4 ms·

> "Why bend and squish words into different definitions?" It's not bending definitions, the World Health Organisation's definition of disability is a generic d

> "Why bend and squish words into different definitions?" It's not bending definitions, the World Health Organisation's definition of disability is a generic description of what a disability is. To be clear, the definition given was... “a mismatch in interaction between the features of a person’s body and the features of the environment in which they live.” In what way does that not line up with what a disability is?

blfr 10y ago
This definition matches every discomfort.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  Such as? Perhaps it helps to think of disability this way to shake the idea that it has to be a permanent state. If I break my leg, but it eventually heals, was I not temporarily disabled?
  - blfr 10y ago
    Such as not enough leg room on a plane, a chair with not enough padding or ventilation -- every possible discomfort, including most trivial ones, even to a fully-abled, mint-condition, picture-of-health human is some mismatch between them and their environment. (If I wanted to be snide, I'd include "using Windows".)
    - ZenoArrow 10y ago
      Using your leg room example, if it's inhibiting your potential range of motion whilst sitting then you are disabled. To look at it a different way, isn't a person with healthy eyes as equally disabled as a blind person when they're in a completely dark room? The source of the disability is not as important as the outcome.
      - kevhito 10y ago
        No. Because you (and WHO) are consistently leaving out the obvious -- all of this is in comparison to "typical" human abilities. According to that definition, everyone living in a northern climate becomes disabled each winter, since none of us can survive outside without special clothing. And if humans could see magnetic lines, we'd all certainly be better matched to our earth environment, so does that mean all humans disabled?
        ncphillips 10y ago
        > According to that definition, everyone living in a northern climate becomes disabled each winter This seems valid to me. The prefix "dis-" is a negation prefix[1], and "abled" means to have a range of abilities[2], so it is equivalent to not-abled. Not having a range of abilities. There's nothing in this most basic description that suggests being disabled is an abnormal or permanent state. In the context of getting to the grocery store in the winter, I am quite literally disabled by the cold temperatures, unless I have some natural occurrence or form of technology that en-ables me–el nino, clothing, vehicles, underground tunnels. I am disabled from reading this screen if I don't have my glasses on. This is a permanent disability, but I can correct it by either putting on my glasses, or by making the text bigger. Our set of abilities is not immutable, and technology is just meant to add to this set. Microsoft's document is just about making designers aware that not everyone always has the same set of abilities as the designers themselves. Recognizing this allows us to design technology that helps more people in more situations. WHO did not change _the_ definition of "disabled", they _corrected their own_ definition to recognize that whether or not a person is disabled is a contextually dependent question. [1] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/dis- http://www.dictionary.com/browse/dis- [2] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/abled http://www.dictionary.com/browse/abled
        kevhito 10y ago
        I think my comment rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, and for that I apologize. Actually, I agree with almost everything the replies argue. My point -- which I did didn't make well -- was that I think using the word "disabled" in the WHO sense is either disingenuous or silly. Silly, because if everyone is disabled at all times, then the word becomes meaningless. Disingenuous in the sense that "not having a range of ability" implicitly really means having an unusually or unexpectedly limited or different (but not strictly larger) range of abilities as compared to some poorly-defined range for a "typical" human, without actually admitting that we are comparing against some standard. Yes, the standard is vague and poorly defined. And I agree that disability doesn't need to be permanent or easily visible or significant, that it is context dependent, and it obviously isn't binary. I have no qualms with the idea that everyone or nearly everyone is, at some point and in some ways, disabled. And perhaps most importantly, we should disentangle the concept of disability with moral/value judgments. Still, I think all of the examples I've seen on this thread are implicitly comparing against a standard but explicitly pretending they are not. You mention that you are disabled from reading your screen. Because many humans would have that ability. You didn't say you were disabled because you don't have the x-ray vision needed to see through walls. Just like nobody would say a person is disabled because their body doesn't produce enough fur or whale blubber to survive a new england winter.
    - geoffpado 10y ago
      There is such a thing as a "situational disability"—one that causes you to be unable to be able to interact with things normally due to the current situation. Microsoft's documents on this page go over a few of these: using something that relies on audible feedback in a loud room, for example. Under the WHO's definition, these situational disabilities are included.

blfr 10y ago

This definition matches every discomfort.

