Changing the Physical and Social Environment: Ensuring Access for People with Disabilities
-
WHAT DO WE MEAN BY ENSURING ACCESS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES?
-
WHY ENSURE ACCESS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES?
-
WHEN SHOULD YOU ENSURE ACCESS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES?
-
WHO SHOULD ENSURE ACCESS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES?
-
HOW DO YOU ENSURE ACCESS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES?
-
HOW DO YOU ENGAGE IN DISABILITY ADVOCACY?
Getting around in the physical world is something many of us may take for granted. Curbs, thresholds, stairs, sidewalk gratings, obstructions, narrow passages – these are barriers we walk over, around, or through many times a day. We may seldom think about signs, loudspeaker announcements, traffic signals, and other sources that direct us or give us necessary information.
For those of us who have some physical difficulties, however – a curb or a few stairs can be large barriers. Airport loudspeaker announcements are often difficult to understand for people with perfect hearing; for those who are deaf or hard of hearing, they may not hear them at all. Signs, no matter how well-placed they are and how much information they carry, do no good for someone who is vision impaired unless they are in predictable places and can be read by touch.
In other words, physical features that people without physical disabilities take for granted can present serious problems for people with different abilities, mostly because their needs haven’t been considered in designing those features. That lack of consideration can also be extended to the ways people with disabilities can be treated when they seek employment, education, or services. In over 50 countries, this situation has been recognized and addressed, at least to some extent, by laws that protect people with disabilities from discrimination, and guarantee them at least some degree of access to public facilities, employment, services, education, and/or amenities.
This section is part of a chapter that deals with changing the physical and social character of communities. We will discuss making community changes that ensure that people with disabilities have physical access to buildings and other spaces that are used by the public, as well as changes to ensure their access to employment, services, education, the functions of government, and full civic participation.
WHAT DO WE MEAN BY ENSURING ACCESS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES?
According to the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), “the term ‘disability’ means an individual has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of his/her major life activities or an individual is regarded as having such an impairment.” Caused by injury, disease or medical condition, or neurological, chemical, or developmental factors, severe disabilities affect about 12% of the U.S. population.
About 18% of the population has some level of disability, a figure that expands to 72% for those 80 and older, and shrinks to 11% for children ages 6 to 14. Four percent of the population over age 6 is severely enough disabled to need personal assistance with one or more activities of daily living.
Passed in 1990, ADA is the comprehensive law that covers most issues of accessibility for people with disabilities in the U.S., and disability rights laws in many other countries are based on it. It applies to all state and local government offices and facilities (federal facilities have been covered by federal law since 1978) and all public facilities – buildings and other spaces that are available to the general public. ADA guarantees both physical accessibility and non-discrimination in employment and the delivery of goods, services, programs, and education. We’ll discuss some of the specifics of this and other disability rights laws and their application in more detail later in this section.
A disability is only disabling when it prevents someone from doing what they want or need to do. A lawyer can be just as effective in a wheelchair as not, as long as she has access to the courtroom and the legal library, as well as to whatever other places and material or equipment that are necessary for her to do her job well. A person who can’t hear can be a master carpenter or the head of a chemistry lab, if he can communicate with clients and assistants. A person with mental illness can nonetheless be a brilliant scholar or theorist. (John Nash, the subject of the movie “A Beautiful Mind,” is a Nobel Prize winner described by some as the most important mathematician of the second half of the 20th Century, despite being schizophrenic.)
Sometimes, on the other hand, a disability truly limits a person's actions and abilities. If the building is on fire and the elevators aren’t working, a wheelchair user on the 14th floor could be in extreme danger. In order to function effectively and safely in jobs, education, and everyday life, people with disabilities need to have physical and social access to the same spaces, employment, goods, services, entertainment, and community participation as everyone else. When people with special needs are accommodated, their disabilities don’t limit their ability to fully participate in life.
Disabilities can be visible or invisible, physical or otherwise. Most can result either from hereditary conditions or pre-birth developmental issues; from injury; from disease; from chemical imbalances; or, in some cases, from environmental factors.
TYPES OF DISABILITIES
Physical
These are what most people think about when they hear the term “disability.” They are usually visible in one way or another, and can include:
- Mobility problems. Because individuals who have difficulty with mobility may be stopped by barriers most people don’t notice – a high curb, a flight of stairs – people with mobility problems are the ones who may come to mind when access is mentioned.
- Limited use of hands and arms. Difficulty using hands or arms may or may not accompany mobility difficulties. People with this disability can find themselves frustrated in a world where gripping, turning, or pushing something with a finger is required.
Again, it’s only a disability when it gets in the way. Jim Abbott, who was born without a right hand, had a respectable ten-year pitching career in major league baseball, after starring for his high school baseball and football teams and playing college baseball. By definition, he has a disability: in reality, he has nothing of the kind.
- Speech difficulties. Posing challenges to communication may make phone conversation difficult or impossible, and often lead to frustrating exchanges in restaurants, doctors’ offices, and stores. They can bring with them the sometimes mistaken assumption that someone who doesn’t speak clearly has either a cognitive disability a mental illness. Causes of speech difficulties may include neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s disease or cerebral palsy, throat-cancer surgery, autism, and mental retardation.
