Week 2: Thursday, September 27th- Dining

This past week we had our second presentation, Dining with Disabilities.

The group started by offering us some food, juice with thicket and blended pizza. This was a fun idea and it definitely took us all out of our comfort zone! I tried a tiny bit of the juice with thicket and found the texture to be extremely unpleasing! I was unable to try the pizza because of a food allergy but I could tell from the reaction of my classmates that it was not even comparable to eating a slice of pizza. I think it is really important that we experience and try things that we will be serving to our participants. I do not generally consider myself a picky person when it comes to the texture of food but this activity made me realize how much it really can effect how much I enjoy something.

Next, the group had a power point. They focused on the struggles and adaptions that can help minimize these struggles for people with different disabilities. For almost every population that recommended a plate that suctions to the table to prevent unwanted movement and spilling. They also showed utensils with bigger handles to make gripping easier. One of the more unusual things I have seen was the "Neater Eater" which is basically a robotic arm with a spoon on the end that helps people to eat while maintaining as much independence as possible.

After the power point we rotated through four stations, each one giving us a disabling condition and a task to complete. My first was supposed to give us a glimpse of what it would be like to have Parkinson's Disease. We did this by wearing a bracelet on each wrist with a rope connecting them. We then had someone else in our group pull the rope, as if they were a puppeteer, while we tried to pick up and put food in our mouth. The next station we were told to pretend we were missing a thumb. We then had to attempt to get spaghetti on our fork. The third station we were visually impaired and had to try to eat with silverware. The fourth and final station we had to pretend our dominate hand was amputated and try to eat. All the stations were frustrating but extremely educational to help me even remotely understand some of the struggle people I will be working with go through.

The last activity we participated in was mini skits. Each skit demonstrated a situation you may encounter while dining with someone who has a disability. We had a lot of fun laughing because none of us were very good actors but we all knew the seriousness of each of the situations. Afterwards the group encouraged everyone to share stories of things that have encountered in dining situations. It was amazing how many people had witnessed or even been a victim to some of these situations.

This group taught me a lot, while making it very fun and interesting  I am excited to try some of the adaptions they mentioned someday!