By not making your online content accessible, you're excluding 25% of the population in the U.S. alone.
Today's episode of The Captain Coder podcast is incredibly special to me. I have one of my best friends from college on to talk about her journey with the disability community and how she's learned how important it is to make the Internet accessible.
Fair warning - this is a longer episode. But I promise you, if you tune in, you're going to be moved, you may tear up a little, and you're definitely going to learn exactly what you're doing that can be excluding an entire community and why it matters that we don't do that anymore.
By not making your online content accessible, you're excluding 25% of the population in the U.S. alone.
Today's episode of The Captain Coder podcast is incredibly special to me. I have one of my best friends from college on to talk about her journey with the disability community and how she's learned how important it is to make the Internet accessible.
Fair warning - this is a longer episode. But I promise you, if you tune in, you're going to be moved, you may tear up a little, and you're definitely going to learn exactly what you're doing that can be excluding an entire community and why it matters that we don't do that anymore.
Accessibility again, makes things better for everybody. So the more you are aware of what is available, um, and the more conscious you are of it, it can also just improve the way that you are on the internet and the way that you interact with the world. You're listening to the captain coder podcast each week. I take you through actionable strategies that can help you grow your online business. I'm your host, Marisa VanSkiver, AKA captain coder. Thank you so much for joining us today. I have a special guest with me today. Now I have known Shauna since, um, what you were about 18 when you came to school. Yep. Yep. And so our friend, we had a mutual friend in college that introduced us. I think he highly regretted introducing us almost immediately.<Laugh>. The three, like, so it was us, the two of us, our friend, Chantel and Scott, and we more or less tortured Scott for the remainder of our undergraduate careers. I mean, to be honest, it's not like he didn't deserve some, most of it. Uh <laugh>. Yes, no, totally, totally agree. Totally agree. And you know, it's funny cuz we had a very weird talking about incestuous stuff. Like we had a very weird family dynamic where somehow I was called grandma. Yes. And I still have friends when you wish me happy birthday. I have friends going, why is this woman calling you grandma? I don't even. Remember at this point you're like she's wild. <laugh>. Yeah. Even when my mom used to call me, like when I was with Shauna and Chantel, like literally just the three of us in a room and my mom would call without a doubt, like almost every time and she'd be like, oh my gosh, are you at a party? I'm like, no, that's just Shauna and Chantel. Just, just, there's just three of us here. That's just how loud. California girls are insane.<laugh> I mean, in the best way. In the best way possible orange county girls. I mean, I can't even tell you, but today is a special episode for me. Not only because Shauna is a good friend of mine, but because we both have been really diving into the disability community, I feel like over the last few years, me from a accessibility perspective, um, and Shauna has a very interesting story that I just kind of want, can you tell us a little bit about your own disability story and how you, how you got to understand, you know, how your brain works differently than others might work? Yeah, absolutely. You know, it was funny. I was uh <laugh> cuz I've never actually sat down and been like, this is my disability story. So it took me a while to like break it down into bullet points and I was talking to my husband and he was like, this is really long. And I was like, yeah, the journey is long, man. And then <laugh> like, that's one of the big things that you learned about disability is that, you know, most people, this isn't just like a one day they just became disabled and they got their placard and they got all these other things and like magic. I'm sorry, there's a plaque. Right. That's <laugh> and they, and you know, they always got benefits right away. Like all of these things, it's just like, I think there's this mentality that, you know, will disabled people. Like people take care of that. Like there's there's supports, but in reality it's a lot of creativity, a lot of problem solving. So in my case, um, I have, so I'm autistic and I have chronic pain, depression, anxiety, and a severe inflammatory respiratory disease called eosinophilic asthma. That gives me a chronic stuffy nose. Um <laugh> so I always feel like I'm in the middle of a cold, which has made COVID really fun because I was like, guys, I promise my I'm just always like this <laugh>. No. Yeah. Every time like as a, as a regular asthmatic, severe asthma, but not, not as bad as yours and every time you have to go places and they're like, okay, have you been experiencing shortness of breath? It's like, yes, but that's normal. You're all every day, every day, literally. Cuz of my life. <laugh> like. Yeah. And so, you know, I've had these specific diagnoses. I think the longest one that I've had is my, um, anxiety and depression because, so I have been autistic my whole life. <laugh> that's yeah. That's not something you call that's how autism works. You don't just like catch it when you're in your late twenties. Um, but I didn't find out or recognize that I was autistic until years after seeking treatment for my mental health following what I thought was a psychotic break, but actually was something that researchers are now Um, and so the reason why I thought it was a psychotic break was because I was having multiple daily panic attacks every day. I was, um, unable to be in rooms that had like bright lights. I needed to be in a dark room, the worst parts of my burnout. I couldn't even talk. And we're talking like not being able to talk coherently for weeks. Um, it was really scary and my family, they thought I was dying like cuz they had never seen anything like this before. Um, well, and when. You don't have a name to it and you don't know what's going on, like I can imagine that the, the, the worry is what's, I mean what's even happening. Yeah. What just happened to my brain and why am I not a, yeah, it was very, and especially for somebody like me, who at the time, in the time of my first burnout, I was 22, um, newly married, like months into my marriage, my poor husband of <laugh>. So yeah. Months into our marriage and I am a full-time school teacher. I'm teaching special ed at a high school in south central Los Angeles that has a 25% graduation rate. And I just checked it in 12 years. It has not improved. Um, so you can imagine the kind of school setting that I was in. Um, and I was also working on my master's degree in special education. So yeah. Okay. I'm autistic. I don't know I'm autistic, but I'm a special education teacher and I'm also RA my mom is a special education teacher. Like I've been raised around disability my whole life. Um, and so you would think that my family and my myself, especially being trained, I would have a better understanding and recognition of myself. I, I did not. Um, my little brother was diagnosed with autism when he was seven, so it's not like autism, the way it shows up in my family is one of those where they like pick it out when you're a toddler mm-hmm <affirmative> um. Well, and I, I didn't feel like too, like boys tend to get diagnosed more easily than girls do. Yes. Yeah. And a big part of that is because, um, just because of the research that's been done has been for the most part since the time that, uh, autism has really been discovered or claimed, and it's only been in the 19th century or the eight 20th century. Sorry that that happened. 