Help with a presentation?!?

Question

Well the short story is that on saturday for work my mum has to give a class a presentation on unerstanding disabilities and she is really stuck on ideas on how to present it (it cant be powerpoint) and it has to be original can anyone think of ny ideas?!

Thanks .x.

Answer 1

She could have the class do some exercises used in sensitivity training, which simulate having a disability. I.e. put some M&M's on a plate then have the person try to pick them up while wearing mittens.  Have them try to paint using only a head pointer. Have them try to maneuver a wheelchair they are sitting in around bookshelves or something else that resembles a store.

Answer 2

Ok if this is with young children I'm gonna say:

1. Get them as involved as possible, they have a short attention span

2. get them to come up with as many disabilities as they can - it will work best if it is a creative experience for them

3. Keep interesting figures to a minimum and if you do use them, be sure to use real numbers as opposed to percentages

4. The best way to start is to create the illusion that it is a game of some sort, get them playing a specific game, and once they're relaxed and having fun, draw attention to the difficulties they have faced in the game, and how hard life would be if you had these difficulties all the time

5. For example:

i) Chinese whispers, have them playing this for a while, then say for instance, "Imagine what life would be like if whenever you tried to say something, it came out as something else" i.e. just like in the game (by the way I'm referencing either a stroke, or being mute)

ii) sometimes you can do something really simple, i.e. get them playing "cops and robbers" or "it", and then stop them and say "imagine if you were paralysed and couldn't play like this with your friends"

iii) Charades, say "imagine being blind"

What you can also do is just ask them to come up with a list of things they like doing, their favourite foods etc. Go through some of them and give examples of disabilities that would render these activities impossible.

Once you've got them interested via these techniques, then start giving them the information. Make sure you have index cards or whatever to prompt yourself.  Simple things:

1. Don't be monotonous

2. enunciate

3. Answer all questionsBUT:

4. Don't patronise, although if they are young it is important to praise

Ok just thought of something else:

the easiest disabilities to make realistic are sense related, so for example, get them to start thinking with all their senses what it would be like not to be able to smell, taste, touch, feel, see etc. This gets their imagination going.

5. Use visual aids i.e. objects that can be passed round and examined, for example a glass eye or special glasses/reading glasses that really distort vision so they can experience it for themselves. Possibly if you can, get your hands on a wheelchair, let them all have a go, show them what it's like etc.

The general principal is to give them stuff to relate to.

Answer 3

That's a difficult one, how about she gets some huge photo graphs of people with disabilities blown up and then tells the story of each one of the cases whilst relating it to 'understanding disabilities.'