Stop making it weird: Why I'm not clapping

Abstract

BACKGROUND: People with disabilities today have greater opportunities for inclusion and full community engagement than ever before. There is an increasing importance placed on supporting higher expectations: More people have jobs where they work alongside co-workers without a focus on disability. Innovative leaders recognize that all employees do better when they have support tailored to their unique skills and work styles. Yet many disability professionals continue to hold unconscious beliefs that influence their actions, well-intentioned as they may be, and ultimately create situations that are unnatural and bizarre-in a word, "weird". OBJECTIVE: It is time for a dialogue about how this has led to the perpetuation of unwanted "special treatment," low expectations, and institutionalized segregation of people with disabilities. CONCLUSION: The authors outline ways people can "stop making it weird" and share the campaign of the same name.