Understanding Disabilities

The term disability covers a wide range of physical limitations, illnesses, and specific learning disabilities. Some disabilities are visible, some are not.

There are two types of disabilities - physical and learning. Each of the listed items has more detailed information below.

Physical disabilities:

injuries and diseases
blindness and low vision
deaf and hard of hearing
acquired brain injury
chronic medical disabilities
mental health conditions
specific learning disability
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder(ADHD)

Learning Disabilities:

communication-based learning disabilities
developmental coordination disabilities
language-based learning disabilities

Acquired brain injury

The most common cause of an acquired brain injury is a motor vehicle accident. Other injures can result from:

not wearing a helmet and hitting your head while riding a bicycle or motorcycle or when skiing, snowboarding or skateboarding
a fall from height
being struck on the head
a brain tumour or aneurism

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder(ADHD)

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a developmental disorder. Individuals typically show inappropriate degrees of inattention, over-activity and impulsivity.

This disorder often appears in early childhood and is usually chronic. In addition, the behaviors that individuals with ADHD display are not readily explained by sensory, language, or motor impairment; a developmental disability; or, severe emotional disturbance.

See the Canadian ADHD Resource Alliance website, caddra.ca, for more information.

Auditory disabilities

Auditory learning disabilities are related to how we process the information we hear.

auditory memory — difficulty remembering what has been said such as information and instructions
auditory discrimination — trouble telling the difference between similar sounds or words such as bee and pea or seventeen and seventy
auditory sequencing — confusion with number sequences, lists, or directions
auditory figure ground — trouble hearing sounds over background noise

Blind and low vision

In Canada, someone who is "legally blind" has vision that is worse than or equal to 6/60 with best correction in the better eye or a visual field extent of less than 20 degrees in diameter.

Someone with "low vision," as defined by the CNIB, has a range of vision of 10% of less or a field of vision 10 degrees or less.

Eye conditions can be caused by a number of factors such as glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, retinal detachment, retinitis pigmentosa (tunnel vision), and nerve damage.

Anyone with these conditions may seek the assistance of a service animal.

Chronic medical disabilities

There are many types of chronic medical conditions that may interfere with someone's post-secondary success. These include, but are not limited to:

Crohn's Disease
arthritis
cancer
AIDS
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
epilepsy
migraine headaches
heart conditions

Deaf and hard of hearing

There are many reasons for hearing loss. Some include the following:

deafness at birth
illness as a small child
progressive hearing loss due to a congenital problem, accidents, exposure to excessive noise and aging

Learning disabilities

Learning disabilities (LDs) are neurologically-based and vary from mild or moderate to severe.

Often called invisible disabilities, LDs are real, and are permanent.

People with learning disabilities have varying levels of intelligence. A student with a learning disability may have difficulties with academic performance that seems at odds with the student’s intellect and ability level.

The Learning Disabilities Association of Canada (LDAC) defines a learning disability as "impairments in one or more processes related to perceiving, thinking, remembering, or learning. These include, but are not limited to: language processing; phonological processing; visual spatial processing; processing speed; memory and attention, and executive functions (e.g. planning and decision making)."

Learning disabilities may also include the following:

visual problems
auditory problems
mobility problems
organization problems
conceptual problems

Mental health conditions

A number of conditions fall under this category, varying from permanent psychiatric conditions to less permanent conditions. Both types can interfere with someone's ability to concentrate on their school work. These conditions include but are not limited to:

Bipolar disorder
depressive disorders
Schizophrenia
paranoid disorders
anxiety disorders
phobias
eating disorders
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

The Canadian Mental Health Association has an extensive online library and resources about understanding mental illness.

Mobility learning disabilities

Mobility problems are related to various motor functions of the body.

hand-eye coordination — difficulties with handwriting
small muscle control — misjudging where to place things
large muscle control — clumsiness, difficulties with certain physical activities

Organizational disabilities

In general, this is poor ability to organize time or space or sequencing.

poor ability to organize time — not meeting deadlines, being late or too early, poor sense of time
poor ability to organize tasks — not understanding the steps required to carry out a particular task such as planning a party or a move
poor ability to organize space — organizing a closet, desk, or laying out a page in a written document
impairment of executive function — a person’s ability to analyze things, apply information in a new way or adapt to new circumstances

Skeletal injuries or diseases

There are many areas of disability that fall into this category. These include but are not limited to:

repetitive strain injuries (tendinitis, carpel tunnel syndrome)
chronic pain conditions (back, neck, and shoulder - usually as a result of an injury)
paraplegia, quadriplegia
Cerebral palsy
Muscular Dystrophy (and related dystrophies)
Multiple Sclerosis (and related scleroses)
temporary disabilities such as a broken limb - usually as a result of an injury)

Specific learning disability

A Specific Learning Disability (SLD or LD) is an ongoing condition due to an impairment in information processing.

Often individuals with LD are mislabeled as slow learners.

Visual learning disabilities

Visual problems are related to the difficulty someone's brain has with processing the information that their eyes take in. These aren't conditions fixed by glasses or contact lenses.

poor visual memory — not remembering faces, words, or people's names
visual perception — difficulty in seeing the differences between similar objects such as b and d or seeing reversals in writing (41 instead of 14)
figure ground discrimination — not being able to find the place to write their name on an application form
visual tracking — ability to follow a line on a page