Tag: Dwarfism

At school with a disability

Last week I wrote about ways in which the national (Australian) curriculum supports students who live with a disability. This is through the General Capabilities. I mentioned the Personal and Social Capability, but there’s another – Ethical Understanding. In an ideal world we would not need to directed towards ethical behaviour but unfortunately that is not […]

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Back to school with a disability

Over the years since the development of a national Australian curriculum began, it has become increasingly easier for teachers to feel supported when they have children in their class who live with a disability. This should be reassuring to parents of those children. The ACARA website has pages of information on how to ensure that […]

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Illustrating disability in kids stories

I write stories for children that put disability front and centre. Why? Because when I published a nonfiction book on dwarfism I realised that there are so few kids books where the main character lives with a disability. So I decided to fill the gap. My first book for children is called IN MY WORLD. […]

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Developing empathy for difference

‘Mummy, why is that man so short?’ ‘Because he didn’t eat his vegetables when he was a kid.’  The short man who overheard this conversation was Jonathan Tripp. He was born with a condition of dwarfism. While he could see the funny side of the mother’s reaction, it was just another incident in which an […]

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DIY Publishing

My book Little People Big Lives was published in 2013. I self-published it because the big publishers wouldn’t take it on. The topic is too unusual ­and not good for sales! The book profiles people who are short-statured (little people) and provides information about dwarfism. While I was going through the process of publishing the […]

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Governments & the Disability Sector

I am always pleased when synchronicity steps into my life. Recently there has been some cross-fertilisation between my editing and writing careers. I have been editing educational policy documents that deal with disability –guidelines for teachers who have students in their class who require certain adjustments to enable them to learn effectively. You can read […]

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