‘Sometimes people are born with disabilities, but it’s communities that handicap them’

1. ‘Sometimes people are born with disabilities, but it’s communities that handicap them’ Skye, Hope, Ellie, Chris, Lloyd & Morgan

2. Pair one ~ Exploring the Topic • Everyone in a community is different and will have a disability compared to someone else and it is only the others in the community that highlight them because they do not have to live with them. If you treat people with disabilities differently they will think of themselves differently and will grow to believe they are truly different and their self-confidence will fade away to nothing.

3. Pair two ~ Putting together the body of the essay • Point one: When he deals with the police, we see two examples of how the community handicaps Christopher. The policeman is probably not aware of Christopher's disability when he charged him with assault. Police should be trained to be aware of people with disabilities as cannot control their actions some of the time.

4. Pair two ~ Putting together the body of the essay • Point one: When he deals with the police, we see two examples of how the community handicaps Christopher. When Christopher wets his pants, the policeman does not offer a helping hand, especially realising that he is a 15 year old teenage boy. This shows that the community are not conscious about Christopher’s disability.

5. Pair two ~ Putting together the body of the essay • Point two: Christopher and his father get into a couple of violent situations. Christopher fathers is very much aware of Christopher's condition. The community should offer support classes for his father to assist him parenting his son.

6. Pair two ~ Putting together the body of the essay • Point three: Mrs Shears blames Christopher for things his father did. Being originally very close to Christopher's father, Mrs Shears should be considerate of Christopher and his disability. After an incident with his father, Mrs Shears believes that the problem is Christopher and blames most things on him.

7. Pair three ~ Quotes • Quote one:Christopher says, “And the man with the diamond pattern on his socks tried to grab my shoulder, so I screamed.” (page 224) This relates to the topic because people, like the man, don’t consider that others might have a disability where they don’t like being touched. The man didn’t know any better, he just thought he was helping Christopher but he was actually making the situation worse.

8. Pair three ~ Quotes • Quote two: The officer says, “You seem very upset about this”. Christopher thinks to himself, “He was asking too many questions and he was asking them too quickly. They were stacking up in my head like loaves in the factory where Uncle Terry works.” (page 8) This relates to the topic because the officer didn’t think that Christopher might have a disability. He just wanted to know the truth but during that time, he wasn’t giving Christopher enough time to process the information. This made Christopher stress out and make him not cope very well with the situation. A person without a disability could have coped with this better then Christopher did.

9. Pair three ~ Quotes • Quote three: Christopher thinks to himself, “But she smoked cigaettes and she said lots of things I didn’t understand, eg. ‘I’m going to hit the hay.’ And I didn’t like it when she said things like that because I didn’t know what she meant.” This relates to the topic because the Lady doesn’t realise that to Christopher she is speaking a completely different language. Christopher doesn’t understand things like similes or metaphors. Her saying “I’m going to hit the hay”, is confusing for him because she isn’t literally hitting the hay, she is going to bed.

10. Pair three ~ Quotes • Quote four: “I like dogs. You always know what a dog is thinking. It has four moods. Happy, sad, cross and concentrating. Also, dogs are faithful and they do not tell lies because they cannot talk.” (Page 4) As this quote describes, that, Christopher only understands that dogs have four moods. Happy, sad, cross and concentrating. Christopher has Asberger, which makes it extremely difficult for him to understand what people’s moods are and what they are thinking.

11. Pair three ~ Quotes • Quote five: “I am 15 and 3 months and 2 days.” (Page 7) Christopher uses language literally and factually. Christopher is born with Asbergers which makes it difficult for him to communicate with others. People with out Asbergers usually just reply as “I am 15 years old.”

12. Pair three ~ Quotes • Quote six: “The first main reason is that people do a lot of talking without using any words. Siobhan says that if you raise one eyebrow it can mean lots of different things. It can mean ‘I want to do sex with you’ and it can also mean ‘I think that what you just said was very stupid.” (Page 19) Christopher’s communication skills and understanding peoples communication through body language, handicaps him in many ways.

13. Credits • Pair one: Lloyd & Morgan • Pair two: Skye & Hope • Pair three: Ellie & Chris Thank-you for watching