Following are two concrete examples illustrating the profound implications of these structures on the lives of people with disabilities:

Sarah, age two, is too uncoordinated to perform the typical tasks that two-year-old can perform, and so her parents seek medical help. The doctor refers Sarah to the local medical center for an assessment, where it is discovered that Sarah has cerebral palsy, which is disrupting her motor development.

The staff at the center have assessed many children like Sarah before, and using the best of their training and experience, recommend to Sarah's family that she should be institutionalized.

"It is too difficult for you to do this alone," they explain. "You really should put her away and have another." Her parents have already started to feel the impact of looking after Sarah. After all, by now she should be getting more independent, but what they foresee is the additional time and effort required to assist Sarah to master basic tasks. Won't all this extra attention to Sarah undermine their relationship with their other children?

"She'll be better cared for in an institution," the staff add, consolingly. "They are better trained than you are to care for these children.

"Even with the rationalizations, the decision to place Sarah in an institution doesn't feel right to her parents, so they ask for time to think it over. A few days later, against the better judgment of the medical professionals, they decline to send their child away.

By deciding to keep Sarah at home rather than have her institutionalized, her parents have opted for a new life of research, planning and advocacy. They will have to fight hard for the services Sarah is presumably entitled, if not in court then in libraries, social service offices and school rooms. Wherever there are gaps in service, they will write proposals, analyze services and assess Sarah's needs themselves in order to articulate her needs clearly within the arena of services. If they are successful, they will gain a reputation for being demanding, for thwarting the system and for rejecting assistance when it was offered during Sarah's initial assessment

So Sarah lives at home, but she is relegated to a segregated class in her neighbourhood school, because her parents lost the fight to have her integrated with an aide in a typical class. Her teachers have special training and experience. At eight years of age, Sarah's teachers determine that her inability to speak will inhibit academic pursuits and it will seriously restrict the contribution she can make to society. Sarah's curriculum, therefore, is designed around "life skills" and recreational activities.

Sarah grows up, and her family celebrates the welcome changes together. However, these changes mean that her service needs changes, and these changes must be documented and justified in every new service request. They win many battles, but with each passing year, the gap between Sarah's scholastic achievements and those of her peers widens.

At twenty-four, Sarah has graduated from high school as part of an "exceptional student" program. Her school work was primarily non-academic and she was upgraded. As an adult, she understands that her lack of academic skills will render her unemployable, so she approaches her local literacy program. Sarah is ready to fight her own battles: she wants to read and write.

What is it about our educational and social systems that allow early verdicts to young children about their adult potential? Why should a handicapping condition be used as a rationale for slanting the curriculum away from academic subjects? Why do we spend less time teaching those who need the most time to learn?

Literacy programs, whether community-based or classroom style, need to serve members of their community who have handicapping conditions. The immediate fear literacy practitioners express is inadequate "specialized" training. And yet, the competencies they have already acquired will be useful with students who have disabilities. Teachers during the Civil Rights movement had to teach all their students --- black or white --- and were no longer permitted to discriminate. Why should teaching people with disabilities be any different?

Educators must understand that the burden learners with disabilities face is not their disability per se; more it is the attitude of others who have continued to slough them off to experts faithful that they know better.

Human needs are universal: we all need food, shelter, and people in our lives who matter to us; we all need mobility, transportation, dignity and a sense that we are safe from threats. These needs do not change because a person has a disability.

Typically, a woman in this society will meet her needs for food and shelter by earning money to purchase food and shelter. Typically, she has transportation to work and shop, and she has the personal mobility required to get herself up in the morning and look after her personal needs throughout the day. With these basic needs met, she can nurture new friendships and maintain old ones. The difficult pieces are finding the right job at reasonable pay, and finding the right accommodation at reasonable rent.

Now, comes the twist: imagine this same "typical" woman - call her Vivian - who now has a disability which severely limits her personal mobility. How does she get her needs met? How are her difficulties compounded beyond that of the woman described above?

First of all, she uses a wheelchair for mobility - a power wheelchair because she lacks the strength to push a manual chair. These cost $6,000 and she is not yet working, so she must investigate the financial assistance programs available for such purchases. Until very recently, reliance on the benevolence of service clubs was her only possibility. To them, she would describe her plight in graphic detail, trading off dignity for practicality. Now, in Ontario, Vivian also has the option of applying for government funding through the Vocational Rehabilitation Program or through the Ministry of Health's Assistive Devices Program.

Since Vivian can read and write very well, she can read the program titles, document her need and complete the appropriate forms. The service providers will evaluate her request to determine whether she requires this device, and is therefore eligible. This is the process which is necessary for her to met her mobility needs.

Because of Vivian's mobility limitations, she requires assistance in activities of daily living, such as taking a shower, preparing meals and using the washroom. She realizes she can not depend upon her parents for this assistance much longer and investigates her housing/attendant care choices. She completes a 20-page application for attendant care in a wheel-chair-accessible apartment in the community. Until recently, she would have had to fill in a different version of this lengthy form for each housing project to which she applied, but now there is a centralized system, so she just has to do it once. Since she can read and write very well, Vivian completes the form with no difficulty. It takes her four hours.