Class Activities

Written By Mathew and Jarod

Introduction
Our class had to do activities that let us feel and experience how people with intellectual differences or physical handicaps do. These are the activities we did:

Wheel Chair
In the wheel chair activity you had to go to the other 4th grade class to sign out a book, go get a drink of water, go wash your hands in the bathroom, go get your coat on, then take it off, and then come back to class, all in a rolling chair. We found it difficult at times to move our "chair" around. We were happy to have someone to help us with some of the tasks.


Hearing Impairment
In the hearing impairment section you had to listen to music, listen to a ring tone, a metro station, a rock concert, listen to people talk in a restaurant and listen to normal talking. The listening settings were normal hearing, mild hearing loss, moderate hearing loss, and moderate to severe hearing loss. This is the site that we went on.
http://www-edc.eng.cam.ac.uk/betterdesign/downloads/impairmentsims/impairsim3.html
We found it very difficult at times to get the correct message.


Visual Impairment
In the visual impairment section we went on the site above except we switched the setting to visual impairment. We looked at pictures of different visual impairments like macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, diabetic retinopathy, cataracts, colour blindness and glaucoma. We were able to change the setting from mild to severe for each impairment. It made us appreciate how lucky we are to have good eyesight.


Blindness
In the blindness section we had to put on a blindfold, go to the other grade 4 class, sign out a book, get a drink of water, go wash your hands, get your coat on and off and come back to class without taking off the blind fold. We were glad to have a reliable partner to work with us.


Physical Handicaps
For a physical handicapped person we experienced what it was like to try and decipher a coded message or a message with information missing. It was difficult to try and read something we could not understand at times.


After our activities were over and we all had a chance to present what we experienced, the,class was asked to come up with a list of challenges that people with our disability would face, as well as a Wish List of things that could help us throughout the day. Below is a list compiled by Kyle of what we came up with:

Visually impaired and Blindness
Challenge / Wish
Driving Seeing eye dog
Reading Braille
Writing People you can trust
Getting around new places Special glasses
Taking part in some activities

Hearing Impaired and Deafness
Challenge / Wish
Hard to hear in noisy places Sign language
Safety in traffic Reading lips
Hearing a phone Hearing aids
Taking part in some activities A friend to help
A phone that vibrates or lights up

Physical Handicap
Challenge /Wish
Narrow doorways People to help
Uneven floors Ramps
Getting into places in public Even floors
Getting certain tasks done Elevators
Wheel
Remote control
Adapted modes of transportations