Social Disabilities

Abbey Curran was born with cerebral palsy, but early on she resolved never to let it limit her. Abbey made history when she became the first contestant with a disability to win a major beauty pageant. After earning the title of Miss Iowa, she went on to compete in Miss USA.

In the tiny Iowa farm town of Atalissa, dozens of men, all with intellectual disabilities and all from Texas, lived in an old schoolhouse. Before dawn each morning, they were bussed to a nearby processing plant, where they eviscerated turkeys in return for food, lodging, and $65 a month. They lived in near servitude for more than 30 years, enduring increasing neglect, exploitation, and physical and emotional abuse.

This book is all about getting disability benefits, written by a retired social worker. It includes all the step-by-step instructions. The way this book is written is funny and entertaining. It's a shorter book, but it's some milk and all meat - to use a Christian term. There is no book fluff or filler here.

While finishing off her degree in Gerontology at Umass Boston, Yvonne Decelis started writing about her life in the hope of showing others with similar conditions that they are not alone in the trials they face. Yvonne goes over her upbringing and life prior to, during, and after diagnosis covering things like medications, “healthful living”, work, SSDI disability benefits, friendships, and relationships, etc. This was also written for people seeking information on how to interact with others who have "invisible illnesses" like MS, Fibro, Post-traumatic Stress injury, etc.

Introduce young learners to topics of disability, accessibility, and inclusion in an easy-to-understand ABC book format. Designed for both disabled and non-disabled listeners, complicated issues are made simple through compassionate writing. This book has something for everyone, from children to adults!

Historically, they have borne the labels "freaks" and "oddities"; they have been collected as pets, displayed as spectacles, and treated as comic relief. Now, for the first time, in this comprehensive volume, the lives of dwarfs are explored in all their fullness and humanity. Spanning the centuries from ancient Egypt to the present, this unique social history chronicles the various ways this population has been exploited, describes their strategies for coping, and notes the persistent influence of mythology upon perceptions of them by others.

David Aguilar was born missing part of one arm, a small detail that seemed to define his life and limit people’s ideas of who he was and who he could be. But in this funny and heartfelt memoir, David proves that he can throw out the rulebook and people’s expectations and maybe even make a difference in the world—and all with a sense of humor.

Born in Ghana, West Africa, with one deformed leg, he was dismissed by most people - but not by his mother, who taught him to reach for his dreams. As a boy, Emmanuel hopped to school more than two miles each way, learned to play soccer, left home at age 13 to provide for his family, and, eventually, became a cyclist. He rode an astonishing 400 miles across Ghana in 2001, spreading his powerful message: Disability is not inability. Today, Emmanuel continues to work on behalf of the disabled.

One story in this audiobook - How to Get Social Security Disability Benefits - is all about getting disability benefits, written by a retired social worker. It includes step-by-step advice and more. The way this book was written is funny and entertaining. It's a shorter book, but it is some milk, and all meat, to use a Christian term. There is no fluff or filler in this audiobook. The other story in this audiobook - My Mom Is Dying Should I Be Sad? - is about the dilemma of forgiveness I had to face when my 86-year-old mom lay on death bed.

In The Price of Silence she takes a devastating look at how we address mental illness, especially in children, who are funneled through a system of education, mental health care, and juvenile detention that leads far too often to prison. In the end she asks one central question: if there's a poster child for cancer, why can't there be one for mental illness? The answer: the stigma.

In a world that often excludes or overlooks the wealth of experiences and perspectives of individuals with disabilities, "A Billion People in the Shadows" emerges as a compelling exploration of the world’s largest and most misunderstood minority group. With 15-20% of the global population living with disabilities, Doug McCullough's narrative delves into the profound impact of societal perceptions and self-imposed stigma on those facing all types of disability, including sensory, physical, intellectual, developmental, and mental health.

Disability is often described as a tragedy, a crisis, or an aberration, though 1 in 5 people worldwide have a disability. Why is this common human experience rendered exceptional? In All Our Families, disability studies scholar Jennifer Natalya Fink argues that this originates in our families. When we cut a disabled member out of the family story, disability remains a trauma as opposed to a shared and ordinary experience. This makes disability and its diagnosis traumatic and exceptional.

Developed by experts in the fields of early childhood and activism, this topic-driven book offers clear, concrete language and compelling imagery to introduce the concept of disability. This book celebrates all bodies and abilities, just as they are, and addresses the inequities and opportunities for change in today’s world.

This joyful audiobook with an empowering refrain, from disability rights activists Jessica Slice and Caroline Cupp, demystifies and respects how disabled people and their families use adaptive, imaginative, and considerate play so everyone can join in the fun.

In just four months receive your SSDI benefits! This concise guide is a book written to show you how to protect your money and investments if you become ill or have an accident and have to apply for disability. It is explained in a simple version of how to apply and receive in four months.

Challenging the view that autism is something that needs to be ‘cured', Virginia Bovell testifies to the extraordinary care Danny has received for over 30 years and the everyday kindness and decency of the people – ‘the band of angels' – that surround him. She asks us to consider what makes a thriving individual versus an inadequate one; what it means to be ill versus what it means to not to conform; what roles society values and rewards; and how humans might flourish outside of failing political and economic systems.

This book explores gender, disability, and literature in the Global South, concentrating on Nepal in particular. Religious and cultural values disable women’s autonomy in general, and create even greater disadvantages for women who are physically disabled. This study examines two Nepali women writers, Bishnu Kumari Waiwa and Jhamak Ghimire, who challenge stigmas of the disabled body by deconstructing the “ideology of ability” through their autobiographical narratives.

More than 2,000 years ago, Aristotle said: "let there be a law that no deformed child shall live." This idea is alive and well today. During the past century, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. argued that the United States can forcibly sterilize intellectually disabled women and philosopher Peter Singer argued for the right of parents to euthanize certain cognitively disabled infants. The Life Worth Living explores how and why such arguments persist by investigating the exclusion of and discrimination against disabled people across the history of Western moral philosophy.

Jessica Slice’s disability is exactly what her child needed as a newborn. After becoming disabled a handful of years prior from a shift in her autonomic nervous system, Jessica had done the hard work of disentangling her worth from productivity and learning how to prepare for an unpredictable and fragile world. Blending her experience of becoming disabled in adulthood and later becoming a parent with interviews, social research, and disability studies, Slice describes what the landscape is like for disabled parents.

Told through an experimental mix of intimate anecdotes and interactive visuals, this book immerses listeners in Emmy Award–winning documentary filmmaker James Robinson's point of view, allowing them to see the world through his disabling eye conditions.