Striving to remove barriers that prevent us from building Vibrant, Diverse, Inclusive, Accessible Communities!
Journalist Sarah Kovac advocates for People with Disabilities from the foundation of her own experience living with arthrogryposis, which severely limits the use of her arms and hands. From about age 2, she began using her feet to do what most people do with their hands, starting with picking up a crayon and a spoon at the table, and later mastering driving, preparing meals, and caring for her three children. Her parents chose not to intervene and let her find her own approach, and she went on to live independently, build a family, and sustain an active journalism career. As Kovac has said, she achieved everything she wanted to achieve, just very differently than most people.
Kovac coined the term "ability drift" to name the reality that physical ability is not a binary but a spectrum that shifts over time. As she puts it, no one stays the same — aging, accidents, and temporary circumstances such as pregnancy all reshape how a person sees, hears, and moves. A parent pushing a stroller who needs a ramp rather than the stairs is navigating the same access reality as a wheelchair user. The disability community has developed approaches to these kinds of shifts over a lifetime of experience, and Kovac says it is important to create spaces where that community can share its solutions; removing barriers for People with Disabilities benefits the whole population that will eventually experience ability drift.
Through her Consumer Reports collaboration focused on adaptive living and accessibility, Kovac brought in journalists with disabilities who each contributed guidance from their own direct experience. A colleague who uses a walker wrote about walkers. A friend who is an amputee wrote about kitchen implements that can be managed with one hand, and Kovac bought several of those products to use with her feet, finding real value in that guidance even though her own situation was entirely different. A Blind journalist contributed home adaptation guidance and practical household strategies. As Kovac put it, a product developed for one specific situation can apply to many entirely different circumstances — wisdom, she says, "you cannot get anywhere else."
People with Disabilities, Kovac points out, are accustomed to having others speak on their behalf without consulting them. Well meaning professionals, including doctors and therapists, are needed but have not lived the life of disability themselves. When people reach out to Kovac because a child has a disability affecting their arms, she says she is the one with firsthand knowledge that nobody else can provide as accurately. People with Disabilities have not been given the platform to speak as the experts they are, Kovac says, because the industry has not viewed them that way, but she has pursued this kind of journalism across multiple outlets and says the industry is shifting toward consulting People with Disabilities as the actual authorities on their own lives. Community Builders striving to create Vibrant, Diverse, Inclusive, Accessible Communities understand that this means centering the lived experience of People with Disabilities as the foundation of decisions about accessibility and inclusion, not treating it as an afterthought or an act of charity.
Read the Full Article: Accessibility journalist shares tips to prepare for the 'ability drift'.
By: Indira Lakshmanan, Ashley Locke
