Drama: A Powerful Tool for Social Skill Development

Disability Solutions Vol. 2 (1), May/June 1997, pp 1, 3-5.

available online at www.disabilitysolutions.org/pdf/2.1.pdf

Cindy, an attractive young woman with developmental disabilities, is gardening in her front yard, enjoying the afternoon sun, when a dashing young man in a black leather jacket drives up on a motorcycle and stops beside her.  He gives her the once-over and says, “Hey, I’m a biker dude!  I just came to town about an hour or two ago, and I’m looking for a cute girl!”

“Really?” she says, “Do you want to go to the mall?

“Yes!  Do you?”

Without thinking twice, Cindy starts to climb onto his bike.  “Sure!”

“OK, I’m going to freeze the action in this scene, just for a second,” I say, and turn to the group of drama students with disabilities.  “I want to ask the class a question about this situation.  This ‘Biker Dude’ guy has just driven into town.  He’s a complete stranger.  Cindy’s never set eyes on him before and she just said she would go to the mall with him.  Is that safe?”

“NO!!!” shout the students watching.

“Why is that not a safe choice?”

“Because she doesn’t know him that well yet.”

“She doesn’t know him at all!”

“She doesn’t even know his name!”

“It’s not safe to go somewhere with a total stranger,” I agree.  “So maybe we should start this scene again and let Cindy talk to this guy and find out something about him.”

This time Cindy asks the “Biker Dude” lots of questions and discovers that he’s come to town to look for a job as a mechanic.  She doesn’t know of any job openings, but wishes him luck, says goodbye, and goes inside.

That, of course, is not the only way this situation could safely unfold.  In subsequent role-plays, the students try out possible situations involving this dangerous, but definitely fascinating stranger.  For the duration of the class, students are involved, paying attention, and having a wonderful time learning about how to handle a situation which is every parent’s worst nightmare.

Understanding social situations and how to safely and appropriately interact with other people is important for everyone, but young people who have disabilities often have a more difficult time learning safe and appropriate behaviors.  Safety in the community is only one issue.  Job transition literature emphasizes that more jobs are lost through inappropriate social behavior than from lack of job skills.  Individuals who don’t know how to develop friendships and reach out to others become isolated, depressed, passive, or angry.  Successful inclusion in the community is difficult if social skills are lacking; non-disabled community members aren’t welcoming or understanding to an individual who is withdrawn, rude, provocative, or hostile.

The quandary lies not in knowing what skills young people need, but in how best to teach them.  I believe drama is the best vehicle for social skills development because drama involves students in concrete, hands-on practice of behavior.  Skills are physically and verbally acted out instead of just being talked about, so appropriate behavior becomes very real to the participants.  The abstract becomes bodily concrete.

In drama, as in real life, consequences result from actions taken and can’t be ignored.  They must, in turn, be dealt with through more action.  The reasons for this connection between action and consequence can be discussed, re-played, and, finally, understood by participants and observers alike.

If scenes are re-played with students making different choices and experiencing different consequences, flexibility develops as well as an understanding of cause and effect.  Add discussion of scenes to dramatic role-playing sessions and students begin to develop critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.

As a drama therapist, I use drama to teach social skills to children, adolescents, and adults who have disabilities.  I know from personal experience that dramatic role-playing generates energy, involvement, laughter, connection, excitement, and understanding.  Role playing real-life situations and watching others do so allows students to rehearse a skill until it becomes part of their skill repertory.

Can anyone learn through drama?  I believe so.  Can anyone use drama as a teaching tool?  I believe so, too.  Developmental psychologists say that all children learn about the world and how to behave in it through deferred imitation, symbolic play, and dramatic play.  These informal methods of learning usually begin to develop when children are as young as three and continue into the early elementary school years.  In a sense, we are all natural-born actors!

Unfortunately, our educational system has yet to harness this powerful, innate method.  The majority of teachers, in both regular and special education, rely on lecture, workbooks, and rote learning.  Abstract learning is valued over concrete learning.  Eventually, children discontinue their use of drama as an informal learning tool because it is labeled by the adults in their lives as “play” or “make-believe,” grown-up codes words for “unimportant,” “childish,” and “useless.”

Many teachers shy away from using drama as a teaching tool because it seems as if it will take too much energy or effort.  Or they think it is a method they couldn’t begin to master without lengthy training.  While training in drama does enhance one’s skills as a group leader, using drama is similar to riding a bike: once you’ve learned how to do it, you never forget – and you’ve known how to do it since you were three!

Drama is not only a useful tool for teachers, it’s useful for parents as well.  Skill rehearsal can become an enjoyable family game instead of a chore.  Rather than lecturing your child about a skill you want her to perform around the house, act it out together.  For example, if you want to teach your child appropriate phone manners, bring two phones into the room and pretend to call her from one of them.  Let her answer the other and engage her in conversation.  Then let her pretend to call you.  With practice, she will learn correct phone etiquette.

The most successful approach to dramatic role-playing is one which is open, playful, and non-judgmental.  This creates an atmosphere where actors can take chances and try out different behaviors.  It can be OK to make a mistake because you can replay the situation and find a way to make it better.

In life, there are many different choices you might make in a given situation.  Some choices are better than others.  Some choices are safer than others.  Some choices are more effective than others.  Through drama many choices, both positive and negative, can be explored – without real-life consequences harming the participants.

The decision-making process can be explored step by step during the role play by freezing the action and questioning the actors or having them share what “thoughts are going on in your head right now.”  Or the process can be explored afterwards through group discussion.

The other advantage of dramatic role-play is that through role reversal, a child can take on the role of a parent, a student can take on the role of teacher, or a client can take on the role of therapist and see the situation from a different perspective.  Dramatically wearing the shoes of the “responsible adults” in their lives helps students begin to understand the need for rules.  Role reversal can provide the group leader with a way to evaluate if the message of the lesson has gotten through.  An actor, taking on the role of authority, will often wax eloquent as he explains to the actor playing the role of the student the reasons why things are done in a certain way – even though he may never have followed those rules or demonstrated an understanding of them in real life.

Actual authority figures (parents, teachers, job coaches, etc.) can learn a lot about being a child, student, or client from role reversals, too.  You might just re-evaluate some of your communication methods after being on the receiving end of a lecture and seeing how you are perceived.

“But,” you ask, “is my child really capable of coming up with sound behavior choices to use in role playing?  Will this method really work with him or her?”  For the answer to than, let’s look at the choices students made for relating to the “Biker Dude.”  On their own, without any prompting from me, the students in my drama class created the following four additional scenarios:

– One girl refused to talk to the “Biker Dude” and went inside her house to get her father to make him go away.

– Another traded phone numbers with him so she could talk with him further before deciding if she wanted to go out with him.

