Current Projects Mysite Different Abilities Wixsite Com

Leo Migdal

-Nov 16, 2025, 1:19 AM

current projects mysite different abilities wixsite com

"To end the stigma surrounding physical disabilities through showcasing individual's unique and amazing abilities" Through educating youth about disabilities and teaching them to be inclusive of everyone Through giving youth different experiences and providing them with new perspectives It's not our disabilities, it's our abilities that count. Different Abilities was created by Logan Gillingham in order to help end the societal stigma surrounding disabilities. Back in 2017, Logan suffered a serious injury and was unable to walk unassisted for roughly three years.

During this time, she noticed that people would stare, point and make rude comments about the way that she walked. Just like Logan experienced, many people with disabilities face discrimination each and every day as they are often viewed for what they cannot do rather than what the can do. Logan knew that this was not the way things should be and decided something needed to change. This is where Different Abilities was started. Different Abilities is a youth-run initiative working towards ending the stigma surrounding disabilities through providing community members with education on abilities/disabilities and para-sport experiences. Together, our team hopes to change the perspectives of all youth to focus on everyone's abilities rather than their disabilities.

Logan is studying architecture and fine arts at the University of Windsor and the University of Detroit Mercy and hopes to pursue a career in accessible architecture. Logan plays sledge, ice and field hockey and participates in many community innovation programs to further support the development of the Different Abilities project. Lauren is a grade 12 student at Huron Heights Secondary School in Kitchener ON. She is very active in her school being involved in DECA, Link Crew, Student Senate and Band. She played rep soccer for 8 years and is currently teaching piano at Fiona's Music Studio. Lauren is very passionate about making a change in her community and is very excited about the future endeavours of the Different Abilities Project!

Calla is a grade 12 student at Bluevale Collegiate Institute. She is heavily involved in her school's DECA team and has qualified and won top 10 at the international competition for DECA. She has also played rep soccer for 6 years and plays the cello and guitar in her spare time. Calla is looking forward to being part of the change the Different Abilities initiative is creating! Most of our projects are centered around furthering our understanding on how agents’ histories (e.g. having been diagnosed with a disorder, meeting a participant in the laboratory setting versus completing studies with a friend, having gone through a global pandemic) affect the unfolding patterns of action and task performance...

The lab is interested in exploring how conversations are affected by different contextual constraints. We are interested in better understanding these effects multi-modally, starting with interpersonal coordination, acoustic patterns and language dynamics. So far, we have one published project in this area with the following findings: Interpersonal coordination of body movement—or the similarity in patterning and timing of body movement between interaction partners over time—is a... The present study will investigate the degree to which interpersonal coordination is impacted by the amount of visual information available and the type of interaction conversation partners are having. To do so within a naturalistic context, we take advantage of changes induced by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has changed communication, with mitigation efforts having forced nearly everyone to engage over videoconferencing (VC) platforms (which limit body visibility but not face visibility) or to meet FTF with public health constraints...

We will ask 69 pairs of participants to communicate in one of three ways: (1) socially distanced FTF while wearing masks; (2) VC in a laboratory where each partner will see one another’s full... Each pair will hold three conversations: (a) affiliative, (b) argumentative, and (c) task-based. We will quantify interpersonal coordination by extracting overall amounts of movement from videos of the participants using well-validated computer vision methods and then calculating the relationship between the two participants’ movement using nonlinear time... In doing so, we will be able to identify the degree to which visual information and conversational context shape the emergence of interpersonal coordination within now-naturalistic modes of interaction. Romero, V. & Paxton, A.

(2023). Stage 2: Visual information and communication context as modulators of interpersonal coordination in face-to-face and videoconference-based interactions. Acta Psychologica, 239, 103992. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.103992 Romero, V., Chowdhury, T., & Paxton, A. (2023).

Language in the Time of COVID: Sensitivity of Linguistic Alignment to Conversation Type and Communication Modality. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 45(45). Guadalajara, Mexico. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2hq658w1 Romero, V. & Paxton A.

(2021). Registered Report: Stage 1: Visual Information and Communication Context as Modulators of Interpersonal Coordination in Face-to-Face and Videoconference-Based Interactions. Acta Psychologica, 221, 103453. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2021.103453 Like humans, elephants are large-brained and long-lived mammals that form complex societies. Family herds are typically led by the oldest, most experienced female elephant called the matriarch.

Matriarchs are responsible for guiding the herd to valuable resources and safe spaces, which requires a high level of intelligence as well as a capacity to remember over an entire lifetime. But, how exactly can we measure intelligence and long-term memory in elephants? In partnership with Dr. Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell of Utopia Scientific and the Oakland Zoo, my team is conducting experiments with Donna the elephant in order to understand how elephants learn, recognize, and remember different stimuli presented in a variety... visual, olfactory, auditory). Current trials are focused on Donna's ability to discriminate between three cards, one of which contains a photo representation of a real banana presented to her.

