Every year, people from all around the world gather to celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day, and this year is no exception. I’ve noticed that many of the events are targetted at professionals who want to learn more about accessibility and people who are already involved…

Even though I took over a dozen online classes in high school (and over three dozen in college), I seemed to always find ways to practice self-advocacy in the virtual classroom. While it may have seemed frustrating at the time, my case manager and other…

As a college student with a disability and chronic illness, there have been times where I’ve been unable to attend my physical classes due to issues with my health or other factors. Luckily, my professors are awesome and allowed me to attend my physical classes…

As a college student with chronic illness, I have learned a lot about how to schedule college classes and how to create the best college schedule. Many of my friends come to me every semester with a list of their required classes and ask me…

I live with a disability and chronic illness along with multiple allergies, so being able to quickly locate and provide medical information to medical staff or first responders is very important to me when I am receiving medical care. One of my favorite tools for…

While living on campus with low vision and chronic illness, I shared a bathroom and communal living space with 1-3 other girls, depending on the dorm. In many cases, I was the first person that used a blindness cane or that had a physical disability…

During the last few semesters of college, my disability and chronic illness made it difficult for me to walk to classes on my own. Even with the use of guides and mobility aids, I would often show up to class exhausted, since I had used…

The last two times I have visited Disney World and Disneyland, I have requested to use the official Disney World audio description devices while in the park. While the audio description devices have been around for a long time, not many people know about them-…

While I did learn how to tie my shoes when I was in elementary school, I have great difficulty tying shoes due to poor coordination in my hands from a neurological condition called Chiari Malformation, as well as generally poor hand strength. However, I do…

One of the most frequently asked questions I received from teachers and special education staff in my high school was “what can you see?” I was the only student identified with low vision in my school, and also had a somewhat uncommon low vision diagnosis,…

I previously wrote a blog post about plastic straw bans and how they affect people with disabilities, and focused on how straws can serve as a type of assistive technology for people who have trouble drinking from a standard cup. After spending time thinking about…

I’m often one of the first people that people at my school meet that has low vision or that lives with a chronic illness. While there are several other students that have vision loss or that live with other invisible disabilities, I have chosen to…

Five common assumptions about assistive technology- my 200th post!

The meaning of blindness cane colors and what the color of a blindness cane can tell you about someone’s sight loss.

The best advice about disability accommodations my mom and I ever received- how and why to convert your IEP to a 504 plan before graduating.