– Another made him give her his phone number, but wouldn’t give our any personal information herself.  Then she told him it was time for him to leave; she wasn’t ready to make a decision about whether or not to call him.

– Yet another invited him to come to her house for dinner so he could meet her family and get to know her in a safe environment.

All were viable choices and all were choices that fell into the range of safe and appropriate ways to handle the situation.

Ideas for Inclusive Playwriting

Think in terms of the strengths and talents of your actors – what do they do best?

INCORPORATE THEIR STRENGTHS AND INTERESTS INTO THE SCRIPT.

Think of ways to SIDE-STEP the WEAKNESSES of your actors.

  • You can do this by not giving actors action or lines that you know would be difficult for them.
  • Incorporate other actors into the scene who can help them (see ideas below).

    CAST the play before you begin to write so you can pair up people who can help each other in different ways during the course of the play.

    INCORPORATE SPECIAL TALENTS:
  • Playing an instrument,
  • Dancing,
  • Singing,
  • Pantomime,
  • Juggling,
  • Magic Tricks,
  • Telling jokes,
  • Howling like a werewolf,
  • Puppetry,
  • Pratfalls, etc.

    INCORPORATE wheelchairs and other devices into the play so there is a reason for the devices to be onstage:
  • Thrones,
  • Carriages,
  • Royal litters,
  • Haywagons,
  • Ambulances,
  • Trucks,
  • Cabs, etc.

    • On the other hand, you don’t HAVE to have a rationale or excuse for a character to be in a wheelchair or to have another obvious disability – you can have that just be part of that character that is not even remarked upon in the play.

• Don’t let a device or a disability stop a character from doing what he or she needs to do in the play. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

IF A LINE IS DIFFICULT TO SAY, rewrite it:

  • Use different words
  • Change the order of the phrases
  • Shorten the line


USING MEMORIZATION STRENGTHS:

• Use the natural speaking rhythms, phrasing, and vocabulary of your actors, especially if the script is based on their improvisations. If the lines are already in their words, speech, and thought patterns, they will be easier for actors to speak and remember.

• If you have an actor who is a good memorizer, have him or her ask questions in a scene to an actor who is not as good at memorization. It is easier to remember the answer to a question (especially since you know the answer from the script) than it is to remember a question.

• However, don’t have characters answer just “yes” or “no,” as they may become confused about which answer to say. Have answers be with specific Who, What, Where, and When information that relates clearly to the story and which can be more easily remembered.

• An actor who is a good memorizer can also handle the part of someone in authority, who gives orders.

• If an actor has a joke – make sure he/she understands the humor/meaning behind it, or he won’t be able to remember it.

• Incorporate reminders for actions and lines into the dialogue of actors who can memorize – make sure those reminders are phrased in positive terms. An actor with a cognitive disability will do what he or she is told to do, but can become confused if the hint is phrased in a negative way (For example, if you want an actor to go into a cave, a hint from another actor like, “Don’t go in there!” probably will be taken as a direction to not go in!).

If a line is phrased indirectly (“I wonder where we should go next?”) the actor being cued won’t be helped…because there is no hint in the line.

• Use a live or recorded narrator to structure the scene.

• Use music and/or sound effects to remind characters about entrances or exits or cue changes in the action within a scene.

• Incorporate video or film into your play. These scenes won’t have to be memorized. And they can be filmed as many times as you need in rehearsal until they are just right.


SIDESTEPPING problems with MEMORIZATION:

• A character like a TV interviewer, talk show host, doctor, or detective can have a clipboard of notes that can be referred to for the questions they might have to ask other characters. It looks realistic to incorporate the lines written on those props.

• Create groups of characters who work together onstage with at least one actor involved who has a good sense of direction and memorization. Everyone else can follow along and do their appropriate lines and actions if they have someone reliable to follow.

• In rehearsals encourage actors to improvise if they forget a line and to help fellow actors remember lines through asking them appropriate questions in character. Let them practice so they will be ready if it happens in performance.


SIDESTEPPING problems with actors who are NOT CLEAR SPEAKERS:

• Have another character repeat the line incredulously, pretending they understood what was said.
“I didn’t do it!”
“You didn’t do it? How do you expect me to believe that?”


or…more subtly…


“You expect me to believe that you didn’t do it?”
“I went to the store”
“Yes, I know you went to the store, but what did you buy there?”

• Have the actor who does not speak clearly play a foreign character who nobody in the play understands or play someone who always mutters under their breath. (Example: Swen Swenson, the Swedish cinematographer, has been hired because of his movie making talents, but he speaks no English. That’s ok because all he needs to understand to do his job is “Action” and “Cut.”)

There could be a legitimate reason why a character can’t speak. For instance:

  • She is a professional mime,
  • He has laryngitis because he yelled too loudly at the football game,
  • She’s taken a vow of silence for religious reasons,
  • He is refusing to speak because he is angry,
  • Her voice was stolen by an evil wizard.

SIDESTEPPING problems with actors who CAN’T REMEMBER BLOCKING:

• Have the character teamed with a duo or trio of others who can remember blocking.

• Cast the actor a character who is a ruler or rich person who needs a personal assistant to be at his beck and call. (The personal assistant can be an actor who knows what to do and where to go and will be the one who is really in control, but will not look like it).

Behavior Change Through Drama Therapy with Students with Special Needs

A number of years ago I was hired as a drama consultant to conduct ten sessions in a special education classroom at Diamond Elementary School in Gaithersburg, MD, north of Washington, DC. The children were between the ages of 9 and 12. A number had severe learning disabilities and several had various forms of mental retardation. Besides basic reading and math skills, students focused on learning life skills like how to shop, how to make change, how to travel on the bus and subway systems, and other essentials to survival in a large urban area.

When I asked the teacher if there were any educational or social issues I could help with, she immediately said she’d been having trouble with students getting along in the classroom. Certain students would tease others and tears would result. Pencils and other small items got “borrowed” from desks without permission and angry accusations of stealing ensued, along with pushing, shoving, insults, and the inevitable hurt feelings.

I decided to start with identifying emotions and move on to practicing problem-solving social skills through role-playing. We started out simply. We had fun drawing faces and making faces and talking about feelings. Then we started identifying emotions in others by looking at pictures of faces to figure out what these people were feeling. We moved on to show how we felt with our whole bodies and by the way we moved. Then we began to tackle situations of conflict in the classroom.

I wasn’t sure how quickly these children would catch on to that fact that we were just pretending these situations. They’d never had drama before, either in their classroom or as an extracurricular activity. I didn’t want confusion between fantasy and reality to create more bad feelings than already existed. The “worst possible scenario player” in my head created visions of children crying and yelling, “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you,” at each other while the teacher and the principal kicked me out the front door of the school with the admonition never to set foot in Gaithersburg again!