We hope to fill critical gaps of knowledge in elephant cognition, as well as their ability to plan and make decision based on this intellectual capacity. Common non-invasive tools for estimating the age of wild African elephants (Loxodonta africana) enable the collection of important population data at a low-cost and with minimal disturbance. However, traditional metrics such as shoulder height and hind foot length can be logistically challenging to obtain and may not accurately differentiate individuals of advanced age due to patterns of asymptotic growth. Alongside Dr. Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell and Utopia Scientific affiliates, I assisted with an investigation whereby digital photogrammetry and geometric morphometrics of the craniofacial region successfully determined the relative age of n=56 male elephants in Etosha National Park,... We found strong linear correlations between known measurements of foot length and shoulder height and photogrammetric estimates (i.e.

sulcus width, facial length, and craniofacial area), as well as geometric morphometric estimates of craniofacial centroid size. We also found that photogrammetric measurements are better able to classify mature adults into younger (35–49 years) and elder (≥ 50 years) subcategories relative to measurements of foot length and shoulder height. Our results demonstrate that facial characteristics can complement or even replace existing elephant aging techniques, as well as improve older age class granularity, of which is valuable for conservation and management purposes. The Grip-aid is a brace that I created, designed to help people with MS and parkensons disease. By reinforcing the muscular structure in their fingers and allowing them to do things like writing for longer. The high five Arm is a wirelessely controlled robotic arm for users with cerebral palsy.

This is placeholder text. To change this content, double-click on the element and click Change Content. A discrete fidget card, designed to fit into your wallet. I aim to build a connection between tribes that have predominantly oral cultures. I want to see how trauma intersects and affects this orality through the generations of these tribes, and subsequently the silence that comes from keeping this trauma hidden is pervasive in the performative aspects... This trauma is coped with through silence, and is passed down through memories brought to life by performance.

These memories embed themselves into the personal historical archive of these tribes through a collective of people remembering them. I intend to explore how the flexible natures of these tribes can be reconstructed easily because of the different factors in play; the state, the family, the specific community and the individual. Subsequently, I want to see how recovered traumatic memories affect these identities, both collective and individual. My Bachelor’s thesis was on the representation of Romani communities in mainstream media. In my observations, the very existence of the Romani: their practices, their philosophies and their culture, runs contrary to the majoritarian capitalist global ideology. And so, representations of the Romani in mainstream literature is either pulled towards extreme romanticisation, or towards intense degradation and villanising.

However, the space of fantasy as a genre, and specifically magic realism is receptive to the Romani in a positive light. I theorise that this is because magic realism blurs the strict boundaries of fantasy and reality in receptive ways that can then encompass the pluralistic nature of the Romani communities. Simultaneously, I studied Indian tribal communities and their geospatial conditions, tracing a history of resettlement and persecution. Indian tribes are also nomadic in certain cases, and almost all oral-based cultures. Their stories are often passed down through generations, comparable to the Romani. This helped me massively in theorising my current project.

Continuing the foundation of my BA thesis, my Master’s project involved understanding outside representation that pieced together a cohesive identity for the Romani. Using three different novels, I theorised a trajectory of stable Romani identity: from an extreme of preservation, to a complete reversal of exposing cultural tradition leading to excommunication, and finally a balance through a... The stabilisation of a Romani identity is fraught by difficulty because of the many different tribes within this large title, the varied ways that each tribe, each clan understands its own culture and the... Often, these clans have previously migrated from a different geographical space, and carry the burden of trauma resulting from that space, imbued within orality and performance, to then have an oppressive veil of silence... Trauma needs to be resolved, because it is integral to history and identity. Unrecovered trauma results in a distorted orality-based culture passed down through subsequent generations, which is what I aim to address in my current project.

I am currently working for IndiHands, an established brand that aims to build a bridge between tribal art and corporate settings. I first started writing blog posts for this brand, concentrating on the various tribes in India and their unique art forms as manifestations of their specific cultures. As seen through the last few decades, Indian art is steadily dying as artisans desert their craft in favour of more lucrative occupations, and thus demand must be created for the continuation of these... I aimed to place Indian art in a contemporary perspective to appeal to corporate clientele. In doing so, I understood the performativity that is embodied within Indian art, especially through the Gond tribes’ expressions. I thus drew a correlation between the Gond and the Romani while researching these tribes.

Current Projects Mysite Different Abilities Wixsite Com

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"To End The Stigma Surrounding Physical Disabilities Through Showcasing Individual's

During This Time, She Noticed That People Would Stare, Point

Logan Is Studying Architecture And Fine Arts At The University

Calla Is A Grade 12 Student At Bluevale Collegiate Institute.

The Lab Is Interested In Exploring How Conversations Are Affected