Disability is a concept that depicts an impairment that substantially affects a given person’s life activities. The impairment may present itself at birth or during a person’s lifetime. The impairment may be in the form of cognitive, intellectual, sensory, developmental, physical, or a combination of the mentioned forms ( Barnes & Mercer, 2004 ). Contemporary concepts of disability work in tandem with scientific discourses and seek to categorize disabilities in such a manner that they become methods of normalization. Every person is faced with hardships or rather difficulties throughout their lives. Further, people living with disabilities are greatly and more frequently impacted by barriers. The WHO ( World Health Organization, 2000 ) denotes these barriers as factors around a person’s environment that limit their functionality and in turn create disability. The paper shall, therefore, look into the barriers to accessibility as they are faced by people with disabilities . Also, the article shall elaborate the principles of a diversity model approach to disability. Further, the need for specific populations, as well as practice approaches that are sensitive to disability culture, shall be enumerated. In so doing, accessibility barriers impacting person’s with a disability will be defined and dealt with in a bid to ensure an integral societal development.
Vos et al., (2013) elaborates factors that propagate disability to be inclusive of the inaccessible physical environment. Moreover, insufficient assistive technology bars the people living with disabilities from conducting their chores. Additionally, negative attitudes, services, systems, and policies hindering the involvement of people with disabilities form aspects or rather barriers to the undersigned persons. The major problem faced by people living with disabilities is accessibility barriers. Accessibility is a term describing the degree of availability to which the intended audience uses a commodity or at other instances environment . The government of Ontario identifies five barriers to accessibility for people with disabilities. These restrictions include attitudinal, physical, communications, systemic, and technological barriers ( Hammel et al. , 2015 ). Educators are hence encouraged to take responsibility and accommodate all the students living with disabilities under the Ontario Human Rights Code. The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act also relates to the development as well as the delivery of accessible courses and programs for the persons with disabilities.
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Firstly, attitudinal barriers comprise of perceptions, behaviors, and assumptions that discriminate against people living with disabilities. These barriers are as a result of insufficiency in understanding and lead to people ignoring, judging, or having misconceptions about people living with a disability . These barriers include the assumption that people with disabilities are inferior. The inferiority is evidenced in the assumption that speech-impaired persons cannot understand another unimpaired person. Also, attitudinal barriers present in the form of ideas about a person owing to stereotypes or rather incapacity in the knowledge of the same. The described barriers can be dealt with in some ways to ensure the accommodation of the people living with disabilities in the society. For instance, a person ought to desist from making uninformed assumptions about a person’s capabilities. The approach boosts the attitude of the impaired person to interact with other people actively . Moreover, encouragement and good faith is key to the appropriate accommodation of the impaired persons. Further, the privacy of persons living with disabilities ought to be respected. Also, an inclusive environment ought to be encouraged through insisting on professional and civil conduct amongst the people living with disabilities.
Secondly, systemic or rather organizational barriers hinder individuals with a disability from fully participating in a situation. These barriers are policies, procedures as well as practices that are unintentionally orchestrated within a given environmental setting. For example, a programme requiring students to take full course load presents a challenge to the impaired. Such barriers can be broken through proper identification of essential course content that provides flexibility as well as encourage students to speak about accessibility issues of the course freely . People involved in policymaking ought to consider or rather design inclusive curricula as well as processes that encompass the needs of persons with disabilities.
Thirdly, architectural or physical barriers relate to elements of buildings or rather outdoor spaces. They create barriers to the movement of individuals with disabilities. Examples of the physical obstacles include sidewalks as well as doorways that are narrow for the passage of wheelchairs. Desks that are too high for people using mobility devices become a hindrance that restricts persons with disabilities. Poor lighting is also disadvantageous to people with impaired vision. For this matter, the society ought to find a solution to the mentioned problems in a bid to ensure smooth operations of the situations as well as processes.
Communication or information barrier occurs especially among people with sensory disabilities including hearing, seeing, and learning disabilities at large. The barriers include a pitiful display of facilitation devices, poor organization of facilitators, and unclear language among other barriers . These barriers are overcome through proper or rather clarity in the dissemination process. Lastly, technology can result in barriers when it comes to individuals with disabilities. In an instance where the technology platform is inaccessible to the intended audience and discourages the use of assistive device, unintentional barriers result. These barriers ought to be enumerated and tackled to ensure that people with disabilities are not disadvantaged in the situation.