Needless to say, my worst fears were not played out. In fact, each time I set up a dramatic situation in which one student was supposed to create a conflict with another and demonstrate their worst behavior, they insisted on doing the “right thing” and resolving their conflicts peacefully. I started to feel frustrated because I couldn’t get a fight going! Even with direct permission from me to enact an example of “the bad way” or “the wrong way,” they insisted on listening to each other with sensitivity and offering generous win-win solutions.

At the end of class, I shrugged my shoulders and half-seriously said to the teacher, “I’m sorry. I tried. I couldn’t get them to misbehave.” She nodded sagely and said, “Actually, I learned a lot today. Probably more than they did. I learned how much they actually do understand about appropriate behavior. I’m going to have much higher expectations of them now.”

Behavior change. I wish it were simple. I wish, when a student didn’t know how to behave, I could tell him what to do and he’d just do it! Or when a client is not behaving the way I want her to, I could tell her how to change…and she would!

But we all know it’s not that easy. It takes motivation to learn; it takes rehearsal over a period of time; and most of all, it takes patience on the part of the learner and the teacher until the old behavior has been extinguished and the new behavior has come to be second nature.

This is without addressing the issue of learning styles; the fact that each person has a different profile of preferences, both sensory and neurological, for taking in information. Some people are haptic and have to actually kinesthetically experience a new skill, others need to see someone else do it;  others grasp the information best through hearing and reflecting back, and most of us need to do a combination of all three.

Mel Levine, M.D., a pediatrician and expert in the learning and behavior of children, has identified specific neurodevelopmental systems or constructs that each different kind of learning task requires in his book A Mind at a Time (2002). The components within these constructs don’t work alone; they are interconnected and dependent on each other, but the construct framework provide a handy metaphor through which to look at the skills that certain learning tasks require. A block or weakness in a particular system — Levine calls them “breakdown points” – requires pinpointing the exact breakdown through carefully observing the child’s behavior while involved in the learning task, then ascertaining whether this particular individual can heal/improve that breakdown or if it would be more efficient to substitute some other strength from a different process to bypass the “glitch.” To educators and parents who ask, “How can you expect me to invest so much time and expertise in each individual I’m responsible to teach?” and Dr. Levine responds, “Because it’s your job!”

Dr. Levine is one of my ultimate heroes, along with Howard Gardner, Ph.D., who posits that intelligence is multiple and can be accessed, measured, and expressed through the arts, and Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., who speaks eloquently about the necessity of Emotional Intelligence for our social survival. What my three heroes haven’t yet discovered, however, is that the best tool available for implementing their wonderful ideas is drama therapy.

Drama therapy is quite simply the intentional use of drama or (to use the Greek translation of the word) doing to achieve new understanding of oneself and others. Depending on the requirements of the situation and the needs of the students/clients involved, drama therapy can focus purely on discovery through process drama (role-play, creative drama, improvisation, etc.) or can lead to rehearsal and the creation of a formal product (performance). Either way, our most basic human developmental learning strategies are harnessed: imitation and dramatic play which begin universally at about age 3 in most children as well as the use of metaphor for framing and understanding concepts which begins a little later. As drama – watched or participated in – is an embodied, three dimensional, sensory experience, all possible learning styles are encompassed with students listening, speaking, seeing, moving, thinking, feeling, inventing, and replaying by turns or simultaneously. In addition, all the intelligences are accessed at some point in the process. As can be seen in the chart below, all of Aristotle’s elements of drama are reflected in Gardner’s multiple intelligences:

 VERBAL-LINGUISTIC

PLOT, LANGUAGE

Words spoken or signed

LOGICAL-MATHEMATICAL

PLOT,
THOUGHT

Sequence, logical reasoning

VISUAL-SPATIAL

SPECTACLE

Costumes, Sets,
Props, Stage pictures

BODILY-KINESTHETIC

DANCE/CHARACTER

Blocking, Gesture, Dance, Posture, Pose


The connection between drama and multiple intelligences was first identified by the Southeast Institute for Education in Theatre at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in their Data Based Theatre Education model (DBTE). What it ultimately means for parents and educators is that when dramatic forms are used to express an idea, the multiple intelligences are naturally all stimulated simultaneously.

What’s most exciting is that while most of us are not pediatricians or neurologists or educational psychologists, we all are expert dramatists. You may not have ever acted in a play, but you have acted out imaginary stories in your backyard or basement while you were growing up, you’ve rehearsed and performed job interviews and presentations, you’ve even occasionally “created dramatic scenes” for good or ill with the other people in your life.

Drama is like riding a bicycle. Once you learn how to do it, you might not “do it” for years, but you always remember how – that inner balance and relationship between your body and mind never leaves you. It comes back naturally, the minute you put it back into practice.

Of course, you can always develop those dramatic skills further – hone them so that they can be used seamlessly in the classroom, at meetings, demonstrations and workshops, and on the job as methods of communication, training, and clarity. The best part is that whether it’s through a formal class, a workshop, or a community play, dramatic skills are not only useful, they’re fun to develop. And the next best part is that the students who you’ll be teaching are also expert dramatists, with perhaps more recent hands-on practice that you!

I discovered in my years of teaching children, adolescents, and adults with and without disabilities that if you, as the leader, are willing to initiate dramatic play, your students will join in. Maybe not with perfect behavior, but gladly! Enthusiastically! Even students with no previous dramatic training in the special education room at Diamond Elementary knew how to role play!

Bibliography:

Bailey, S. (1993). Wings to fly: Bringing theatre arts to students with special needs, Bethesda: Woodbine House.

Bailey, S. & Agogliati, L. (2002) Dreams to sign, Bethesda: Imagination Stage.

Gardner, H. (1993).  Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice, NY: Bantam Books.

Gardner, H. (1999).  Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century, NY: Basic Books.

Goleman, D. (1995).  Emotional intelligence: Why it matters more than IQ, NY: Bantam Books.

Levine, S. (2002). A Mind At A Time, NY: Simon & Schuster.

1 Drama comes from the Greek dran, “to do,” hypothetically derived from dra-, “to work” or “deed” and has developed into our modern concept of drama as action through which something of value is accomplished. Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, 2nd ed., 1970.

Self-Advocacy Through Drama for People with Developmental Disabilities

Suppose you were 35 years old and you still lived at home with your parents because they didn’t think you were capable of living by yourself? Or that you had to live in a group home with people you didn’t choose as your housemates and staff you didn’t hire to run the household? Suppose everyone talked down to you as if you were a little child? Or that you worked a 40 hours a week, and only got paid $45 for your entire week of work? What if you weren’t allowed to get married, even though you were in love with someone who wanted to marry you?

