Disability Simulation Activities: Learning from Experience and Provocation
Author: Félix Díaz
Introduction
Experientialism as a learning strategy. An overview.
In this proposal, I will define and discuss a type of learning activity for Disability Studies, which gives students the opportunity to experiment with embodied aspects of disability. These activities are brief and targeted and give participants insight into how a disabled person navigates social environments in ways that allow the participant to experience disability and reflect on it. I begin with a brief discussion of the experientialist tradition of thought and practice and then propose how experientialism can be relevant and useful for the activities I will propose.
Contemporary ‘experientialism’ in education broadly refers to views and practices that involve (1) getting out of the classroom and (2) learning through engaging in activity; sometimes meshing together these two elements in a diffuse way (see, e.g., Strong, 2015). Experientialism today is generally associated with trends including adventure education, environmental education, outdoor education, practical education, professional education, career education, and cooperative education (Ozar, 2015).
Seaman, Quay and Brown (2017) give an historical account of ‘experientialist learning’ to both make sense of how it came to be what it is today and recover some of what has been lost in the tradition along the way. Although John Dewey is a clear antecedent and is sometimes cited as a founder of the perspective, Seaman et al. observe that he never referred to “experientialism” or “experientialist learning / education”. He did, though, develop a philosophy of education strongly supported by the notion of experience.
The notion of ‘experience’ in John Dewey’s philosophy of education is shaped as a reaction to the very origins of the institutionalization of schooling; Dewey (1899) was worried about the negative effects of peeling children away fromthe “economy,” which he saw as a dynamic social process in which education ought to be deeply embedded. Since at least the nineteenth century, the call to take children out of the classroom went hand-in-hand with historical and institutional processes of getting children into the classroom and keeping them there (schooling), with both indoor and outdoor educational models developing their own pedagogical traditions.
Seaman et al. (2017) trace the origins of experiential learning to the foundational action research developed by Kurt Lewin, Ronald Lippitt and other applied social psychologists, who collaborated with practitioners in trainings involving the self-evaluation and discussion of small group processes (see Lippit, 1949). Seaman et al. identify three key contributions of this early work, all pertinent to my current proposal: (1) the discussion of sociological theory and research while analyzing participants’ own interactional processes; (2) the incorporation of contributions from participants to the design of trainings; and (3) the allocation of specific time in the training schedule to discuss each day’s events. These formal components ground learning in the systematic analysis of social contexts through participation in real, relevant situations.
In Seaman et al.’s account of the history of experiential learning, the next stage marks the emergence of a psychological theory, as humanistic and psychoanalytic categories were applied to training activities. These activities were transformed into relational trainings focused on individual, personal growth through self-analysis. Beginning in the 1950s, experiential learning began to take shape as a coherent theory centered on progressive self-realization. It gradually shifted away from its roots in applied projects designed to support specific communities in managing social problems, as well as from the original focus on concrete learning or group objectives grounded in real situations. Instead, it began to orient itself toward the perennial and elusive goals of self-realization, self-actualization, and personal growth. As Seaman et al. explain, “the humanistic ideology” (…) “gave methodological primacy to the individual, which helped convert experiential learning from a practice to a theory by reifying it as a naturally occurring, psychological process” (Seaman et al., 2017).
At the point where the history of experiential learning shifts from the analysis of social problems to a psychological theory of personal growth, it loses relevance for my present proposal, which centers disability as a social problematic. However, I aim to recover certain practical elements from this theoretical tradition. One key notion is Ozar’s (2015) operational definition of ‘experientialism’, which frames learning designs as including a moment or phase of ‘reflection’ connected to a real-life practical activity. This definition emphasizes the immediate phenomenological meaning of ‘experience’: the individual, within their flow of consciousness, engages in some sort of interpretation, reflection, or elaboration of the practice they engage in.
This notion coheres with David Kolb’s model, which defines experiential learning as “the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” (Kolb, 1984: 30). Kolb proposes that a learning process occurs in a four-step cycle:
Contemporary ‘experientialism’ in education broadly refers to views and practices that involve (1) getting out of the classroom and (2) learning through engaging in activity; sometimes meshing together these two elements in a diffuse way (see, e.g., Strong, 2015). Experientialism today is generally associated with trends including adventure education, environmental education, outdoor education, practical education, professional education, career education, and cooperative education (Ozar, 2015).
