If a student is short-sighted, society could accommodate them to make it not-a-disability by employing someone to sit with shortsighted students to take notes for them, employing someone to dictate all material too far away for them to see, providing a navigator so they don’t need to read distant signs....
… and yet this would do nothing for the person’s ability to enjoy a painting or a movie, to go bird-watching, to drive a car (as distinct from “to get where they need to go”!), to play darts or hockey or video games, to cook or bake, to work in visual design, to play catch with their child, etc., etc.
The idea that shortsightedness / visual impairment can be fully mitigated by society providing accommodations is manifestly false.
Society seems to fall so far on the side of the latter that it seems like pure medical-model.
This is, quite frankly, an absurd claim given how many accommodations for the nearsight and the blind we have, and the extent to which the requirements to have these things are written into law.
… and yet this would do nothing for the person’s ability to enjoy a painting or a movie, to go bird-watching, to drive a car (as distinct from “to get where they need to go”!), to play darts or hockey or video games, to cook or bake, to work in visual design, to play catch with their child, etc., etc.
The idea that shortsightedness / visual impairment can be fully mitigated by society providing accommodations is manifestly false.
This is, quite frankly, an absurd claim given how many accommodations for the nearsight and the blind we have, and the extent to which the requirements to have these things are written into law.