Sound impossible in this day and age? It’s not. There are many people in our country, close to 12.4 million, who experience one or a combination of these limiting life situations because they have a physical, mental or emotional condition causing difficulty in learning, remembering, or concentration (U.S. Census, 2000). Some of these citizens have physical or mental illnesses which affect cognition, and many have developmental disabilities, such as mental retardation, autism, cerebral palsy or another neurological condition. (The U.S. Census does not breakdown disability population figures by diagnosis, but by the following categories: sensory disability involving sight or hearing; condition limiting basic physical activities, such as walking, climbing stairs, etc.; physical, mental, or emotional condition causing difficulty in learning, remembering, or concentrating; physical, mental, or emotional condition causing difficulty in activities of daily living such as dressing, bathing, etc; condition that makes it difficult to go outside the home; and condition that affects the ability to work at a job.)

People who have developmental disabilities are not encouraged to live independent lives, even when many of them can. There are many reasons for this: overprotective families; an educational and social service industry that steers clients to be dependent and passive, rather than training them for independence; a social welfare system with built-in work disincentives for people with disabilities; a society that stigmatizes people who have disabilities as “less than equal” to those who don’t have disabilities (Mackelprang & Salsgiver, 1999; Olkin, 1999).

One of the hardest struggles is that last one — against stigmas held cross-culturally about developmental disabilities. Individuals who are “different,” be they of a different race, religion, physical look, or ability level, end up being stigmatized or seen as having a lower, discredited status, being “not quite human,” by the dominant cultural group in any society (Goffman, 1963; Hardaway, 1991). Developmental disabilities are repeatedly rated as one of the most stigmatized on the continuum of possible disabling and/or medical conditions across a wide range of world cultures (Olkin, 1999;Westbrook, Legge, & Pennay, 1993).

In order to address the prevalence of stigma towards disabilities and the necessity of future mental health and education professionals to become aware of and deal with their own stigmatizing attitudes, I have had students in my Drama Therapy with Special Populations class at Kansas State University rate Westbook, Legge, & Pennay’s list of 20 disabilities from least stigmatized to most stigmatized for the past twenty-four semesters (Fall 1999 to Spring 2011). Each semester mental retardation (the closest category on the list to “developmental disabilities”) is in the top three most stigmatized conditions as either number one, two, or three. The only conditions that are ever rated as more stigmatized are AIDS or mental illness. When they compare their class rating with the cultures surveyed in Westbook, Legge & Pennay’s study, my students discover that those cultures also rated those three conditions in their “top” three.

If attitude sampling is not proof enough of the stigma assigned to people with developmental disabilities in our culture, a simple statistic reported in the Kansas City Star says it all. Prenatal genetic tests can determine if a fetus has Down syndrome, a type of developmental disability caused by a chromosomal abnormality. People who have Down syndrome have three copies of Chromosome 21, rather than 2, giving them 47 total chromosomes instead of 46. Down syndrome is not a fatal or painful condition, although there are sometimes medical complications, such as heart conditions. Individuals who have Down syndrome can range in IQ from low to normal. When the prenatal test became common in 1989, 57 percent of fetuses discovered to have Down syndrome were aborted, and since then the percentage has risen (Bell & Stoneman, 2000; Stearns, 2004). Currently, it is estimated that ninety percent of the fetuses determined by prenatal test to have Down syndrome are terminated through abortion (Adler, 2005).

Not only are stigmatized people not accorded the same status as others, seen as inferior, evil, perhaps being punished for their sins or the sins of their fathers (Hardaway, 1991; Pelka, 1994), or as “defective” by medical model standards, many grow up to believe that those who have stigmatized them must be right and internalize a sense of shame and inferiority. Like many oppressed populations, they often become passive and helpless, because they don’t think they deserve better treatment than what they are currently receiving (Goffman, 1963; Mackelprang & Salsgiver, 1999).

Here are a few stories I collected in 1998 from members of STAND Together, a self-advocacy group for adults with developmental disabilities in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area, which illustrate common, every day examples of stigmatizing behavior they have received, in these cases from family members, care-givers, and helping professionals in their lives:

LG: When I was between the ages of 17 and 21, I went to live with my older brother and I was treated as a child and it was totally wrong to do that to me at that age. At that point, it wasn’t right, but I didn’t do anything about it. I didn’t like it, but just took it. I finally just moved away. It feels great to be treated like an adult instead of a child. It’s wrong to treat an adult with a disability like a child. An adult should be treated like an adult. A teenager should be treated like a teenager. A child should be treated like a child.

BH: Sometimes the counselor comes into my apartment to talk to me when I’m having dinner [and wants to meet about life skills and work issues]. I say, “Excuse me, I’m eating.” That’s ignoring my privacy.

MP: I want to tell you about staff who disrespected me at the place I worked, so you won’t ever treat anyone who you work with this way. [The workplace was a sheltered workshop/training center for people with disabilities.] At one point I was in Beginner’s Clerical. I was not feeling good one day and I called in like you would normally do when you’re not feeling good. They asked me to call back later. I did and I said that I still wasn’t feeling good. But my supervisor, she didn’t take no for an answer. She wanted me to come in to work. [MP went back to sleep after hanging up the phone.] I wake up and I’ve got the program specialist on one side of me and the supervisor on the other side of me wanting me to come to work! So to make a long story short on that one – that’s why I’m still afraid to get a job out in the community. I’m afraid someone’s going to come and drag me out of bed and take me back to work!

These three individuals, quoted above, have not remained passive and accepting of the stigmatized way they are treated. As members of STAND Together, one of the oldest self advocacy groups in the state of Maryland, they have learned how to speak up for themselves, protest ill-treatment, and work on changing attitudes and removing barriers to their full inclusion in their community. We’ll talk about their experiences with drama as a tool in their struggle later in the article.

Historically, nondisabled members of society have assumed that people who have disabilities are not able to care for or support themselves. Poorhouses were created in colonial America as a place to warehouse anyone from widows, orphans, or the elderly to people with mental illness, disability, or serious illness (Trattner, 1989). Until recent years people with disabilities, particularly those with developmental disabilities, were committed to institutions for the “mentally deficient.” Doctors would often recommend to families at the birth of a child with disabilities to not even take the child home, but to “send it away” (J. Glenner, personal communication, 1990; Makelprang & Salsgiver, 1999; Morton, 1983). For those who weren’t institutionalized, educational opportunities and jobs were not easy to get.

The terminology chosen to describe this group of citizens (as well as people with physical disabilities) suggests that they are incompetent. Hardaway says it is important to know that the word “handicapped” originated from the phrase “cap in hand,” indicating someone who is a beggar. Begging was one of the only ways that people not segregated in institutions who had disabilities were able to make a living when they couldn’t get a job (Hardaway, 1991). Employers assumed that people who had disabilities couldn’t do the work and often wouldn’t consider them as potential employees.

