Recognize and accommodate invisible disabilities

This post on adjusting to invisible disabilities originally appeared on the CoSN blog and is republished here with permission.

Key points:

The concept of accessibility for people with disabilities has been an evolving path, driven significantly by landmark legislation such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Enacted more than three decades ago, the ADA has catalyzed transformative change toward creating more inclusive spaces and opportunities, ensuring that people with disabilities can navigate and access public spaces, employment, and services on an equal basis with others. However, despite these advances, the path towards total accessibility continues. Challenges persist in areas such as technology, infrastructure and social attitudes, underscoring the need for continued efforts and innovations to break down barriers and foster a world that is genuinely accessible to all.

First of all, it is imperative to know that people with disabilities are not. In fact, there are no “disabled” people, but there are people with disabilities. It is very important to know that the disability that a person may have does not define who they are; People with epilepsy are not “epileptics,” for example. People in chairs have disabilities; They are not disabled. Having a disability, then, does not define anyone as disabled.

But what we don't talk about much, in terms of access and protection for people with disabilities, are the more subtle and non-apparent disabilities that affect many people and that are not addressed by efforts to provide access to public spaces. at least up to this point. According to the Invisible Disabilities Association, 26 million Americans have a severe disability, while only 1.8 million use a chair and 5.2 million use a cane, crutches or walkers. Of course, this is not meant to discount those who use such devices, but rather to illustrate the prevalence of disabilities that are not evident to the naked eye. Of the 61 million people the CDC identifies as having some type of disability, 10% of them are people with disabilities that are invisible or do not offer evidence of their presence through visual cues.

One of them is post-traumatic stress disorder, an area of ​​focus given the epidemic of post-traumatic stress disorder among active and retired military personnel. According to the USO, more than 30,000 active-duty and veterans have died by suicide since 2001. 519 active-duty personnel died by suicide in 2022 alone, according to the Department of Defense. Clearly, PTSD is a silent, invisible illness that has been responsible, according to the USO, for more deaths among service members than actual battlefield deaths.

The ADA also recognizes people with major depressive disorders among those who have disabilities or depression that “substantially limit one or more major life activities,” as defined by the ADA. Not all of these limits can be considered visible. For example, productivity, accuracy, and other work-related metrics can be affected by major depressive disorders. Still, these metrics may manifest, to employers and others, as simply an inability to perform job functions. Therefore, disability, if not disclosed, may give rise to grounds for discipline, termination, and other employment problems. Given the stigma that is still associated, for some, with mental health-related issues, some may not come forward to an employer and specifically request accommodations.

Another form of invisible disability is a neurological problem, epilepsy. According to the National Institutes of Health, temporal lobe epilepsy is the most common seizure disorder, affecting approximately fifty million people worldwide. About 90 percent of these cases manifest in focal seizures, or seizures that are almost completely invisible, do not involve seizures, and yet involve a complete loss of consciousness for those who have seizures. People with altered focal seizures may not even know they are having seizures. Traumatic brain injuries can also be classified into this category, the symptoms of which can also be interpreted as reasons for not understanding a person's behavior in the workplace and in society in general.

The Invisible Disabilities Association puts it succinctly: “Unfortunately, people often judge others by what they see and conclude that a person can or cannot do something because of the way they do it. look. This attitude can be equally frustrating to those who may seem unable but they are perfectly capable and those who seem capable but are not.” The key point here is that every disability is different. We cannot judge people for having a disability or for simply not using our eyes. Of course, none of this is meant to downplay the disabilities that affect some people with very visible challenges. Accessibility is and will continue to be incredibly important. The point here is that there are invisible disabilities that can be embarrassing to those who suffer from them and therefore, in some cases, make people with disabilities unwilling to request accommodations.