1900. Yeah. Yeah. I get where you're going with that. There's like late 19th century, if that was the case. Um, but a lot of the research has mostly been done on, on boys. And so, um, yeah, it really, it's been a lot harder for autistic women to get, um, identified. And I especially think if you grew up around the same time that we did, which is, you know, the we're born in the late eighties and we come the age in the nineties, the nineties was our childhood. Right. Um, when we look at disability legislation, the one that really like the ADA, the adults, or sorry, the Americans with dis disabilities act, the one that really changed the game when it comes to disability rates in America is only, it was only signed in 1990. So we live wow. Still living. Wow. I guess I didn't still living. Thinking about that. Yeah. So we're still living in, you know, the momentum of what disability rates is almost. Almost the infancy of it too. Really? Yes. Yeah. And so, um, so even in my training, as a special ed teacher, I was never trained specifically to, to look out for the ways that autism, the ways that I was taught to know about autism was like, oh, okay, can't make eye contact really into their special interests. Like you're imagining like that little boy who's obsessed with star wars. Like, and that's when I try to explain to people when I'm like, okay, so you know how I get real passionate about things sometimes, cuz I've always gotten real passionate about things, right? Like that's my deal. Yes. It's like that. Is accurate. If someone who has known you since you were 18. Yes.<Laugh>, I'm a passionate person. Well, one of the reasons for that is because that is my, like most of the areas that I have a deep passions for, those are my special interests. So yeah. If you try to fight with a little boy who is autistic and his special interest is <laugh> is star wars. If you tried to tell him that, you know, J R banks was wonderful in return of the Jedi, he's gonna murder you with his mind. Right. Like you were asking for death. And so <laugh>. Starting to mistake or go, should I go get tested? Well it' so for me, I like trying to explain to people like I really cuz there are times and I feel like I've gotten better as I've gotten older. Thank goodness for maturity. But like when I was younger I feel I'm sure I told you this before. Like if I was flirting with you, I was just being mean to you. I was just obey the hell outta you. Like <laugh> like, this is how we're gonna communicate. Um, because that was the way that I, I can communicate through the things that I'm passionate about, but I really struggle to communicate with those more, um, deeper emotions, emotions. Oh yeah. Yeah. You want me to open up about what now? Oh no. <laugh> yeah. No thank you. No, thank you. That's that's just not my thing <laugh>. Yeah. And so, you know, it wasn't until I was in my late thirties and I was researching things cuz my little brother is autistic. Great. You mean your. Late twenties, dear? Yeah. What did I say? You said late thirties, late thirties. Do not age me, but I do not age me that way in my soul. So <laugh> so my, yeah, my late twenties, my brother has been, so my brother and I are 15 years apart. So when I talk about him, I'm it feels more like I'm talking about like my kind of son. So, um, my brother who's 15 years younger than I am. Um, I was helping my parents research options for him. Like what is the future look, cuz most of the time when we talk about autism, we're talking about children. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, most of the time when you see, um, campaigns about autism it's adults who don't have autism, who are advocating for their children who do have autism. Right, right. Um, and so in my case, I started off on that end being the adult who didn't think I had autism who was advocating for my brother uh<laugh> and then realizing like, oh, I've been advocating for myself this whole time. Um, but it wasn't until I started looking into like what goes on with adults when, with autism that or autistic adults that I recognized like, oh, there is a lot of similarities with what I went through. So the phenomenon that happens is this concept called autistic burnout. And basically it's very similar to, um, burnouts that we talk about in most psychological circles. Um, so you have this extreme, uh, fatigue in mental, emotional and physical exhaustion mm-hmm <affirmative> um, that lasts for a period of, for an extended period of time. Um, in a lot of cases, autistic burnout can last years. Um, I would say that some of mine have lasted years, but the worst parts about it last probably about a month, a month or two. Um, but those kind of things. So basically what happens is you have an autistic person who has lived their entire life trying to not be autistic because we don't know that we're autistic. Right. And. You try to conform to what society says yes is normal. And if you don't have the supports and the accommodations that would come with knowing that you're autistic. So in my case, like knowing that I need to take breaks, knowing that I don't need to be social all the time. Um, all of these aspects of things that I didn't really know to take care of myself about. I mean, I thought I could do anything. I was in the middle of a really scary teaching assignment while doing a master's program while being married while.<Laugh> I was saying you were doing a lot at that time. Cause I remember, I remember you being in, like you were like in a teach for America program. Right. Mm-hmm <affirmative> yeah. You know, and, and newly married. And I know about that same time your parents were looking about moving. And yeah. Yeah. So that was, it's been <laugh> well, and, and, you know, in the case of my second burnout, that was a little bit later on, it was in my mid twenties. And um, that came as a result of my family decided that they all wanted to move to Arizona. And so we all moved to Arizona too, but it also happened in tandem with I'm working at Disneyland as a presenter at interventions and they abruptly closed my attraction. One of the, a big thing for a lot of autistic people is we really struggle with transitions. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, growing up, my parents used to always joke that I hated change because any change like I, I would. So in the case of like, when we moved to our first house from our apartment that I lived in, until I was six, I threw myself on the tile floor and just screamed for like an hour. Um, but that was normal for six year old Shauna, we're not gonna say that that's a meltdown. It was definitely a meltdown and<laugh> and you know, as an adult, um, those things that I thought were panic attacks were actually meltdowns. I was getting sensory overload. And so, um, well I St still do identify with the mental illnesses cuz I definitely have experienced, you know, extreme sadness, suicidality, things like that. Um, I now recognize it more as like I wasn't born with anxiety and depression unlike being autistic, but it is uh, how my, how I was able to, or I guess it's, it's the, um, consolation prize I get and trying to pretend to be normal. Right? Like.