Editing Alison Lapper (section)

==Early life==
Alison Lapper was born on 7 April 1965 in [[Burton upon Trent]], [[Staffordshire]].<ref name="Lapper-2005"/> She was born without arms and with shortened legs, a condition called [[phocomelia]]. She was institutionalized in her infancy, and is still distant from her relatives.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Saner|first1=Emine|title=Alison Lapper: 'Disabled people are looked at as a drain on society, and I'm certainly not that' |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/aug/02/alison-lapper-disabled-people-drain-on-society |website=The Guardian|date=2 August 2014|access-date=2 February 2017}}</ref> When she was fitted with [[artificial limb]]s, she felt that the aim was not to help her, but to make her look less disconcerting to others. She abandoned them, finding life far easier without external aids.

She left [[Chailey Heritage School]], [[Sussex]], at the age of 17, and moved to London.<ref name="Indep">{{cite news |last1=Treneman |first1=Ann |title=From the age of six weeks to 17, Alison Lapper was one of the 'strange little creatures' of the Chailey Heritage institution |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/body-and-soul-1235298.html |access-date=29 August 2020 |work=The Independent|date=11 October 1997}}</ref> She then attended the [[Queen Elizabeth's Foundation for Disabled People]], in Banstead, Surrey until the age of 19, where she learned to drive. She completed both 'O' and 'A'-levels in art at [[Sutton College of Learning for Adults]], before pre-foundation and [[foundation course]]s at [[Heatherley School of Fine Art]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Alison |first1=Lapper |title=My life in my hands |year=2005 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |isbn=9780743275583}}</ref>{{page needed|date=January 2019}}

Lapper then moved to Brighton and studied in the [[University of Brighton School of Art|Faculty of Art and Architecture]] at the [[University of Brighton]], graduating with a [[British undergraduate degree classification|first class]] [[honours degree]] in [[Fine Art]] in 1994.<ref name="Lapper-2005">{{cite web |last=Lapper |first=Alison |date=3 September 2005 |title=Beauty unseen, unsung |url=https://www.theguardian.com/arts/features/story/0,11710,1561046,00.html |work=The Guardian|location=London |access-date=14 February 2012 |ref=none |postscript=. Extract from autobiography, {{harvtxt|Lapper|2005}}.}}</ref>