11 minutes
Scenarios that teach without stereotyping Write and choose learning scenarios that center a specific barrier, give the disabled person competence and agency, and avoid the default images and inspiration framings that teach the wrong lesson.
What you’ll be able to do Write a learning scenario that centers a specific barrier and a decision the learner controls, portrays the disabled person as competent and specific, varies disability across a set, and passes the stereotype tests. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What is the main problem with this scenario? Document a next step for Scenarios that teach without stereotyping: Review the scenarios in a session you run against the six tests. Rewrite the weakest one and vary the disabilities across the set. What a scenario is for A scenario exists to put the learner in a decision they will really face and let them practice choosing well. In disability inclusion training, the decision is almost always about a system: a tool, a policy, a meeting, a conversation the learner controls. When a scenario instead asks the learner to feel sympathy, admiration or relief about a disabled person, it teaches attitudes rather than practice, and usually the wrong attitudes.
The common failures are recognizable once named. The disabled person is defined by a condition and has no name, job or view. The barrier is hidden and the disability is presented as the problem. A non-disabled character rescues them. The disability defaults to wheelchair use, teaching that other disabilities are not real or not serious. The story ends in inspiration: the person overcomes, the team is moved. Or the disabled person exists only so that someone else can learn.
Good scenarios do the reverse. They name a specific barrier. They give the disabled character competence, a preference and a request. They put the decision in the learner’s hands. Across a set they vary disability widely and include people whose disabilities are not apparent. They end with a decision, not a feeling.
Six tests for a scenario Is the barrier specific and named, and is it the subject rather than the person?
Does the disabled person have a name, a role, competence and a stated preference or request?
Is the decision one the learner actually controls in their own role?
Does the set vary disability, including non-apparent disabilities, rather than defaulting to wheelchair use?
Is there no rescuer, no overcoming, and no one moved to tears?
Would a disabled colleague recognize the situation as realistic and the portrayal as respectful? Ask one, and compensate their time where appropriate.
Before and after Before After Varying the set
“Maria is blind and struggles with the new case system. Her kind coworker Dan stays late every night to enter her cases for her. How can the team support Maria?”
Fails tests one, two, three and five: the system is hidden, Maria is a problem, Dan is a hero, and the learner is asked to feel supportive rather than to decide.
“Maria, a senior case aide with a strong accuracy record, uses a screen reader. The new case system’s data-entry screens cannot be navigated by keyboard, so she cannot complete entries independently. She has told her supervisor she wants to keep doing her own entries and has asked what the plan is. Two other staff have mentioned the screens are confusing. You are the supervisor. What do you do this week, and what do you raise with the system owner?”
Passes: the barrier is the subject, Maria is competent and has a request, the learner decides, and the resolution is a system change, not a rescue.
A session with four scenarios might include a participant with a processing disability facing a timed online form, a staff member with a chronic illness and an unpredictable shift schedule, a Deaf participant at a public meeting with no interpreter arranged, and a colleague with a mental health condition asked to explain absences in a team meeting. No wheelchair by default; one may appear where the barrier is physical.
Give the disabled person the request and the learner the decision What you can change You control who has agency in the scenario and who has to act.
What to watch for Do not write scenarios where the disabled character is silent, rescued or inspiring. Do not let every scenario feature a wheelchair.
Your next step Rewrite one scenario so the disabled person states what they want and the learner must decide what to do about the system.
Scenario craft Name the barrier
“The data-entry screens cannot be navigated by keyboard” rather than “Maria struggles with the system.” The sentence tells the learner where the fix is.
Competence and preference
A strong accuracy record, a stated wish to keep doing her own work, a direct question to her supervisor. The character is a colleague, not a case.
The learner’s decision
End with a question the learner can answer from their own role: what do you do this week, what do you raise, what do you change. Not: how do you feel.
Vary the disabilities
Across a set: sensory, physical, cognitive, mental health, chronic illness, apparent and non-apparent. Wheelchair use appears where the barrier is physical, not as the default image of disability.
No inspiration ending
The scenario ends in a decision about a system, not in a colleague overcoming or a team being moved. Disabled people are not the lesson; the barrier is.
Carry this forward A good scenario asks the learner to make a decision about a system; a bad one asks the learner to feel something about a disabled person.
Across a set of scenarios, disability should vary: sensory, physical, cognitive, mental health, chronic illness, apparent and non-apparent. Defaulting to wheelchair use teaches that other disabilities are not real.
The disabled person in a scenario has a name, a job, a preference and a view; they are never only the occasion for someone else’s learning.
One scenario rewritten and checked against the six stereotype tests.
Review the scenarios in a session you run against the six tests. Rewrite the weakest one and vary the disabilities across the set.
Browse and download only. Course notes are not typed or saved on this page.
Reset this lesson
Previous lesson Next lesson Carry this into practice Lead disability inclusion conversations that people can join without disclosing, that answer defensiveness and misinformation calmly, and that everyone can take part in.
Return to the experience: What did you notice or try, whose perspective informed it, and what would you keep or adjust?
Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.
