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Who is
Disabled?
Disability is defined as a health condition
or physical impairment that prevents an individual from taking full advantage
of life’s opportunities such as education, vocation, recreation, and
activities of daily living.
For the purposes of discussion: Using this
definition, are the individuals in the following scenarios disabled? (Consider
just the first bullet point, then the first two points, etc.)
| 1. |
- An individual with ALS cannot walk,
talk, or personally perform any of the usual activities of daily living. He has
only very limited volitional control of one finger.
- This individual employs a powered
wheelchair for his mobility.
- This individual employs a speech
output communication device to facilitate his communication.
- The individual is Steven Hawking,
often described as the smartest person alive.
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| 2. |
- A runner is not good enough to
compete in the Olympics.
- The runner, Oscar Pistorious, has a
double lower limb amputation.
- He wears Cheetah Flex-Foot carbon
fiber transtibial artificial limbs made by Ossur that enables him to run faster
than his able-bodied competitors.
- He has been disqualified from
competing in the Olympics because his artificial legs give him an unfair
advantage.
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| 3. |
- A grade school child has an accident
that severs the tip of his little finger on his left hand.
- Because of this, he cannot continue
playing his violin.
- An artificial fingertip is
fabricated that enables him to continue to enjoy playing.
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| 4. |
- A group of very intelligent and
motivated young adults don’t have jobs.
- They are an extreme financial burden
to their families.
- They are under-educated, most with
no current employment prospects.
- They are Stanford
students.
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| 5. |
- A young woman has a devastating car
accident that results in facial disfigurement.
- She has plastic surgery and when the
bandages are removed, she appears beautiful.
- She lives in a closed society of
disfigured people.
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| 6. |
- Superman.
- Superman sitting next to a piece of
kryptonite.
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| 7. |
- An able-bodied intelligent child of
ethnic descent.
- She cannot get a decent education in
the segregated / poor / remote community in which she lives.
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| 8. |
- A world-class professor is hired by
Stanford University.
- He has organized an excellent
education program.
- His overwhelming administrative
responsibilities prevent him from full participation in his courses and
relationships with his students and colleagues.
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| 9. |
- An individual of limited financial
means has a severe disability for which there is no cure and there are no
assistive devices available to restore lost functionality.
- Students have fabricated a new
assistive device for this individual.
- A single crude prototype exists, but
the device is not commercially available.
- The students form a company and
manage to obtain venture capital to bring this device to market.
- The individual wants to obtain the
product, but the health insurance company decides not to provide reimbursement
for it.
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| 10. |
- A young girl lives in rural
Afghanistan.
- Girls are not allowed to go to
school.
- She dresses as a boy to
attend.
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