We try to teach our children to value diversity and accept differences in people. How can we help them to truly understand and show compassion toward someone who has a disability and is “different” in a way they may not be able to understand? The first step is to talk.

Gordon B. Holbrook, in his article “Strength Through Infirmity” (Ensign, April 1976), provides a glimpse of what it might be like to have a disability.

“Imagine being suddenly jerked away from your chair and dropped back in ancient Rome. You would immediately be conspicuous because of your differences. Your clothes would be out of place; your words would be meaningless babble; your mannerisms would be bizarre. If those Romans found anything normal about you, it would be unusual. And even though you might desperately wish to communicate with them, they might not even care enough to listen. Can you imagine how alone and helpless you would feel?

If you can, then you can better understand being handicapped. Handicaps may give a person a wheelchair, a hearing aid or a white cane. A handicap may slur his speech or limit his understanding. But, like you in a foreign land, these differences do not detract from the beautiful, capable individual within. The child of heavenly parents is still there in all his glory, desiring desperately to serve and communicate.”
How, then, can we break through the barrier that stands in the way of embracing those with disabilities?

Parent volunteers in Newton, Massachusetts, have found a way to help children become more compassionate through a program called “Understanding Our Differences” (UOD). In 1978 Carol Beard, UOD president emeritus, founded the program when her sons, Forest and Lincoln were mainstreamed at the Burr Elementary School.

“Carol recognized that successful mainstreaming required an understanding community,” current UOD President Beth Mendel said. “So a group of concerned parents and educators formed to develop a curriculum for students and parents so that their community would be more understanding.”

This nationally recognized, award-winning curriculum, now in its 25th year, is designed for the elementary school student and is taught by parents who have attended a special training session. Now being presented in 200 communities across the US, it focuses on six specific types of disabilities: deafness; blindness; learning disabilities; physical disabilities; the special medical considerations of asthma, diabetes, and epilepsy and developmental disabilities/mental retardation.

Through hands-on experimentation, children gain insight into the disability and have the opportunity to talk about it. The discussion is critical to the process, Beth explains.
“Being aware that differences exist is not the objective,” she said. “We want children to see how we are the same. They can’t understand how we’re all the same until they understand the difference.”

Activities You Can Try

Here are a few simple experiments similar to an activity in the unit on understanding learning disabilities.

Mirror Images
Using a pencil, a mirror and a piece of paper, sit with the paper in front of you. Hold the mirror so that you can see the reflection of the paper. Looking only in the mirror (no cheating!), try to write your name on the paper so that it can be read correctly (left to right and right-side up) in the mirror. Remember, this is your name. You’ve written it thousands of times. It should be very simple. It’s best to do it with others watching.
How did you do? And how did you feel? Frustrated? Awkward? Embarrassed? You now have an inkling of what it may be like to try to learn with a learning disability.

Sharing a Wheelchair
In the unit on physical disabilities, children have the opportunity to spend part of a day in a wheelchair. You might try this yourself by using a wheelchair at a mall. Or perhaps you know someone who uses a wheelchair for shopping and would let you borrow it for a day. Many schools have a wheelchair for emergencies. Perhaps they would let you borrow one for a weekend or an evening. See what it is like to try to get around in the chair. If you are at the mall, how do people treat you? Are there stares? Do people talk to your “driver” rather than to you? What’s it like to always speak to someone looking up?

Tell a Story
Invite a group of 8-15 people to sit in a circle. Tell them that you are all going to make up a story. You provide the first sentence, such as, “One day Jack rode his bike to the playground.” The next person adds a sentence, then the next, around the circle. Now tell them that you are going to make up another story, but this time they can’t use the letter “r” in any word. You begin. This is a simple activity, but it is difficult and it quickly raises anxiety. Imagine what it is like for a person with speech or word-retrieval difficulties to speak in front of a group of people!

After activities like this, children at the UOD talk about how they felt during the exercises. They talk about the frustration and embarrassment. They also discuss strategies they used to try to be successful. Often, a person who actually has the disability is available to talk to them openly and to answer their questions.

Through this experience, the children come to more fully understand the disability so that they can look past it to the person and recognize the many ways in which we are all the same.

Beth addresses that first barrier when she explains, “Avoiding talking about disabilities is a symptom of society’s discomfort with disabilities.”

When we give children, and adults, the tools and the permission to talk about disabilities and understand the challenges they present, we open the channels of communication and compassion to create a more inclusive and Christ-like community.

"As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." [Luke 6:31]

(If you would like more information about the “Understanding Our Differences” program, you may contact Beth Mendel at 617-559-6075.)

Rolling Along, the Story of Taylor an his Wheelchair; Jame Riggio Heelan

Mom Can’t See Me; Sally Hobart

Growl When You Say R; E. Stanek

Extraordinary Friends; Fred Rogers

ABC for You and Me; Margaret Girnis and Shirley Green

Nick Joins In; Joe Lasker

Hooway for Wodney Wat; E. Lester

Secrets Aren’t Always for Keeps; Barbara Aiello and Jeffrey Shulman

My Name is Brain Brian; Jeanne Betancouart

Me and Einstein Breaking Through the Reading Barrier; Rose Blue

Do Bananas Chew Gum?; Jamie Gilson

Yours Truly Shirley; Ann M. Martin

The Elderberry Thicket; Joan T. Zeier

Woodbine House publishes hundreds of books on disabilities and related topics.

Russ and the Almost Perfect Day

Rolling Along with Goldilocks and the Three Bears

How Many Days Until Tommorrow?

Andy and His Yellow Frisbee

Lee, the Rabbit with Epilepsy

All Kinds of Friends. Even Green!

Russ and the Firehouse

Shelley, the Hyperactive Turtle