Seaman, Quay and Brown (2017) give an historical account of ‘experientialist learning’ to both make sense of how it came to be what it is today and recover some of what has been lost in the tradition along the way. Although John Dewey is a clear antecedent and is sometimes cited as a founder of the perspective, Seaman et al. observe that he never referred to “experientialism” or “experientialist learning / education”. He did, though, develop a philosophy of education strongly supported by the notion of experience.
The notion of ‘experience’ in John Dewey’s philosophy of education is shaped as a reaction to the very origins of the institutionalization of schooling; Dewey (1899) was worried about the negative effects of peeling children away fromthe “economy,” which he saw as a dynamic social process in which education ought to be deeply embedded. Since at least the nineteenth century, the call to take children out of the classroom went hand-in-hand with historical and institutional processes of getting children into the classroom and keeping them there (schooling), with both indoor and outdoor educational models developing their own pedagogical traditions.
Seaman et al. (2017) trace the origins of experiential learning to the foundational action research developed by Kurt Lewin, Ronald Lippitt and other applied social psychologists, who collaborated with practitioners in trainings involving the self-evaluation and discussion of small group processes (see Lippit, 1949). Seaman et al. identify three key contributions of this early work, all pertinent to my current proposal: (1) the discussion of sociological theory and research while analyzing participants’ own interactional processes; (2) the incorporation of contributions from participants to the design of trainings; and (3) the allocation of specific time in the training schedule to discuss each day’s events. These formal components ground learning in the systematic analysis of social contexts through participation in real, relevant situations.
In Seaman et al.’s account of the history of experiential learning, the next stage marks the emergence of a psychological theory, as humanistic and psychoanalytic categories were applied to training activities. These activities were transformed into relational trainings focused on individual, personal growth through self-analysis. Beginning in the 1950s, experiential learning began to take shape as a coherent theory centered on progressive self-realization. It gradually shifted away from its roots in applied projects designed to support specific communities in managing social problems, as well as from the original focus on concrete learning or group objectives grounded in real situations. Instead, it began to orient itself toward the perennial and elusive goals of self-realization, self-actualization, and personal growth. As Seaman et al. explain, “the humanistic ideology” (…) “gave methodological primacy to the individual, which helped convert experiential learning from a practice to a theory by reifying it as a naturally occurring, psychological process” (Seaman et al., 2017).
At the point where the history of experiential learning shifts from the analysis of social problems to a psychological theory of personal growth, it loses relevance for my present proposal, which centers disability as a social problematic. However, I aim to recover certain practical elements from this theoretical tradition. One key notion is Ozar’s (2015) operational definition of ‘experientialism’, which frames learning designs as including a moment or phase of ‘reflection’ connected to a real-life practical activity. This definition emphasizes the immediate phenomenological meaning of ‘experience’: the individual, within their flow of consciousness, engages in some sort of interpretation, reflection, or elaboration of the practice they engage in.
This notion coheres with David Kolb’s model, which defines experiential learning as “the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” (Kolb, 1984: 30). Kolb proposes that a learning process occurs in a four-step cycle:
- Concrete experience leads to
- reflective observation, which leads to
- abstract conceptualization, which leads to
- active experimentation in new situations, which then leads the learner to another concrete experience (looping back to 1 in the next iteration).
Disability Simulation Activities: Some experiences
In this contribution I discuss what has been called “disability simulation activities”. They consist of learning activities designed to make non-disabled learners experience certain aspects of having a disability (Nario-Redmond et al., 2017; McKenney, 2018). For example, if I sit in a wheelchair and use it for several hours, I may begin behaving in ways similar to those of a wheelchair user and gain a partial understanding of their experience.
The learning activity may consist of performing the task, but it can be enriched by incorporating opportunities for reflection, reporting and feedback. For instance, other students or teaching staff may act as observers, taking field notes during the simulation. After the task, students could write or discuss their reflections. Based on these observations and reflections, students might then develop intervention proposals, either in small groups or as a whole class.
Disability simulation activities present a fundamental problem: they involve simulating the experience of someone you are not and encountering realities you do not habitually experience. The experience is alien to your embodied design as a living human being. It is not like playing with a flight simulator (where the player may one day become a pilot and drive an airplane); it is not a role-playing exercise for a professional capacity for which you are being trained, as practiced in the teaching of technical professions, because the player is not in the process of becoming disabled. The lesson learned is not a practical lesson for someone who has to live with a disability. Rather, it offers insight into how other people experience and manage things. Consequently, disability simulations can never fully capture the lived reality of impairment and the systemic challenges of ableism.
