Happy Bodies: Dementors [note: some of the videos at link are not transcribed]

Can we please stop talking about non-neuro-typical people as though there is something wrong with them? They may be different, but they are not deficient and attitudes like those expressed in the Autism Speaks video just serve to promote the idea that people with ASD are somehow lesser than neuro-typical people.

Inky Ed: what happened?

He couldn’t have been more than three years old. I watched him as he discreetly looked out of the corner of his eye, checking, peeking, stealing another glance.

He sidled up to Mac, this time for a closer look, him standing, Mac sitting – they were almost nose to nose. A perplexed look formed on his face, something was clearly amiss, he needed to know…

“What happened?” he asked me with wide eyes and hands upturned.

Feminists with Female Sexual Dysfunction: The ugly things people say about FSD

Sometimes there will be something of value to take away from the comments section, especially if an article is intended to be supportive. Someone with personal experience in the matter at hand may point out flaws in an author’s language, or offer resources to more information on the topic at hand. Other times, comments are less than helpful. The comments that stand out the most though, are often the worst, most hurful ones. They are the unavoidable, spotted-too-late Ice Bergs (“Right ahead!”) floating among a sea of free speech.

Gregor Wolbring in M/C Journal: A Culture of Neglect: Climate Discourse and Disabled People

Although climate change will disproportionately impact disabled people, despite the less than stellar record of disaster adaptation and mitigation efforts towards disabled people, and despite the fact that other social groups (such as women, children, ‘the poor’, indigenous people, farmers and displaced people) are mentioned in climate-related reports such as the IPCC reports and the Human Development Report 2007/2008, the same reports do not mention disabled people. Even worse, the majority of the material generated by, and physically set up for, discourses on climate, is inaccessible for many disabled people (Australian Human Rights Commission). […]

Ableism and disablism notions experienced by disabled people can now be extended to include those challenges expected to arise from the need to adapt to climate change. It is reasonable to expect that ableism will prevail, expecting people to cope with certain forms of climate change, and that disablism will be extended, with the ones less affected being unwilling to accommodate the ones more affected beyond a certain point. This ableism/disablism will not only play itself out between high and low income countries, as Desmond Tutu described, but also within high income countries, as not every need will be accommodated.

CNET: Web accessibility no longer an afterthought

Web accessibility has come a long way in the decade since many of these proposals were first floated. It’s still a challenge, however, for the Web community to remember that as it pushes forward with exciting new technologies like HTML5 that could reinvent the Internet experience, it must keep in mind the needs of those who can’t type 60 words per minute, operate a mouse like a scalpel, or see the unobtrusive pop-up windows that point to the next destination on the page.

“As the Web gets more and more dynamic, the accessibility requirements get more and more interesting, and sometimes challenging, to implement,” Brewer said.

ABC: Taxis refusing to pick up disabled people

Disability advocate Lynn Strathie says at a recent forum in Darwin the main complaint was about transport services. She says taxis in Darwin are unreliable, inconsistent and have refused to serve the blind and others with an impairment.

“At that forum we had a person who is totally blind and has an aid dog who continually was refused taxis,” she said.

The executive officer of the Territory’s Taxi Council, Colin Newman, says it is true that some drivers have refused to serve the disabled. “The service is getting better but it is not perfect,” he said.