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Adaptive Technology
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| Disability Types
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Hearing Impairment |
| Like visual disabilities hearing
impairment is subjective. It can range from mild impairment, which
includes hearing sounds faintly, hearing only certain frequencies
and being unable to hear those sounds clearly, to profound deafness.
Even the mildest hearing loss can decrease language development
and ability to communicate. |
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Learning Disabilities
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| Many educators, psychologists,
and counsellors have attempted to define what a learning disability
is. The definition that bests describes this complex disability
is the one provided by the Learning
Disabilities Association of Canada Indicators
of a Learning Disability Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario |
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Medical Disabilities
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| A medical disability can be defined as a condition that requires intervention such as medical treatment, prescription drugs, and/or accommodation to help a person participate in life's activities such as learning. Aids
Committee Of Toronto |
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Physical Disabilities
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| Physical disabilities involve either loss of physical movement, or a weakness or change in normal motor control. Some physical disabilities are present at birth (congenital) or are acquired due to illness, accident, or unknown causes. Loss of movement is often caused by a spinal cord injury (damage to the nervous system) or by physical trauma such as severe fracture, burns or the amputation of a limb. One of the most common physical disabilities in young people, cerebral palsy (CP), produces disturbances of voluntary motor control ranging from clumsy and awkward movements to little or no coordinated movement. Individuals with CP can have related speech problems, as well as impaired hearing or vision. Other conditions such as muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, produce similar types of changes in physical functioning. What
is Cerebral Palsy? |
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Psychiatric
Disabilities |
| A psychiatric disability is commonly referred to as a mental illness. Psychiatric disabilities are diseases whereby symptoms can be controlled and reduced by medications. Types of psychiatric disabilities include depression, attention deficit disorder (ADD), schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). |
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Visual Disabilities
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| Visual disabilities range from low-vision
to blindness. The subjectivity of a visual disability must be respected
because each person who has an eye disease, for example, will experience
a "different way of seeing things". Vision is often dependent on
bright or cloudy weather, high or low pressure, the individual's
emotions, and the way light bounces off surroundings. An individual
is said to be blind when he or she is totally without sight or with
so little sight that he or she must learn through other senses.
The following is a definition of visual impairment: |
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Revised: March 15, 2011
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