Welcome
Please follow this link for more information on our Evidence-based Practice in Disability Disciplines Conference.
Access | Attitude | Inclusion
The vision for the Institute for Human Development-Arizona
University Center on Disabilities is that people with disabilities participate
in all life experiences.
The IHD fosters the development of attitudes that promote
the public’s appreciation and value of individuals with disabilities. Attitudes,
as barriers to or facilitators of inclusion, go hand-in-hand with access. Access,
commonly thought of as access to services and supports, can have a much broader
meaning. Services are unquestionably essential for inclusion but access also
refers to access to information, education, physical environments, community,
friendships, relationships, etc. Conceptually, access and attitude have
reciprocal roles in promoting or inhibiting inclusion.
“The toughest barriers faced by people with disabilities are
not architectural, they are attitudinal. They are not in the environment, they
are in our hearts and in our minds. When people with disabilities are
integrated throughout our communities, we are given the opportunity to change
our attitudes from ones based on stereotypes, fear, and ignorance, to ones
based on admiration, acceptance, and affection… We all gain from the opportunity
to experience people with developmental disabilities as friends, as neighbors,
as coworkers, as classmates.”
Senator Harkins