<Laugh> I was gonna say, I've heard, I've heard from a lot of other people that typically what happens when you don't know that you're autistic or you don't know that you have, you know, ADHD or some of the other, you know, more neurotypical, um, disabilities that you almost like you, it gets confused for anxiety and depression because up when you're not living what your truth really is. Yeah. And how you really need to live. Yeah. And so in my case, you know, um, so the, the way, and this happens for a lot of autistic women, um, we are kind of taught and women are just kind of taught to do this in general. Actually most minorities I would say, are taught to do this in general is to mask mm-hmm <affirmative> mask our, our immediate emotions, um, to give whatever is more acceptable or, or in a lot of cases, safer, whatever the safer reaction is. Um, and most autistic people pick up this skill on their own. They learn it just because it's a survival mechanism. This is what I do to keep myself safe. Um. Well, and it's not like you even know that you're doing it, do you? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but in my case it's a little bit more complicated because I was raised, so when I was born, my father was playing Petro and taming of the Shrew. Um, in fact I was supposed to be due on like opening night or opening week, but I have always been a respecter of the arts and I was born two weeks late. You're welcome. Yet. I've ever heard that story before. Oh yeah. <laugh> so, um, but when I was born, my dad, I mean, my dad, all of his training is in acting. So he's a professionally trained actor, who's a theater teacher. And um, so I was raised in the theater from the first, from birth to my first six years. Um, and so unlike most statistics that are kind of picking up like mirroring techniques and, and how to, I was literally taught how to be normal or how to pretend to be anything whenever. Um, and so for me, masking was a little bit more complicated because I knew I was doing it. I just knew that like, oh yeah, this is just what we do outside of the house. I'm just I'm. And I think, you know, I would sometimes try to explain it to my friends about how like I'm a or<laugh>, or I would have it explained to me about like, Shauna, you are a very different person at church than you are at home. You are a very different person at school than you are on Friday night in the car when it's just the three of us. Um, <laugh>. You test to all of those things that's accurate. And you know, in a lot of cases, um, I think one of the big struggles of being a late diagnosed autistic is that you are constantly reassessing your life. As you know, like when I think about the first time my, I really experienced anything similar to heartbreak, was it? And you were around for that too. And I got dumped for being too emotionally self-sufficient and too blunt. Um, which, I mean, honestly, is that just too autistic? It's. Like, that was my first autism diagnosis, a guy who wouldn't marry me because of these things.<laugh> but you know, I think about that stuff and now I just have so much more better perspective on, um, on those moments in my life. So, you know, where some people weren't quite sure how to react when I was like, Hey, I'm autistic, this is something I just found out. And you know, I got a mix of like, should I offer condolences? Like, I'm not sure what. I, part of that, like not to go too off the topic here, but we look at autism and some other neurotypical, um, typical, um, as like diseases. Yeah. And so neuro being what it is. Yeah. It's just a neuro you're just neuro Argent. You just, your brain is not wired the same way the majority's brain is, but we look at that as like. It's not broken. Yeah. Right. Right. And, and I think a lot of two, like, and not to go totally off topic, but you know, even the vaccine discussion over the last 20 years, whether or not vaccines cause autism, right. All of these things that it becomes autism is like this thing that we need to fear instead of looking at it in the way that it is, it's just, Hey, my brain works a little different than yours. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just, our world is not set up to help people who are neuro divergent. And that's where I think the problem comes into play. Right. There is an expectation. And so there were a lot of things when I was little that I would use to kind of adapt. And one of the, one of the rules that I came up with as a little autistic girl was that it's not a problem unless you directly tell me it is a problem. <laugh>. And so <laugh> so, um, yeah, my poor youth leaders at church, I like, there's this one woman who is a sweetheart and I adore her, but like, she hadn't, she did not know how to communicate with me whatsoever. And I am, you know, I am a naturally prone to type a personality. I'm an no. Right. Never bossy as hell. So. I've never experienced that with you at all. I have never been bossed around by Shauna before ever. Like for real though, one of my first playmates, when we first moved to my house was a little boy who, um, really loved vacuum cleaners. And I got him convinced that he should clean my room and vacuum it all the time. Like these are, you know, in hindsight I'm like, oh, that<laugh>, but in my, you know, little Shawn is just a problem solver and an awesome delegator. <laugh>. Had you read Tom Sawyer at that point or did you just come up with that all on your.<Laugh>? Right. Well, and that's the fun part too, is like, you can, especially, I think when people understand what, what we mean when we talk about the autism spectrum that we mean it is a spectrum of experiences mm-hmm<affirmative>, um, that it becomes, it's kind of fun then to really look at, oh, look at all of these different people, this diverse set of people who all still have autism. Um, and just like, right. The variety that you can find, even, even, you know, with my brother and myself. Um, but that's also one of the funny bits is like, um, my mom, because she is a special ed teacher, um, there was a time when she was working on her master's degree when I was, mm. Probably like in my tweens and my younger sister, who's six years younger than me. My mom was like, I think she's autistic <laugh> and we, and the day that she did it, my, like, we were just like, mom, stop bringing your work home. This is before my brother is diagnosed for anything. We're just like, mom, shut up. You don't know anything <laugh>. And so imagine the vindication she feels now, right. That I'm diagnosed. She's like, so I didn't call it for Shauna, but <laugh>. You're like, I knew one of my kids. Wrong. Yeah. And the thing is, you know, there is that whole debate about like how autism starts and you see that in a lot of, um, foundations and stuff that aren't really autism led by autistic people. Um, like I said, there seems to be like this imaginary land where like autistic children never grow up. They just stay children and they never become adults. Um, and so when adult autistics want to talk about our life, we often get a lot of pushback of like, well, um. You don't know better. Yeah. You, you just have a different kind of autism than my son has. My son has way worse autism than you when it's not a matter of like worse,<laugh>, it's just different. It's just a different experience. And let's, so let's take that opportunity. I think that's a great place to transition into disability pride month. And yeah. So I actually, um, you know, because you have shared my stuff over, over the last couple years, one of the big kind of things for me is to build accessible websites and online experiences for my customers and for their customers. Like I want, I, and I, I recognize that I am not all the way there, there are things that I could definitely do better, but I want a majority of people to be able to use my website no matter what their abilities are. And so I should talk a lot about accessibility and, you know, making things easier for, for everyone and making sure that you're being inclusive with your online experiences. And then you posted about disability pride month at the beginning of the month. And I was like, how did I not even know this existed? This is a thing. Yeah.