Types of Disabilities
When someone asks us, what are the different types of disabilities? The answer that comes to our mind is people using a wheel chair, those using a white cane, those wearing hearing aids or those using crutches. Yes, these are the most commonly known types of disabilities but they are not the only ones.
Disability is a wide term and includes not only functional disabilities i.e. physical, sensory and mental disabilities but also situational as well as elderly disabilities. For example, we might not consider some one wearing glasses i.e. a person having Near or Far sightedness as disabled. But Near and Far sightedness is one of the types of visual disability.
In this article, we shall discuss the different types of disabilities in general rather than on the basis of the interpretation of the word ‘Disability’ in a particular country.
Disability can be broadly categorized as:
Functional Disability: Disability caused due to some sort of physical, mental and sensory disability is termed as Functional Disability. Functional disability can be further sub-categorized into visual, hearing, mobility/motor and learning disabilities.
Situational Disability: Inability to perform a task, in a given situation, or under certain circumstances is termed as Situational Disability. For example, a person who forgot the glasses at home will find it difficult to work on the computer.
Elderly Disability: With age, each one of us acquires some sort of disabilities including memory loss, hard-of-hearing, deteriorating vision, difficulty in climbing stairs, etc.
To learn more about each of the three types of disabilities, such as definition of each sub-type of disability, problems faced in day-to-day life by people with different types of disabilities, etc. visit:
- Functional disability
- Situational disability
- Elderly disability
