What Are We Talking About?

Before we begin diving into the content of the course, we want to make sure everyone understands what we are talking about when we use terms such as disabilities, accessibility, and accommodations. If you were to Google the terms, you would find varying definitions. These are the ones that we find the most useful for what we are trying to talk about in this course. 

Disabilities - definition from the World Health Organization (WHO) 

"Disabilities is an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. An impairment is a problem in body function or structure; an activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action; while a participation restriction is a problem experienced by an individual in involvement in life situations.

Disability is thus not just a health problem. It is a complex phenomenon, reflecting the interaction between features of a person’s body and features of the society in which he or she lives. Overcoming the difficulties faced by people with disabilities requires interventions to remove environmental and social barriers."

Reference URL: http://www.who.int/topics/disabilities/en Links to an external site.

Accommodation - definition from Empire State College Disability Services 

"An accommodation is a modification to a program, task or event that allows an individual with a disability to participate fully. Accommodations must be effective to ensure equal access, but may not reduce program standards or present an undue financial or administrative burden to the institution."

Reference URL: http://www.esc.edu/disability-services/student-handbook/ Links to an external site.

Accessibility - definition from Be Accessible 

"Accessibility is all about our ability to engage with, use, participate in, and belong to, the world around us."

Reference URL: http://www.beaccessible.org.nz/the-movement/what-is-accessibility Links to an external site.

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“We know that equality of individual ability has never existed and never will, but we do insist that equality of opportunity still must be sought.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt, June 10, 1936

 

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