<laugh> well, to be honest, it's not an official thing yet. Um, but so disability pride was established in celebration of the passing of the Americans with disabilities act, which occurred in July of 1990. Um, so I was two <laugh>. Yeah. Well, and, and. Almost two, I should say.<Laugh> in, in my, um, I listen to a lot of the re watchable podcast mm-hmm <affirmative> um, and which is all about movies. You would love it. Let's not get sidetracked. Um,<laugh> I was listening to the easy. Very easy to do. Yeah. That's what editing is for <laugh>. That's also true. Um, but they, you know, we talked a lot about, you know, their, their, my rushed internet research and in my rushed internet research, um, for disability pride month, that was kind of the thing that I've seen that it's, it's definitely had waves where it's gone up and down, you know, over the last, I hesitate to say 30 years, but it literally has been 30 years. Isn't that wild though. It really hasn't been that long. And we, when we think about civil rights, we do think about it as like, oh, this started way, way back then. Well, actually <laugh>, you know, we weren't removing, we weren't closing facilities that were basically torturing disabled people until the sixties and the seventies. So, you know, our disabled people being treated as equal human beings and not just charity cases that, you know, we throw money at, or we hope churches take care of, um, has been relatively new. Right. And so a big part of, um, my journey of, of discovering that I'm disabled and, and taking pride in that is the recognition of how many things I take for granted, because I was born at a time when disability rights was just really taking off that there are so many things that I don't even recognize. Like I remember when they put the ramps in the curb, in my neighborhood. I remember when the, when the city came and did that. Um, and how many kids grow up today? Never knowing that, like we had to carve out ramps into these, like, they didn't always exist. Right. Or elevators had to be put into certain buildings or excuse me, or even, you know, different accommodations being And I feel like we definitely started with the quote unquote easy stuff, the stuff that seemed, you know, like, oh yeah, that makes sense. And we're getting to that point now where we're starting to recognize, okay, there's more, there's different levels of disabilities. Right. It's not just, just people who use wheelchairs and it's not just people who are blind, you know, there's, there's different levels. That's one of the things that made me so excited when you started talking about accessibility on websites because, um, as a special education teacher, right. My job was to make content and academics accessible for my students. So that's another one of those, like, um, what's a nice way to say that a mind F there we go. <laugh> I was like, I gotta edit this. I was like, but that's like one of the mind Fs of being late, diagnosed autistic while also being a formally trained, special UCA, special educator is, you know, all of the things that I did for my students, I'm now realizing I, I can do for myself. I also, right. Like, and I, you call in category. Yeah, yeah. I was like, oh, so all the pep marks I was giving my other artistic students about like, Hey, it's cool. Like we're gonna do this. You're awesome. Like I should be giving myself those<laugh> cause I definitely need them. Uh <laugh> but you know, one of the, one of the most important things about, um, my experience with disability was my experience on the internet and being able to find information about autism, finding a community of autistic women, who I could actually relate to and see myself with. I remember the first time that I watched a YouTube video with a girl who reminded me of myself and I went like, and I'm gonna cry when I talk about it now, because it was just such a like, oh my gosh, like, this is like, I'm not alone, alone. A big yeah. And a big part of the struggle was, you know, I'm taking, I have taken every medication under the sun when it comes to mental health and it didn't fix my issues. And that's because my issues were related to my sensory issues. They, I have, uh, a lot of things that, you know, the SSRIs just aren't gonna help me with<laugh> right. Um, that they can help, you know, calm me some of the things that I'm always gonna have sensory sensitivities, I'm always going to have extra things that I, that I need to make sure that I feel comfortable in a space and that I don't need to beat myself up for that anymore. Um, just the recognition of like, this is just part of my normal and that's okay. Um, that's not to say that there isn't a lot of, um, mourning and stuff that does come mm-hmm <affirmative>, you know, and I think it's different for everybody at different stages of disability and where they're at in their life, but there definitely is a morning of like what you thought your life was gonna be, or like who you thought you were. Um, one of the aftermath parts about autistic burnout is that, uh, you lose a lot of skills, skill regression is one of like the number one indicators of like, oh, this is a spicy burnout <laugh>. And so, you know, there are some skills that I had when I was younger. When you knew me in college that, you know, I have having to make peace with the, I, I may never be able to that again, like going out all the time, how did I leave my house so much? I was never home.<laugh>. Um, to be fair, you were home when we threw parties at your house. Yes. Upstairs in my apartment. Who even is this person <laugh> like this person who rarely leaves the house now. And like, I used to throw what <laugh>. I know. Well, I mean, I honestly, and I think when we talked about this before we started, you know, recording, like COVID has made that a lot easier too, where there's a lot more concessions, but then also like, even for myself who just, you know, just reg regular anxiety and depression, at least so far, um, and asthma. So I use it as an excuse to stay home more and it's like, oh, well, it's kind of nice at home. Um, do I really, I wanna. Leave, leave. Yeah. <laugh> exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So, you know, disability, according to the census, it affects one. Or let me look, I pulled up statistics. So according to the CDC, one in four Americans has at least one disability. Um, we are the largest and most diverse minority group in the world. And when I say that, I mean, we represent all ages, genders, ethnicities, religion, socioeconomic fact backgrounds, uh, sexual orientation, like when it comes to disability, you are already, you are either already disabled or you will live long enough to become disabled. Like that's just the fact of life. This is what happens to our bodies and, and disability. Pride is that celebration of this is a natural part of the human experience. It's not something to fear or to look down on, or this is just, we are another part of the human experience. We're another aspect of being human. Right. And I, and I love cuz I went through it. I read a bunch of Instagram posts and went and followed a hashtag for a little bit over the last few days. And it's been really fun and educational and enlightening to go through and read everyone's stories and just get a whole different perspective on a world that, you know, cuz there are definitely people who would probably classify me as a severe asthmatic in that community. And I don't, I don't put myself there because you know, I don't feel like I'm. That bad, <laugh> that bad. Which is like stupid because I can't, I literally cannot do certain things because my asthma has gotten worse since I had COVID Woohoo. Oh yeah. You know, well that's the other thing COVID has created so many new disabilities and so many new disabled people, um, the. People that were part like, and honestly, people that were in great shape before now have lung disabilities and things like that too. Yes. Um, but I love the idea of, and like we, I talked about earlier in the podcast that, you know, autism typically has been discussed with kind of a negative connotation to the point that you had people that thought that they needed to send you condolences for a diagnosis where really, to me, it was like, I even remember going, okay, now that kind of tracks.