Reasonable adjustments

Ear defenders and uniform adjustments

The example that prompted me to write this post is that a headteacher of a school for autistic girls has railed against “over-coddling” autistic children by giving them ear defenders and allowing them to wear modified school uniforms.

Using ear defenders to block out noise is a perfectly sensible adjustment for not being able to block out the surrounding noise, which is a fact of life for many neurodiverse people. I’ve known adults who couldn’t filter out background noise in order to focus on the conversation at hand, who would probably benefit from ear defenders.

Modifying school uniforms to be more comfortable is also a reasonable adjustment. Autistic people are often sensitive to scratchy fabrics and rigid seams.

Aurora Consulting made a Facebook post about this, pointing out that both children and adults have a right to reasonable adjustments.

Making people stand

I have often wondered about the North American approach of making staff in stores stand up all day. Even the staff at the cash. The explanation given is that it is more “respectful” to customers if the staff are standing up to receive them. I would rather see the staff being comfortable. I wonder how many of the stores that insist on their staff standing up would turn away potential disabled employees because they would be unable to stand all day.

I was in a store in Oxford in the UK and the member of staff on duty was standing, and clearly in pain. She told me that she had plantar fasciitis, but the store’s owner had told her that she couldn’t have a chair to sit on “because it would not be fair to the other staff to give her a chair but not them”. The whole point of reasonable adjustments for disability is that disabled people receive them and abled people don’t.

I personally find standing for long periods of time very uncomfortable. Walking is not a problem, but standing in one place makes my feet and lower back hurt. Events and workplaces where people are expected to stand for long periods of time are inaccessible by design.

As this article from AP News points out:

Spending all day standing can take a toll on a worker’s body. Nurses, department store sales clerks, surgeons and airport workers are just some of the people who may experience leg swelling, back pain and other conditions from prolonged periods of being on their feet.

Adjustments for left-handedness

Being left-handed is not a disability, but the environment is often designed in a way that excludes left-handed people, for example, school desk-chairs where the desk part folds down from the right and can’t be reached from the left; knives and scissors; even digital SLR cameras – all designed in such a way that they are difficult or impossible for left-handed people to use. This demonstrates that people with differences are often disabled by the environment, rather than by the attribute being discriminated against.