This is such an interesting question, and I can see that there are important practical implications, as you suggest. But I wonder if it might be difficult to usefully frame a distinction between people's disabilities as single or multiple. For example, one "health condition" that is sporadic or degenerative can have multiple implications and consequences which are different at different times – would you frame these as different disabilities? And, of course, this is just thinking through impairment – we know that in different social and environmental circumstances, some of those consequences might persist and some might be much more or less disabling.
regards,
Kate
Kate Kaul
York University
This is sent from my cell phone; please be tolerant of voice input errors.
> On Jan 9, 2015, at 4:31 PM, Andrea Shettle <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Dear friends,
>
> I was wondering if anyone is aware of any research confirming, or at least
> estimating, how many people with disabilities have more than one
> disability? FOR EXAMPLE, a person with cerebral palsy who is also deaf or
> hard of hearing, or a person with dyslexia who also has attention deficit
> disorder, etc.
>
> I do not have an immediate concrete need for this information. But I am
> thinking it would be helpful to have this information at hand in the
> future, for example in making the case why a product or service designed
> primarily for people with one disability should also be accessible for
> people with other disabilities. For example, many CAPTCHA systems (that
> force you to prove that you are human and not machine) expect you to
> either see or hear, which may be fine if you can do one of these but not
> so fine if you are both deaf and blind. Or, a social service agency
> geared for deaf clients should also be wheelchair accessible, and so
> forth.
>
> I know WHO and the World Bank say that about 15% of the world population
> (1 billion people in all) are people with disabilities. But I am
> wondering what portion of these one billion people have multiple
> disabilities. Although the World Report on Disability acknowledges that
> some people may have multiple impairments or health conditions, and that
> these can complicate service delivery, I couldn't find statistics on this
> issue in the report. Upon trying google, I found that many sources seem to
> conflate people with "multiple" disabilities and people with "severe"
> disabilities and/or people with intellectual disabilities who have
> additional disabilities. But not all people who have multiple
> disabilities necessarily have intellectual disabilities among them
> (though, of course, some do). And not all necessarily have "severe"
> disabilities, by whatever definition of "severe" (though, again, some do).
> So even if these sources had statistics, these would still not be
> helpful.
>
> Thank you for your time and consideration.
>
> Andrea Shettle
>
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