<Laugh>. Yeah. <laugh>. But you know, if I, if I put pieces together, I'm like, okay, this makes kind of sense. And it was like, I know the power of sometimes just having a diagnosis. Mm-hmm <affirmative> even if there's nothing that you can do to make it better, having a name is a celebration. And getting a diagnosis. And I would say that this goes for any disability, getting a diagnosis is a gauntlet, especially in a society that does not guarantee healthcare for all people. Right? Um, a lot of your disabled people, a lot of disabled people are not just like one way marginalized. Most of us have multiple different things that marginalized us, whether that's the majority of disabled people live in poverty. I was just reading a statistic that the average take home pay of a disabled person or the average income a year is $28,000 a year. And we're talking one out of every four Americans is disabled. So that means one out of every four Americans on average is making$28,000 a year, which is, I don't know about you, but I live in not rural Arizona, but once was about 10 years ago. Now we're still booming, but. Californians left and moved Arizona. Exactly. They were like, please get us away from all the taxes. And then they came here and they were like, wait, we still have to pay taxes. Yeah. Sorry guys. It happened. <laugh> that's still a thing everywhere. Um, <laugh> maybe not Nevada. I don't know. But so for, to get a, so to get my, um, autism diagnosis, it, it was a full day, a full day of testing. Um, very intense. It was very expensive, you know, out of pocket, I think we paid like $900. Right. And that was something that we saved for because at that point we recognize like I need in order for me to get the accommodations and the help that I need to be able to thrive as a person because here I was, I got my degrees and the expectation was that I was going to teach and then I was gonna go into law. And then I was gonna, you know, I had all of these plans that I, now I went back to traditional teaching in 2018 and I ended up with pneumonia and because I have eosinophilic asthma, um, which is so like typical asthma, right. Is an inflammation of your lungs. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, eosinophilic asthma is an influence inflammation of your entire respiratory system. Um, and it is so eosinophilia is an overproduction of white blood cells. So when I say like, my body literally thinks I have a cold every day, like that is what it literally thinks. And it over produces, um, a lot of mucus. So I go through like watch two tissue boxes a day. I always have the stuffy nose. Um, and my doctor was basically telling me like, look, I know you love teaching and I know you love kids, but they are walking disasters when it comes to, uh. Fair walking, germ factories. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And, and you need to protect yourself cuz you get pneumonia real easy. So <laugh> um, so that was one of those like, okay. So my disability is now keeping me from being able to do a job that I, I had wanted to do. It's not safe for me anymore. Um, and so trying to figure out my next steps afterwards have been pretty difficult. It's a lot of, and so that's another part the disability pride plays into it is um, the woman who designed our flag Andi, um, the initial, yeah. We have a flag too. I know most people are like another pride didn't we just have one <laugh> how many flags do I need to memorize? Right. Right. And it was like caught my attention too was like, okay. It was like, wait, isn't it July 1st when you first shared it. Yeah. Or after, after June. Um, and actually if you guys go to at captain coder, I share the disability pride disability pride flag. Okay. Say that five times fast. Yeah.<Laugh>. Um, on Monday. So I share that on Monday, uh, with, with kind of an explanation of what each of those colors mean and what the flag means and where it came from. Yeah. So it's a, the disability flag kinda honors all of the different experiences within disability. Um, and the first iteration of the disability flag, which was changed because it actually was, um, presenting problems for people with visibility or yeah. When. You, you scrolled to that, correct. Yeah. And so you would scrolled, it would get like this weird flashy thing that was difficult for people who, who suffer from, um, who or who can get seizures from right. Visual stimuli. Um. Yeah. Cause the original was the original flag to those who are listening. Um, and you can, it used to be kind of like a lightning bolt shape. Mm-hmm.<Affirmative> with a couple different spikes. Cause I found a few versions in my, you know, haphazard internet research. Um, and the current version is a straight diagonal across the black background. Yes. And that kind of represents just our cutting through of, um, I think a word that's really important to learn when we talk about disability is ableism. Ableism is what gets people wanting to console me when I get my autism diagnosis or, you know, ableism is what makes me think that I can't do the things that other people do because of my disabilities. Right. Um, you know, I could be a teacher in a different world where we cared more about those kind of things, but <laugh> um, well, or even just like that's. I was gonna say even virtually, like there's so many more virtual options that you have. Oh yeah. Available to you, but that's not, it's not quite the same either. Right. And uh, one of the big issues with, um, with teaching that came up for me too, is just the amount of expectations that we put on our teachers right now is just unhealthy. I am a fifth generation educator. Um, meaning like my ancestors were like Prairie teachers in one room schoolhouse writing from like schoolhouse to schoolhouse across the Plains. Um, and it is not. And I should say so in, in the autistic circle or that I run in of adult autism, um, we, it's very common for adult autistics to believe that autism is hereditary, that it isn't something that you can prevent. That it's something that runs in families. Um, and so I look at my ancestors who I can, who are educators, and we did this part of it is because who's better to educate you than somebody who's obsessed with the topic. Right. Like <laugh> right, right. Clinton's passionate and knows a lot about it. Yeah. Right. So like, you know, there's a reason why we enjoyed teaching and why it's something that, um, my family has really loved. Um, but just the way that teaching is, is done now it's just too much. And so that was the other one of those realizations of like, oh, okay, I need