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<\/div>\nDuring my research trip in Wisconsin last month, I could go back to my school, University of Wisconsin River Falls (UWRF). <\/span><\/p>\n When I was a student and had problems with my wheelchair or other issues related to my disability, I always visited Mark Johnson who is the office coordinator at Student Ability Services. <\/span><\/p>\n Fortunately I could meet him again which we both never ever expected!<\/span><\/p>\n Mark studied psychology and sociology for his bachelor degree and counseling studies for his master\u2019s degree. <\/span><\/p>\n After he worked as a counselor, he got an opportunity to work in his current position for students with disability.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The number of registered disabled students at Student Ability Services is about 330. <\/span><\/p>\n The top 3 of disability categories are 1. Learning Disability (LD), 2. ADHD, 3. Mental Health. Mark works for them to arrange reasonable accommodations.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n He showed me one of the tools provided for people with hearing disabilities. <\/span><\/p>\n It is \u201cFM system\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n Some students have hearing aids, but in the classroom, it still doesn’t work very well. <\/span><\/p>\n It is such a big room and the professor standing kind of far away and echoes and so on. <\/span><\/p>\n To improve those learning environment, students can use FM system.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n They attach a FM receiver to their hearing aids. <\/span><\/p>\n And the professor wears FM transmitter and microphone. <\/span><\/p>\n It transmits the professor\u2019s voice directly into the hearing aid. <\/span><\/p>\n I have asked one of my deaf friends in Japan about FM system. <\/span><\/p>\n She said this tool is not really common to use at school, but in a private seminar etc. <\/span><\/p>\n I think this is one of the greatest tools which can be used in classroom. <\/span><\/p>\n Especially some classrooms in college are huge and hard to catch up what\u2019s going on even without hearing impairment.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Mark and I talked about the old memories. <\/span><\/p>\n The one of them is quite funny and I keep sharing with other people all the time.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n When I first got to UWRF, I was assigned to a dorm that has no elevators. <\/span><\/p>\n My room was on the 1st floor but there were kitchen and laundry room on the basement. <\/span><\/p>\n Since I brought 2 wheelchairs from Japan, I put one wheelchair on the basement and went up\/down stairs by myself because this situation was very normal to me; usually no elevator at public schools in Japan. <\/span><\/p>\n I had to go up\/down stairs for 13 years by myself, from elementary school to junior college. <\/span><\/p>\n Couple weeks later, an American teacher found it and contacted Mark and the residential hall right away. <\/span><\/p>\n Couple days later, I got a letter saying that I could move to another dorm which has elevator. <\/span><\/p>\n The American teacher said, \u201cIt may be normal to you, a person in wheelchair, to go up\/down stairs in Japan with your hands, but not in the US. It is illegal.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n At that time only 2 dorms out of 10 had elevators. <\/span><\/p>\n During summer vacation, since many students go back home, only 1 dorm opens usually. <\/span><\/p>\n I decided to stay during summer and was noticed that the only opened dorm had no elevator. <\/span><\/p>\n Since the school doesn’t want me to go down stairs, as reasonable accommodation, they provided a microwave in my room and arranged weekly laundry service. <\/span><\/p>\n Of course I didn’t need to pay anything for those. <\/span><\/p>\n I think they worked hard to supply me with reasonable accommodations to make up the insufficiency of infrastructure.<\/span><\/p>\n Mark brought the above stories to make more dorms accessible when talking to people with residential hall even after I left UWRF. <\/span><\/p>\n Surprisingly the new members of residential hall heard about my stories too. <\/span><\/p>\n And\u2026now they put elevators in 2 more dorms! <\/span><\/p>\n Oh, my experiences have contributed!<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In the end, I asked Mark why the office name has changed from \u201cDisability Services\u201d, the one used when I was a student, to \u201cStudent Ability Services\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n Usually the offices for supporting students with disabilities are named \u201cDisability Services\u201d or \u201cDisability Center\u201d in many schools in US. <\/span><\/p>\n He said,<\/span><\/p>\n People has dependent and negative image in the word of \u201cDisability\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n The majority of disabilities that students have in UWRF are LD, ADHD, and mental health and those people do not really think they have a \u201cdisability\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n After we changed to use the word, \u201cAbility\u201d, more people come to the office and look more comfortable. <\/span><\/p>\n It is just a word, but a word means a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I was so happy to come back here. <\/span><\/p>\n Until today I still appreciate what Mark has done for me at school. <\/span><\/p>\n UWRF is a small school in a small town, but I really love this place the most!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" During my research trip in Wisconsin last month, I could go back to my school, University of Wisconsin River Falls (UWRF). When I was a student and had problems with my wheelchair or other issues related to my disability, I always visited Mark Johnson who is the office coordinator at Student Ability Services. Fortunately I could meet him again which we both never ever expected!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129,136,135],"tags":[102],"class_list":["post-8590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advocate","category-education","category-research","tag-ability-development"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonrider7.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonrider7.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonrider7.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonrider7.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonrider7.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/moonrider7.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8591,"href":"https:\/\/moonrider7.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8590\/revisions\/8591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonrider7.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonrider7.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonrider7.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonrider7.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"3e8e9-dsc00608\"](\"https:\/\/moonrider7.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/3e8e9-dsc00608-300x200.jpg\")
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