What does the word “disable” actually mean? According to Webster, disable means “1. to deprive of legal right or qualification: disqualify. 2. to make incapable or ineffective: to incapacitate, especially to deprive of physical, moral or intellectual strength. 3. a. to deprive of what gives value: impair in worth. b. to declare incompetent or invalid.” Impaired, another word sometimes used in place of disabled, means “to make worse, diminish in quality, value, excellence or strength: to do harm to.” (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged, 1993). None of these words sound very positive used as either a noun to categorize someone or an adjective to describe him. No one wants to be considered an ineffective, incapable, diminished, or invalid human being, especially when the disability condition one has usually only limits one small aspect of one’s life; however, that is what our language suggests happens.

The disability awareness movement which began in the 1960’s helped pass legislation, such as the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Equal Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. These laws have helped create more opportunities in education, employment, housing, and access to the community at large for people with disabilities. In the late ‘60s and early 70’s disability advocates and social service workers brought suit in the courts to close state hospitals and release the residents to out-patient services in the community. This, plus spiraling medical costs, caused many institutions in which people had been warehoused to be closed, sending them back in the community to live and work (Anderson, Lakin, Manga, & Prouty, 1998; Mackelprang & Salsgiver, 1999).

However, just because opportunities for independence exist, doesn’t mean the people those opportunities were created for know how to access them or how to succeed once they get them. Statistics have shown that people with disabilities make responsible, hard working, reliable employees. However, statistics also show that a number of employees with disabilities lose their jobs, not because they can not do the tasks required, but because they do not have the social skills to fit into the workplace appropriately (Chadsey-Rusch, Linneman, & Rylance, 1997; J. Gingerich, personal communication, August 17, 1999; Park & Gaylord-Ross, 1989).

Others do not have the self-confidence to go after an educational or employment opportunity in the first place. There are a variety of reasons for this: they might not know how to be assertive; they might not have the support and encouragement they need from significant others; they might see barriers (legal or illegal) in the way that they do not know how to get around. In short, they have problems advocating for themselves.

Here is where drama comes into the picture: drama is the perfect vehicle for teaching assertiveness, problem-solving, and self-advocacy skills and for demonstrating and articulating one’s abilities, opinions, and desires to others. Through acting out a situation in role play, participants can learn how to identify problems, try out different solutions, and practice the solutions they think will work best. They can develop the self-esteem and confidence to believe they can be effective and succeed. Even more important, they can develop the social skills to get their questions answered, their needs met, and their day-to-day on-the-job or in-the-community conflicts worked through in appropriate ways. (Bailey, 1993, 1995; Sternberg & Garcia, 1994).

Why is drama so perfect? It is embodied, experiential, and active. Many people with developmental disabilities have difficulty learning abstract concepts through lecture and other abstract teaching techniques. Many learn better through hands-on, concrete, physical activities. In addition, drama incorporates narrative or story into instruction. Information is easier to remember when linked by narrative than when it is simply memorized by itself as individual facts (Cozolino, 2002; Herman, 2003).  Information is also easier to remember when it is paired with emotions, particularly positive emotions or emotions that are meaningfully appropriate to the material (Jensen, 1998). Drama contains all of those qualities: embodied, experiential, active, concrete, hands-on, narrative, connected to emotions, with the added attraction of being FUN, so that the learning process is interesting and easy to pay attention to! (Bailey, 1993, 1995, 2010).

Young people with developmental disabilities may not understand the subtleties of social situations. Nondisabled children usually pick up many of the social cues and cultural constructs around them through observing interactions of adults and older children, repeatedly seeing the consequences of certain actions (Hall, 1976). Some children with developmental disabilities miss out on these cues and constructs. They might not notice nonverbal behaviors for a variety reasons, including attention deficits, attention overloads, or aural or visual processing difficulties. They might have difficulty with sequencing and, therefore, do not understand the relationship between an action that causes a particular consequence. Having missed observing the behavior in the first place, chances are they probably will not understand theoretical presentations about it. They may not have been given the opportunities to practice appropriate ways to interact socially because no one thought they were capable of learning them and, therefore, never reinforced appropriate behavior.These children need active instruction and practice in order to see, understand, and learn (Bailey, 1993, 2010).

When is the best time to start using drama to train students in social skills and assertiveness? When children are young and in school! Cindy Bowen, a registered drama therapist and transition specialist at Ivymount School, an independent school for multiply handicapped students in Rockville, Maryland, began using drama as a behavior management tool while she was a support counselor in charge of handling discipline problems. She found that when students had negative behaviors in class or on the playground, it was usually because they did not have the words to express their feelings or alternative ways to solve the situation that was frustrating them. She would take them to her office and get them to cool down. Then she would talk to them about what happened and what other options they might have used for dealing with the situation. Once they were able to identify these, she would have them act out the appropriate behavior until they felt they understood it and could use it successfully. Last, she would take them back to the classroom and let them practice the new behavior with the teacher (out in the hallway, not in front of the rest of the class), so that the teacher knew what solutions had been developed and could help reinforce them when the student tried them out instead of reinforcing the old negative behavior.

Cindy realized that this was the beginning of self-advocacy for these children and that its development was crucial to their success, not just in school, but in life. Since her experience as support counselor had proven to her the efficacy of drama as the way to “get through” to students on issues of behavior, she incorporated drama into all her later transition planning work.

In the U.S. students in special education are allowed to stay in school until they are 21. Their educational needs are guided by an Individual Education Plan (IEP) which is devised jointly by their teachers, parents, and, ideally, themselves. The IEP is re-evaluated at least once a year and new goals incorporated into it. As they get older, an Individual Transition Plan (ITP) is included to help them make that major transition from school to work. Cindy saw the IEP/ITP meeting as a place where self-advocacy was needed – allowing both the parents and the student to speak up for their wishes for the future. Did they want to have a specific kind of job? Did they want to live at home, in a group home, or independently in their own apartment? What were the steps that needed to be taken in order to finally achieve those goals? She helped students develop and practice a script so that they could communicate their wishes and desires to their parents and teachers.

Sometimes parents needed skills to work with a child who had unrealistic dreams. For instance, many teenaged boys express a desire to be a professional basketball player.Needless to say, this is not a realistic goal for 99 percent of them, disabled or not! The key to working with this desire, however, is not to discourage the student from having dreams, but to get them to identify what interests they have, what skills they have, what skills they can develop, and from there to think realistically about what kind of job they could get.Cindy found she needed to teach the parents – and did so most effectively through role-play – how to interact with their children about this topic. They practiced how to ask questions to elicit useful information from their child instead of shutting him down by saying, “No, you can’t do that” or “You’ll never be able to do that.”