In addition to these conditions, there are a number of “invisible” physical disabilities; conditions that aren’t immediately apparent, or that aren’t constantly present, but that can cause considerable difficulty. As a result, they may be considered disabilities under the law, and are subject to the same regulations as more obvious issues, even if they’re controlled by medication. Some examples include:
- Back or joint problems. Backs, knees, and hips, because of injury, arthritis, or aging, may be fine one day and non-functional the next. Tripping on a cracked sidewalk or sitting for six hours on a plane might render someone unable to walk.
- Chronic pain. Nerve damage from injury, disease, or repetitive motion may cause intense and chronic pain.
Sensory limitations
- Hearing difficulties or deafness. Some people are born totally or partially deaf. Many others develop hearing problems as the result of exposure to loud noise, injury, disease, infection, or aging.
- Vision difficulties or blindness. Like deafness, blindness may date from birth, or may be a result of injury or a medical condition. Some people who appear to be sighted are in fact legally blind, but can see enough to avoid common obstacles. People who are totally or nearly blind may use a cane or guide dog to help them get around.
For a person depending on a service animal, such as a “seeing eye” dog, access includes accommodations for the animal as well. The ADA requires businesses and other public facilities to allow service animals to accompany people with disabilities on their premises, and forbids excluding people with service animals or isolating them from other customers. The law includes restaurants, which may be prevented by local or state health regulations from allowing animals. Federal law, however, overrides the others.
Most public facilities recognize guide dogs for the blind, but may be confused by hearing dogs (deaf people may not appear to have a disability), or by other species used as service animals. Miniature horses and some breeds of pigs have become more popular as guide animals, for instance, and monkeys sometimes serve as personal care attendants for people who are quadriplegic. All are covered under the law, and even allowed, in most cases, to ride with their handlers on planes.
Neurological
Neurological means having to do with the nervous system. Many physical disabilities are in fact neurological in origin – migraines and cerebral palsy, for instance, spring from problems in the brain, rather than from mechanical problems in muscles, organs, or bones. Among them:
- Migraines. Long thought to be psychological, migraine disease is actually a neurological syndrome, the major symptom of which is usually incredibly painful and debilitating headaches, often accompanied by vision disturbances, weakness, and/or nausea. Apparently genetic in origin, migraine headaches can be triggered by weather, hormonal cycles, and/or various environmental factors, such as lighting and odors (the triggers are different for different individuals). The headaches and accompanying symptoms can last for hours or days, and can make work, travel, and other activities nearly impossible
- Epilepsy and other seizure disorders. People with epilepsy may function normally most of the time, but occasionally may have seizures (technically called convulsions) – episodes in which there are essentially power surges in the electrical impulses in the brain. The result may be as drastic as loss of consciousness and/or motor control, or as minor as an involuntary twitch. Most people with epilepsy and other similar disorders take anti-seizure medication, but many experience noticeable side effects, such as sleepiness.
- Tourette syndrome. A neurological condition characterized by uncontrollable tics (twitches) of both body and voice, Tourette is famous because many people’s vocal tics include obscenities. Effects vary from person to person, but are almost always embarrassing and psychologically painful for those who have them, and can create problems at work and in social situations.
Cognitive limitations (including some developmental disabilities)
These disabilities are the result of genetic factors and development, often before birth. They tend to span a range of intellectual and other abilities, so that some people may be able to live independently and work, while others may need lifelong support. Although aspects of these disabilities may be treatable to some extent by behavioral and/or drug therapy, they are permanent conditions.
- Autism. Long thought to be a psychological issue, autism has only recently come to be recognized as lifelong, stemming from conditions in the brain, and perhaps other parts of the body as well. Symptoms generally develop very early in life (by about age 3), and involve a difficulty in processing information that leads to lack of interest in interacting with others (as well as blindness to social cues and norms) and with the environment. Autistic children and adults may engage in repetitive behavior. Some never learn to speak or interact, while others may, with behavioral therapy and other supports, eventually be able to function very well in their day-to-day lives.
- Other intellectual limitations. Genetic defects (e.g., Down syndrome), lack of proper brain development, environmental poisoning (from lead paint, for instance), or brain injury can lead to difficulties in taking in and understanding information, acquiring speech, and other reasoning-based activities. Some individuals with such impairments may be able to learn to read and calculate, hold a job, and live on their own. Others with more profound disabilities may need lifelong support, and may never develop past the intellectual capacity of a young child.
Psychiatric limitations
Many, if not most, of our psychological and emotional states and reactions seem to be the result of brain chemistry. Mental illness is much like physical illness in that it can be influenced by environmental factors and events, and is often treatable with drugs. In addition, there are environmental factors that are so powerful – childhood abuse, severe physical injury, terrifying events, war, etc. – they can have lifelong psychological effects.
