Representation and Disability

What is disability ? 

Disability means different things to different people. you could argue that it is this and that but in reality I don't think any would have an answer that would completely explain what disability generally means without causing an argument amongst other people. This is because disability is such an deep and complex subject that is some respect it might even be wrong to generalise it to every single variation/type that currently exist.

However researching the definition for this word this is what i found that i think explains it well:

          The Equality Act 2010 says the following about 'Disability'

"If you have a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities." 

 The types of disabilities :

• Cognitive Impairment — Affects the ability to think, concentrate, formulate ideas, reason and remember. It is distinct from a learning disability insofar as it may have been aquired later in life as a result of an accident or illness.
• Deaf-Blind — Refers to sensory impairment, visual impairment and hearing impairment, occurring in combination with each other. Frequently, other disabilities also occur with the combination of a visual and hearing impairment. The combination of these disabilities causes significant challenges to accommodation. Tactile solutions are often appropriate.
• Intellectual impairment — Refers to a condition where powers of comprehension, information processing abilities are affected to the point where it affects the persons ability to perform
• Dexterity Impairment (Arms/Hands/Fingers) — Reduced function of arms and hands makes activities related to moving, turning or pressing objects difficult or impossible. This does not influence speech communication itself but makes it hard to make a phone call or use a wide range of other equipment.
• Reduced co-ordination — Hand/eye coordination is necessary on traditional computers. Cursor movement on the screen responds to minute movements of the mouse by the hand. Typing also requires a certain amount of coordination and dexterity.
• Learning Disability — A specific learning disability results from problems in one more of the central nervous system processes involved in perceiving, understanding and/or using concepts through verbal (spoken or written) language or nonverbal means. It manifests itself with a deficit in one or more of the following areas: attention, reasoning, processing, memory, communication, reading, writing, spelling, calculation, coordination, social competence and emotional maturity.
• Hearing Impairment — Hearing impairment is a generic term including both deaf and hard of hearing which refers to persons with any type or degree of hearing loss that causes difficulty working in a traditional way. It can affect the whole range or only part of the auditory spectrum which, for speech perception, the important region is between 250 and 4,000 Hz. The term deaf is used to describe people with profound hearing loss such that they cannot benefit from amplification, while hard of hearing is used for those with mild to severe hearing loss but who can benefit from amplification.
• Mobility Impairment — Reduced function of legs and feet leads to users depending on a wheelchair or artificial aid to walking. In addition to people who are born with a disability, this group includes a large number of people whose condition is caused by age or accidents.
• Visual Impairment — Blindness implies a total or near total loss of the ability to perceive form. Low vision implies an ability to utilise some aspects of visual perception, but with a greater dependency on information received from other sources.

Although it seems that i have listed a lot i really just told you general term that include quite a number of distinct disabilities, for more information I'll insert a link to the website that I used for help: List of Disabilities