Job skills from interviewing to personal hygiene to interacting with co-workers could be practiced in Transition Class through drama. Many students not only had difficulty finding words to express themselves, but also in understanding non-verbal cues that others were giving them. To address this, Cindy would set up dramatic situations in which they would practice identifying these through role play. For instance, she might act out different kinds of bosses who might be interviewing students for a job; she might act formal and polite, condescending, or rushed and impatient. A student would interview with her for the job and then have to assess with the rest of the class what she wanted the worker to do in the job and what kind of nonverbal information she was expressing during the interview which might indicate what kind of a boss she might be to work for.

One transition group, called “Express Yourself,” showcased the older students in dramatic presentations as they demonstrated behavior options to the younger students in order to teach social skills through action. “Express Yourself” students would brainstorm different difficult aspects of relationship communication: friend with friend, child with parent, student with teacher, employer with boss. From these, improvisational scenes were created – with both negative and positive behavior choices – and acted out for other classrooms.Cindy would facilitate and lead a discussion. The students watching would respond to what they thought was going on in the scene. Were the actors using a positive way of handling the situation or a negative one? What were some other ways it could be done? Through drama the younger students were able to pick up on the correct behaviors and generalize them to other situations. They would often use some of the words and behaviors they saw enacted in the scenes in their real life situations. They would ask Cindy, “Did I handle this like so-and-so handled it in the play?”

Presenting “Express Yourself” skits served as a wonderful self-esteem builder for the student-actors. They were suddenly “teacher for the day” and were able to share what they had learned with others. Another outgrowth was the “Express Yourself” students became positive role models and mentors for the younger students. Many younger children had never been exposed to the idea of being able to grow up and get a job. Suddenly they realized that “Hey, this older kid has a transition plan. He’s getting a job. I can do that, too!” (C. Bowen, personal communication, January 22, 2005).

Much of my work with young adults with developmental disabilities also took place in suburban Maryland. In my role as Arts Access Director at the Bethesda Academy of Performing Arts (now Imagination Stage), I created programming for children, teens, and adults with a wide variety of disabilities. One acting class, called “Act For Yourself,” was geared along the same lines as the Ivymount “Express Yourself” class, providing practice for young adults with developmental disabilities in assertiveness and social skills. We acted out situations they found difficult in their lives and explored who they were, what they wanted, and how to get their needs met in active, appropriate ways. We also explored how to stay safe in situations in which others might harm them, how to handle anger, and how to behave appropriately in dating situations. “Act For Yourself” was so popular and useful that I was invited to teach it for Montgomery College’s Challenge Program, a division developed to give students with disabilities who had graduated from high school pre-college level experiences on a real college campus.

My favorite experience using drama for social action was with STAND Together in 1998. STAND Together was sponsored by The ARC of Montgomery County (ARC was formerly an acronym for Association for Retarded Citizens, but has formally changed its name to be simply The ARC). They had heard about my drama program from enthusiastic participants and saw a creative, dynamic, and active way to raise staff awareness on privacy issues and basic human rights of residents in their group homes. Twice a month an orientation training (Introduction to Developmental Disabilities) was held for new staff members to address basic information about The ARC’s group homes, developmental disabilities, emergency procedures, health and hygiene and human rights of residents. Trainings had always been done via lecture and handouts. The information was communicated, but most trainees did not really understand the priority The ARC wanted given to respecting the residents as adults with individual needs and preferences. Often in the interests of time and efficiency or out of ignorance, staff would ignore residents’ choices, break confidentiality, or invade their privacy. This problem was exacerbated by the issue of frequent turnover of staff which is a common problem in all areas of the direct support profession serving people with disabilities (Larson, S.A., Hewitt, A.S. & Lakin, K.C., 2004). STAND Together wanted to create a role-play presentation to illustrate ways to handle privacy issues, so that respect and appropriate boundaries could be demonstrated clearly to staff.

My first step in approaching this project was two-pronged. I wanted to let the STAND members train me in what they felt were the most important issues to address – they, after all, were the authorities – and we all needed to know what the law said about current legal standards of individual rights, the procedures for compliance, grievance rights, and what to do in case of violation. We began by looking at the Health-General Article 7-1001 and 7-1002 from the Annotated Code of Maryland COMAR 10.22.07. Then we brainstormed their list of personal and privacy rights.

Identification and articulation are the first steps in self-assertion. Creating an atmosphere of trust and acceptance in which participants can speak honestly and openly about their experience and their pain was paramount. As the group shouted out ideas, I wrote down all suggestions in magic marker on large pieces of paper taped to the wall. I knew all ideas would not end up in the final presentation, but all needed to be acknowledged as part of the pot of material we would pull from. Even though some members of the group could not read, my act of writing down their ideas validated them and communicated the clear message that I respected them and took them seriously. (This list of rights is included at the end of the article.)

The next step was to collect personal stories related to the violation of these rights and to generate ideas of how these negative situations could have been dealt with more kindly, respectfully, and effectively. These stories were then shaped into fictional dramatic situations which we improvised. None of the scenes that ended up in our repertoire for the training were historical re-enactments of anyone’s real-life experiences. On one level this preserved confidentiality, but on another it freed the actors to try out alternative solutions to the conflict instead of sidetracking them into a re-creation of the way events had actually transpired. We could also exaggerate a little to make a point without being untruthful. The purpose of the scenes was, after all, to help create systemic change in the attitude and behavior of employees of an organization, not for the personal therapy of STAND members.

For each scene, we came up with the “wrong” way and a “better” way to handle the situation. The scenes were kept improvisational at all times, so the parts could be taken on by different volunteers. Here’s what one of the situations might have looked like if scripted:

JULIENNE, a staff member at a group home for adults with developmental disabilities, enters the living room and sees a stack of mail on the dining room table. She walks over, leafs through the pile, picks up an envelope, opens it, and takes out a letter and form. Then she gets a pen from the desk, comes back to the table and begins filling out the form, leaving the opened envelope on the table.

EVA, one of the residents, enters the living room and looks through the stack of mail. She sees the opened envelope, which has her name and address on it. She turns to JULIENNE with the envelope in her hand and says, “Who opened my letter?”

JULIENNE: (nonchalantly) Oh, I did.

EVA: Why? My name is on the envelope! See, right here it says, “Eva Jones.”

JULIENNE: I could tell it was that form from the SSI office and I knew you’d need help filling it out, so I opened it for you.

EVA: But it belongs to me. You shouldn’t have opened it.

JULIENNE: It doesn’t matter.

EVA: Yes, it does! It was for me!

JULIENNE: I knew what was in it.

EVA: But what if you didn’t? What if it was something else?

JULIENNE: Well, it wasn’t something else. It was the re-application form.

EVA: It’s my private letter!

JULIENNE: I’m only trying to help!

EVA: But you shouldn’t have opened it! Even my mother knows not to open my mail!

JULIENNE: (throwing the letter at EVA): FINE! Do it yourself!

