Problems of Handicapped People
Imagine losing or never having had the use of your legs. Imagine knowing someone who could not think beyond a small child's abilities, requiring assistance with all daily living skills. Imagine mental illness taking the mind of someone you love. Such loss is not uncommon for people with handicaps or disabilities. Like all people, individuals with disabilities face many problems during their lives, and they confront challenges in the areas of access, acceptance and advocacy.
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Access
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Access continues to be a common problem for people with disabilities. A 2003 California Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Interagency Task Force bulletin stated, "One of the fundamental rights of citizens in this country is the opportunity to participate in government," and yet access problems often prohibit full participation by people with disabilities. Access problems may be physical, and thus solved with installation of a ramp or wider doorway, or access problems may be programmatic. Programmatic solutions require more planning. A city council presentation, for example, might need to be presented in formats accessible to someone who is deaf and blind.
Acceptance
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Attitudes can prevent acceptance. Attitudes often dictate acceptance or the lack of acceptance of people who are handicapped. Attitudes influence whether they are merely tolerated or fully included. Some countries, for example, may have an unemployment rate up to 80 percent among people who have handicaps, with some employers assuming those individuals can't work, according to the website of Enable, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Such an assumption not only bars access to independence but belies an attitude that disability means inability.
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Advocacy
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Advocates can promote change. A person with a voice can advocate effectively. Many people with disabilities, sometimes quite literally, have no voice and consequently are not heard. Until as recently as 2009, schoolchildren with disabilities were at times injured while subjected to restraint, seclusion and other aversive disciplinary techniques, according to an investigative report by the National Disability Rights Network. Because of mandated protection and advocacy services, such abuses are now discussed openly. Few states enacted legislation to prohibit aversive techniques, however. So the lack of advocacy in some schools and other arenas remains.
Statistics
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Enable states that 650 million people have a disability and refers to them as "the world's largest minority." It also states: "In countries with life expectancies over 70 years, individuals spend on average about 8 years, or 11.5 per cent of their life span, living with disabilities."
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References
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