This problem is linked to the somewhat ‘amusing’ nature of these activities. Laughter and its related phenomenology tend to arise from encountering something new and unusual. For a wheelchair user, moving down the street is neither new nor interesting; it is simply part of daily life. If a person without impairments finds this experience amusing, it is probably because they are engaging in something different. A playful or fun-seeking attitude toward the activity may interfere with critical reflection and should be avoided or, better yet, consciously overcome. Critical reflection requires moving beyond the initial response of laughter, to bridge the gap between normative and disabled experiences, connecting the student’s everyday perspectives with the lived realities of persons with impairments.
Cone and Cone (2016) discuss aspects of the contrast between the ‘normal student’ and the ‘disabled person’ in disability simulations: they suggest that, in these activities, students are “trying on” a disability, beginning from their standard identity position as ‘common individuals . In a culture dominated by deficit-based notions of disability, the student may focus particularly on what people with disabilities cannot do rather than what they can do. This focus can lead to negative reflection and reporting rather than a focus on the functional, practical and social aspects of the disabled experience. Such a deficit-oriented bias may also cause students to feel frustration or embarrassment regarding the problematic.
Such interpretations highlight the experiential gap between normativity and disability in contemporary society and can serve as an entry point for meaningful discussion. Of course, the social model perspective of disability that underpins this proposal is incompatible with a deficit approach. A simulation activity can offer an opportunity to contrast a functional perspective with a deficit model. To achieve this, two key factors are necessary (1) adequate theoretical grounding before the activity, and (2) adequate guidelines to support and frame the activity.
Disability simulation activities have been promoted for their capacity to:
The most common disability simulations involve moving around in a wheelchair; followed by navigating blindfolded. These two designs correspond to conventional notions of disability, related, respectively, to mobility/posture and perception, with the wheelchair often serving as the standard symbol of physical disability. Simulations focused on mobility and blindness tend to prompt analyses of the physical design of environments, often accompanied by reflections on the reactions of others.
In this proposal, I introduce a distinctive variation on the classical physical/perceptual disability simulation, where students can reflect about aspects of communicative and cognitive impairments. Unlike traditional disability simulations that rely on garments or artifacts (such as blindfolds or wheelchairs), these simulations require students to consciously alter their thinking or behavior to reflect specific impairments. For example, students might be instructed to delay each move or action by a few seconds, experiencing activities with slowness and delay; or to remain silent throughout social interactions.
In section 3 of this proposal I outline a design for implementing the standard ‘wheelchair’- disability simulation. In section 4 I explore one of the possible distinctive variations: A disability simulation where the student is required to delay their actions and movements.
The learning activity may consist of performing the task, but it can be enriched by incorporating opportunities for reflection, reporting and feedback. For instance, other students or teaching staff may act as observers, taking field notes during the simulation. After the task, students could write or discuss their reflections. Based on these observations and reflections, students might then develop intervention proposals, either in small groups or as a whole class.
Disability simulation activities present a fundamental problem: they involve simulating the experience of someone you are not and encountering realities you do not habitually experience. The experience is alien to your embodied design as a living human being. It is not like playing with a flight simulator (where the player may one day become a pilot and drive an airplane); it is not a role-playing exercise for a professional capacity for which you are being trained, as practiced in the teaching of technical professions, because the player is not in the process of becoming disabled. The lesson learned is not a practical lesson for someone who has to live with a disability. Rather, it offers insight into how other people experience and manage things. Consequently, disability simulations can never fully capture the lived reality of impairment and the systemic challenges of ableism.
This problem is linked to the somewhat ‘amusing’ nature of these activities. Laughter and its related phenomenology tend to arise from encountering something new and unusual. For a wheelchair user, moving down the street is neither new nor interesting; it is simply part of daily life. If a person without impairments finds this experience amusing, it is probably because they are engaging in something different. A playful or fun-seeking attitude toward the activity may interfere with critical reflection and should be avoided or, better yet, consciously overcome. Critical reflection requires moving beyond the initial response of laughter, to bridge the gap between normative and disabled experiences, connecting the student’s everyday perspectives with the lived realities of persons with impairments.
Cone and Cone (2016) discuss aspects of the contrast between the ‘normal student’ and the ‘disabled person’ in disability simulations: they suggest that, in these activities, students are “trying on” a disability, beginning from their standard identity position as ‘common individuals . In a culture dominated by deficit-based notions of disability, the student may focus particularly on what people with disabilities cannot do rather than what they can do. This focus can lead to negative reflection and reporting rather than a focus on the functional, practical and social aspects of the disabled experience. Such a deficit-oriented bias may also cause students to feel frustration or embarrassment regarding the problematic.