to take care of myself. And so the former disability pride flag that had the zigzags, um, that zigzag was supposed to represent just the different kind of, um, the ways we get around barriers, the creativity that we have to have in order to build this new life for ourselves in a world that does not make space for disability. Um, and what you were saying before about, you know, the initial start of the disability justice movement was really founded on and focused on physical disabilities. Mm-hmm<affirmative> because like you said, that is the most obvious when it comes to disconnects and needs. Yeah. And especially when it comes to the internet, that's another one of those major accessibility issues. Um, I think I had shared, I shared earlier about how, you know, being able to access the internet was a huge part of just my development as a, as an autistic person. I remember building my first websites on like angel fire and geo cities. And of course they were devoted to my special interests because of course, so I learned how to do basic coding just to do that. Um, and you can see online that there are all of these really beautifully cultivated spaces for disabled people. We have built a community online. Um, there are organizations that have were established in the late 1990s that focus on making accessibility a, uh, a major part of, of the internet where right now it really isn't. One of those organizations is called web accessibility and mind web aim, web. Aim, and yeah. And they have amazing tools that I use the time. All of them well. And so they do a, an annual report where they analyze the top 1 million. I was like, you analyze 1 million websites, but they do the top 1 million websites. They analyze it for accessibility and 97%, this lasts so 20, 20 ones, accessibility report, 97% of the websites that they analyzed were inaccessible in one way or another mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, and I think a lot of people may not be aware of the sorry of the, um, accommodations and assistive tech that people with disabilities use to navigate the internet and why it is so important to make sure, like, for example, that your website is navigatable via keyboard only, right. Because there are many disabled people who only use keyboards to navigate or they use I, um, oh gosh, I assisted. Technology outta a camera was yes. Technical term, but yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so eye tracking is what it's called eye tracking software. Yeah. And so it's really important that you're, that when you are creating a website that you're creating a website that can be accessed on those levels. And luckily, you know, you have, um, the worldwide web consortium or is that what they're called? P w. I DB three C is what I call them. Yes. Which is, which is yeah. The worldwide web. And they just, they short it to W3C. And they have a whole, um, inst, I don't know if they call themselves an Institute. I can't remember exactly. But since the late nineties they've been focused on making the web accessible. Um, and so they have a whole list of things and they have a training course that you can take and all these things, BEC just to give you the information of what is already available, what is already, you can already code this and the code's already, and won't be recognized <laugh> right, right. Right. Because for so much of it, it was inventing it in the first place.<laugh> mm-hmm <affirmative> yeah. There and then getting other websites to use it. There's and there's things, there's simple things, things that take no time at all. One of the biggest things I talk about are alternative text tags. Yeah. And you know, that, that allows someone who has visually impaired to be able to still interact with the content on your website because not everybody can see those images. Yes. Yes. And that takes extra like two seconds of time because they've created that tag for us. That makes it possible. And I think when we talk about visual disabilities, a lot of people assume we're talking exclusively about, you know, um, blind visual impairment. Yeah. Yeah. When in reality, we are talking about anything. If you get migraines that don't allow you to look at screens because blue lights can't mess with your head. If you, you know, all, there's a lot of other things, if you have motion sensitivities, well. Color blindness is another one too. Especially with, um, color contrasts. You know, you don't think about how many people are color blind and probably can't read what you just put on that website, because the contrast, especially. Color coding it in colors that look the same to them. Yeah. Yeah. That happens a lot more than we think. Yeah. So it's that, you know, the mind it's being mindful of the community that you are trying to reach. And I think, especially for businesses, when we say one out of four Americans is disabled, that's a lot of business. That's a whole quarter of the, of the country that you are not accessing because you have chosen not to make your, your content accessible. Correct. And, and there are some big companies that are being, you know, sued under ADA for that very thing to not only to make a point, but also to get people to change. And you look, you look at, um, let's just take a look at clubhouse. For instance, that was an audio only app. Basically you could jump in a room and it was like a live podcast. They had no captioning. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, which you're not just excluding the reason that this app is now dead. Like if the user base is just tanked because you had to sit there and be a part of the conversation for sometimes 45 minutes to an hour, but with no live captioning, then you had a half a sound on. So not only people are you excluding anybody who was hard of hearing, but then you also are excluding anybody who might need to, you know, do multiple things at once. Yes. Right. And, and I think that's the, one of the things that as a special education teacher, when I worked with gen ed teachers, one of the things that I had to explain was, you know, special education is just good education.<laugh> it is just education for all children. Um, when we talk about making your websites accessible, we're not saying like you're only doing this to help a small portion. When I say that disability is the largest minority group in the world, and that you are either one of us right now, or you will love long enough to become one of us. That is the truth. You are building accessibility for the world, not just for, you know, um, I think a lot of times people don't want to cater to a specific group. And in reality, when you are making things more accessible, you are opening it up for everyone. Right. 