Reflection Essay. Adriana Romero

Disability is that condition under which certain people have some physical, intellectual or sensory deficiency that in the long term affects the way they interact and participate fully in society. In most countries, people with disabilities can apply for recognition of their condition and a certificate of disability, which allows them to access a series of rights and prohibitions. In today's society there is a tendency to adapt the environment and public spaces to the needs of people with disabilities, in order to avoid social exclusion, since a disability is perceived as such, while the person is unable to interact by herself with her own environment. It was very interesting that each group made their presentation on different disabilities. In this way we have been able to expand our knowledge about each of them.

Group one was tasked with researching about vision and hearing disabilities. Blindness is a sensory-type functional diversity that consists in the total or partial loss of the sense of sight. Deafness is the difficulty or inability to use the sense of hearing due to a loss of partial or total hearing ability. A deaf person will be unable or have trouble hearing. In this exhibition the group discussed topics such as the differences that exist between the people who are born with disabilities and the people who develop it over time. The exhibition also discussed the different applications they use to help these people and thus avoid social exclusion. Thanks to this exhibition we were able to learn about the different organizations that are involved in helping deaf and blind people.

Group two began by summarizing the chapters in the class book. This was very helpful because we were able to better understand the objectives of each chapter and how they were related to disabilities. Mobility Disability occurs when a person has a physical state that permanently and irreversibly prevents him from moving with the full functionality of his motor system. It affects the locomotor system and affects especially the extremities, although it can also appear as a deficiency in the mobility of the skeletal muscles. Psychological disability, also called cognitive disability, is a decrease in the individual's cognitive and intellectual abilities. Among the most outstanding we can find: Autism, Down syndrome, Asperger syndrome and Mental Retardation. The group did an excellent job with the interviews made to our classmates. The presentation was very interesting since we were able to better understand these two types of disabilities.

Group three made their presentation on cognitive, head and invisible disabilities. Their presentation was very well documented and helped us understand how people can live with them. Generally speaking, cognitive disabilities are related to a person's inability to perform brain tasks. Typical cognitive disabilities include autism, traumatic brain injury, dementia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and learning disabilities. Thanks to this presentation we were able to expand our knowledge of what this type of disability is in general.

To conclude, each of the teams achieved their goal with class expositions. I consider that this work has been very interesting for everyone since our research helped us to know more about different disabilities. Having a disability does not exclude people from society. The world has evolved and today spaces and technology adapt to people with disabilities with the objective of avoiding social exclusion. Living with a disability should not become a tragedy even though disabilities are not an irrelevant difference like skin or eye color.