A Review of Research about Media & Disability:

Does it Make a Difference?

By Barbara Kolucki (bakoluck@aol.com)
Consultant on Disability & Children's Media

Following are some excerpts from letters from creative directors, heads of advertising agencies, international newspapers, some of the most popular airlines, and one of the most global fast food chains. These letters are from the 1970s, sent in response to queries encouraging them to use more disabled children and adults on television. They said:

"We feel a responsibility toward those persons. But, if we put them (handicapped persons) in our advertising, we are criticized for taking advantage of them commercially."

"Use of handicapped people (in our advertising) would almost inevitably represent an intrusion that could not be explained. Wouldn't your efforts be more productive if they were turned to the whole wide world of programming where there is so much more time to provide context...instead of forcing them into a 27-second glimpse where no one, including the viewer, is apt to be comfortable."

"Even though a retarded kid may not be cast as a principal, we worry that the director would find it a limiting constraint which would complicate an already complicated problem. We don't think it is feasible to do what you ask-to cast mentally retarded children in our client's commercials."

"To put a child who is retarded (in front of a TV camera) would not only be impractical, but we would consider it extremely inhumane."

Ouch. It hurts to re-read the letters even after so much time has passed. But it is important to do so. I remember the anger we felt. It did not deter our commitment to try and both use media to help change attitudes towards children and adults with disabilities but also to introduce positive role models to the millions of disabled children who never saw a positive, natural and realistic reflection of themselves in the media.

A new era

Much has changed in these 30 years. Some examples include:

A regular Muppet character, Katie, on Sesame Park that uses a wheelchair.
Regular cast members who have Down Syndrome, are deaf, or have a physical disability on weekly television dramas.
People from the BBC and others in positions of power in the media have attended, spoken and made commitments at international conferences and seminars on the topic of media and disability.
Numerous countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas have had public education campaigns that addressed attitude change on a variety of topics related to disability.
Puppet troupes such as Kids on the Block have been active for over 20 years and are continuously adding topics and characters in the USA and internationally-reaching thousands of children about their peers who are disabled.
There are more anti-bias curricula than ever before-in classrooms and on media-from Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, and the USA.
There are live puppet shows, TV programs and films that have nothing to do with disability-and they include a cast member who happens to have a disability.
There are disability slots in many countries television and radio stations, and there are regular programs that address disability issues, often on a weekly basis.
And-something that would amaze all the authors of the letters we received decades ago-producers, advertisers and many others have received international awards for their sensitive and accurate portrayals of children and adults who are disabled in the media!

What are the outcomes of increased visibility?

The hard question we have all been asked, however, is: has our public education and media efforts made a difference? Have they positively affected attitudes and behavior? I honestly do not know for sure. And I would be surprised to find someone who would categorically say yes. Not because I don't think there has been impact-on the contrary. I have worked in nearly 15 countries in the last 20-plus years, and have visited many more or been privileged to meet colleagues working in a similar field from many places. And I can honestly say that in those countries where I do see public education and media inclusion-whether in children's books, puppet plays, TV and radio ads, dramas or documentaries-there is a difference. Policy makers seem to be more open to legislation. Educators seem more accepting of inclusion. Parents seem to stare less. And children seem to ask more questions-to me, one of the most positive signs!

Still, there are simply too many variables in the world of attitude change to isolate what specifically has made a difference. Advocacy and legislation and disability rights and public education all happen at the same time. And to isolate and identify what influences effect or what the causal factors of impact are, is much more difficult than conducting research on the cognitive benefits of particular media.

But...we do know a lot. About media's potential. About attitudes of children toward gender, race and disability. And about prosocial behavior as a result of exposure to particular types of programs. Let us review some of these, particularly as they apply to children and media:

G is for Growing documents 30 years of research on children and the international television series Sesame Street. Throughout the book there is documentation that tells us that "overall, research on television and its potential to positively effect prosocial behavior does indicate that prosocial modeling does have an impact and leads to more prosocial behavior-especially if they are in a situation that is modeled on TV. (Comstock & Paik, 1991 in G is for Growing, Shalom M. Fisch & Rosemarie T. Truglio, editors, 2001).

In other countries, research has confirmed this to be the case. Soul Buddyz is a South African television series for children 8-12 years old. The evaluators of the series found that children who viewed the programs has an easier time discussing some of the sensitive issues that were addressed-race, gender, disability-than children who did not watch the series. Children who watched Soul Buddyz were more interested in cultivating friendships with others as well as respecting them as equals. "Specifically, exposure to the program was associated with positive attitudes about the capabilities of people with disabilities-only 27.1% of the 8-10 year olds with no exposure to TV thought that children with disabilities can do most things, whereas 36.2% with no exposure to Soul Buddyz, 38.5% with lower exposure and 45.2% with higher exposure thought the same." It was also reported that the series was particularly effective in communicating that one could not catch a disability from spending time with a person who is disabled. And finally, children who viewed the series were more likely to say that they would be friends with someone who is disabled, or of a different race, or with HIV/AIDS, than children who did not watch the program. (www.soulcity.org).

