Education

If we can teach children and adults of all abilities they can play together. There would be no more staring at that child who is in the wheelchair, or at that little girl who doesn’t like to be touched, who likes to be alone because she has Autism when the mother takes them out to the store or public places. There has been an ugly barrier when it comes to a child without a disability seeing a child with a disability. Why? There are not enough public places to serve children with disabilities and those without disabilities to play together. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if both sets of parents could talk to each other in the same place about their children’s future? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we heard a parent telling their child, “Go play with that child because she or he is not any different from you, they just play differently.”? Playing is the first communication for a child. This is how a child learns how to interact with people. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could have a few parks where children with all abilities could start to interact with each other at a very early age?  For this to happen, all parks must have special equipment for children with all abilities starting with wider sidewalks and special grounds so that a child in a wheelchair can get around all over the park.  Right now, not every playground has swings for children who can’t sit up by themselves or for children who can’t sit up at all. I have yet to see a slide that is 100% wheelchair accessible. Yes, there are slides that have ramps attached, but the parent has to take the wheelchair all the way around the park just to get this wheelchair to the bottom of the slide, and the child has to stay laying down waiting for the chair. That is difficult when she wants to get up right away and start playing again. For a child who has Autism, playing music is something wonderful to her. She also likes to be in a quiet place by herself. Every playground should have these kinds of special equipment. This is the only way we can hug and get close to these children by making play accessible to them. There is something I strongly disagree about regarding the design of accessible playgrounds I have been to. I don’t like that they don’t have all of the equipment mixed together with the abled children’s equipment. Instead, they have the equipment for the children with Autism clear across from the other equipment. What is that telling the children who don’t have disabilities? Isn’t that telling them they can’t play together with the other kids? Why can’t that child run around the equipment that the child with Autism is in?