disabilities reflection by Francisco Alcantara

with the presentations on disabilities, just like the first presentations that we did, I have learned a lot of new stuff. learning about the disabilities, their history, the different agencies that help people with disabilities and watching those wonderful interviews has been a great experience. For me, the most interesting disabilities, and the ones that I mostly learn about were: the deafness, which has an interesting background as deaf people in the past used to be persecuted by religious people because they couldn’t hear the word of god. With the time, deaf people were slowly being introduced to the society, special schools for deaf people were created, the sign language was improved, organizations and events for deaf people were created and devices to improve the hearing were invented. The speech impairment, which is mostly found in children and is the most common childhood disability. It has different types and depending on the type of speech impairment, it can affect the tone of voice, omit sounds or make a repetition of sounds. The autism spectrum, which affect social skills, behavior, and speech. Its can also cause anxiety, depression and attention issues. Its also commonly found on children and it can be really hard for them to learn and communicate with others and it can be caused by genetic or environmental factors. It was first considered a spectrum in 1994. Traumatic brain injury which is a result of a violent blow or when an object goes through your brain tissues. Traumatic brain injuries can have several symptoms affecting the individual physically and psychologically. Some of the physical effects can be headache, nausea, dizziness, or fatigue. Some sensory symptoms can be sensibility to light and blurred vision and mental symptoms can include loss of consciousness for a few seconds, difficulty sleeping mood changes memory problems and feeling depressed. The last and, for me, the most interesting was the schizophrenia, in which people interpret reality abnormally with hallucinations, delusions and disordered thinking. The hallucinations can affect all the senses of a schizophrenic person affecting his/her normal life as many schizophrenic persons can’t differ the hallucinations from the reality. During this presentation, there was a video that was a simulation of a person with this problem. I have seen that video before, and I can say that its one of the most interesting videos that I have seen in my life. If the first presentations that we did was good, this one was even better. Every person present something different and unique that make us have a better understanding of the life of the persons that have to deal with this disabilities -Francisco Alcantara