To be frank, where "universal access" means "ONE design/setup/etc will be accessible to everyone!", it is a pipe dream. It flat out is.
To go with my own fields: it is not possible to create a "universally accessible" Storytime program. Even with the biggest budget, the best facilities, all the rest of it, one program cannot be universally accessible. Because you cannot accommodate (for example) in one program a child who's easily sensorily overloaded, highly anxious and experiences loud noises as painful, and a highly physical ADHD(hyperactive) child who needs strong sensory stimulus to maintain attention engagement.
You can't. These two children cannot be accommodated in the same program, because their needs are antithetical to each other.
However, you can make sure you have, in your facility, enough program variety that both of them can find a program to attend and benefit from. Both children can be able to access a storytime. (And you should!)
And that's a very simplistic/straightforward example, because that makes it clear; some cases are going to be a lot more difficult and complicated, but are also very subject to people going "well but you could just try HARDER!", so I tend to default to the starkest: no, there is no way to meet the needs of a child who desperately needs to be able to relax and make loud noises and be Boisterous in having fun, and a child who needs to be shielded from loud noises and people moving too fast around him in the same space. They are not compatible.
You can make sure that each child has their needs met and has access to a space to have equal access to what's available to each other? But you can't do it in the same room.
But the very first step to making sure that you're doing that program variety in your design is to own up to "there is no universal solution".
Which comes back to the antifa thing in that these people really want there to be one universal solution, usually, and are often constitutionally incapable of engaging with the reality that there isn't: that there is no One Way To Be Right. Which means they just end up sidelining and undercutting whoever doesn't fit with whatever model they've decided is Right.
Which is how you get to "autistic flapping is Oppressive!" and related bullshit.
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-30 02:15 am (UTC)To go with my own fields: it is not possible to create a "universally accessible" Storytime program. Even with the biggest budget, the best facilities, all the rest of it, one program cannot be universally accessible. Because you cannot accommodate (for example) in one program a child who's easily sensorily overloaded, highly anxious and experiences loud noises as painful, and a highly physical ADHD(hyperactive) child who needs strong sensory stimulus to maintain attention engagement.
You can't. These two children cannot be accommodated in the same program, because their needs are antithetical to each other.
However, you can make sure you have, in your facility, enough program variety that both of them can find a program to attend and benefit from. Both children can be able to access a storytime. (And you should!)
And that's a very simplistic/straightforward example, because that makes it clear; some cases are going to be a lot more difficult and complicated, but are also very subject to people going "well but you could just try HARDER!", so I tend to default to the starkest: no, there is no way to meet the needs of a child who desperately needs to be able to relax and make loud noises and be Boisterous in having fun, and a child who needs to be shielded from loud noises and people moving too fast around him in the same space. They are not compatible.
You can make sure that each child has their needs met and has access to a space to have equal access to what's available to each other? But you can't do it in the same room.
But the very first step to making sure that you're doing that program variety in your design is to own up to "there is no universal solution".
Which comes back to the antifa thing in that these people really want there to be one universal solution, usually, and are often constitutionally incapable of engaging with the reality that there isn't: that there is no One Way To Be Right. Which means they just end up sidelining and undercutting whoever doesn't fit with whatever model they've decided is Right.
Which is how you get to "autistic flapping is Oppressive!" and related bullshit.