100% actually Google recognizes that as well. And while Google's not the most accessible thing in the world, um, they put a lot of stock and accessibility. So when we follow accessibility standards, it tends to improve our SEO and our ranking on Google as well. Good for you, Google. Thank you. <laugh> yeah. It's, it's funny. Well, and, and how I explain it to people is like, when you think about it, Google's kind of, I mean, it's examining your website, like somebody with a screen reader examines your website. Yes. I mean, it's not a real person going through it, so it's. And then it's kind of one of those things, right? Because if you were in a class being trained on this, you would be expected to label all of your tags. You would be expected to, you know, that's an expectation mm-hmm <affirmative>, and, but it's something that you can cut corners on easily if you don't want to<laugh> cause it's not necessary. But if you do want Google to be able to read your website better and to optimize it more, if you do want, you know, having those accessibility things added into it will only increase that because you're right. Algorithms use very similar to <laugh>, you know, they're looking for very similar things. Yes. Um. Oh yeah. Big part of it. Let's talk a little bit, um, cuz we have been going for a minute and we probably do need to wrap up here in a second. <laugh>. Yeah, no worries. Um, but. Let's talk, I can talk for days <laugh>. I know. Well, we both could and that's part of the problem. Um <laugh> but what are some ways like specific ways? And I know, I see you do this on social media, particularly. So social media platforms, like I mentioned, clubhouse was problematic. TikTok like in Instagram and some of those others are barely rolling out, um, captioning and other accessibility tools, but for where they are right now, as we try to work to improve those platforms, but some ways that you can be more inclusive with your online content, make sure that you're reaching everybody with it. Yeah. So that's a great question. Um, one of the biggest. Things you do a good job of this, which is why I'm asking <laugh>. Well, I, I think one of the big aspects of this is, you know, it's a lot easier to be mindful of disability when you know, disabled people. Right. Mm-hmm <affirmative> like, and because I have people on my friends lists and on my social media accounts who do use screen readers, who I know use screen readers, that it's very important to me, that the content that I put out is, is accessible to the people that I care about. Um, and so, you know, one of the big things that I do is alternative text or, um, I know we talked about this before, just text alternatives for non textual content. So if I have, um, an image and this can be kind of hard because a lot of times, you know, you find cool images online and I'm like, oh yes, I wanna share this, but it has so much text on it. Yes. That in order for me to create, and it doesn't come with its own visual description. And in order for me to create one, I have to first copy all this text and then try to describe whatever animation that this person put together. And, you know, as somebody who, um, got their undergraduate degree and, and being able to talk about art in a fancy way, um, <laugh>, you know, it's really important for me. I always tell people, I was like, I got my degree on how I feel about artistic things. I can write all day about those things. Um <laugh> but, um, you know, I really don't like to have to be the one to describe an artist's an artist piece of work and artwork mm-hmm<affirmative> on my own when the artist could do this and I, and I might not be misinterpreting what they drew or anything else, so, right. You know, it's really important that if, especially if you're putting out original content that you are putting out original content, that includes these ID tags, that includes the alternative texts. That includes those things because you wanna be the one who has control over how your image is being read and what people are. The. Messaging arts are. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. Well, and even, um, you know, like I say, one of the things you do is you put an image description with, at the bottom of your posts because Facebook has all tags, but they're kind of hard to get to. Yes. And it's the same for Instagram. If you don't know to look for them and the accessibility options, there is a space for you to put alternative text, but I also have to be mindful of the fact that people who are disabled or at varying levels of their disability journey. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so not everybody who needs a screen reader has a screen reader. Right. Um, some people are just using like their basic highlights, select all and then talk to, or to talk, right? Yeah. Yeah. They're having Siri read things for them. Um, and so in that case, having an image description, because Siri's not gonna pick up the alt text, um, having an image description allows those people to still access my content, um, without having to, to feel excluded. And I think that's one of the things is that, you know, it's not just that you are not getting your information out to all the people you possibly could, but it's also, this is active discrimination of a population. Right. And, um, one of the things that, one of my favorite disability rights heroes, Judy human, um, shared one of her famous quotes is, um, and I'm gonna butcher it cuz it's not perfect. But basically it is if I have to feel grateful for an accessible bathroom, when am I ever gonna feel equal? Right. Man that's so that's such a powerful statement. Right? Cause I think most people think like, well, you should be grateful. I put this image description in. I didn't have to <laugh> right. But it's yeah. Well. Yeah. And I appreciate that you did that, but at the same time, this is just basic equality for me. This is so I can also participate. Yeah. So I can join those conversations and, and decide whether or not I wanna purchase something from you. Right. And it's yeah. Again, it's a lot of times with ableism, we like to look at the ableist view of disability is that it is a personal problem. It's an individual issue that we have to work out for ourselves that nobody can help us with. And if we're struggling, that's on us. In reality, disability throughout history has been a social issue. It has been what are we as a community going to do to help this person in our community feel embraced by their community, um, be an active participant in the community. And that takes some creativity and it takes, um, a willingness that isn't often isn't often seen as expedient or yeah. Say it takes a little bit more patient sometimes to get things set up, but then it becomes easy. Yes, I, and that's the thing, the initial step. Sure. Accessibility. There were a lot of people who did not wanna put ramps into their buildings who did not wanna do when the ADA was first. And that's the, the things we need an updated law that, that addresses the needs of a digital age that we live in. Now, the 1990s, the internet did not exist in the way that it at all in the way that it exist now. Um, I remember the, well, I don't personally remember cuz I was really little, but like my mom and dad's Christmas letters to family, like <laugh> during that time where like, you know, kids would look at that and be like, what is this archaic? Oh my gosh. It's like the letters from Mario <laugh>. It was on actual paper, Shauna. That's what that's called. <laugh> actual. Paper back in the day. Yeah. And so, you know, there is a lot of updating that needs to be done as far as addressing the accessibility gaps that we have, especially on the web that is such a vital part of everybody's day to day, you know, disabled people are using the internet to just like anybody else to do their shopping, to do research about their life, to do their online banking, to do you know, so it's not that we're not using it. Right. We are it's, it's not. Really even an option for us to not use the internet at this point in time. Right. There are so many things that we can't do except by having an internet connection, especially in the Western world. And so eventually, you know, eventually we will get another law passed that is going to come down harder on accessibility issues online. And so that's why it's important for web content creators now to take advantage of the learning opportunities available so that they're not dealing with, you know, oh no. Now we all have to do it.