the writer's room discussion

I'm writing a book where the main character goes to a boarding school that is specifically for people with diabilities, both mental and physical, that could affect how they would perform in a public school. I want there to be a lot of different disabilities portrayed in this book, both common and rare. Could you guys comment different disabilities that could affect someone in a public school environment? And could you give a brief description of what the illness/disease does?

yeah sure! you’ll just have to give me a sec :)

Bipolar disorder. I don’t have the time to explain what it is right now since I have to go eat dinner. You could look it up or maybe I’ll have the time to explain it later (if I remember it lol).

You could have people who are vision impaired. They might need to take tests verbally or use braille. Hard of hearing--they would be visual learners. So think about the accomdations that would be needed for those people.

When I was in the hospital, I was in a classroom in a wheelchair, with other people who used wheelchairs. Depending on the book you're writing, it could be a funny little scene where they're trying to navigate through the desks in a wheelchair. I knocked into a lot of things (and people) when I used one. They were also very tiresome to use (as someone who never had to use one before).

For learning disabilities, there's autism, dyslexic, ADHD (falls under the same umbrella). ADHD would exhibit more interruptive behaviors and restlessness. They might toy around with their shirt or draw or shake their leg relentlessly. They could randomly blurt something out in the middle of someone else's speaking. ADHD also makes it difficult to focus unless you are actively (physically, usually) doing something else to occupy that stationary part of the brain.

Of course, with all things especially disabilities, it affects everybody differently. Research on these disabilities would be most helpful. And it's not including all of the ways that a disability might affect a certain character, but usually, they can manifest in specific ways. My display of ADHD will be different from someone else's, but that isn't to say they both aren't real.

Def include chronic illnesses. Dynamic disabilities and fatigue make it very hard to participate in traditional schooling. And def listen to disabled people (as you are now) to avoid ableism both blatant and subtle cuz no one needs that lol.

Anyway if you want a rare chronic illness, a common (rare) one is EDS which affects all connective tissues and deteriorates collagen. It comes with a ton of comorbidities and looks different on everyone. For me, I’m an ambulatory wheelchair user, but due to other comirbidities have troubles with a bunch of other stuff.

Also, as another disabled perspective tip, don’t like ever look at medical websites cuz doctors are really ignorant and discriminatory and don’t understand disabilities. Go right to disabled educators and people w the illnesses!