Common disabilities

- The topic of disability can be complex and super simple all at the same time. One person's characteristics might be incredibly disabling in one scenario and not disabling at all in another. Consider for a moment a telephone call. A blind individual will not find this interaction inherently disabling at all, whereas a deaf person will. However, the same call using conference software with multiple people on the call all talking over one another with no discernible difference between speakers sometimes becomes disabling. A product like Microsoft Teams is an amazing new way of working. Voice, chat, embedded apps for the workplace. But this too can feel much harder to navigate for some. In this lesson, I want to help you understand and uncover gaps in your own thinking, so you can begin to be more inclusive of people with disabilities. First, you need to recognize that disabilities can exist at many different levels. If you're like most people, you might be thinking we don't have any blind or deaf colleagues. Be careful here. Many people with disabilities will cover a disability in the workplace. For example, 75% of people with dyslexia do not tell their employer. They're not asking for accommodations in training or performance reviews. Next, recognize many people have partial disabilities. Consider someone working in construction losing their hearing or someone aging in the workplace with deteriorating vision. An important distinction here is that disability is something that could be acquired gradually or suddenly. It's not always obvious. Another important point is to not think of disability in the singular. Many individuals have multiple disabilities and experience different levels of impairment for each. You need to widen your scope of disabilities to help you get buy-in to the topic within your place of work. I would suggest that you consider disabilities in six forms. Vision, hearing, motor dexterity, cognition and learning, mental health, and speech. Successful technologies will take into account the experiences of all disability types. So remember these points and realize that most disabilities are hidden. They can exist in many different forms. There's nuance here. Once you establish the real representation of disability that exists in your organization, you'll begin to be able to build your confidence on the topic, which in turn will help your journey towards building a more inclusive organization.