This scene illustrates behavior a group home staff person might consider “helpful,” but which residents would consider condescending and an invasion of privacy. It was, of course, followed by a replay in which Julienne let Eva open her own letter, asked if it was the form they had been waiting for from SSI, and allowed Eva to ask for help.

A step above and beyond using drama to advocate for yourself and for others is teaching others how to advocate for themselves. In essence, passing on the power. After all, as the old proverb says, “If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.” Deborah J. Zuver, a registered drama therapist in North Carolina, is doing just that through self-advocacy projects she directs through the University of North Carolina Clinical Center for the Study of Development and Learning. The U.S. Administration for Children and Families has designated this site as the University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities in North Carolina.

Deborah has developed a self advocacy training curriculum called Acting for Advocacy (A4A) which is part of Project STIR (Steps Toward Independence and Responsibility).This program explores topics such as Knowing Self, Communicating Effectively, Problem-Solving, Rights and Responsibilities, and Self Advocacy and Self Determination with young adults who have developmental disabilities in the state. Next Generation Acting for Advocacy, an outgrowth of A4A funded by the U.S. Administration on Developmental Disabilities (ADD), targets high school students who are making that important transition from school to work. Through workshops conducted in the schools, students learn those all-important social skills that will help them get a job and then keep it.

Shifting the Power is another program that has developed from A4A and has been funded through ADD. The whole point of Shifting the Power is passing on self-advocacy skills to others in nearby states. The North Carolina training team works with local participants who have developmental disabilities in weeklong training sessions to develop self-advocacy skills. By the end of the residency the North Carolina team has helped the newly trained advocates create a concrete, visual action plan to follow in order to incorporate more self-advocacy into their organization and begin addressing local, regional, and state disability issues.

The A4A advocacy training team consists of 4 trainers, half who have developmental disabilities themselves. They present their information primarily through dramatic enactments. First, they show planned improvised scenes (the lines are not memorized, but the actors have practiced the scenario and know where they are headed with the situation). Then Deborah, as the facilitator, will freeze the scene and engage the audience in a discussion about what happened. Sometimes the actors replay the scene based on audience suggestions. Sometimes audience members are invited up on stage to try out a new solution or re-enact one that they’ve just seen demonstrated.

Deborah says, “This kind of approach is different from trainings in which someone stands up and lectures about skills and then has the students passively listen or imitate.They can try out the skills themselves. Also, watching the enactments is like listening to a story. The information is put into context as well as action. The information is modeled by peers with developmental disabilities which makes it more real and more realistic.” (D.J. Zuver, personal communication, January 5, 2005).

In addition to using her trainers who have disabilities as actors, Deborah involves them in leading the group discussions. She has them present the power point slides which provide visual illustrations to concepts in the training. They also are able to share their personal successes, if they choose. One of the trainers is very proud of the fact that she is the first self-advocate she knows who has bought her own condo and drives her own car! This makes the trainers very viable role models and adds power and validity to the message they bring.

Deborah stresses the importance of including an emotional component in this kind of advocacy training. She says that it is often left out of many social skills and self advocacy trainings. “It’s almost like professionals think members of the DD population can’t handle their emotions, but many can. They just need practice and the opportunity and the support!” She goes on to say, “Brain research shows that emotion and memory are linked. And drama allows emotions to be expressed in a clear, contained manner.” When participants are allowed to explore their ideas and feelings in a safe environment, “They can have insights and come to new understandings.” In fact, Deborah says her favorite moments in workshops are when she “sees the ‘light bulbs’ going off over peoples’ heads when they are understanding a concept for the first time or realizing that they are capable of something that they didn’t think they could do before.” (D.J. Zuver, personal communication, January 5, 2005).

Each of these examples of drama cited above acknowledge Paolo Freire’s pedagogical philosophy of starting with the student, as well as the theatrical spirit, if not the specific methods of Augusto Boal who believed in incorporating the audience as “spectactors” into the exploration of ideas theatrically. As an oppressed minority, people with developmental disabilities lack confidence in themselves. They have been “domesticated” into being passive, dehumanized, and marginalized by the “non-disabled” members of the culture. Instead of lecturing at them and keeping them in the one-down position, through drama we can join them and dialogue with them, raising their awareness and self-esteem, providing them with the skills to break their chains of oppression, so they can see themselves as “normal,” equal, respected citizens in our community, and, as a result, take on those roles. This, then, becomes a real win-win situation. When they begin to have power over their lives, they can contribute to the diversity and strength of the community at large. The community can only be enriched when more of its members are active participants rather than passive “burdens.”

List of Privacy Rights Generated By STAND Together Members, 1998

I have a right to:

  • Choose my own activities.
  • Choose my own job.
  • Choose my own friends.
  • Make my own decisions about purchases.
  • Make my own decisions about life choices and personal style, such as hair cut, clothes and jewelry to wear.
  • Take appropriate medication that helps me function well, but doesn’t over-medicate me.
  • Ask for help and accommodations if I need them.
  • Be accepted for who I am/for myself.
  • Have my parents “let go” and allow me to grow up and become independent.
  • Speak for myself and not have other people speak for me.
  • Be talked to at my level so I can understand and to be able to ask questions without being treated impatiently or as if I’m “stupid.”
  • Be talked to as an adult, and not condescended to or talked to like I’m a baby.
  • Have people talk directly to me and not to a family member or staff person who is with me as if I wasn’t there!
  • Have my confidential information stay confidential.
  • Be disciplined by staff in private, not in front of everyone else.
  • Have privacy on the phone.
  • Not have my mail opened by staff or anyone else.
  • Have my personal space and personal living quarters respected.
  • No one should enter my room without knocking and asking permission.
  • No one should come into my room while I’m not there and rearrange things or change things without asking.
  • Have a private sex life.

Bibliography

Adler, E. (2005, February 13). Families embrace their special needs. Kansas City Star, pp. A1, A 8-9.

Anderson, L.L., Lakin, K.C., Mangan, T.W., & Prouty, R.W. (1998). State institutions: Thirty years of depopulation and closure. Mental Retardation, 36 (6), 431-443.

Bailey, S. (1993). Wings to fly: Bringing theatre arts to students with special needs. Rockville: Woodbine House.

Bailey, S. (1997). Drama: A powerful tool for social skill development. Disability Solutions, 2 (4), 1, 3-5.

Bailey, S. (1998). STAND together self-advocacy training project. Manual written for Montgomery County (Maryland) ARC and unpublished interviews with participants.

Bailey, S. (2004). Behaviour change through drama therapy. Social Spectrum, 3, 14-17.

Bailey, S. (1999-2011). [Results from disability surveys completed by students enrolled in Drama Therapy with Special Populations at Kansas State University in twelve semesters from fall 1999 to spring 2011]. Unpublished raw data.

Bailey, S. (2010). Barrier-free theatre: Including everyone in theatre arts — in schools, recreation, and arts programs — regardless of (dis)ability. Eumenclaw, WA: Idyll Arbor.