Such interpretations highlight the experiential gap between normativity and disability in contemporary society and can serve as an entry point for meaningful discussion. Of course, the social model perspective of disability that underpins this proposal is incompatible with a deficit approach. A simulation activity can offer an opportunity to contrast a functional perspective with a deficit model. To achieve this, two key factors are necessary (1) adequate theoretical grounding before the activity, and (2) adequate guidelines to support and frame the activity.
Disability simulation activities have been promoted for their capacity to:
- offer students opportunities to understand and describe the environmental barriers encountered by people with disabilities and to think about how the environment can be altered to overcome barriers;
- experience the attitudes and behaviours addressed at them by others during the activity, thus understanding stigmatization from the position of the stigmatized person;
- modify the students’ attitudes towards disability and disabled people;
- increase feelings of empathy toward people with disabilities.
The most common disability simulations involve moving around in a wheelchair; followed by navigating blindfolded. These two designs correspond to conventional notions of disability, related, respectively, to mobility/posture and perception, with the wheelchair often serving as the standard symbol of physical disability. Simulations focused on mobility and blindness tend to prompt analyses of the physical design of environments, often accompanied by reflections on the reactions of others.
In this proposal, I introduce a distinctive variation on the classical physical/perceptual disability simulation, where students can reflect about aspects of communicative and cognitive impairments. Unlike traditional disability simulations that rely on garments or artifacts (such as blindfolds or wheelchairs), these simulations require students to consciously alter their thinking or behavior to reflect specific impairments. For example, students might be instructed to delay each move or action by a few seconds, experiencing activities with slowness and delay; or to remain silent throughout social interactions.
In section 3 of this proposal I outline a design for implementing the standard ‘wheelchair’- disability simulation. In section 4 I explore one of the possible distinctive variations: A disability simulation where the student is required to delay their actions and movements.
Using a Wheelchair to Move Through Public Space
The Activity
In the classical wheelchair disability simulation, students navigate public spaces using wheelchairs. Students may sometimes be instructed to operate the chair independently. The first time I encountered this activity, a professor had managed to borrow twenty wheelchairs from a hospital for a specific day and time. As a result, twenty occupational therapy students moved through a medium-sized city, transforming the exercise into a public act of advocacy for wheelchair accessibility, echoing some of the direct actions of the early social disability movement. Such a design holds the political potential of allowing for discussion on the visibility and social status of disability. By temporarily testing the capacity of a city to accommodate multiple wheelchair users simultaneously, the activity drew attention to issues of inclusivity. Of course, the logistics of such an undertaking can be challenging.
In the design I use, students work in pairs and take turns using the wheelchair. While one student sits in the wheelchair, the other pushes and provides support in case of emergencies. Guidelines (see Section b below) help students plan and structure the simulation, directing their attention to key elements for reflection: functional contingencies, emotional responses during the task, experiences of disability-related barriers, and the reactions of others.
Instructions for the ‘Wheelchair User’ activity
In the classical wheelchair disability simulation, students navigate public spaces using wheelchairs. Students may sometimes be instructed to operate the chair independently. The first time I encountered this activity, a professor had managed to borrow twenty wheelchairs from a hospital for a specific day and time. As a result, twenty occupational therapy students moved through a medium-sized city, transforming the exercise into a public act of advocacy for wheelchair accessibility, echoing some of the direct actions of the early social disability movement. Such a design holds the political potential of allowing for discussion on the visibility and social status of disability. By temporarily testing the capacity of a city to accommodate multiple wheelchair users simultaneously, the activity drew attention to issues of inclusivity. Of course, the logistics of such an undertaking can be challenging.
In the design I use, students work in pairs and take turns using the wheelchair. While one student sits in the wheelchair, the other pushes and provides support in case of emergencies. Guidelines (see Section b below) help students plan and structure the simulation, directing their attention to key elements for reflection: functional contingencies, emotional responses during the task, experiences of disability-related barriers, and the reactions of others.
Instructions for the ‘Wheelchair User’ activity
- For this activity you should arrange to borrow a manual wheelchair from your local health center or hospital. Get together in pairs and reserve a 90 min slot between 9 am and 5 pm to borrow a wheelchair from the Health Center.
