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UCO's Disability Awareness Week gives glimpse of challenges Read more: http://newsok.com/ucos-disability-awareness-week-gives-glimpse-of-challenges/article/3553610#ixzz1I4MccyWH
Even pressing the earphones hard into her ears with her hands, Ashley Poplin couldn't hear a single word on the deaf-awareness compact disc.
“This is ridiculous. All I hear is mumbling” the 18-year-old Guthrie High School student said Tuesday while taking part in University of Central Oklahoma Disability Awareness Week activities.
Shelley Smith, an interpreter specialist for UCO, said the CD demonstrates three different levels of hearing loss.
It is meant to help people experience what it's like for students with hearing problems to try to hear a lecture in class without an interpreter.
“I haven't gotten one person yet that got any of the words right,” Smith said.
Poplin also tried her hand at writing exercises meant to demonstrate difficulties people with motor skills experience.
In one exercise she had to trace the outline of a star while looking at her paper through a mirror.
For another challenge, she had to keep her leg moving while trying to write her name.
“This is so hard,” Poplin said.
“Imagine if you had to try to copy notes in class,” said Sharla Weathers, coordinator of Disability Support Services at UCO and the adviser of Students for an Accessible Society, which sponsored the awareness week.
Poplin, who takes concurrent classes at UCO along with her high school coursework, for the past few years has volunteered at a local camp for people with disabilities.
She plans to major in special education to continue helping the disabled.
“This is cool that they're doing this,” she said.
Weathers said the week's activities are meant to create sensitivity and awareness among all students and professors at UCO of the challenges faced on campus by people with disabilities.
Monday, events focused on blind awareness. Sighted students were blindfolded or wore goggles that distorted their vision. They were given canes and then put through several challenges, such as walking over a snarled garden hose.
Tuesday's activities focused on deaf awareness and learning disabilities such as dyslexia.
Activities will conclude today.
From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Broncho Lake, participants will attempt to maneuver a wheelchair through a maze to gain a better understanding of physical and mobility challenges.
Even pressing the earphones hard into her ears with her hands, Ashley Poplin couldn't hear a single word on the deaf-awareness compact disc.
“This is ridiculous. All I hear is mumbling” the 18-year-old Guthrie High School student said Tuesday while taking part in University of Central Oklahoma Disability Awareness Week activities.
Shelley Smith, an interpreter specialist for UCO, said the CD demonstrates three different levels of hearing loss.
It is meant to help people experience what it's like for students with hearing problems to try to hear a lecture in class without an interpreter.
“I haven't gotten one person yet that got any of the words right,” Smith said.
Poplin also tried her hand at writing exercises meant to demonstrate difficulties people with motor skills experience.
In one exercise she had to trace the outline of a star while looking at her paper through a mirror.
For another challenge, she had to keep her leg moving while trying to write her name.
“This is so hard,” Poplin said.
“Imagine if you had to try to copy notes in class,” said Sharla Weathers, coordinator of Disability Support Services at UCO and the adviser of Students for an Accessible Society, which sponsored the awareness week.
Poplin, who takes concurrent classes at UCO along with her high school coursework, for the past few years has volunteered at a local camp for people with disabilities.
She plans to major in special education to continue helping the disabled.
“This is cool that they're doing this,” she said.
Weathers said the week's activities are meant to create sensitivity and awareness among all students and professors at UCO of the challenges faced on campus by people with disabilities.
Monday, events focused on blind awareness. Sighted students were blindfolded or wore goggles that distorted their vision. They were given canes and then put through several challenges, such as walking over a snarled garden hose.
Tuesday's activities focused on deaf awareness and learning disabilities such as dyslexia.
Activities will conclude today.
From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Broncho Lake, participants will attempt to maneuver a wheelchair through a maze to gain a better understanding of physical and mobility challenges.