ZenoArrow 10y ago
Such as? Perhaps it helps to think of disability this way to shake the idea that it has to be a permanent state. If I break my leg, but it eventually heals, was I not temporarily disabled?
- blfr 10y ago
  Such as not enough leg room on a plane, a chair with not enough padding or ventilation -- every possible discomfort, including most trivial ones, even to a fully-abled, mint-condition, picture-of-health human is some mismatch between them and their environment. (If I wanted to be snide, I'd include "using Windows".)
  - ZenoArrow 10y ago
    Using your leg room example, if it's inhibiting your potential range of motion whilst sitting then you are disabled. To look at it a different way, isn't a person with healthy eyes as equally disabled as a blind person when they're in a completely dark room? The source of the disability is not as important as the outcome.
    - kevhito 10y ago
      No. Because you (and WHO) are consistently leaving out the obvious -- all of this is in comparison to "typical" human abilities. According to that definition, everyone living in a northern climate becomes disabled each winter, since none of us can survive outside without special clothing. And if humans could see magnetic lines, we'd all certainly be better matched to our earth environment, so does that mean all humans disabled?
      - ncphillips 10y ago
        > According to that definition, everyone living in a northern climate becomes disabled each winter This seems valid to me. The prefix "dis-" is a negation prefix[1], and "abled" means to have a range of abilities[2], so it is equivalent to not-abled. Not having a range of abilities. There's nothing in this most basic description that suggests being disabled is an abnormal or permanent state. In the context of getting to the grocery store in the winter, I am quite literally disabled by the cold temperatures, unless I have some natural occurrence or form of technology that en-ables me–el nino, clothing, vehicles, underground tunnels. I am disabled from reading this screen if I don't have my glasses on. This is a permanent disability, but I can correct it by either putting on my glasses, or by making the text bigger. Our set of abilities is not immutable, and technology is just meant to add to this set. Microsoft's document is just about making designers aware that not everyone always has the same set of abilities as the designers themselves. Recognizing this allows us to design technology that helps more people in more situations. WHO did not change _the_ definition of "disabled", they _corrected their own_ definition to recognize that whether or not a person is disabled is a contextually dependent question. [1] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/dis- http://www.dictionary.com/browse/dis- [2] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/abled http://www.dictionary.com/browse/abled
        kevhito 10y ago
        I think my comment rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, and for that I apologize. Actually, I agree with almost everything the replies argue. My point -- which I did didn't make well -- was that I think using the word "disabled" in the WHO sense is either disingenuous or silly. Silly, because if everyone is disabled at all times, then the word becomes meaningless. Disingenuous in the sense that "not having a range of ability" implicitly really means having an unusually or unexpectedly limited or different (but not strictly larger) range of abilities as compared to some poorly-defined range for a "typical" human, without actually admitting that we are comparing against some standard. Yes, the standard is vague and poorly defined. And I agree that disability doesn't need to be permanent or easily visible or significant, that it is context dependent, and it obviously isn't binary. I have no qualms with the idea that everyone or nearly everyone is, at some point and in some ways, disabled. And perhaps most importantly, we should disentangle the concept of disability with moral/value judgments. Still, I think all of the examples I've seen on this thread are implicitly comparing against a standard but explicitly pretending they are not. You mention that you are disabled from reading your screen. Because many humans would have that ability. You didn't say you were disabled because you don't have the x-ray vision needed to see through walls. Just like nobody would say a person is disabled because their body doesn't produce enough fur or whale blubber to survive a new england winter.
  - geoffpado 10y ago
    There is such a thing as a "situational disability"—one that causes you to be unable to be able to interact with things normally due to the current situation. Microsoft's documents on this page go over a few of these: using something that relies on audible feedback in a loud room, for example. Under the WHO's definition, these situational disabilities are included.