Attitudes Towards People With Disability Case Study

Attitudes towards people with disabilities have changed drastically over the past decade. In the early 1900s, people with disabilities were viewed as ‘unable to be educated and parents were often advised to “put their children away and get on with their lives”’ (http://www.disability.wa.gov.au/). Considering these were the original opinions on how people with disabilities should be treated in a society, this is where the core of everyone’s beliefs have been shaped from. Attitudes have changed for the reason that the media has been able to expose and create people to be more aware of this issue. It is difficult to alter attitudes in society seeing the fact that it involves several steps to be able to change even one person’s opinion on this social issue.

A great number of attitudes in society have adapted since the 1900’s because of numerous battles when soldiers have returned and been accepted as “heroes

“Negative attitudes to people with mental illness cause disadvantage in their personal relations and public activities” (Social Policy Research & Disability Studies. 2011). There are a number of policies across Australia, which are designed to improve society’s attitudes towards people with disabilities. One example was during Mental Health Week the NSW Consumer Advisory Group ran a campaign to “challenge the stigma and discrimination faced by people experiencing mental illness” (Social Policy Research & Disability Studies. 2011). The intervention included people talking about their personal experiences and how it affected them. Projecting this information to an audience, created a wider understanding for people on what it is like to live with the disease (cognitive component). For people to understand what living with the disease is like, it may alter their opinions and assist them to overcome their own attitudes towards the mental