In the U.S., I've had good luck with asking if respondents consider
themselves disabled, letting the answers be "Yes" "No" and "Sometimes."
Am always surprised how many people say "Sometimes." Then I have at least
one other survey question to tell me if they meet any other definitions
of "disabled" (e.g., if college students, are they registered with a
campus disability services office; is American Sign Language their first
language or do they consider themselves members of Deaf culture; do they
have a chronic illness). It's still not perfect, but at least it gives me
some insight into how my participants think about disability. For
instance, if someone is getting services from a campus disability services
office, but says she/he doesn't have a disability, then that becomes an
interesting fact for me as a researcher, and it challenges notions of how
disability is defined. Feel free to contact me off-list with any
questions.
Wendy Harbour
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