In order for individuals with disabilities to become full partners in the
cyberspace era, their situation must be considered early in the design process
of products and work environments. I believe that the key to good early design
is an elimination of a confusion that is all too common concerning the
connection between disabilities and handicaps.
In untangling the confusion we use the following glosses on ``impairment,''
``disability'' and ``handicap'' that basically follow the World Health
Organization (WHO); we add the term ``inability'' to fill an important logical
gap.
- An inability is anything a person cannot do.
- An impairment is a physiological disorder or injury.
- A disability is an inability to execute some class of movements, or
pick up sensory information of some sort, or perform some cognitive function,
that typical unimpaired humans are able to execute or pick up or perform.
- A handicap is an inability to accomplish something one might want to
do, that most others around one are able to accomplish.
A disability may be
directly or
circumstantially linked to an
inability or handicap. The link is direct if having the disability leads,
independently of circumstances, to having the inability: there is simply no way
a person with the disability can accomplish the task in question. The link is
circumstantial if, although in some circumstances there is no way for a person
with the disability to accomplish the task, in other circumstances, where the
right tools and structures to support them are available, there are ways.
Paraplegia, a disability, is directly linked to the inability to walk. But it
is only circumstantially linked to the inability to move around under one's own
power. This inability can be removed with a wheelchair. Blindness is directly
linked to the inability to see text on computer monitor. But it is only
circumstantially linked to an inability to gather the information presented
there. The inability to get information from displayed or printed text can be
removed through the use of Braille displays and speech-output screen readers.
This example brings up an important distinction that must be made between
information (the content of the textual message) and the form of information
(displayed text, printed text, Braille text, audio text, etc.); we will discuss
this concept again in the last section.
The term ``handicap'' is sometimes now avoided, but we think it can be put to
good use, in the way WHO does. A handicap is an inability that leaves one at a
comparative disadvantage. So conceived, a handicap is a special case of an
inability. The connection between handicap and disability is much looser. We can
be handicapped, even when we are not disabled. Americans who do not speak
Japanese will be handicapped when they visit Tokyo, because while most people
will be able to gather important information by reading signs on buildings, they
will not. And one can be disabled, without being handicapped relative to many
tasks, if the proper tools and supporting structures are provided.
The concepts we now want to introduce are the ``intrinsic conception of
disability, inability, and handicap'' and the ``circumstantial conception of
disability, inability, and handicap''. For short we will refer to them in an
abbreviated form: the
intrinsic conception of disability and the
circumstantial conception of disability.
The intrinsic conception of disability goes like this:
A disabled individual is one who cannot make some movement that the
majority of the population can make, or lacks some sensory capacity that the
majority of the population has. As a result, disabled individuals are
handicapped in many ways; they cannot realistically expect to accomplish many
goals that others can accomplish. A disabled individual must either regain the
motor or sensory abilities, or abandon the goals.
In contrast, the circumstantial conception goes like this:
A disabled individual is one who cannot make some movement that the
majority of the population can make, or lacks some sensory capacity that the
majority of the population has. As a result, an individual with a disability may
need to use different means than non-disabled individuals standardly use to
accomplish certain goals. Handicaps are created when the tools and
infrastructure to support these alternative methods are not available.
Ron Amundson puts the point this way, in his excellent article ``Disability,
Handicap, and the Environment''
"...a disability such as paraplegia becomes a handicap only to the
extent that the paraplegic person's environment isolates him from some need or
goal. A wheelchair user has virtually no mobility handicap in a building with
accessible doorways, elevators, and work areas. But he is greatly handicapped
when his goals are located up or down a flight of stairs. This is the
environmental concept of handicap 
A handicap results from the
interaction between a disability and an environment; it does not flow naturally
from the disability alone. We humans frequently construct our environments in
handicap-producing ways. The reason is obvious. We design and construct our
environments with a certain range of biologically typical humans in mind.
The life of Franklin Roosevelt, President of the United States from
1933-1945, illustrates the difference between the two conceptions. Roosevelt was
disabled as a result of polio; the muscles in his legs were wasted.
For a long time he
tried to learn to walk, to overcome the effect polio had had on his legs through
exercise, grit and hard work. He was in the grip of the first conception of
disability. He was not successful in walking again.
At a certain point he decided to put his time and energy into politics rather
than into the struggle to walk again. He used a wheelchair to move about his
homes and offices. He had ramps and other structures built to accommodate his
wheelchair.
Roosevelt had an impairment, atrophied leg muscles, which left him with a
disability, he could not walk. Because of the disability, he was handicapped; he
could not move around under his own power. He tried two methods for getting rid
of the handicap. First he tried to get rid of the disability. Then he gave up on
that, and simply adopted a different method for moving about under his own
power.
After Roosevelt died, the ramps were removed from Hyde Park, his home. As a
result, for a long time some of the visitors to Hyde Park were handicapped
(relative to the goal of moving about quickly and efficiently), in a way that
Roosevelt himself had not been.
From the point of view of the circumstantial conception of disability, using
a wheelchair was a reasonable decision on Roosevelt's part. It is similar in
structure to the decision a commuter makes to buy a car, rather than getting in
shape to run to work--or trying to learn to fly. Or the decision a teacher might
make to use a microphone, rather than learn to shout. Or the decision an
executive might make, to buy a Rolodex rather than enroll in a memory course. It
was simply a matter of using technology to get rid of an inability--something
each one of us does all the time. The only difference in the case of Roosevelt
was that the inability to move around resulted from a disability.
Roosevelt felt that it would be political suicide to reveal to the American
public that he used a wheelchair. It's not that Americans wanted to see their
President walk everywhere. It was acceptable to the public for him to get from
place to place by car--for there he was employing a bit of technology that
non-disabled individuals also use. But it was not acceptable for him to use a
wheelchair. Roosevelt knew that the American public was in the grip of the
intrinsic conception of disability. At meetings in the White House, he would
always be seated where he wanted to be, in a regular chair, when guests entered,
and remain there when they left. He used heavy iron supports on his legs, that
clamped into a position that kept his leg rigid, when he had to give a speech
standing up. In certain situations, Roosevelt had to appear to walk to a podium
to deliver a speech. In these situations his sons or associates would move him
forward in such a way that his legs would swing forward as if he were walking
with a little help. In fact he could not supply locomotion at all.
The illusion was thus created that Roosevelt had learned to walk again, but
just couldn't do it very well. Being a poor walker was acceptable to the
American Public. The truth, that Roosevelt had become an adept and efficient
wheelchair user, was not acceptable. Most Americans who were alive when
Roosevelt was President were unaware that he used a wheelchair. This fact became
common knowledge only years after he died.
This attitude towards the President was pretty silly. As Roosevelt's career
demonstrates, it simply was not essential, for the tasks a President needs to
perform, that he be able to walk. Applicants for the Presidency of the United
States, like applicants for any job, should be judged on their ability to
accomplish the tasks that the job requires, not on whether they do them in the
standard way.
"Don't allow your disABILITY to shut you out of life; your request for Access
has been Granted"
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If you have ever felt as though society has counted you out! You won’t want to miss this inspirational road
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