In his "Guidelines for the development of a series of television programmes directed at anti-sectarian work with children in their early years," Paul Connolly tells us that at least with regard to race "there is now a colossal body of research that has attempted to understand at what age children first become prejudiced and how that prejudice changes with age." Children as young as four years old can and do have negative stereotypic attitudes about others. Educators are finding that waiting until school age or older to address bias and prejudice is too little, too late.

If and when children were exposed to situations or programs that portrayed attitudes that countered their general attitudes, children's attitudes could change. Connolly says that "the more that children can be encouraged to accept a range of beliefs that tend to run counter to and/or contradict their dominant biases towards the out-group, the more that their general levels of prejudice are likely to decrease." In evaluating the impact and potential of television for young children, he firmly believes that it can help them develop a moral code of reasoning and behavior as well as encourage empathy with a range of individuals and groups.

Connolly also documents an important factor that that increases children's understanding and empathy: when mothers discussed and explained to their children the feelings of others (Dunn et al. 1991; Grusec, 1991; Eisenberg et al. 1992a). This finding is consistent with other researchers (Peterson, 1983) and teachers and parents around the world who help children understand the emotional state and needs of others, as well as modeling how to respond to those needs. In fact, the media can help even further by providing "emotional scripts which offer ready-made understanding of not just what a particular emotional state means and why it is occurring, but also how one should respond to it." (Costin and Jones, 1992). This example of "emotional scripts" is something that many working in the field of developmental media and communications have also found to be significant. It is not enough to tell others what they should do. It is equally important to provide a simple rationale-why-but most important to model how something can be done within the existing daily routine of an individual, whether it is a child or adult. The why and how are the empowering factors.

In the research report, "The Educational Impact of Rechov Sumsum/Shara'a Simsim: A Sesame Street Television Series to Promote Respect and Understanding Among Children Living in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza" (Cole, Arafat, Tidhar, Zidan, Fox, Killen, Ardila-Rey, Leavitt, Lesser, 2003), the authors state that "exposure to the program was linked to an increase in children's use of both pro-social justifications to resolve conflicts and positive attributes to describe members of the other group. ...these results indicate the effectiveness of media-based interventions such as Rechov Sumsum/Shara'a Simsim on countering negative stereotypes by building a peer-oriented context that introduces children to the everyday lives of people from different cultures."

Children who participated in this study and watched the TV programs were more willing to have friends within the other group. This certainly is justification for using the power of media to reach children early about diversity and acceptance. The shows gave children simple factual information as well as presented scenarios of children who were in many ways like themselves, yet had their own culture and differences that they were proud of.

Diversity and Inclusion on Sesame Street

Since the children's television program Sesame Street first aired in 1969, a major focus has been to present diversity and racial harmony. As the show responded to both changes in the country, the world and to requests by viewers and their parents, the scope of this diversity has continued to expand and change. In the early 1970s, parents of children with disabilities said: "My child watches your program but never sees anyone like her/himself. He is deaf. Or, she has Down Syndrome..." And the producers began to include children and adults with disability in both explicit and implicit ways. Sometimes, Linda Bove, an actress who is deaf, would teach simple signs or present how she can babysit and knows when the baby cries. Other times, a child using a wheelchair or with another disability would simply be included along with a group of children singing a song. Both became regular aspects of the program-and continue to this day.

There have been a few studies over the years that looked at non-disabled children's attention, comprehension and attitudes about the topic of disability on Sesame Street. The most recent research, "Vignettes from Sesame Street: Preschooler's Ideas about Children with Down Syndrome and Physical Disability" (Diamond & Kensinger, 2002), is discussed in the October 2002 issue of Early Education and Development (Volume 13, Number 4). Here, preschool children viewed segments including a child using a wheelchair and another with a child who had Down Syndrome. Preschool children were more aware of differences of the child with physical disability than they were of the child with Down Syndrome. There are at least two reasons for this. First of all, we know from previous research that preschool children do have some recognition and understanding of physical and sensory disabilities that have overt characteristics or require adaptive equipment as opposed to mental or developmental disabilities. Secondly, the segments with the young girl using a wheelchair often discussed her disability as what she could/could not do. The content as well as the visual cues were there to assist viewer comprehension. With mental retardation and other impairments that affect thinking and developmental tasks, the cues are not as obvious. Hence the preschool viewers would not have been given information and cues to increase their understanding.