There are periods in almost everyone’s life and personal development that present challenges that can result in acting out, or in temporary states of depression, confusion, or anxiety, all of which may look similar to the symptoms of long-term psychological disabilities.They aren’t actual disabilities, however, because, in most cases, they are resolved relatively quickly through the natural course of living, and although they may cause emotional pain at the time, most people can continue to function as they cope. True psychological disabilities can include:
- Schizophrenia. A condition once thought to be caused by bad parenting, since it often becomes apparent in adolescence, schizophrenia is usually characterized by an altered reality. Hearing voices is a classic symptom, but the range can include other hallucinations, both visual and auditory; delusions (of persecution, omnipotence, etc.); and dissociation (inability to make logical connections and to respond to reality). Schizophrenia can often be controlled to some extent by medication.
- Bipolar disorder. Widely known as manic depression, bipolar disorder causes swings between depression and an overly optimistic and agitated state. In some people, these mood swings are barely detectable, but in others they can be extreme. The manic state can bring feelings of great power and competence. Many people with bipolar disorder can be treated successfully with medication.
- Chronic depression. Almost everyone gets at least mildly depressed occasionally, due to a life event or for no apparent reason. Those who are chronically depressed may struggle every day to get out of bed or perform the simplest tasks. Bouts of depression can last for months or years, rendering people incapable of working or participating in family and civic life. Relationships may suffer, adding to the burden. Many people with depression are treated with medication.
Multiple chemical sensitivity limitations
Alcoholism is classed as a disability while illegal drug dependence is not. “The illegal use of drugs includes the use, possession, or distribution of drugs that are unlawful under the Controlled Substances Act. It includes the use of illegal drugs and the illegal use of prescription drugs that are ‘controlled substances.’” (A 1992 definition by EEOC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). The ADA prevents job discrimination against alcoholics and rehabilitated or former drug users. It does not, however, prevent employers from firing workers who use alcohol or drugs on the job, from firing workers whose addiction renders them incapable of performing to the standards of the job (assuming that other workers are held to the same standards and would be fired for the same reasons), or from not hiring workers who are illegal users of drugs.
Learning limitations (including some developmental disabilities).
- Dyslexia and other learning disabilities. Dyslexia is actually a term that refers to a broad range of neurologically-based learning difficulties, all of which affect an individual’s ability to read and/or calculate. In addition, there are several other types of learning disabilities, some affecting only a particular area – language learning, for instance – and some affecting learning in broader ways. These are not connected to intelligence: dyslexics, in fact, tend to be somewhat above average in IQ, and many learn to read well in spite of their disability. Others – often those not diagnosed in childhood, or those with other problems unrelated to their disability – may continue to struggle.
ACCESS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
Physical access
This means access to buildings, public spaces, and any other place a person might need to go for work, play, education, business, services, etc. Physical access includes things like accessible routes, curb ramps, parking and passenger loading zones, elevators, signage, entrances, and restroom accommodations. For more details: ADA Standards for Accessible Design.
The Centro Ann Sullivan del Peru provides services to children with different abilities, but lacked the technical skills and information to become entirely accessible. With the consultation and help of a colleague, Dr. Glen White, they were able to make the needed modifications and become completely accessible, thereby better serving their children.
Now, Dr. White is working with international colleagues to make San Isidro (a municipality of Lima, Peru) entirely accessible. Architect Sr. Jaime Heurta, a person with paraplegia and also a practicing architect, has been a key player in this movement in San Isidro. Independent Living leaders in the United States are working with colleagues in Peru to set up the first Independent Living Center in Peru, with the ultimate goal of making Peru more accessible to people with different abilities.
Access to communication and information
Signs, public address systems, the Internet, telephones, and many other communication media are oriented toward people who can hear, see and use their hands easily. Making these media accessible to people with disabilities can take some creativity and ingenuity.
Program accessibility
People with disabilities have, in the past, often been denied access to services of various kinds – from child care or mental health counseling to help in retail stores to entertainment – either due to lack of physical accessibility or because of discomfort, unfamiliarity, or prejudices regarding their disabilities.
Employment
Discrimination in hiring on the basis of disability – as long as the disability doesn’t interfere with a candidate’s ability to perform the tasks of the job in question – is illegal in the U.S. and many other countries, and unfair everywhere.
Education
Everyone has a right to an education appropriate to her talents and needs. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in the U.S., as well as laws in many other countries, guarantee education to students with disabilities. In the case of IDEA, that guarantee extends through high school, while ADA covers undergraduate and graduate students (without discrimination) at colleges and universities.
Community access
Everyone should have the right to fully participate in community life, including attending religious services, dining in public restaurants, shopping, enjoying community park facilities, and the like. Even where there are no physical barriers, people with disabilities still sometimes experience differential treatment.
In general, ADA requires that public and government facilities, cities and towns, educational institutions, employers, and service providers make reasonable accommodations to serve people with disabilities. “Reasonable accommodation” means making changes that don’t cause unreasonable hardship to the party making them or to others that party deals with (students, customers, employees, program participants, etc.).
More.
Access Checklist, Tools, Examples & PowerPoint.