Does TV impact how we view disabilities

 Does TV Impact how we view disabilities? 

 

In some ways TV is a window on our social mores and in other ways it can lead us into better understandings.   Five years ago the wonderful children’s show, Sesame Street introduced a character with autism.   The show also included an online resource with information about the condition and resources for families.

But did any of that make a difference?  

Last month the journal Autism published the results of a formal study to see if shows like Sesame Street could really change attitudes.

The idea of the study was to see if viewing the website, “Amazing” that described autism and provided resources would change the attitudes of both families with children with autism and families with no children with autism.

Before viewing the website, families were assessed regarding their attitudes towards children with autism.   Not surprisingly, families who had children with autism were more positive toward the condition than were families without these children.

But here is what is very interesting.   The 473 families of children with autism and the 707 families without autism both had attitudinal changes after viewing the website.  Parents of children with autism commented that the information helped them to feel empowered and less helpless in dealing with their children.  Parents of children without autism said that the website information made them feel less frightened of not just the condition but of children with the condition.  Perhaps, previous iterations of people with autism on TV led to those fears?  The authors of the study concluded that “acquiring knowledge from a website may serve as an easy, quick way to reduce bias without potential harmful consequences toward individuals with autism”.   

These results can be extended lots of way.   Characters with disabilities on other TV shows, not just those aimed at children, could go a long way to improving employment opportunities for people with disabilities. These characters could be whatever the role demanded of them but that they just “happened” to have a disability.   The disability would not be significant to the character as it is on shows like Monk or other shows that use the disability as a character flaw that has some good to it as well.

TV is very powerful.  It is powerful when we include people of color in not stereotypical roles.  It is powerful when we show people with physical disabilities fully active and engaged (think the old show Ironside).   Imagine what it could do for people with other disabiities if they were just plain folk doing a job.