Welcome to the online e-learning tool.

Seen But Seldom Heard Hugo

The Seen but Seldom Heard project has supported young disabled people with a range of different ways of communicating to be heard. The aim is to inspire and challenge young people in schools and colleges to think about disability and discrimination differently.

The activities and information contained within this learning tool will support you to reflect upon and to think creatively about issues concerning young people’s experiences and of disability. The development team include Lauren Taylor, Hugo Lucas-Rowe and Dave Young; the Seen But Seldom Heard Poets 2012-14; Rowena Revill and Nathan Revill at Dorset Creative; and Lee Ann Fenge, Caroline Hodges and Wendy Cutts at Bournemouth University.

Students: click here

If you are a student taking this course on your own or have been instructed to work though it without a teacher, click the icon above or here to start.

Teachers: click here

This course has been designed to be delivered by a teacher or facilitator.
If that’s you, click here.

You might spend some time familiarising yourself with the poetry written and performed by the young people:

Click here to view the poetry book. This link will open a PDF document

Click here to download Adobe Acrobat to read a .pdf document

If you are a student taking this course on your own or have been instructed to work though it without a teacher, click the Students icon above or here to start.

As you do so, consider: What is your favorite poem? Why do you like it? How does it make you feel? What is the ‘story’ being told? Why is the poem effective in telling the story? What is the main thing to be learned from the poem? And, finally, what does the poem tell us about disability?

Glossary / Key Terms

How to use this Glossary / Key Terms
Simply click on a word or phase in the list below, to see a definition appear.

Braille
An alphabet system for blind individuals, consisting of raised dots that can be felt with the fingertip.

British Sign Language
A form of sign language (a system of communication using visual gestures and signs, as used by deaf people) developed in the UK and fundamentally different from American Sign Language.

Impairment
An injury, illness, or congenital condition that causes or is likely to cause a loss or difference of physiological or psychological function.

Makaton
A trademark (/brand) for: a language programme integrating speech, manual signs, and graphic symbols, developed to help people for whom communication is very difficult, especially those with learning disabilities.

Sensory Impairment
‘Sensory impairment’ or ‘sensory loss’ are umbrella terms used to describe loss of the distance senses i.e. sight and hearing.

You will find that the term ‘sensory impairment’ is commonly used by professionals rather than ‘sensory impaired’ individuals themselves who may be more likely to use the terms below.

There are three very distinct groups within sensory impairment:

  • visually impaired people
  • hearing impaired people
  • deaf-blind people

Supercrip
A term used to describe a disabled athlete whose achievements are perceived as ‘heroic’ and ‘courageous’ in ‘overcoming the odds’; thus, reinforcing dominant public perceptions and expectations of disabled people as disadvantaged.

Visual Impairment
Total blindness is the inability to tell light from dark, or the total inability to see. Visual impairment or low vision is a severe reduction in vision that cannot be corrected with standard glasses or contact lenses and reduces a person’s ability to function at certain or all tasks.

Legal blindness (which is actually a severe visual impairment) refers to a best-corrected central vision of 20/200 or worse in the better eye or a visual acuity of better than 20/200 but with a visual field no greater than 20° (e.g., side vision that is so reduced that it appears as if the person is looking through a tunnel).