Understanding the plight of disabled

To the Times:

I was a special education teacher who instructed children with brain damage for six years, as well as worked more than 20 more years in different capacities with disabled adults. The Washington Post had an article that surprised me. According to the article, nearly

20 percent of our nation’s people are disabled. Yet, disabled people are poorly represented in acting roles. A recent study from the University of Southern California found that of

900 popular movies from 20072016, less than 3 percent of characters with speaking roles were disabled.

An interesting question was then posed: should only disabled people portray disabled characters on television and in movies? I think it would be beneficial to the large community of disabled people, to help “normalize” them on the screen, but not essential. Bryan Cranston, who starred in the television series “Breaking Bad,” has a starring role as a disabled man in the movie “The Upside.” Cranston feels that his portraying a disabled man, though he’s ablebodied, was acceptable, because as he put it, actors act in diverse roles. One actress, who is physically impaired, Christine Bruno, asserted that, “we’re fragmented as a community because there are all different kinds of disabilities.”

One of my favorite TV shows, which ended last year, was the comedy “The Middle,” starring Patricia Heaton, who played a hard-working but goofy mother, wife, neighbor and car saleswoman in Indiana. One of her “children” on the show was Atticus Shaffer, who played Brick. His character was that of a very bright boy who loved reading, but was in a special education class because of his many quirks. Brick’s oddities were only outdone by the even more bizarre behaviors of his friends in class. In “real life” Atticus Shaffer is disabled with osteogenesis imperfecta, a genetic condition also known as brittle bone disease. He has said that the disability is only a small part of who he is. When I worked with disabled adults, I worked with a, man, who had a more severe form of the condition. He was in a wheelchair (unlike Shaffer) and was both significantly hearing and visually impaired. Yet, he was a generally upbeat man who loved music. He enjoyed it when I played my flute (poorly!). In a 2011 interview with Parade magazine, Atticus said that “my message to people with or without a condition is the fact that you can still do anything you set your mind to.”

I commend and admire young Mr. Shaffer for his positive attitude about life despite being disabled. I believe I appreciate both the challenges and joys of caring for a disabled child. But it saddens me that the great majority of unborn babies diagnosed with a disability in utero are killed by the violence of legal abortion. Tim Donovan, Prospect Park