Caitlin Carter struggles as she tries to maneuver her wheelchair while holding a tray. She reaches down to pick up a pen, and spills her water.
Across the room, Jamie Ray — who doesn’t have full use of her hands — is having trouble opening a simple piece of candy. Only after a long, deliberate process is she able to finally open the wrapper.
A few minutes later, Carter gets out of the wheelchair and Ray takes the socks off of her hands. Neither is disabled. They’re students who participated in Saint Leo University’s Challenge Experience on Oct. 23 as part of the school’s recognition of National Disability Awareness Month.
The challenge gives able-bodied students and faculty a chance to experience a small part of the challenges that some people face in their everyday lives. Carter learned the difficulties of multitasking while using a wheelchair, while Ray’s challenge simulated coordination challenges associated with muscular dystrophy and cerebral palsy.
Other activities included making a sandwich while blindfolded to simulate sight difficulties, identifying items in a bag based only on feel and smell, and tracing a shape while looking at a projection of an image, which replicates some challenges of dyslexia.
The challenges were part of a week of events at the university. A guest speaker and a table filled with information were other aspects of the program.
Paige Ramsay-Hamacher, director for multicultural and international services at Saint Leo, said simulating the challenges that some people face enables able-bodied people to get an inkling of what it’s like to have a very different daily experience.
“The purpose is really to give students an idea to walk in somebody else’s shoes who deals with challenges that they might not have to deal with on a day-to-day basis,” she said.
The annual event has been going on for several years at the university. It allows people to help those with disabilities by recognizing their challenges in a more personal way, Ramsay-Hamacher said.
In the sandwich-making experiment, for example, people will move the ingredients while the subject is trying to make a sandwich. They learn that moving items around can be detrimental for someone with a sight disability, since they often memorize where items are.
For Ray, the disability challenges already had a personal connection for her. Her stepmother suffers from multiple sclerosis, and trying to open the candy gave her an even better understanding of the challenges she faces.
“She’s always been complaining that she had trouble holding stuff, gripping stuff,” she said. “I never really understood it until I was not able to use my hands.”
Student volunteers guide each participant through the stations, but that doesn’t make the challenges easy when they try it themselves.
“They find it’s much, much harder than they expect it to be,” Ramsay-Hamacher said.
Carter is one of those volunteers, and admitted to struggling with the experiments.
“I’ve done this the past two years, and I still can’t do the whole wheelchair part,” she said.
Participating in the challenges has given her a better understanding regarding how to interact with people who have disabilities. If someone is in a wheelchair, Carter doesn’t see them as incapable or as an object of sympathy. But she would be better aware of their challenges, and be in a position to make their path easier or remove obstacles they might face.
And even though the experiments are short and everybody knows the challenges are temporary, Carter believes people leave with a more honest appreciation for what other people face on a regular basis.
“I’m a psychology major, so I learn about different disabilities,” she said. “But actually doing it and seeing how hard it actually is for them, it gives you a deeper respect for them.”
Ray agrees about the benefits of participating in the annual challenge.
“It’s really weird,” she said. “But it’s really awesome to be able to experience something like that because you never really know what someone is going through until you actually at least try to experience it.”
Published October 29, 2014
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