{"id":1824,"date":"2016-03-25T00:02:47","date_gmt":"2016-03-24T14:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sydney.edu.au\/education-portfolio\/ei\/teaching@sydney\/?p=1824"},"modified":"2016-08-01T11:26:24","modified_gmt":"2016-08-01T01:26:24","slug":"teaching-graduates-value-inclusivity-using-disability-awareness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/teaching-graduates-value-inclusivity-using-disability-awareness\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching graduates to value inclusivity using disability awareness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Given that disability affects the lives of one in every five Australians1<\/sup>, our graduates are likely to in the future, either experience a disability themselves or be in a position of care for someone living with a disability, or encounter disability in their lives in a professional or social context.<\/p>\n

Disability awareness (DA) is a way of allowing students with or without a disability to share a learning environment with others as well as gaining skills for the future. Disability awareness has been defined as a \u201cpositive attitude and increased empathy toward people with disabilities.\u201d2<\/sup> Researchers have suggested that disability awareness training helps in \u201cproviding teachers and students with an understanding of the challenges faced by students with different abilities.\u201d3<\/sup><\/p>\n

In 2014, a DA program was designed for final year pharmacy students in an advanced pharmacotherapeutics course. A needs analysis conducted with the cohort in initial weeks of Semester 1 (2014) using a custom designed questionnaire identified that students were not confident of managing medication issues or communicating effectively with clients who had a disability.4 <\/sup>An educational package comprising 4 specialised lectures and a 3 hour workshop was designed to address these gaps and implemented in the latter half of the semester. This package utilised a learning cascade of exposure (exposing learners to disability), experience (creating a simulated experience of an actual disability) and ownership (getting learners to take ownership for ensuring an equitable environment for those with disability).5<\/sup><\/p>\n

Results indicated that pharmacy students\u2019 (n=256) perception of their ability to identify medication issues in people living with disabilities and confidence in communicating with patients with a disability was enhanced. Content analysis of descriptive comments from students post workshop suggested that students, on reflection, had a more empathic understanding of medication use in people with disabilities.4<\/sup><\/p>\n

These results indicate that implementation of DA training in University based courses can enhance the attitudes of students towards disability, and awareness about disability; prompt reflection on how disability may impact future career\/social pathways; and help students build self-appointed roles\/responsibilities towards people living with a disability.<\/p>\n

This piece was written by\u00a0Associate Professor Bandana Saini<\/a>, Faculty of Pharmacy. Please contact her for further information.<\/em><\/p>\n

1. Australian Network on Disability. Accessed at http:\/\/www.and.org.au\/pages\/disability-statistics.html<\/p>\n

2. Foley JT, Tindall D, Lieberman L, Kim S.\u00a0 How to develop disability awareness using the sport education model, Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 2007;78(9):32-36<\/p>\n

3. Fittipaldi-Wert J, Brock S. I can play too: Disability awareness activities for your physical education class. Strategies, 2007; 20(5): 30-33.<\/p>\n

4. Davis S, Saini B, Bosnic Anticevich S. Attitudes of pharmacy students regarding pharmacotherapeutics of people with disabilities. In the proceedings of the Australasian Pharmaceutical Science Association Annual Conference December 2014.<\/p>\n

5. Wilson S, Lieberman L. Disability awareness in physical education. Strategies, 2000; 13(6), 12:29-33.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Given that disability affects the lives of one in every five Australians1, our graduates are likely to in the future, either experience a disability…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":1825,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[489],"class_list":["post-1824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-item","post-even"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1826,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824\/revisions\/1826"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1824"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}