What is your general impression of LDS member's attitude toward members with disabilities?

[ZSEdwardson]

I can only say from my personal knowlige, but we have a man who been visiting for over a year, even though he not decided to join as of yet, and there is always a member of the priesthood their to make sure he has a guiding arm to get where he needs to be, and a ride to church and back. A young kid who has some developmental problems is welcomed with open arms, sits in sacrament, and does activies the best he is able to do.

The toughest line is knowing how much you need to help someone, as both you and the person with the disabilities wants to have as normal a experince as possible. I know at one point the branch had a girl who was deaf and half the young women learned basic sign language so that the girl felt accepted.

(only problem is half the college/young women will sign to gossip when they don't want to be overheard.)

[Christopher_Phillips]

This is a great discussion about disability in the Church, there is a need for more of these discussions.

One resource that may be helpful in many stakes is the calling of a ward or stake disability specialist. Information on what that person done is available from this site:

Disability Specialist

[Sharky]

From my experience different wards & differrent areas tend to respond differently to persons with disabilities.

Some areas the Ward & Stake leaders tend to have a more open accepting approach then do others. Most likely due to their own personal lives & experience.

I also must admit that I avoid sitting anywhere near a certain family at church. They have 2 disabled children, one can not communicate or walk & she tends to moan frequently & scream out during the meetings. For me, it distracts from the meeting. Unforunately I am still trying to overcome my barriers on this matter.

I personally was elated to learn that the LDS Church now allows service dogs to accompany disabled persons in the chaples & buildings & facilities of the church, officially "....disabled, members and nonmembers, ... all church owned and operated buildings and facilities with the exception of food preparation areas and attendance at the Temple, where Temple workers will assist the member".

Under the ADA religious organizations are exempt from having to allow service dogs in & for many years the LDS Church did not unless it was authorized by the Area Presidency. I don't know when they changed it but more & more I am having to rely on my "stability dog" to help me stand from a sitting a position & to retrieve things I may drop. Sure people at church could help at meetings but that dog gives me the independance, the self-reliance, so that I do not have to rely on others.

Most times I believe it is a lack of exposure of non-disabled to the disabled that creates the barriers both in & out of the church.

So many non-disabled just do not know how to act around the disabled .... it seems simple enough to say "act normal" but when you have never been around a blind person or a person in a wheelchair, it is hard to "act normal". What is normal? It is sometimes difficult to strike up conversations with these indivduals, perhaps we see our own mortality & what our own life could be like.

I recall seeing a woman in a grocery store do something with her child that I appluad .... It was the greatest thing I have ever witnessed.

Her daughter spoke loudly, "Mommy, there's a man in a wheel chair!" jumping excitedly & pointing down the isle.

The mother took her daughter by the hand & walked her to that wheelchair & together they met the occupant of that chair.

So her daughters lesson began - that chair is NOT the person. The person may be loving & gentle, kind & accepting, or the person may be a real sour puss, full of hate .... but that chair is NOT the person.

Having spent some time in a wheelchair myself, I can say it is not an easy adjustment to go from walking to wheeling.

Suddenly your world is a world of looking at people straight in the navel.

People glance at you in your chair & then put their eyes straight ahead at their eye level, not yours, & they don't look down at you again - they can easily avoid your eye contact & you can do little to reach up & grab theirs.

Those that do pay attention are generally children & then it's more of a morbid couriosity.

How we treat or act or respond to the disabled is something that is taught & learned. The changes I have seen in the church in recent years seems to be one of acceptance & worth & value, & one of adapting to the needs of each member as individuals.

From a Ward or Stake Emergency Response stance, the guidelines are simple, there is to be a list of members who have special needs & how the Ward/Stake can best assist those members during a disaster or major event. It might be a notation as simple as "needs oxygen" or "motility concerns" or could even be "military/emergency responder household" (those households could readily become single-parent or even no-parent households during a disaster). Special needs aren't just limited to the disabled.

Edited December 12, 2012 by Sharky

[annewandering]

My feeling is that there would be general acceptance and help but that there might be occasions of just not thinking. Saying or doing something not thinking of the consequences and feelings hurt but not intentional. Maybe walking through a door and just not thinking that she is not going to see the door swing back to grab it. Rude in any circumstance yes but more just not thinking if in a rush. Lots of members do seem to be rushing a lot since we tend to operate on late. :)