Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!apple!oliveb!bunker!hcap!hnews!300!3!Pat.Goltz
From: Pat.Goltz@f3.n300.z1.fidonet.org (Pat Goltz)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: sometimes we win...
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Date: 12 Feb 90 02:57:32 GMT
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Index Number: 6650

I was very gladdened by your message concerning the two signing computer 
operators who could load tapes much faster by signaling each other in a 
noisy environment, and turned what COULD have been a detriment into an 
asset in their job.
  It occurs to me that this is often true. People COULD turn the ways in 
which they overcome difficulties into such an asset. All too often, 
people don't think along these lines, preferring to limit themselves to 
learning to do a thing as well as a "normal" person. I would like to 
start a thread of messages in which we talk about how the various coping 
skills that the people here have developed MIGHT be applied to make 
themselves MORE of an asset in a given job or activity than a person who 
does not have the same limitation and has not developed the same way of 
dealing with it.
  On a second, related thread. I would like to see people discuss just 
exactly how we might redesign architecture so that it works for people 
with limitations and actually makes the architecture MORE desirable for 
people without the same limitations.
  I will start that one by noting that I once read in an architecture 
magazine that a person who was designing an art museum for the blind put 
different-textured doorknobs on all the doors, in order to give them 
something extra to enjoy. I thought that was such a good idea that I 
intend to incorporate it into my house. A sighted person who is sensitive 
to art can also enjoy the doorknobs. They feel different, and they look 
different.
  Pat

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