by Denise Ryan, the Age (Australia)
“It really disturbed me,” she says. “Only 3.5 per cent of people are blind but more than 10 per cent of the population have learning disabilities.” For six years, Ms Webber worked as the disability co-ordination officer for eastern Melbourne in a federal government role hosted by RMIT University. “I realised there was a massive gap in policy, with students with learning disabilities facing a tough time in education,” she says. “With my eye condition, teachers don’t make me read off the board but they say to someone with dyslexia who can’t do so, ‘You are not trying hard enough’. “Their disability is in the brain, just a few centimetres from where my disability lies, yet theirs is not recognised.”
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