Empathy Assignment
You were introduced to cerebral palsy and its implications today. While you could spend all week researching this disorder, you would still never truly understand the mental, physical, and emotional impact of the disorder simply by reading articles and websites. To help with that, we want you to get into these patients’ shoes and try to comprehend how these people live their day to day lives. We want you to be creative and really delve into this assignment.
Goal:
To empathize with cerebral palsy patients and use video as a presentation medium
Assignment:
Research the ways that cerebral palsy places physical limitations on people’s lives. Using anything laying around your house (duct tape, rope, etc.), mimic those limitations on yourself. For this assignment we want you to focus on spastic cerebral palsy patients. This means that their muscles are always contracted resulting in rigid joints and limbs. For example, tight calf muscles result in pointed toes. This makes it hard for them to place their heels on the ground while walking.
Choose one of the following activities:
- Simulate tight quadriceps muscles by preventing bending of your knee (i.e. attach a broomstick or yardstick to your leg as a cast)
- Simulate tight calf muscles by preventing bending of your ankle (i.e. create a cast with cardboard, bandages, etc.)
We want you to then try your device out for at least ten minutes to get the feel of the disability. Then, videotape yourself doing three everyday tasks that might be harder to do because of the device. As in any research assignment, to preserve confidentiality avoid videotaping your face or showing any identifying features.
Please include your video in your blog post for today. Also, reflect on:
- How you felt during the exercise
- If/how this assignment impacted your view of cerebral palsy and disabilities in general
- Did you like using video? How do you think it adds or subtracts from an assignment?