- Fill in your name and reserve a slot to borrow the wheelchair by the specified deadline. On the convened date and time, get the wheelchair from the Health Center, identifying yourselves with your student card. Take turns pushing the wheelchair or sitting on it. Each will use their turn on the wheelchair to go somewhere on campus or in the city to do an errand which involves interaction with a third party (e.g., buying something, or having a coffee outside). Students pushing the chair will be available in case emergency help is needed.
- While in the wheelchair, do not use your lower limbs with any level of force. If a friend or acquaintance sees you and asks you about it, leave explanations for later so that you can continue with the activity.
- Shortly after giving the wheelchair back to the Health Center, each student will write a short report of this activity (about 250 words, not more than 500 words) in the form of a short journalistic note with purposes of raising awareness and advocating for disability rights. Each report should include specific reference to:
- What you did, where you went and what happened.
- The experience of lower-limb immobility and relying on a wheelchair for moving around.
- Environmental barriers and reactions by other persons.
Late or Never: Provoking and Experiencing Delay
Simulating disabled time
Speed — and more broadly, the temporal organization of individual and collective activity — is fundamental to how disability is experienced and socially constructed. Historically, systems of classification and hierarchies of competence have been shaped by the assumption that efficiency and quality consist of achieving the greatest output in the least amount of time – a Fordist notion that gives priority to the quantity over the quality of time. This logic, in which less time equates to higher value, underlies intelligence testing, educational examination, and the normative structuration of everyday functional activity.
In my disability courses, I draw attention to the ways in which disability is often marked by extended time requirements for completing tasks – or even by the experiential texture of everyday time. People who stutter take longer to speak, the intellectually disabled take longer to process and respond (indeed, “slow” is frequently used as a euphemism); older adults typically need more time to carry out routine actions. In this sense, the normativity through which disability is identified and marked is, to a significant extent, temporal normativity.
Although the centrality of time clearly warrants analysis and discussion, it is not easy to simulate in a person without impairments the functional constraints that cause people with disabilities take longer to do the same thing. My strategy for this simulation activity has been to simply ask students to quietly pause for a few seconds before every action, intentionally delaying each move.
Admittedly, this strategy is artificial. Students must maintain constant awareness to recreate the cognitive and behavioural conditions that simulate the experience they are meant to analyse. They face a paradox similar to the introspection paradox (classical in the history of psychology), in which the act of observing and reporting on a conscious experience interferes with the experience itself. Yet it is important to remember that disability simulations work by disrupting the immediate environment or the functional structure of an activity. If they succeed in provoking a shift in perception or function, they generate material for analysis. And that, ultimately, is all we need: food for thought.
Instructions for the ‘Late or never’ activity
Speed — and more broadly, the temporal organization of individual and collective activity — is fundamental to how disability is experienced and socially constructed. Historically, systems of classification and hierarchies of competence have been shaped by the assumption that efficiency and quality consist of achieving the greatest output in the least amount of time – a Fordist notion that gives priority to the quantity over the quality of time. This logic, in which less time equates to higher value, underlies intelligence testing, educational examination, and the normative structuration of everyday functional activity.
In my disability courses, I draw attention to the ways in which disability is often marked by extended time requirements for completing tasks – or even by the experiential texture of everyday time. People who stutter take longer to speak, the intellectually disabled take longer to process and respond (indeed, “slow” is frequently used as a euphemism); older adults typically need more time to carry out routine actions. In this sense, the normativity through which disability is identified and marked is, to a significant extent, temporal normativity.
Although the centrality of time clearly warrants analysis and discussion, it is not easy to simulate in a person without impairments the functional constraints that cause people with disabilities take longer to do the same thing. My strategy for this simulation activity has been to simply ask students to quietly pause for a few seconds before every action, intentionally delaying each move.
Admittedly, this strategy is artificial. Students must maintain constant awareness to recreate the cognitive and behavioural conditions that simulate the experience they are meant to analyse. They face a paradox similar to the introspection paradox (classical in the history of psychology), in which the act of observing and reporting on a conscious experience interferes with the experience itself. Yet it is important to remember that disability simulations work by disrupting the immediate environment or the functional structure of an activity. If they succeed in provoking a shift in perception or function, they generate material for analysis. And that, ultimately, is all we need: food for thought.
Instructions for the ‘Late or never’ activity
- This activity is designed as an opportunity to experience (1) the relevance of pressured, hurried time in contemporary environments, (2) the temporal constraints of everyday activities, and (3) the impact of speed on the way you are perceived, especially with respect to 'cognitive competence'. Your task is to spend between 30 minutes and 2 hours of your everyday life performing with a slow reaction speed. For that period of time, you will silently count to 5 (letting pass about 5 seconds) before you perform any response, action or operation, including communicative action.