<laugh> and I don't even know where to start and I'm gonna get fined in a year or whatever. Right. Right. No, and I, I love that. I think that's a really good place to kinda wrap up because that's true. Like this isn't something that's going to go away. This isn't a fad that people are going through. And I, and I see, I've been talking about web accessibility and online accessibility for almost 10 years now because I learned it at a job when I worked and lived in Scotland in 2013, 2014. And it's just gaining momentum, which is amazing. But to Shauna's point like there, there will be laws that get passed. There will be just like GDPR and CCPA and privacy. We're going to get to a point where this isn't an option. And so it's better to start and plan for that now. Absolutely. And especially because there's a community waiting, mm-hmm,<affirmative>, there's a community waiting to engage with your content. They want to be part of that conversation. Yes. Right, right. And I don't know why. Yeah. I don't know why that we, we neglect so many people from that conversation just because it takes five seconds more work for us. Like today's conversation with Shauna. Like I will go run through rev.com and get a full transcription, and I have that transcription available with captions along with the audio. So that there's two different ways that people could interact with that content. And that's another thing too, you know, when we talk about transcripts, again, people immediately think about sensory disabilities and this is why we need transcripts and things like that. But there are also things like in my case with my autism and also with my mental illnesses, I live with brain fog. Transcripts are very helpful for me to be able to carry on. I watch all of my movies with captions. Mm-hmm <affirmative> because for myself, especially after burnout, I have those things are very helpful for me and able to stay on track. And so I would also, you know, advise people to start using accessibility options that are available on your streaming platforms and in other things, and see if it doesn't also improve the way that you are viewing your media. Um, I know that there are a lot of people with ADHD who really value their captions, um, <laugh> and or auditory processing issues, things like that, you know, that are, um, more cognitive based than they are sensory based. Those kind of things we don't think about, but accessibility again, makes things better for everybody. So the more you are aware of what is available, um, and the more conscious you are of it, it can also just improve the way that you are on the internet and the way that you interact, um, with the world. So that's, you know, I am super, super honored that you would have me on your show. I am obviously am a big captain coder fan. And. I mean, you've been a Marisa fan since, you know, before I was captain coder, but. Also, you know.<Laugh>. Um, but it's, you know, it's so important to have voices of experience, to be able to talk about these things. Cuz as a disabled person who does not have a background in coding beyond my geo city Buffy the vampire SL your websites. Um, <laugh>. I mean, I started on geo city, so let's not knock the geo city. Yeah. Well that's what I was saying. I was like minus like, and I think, you know, especially in our age group, the internet was like the wild west when we were little, like I remember yes. Going into my elementary school, computer lab with signs on the board that said you do not under any circumstance type this in white house. We couldn't Google the white house because there was a porn website, white house.com. Um, do you remember this? Like. It was I. Wild west when we were little, there were no like you accidentally ended up on porn all the time. Yeah. You, you actually ended up on porn a lot still, but like back then, you really did. Really people wasn't doing anything with their search results and except for you search for it here it is. <laugh>. Well, back then it was Yahoo and asked James mm-hmm <affirmative> Google wasn't even really around until like, I even remember the first day that I had someone recommend Google to me, they're like, oh, this is better than Yahoo. And they were like, what? The weird, I. Like there's. Better impossible. No, that's not possible. He's my online Butler. Okay. <laugh>. And anybody younger than the age of 25 is going, what in the world is asked? Exactly. <laugh> it was like, you know that website Quora <laugh>. Hey, that's all around. It was before Quora. You did you couldn't just ask strangers. You asked a really impressive Butler named Jeep. Yes. Jeeps. Was great. Geez was fantastic. Yeah. Explaining this to my gen Z siblings is always hilarious though. Oh's right. Oh man. Do you tell em that you're older than Google too, because that part's. Oh my gosh. Well, when I told them that when I signed up for Netflix, they were still mailing DVDs to your house. That was like a, what they. Mailed. Oh, that was like our senior year of college was when they, when they released streaming. Yes. And the only thing that was really on there was like law and order. So I watched a lot of law in order and like a few other things, but yeah, you still got DVDs because the streaming had like next nothing on it. When, yeah. When we were in college, it was embarrassing to find your boyfriend online. You lied, you made up a story about how you met <laugh> because yeah. I lied to people about how I met my ex-husband. Like we met online and I lied about it. But we can't let people know that as millennials <laugh> and now of course, you know, it's everywhere. Online dating is everywhere. Yeah. Everyone's like, oh yeah. Like Tinder, Bumble. Yeah. That's where we met. Like it's not even a thing anymore, not even a thing, but we are way off topic and we will continue to go off topic. So I'm gonna go ahead and wrap up today. Sound. Good.<Laugh> thanks, Shota, for coming on. Um, you know, this was a little bit longer, it's a special episode of like those special episodes of full house, um, where we just dive into, I mean, things that are really important to me that I just don't think that we talk about enough. And so I was so happy to like, have this brainstorm the other day and go, you know, I really should have Shauna come on, cuz it's much better to show instead of tell. And so it's so great to have you who are much more into this community and understand more about what's going on and can express it in a totally different way. So I, I really appreciate you coming on board. It's been a pleasure and I'm so I'm so grateful that you use your platform to share these things because, um, yeah, it, you know, as a member of the community, it really touches my heart when people that I love and care about, um, sorry, choose to advocate for, for my people. So thank you. No, you're good. Don't make me cry a rude person. Ugh. Yeah. Sorry. <laugh>. Good thing. That's a good thing. I can't see you right now. Right? That's another part of it. Oh my gosh. I, uh, do a book club and half the time I have to have my camera off cuz I cry too much. So I'm like sorry guys. Intense feelings. Oh, but I love you. You are wonderful. Thank you for having me on your show. Oh, well thank you for coming on. And it was, it was so great. It so great. Thank you all for tuning in to our show this week to catch more captain coder, you can subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast app. Now, if you have any questions or you wanna learn more about digital marketing and how it can help grow your online business, follow us on instagram @captaincoder or visit us online at captcoder.com. Can't wait to talk to you all again next week.