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Kids' Quest, Center for Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities

The ABCs of Kids' QuestInformation for Parents and Teachers


Who are the Kids' Quests designed for?

The Kids' Quests are designed for students in 4th, 5th, and 6th grades. Parents and teachers can modify the materials to meet students' learning styles and levels.  The Quests can be used in lessons about health, social studies, and tolerance in society.  Although students could do a Quest entirely on their own, we suggest that parents and teachers work with students to share ideas, talk about issues raised, and encourage students to reflect about themselves and others.  

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What Are the Objectives of the Kids' Quests?

This site is intended to get kids to think about people with disabilities and some of the issues related to daily activities, health, and accessibility. 

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What Are the Quests? 

The Quests include topics related to limitations people with disabilities face in participating in various activities.  These limitations are grouped under motor, communication, personal-care, and learning.  For each Quest, we have developed: 

A primary question.
A set of related questions about other contributing issues.
A series of questions about accessibility within the student’s own environment.  

The Quests use some terms that may not be familiar to the student.  We have provided a glossary page of key words that appear throughout the Quest.  A student can get a definition of new words by clicking on the glossary link at the left and bottom of each page.

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How Do We Start a Kids' Quest?

After reading the home page for the Kids’ Quests, students should choose a topic area and question that interest them.

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What Are the Steps for Doing a Kids' Quest?  

Each Quest takes the student through 10 steps.  These steps help the student organize how they will gather information and provide a way to check whether this new information not only answers the questions posed but also changes the student’s attitudes. 

Step 1: Check out your own attitudes.  Take the Attitude Checkup!

The Attitude Checkup is designed to give students a chance to reflect what they think about people with disabilities.  We suggest that students take the Checkup before beginning the Quest and then again after they have gone through the Quest investigation.  Students can print out their Attitude Checkup so that they can easily compare their "before" and "after" answers. 

Step 2: Think about some questions to ask.  Let's see...  

To help students think through the kind of information needed for the Quest, we posed additional questions.  Encourage students to come up with their own questions about the topic and to write them down. 

Step 3: check out some quick facts.

Quick Facts are little known trivia intended to stimulate curiosity about the Quest topic. These facts can be fun to discover and always include the source.  

Step 4: Check out some great websites to start our search. 

We have listed websites as a starting point for students' information search.  Please note that the Web is an ever changing environment in which many websites are here today and gone tomorrow.  We have tried to provide stable sites that include their own links to other websites.  We cannot guarantee that all websites and links listed on our pages will be active during the student’s Quest.  Please let the Kids' Quest Webmaster know if you find a broken link to a web site so we can research it further.

We checked the website links for appropriate content for children at the time the Quests were created.  However, we encourage parents and teachers to review these sites with students to be sure they remain appropriate.  

DISCLAIMER: We provide links to other web pages if you want to learn even more about a topic. Some of these pages are on the CDC website and others are on outside websites. Links to organizations outside CDC are included for information only. CDC has no control over the information at these sites. The views and opinions of these organizations are not necessarily those of CDC, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), or the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS).

Step 5: Now look at even More Cool Sites.

Many of these sites do not directly help answer the questions posed, but rather they discuss related topics.  For example, the Dizabled comic strip website is a fun site written by a person in a wheelchair who likes to poke fun at some of the silly things people do.

Step 6:  Find out about some people we can read about or contact to help with our Quests.

These websites provide biographies and stories about people with and without disabilities.  Many of the sites have e-mail addresses where students can send questions.  We encourage parents and teachers to review appropriate e-mail etiquette with students and monitor the questions and responses.  

Step 7: Learn about videos/books that can give us information.

We have listed related videos and books for each Quest.  These videos and books are available from a variety of bookstores and video stores or at your local public or school libraries. The videos can be viewed as a class activity and discussed as part of the Quest.  (PLEASE NOTE:  When known, we have included the movie rating for each video listed to help you make appropriate selections.  We recommend parents or teachers view videos with students.)

Listing of films involving disabilities web site
This website is a good resources for finding movies about people with disabilities.  It presents a detailed list of feature films that involve various disabilities.  The site is directed toward teachers, students, and anyone who has an interest in how disability is represented in films.

Step 8:   Check out your own environment to look for barriers in your school or neighborhood.

Accessibility is a common theme throughout all of the Quest topics. Students are asked to think about and respond to questions about situations within their own environment.  Each Quest also contains a link to a website where teachers or parents can visit to learn more about removing environmental barriers. 

Step 9: Just for Fun... 

"Just for fun..." offers kids a hands-on opportunity to work with new ideas and concepts.  Examples include: 

  1. Zoom out:  Kids can guess what is "behind" a picture.  The idea is to show that judgments shouldn't be made with just a small amount of information.  In most cases there is more to a situation than your eye first sees! 

  2. Make your own talking joke machine: Kids can create a simple communication device to tell their jokes. 

  3. Secret message:  Kids can decipher a message about learning. 

  4. Redesign your school restroom:  Kids can draw their school restroom like architects do and think about making it more accessible for kids in wheelchairs.  Kids can then compare their drawings to a diagram of an accessible bathroom.  

Step 10: Now check and see if your attitudes have changed.  Take the Attitude Checkup again.

We suggest that the student repeat the Checkup after they have completed the Quest investigation.  Students can print out their Attitude Checkup so that they can easily compare their "before" and "after" answers. 

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Where Do We Go from Here?

CDC will continue to develop Web Quests around disability and health related topics.  If you have suggestions or comments about current Quests or Quests you would like to see, please e-mail the Kids' Quest Webmaster

Great Resources:

DISCLAIMER: Links to organizations outside of CDC are included for information only. CDC has no control over the information at these sites. Views and opinions of these organizations are not necessarily those of CDC, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), or the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS).

Guide to Children's Literature and Disability
This bibliography helps parents and professionals identify books that include characters who have a disability. The list is grouped by the following disabilities: attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), blindness, cerebral palsy, deafness, learning disabilities, serious or life-threatening conditions, physical disabilities, and other disabilities.

Everybody's Different: Understanding and Changing Our Reactions to Disabilities by Nancy B. Miller, Ph.D., M.S.W. and Catherine C. Sammons, Ph.D., M.S.W. ISBN 1-55766-359-9: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

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Date: September 28, 2006
Content source: National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities

 

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