- Before you start, take a minute to think what activities will be involved in the process, representing habitual tasks within the habitual environment where you do them (e.g., mobility, transactions with other persons, individual tasks...). Make sure this exercise will not cause unnecessary damage to your general activity (e.g., course assignments, or situations where slowness or delay may pose a serious risk to safety or success).
- Consider interrupting the activity and getting back to normal reaction time if for some emergent reason you have to. Also, consider informing other persons that your behaviour and action is delayed to give them an opportunity to adapt their own behaviour to this circumstance if they decide to.
- A few minutes after finishing, write a short report of this activity (about 500 words, not more than 1000 words) in the form of a short journalistic note with purposes of raising awareness and advocating for disability rights. Your report should include:
- A description of what you did and how it felt.
- A discussion of people's reactions to your slower speeds and delays and how they interpreted them.
- A reflection on speed, delay and how normative environments can accommodate slow persons.
References
Cone, T. P., & Cone, S. L. (2016). An alternative perspective on disability simulations. Strategies, 29(5), 56.
Dewey, J. (1899). The school and social progress. In J. J. McDermott (Ed.), The philosophy of John Dewey (pp. 454–467). University of Chicago Press.
Itin, C. M. (1999). Reasserting the philosophy of experiential education as a vehicle for change in the 21st century. Journal of Experiential Education, 22(2), 91–98.
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Prentice Hall.
Lippitt, R. (1949). Training in community relations: A research exploration toward new group skills. Harper & Brothers.
McKenney, A. (2018). Attitude changes following participation in disability simulation activities. Therapeutic Recreation Journal, 52(3), 215–236.
Nario-Redmond, M. R., Gospodinov, D., & Cobb, A. (2017). Crip for a day: The unintended negative consequences of disability simulations. Rehabilitation Psychology, 62(3), 324–335. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rep0000127
Ozar, R. (2015). Sharing a room with Emile: Challenging the role of the educator in experiential learning theory. Philosophical Studies in Education, 46, 90–100.
Seaman, J. O., Quay, J., & Brown, M. (2017). The evolution of experiential learning: Tracing lines of research in the JEE. Journal of Experiential Education, 40(1), 1–20. https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1053825916689268
Strong, R. (2015). Experiential learning. In J. M. Spector (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of educational technology. Sage.
Dewey, J. (1899). The school and social progress. In J. J. McDermott (Ed.), The philosophy of John Dewey (pp. 454–467). University of Chicago Press.
Itin, C. M. (1999). Reasserting the philosophy of experiential education as a vehicle for change in the 21st century. Journal of Experiential Education, 22(2), 91–98.
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Prentice Hall.
Lippitt, R. (1949). Training in community relations: A research exploration toward new group skills. Harper & Brothers.
McKenney, A. (2018). Attitude changes following participation in disability simulation activities. Therapeutic Recreation Journal, 52(3), 215–236.
Nario-Redmond, M. R., Gospodinov, D., & Cobb, A. (2017). Crip for a day: The unintended negative consequences of disability simulations. Rehabilitation Psychology, 62(3), 324–335. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rep0000127
Ozar, R. (2015). Sharing a room with Emile: Challenging the role of the educator in experiential learning theory. Philosophical Studies in Education, 46, 90–100.
Seaman, J. O., Quay, J., & Brown, M. (2017). The evolution of experiential learning: Tracing lines of research in the JEE. Journal of Experiential Education, 40(1), 1–20. https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1053825916689268
Strong, R. (2015). Experiential learning. In J. M. Spector (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of educational technology. Sage.
Author Bio
Félix Díaz (PhD Psychology, 1994) is an Associate Professor of Psychology at New Bulgarian University. He formerly taught for 18 years at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain), where he mostly contributed to their Speech and Language Therapy degree, and partially to the Social Education, Occupational Therapy, and Social Work degrees. For the last five years, he has been working on projects to enhance the quality of life, cognitive functioning, and communication of persons with dementia in Bulgaria. For the last ten years, he has developed projects to compile and analyze corpora of impaired language and communication and to develop comprehensive systems for pragmatic assessment. He has recently published a text in Spanish on qualitative assessment techniques in Speech and Language Therapy (Técnicas de Evaluación Cualitativa en Logopedia, Síntesis, 2020) and a guidebook for dementia caregivers in Bulgarian (По-Близо до Нас, Част от Нашия Свят, 2023).