Recommendations

I suggest that both the explicit and implicit approaches to media about disability are absolutely necessary. Natural inclusion, where a disability is shown or portrayed but not mentioned is necessary for children (and adults) to see diversity and disability as natural, acceptable and part of the landscape of everyday media. At what age children see or understand diversity and disability is not as important as having them get used to it-and having the viewers with disability see themselves included in a positive manner. Media that includes diversity and disability may indirectly affect children's attitudes-even before they can put words together to explain the difference. Positive seeds have been planted. In addition, media should address the what, why and how of disability. Information that should be presented to children as early as possible include: simple facts about disability, adaptive techniques, assistive devices, and what to do when playing, meeting, learning, or working with someone with a disability.

Numerous studies suggest that the manner in which difference is explained can make a tremendous impact. Graves (1999) suggests that television portrayals of difference are relevant to the creation of children's attitudes. Singer and Singer (1998) "proposed that teaching about individual differences in children's television requires not only exposure to people who are different but to the ways in which adults (or characters) explain the differences that are highlighted in the episode." Innes and Diamond (1999) used a story-telling task to examine how mothers communicate about Down Syndrome and physical disabilities with their preschool children. They found that "mothers made more comments and asked more questions when they talked with their child about children with physical disabilities than children with Down Syndrome." Bar-Tal (1996) takes this even further, presenting evidence that parents' attitudes affect those of their children.

Having these facts, media producers have numerous ways that they can enhance the potential impact of their productions. After research indicated that many children perceive that their parents would not be happy if they made friends of another race, Lovelace, Scheineer, Dollberg, Segui & Black (1994) state that "We now recommend that future segments more strongly model mothers, fathers and other family members being positive and supportive of friendship between different race children." We should do the same regarding disability. When the same study indicated that Caucasian preschoolers were significantly more likely to segregate African-American and Caucasian children in the homes, school, playgrounds, churches and stores, segments were produced which showed white children visiting an African-American friend's home." We should do the same regarding disability. This, in fact, has already happened. One example is from a children's television series called Walk in Your Shoes, where a child visits the house of another child for a few days and lives as they live. The series has included segments on visiting a child who uses a wheelchair, a child who is deaf and another who is blind. These were very well done. Producers should copy and adapt these approaches to their cultures.

Speaking for themselves

In a study not related to media for children, Rina Gill of UNICEF looked at the difference between the types of media portrayals in public service announcements (PSAs) about polio prevention. While working in Nepal, she led producers and researchers in their work in comparing the more negative, stereotypical, fear-based PSAs to newer, positive ones where children and adults with polio spoke on their own behalf. In these, they all acknowledged that they had polio-but they hoped that their siblings, children or grandchildren would not-and therefore they were taking on the responsibility to take them for their immunizations. The research indicated that viewers comprehended both sets of messages, but they preferred the characters who were disabled. The study could help change the way development work produces media about the prevention of disease and disability. In an attempt to prevent disability, the images and messages often reinforced stereotypes about the shame and fear associated with disability. One can be just as effective-or more so-when people with disabilities are presented as role models and contributing members of society who too, have messages of import for all.

As early as 1980 and before, researchers looked at the most effective ways to help change attitudes towards people with disabilities. Positive effects on attitudes have indeed been given impetus by media exposure (Donaldson and Martinson, 1977). Among the most high-impact techniques were when people with disabilities spoke for themselves, when they did not act in a previously stereotypic helpless or hopeless manner, and when they presented interesting and factual information about their disability. One of the most significant aspects of success was the degree to which the person who was disabled was perceived to be of equal status to the non-disabled person. Donaldson further states that "The instructor who is concerned about attitudes and belief structures as well as cognitive content is advised by research findings to include opportunities for exposure to valued peers-directly or through the media." Her analysis is that, indeed, video and other media can and do have a significant effect on attitudes towards people who are disabled and these powerful tools should be used more-together with changing the existing negative imagery in the media. (Donaldson, Joy. Changing Attitudes Towards Handicapped Persons: A Review of Research. Exceptional Children, Volume 46, Number 7, 1980.)

Conclusions

So what have we learned about media and disability thus far? Many things. That it can have a positive or negative impact. That there are many things we can do to enhance or increase the positive impact. That there is still much to do.

Micheline Mason (a disabled parent, writer and trainer) tells this to a group of media people in Invisible Children: Report of the Joint Conference on Children, Images and Disability, 1 March 1995, U.K. "You are as shut out of our world as we are shut out of yours." "We do not see the image of our real selves anywhere, and we are aware that we are not considered to be part of the audience." She tells them, "Try and leave behind the idea that the world is not interested in our lives. Our experience shows us the complete opposite. Children in particular are fascinated by the truth and they have no time for sentimentality or for pretense."

