Communication with Disabled Children

According to the results of the Monitoring the Issue of Disabled Children in the Czech Republic in 2010 the public’s attitude towards disabled children and disabled people in general was considered to be one of the most serious problems.

The public’s negative attitude (lack of interest, prejudice and ridicule) is among the most serious problems spontaneously mentioned by respondents among parents of disabled children and representatives of the non-profit sector, who put it in second place immediately behind a lack of funds. Almost 70 % of parents consider the public’s attitude towards disabled people in general to be a serious problem. For the purposes of the survey several questions were created aimed at mapping out this attitude which were incorporated into the questionnaires for representatives of the public. Almost 70 % of those asked said that they were badly informed about the situation regarding disabled children. Almost half of them would sometimes follow an interesting story but they do not have any greater interest in the subject. The most frequent source of information is television. The research also showed that part of the population believes that the problem lies in how to treat disabled children, uncertainty over how to act in particular situations, whether and how to offer help, how to communicate with disabled people. “Fear of the unknown, of something different” causes a communication barrier. In answer to the question “How would you describe what goes through your head when you see a disabled child?” 13 % of respondents said “I have a strange feeling of something unknown, something unpleasant”.

The “Communicating with Disabled Children” project aims to change the public’s attitude and consists of the following steps:

Step 1: Monitoring of the Issue of Disabled Children in the Czech Republic, 2010

• it was decided to carry out the campaign “WalkingPeople” focussing on the public’s attitude and to compile content for an Information Portal to improve the level of awareness
• the opinions of the public, the state sector, the independent sector and the parents of disabled children were taken into consideration; “Communicating with Disabled Children” was chosen as the main topic

Step 2: Specialist texts “Specifics of Communication with Disabled Children”.

• texts compiled by specialists on the specifics of communicating with children with individual types of disability, including the general characteristic of the disability and specific recommendations
• the texts became part of the content of the Information Portal and part of the documentation for the creative solution of the campaign ”WalkingPeople”

Step 3: Workshops with children and young people with physical disability, visual and hearing impairment

• children’s opinion - seeing the problem form the children’s point of view, specific topics that children encounter, their own wishes, how they would like to be seen by people around them
• the team to carry out the workshops - dramatherapist (to conduct the workshop and for communication), artist (creative work with the children), cultural anthropologist (observation and recording)
• the workshops was recorded by a documentarist, including filming situations in the field with selected children who have participated in the workshops
• the results from the workshops became part of the content of the Information Portal and also part of the documentation for the creative solution of the campaign “WalkingPeople”

Step 4: Creative solution of the campaign “WalkingPeople”

• creation of the creative solution of the Campaign using the knowledge, experience and materials from the workshops with the children and young people with physical disability, visual and hearing impairment

Step 5: Media solution of the campaign “WalkingPeople”

• creation of the media solution of the Campaign following on from the creative solution

 Press release to the campaign "WalkingPeople" (290.23 Kb)