What is disability?
Disability is incredibly common, with 18% of the population being disabled (Census, 2011); making up around 1 in 20 children, 1 in 5 working age adults, and almost 1 in 2 people over state pension age (Office for Disability Issues updated Department for Work and Pensions estimates based on Family Resources survey, 2009/10).
Despite being this common, disability is still seemingly often seen as something of a minority thing; being only given secondary thought, if any at all.
Disability isn't always just the person in the wheelchair; a nice visible sign for us to know their 'difficulty'. In reality they only make up around 8% of the disabled population. The majority of disabilities are, in fact, invisible ones. (Papworth Trust disability facts and figures, 2010)
Generally disability can be categorised into 4 areas; Visual, hearing, motor and cognitive.
Of those, hearing and cognitive in particular are very likely to be quite invisible!
Whether a disability is visible or invisible, the biggest disabling factor isn't the 'disability' itself, but the environment and others; how accepting and accessible they are to the disabled individual.
Despite being this common, disability is still seemingly often seen as something of a minority thing; being only given secondary thought, if any at all.
Disability isn't always just the person in the wheelchair; a nice visible sign for us to know their 'difficulty'. In reality they only make up around 8% of the disabled population. The majority of disabilities are, in fact, invisible ones. (Papworth Trust disability facts and figures, 2010)
Generally disability can be categorised into 4 areas; Visual, hearing, motor and cognitive.
Of those, hearing and cognitive in particular are very likely to be quite invisible!
Whether a disability is visible or invisible, the biggest disabling factor isn't the 'disability' itself, but the environment and others; how accepting and accessible they are to the disabled individual.
One of my main inspirations for making this site stemmed from an experience a few years ago where I learnt Japanese. There, I met a friend who was completely blind. She has an amazing skill for verbal language and was superior in her language to the rest of the class, in my opinion, however she couldn't learn to write the Japanese. To accommodate for this, our teacher tried to teach her how the writing felt by guiding her hand across paper to form each word.
To me this was a nice gesture but kind of ... pointless. I felt it almost drew more attention to her disability but at the same time, he was aiming to avoid her feeling isolated.
Perhaps talking to her about her needs and desires may have gotten a better outcome.
And within the same example were some massive issues with accessibility in the building itself. Which was not disability friendly; so much to the point she had to enrol a cousin on the course just so she had a guide to be able to navigate the building with its sudden drops in ground level, random steps and sharp corners! These together became increasingly problematic ending with her quitting the course. The environment was so generally inaccessible that it proved much more disabling than the mere fact she couldn't see!
By looking towards and listening to those with experience of disabilities we may be more able to understand their needs and desires and find ways to work towards making the world more accessible for everyone.
To me this was a nice gesture but kind of ... pointless. I felt it almost drew more attention to her disability but at the same time, he was aiming to avoid her feeling isolated.
Perhaps talking to her about her needs and desires may have gotten a better outcome.
And within the same example were some massive issues with accessibility in the building itself. Which was not disability friendly; so much to the point she had to enrol a cousin on the course just so she had a guide to be able to navigate the building with its sudden drops in ground level, random steps and sharp corners! These together became increasingly problematic ending with her quitting the course. The environment was so generally inaccessible that it proved much more disabling than the mere fact she couldn't see!
By looking towards and listening to those with experience of disabilities we may be more able to understand their needs and desires and find ways to work towards making the world more accessible for everyone.
~ if you'd like any issues featured. |
I welcome any experiences with disability and especially any issues with being a service user to general institutes (not specific to disabilities) along with recommendations on what could be done to make these services better. These are the sorts of things we need to really voice out to organisations for them to consider during the planning of their events, services and buildings to make them suitable for the actual population, not the lucky few!
See Efds for more disability statistics.