Prevalence

According to the World Report on Disability produced by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank, more than one billion people in the world today experience some form of disability.

Definition

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) defines a person with a disability as someone who:

Has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities (such as caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working).
Has a record of such impairment; and/or
Is regarded as having such an impairment.

Examples

Diversity is the norm on higher education campuses today. It is also normal to find a wide range of disabilities among learners, visible and invisible. Examples include:

Physical/Motor - arthritis, cerebral palsy, Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS), muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, paralysis, spinal cord injury, loss of body parts
Cognitive/Learning - ADD/ADHD, Alzheimer’s disease, traumatic brain injury (TBI), intellectual disability (mental retardation), learning disability (dyslexia - reading, dysgraphia - writing, dyscalculia – math)
Sensory -
- Vision – legally blind, low vision, color-blindness
- Hearing – deaf, hard of hearing
Emotional/Psychological/Mental – anxiety, mood disorders (bipolar, clinical depression), schizophrenia
Developmental – brain injury, chromosomal/genetic, extreme prematurity, fetal alcohol syndrome
Communication/Speech & Language - hearing (conductive, sensorineural, mixed), language (delay, aphasia), speech (stutter, articulation, voice)
Medical - asthma, cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome, diabetes, epilepsy/seizure disorder, migraines
Invisible - debilitating pain, dizziness, fatigue, weakness, as well as, cognitive, learning and mental and sensory disabilities

Resources:

A Personal Look at Accessibility in Higher Education (5:57 min.)