As a historical perspective of the problem of barriers to accessibility, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 is reviewed . The enactment of the Act purposed to improve accessibility standards for Ontarians having physical and mental-related disabilities. The Act ought to achieve the accessibility by the year 2025. Employers hence take steps towards bringing their organizations into compliance with the requirements of the enacted disabilities Act. The law outlines the issues that the organization ought to fulfill in a bid to be a law-abiding structure constitutionally . The standards are improved across the discussed five barriers.
In the process of combating the problem of barriers to accessibility as discussed, a diversity model approach to disability ( Mackelprang & Salsgiver, 2016 ) is adopted . The social model believes in an accurate socio-ecological assessment. The process entails critical analysis detailing the construction as well as the organization in a bid to broadly welcome diversity that also includes all disabilities. The process is guided by principles that enhance or rather diversify the access to universal education for diverse stakeholders living with disabilities. Six principles guide accurate socio-ecological assessment. The first principle includes the development and maintenance of a welcoming environment. The second principle determines and explicates the essential components of the course and program. Thirdly, the principles allow for clear expectations as well as feedback on the program requirements. The fourth principle provides or rather avails a multi-modal learning environment through the use of flexible methods of instruction supporting the learning process of all stakeholders. The fifth principle envisions the support or rather provision of a variety of mechanisms that can demonstrate competence among the participants. Lastly, the universal education access ought to be governed or rather orchestrated via an environment that provides diversity in its inclusion and especially in its backgrounds.
The diversity model approach has been found to reach the needs of people with disabilities through a social model. The approach is best preferred other than an individual pathology approach to disability. It is because effective assessments are contextual. It means that nature, as well as the extent to which the assessment is conducted, occurs within the context of the evaluation . The environment remains the key element of assessment in the diversity model. The model recognizes people’s strength as well as their potentials. The model further acknowledges that although people with disabilities have impairments and hence limitations, they are not defined by their disabilities. In this sense, the model stresses the institutionalization of oppression as well as devaluation subjected to people with disabilities. Hence, the people are justified to control their resources as well as determine the method in which they expend their resources at their disposal. Effective assessment can then be said to owe its success to an analysis of societal values, policies, and structures supporting the social structural domain. A multicultural approach is also ideal when it comes to dealing with individuals living with disabilities. As evident, different cultures handle disability differently due to cultural diversities and hence it is ideal not only to recognize but also value the differences. These differences pose differentiated participation in the human service framework. Practitioners are hence encouraged to be aware of their cultural perspectives and the mode in which they affect the assessment process.
In conclusion, it is evident that persons with disabilities form the world’s most substantial minority. They are described by poor health, lowered achievements especially in education, reduced economic opportunities, and also high poverty rates. The persons are majorly faced by numerous barriers that hinder them from accessing the resources that regular people enjoy. These accessibility barriers include attitudinal, physical, communications, systemic, and technological barriers. Additionally, hostile attitudes, services, systems, and policies hinder the involvement of people with disabilities in the society and results to their marginalization. The barriers ought to be overcome in a bid to appreciate the presence of such persons as part of the society . They are entitled to equal opportunities within the society .
References
Barnes, C., & Mercer, G. (Eds.). (2004). Implementing the social model of disability: Theory and research . Leeds: Disability Press.
Hammel, J., Magasi, S., Heinemann, A., Gray, D. B., Stark, S., Kisala, P., & Hahn, E. A. (2015). Environmental barriers and supports to everyday participation: a qualitative insider perspective from people with disabilities: Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation , 96 (4), 578-588.
Mackelprang, R. W., & Salsgiver, R. (2016). Disability: A diversity model approach in human service practice . Oxford University Press.
Vos, T., Flaxman, A. D., Naghavi, M., Lozano, R., Michaud, C., Ezzati, M., & Abraham, J. (2013). Years lived with disability (YLDs) for 1160 sequelae of 289 diseases and injuries 1990–2010: a systematic analysis of the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. The Lancet , 380 (9859), 2163-2196.
World Health Organization. (2000). The world health report 2000: health systems: improving performance : World Health Organization.