I certainly know this to be true from my own work. I can recall many experiences when non-disabled children first met someone with a disability prior to a television or film production. I would leave the room and come back to see a non-disabled child waving her hand in front of a blind woman-to test if she could really see or not. I recall a little boy tying his leg with a towel on his own to try and walk like the new boy he just met with polio. And then there was the surprise on the faces of children when, after a splendid puppet show, the cast came out to meet the audience-and they noticed that one happened to be a young woman with Down Syndrome.

In most of the world, people with disabilities cannot wait for new laws or services for themselves and for their children. Sometimes, there are no or few basic services for all. And media increasingly reaches places where even basic amenities are not available. The media must be encouraged to provide skills and confidence, and to help prevent or change negative attitudes and promote positive ones. We have to demystify disability and rehabilitation-make it accessible and understandable to all and doable by all. Media can help us do this.

This is a human rights issue. It is a rights-based model that begins with the youngest child, is disability-inclusive and sensitive-as well as non-stereotypic in every other way. As Micheline Mason, said "It is not a competition and if there is one message that disabled people are trying to bring to the world, it is that life is not a competition, that we do not have to prove or earn our place here. We have a right just because we are alive."

Children must see diverse peer play and children must experience diverse peer play-either in real life or through media. Children and adults must learn to celebrate diversity while accepting the equal status of all human beings. In homes, classrooms, communities and media-this needs to take place. And when it does, it will be even more difficult to isolate and say whether media and public education has a positive impact on attitudes towards disability. We will know it all does.

Let me end with one example of a young child who could easily have written the next letter to that advertising executive or head of a multi-national company.

"Kindergarten teacher Mary Stewart has three voices. When she's telling a story or giving directions or just making conversation, her usual exuberant voice draws the children in. She saves her 'big" voice for serious matters-like calling the class away from scattered tasks to help solve a problem. And for certain times, such as moments of special gratitude or when the usual commotion has spun out of control, she speaks with her hands, silently.

Mary has taught her children-all hearing children-a basic American Sign Language vocabulary. She finds that communicating in sign calms them and focuses their attention. A roomful of boisterous kids, she says, will settle down to 'listen' with heir eyes as soon as her fingers start moving.

Each year, she begins by teaching her new class the signs for simple words like 'hello,' 'thank you,' and 'good-bye.' For children who tend to wait until the last possible minute, the sign for 'bathroom' provides a way to leave quietly to meet their urgent needs.

What started as a simple classroom management technique keeps branching out. 'Last year, a parent was deaf,' Mary says, 'so when she'd come in, they wanted to sign to her. It became more formalized. This year, the group went wild with it'... Janet's mother told Mary that her daughter signs to herself as she falls asleep.

In Mary's view, the key ingredient of her curriculum is curiosity-stimulating children to reach out to other people even through the barriers of disability and language differences and unfamiliar backgrounds. Diversity on paper, she explains, can be studied and appreciated, but it doesn't demand the personal commitment of actually talking and listening to someone who is different.

'If I could wish something for every child in the world,' Mary says, 'it would be for every kid to feel good enough about themselves and their environment to have the confidence just to talk to the person in front of them. I want my students to feel secure about themselves and to speak out about injustice. I'm looking for proactive kindergartners here!'

A few days (later)....one of Mary's most challenging youngsters, was standing alone at the fence that borders the school. Two disabled men walked slowly along the sidewalk communicating in sign language. In order to sign, one of the men paused to lift his arms from his crutches. Two 4th graders began to taunt the pair.

Six-year-old Tyrell shouted at them to stop: 'Why are you making fun of them? Do you know them? They're just like you. They're talking to each other.'"

((Starting Small: Teaching Tolerance in Preschool and the Early Grades, 1997, Southern Poverty Law Center)

Resources

Connolly, Paul, Challenging Ethnic Prejudice among Young Children: Antisectarian Television, Community Relations Council, Belfast, 1998.
G is for Growing: Thirty Years of Research on Children and Sesame Street, editors Shalom M. Fisch & Rosemarie T. Truglio, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, 2001.
"Global Perspectives on Children's Media," Charlotte Frances Cole, Guest Editor, Early Education and Development, Volume 13, Number 4, October 2002.
"Invisible Children: Report of the Joint Conference on Children, Images and Disability," Richard Rieser, Editor, Save the Children and The Integration Alliance, 1995.
"Making a Neighbourhood the Sesame Street Way: developing a methodology to evaluate children's understanding of race," Valeria Lovelace, Susan Scheiner, Susan Dollberg, Ivelisse Segui & Tracey Black, Journal of Educational Television, Vol. 20, No. 2, 1994.
Starting Small: Teaching Tolerance in Preschool and the Early Grades, published by the Teaching Tolerance Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, 1997.