Bell, M. & Stoneman, Z. (2000). Reactions to prenatal testing: Reflection on religiosity and attitudes toward abortion and people with disabilities. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 105 (1), 1-13.

Boal, A. (1985). Theatre of the oppressed. NY: Theatre Communications Group.

Castles, E.E. & Glass, C. R. (1986). Training in social and interpersonal problem-solving skills for mildly and moderately mentally retarded adults. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 91 (1), 35-42.

Chadsey-Rusch, J., Linneman, D., & Rylance B.J. (1997). Beliefs about social integration from the perspectives of persons with mental retardation, job coaches, and employers. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 102 (1), 1-12.

Cozolino L. (2002). The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy: Building and Rebuilding the Human Brain. New York: W.W. Norton.

Freire, P. (2002). The pedagogy of the oppressed. (30th anniversary ed.). NY: The Continuum International Publishing Group, Inc.

Goffman, E. (1986). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Hall, E.T. (1976). Beyond culture. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press.

Hardaway, B. (1991). Imposed inequality and miscommunication between physically impaired and physically nonimpaired interactants in American society. The Howard Journal of Communications, 3 (1 & 2), 139-148.

Herman, D. (2003). Stories as a tool for thinking. In D. Herman (Ed.), Narrative Theory and the Cognitive Sciences (pp. 163-192). Stanford, CA: Center for the Study of Language and Information.

Jensen, E. (1998). Teaching with the Brain in Mind. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Larson, S.A., Hewitt, A.S., & Lakin, K.C. (2004). Multiperspective analysis of workforce challenges and their effects on consumer and family quality of life. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 109 (6), 481-500.

Mackelprang, R. & Salsgiver R. (1999). Disability: A diversity model approach in human service practice. Pacific Grove, CA: Brookes-Cole Publishing.

Morton, K. A. (1983). Parents, practices, and attitudes: The distance traveled. In R. L. Jones (Ed.), Reflections on Growing Up Disabled. (pp.79-89). Reston, VA: The Council for Exceptional Children.

Olkin, R. (1999). What psychotherapists should know about disability. NY: Guilford Press.

Park, H. & Gaylord-Ross, R. (1989). A problem-solving approach to social skills training in employment settings with mentally retarded youth. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 22, 373-380.

Pelka, F. (1994). “Sick? It’s your own damn fault!” Exposing health chauvinism. On The Issues, Spring, 34-37.

Stearns, M. (2004, October 22). Prenatal tests stir host of ethical issues. Kansas City Star. A1, A6.

Sternberg, P. & Garcia, A. (1994). Sociodrama: Who’s in your shoes? Westport, CT: Praeger.

Trattner, W. (1989). From poor law to welfare state: A history of social welfare in America. (4th ed.). New York: Free Press.

U.S. Census Bureau. Disability Status: 2000. Census 2000 Brief.
(Last revised, December 10, 2004). Retrieved February 21, 2005, from 
http://census.gov/hhes/www/disability/disabstat_2k/disabstat2ktext.html

Webster’s third new international dictionary of the English language unabridged. (1993). Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster Inc., Publishers.

Westbrook, M.T., Legge, V. & Pennay, M. (1993). Attitudes towards disabilities in a multicultural society. Journal of Social Science and Medicine. 3 (5), 615-623.

Zuver, D.J. (2004). Acting for advocacy. In A. Blatner & D. Wiener (Eds.), Who else can I be? Unpublished manuscript.

Social & Recreational Settings

Campers and Drama Therapy students play with a parachute at Super Summer Camp, Kansas State University.
Campers and Drama Therapy students play with a parachute at Super Summer Camp, Kansas State University.

One of my first drama therapy jobs was to create an arts access program for children with special needs at a non-profit community arts center in suburban Maryland. I integrated students with disabilities into regular drama classes and productions by helping teachers identify ways to make adaptations and accommodations that leveled the playing field. I created programming in special education classrooms for teaching social skills, self-expression, or an aspect of the curriculum. Theatre companies comprised of adolescent actors with and without disabilities created original plays dramatizing their own ideas. Some of this work could be categorized as educational drama, some as therapeutic drama, some as drama therapy, some mixed them all together.

The performing troupes were originally designed to be venues for disabled actors to explore issues of difference and to provide awareness education to non-disabled audiences. However, my actors had different ideas. They told me right off that they were sick of thinking about their disabilities because they had to deal with them “24-7.” They wanted to explore issues that were universal to adolescents like rebellion, responsibility, growing up, falling in love, being rejected, friendship and family. We created many plays together through improvisation. Each play became a metaphor for exploring their struggles, allowing them to fictionally explore and express their concerns, hopes, and dreams. Each rehearsal process became a laboratory for the development of better social skills, flexibility, responsibility, self-discipline, communication abilities, and the development of higher self-esteem.

Making Connections, a play about a video dating service, provided opportunities to explore appropriate dating behavior, first impressions, and unfair assumptions. During our improvisations, we explored all the WRONG ways to behave on a date and all the right ways. We practiced what information is appropriate to reveal to someone you just met and what is inappropriate. We role-played anxious, overprotective parents waiting for their daughter to come home from a date and laid-back, gentle ones. In the play that resulted, one couple arranges to go on a date based on viewing each other’s video interviews, but the girl doesn’t reveal that she uses a wheelchair until they meet outside the restaurant. She wants to be chosen for her personality, not rejected on the basis of her disability. Her date has to get past his expectations of what he thought she would be like. Another girl chooses a guy who, unbeknownst to her, turns out to be a foot shorter than she is. At first, she is horrified, but later learns that he’s a wonderful person, no matter what his height.

Making Connections was later turned into an educational video for the purpose of modeling social and dating behavior to young people with disabilities and their parents. It won Honorable Mention in several video/film competitions, was shown on WETA, the PBS station in Washington, DC, and for many years was marketed by Choices, Inc., a non-profit that sponsors educational videos for people with developmental disabilities. In the course of this adventure, the actors got to “film on location” and learned about acting “in the movies.” They had a chance to share their ideas and what they learned during our rehearsal process with a much larger audience. Self-esteem sky-rocketed when people who saw them on TV came up to tell them how wonderful their “movie” was and to ask for their autographs!

Parents report that the dramatic experiences their young people had in our performing companies helped them develop a greater level of independence, responsibility, and self-discipline than their peers who didn’t participate in drama. Most of my former actors are now middle-aged adults holding down full-time jobs and living independently in apartments. One job coach at a school-to-work transition program confided he could always tell which of his clients had been actors of mine: they had more self-confidence, better communication skills, and the self-discipline necessary for succeeding in the world of work.

© Copyright Sally D. Bailey, Registered Drama Therapist. All Rights Reserved.