Student's Question of the Week
Q: What is a disability? What types of disabilities exist?
A: The Institute of Learning at the University of Kansas created a series of brochures for students in college that will be featured here in the Question of the Week series. One of them describes what a disability is, and what some of the types of disability categories are.
So
often the association made with the word "disability" is one of
a physical limitation, such as a person who uses a wheelchair to get around.
It is interesting to note that invisible disabilites often account for over
half the number of disabilities on campuses, such as those involving a cognitive
or perceptual processing deficit which affects the life process of learning.
Thomas Edison (left), for example, was a great inventor. It is thought that he had a learning disability and/or attention deficit disorder. His teachers thought he couldn't learn, so his mother took him out of school and homeschooled him. He really liked working with his hands, and didn't really enjoy intellectual work that seemed unusable or impractical. He is considered a great genius.
To read more about what counts as a disability, click here.
This link allows you to access all of the student brochures in either html (for easier reading online) or pdf (thepdf version is printable and can be folded to turn into a brochure).To read about the whole project, click here for an overview.
Any questions? Send an email message by clicking here, or you may wish to contact one of the KU researchers by following directions on their site. Or call the DSPS office to make an appointment with a counselor or learning specialist (SBCC DSPS: 805/965-0581, ext. 2364).