Disability access to be on display at fair

Students will have the chance to walk in disabled students' shoes at the third annual Disability Awareness Fair on Monday. \nDisability Services for Students is holding the all-day event in the Frangipani Room in the Indiana Memorial Union on Monday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.\nThis year's fair will include tables featuring technology demonstrations provided by the Adaptive Technology Center. These displays will allow students an opportunity to experience life with a disability. \n"(The technology) gives a taste of what it's like to be a person struggling with a disability," said Martha Jacques, director of DSS. "And hopefully it'll be kind of fun, too." \nThe fair will also display artwork and personal quotes from students with disabilities. The idea behind displaying student work is to show that disabilities do not have to be limiting, said Elly Romer, test coordinator for DSS.\nThe fair will include more than just displays. Cramer, a chocolate Labrador service dog, will also make an appearance, demonstrating what services dogs provide.\n"We really want to educate as many people as we can," Romer said.\nScholarships will also be awarded to various disabled students, as well as to instructors whom disabled students have recommended and said were most accessible to them, said DSS employee Karen Luerssen. \nDSS's main job is to ensure equal access in services at the University to students with disabilities, Jacques said.\n"We coordinate academic modifications that will offset the limitations of a disability in class," she said.\nDSS also advocates for physical improvements, such as automatic door openers, and provides keys for the elevators at Ballantine Hall to students with physical disabilities, Jacques said. \nDSS employees said they want students to realize that being disabled does not necessarily mean a student is in a wheelchair. \n"Approximately three-fourths of students with disabilities have a learning disorder or attention deficient disorder," Romer said. "The limitations are pretty much academic; learning procedures do not occur as they should."\nThere is an ongoing debate as to whether or not learning disorders really exist, and the fair is part of an effort to clear up this debate, Jacques said.\n"We really want to show that this is real and how it affects people," she said.\nJacques said she thinks the fair will be beneficial because it's a great way for students to learn.\n"It's the best possible kind of education. It's interesting in a really practical and zippy way," Jacques said. "It beats a lecture because it's a lot easier for people to learn when they can interact"