodied person but working with people with disabilities has shown me that inspiration porn is a very real topic.



    Since I was in highschool, I have always been around the disabled community in a very active way. In my hometown there was a local park opening up for individuals who are disabled called “ Toms River Field of Dreams”. My family and I took an active role in helping the park open and run smoothly. I myself dedicated over 100 hours of volunteering there to assist families and children with disabilities play safely. I remember on opening day there were so many people there who have not been exposed to the disability community and they were repeatedly saying how watching all of the children with disabilities play was so inspiring for them, and how they have never seen anything like it. On that day I remember being confused because to me, I was just watching children play happily and safely. I didn't feel inspired by them, I felt joy and relief for them. These children had not ever had the opportunity to go play at a park with their able bodied friends and family until now because nothing was accessible to them. On that day I felt a sense of justice for a community that I had watched be continuously underserved. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXYfngKa1EM (Watch this video for a tour!)


                                                                                    Me at the field!


This experience solidified my passion for advocacy and confirmed that I wanted to work with people with disabilities in a way that improved their quality of life and help them reach goals that are meaningful to them. This last year as I grew into my role as an RBT, I learned that a lot of people do not know the types of services that individuals with disabilities receive regularly. Along with that, when people asked about my job I noticed that suddenly they began to treat me differently than when I had other jobs. All of a sudden people were calling me a “saint” and saying “I could never do what you do, it must be so hard.” This reaction is still something that surprises me because I just respond "there's a lot of hard jobs.” I don't feel special or like I deserve extra praise or recognition for the work that I do. I do my job because I simply love it and I love the community that I work with. I view my clients as people/children first before I see their diagnoses or the difficulties that may come with it. I also try to give people the benefit of the doubt and recognize that they have these preconceived notions about this community because they've only been exposed to media portrayal of it which mostly highlights the inspiration porn aspect. Even though this issue still bothers me deeply, I just try to continue to be an advocate that people with disabilities are people first, and we should just simply treat them that way. 

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