Disability simulation problems
To understand why simulations fail, we must first acknowledge what they are not. A simulation is not a lived experience. A person who wears a blindfold for twenty minutes is not experiencing blindness. They are experiencing the removal of a sense they have always relied on, without preparation, tools, community, or cultural context. The discomfort they feel is not insight—it is untrained vulnerability.
This difference matters. Simulations center on loss, while lived disability is about adaptation.
Even worse, many leave the experience resigned. They say things like, “I could never live like that,”.
That starts by shifting the focus away from “understanding how it feels” toward understanding what it takes to thrive. It requires engaging directly with people who live with disability—not as subjects of empathy, but as experts in interface, adaptation, and resilience.
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