‘Sometimes people are born with disabilities, but
it’s communities that handicap them’
Skye, Hope, Ellie,
Chris, Lloyd &
Morgan
Pair one ~ Exploring the Topic
• Everyone in a community is different and will
have a disability compared to someone else
and it is only the others in the community that
highlight them because they do not have to
live with them. If you treat people with
disabilities differently they will think of
themselves differently and will grow to
believe they are truly different and their selfconfidence will fade away to nothing.
Pair two ~ Putting together the
body of the essay
• Point one: When he deals with the police,
we see two examples of how the
community handicaps Christopher.
The policeman is probably not aware of
Christopher's disability when he charged him with
assault. Police should be trained to be aware of people
with disabilities as cannot control their actions some of
the time.
Pair two ~ Putting together the
body of the essay
• Point one: When he deals with the police,
we see two examples of how the
community handicaps Christopher.
When Christopher wets his pants, the policeman
does not offer a helping hand, especially realising
that he is a 15 year old teenage boy. This shows
that the community are not conscious about
Christopher’s disability.
Pair two ~ Putting together the
body of the essay
• Point two: Christopher and his father get
into a couple of violent situations.
Christopher fathers is very much aware of
Christopher's condition. The community should
offer support classes for his father to assist him
parenting his son.
Pair two ~ Putting together the
body of the essay
• Point three: Mrs Shears blames
Christopher for things his father did.
Being originally very close to Christopher's father,
Mrs Shears should be considerate of Christopher
and his disability. After an incident with his father,
Mrs Shears believes that the problem is
Christopher and blames most things on him.
Pair three ~ Quotes
• Quote one: Christopher says, “And the man
with the diamond pattern on his socks tried to
grab my shoulder, so I screamed.” (page 224)
This relates to the topic because people, like the
man, don’t consider that others might have a disability
where they don’t like being touched. The man didn’t
know any better, he just thought he was helping
Christopher but he was actually making the situation
worse.
Pair three ~ Quotes
• Quote two: The officer says, “You seem very
upset about this”. Christopher thinks to himself,
“He was asking too many questions and he
was asking them too quickly. They were
stacking up in my head like loaves in the
factory where Uncle Terry works.” (page 8)
This relates to the topic because the officer didn’t think
that Christopher might have a disability. He just wanted to
know the truth but during that time, he wasn’t giving
Christopher enough time to process the information. This
made Christopher stress out and make him not cope very well
with the situation. A person without a disability could have
coped with this better then Christopher did.
Pair three ~ Quotes
• Quote three: Christopher thinks to himself, “But
she smoked cigaettes and she said lots of things
I didn’t understand, eg. ‘I’m going to hit the hay.’
And I didn’t like it when she said things like that
because I didn’t know what she meant.”
This relates to the topic because the Lady doesn’t
realise that to Christopher she is speaking a completely
different language. Christopher doesn’t understand
things like similes or metaphors. Her saying “I’m going to
hit the hay”, is confusing for him because she isn’t
literally hitting the hay, she is going to bed.
Pair three ~ Quotes
• Quote four: “I like dogs. You always know what
a dog is thinking. It has four moods. Happy, sad,
cross and concentrating. Also, dogs are faithful
and they do not tell lies because they cannot
talk.” (Page 4)
As this quote describes, that, Christopher only
understands that dogs have four moods. Happy, sad,
cross and concentrating. Christopher has Asberger,
which makes it extremely difficult for him to understand
what people’s moods are and what they are thinking.
Pair three ~ Quotes
• Quote five: “I am 15 and 3 months and 2
days.” (Page 7)
Christopher uses language literally and
factually. Christopher is born with Asbergers
which makes it difficult for him to communicate
with others. People with out Asbergers usually
just reply as “I am 15 years old.”
Pair three ~ Quotes
• Quote six: “The first main reason is that
people do a lot of talking without using any
words. Siobhan says that if you raise one
eyebrow it can mean lots of different things. It
can mean ‘I want to do sex with you’ and it can
also mean ‘I think that what you just said was
very stupid.” (Page 19)
Christopher’s communication skills and
understanding peoples communication through body
language, handicaps him in many ways.
Credits
• Pair one:
Lloyd & Morgan
• Pair two:
Skye & Hope
• Pair three:
Ellie & Chris
Thank-you for watching