18 New Disability Emoji to Celebrate, Use and Share

In a world where cell phones are becoming more of a necessity and texting is the preferred way to communicate, it only makes sense that the use of emojis are on the rise as well. Emojis are the commonly used graphics in the Apple keypad that represent a number of different things. They can be used as a way to elaborate a feeling, a person, an event and more.

However, with that being said, there are several issues that arise for people of all shapes and sizes using the emoji character. There are typical emojis of people dancing, skiing and swimming, but you won’t find an emoji of a person with disabilities such as: people in wheelchairs, individuals with prostheses, a guide dog, those with hearing impairment and other disabilities engaging in a variety of activities. The London-based disability advocacy group, Scope, says it best on their blog: “Despite ongoing efforts to make emojis more diverse with different skin tones and same sex couples, there is just one to represent disability – a wheelchair-user sign, often used as an accessible toilet sign.” Why is it that people with disabilities are so often times overlooked? Scope even took it a step further and asked more than 4,000 Twitter users whether they thought that one emoji was enough to properly represent disability: 65% said it wasn’t. Because of this issue, Scope has created a series of 18 new emojis portraying people with those characteristics.

According to Scope, the “race is on” though with the Rio 2016 Olympics fast-approaching. Scope’s emojis feature a number of Paralympians, including a wheelchair tennis player, modeled after Jordanne Whiley, Britain’s most decorated tennis player of all time and recent Wimbledon doubles champion, and a swimmer inspired by four-time gold medalist, Ellie Simmonds.

Scope is truly on to something; people with disabilities can’t possibly be accepted in today’s culture if they are an after thought even for something as tiny as emoji inclusion. Furthermore, I believe they could even take it a step further and bring people with intellectual disabilities to the forefront. Molli Carter, mother of three and an aunt to a young boy with epilepsy believes that emojis should also represent people with intellectual disabilities by either a ribbon or symbol. Molli stated, “Autism is represented by a puzzle piece, surely they should incorporate that symbol.”

Emoji’s Images courtesy Scope.org.uk

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