Cruelty less likely to those with visible disabilities

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Joelle Brouner | • Published January 24, 2008

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Michael Rogers has given a lot of thought to living as a person with disabilities, the kind of disabilities you can see and the kind you can't.

Rogers is a lifelong wheelchair user because of cerebral palsy. That's the part you can see. And until recently he has been unable to process printed words. That's the part you can't see.

He can see print just fine, but, for most of his life, his eyes did not track. Rogers has dyslexia and an exacerbating muscle condition that left his eyes unable to hold steady when he reads. Without the ability to string the letters together, there are no words, no sentences, no paragraphs.

From Rogers' perspective, it is not the visible physical disability that has created the biggest barrier to his full participation. Rather, it is the less-visible learning disability that has impeded the achievement of his key goals. He has used books on tape and some assistive technology to access information on the computer. Those options are better than no access at all, but they are quite limiting and do not allow for the spontaneity to read a newspaper or magazine when a picture or headline catches the eye. They do not allow for the sort of understanding for which there is no real substitute for the written word.

More troubling than the lack of information has been the way Rogers has linked his inability to read to the idea that he must not be intelligent, something which is clearly untrue.

"When you go to school you learn reading, writing and arithmetic," Rogers says. "I wasn't good at any of those. I was good at cheering for the football team but no one thought about what was going to happen after I graduated."

Now, long after graduation, Rogers is using new strategies to learn how to read. Over the last six months, he has gone from having difficulty recognizing letters to reading short stories.

This is not Rogers' first attempt to build his reading skills. "In high school I worked my tail off and it never worked," Rogers says. "It's hard to have a subject you can't get better at. It's extremely frustrating."

With effort, Rogers is making steady progress. His success can be attributed in part to exercises that strengthen the muscles that control his eyes, and to the dedication of a former high school teacher.

People with developmental, learning or psychiatric disabilities that affect cognitive processing are further burdened by a sense of isolation that comes with living in a society that is often less than welcoming to people with disabilities. That puts people with those very real but less apparent disabilities in the difficult position of deciding if, and when, it is safe and appropriate to disclose their needs.

Unfortunately, they too often hear the thoughtless and sometimes downright mean remarks that are less likely to be made in the presence of people with visible disabilities.

As well as progressing in his reading, Rogers is beginning to overcome the stigma dyslexia has had on his self-confidence and his perception of his own intelligence.

"The more information you have, the more power you have," he says. "And that is what I want."

Joelle Brouner, executive director of the Washington State Rehabilitation Council, is a member of The Olympian's Diversity Panel and can be reached at brounjm@dshs.wa.gov.