Disabilities come in many different forms. People often think of the same clichés, such as a person who is disabled and has to use a wheelchair. But it’s very important to understand that disabilities do not always neatly fit into any boxes and may impact two different individuals in very different ways.
Likewise, disabilities can be vastly different in nature. Some of them are obvious to anyone who meets the person. Others are virtually invisible, and an outsider would never even know that the person was dealing with it.
The overall categories
To show how this works, below are five examples of common disabilities. These are the major categories that specific disabilities will fit into:
- Visual disabilities, such as vision loss, color blindness or blurry vision.
- Cognitive disabilities, such as neurological issues, learning disabilities, memory impairments or mental health disabilities.
- Auditory disabilities, such as deafness or even moderate hearing impairment.
- Physical disabilities, such as amputations, paralysis or repetitive stress disorders.
- Speech disabilities, such as muteness, stuttering or the paralysis of vocal muscles.
Additionally, some people may have multiple disabilities at the same time. Someone who has been injured in a car accident and suffered a brain injury, for example, could end up suffering from both auditory disabilities and visual disabilities. It just depends how the brain was injured. This can be a dramatic change in their life, even if they still have the same motor skills and cognitive abilities they had before.
Those dealing with disabilities certainly need to know about all the legal options at their disposal. This is true for both long-term and short-term disabilities.
