Definition of DisabilityI would like to give a practical definition of disability which may help you to understand the problems of relating to it. It may occur during a person’s lifetime or may be present from birth. When you are able to do things on your own without any assistance you are said to be “normal”. For those of us who are normal we have taken life for granted and may not appreciate what disability is all about. We should note that we can acquire this condition in our life time and this may happen through an accident or though sickness. In a car accident for instance you may lose a limb and become disabled and through sickness such as a stroke you may be paralysed and may require to use a wheel chair. We should be thanking god all the time for what we are. So what is disability? If you have a physical or mental impairment, and if such impairment affects your daily activities, that is called disability. For example, a person with hearing impairment and he or she is completely deaf, he or she will find it difficult to communicate with a normal person. A deaf person will communicate to others through sign language. So this is a condition which is impaired relative to a standard norm. This may involve physical impairment, cognitive or intellectual impairment, mental disorder or various types of chronic disease. Disability Adjusted may be seen as resulting from individual’s effort, the family and others to live a better life in spite of the impairment. The focus is on the aspects of disabilities which can be corrected and how the disabled person could function better.
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