Raising Quality

Accessibility: Types of Disability

This is part of the Accessibility topic.
In this topic:

• Your business and the DDA
• Becoming compliant

Familiarise yourself with different types of disability

Making your business more accessible means removing or reducing the barriers for customers with disabilities. But unless you've researched the different types of disability adequately, you won't know how each type of impairment can impact on everyday life, and therefore what the barriers are.

To get you started we've summarised a number of disabilities here, and included examples of the difficulties they can create. Follow the links to charity websites for more information. The Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) and the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) in particular are committed to providing detailed resources for businesses.

• Mobility/dexterity impairments - this includes wheelchair users, and those who need aids to walk or have difficulty with stairs and uneven terrain, but also those who do not have the use of arms, hands or other parts of the body and those who have lost fine motor control and who shake or find it very difficult to co-ordinate their limbs. This also includes sufferers of arthritis, Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis, to name just a few. Examples of difficulties: using a mouse to click links on a website, filling out forms, pressing buttons on a number controlled access lock, using cruets at a table.
  Get more information from: www.disabilityalliance.org
• Sight impairments - this includes those who are blind, deafblind, visually impaired or who have very poor vision, especially in poor light; those who cannot distinguish between certain colours or who cannot distinguish between colours that are near in tone and need contrasting colours. Examples of difficulties: finding a dark coloured door handle on a dark coloured door, reading coloured text on a coloured background, filling in a guest registration form, distinguishing the edges of stairs, knowing where to go in the event of a fire.
  Get more information from: www.rnib.org.uk (the Royal National Institute for the Blind)
• Hearing /speech impairments - including those who are deaf and blind, deaf or hard of hearing, including wearers of hearing aids who may benefit from auxiliary aids like induction loops and text phones, and those with speech and speaking difficulties including those who have suffered from strokes. Examples of difficulties: hearing the fire alarm, telephoning for more information, getting information updates over a loud speaker, enjoying music where an induction loop has not been fitted, asking for help.
  Get more information from: www.rnid.org.uk (the Royal National Institute for the Deaf)
• Illnesses - including sufferers of debilitating illnesses such as Aids, cancer, multiple sclerosis and other illnesses and also sufferers of epilepsy, diabetes and Crone's disease. Sufferers may experience extreme fatigue, headaches, confusion, sensitivity to light, loss of appetite, inability to eat or digest certain foods, or loss of sense of taste or smell, or suffer from nausea, loss of fine motor skills or mobility and lack of continence. Examples of difficulties: having to stand at reception, being able to order a small portion of something or order just part of a meal, tolerating a bright reading lamp, queuing for busy toilets.Get information on specific illnesses from dedicated charities such as: www.avert.org (an international AIDS and HIV charity), www.cancerresearchuk.org, www.epilepsy.org.uk, www.mssociety.org.uk, www.diabetes.org.uk, www.crohns.org.uk
• Learning and cognitive difficulties - includes those with brain injuries or defects, but also those with memory problems (including Alzheimers) and those with dyslexia and dyspraxia. Examples of difficulties: finding features on an attraction from a map, understanding/remembering directions to reception, remembering safety instructions, reading terms and conditions. Get more information at: www.mencap.org.uk (Mencap is the leading learning disabilities charity).
• Mental health issues - includes those with mental illness, but also those with depression, autism, eating disorders, obsessive compulsive disorders and phobias. Examples of difficulties: sitting in a busy waiting area, coping with loud noises at an attraction, choosing from a menu under pressure, changing in a small cubicle.Get more information from: www.mind.org.uk (MIND is the leading mental health charity).Click for a more comprehensive list of charities for disabled people and their carers.

Also in this topic:

• Your business and the DDA
• Becoming compliant